SOMETIMES I DO IT ANYWAY

I was writing to a friend this morning about how last year, at this time, I had an insane migraine that lasted days and days, it was the reason I finally saw a neurologist. I wanted to rule out brain tumor or aneurism. I was reflecting on what was going on last year that might've contributed to the extremely long duration of that experience. I was mentally going over all the various triggers: hormones, red wine, barometric pressure changes, sugar.

Sugar.

When I was at Disneyland on Saturday I was somewhat restrained, but I did eat sugar. More than I usually do at any rate. Lately it's been no sugar at all and on Saturday I had beignets, french toast and syrup, caramel popcorn and the thing that probably put me over the edge - cotton candy - which is PURE SUGAR!

On Sunday the only thing I accomplished was a trip to the grocery store to buy the ingredients for the dessert I am making for Thanksgiving, in addition to the pies I will be purchasing. And since there are some members of my family who don't like pumpkin, or pie, or any combination of the above, I whipped up some oatmeal chocolate chip cookie dough. I put it in the freezer until tomorrow night when I will have time to make the cookies. That is if there's any dough left. Because I have pretty much been consuming it a spoonful at a time since I made it.

And my migraine isn't going away!

Say it with me here, "DUH!"

The fact that I've identified the culprit may or may not motivate me to take my hand out of the cookie dough. I have been known to be helpless in the presence of sugar. One of the best illustrations of the power it has over me would be the time I came home from high school on a Friday afternoon and, even though we were going out to dinner in a couple of hours, I wolfed down two huge brownies from a plate that was sitting on the counter.

They didn't even taste that good. They tasted bitter and actually kind of nasty. But I ate them anyway because they were chocolate brownies. My mom and dad came home and collected my brother and I and we went out to El Toro, a mexican restaurant that we ate at frequently. It's one of those places that is dark with red pleather booths, lots of wrought iron and red glowing candles covered in white mesh.

As we sat down I noticed that my eyes were having a really hard time adjusting to the light and it was hard to read the menu. That was really no problem though because I got the same thing I still get in those kinds of restaurants - two shredded beef tacos (I'm so screwed if this mad cow thing turns out to be a real issue). After we ordered I consumed two bowls of chips by myself and laughed uproariously at pretty much everything everyone said, including the waitress who said, "what would you like to drink?" I could not tell you anything about the conversation at the table but it was just hilarious.

When dinner arrived I ate not only my tacos, but anything that mom, dad and Jim weren't quick enough to finish. I could not understand why I was sooooooo hungry. My mom started bitching at my brother about "those brownies" and how he should get rid of them.

What brownies? The brownies on the kitchen counter?

Turns out that my brother had made a batch of pot brownies the night before - you know, just for fun. I gasped and told them that I had eaten TWO of those brownies before we went to dinner and my mom was all, "Susan! Two! Before dinner?" My brother and I started laughing and pretty much couldn't stop. My mom was pissed and my dad just shook his head.

And when we got home I went to the kitchen and had another one for dessert.

Because sometimes, even knowing that it's gonna mess with me, I go ahead and do it anyway.