The Problem With Eating...

Is that you have to make the food. Seriously now, it's a sad sad fact that hunger is not at all considerate. Least of all to me, who has no ability to properly feed myself. When I ponder a meal, my sisters immediately say things like, "But that has too many carbs!" or the other, more thrilling selection, "But that's an unbalanced meal!" As if they made CSI episodes based purely on surly Las Vegas mothers who serve pasta and veggies with no meat. I'm awaiting the upcoming CSI: Emeril--When good food is a damn shame...

So, anywhere, here I sit, realizing that the stomach with no warning system is ordering a large order of...something, and there is literally nothing of any interest in my fridge. Even if there were, I'd have no idea how to combine it with anything else. I write, dammit, they should have automatic delivery for that kind of thing.

I know most people get hungry and want a specific thing. Most people make good use of the phrase, "You know what would be good right now?" and suggest something that would indeed be good right about now.

Not me.

My husband occasionally wants my imput on what to eat--particularly since my hyperglycemic self is the one teetering on unconsciousness--and I have no idea what to tell him. I look around desperately for inspiration. Road signs, ads, commercials...nada. But the stomach rages on and the battle between the black spots and the white spots on the edge of my vision continues. He finally says something, like "Char siubao?" and I immediately cleave on to the image and pray it'll be enough. (I buy four or eight and I'm usually fine...after a nap.)

On the one hand, this makes me extremely frustrating and pathetic. Who on earth has no flavor drive? I generally have to make decisions instead of desires. Would I like something salty? No, sweet. Sweet is good. Steer away from meat and salads. There's a bakery there. A cookie is dinner,right? No. Shoot. Start over. Last night, early dinner was a sliced apple with peanut butter on it. Then about an hour later I had ramen with veggies and quail's eggs. Excellent. Too bad it took me twenty minutes to figure out what I wanted. I should have just sliced another apple.

Which brings me to my writing--because everything cycles back to that--and I had an apple/soup day for that as well. Around 1:30 am, I finished my rough draft on my current book. I was in happy mode. Conversely, around 1:30 pm, I got a rejection in the mail from Silhouette Desire. Mind you, Desire is not where my heart was dying to go. I've been targeting Temptations for years, but I have a mad Desire streak and a series that I felt truly fit the line. Plus, I was really hoping to have a career in the US. But, such was not to be...yet.

So, while I on the one hand had myself a peanut butter apple flavored goodness, I also ended up with the soupy rejection to complete my writing day. Maybe not the best thing to go to sleep on, but in the end, I'm sure it will all make sense since it goes to the same place. In the meantime, it reminds me that finishing a book is not the end of my journey or the achievement of my goal. Getting something other than a rejection is.

So, my next duty is to slather some peanut butter on my freshly finished ms and get that puppy off to Temptation. If I end up with soup again, well, there's more apples in the barrel. One of them will be sweet enough, someday.