Should I eat Kashi or Doritos? Food sucks.

Some of you perhaps are still reeling from the information that I haven’t been feeding my son (see 11/17 entry below).

As an update, please note that after six days of force-feeding him every two hours, his tantrums have abated. I’m impressed at what he eats. Normally when he gets home from school I give him some milk. The other day he ate two hot dogs and drank a glass of orange juice. Twice a week he goes straight from school to karate. Yesterday we stopped first at the gas station and he ate two donuts and an Icee.

But enough about him. Let’s talk about me. And my food issues. Which exist.

Frankly, I’m so tired of eating I could live the rest of my life on peanut butter banana power shakes and Cheetos. Seriously, isn’t it exhausting? I think about food all the time because a.) I’m hungry a lot b.) apparently I am responsible for feeding my children and c.) I spend so much time at the FUCKING GROCERY STORE staring at enough food to feed all of Mongolia for a year.

I’ve tried to reduce my grocery-shopping time by abbreviating my shopping list. I no longer buy nonessential food that my family eats because it seems futile. I’m sick of buying food that’s just going to get eaten. What’s the point? I’ll just have to buy it again.

That’s why the pantry is currently stocked with Kashi Vive Probiotic Cereal, chopped dates and flavored tuna fish. We’ll never run out of those items, I tell you. The other reason I won’t buy good food is that I will eat good food. By good food, I actually mean bad food, of course. Chips Ahoy Chocolate Chip cookies, ice cream sandwiches, Nacho Cheese Doritos, Oreos, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups — my pants are getting tight just thinking about it.

I did take a trip on the Bulimia Express while in college, and definitely have spent way too much time staring at my butt in the mirror in recent years. But now that I’m in my forties (Oh. My. God.) I’m pretty sure nobody cares what I look like anymore, and my food obsession is more related to how I feel. That’s because I’m getting old. When you’re young, your body is like a patch of weeds. Anything you give it will keep it alive. As you get older, you evolve into more of a delicate orchid that must be coddled and nurtured appropriately. (Note: These are not scientific facts.)

My petals begin to wilt if I am not fertilized. And please, use the metaphor appropriately. I no longer have ovaries. Plus, if I eat a lot of crap I feel fat, and since we now live in a house that has fat mirrors in the bathroom, when I eat a lot of crap I have flashbacks to the puking years.

So this means I have to plan ahead in order to avoid catastrophes like eating Skittles off the floor of the Motorized Landfill to elevate my blood sugar. (If I don’t eat soon after a workout, I start to chew on my arm.) And I’m not a planner-aheader.

I guess I’ll have to become more organized, and develop an ounce of self-control. I realize I could solve a lot of problems by teaching my children to love healthy snacks like baby carrots and hummus and granola bars. That’s definitely on the agenda.

On the other hand, Cheetos are made with REAL CHEESE, Chips Ahoy cookies contain SOME WHOLE GRAINS and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups have peanut butter in them which is HIGH IN PROTEIN. So we’re good. For now.