Hungry Ghost's Daily Diet (TM)

SALT: "You crave salt and carbohydrates after strenuous activity. It's a fact!", EW is very fond of saying after he arrives at the finish line dripping sweat and glowing with self-satisfied virtue.

Whether this is independently verified fact or not, I don't know, but from personal experience, I do know that an empty stomach craving carbohydrates, actually, food in any form really, does not do well with salt. You may as well dip a slug into a pot of salt crystals. The microvilli, they froth, they curdle, they give off fumes of acidic vapour. Take this from me. If you're hungry, don't eat salty foods. You will spend the rest of the day drinking water to wash you colon clean, and believe me, colonic irrigation, it's not to be sniffed at.

That's probably my favourite quote of the year:

"Colonic Irrigation, darling, I'm telling you - it's not to be sniffed at!"

SALT MINES: I've just spent the better part of 4 hours today reviewing an old manuscript. How old? From December 2008. There are new data added - and I hasten to add that I had no control over how they were added - but it's added in the most crappy way possible. I have a headache from going through the data and the badly written text. Feck. I must remember that it's always like this - one benefit of this whole enervating experience is that pyruvate kynase isoform 2 is popping up all over the place including colorectal and pancreatic cancers. This is good, I think. Why there's even a test for detecting colorectal cancer whereby you examine fecal matter for the presence of elevated levels of PKM2.

I imagine that this test is not to be sniffed at either.

WORM HOUSING: With the arrival of cooler temperatures, there's been a bit of panicky burrowing in the colony of worms. The problem is a lack of burrowing matter because I've been negligent in feeding my worm condos with shredded paper and dry leaves this summer. In fact, I've been negligent overall with my plants - so much so that I gave up two for adoption recently because I was fed up with their behavior - they were snapped up very quickly though as I wrote some charming copy about their willingness to please anyone who took them. Lies, all lies, but that's what it takes these days to get things done. In any case, I harvested dry leaves and shredded papers earlier in the week, and today converted an empty, otherwise useless box, into another worm condo. The detritus of the plants of the summer were cut up, mixed with paper, leaves and a base of spent soil, and worms were transported to their new home in well-appointed chariots. The last time I looked, they were busily burrowing down into the leaves. By next February, the box will be thriving and be well churned and mixed in with worm castings; by May, the soil will be ready to support some deserving plant.

The rotting compost and worm castings will not to be sniffed at either, at least until March.

NEW HOUSING: Stupid sales and marketing people. There is a new development close to where I live. The building looked reasonable, not too pretentious, not too precious, and the name didn't espouse some ridiculous life-style to aspire too. Unfortunately, you can't judge a book by its cover. I entered the showroom, some officious cow walked towards me and we had the following exchange.

Me: "Good morning, can you tell me what your base prices are so I know whether it's close to my budget?"

The Officious Cow: "Ohhhhh! I can't do that until you sign in and we collect your address, e-mail, occupation, and job description! Moooo!"

Stupid bitch, I thought, but said quite kindly under the circumstances, "I see. In that case, I won't waste any more of your time", and left, leaving her and her udders twitching with great agitation. Stupid cow.

Pins and Needles: I had the lovely pleasure of having numerous needles and pins stuck into me this week. First the dentist had at my gums (again) with hypodermic needles filled with horribly flavoured novacaine - whoever thought up the idea of making vanilla-flavoured novacaine deserves to die a slow, painful and horrible death. Then he drilled, poked away at my root canals with bits of metal before filling them in with rubbery things that were sealed off with a teeny dental flame-thrower. That was in the morning. In the late afternoon, TM had at my back with needles to make my stubborn back muscles relax; they did so eventually, but with great reluctance and not without several fountains of blood when needles slip (as they will) and slash open veins.

At one point during the proceedings, TM said, what he thought was a consoling observation, "I've noticed that only very physically active people like you have such tight and tense back muscles", the implication being, of course, that I was an excellent physical specimen, lean and lithe, etc, etc, etc. At that point in time, however, there were at least three needles in different parts of my back which were being gripped hard by these tight and tense muscles who were very reluctant to relax, so I asked pointedly, "Does this mean then that I should invest in a flat-screen telly and become a couch potato?". He inserted another needle and adroitly avoided the comment as I winced and tried not to smack him with my clenched fists.

NOW: It's time to go, but I don't want to because it's dark and cold out. Perhaps if I set myself the goal of a twix bar when I go by Shopper's? Hmmm. Now there's a though. Feck good nutrition. What fun is it to eat healthful foods if they just don't satisfy your craving for salt, sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, and artificial flavours - funny how artificial vanilla can taste so good with sugar, but be so vomit-inducing in novacaine.

BARRELS: Bottom, scrapping. Surely this must be the end? Surely it must. This whole damn insanely neurotic process can't take any more surprise turns can it?

HOPE and ELITE STATUS: In 2010, I aspire to regain my frequent flyer elite status - no more being sat in the middle and at the back of the fecking plane. I want my row-6 and my upgrades back. Lovely Alaska Airlines has a sale on again. Perhaps I should take advantage, or encourage others to take advantage. What do you think?

Let's see. February - Toronto, perhaps I'll go by way of San Francisco, or Portland. April - Washington, DC, I shall go via Seattle without a doubt. October - Radiation Research in Maui, again I shall go via Seattle or Portland. Sometime in the Spring or Summer - London and Paris - via LAX or ORD even if I hate both those airports. Let's see - these trips with a few side trips up and down the West Coast, and perhaps one down the East Coast, and I shall have the required miles to be elite again. Yesh. Don't bug me with carbon generating. I don't own a car.