Hanging' On

I am still alive! I am not sure if that's a good thing, but I have every hope that it is, in spite of the fact that my cold has progressed to the "hacking cough" stage--my favorite. Woo-hoo.

I do hope I feel a thousand times better by tomorrow, though, because my good friend Ben is coming to town and visiting me on his way back to Minnesota from Germany. I don't know yet what we'll do, but I know it's going to be fun. Yay! Well, "yay" if I feel better, otherwise "boo" to lame illnesses that always come at a bad time.

One of the worst things about a cold, for me at least, is that I lose all interest in food (ok, Steve, you can stop looking so shocked!). I know the old adage: "Starve a fever, feed a cold," but I just can't be bothered to eat when everything I put in my mouth tastes like some version of cardboard.

I am a picky eater anyway, an aspect of myself I had never really faced up to until the other day when I was chatting with a friend online, and we started talking about food and what we like, and I kept thinking of all these things I don't like. For example, take pizza. I eat meat, but not on pizza at all, UNLESS it's ham, because I think ham and pineapple is great. But sausage and pepperoni--gross. Also I don't like olives, so if I get a veggie pizza (which I like), it has to not have olives, or I'll be picking them off, every one.

Or let's talk about eggs. I like hard-boiled eggs, and I like fried eggs. Scrambled I will eat occasionally, but it's very rare. I refuse to eat deviled eggs; the very thought is making me stick out my tongue and wrinkle my nose as I say "Bleah" right now. I also hate egg salad, and eggs IN salad (even though those would be hard-boiled which I actually do like, by themselves). During my time in New Zealand, I was horrified at the kiwi tendency to put eggs in--of all things--BURGERS. Absolute travesty. (They also put beets in burgers, which is equally horrible to me.)

Then there's guacamole: I must be the only living Californian who doesn't care for it, and actually makes a point of not eating the stuff. I don't like its nuclear-green color, which always makes me think of kryptonite, and we all know how bad that was for poor Superman. Anything that looks like something that could be the undoing of a Man of Steel superhero is a little suspect in my book.

Other things I won't eat, or only under duress: strawberries or any sort of strawberry-flavored concoction (due to the fact that a strawberry milkshake from McDonald's made me throw up when I was about 5); bananas (I can't even stand the smell of bananas), and cusheri (an Egyptian dish made of of elbow macaroni and lentils, and I am really not a fan).

So I guess I am a picky eater after all, although in my defense I did eat cow brains once. Granted, it was only because I didn't know they were cow brains, but still it has to count for something. I also tried a bite of alligator sausage several years ago. Hated it, but I did try.

All this talk of food is making me--well, not hungry because I still have the same cold I had ten minutes ago when I started writing and I still don't feel like eating. Sigh...