disaster averted... somewhat

okay. so i followed my plan. i arrived after i was sure all the smokies would be gone. there hadn't been any, so i suppose there was no need to go to the trouble of coming late. there had been some eggy potato bake with lots of cheese. it was gone when i arrived, so in a way, it was still a good plan. i'm not sure what would have gone into the eggy potato bake.

there was lots of nice fruit, and a heaping pile of krispy kreme doughnuts. i partook of fruit and stared at doughnuts. but i was good. no doughnut passed my lips.

all of our demos are finished for the new podiums. we had a grand total of two people show up, all told. the bitterness wells up within me. i have the desire to refuse help to people for the rest of the semester, citing their absence from the demos as just cause. but i know that's just not an option. next semester we'll have the regular "no demo -- no key" routine, and go over the new capabilities then. oh well. so much for trying to improve things during the semester.

after the demos, there was lunch. i knew that this lunch would have hamburgers and hot dogs. lots of chips. the requisite cookies at the end of the feeding trough table. i planned. i would eat two hamburger patties (ground beef is ground beef, even if someone else grills it; and hamburger patties are rarely anything more than ground beef when university catering is involved). i would eat a lot more lettuce than any ten burgers would require, and plenty of tomatoes. i would then leave the area before looking too closely at the chips and cookies.

here's where it all falls apart, my friends. i allowed (invited, if i'm going to be honest) one of the secretaries to convince me that the ooey, gooey, absolutely to die for fudge brownies were not processed. she did a good job. i ate a brownie.

the first bite was very good. so was the second. even the third. but after that it was just way too much. i had to set it aside and just listen to the music for a while before eating more. i did finish that brownie. it was the slowest consuming of sweets that i've ever had. but i did finish. and i felt a little queazy afterward. but later that afternoon, i walked by the area where catering was taking all the props down. i wanted another brownie.

apparently, these brownies are addictive.

nevertheless, i did not have a second brownie. and oddly, the thought of eating one right now is not an appealing thought. I could go for more of that fruit, or for another hamburger patty. but the brownie has no hold on my gastrointestinal attention span.

and that's the first day of recruitment weekend. tomorrow is another one, but i'm thinking i probably won't go. i'll get more work done here at the apartment for one, and i'd really rather spend the day here sneezing and blowing my nose than spend that same day in the office.

i can't wait for whatever's blooming to hurry up and shrivel.

love and peace