Boy, I sure picked a great time to stop eating all the fun food. I totally forgot the sedative effect of cookies and eggnog lattes (not to mention the more popular inebriants at Holiday gatherings, like wine and crack) have on this time of year when corporate American insists that we must experience joy (in the form of shopping) or suffer the decline of our retirement porfolios.

I've been feeling like crap for 32 years and never thought for a minute that the consumption of red vines, coke, frapuccinos, egg nog lattes, See's Rum Raisin and Divinity chocolates (sigh), and Ben & Jerry's Chunky Monkey had anything to do with it. I guess it's the price I paid for not being an alcoholic.

To my own credit, part of this consumption had to do with my refusal to be an irritating healthy person who makes everyone else at the table feel like an undisciplined hedge-hog (because that's not unity), but I've been sick so many times in the last five years and have had so many chronic conditions (i.e. type in "sinus infection" and "UTI" in the search and you'll see what I mean), that I'd rather be an irritant to others...hell, it's about time I've started irritating people! What kind of dull person walks this earth without creating any enemies or fellow irritants.

Anyhoo, the point is I've joined the health camp and I feel great as I drool over the desert table at the office x-mas bash (more on that next week).

Just for today, I can be an irritating healthy person.