The Bagel That Wasn't

So, I'm doing a neat little buddy-accountability-texting-thing with the lovely
Quiet Battle and I'm trying to keep my calories around 750 ish so I can fit into all the cute fall jeans and sweaters that I have trouble fitting into each and every fall.  We are on day 3; yesterday, I was sitting at an outdoor restaurant eating this nom nom nom little vegan salad with roasted corn, and across the street was a Starbucks, and lo and behold, I was suddenly seized by the most powerful, enormous, hideous, exquisitely painful craving for a disgustingly huge bagel with obscene amounts of cream cheese.  The spectre loomed in my head like some gastrointestinal poltergeist, taunting me, taunting me.  It was so bad that I had to hand my wallet to my husband to keep myself from dashing across four lanes of traffic on one of the busiest streets in my city to buy one.

It passed (for the moment) but not before I (a) did some serious praying to the Skinny Chick in the sky

(b)  drank copious amounts of water in an attempt to fool my stomach into thinking it actually was being fed a bagel, well, okay, this is liquid and clear and not at all nom and it doesn't have those lovely little bits of savory crunchy little flavor explosions that happen when one is eating an everything bagel, but what the hell, the last time I checked, stomachs don't have tastebuds so what the hell does it know anyway, right? and

(c) made one of those Faustian bargains with myself that I often make...I ran next door to an art supply store and bought a lovely drawing pad of archival quality thick ecru paper and six (yes, six, I was desperate) of my favorite pens.  I told myself I could just journal until the craving passed and everything would be just fine.

It's 24 hours and seven pages on, and I'm still journaling.