Is Chocolate Helping or Harming Me?

I've been depending on the sweet, pure kick of organic fair trade dark chocolate as a motivator, pick me up, warm blanket and reward, but now as I'm aging, chocolate is starting to mess with my life - eye twitches, blurry vision after too much dark chocolate. I'm desperate. How do people survive life without chocolate? Can I continue to function while still reducing my chocolate intake?

Inquring minds want to know!

On Tea with Writers

Yesterday I spent a fantastic afternoon with my fellow UCLA Extension Novel V classmate, Sharon Steeber de Orozco, who is writing a fantastic novel of love across borders and finding our place (space) in the world. I was surprised to find out that Sharon is !GASP! a published author. Her novel, The Jews, was published in 1982 and was written in five months. The book is currently out of print, but seems to be floating around on the Internet used book circuit and hopefully a copy is headed my way as I type this.

I was way too talkative, but the opportunity to spend a few hours commiserating with another struggling writer is like indulging on dark chocolate. In fact, I was so amped when I came home that I stayed up way way past my bed time working on my novel's synopsis. And in one of those completely serendipitous events, her children went to Bonita Vista High School - the very high school where I took courses such as Rock Music Appreciation and learned to make milk carton bongs. Although rumor has it the smoking area disappeared along with the seventies.

Meeting people online is fun, but the satisfaction of spending face to face time with another human being who shares some of the same hopes and dreams is the difference between watching a snow storm on television and walking through it.

Chocolate and Me

So when I tell people I'm a chocoholic, they laugh.

But it's not all fun and games. Sure that first bite of the day is heavenly, like I just plugged my finger into the outlet of the universe and felt the jolt of life surging into my heart. And I feel human and loved and capable of jumping over Engelmann Oaks with a single bound. But then I have a second bite and a third and that's where it gets tricky.

Then I'm too hurried, too rushed, too impatient and I barrel through my to do list with a vengeance and without enjoyment. Sure I get things done, but not with the sense of wonder that I would otherwise. My writing gets done and a chocolate high is great when I need to be ruthless and edit the fluff out of my writing, but I can't find the story when I'm high on chocolate. I can't listen to the words in the wind and pluck them out of the air.

So I try to just have one piece and that works some days. Some days the loneliness takes over and I fill it with chocolate. Sometimes I'm just too tired to do yet another load of laundry or mop the kitchen floor or make dinner and so I self-medicate ~~ pop a piece of chocolate and I'm off and running.

These days, I'm trying to take it one day at a time. One piece at a time. Trying to skip chocolate as much as I can. Vowing that tomorrow is another day. Another option to brave it out in the mind of the universe. And as for today, I think just one more piece is in order.