day 1: start right, make mistakes, regroup and carry on.

This is all so fresh, I'm almost at a loss as to where to start. I guess it would be best to start simple. In fact, when I started really pulling this idea apart, I realized I needed some practical ways to start appreciating the here and now without focusing on what's missing. Part of that involves making moments more special that we take for granted and seeing the effect the other has.

   I decided one of the best things I could start with, would be to savour food. This is a seemingly arbitrary way to start making my case for the glass is half full, but fuck it. It was an excuse to buy chocolate.

   After getting off the subway on my way to crazy Mary's, I went to one of my favourite stores, Shoppers Drugmart. Here's the thing about shoppers… Most women appreciate it because it's a one stop wonderland for everything they need that guys don't care to know about. I love it because it has THE BEST sales on chocolate of any store in Toronto. In rural Ontario? Giant Tiger. In the city? Shoppers.

   So I searches me the fancy candies. Lindt on sale, two for something cheap. Dope. Orange Intense and Crunchy Caramel? All of these things are things I want in my mouth. No word is out of place.

   Now here's the rub. I buy chocolate a lot. It's one of my few vices. For whatever reason (my mother's name is Whatever Reason) I have identified it as a comfort food and natural opiate. As this thought process of appreciation and savouring starts to permeate my dome-piece, I realize I pop it like pills. I scarf it down like it's the cure to being irish without ever really tasting it. No wonder I feel a need for it 2-3(-9) times a day, I rarely actually enjoy this supposedly enjoyable snack enough for it to register.

   It hits me that this applies to a lot of food. Good food, bad food, it rarely matters. I'm eating it while running out the door, while standing on the subway. I'm trying to eat it while watching TV or dicking around (I mean working hard) on the computer. How many times a week do I sit down and enjoy a meal? How many people in the city can honestly say they savour a meal? Even if you do sit down with it, do you think about what it means to be fuelling yourself, not just with that gruel you put in the dog's dish every day, but a variety of spices, flavours, mixes, blends, accents and flares? Have you tried making anything recently that actually has any of that? Or did you microwave chicken nuggets from no frills for the 3rd time this week?

   I've made eating an onerous chore, one that only serves to keep me going to the next Subway, Second Cup or *shudder* Humber Caf stop-over. That doesn't seem right.

~~~(<this is a brain wave)

   Wow. Stop the bus. Demonizing bad habits of eating? I'm only one post in and I've already made my first mistake. I'm dwelling on the things I'm doing wrong. I'm really good at that. This blog isn't about improving my innate reflexes to chastise myself, it's about reshaping them to suit who I want to be.

   I'm actually proud of this. This little rant, this is classic me. Analyzing this rant for where I went wrong, THAT would be classic me. I'm here to do better. To learn something. So what am I learning?

   Today I ate my Milk Chocolate Crunchy Caramel bar in small bites, and thought about the flavour. I didn't scarf it, thus missing the point. I didn't think about all the things the bar wasn't that I had experienced in other bars. Start with something simple. I really enjoyed you Lindt bar! Thank you for the delicious lessons contained within.