Can I bitch about food for a bit?

My favorite foods are fried chicken and egg rolls. You'll notice certain characteristics about these foods are in common: namely, they CRUNCH. And there's a lovely grease factor.

I also like to snack on crackers and dip. Or chips and dip. Or well, anything involving crunch and grease and/or salt and dip. Things that have a satisfying texture in the mouth. Things with edges. Things with sound effects.

I do not have a sweet tooth, as a general rule. (I firmly think that almost all potential sweet-toothedness on Mom's side of the family was drained out by my candy-stealing grandfather. Hell, even Mom buys a lot of candy, but can't actually eat it. As for Dad's side, they're all diabetic and eat candy anyway, so it's obvious how their minds work.) I don't crave stuff like ice cream and cookies and candy and chocolate all that often. I can't eat more than a scoop of ice cream before getting burned out on the taste, even on a hot day. I usually can't eat more than one cookie in a row either. The most candy I've probably eaten in one sitting was when we had bite-sized chocolate sitting around the office and it was still a good two hours till lunch. And eating more than a bite size worth of chocolate makes me insanely, immediately, ravenously thirsty. I hate being offered chocolate in public where there's not so much as a drinking fountain about, because I'll feel obligated to eat it, and within a few seconds all thoughts will be driven out of my head, to be replaced with "GIVE ME A GODDAMNED DRINK NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW." This is not to say that I don't like this stuff, but I can't eat lots of it. It doesn't satisfy, it doesn't feel solid in the stomach, it doesn't really do squat for hunger.

So this whole "you absolutely CAN'T CHEW for at least a week" thing? I'm going out of my tree.

Because I am craving grease and salt and crunch. And there is literally nothing one can eat without chewing that contains any of the above.

Nothing.

I thought that eating nothing but chips and Chex Mix and popcorn chicken and the likes of up until surgery would help to curb the craving for at least a few days, but nope, didn't work at all.

What can one eat without any teeth?

(a) yogurt. I got sick of that by day 3, even the gourmet whipped yogurt. I ate six packs of yogurt on day one and was still as hungry as I'd started. This reminded me that the only reason I used to eat yogurt in the first place was so to claim that I'd eaten a good breakfast. (Or to put on a bagel.)

(b) Jello. I never liked Jello. I will only eat Jello when served it at someone else's house. Really, it's just kinda disturbing to see your food jiggle like that.

(c) soup. Well, I always eat soup. And at least it isn't sweet. However, you just lose your dignity when the soup has to be pureed before you can eat it. (Not to mention the frustration of not being able to chew a slightly-bigger-than-normal clam in your chowder.)

(d) pureed fruit. Considering that I like the biteability of fruit, pureed watermelon was just kinda gross.

(e) milkshake. But without a straw. (Also a Slurpee, but same problem with no straw.)

(f) mashed potatoes. Not exactly a food I thought was all that exciting to eat in the first place. Vaguely salty, but really, it's a food you have to dump something on first in order to eat it. (And since I don't like gravy, I use salad dressing. Oh, come on, you already knew I was weird.)

(g) mushed-up-in-some-way eggs. No crispy omelets with mushrooms, honey. Hell, for that matter, nothing much but cheese in those omelets. Well, at least that's not sweet either.

(h) certain kinds of short, flat-noodled pasta. Yum. Best thing I've had so far, really, if I don't have to cut up the noodles. This isn't really a go outside of mom's house, though.

(i) ice cream. This SOUNDS like it'd be fun to eat all the time (see previous joke I made about how eating Haagen-Daaz for a week for lunch is a hardship), but after a few days it gets old. I don't think I'll eat ice cream again for like six months after this.

At work so far, I've lucked out because for whatever reason, they've been serving clam chowder more than just on Fridays this week. However, even the "large" containers of soup (large like Starbucks's "tall", folks) don't fill me up. And then what the hell do I eat for snacks? The only options are yogurt (the not-great kind offered at school) and pints of Dreyer's and Haagen-Daaz. Which I can't finish anyway, and don't really have a freezer to stick the ice cream in. And when I'm hungry, I don't want frozen sweet goo! It doesn't really fill me up so much as I just get tired of eating it.

I AM TIRED OF SWEET MUSHY FOOD!

I tried on day 2 to eat chips. Mom had bowls of chips just SITTING around the house, as well as croutons, cereal, and crackers. She was all, "You can just let it melt in your mouth, can't you? You can eat that."

I tried. For several days in a row, I tried. And really, that stuff just doesn't dissolve that much. And eating it just wasn't working, even in tiny doses.

While I was home, I started opening up packs of honey mustard sauce from fast food restaurants and dipping my pinky in them and licking it off. Dad rolled up one day while I was doing this and started laughing, and I snapped, "I WANT TO DIP SOMETHING, DAMMIT, AND MY PINKY IS ALL I CAN FIT IN THERE!" But hey, at least he didn't tell me to stop.

I'm on...what, day six now? And still no closer to being able to chew anything. My mouth doesn't hurt all that much and swelling seems to have gone down in some areas, but clearly chewing isn't going to happen tomorrow. I got told I couldn't eat solids for a full week, and it looks like it'll be the FULL week. Or longer. I don't think I'm allowed to until I get a medical all-clear on Friday.

I feel kinda bad about being over at Jess's with a freaking dietary problem and not able to eat what everyone else is. (Last night they had PIZZA. *moan*) Mom actually overbought on groceries and sent some back with me, but I'm reluctant to cook anything in there that might have meat in it (Mike and Julian are allergic), and I'm not sure what does or was made in chicken stock or what, and I don't want to contaminate the pans or whatever. What. A. Pain.

I feel completely normal most of the time (I felt pretty normal from about 5 p.m. on the day of surgery on, which made it very frustrating to not be allowed to do anything, including shopping, for four days until I got clearance for activity), except for this food issue. And whenever I attempt to smile. And those lovely moments where I wonder if anything is IN any of the holes in my mouth. Or when I wonder why suddenly one of my back teeth feels more...prominent...than it did before, and I start wondering if it's going to fall out or have to be removed or something. And having to rinse my mouth out with nasty-ass mint mouthwash several times a day, something I really don't like doing in front of people at work. (Though today my boss was in the bathroom doing dental crap too, so we sympathized. And I have to say that after gagging on my toothbrush every fucking day for years, it's nice to have an excuse NOT to brush.)

And why do all dental products have to be made out of overkill mint, anyway? Because I never liked mint all THAT much short of Thin Mint cookies, and Minty Fresh Tingling not only contributes to the gagging issue, it makes anything you eat for the next half hour taste absolutely foul. I never liked mouthwash anyway, but this prescription shit tastes like toothpaste turned into liquid.

In other news, I have seen the state of my apartment on the way to school. There are no longer any walls in the place- just holes and timbers. The porches are crammed to the brim with stuff that's not ours, so I assume it's repair stuff. There's an enormous red dumpster outside on the street. There was at one point a "WARNING: ASBESTOS" sign on my bedroom area. So the good news is, work is clearly being done, or at least, a whole lotta something is being done. I do, however, have my doubts that it'll be all back together before the weekend (the way theoretically it's supposed to). Which actually I'm hoping won't happen since I have to take this Friday off from work for the checkup (and to go talk to someone about renters' insurance, sigh), and getting back over after that would be a pain. Plus I don't want to skip Harvest Festival this weekend. Well, it is coming closer to here in November, but I don't know if I can get anyone to go with me then.

At any rate, I haven't heard squat from anyone regarding the apartment in awhile, so I assume there isn't really any act-upon news until someone lets me know about it.

previous entry - next entry
archives - current entry