I've never considered myself a picky eater, but there are a few things I don't eat. Among these: Turnips (vile, vile vegetables!), fish (except for canned tuna, which really does not count) and cottage cheese.

I do try. Recently, I removed baked beans from my veto list and just put it on my "eh, not my favorite" list. Or, say, if I am taken to the Striped Bass and there is nothing on the menu but fish (OK, so I just looked at their current menu and see they've added, like most seafood restaurants, a few meat items, but at the time I went, there was not a single non-seafood item on the menu) I will order something mild like halibut and smile and pretend that I like it. Because that's what you do when someone else has offered to take you out to dinner and only informed you of their restaurant selection as you are headed to the place. (Well, maybe it's not what you do, but if an extended family member you don't see so often is offering to take you, and you are but a poor college student who has never been to a restaurant that only offers entrees over $30, and, perhaps most importantly, if you are me, you feel too silly to explain you have weird feelings about fish. So you eat.)

Last year, I was foolish enough to try buying one of those cottage cheese and fruit combos at the deli, thinking that maybe enough time had elapsed for me to get over my childish fear of it. It hadn't. Even doused in sugary fruit syrup, cottage cheese has a texture that I can only describe as deeply disturbing. Curds? Aren't those what happen to cheese that has gone bad? I love cheeses -- even pungent ones that Fresh Direct describes as "not for the faint of heart" -- but cottage cheese just seems wrong.

Or so I thought.

Then one night, Jesse made me pasta. With cottage cheese. And though the combination deeply disturbed me, once I took a bite, I found that cottage cheese can be perfectly reasonable. As long as it is melted, those gross, disturbing curds are not really noticeable, and the result is a very mild cheese that can sort of substitute for any number of creamier, more-bad-for-you cheeses. In my the Mexican lasagna/casserole thingy I sometimes make, it sort of tastes like sour cream. Melted with pasta, it makes a decent mac n' cheese. And the other night, when I was in the midst of making my french bread pizza and realized that someone had eaten all the sliced cheese in the fridge, I found it actually tasted OK when melted on top. (It still tastes nasty when it's cold, though.)

Oops.

Today, I bought a bag of Jelly Belly sugar free sour jelly beans, hoping that I might soothe my insatiable urge to go into Tastee DeLite and purchase a bag full of bulk candy. I have developed a bag obsession with sour patch kids and other sour gummy candies of late, which is really not a great thing to do, and I hoped that buying myself something similar but not quite so bad for me would help.

The jelly beans themselves were not so tasty. They lacked the promised sour taste, and the only flavor that was moderately acceptable was the red one (the bag calls it "sour cherry" even though it tasted like no cherry I've ever had). Nonetheless, it was sweet and I am not equipped with self-control with regard to sweet-things-eating while at my desk. So I ate the whole bag. Which was two servings, and only 160 calories, so, really not so bad.

Except that, only after finishing the bag that I noticed the little red box stating WARNING below the nutrition information. As in, "WARNING CONSUMPTION MAY CAUSE STOMACH DISCOMFORT AND/OR LAXATIVE EFFECT. INDIVIDUAL TOLERANCE WILL VARY; WE SUGGEST STARTING WITH 8 BEANS OR LESS."

Yeah, so, the bag with its two servings and 160 calories was about almost 70 beans. So yeah, I just had eight times the recommended trial bean serving. And now, my tummy hurts. (No laxative effect just yet, FYI, but yeah. Ouch.)

Random thoughts

I realize that it's now 16 days into 2007 and I have yet to comment on the fact that it is now 2007 and that 2006 and all its glorious moments are now part of history. To that, I say: Whoops. Also: Sorry.

I have started a few posts on the subject, but I get very bored by what I have to say on the subject and lose my train of thought before I get around to sharing this with you.

I don't know how it got to be so late -- 2007. I know it's been a few weeks, but I still am having trouble getting used to it. This decade is mostly over and we still haven't come up with a decent way of referring to it (The "Ohs"? You can't get behind that the way you can refer with confidence to your formative years in the '90s or your early '80s childhood.

In 2006, my baby brother started high school. My little sister started college. My older sister -- engaged. And, maybe weirdest of all to me, my twin sister became a mommy. For my own part, I left my first post-collegiate job (and career track) and my first post-collegiate apartment. (Not quite as momentous as a baby, but still, changes all around.)

Anyway: this year, I am making a small list of resolutions (most of which I haven't really kept up with thus far, but eh, well.) Writing here hasn't really been on my list so far, but maybe it should be. Being creative, at least, since I fear my sad, sad addictions to Us Weekly and horrible reality shows featuring over-privileged teenagers has caused my brain to atrophy. ("Please, just tell me that you do find these people detestable," Jesse just said. (Currently, I am watching The Hills.) "Yes, yes, of course," I say, but wonder if maybe it's true.)

Anyway, resolutions -- I'd like to to create a proper budget, one that I actually follow. I'd like to be more organized and actually, like, vacuum the apartment more than once a year. (So far, I've actually been moderately successful on this front -- scrubbed the bathroom last night, and the week before, I hung the curtains I'd been meaning to hang for many months.) I'd also like to cook more often (and generally, eat more healthily) and keep on with the gym attendance (again, doing OK here, but always room for improvement.)

And now, I will add: Participate in activities more mentally strenuous than speculating on Britney Spears' crotch.

(Hurrah! First post of '07 done!)