what i want for christmas

channeling Hunter S. Thompson

Good Habaneros come on slow. In the first minute, nothing. The second minute is spent cursing the creep who burned you. And then… ZAM.

I approached the hot-pepper eating challenge with a simple strategy: peel the peppers into pieces, eat the outsides first, then down all the seeds in one go. And move fast. In no time, I was looking at an empty plate while the other fools all took the peppers bite by bite. I waited. All was looking good.

And then, it hit me. Not the burn - my mouth and taste buds are scorched from years of hot foods - but the sudden sting of pepper in the gut. A hot sensation behind my ears. A small cloud of confusion settling over my head as the peppers rushed through my system and a puffy sensation took over. My ears were filled with a buzzing noise. My hands began to vibrate violently. I looked at them, and they appeared normal, but my senses told me otherwise. The buzzing in my head melded with the shaking in my hands and suddenly I felt my whole body was hanging from a live high-voltage wire.

This was becoming grotesque.

Elizabeth Estes downed a fourth pepper to overtake me in the challenge, and I knew I was done. There was no chance of operating my fingers to open another one and besides, I did not want to become the first known Habanero overdose case at Sacred Heart.

Luckily, the intense pepper high is short lived. Quick consumption of some serious carbs in the form of Miriam's white rice quickly put things straight, although every fluid erupting from my body still brought on a burning sensation.

For a cheap thrill, it turns out that you just can't beat hot peppers. But the consequences promise to be dire, so I still wouldn't recommend it. Get your kicks elsewhere unless you're just twisted and desperate enough not to care.

I am quietly dreading tomorrow.

One Fish tried to commit suicide the other day by jumping out of his holding cup and onto the floor while I was cleaning the fishbowl. Lucky for him I noticed the movement on the floor and scooped him right up. He must not have landed on his head, because apart from some initial excitement and dashing around the bowl, he's looking pretty normal. He was exceptionally lucky that none of the cats were hanging around my feet at the time, like they usually do.

If you dropped me from 3 feet up onto a tile floor, there would be far more excitement about it.

I've been commuting to school as my main form of training these days, with the shortest route being 20 minutes through town, and the longest 1:10 or so (depending on the bike) over McBeth and down the Fox. It's tough to do much more than just spin or ride light tempo with a big-ass backpack, but some days I've managed to do the double - 2:20-2:30 for the day, and the volume certainly helps. Sometime I'll have to drop the bag off at school early and just go do some hill repeats without the pack.

Coming down Fox has it's risks in the early morning, I've found out. The deer are out early, and this week the road is full of frisky bucks looking for a doe with an urge and a convenient place to do it. The does are all over the road - I startled a pair of them the other day, and one took off straight downhill parallel to the guard rail, at about 25-30mph, 20 yards in front of me for about 1/4 mile before peeling off.

Further down the road,as I reached the bottom of Fox at Amazon, I passed a van stopped in the right turn lane and heard a lady shout "can I talk to you for a minute?". I thought it was meant for someone else, but no, headed down Amazon here comes this same van headed the opposite way, stops as I go by, and this crazy doe leans out the window and shouts at me "can you pull over? i want to talk to you!". Me? Are you nuts, lady? Am I going to stop and talk to the crazy one who actually went down the other street, and turned up this to intercept me? Hell no. I kept going, shouting "what? No, I'm busy!". She passed me again down Hillyard, and I got the nasty stare. No idea what I did to piss her off.

Like I said, the nutters are out early in the mornings and running erratically. Watch out and keep the lights on.