I recently unexpectedly tested negative for the BRCA mutation that cut down the previous generation of women in my family. Since I always assumed I’d die of some horrible cancer and/or prophylactically amputate various body parts while relatively young, I’ve perhaps not taken care of myself in the way I could have. Now I have to think of pesky things like retirement savings and healthy eating. I think I’ll start with the sanctimony (but it’s important to do everything in moderation. I’m still spiking the thing with bourbon if it’ll make it more palatable.)

Thank you, and long may you blame.

But then I’d have to make 2 of’em.

Once I drank a smoothy that contained both spinach and apples fresh fennel, and though apples and fennel and spinach both individually taste good and are god for you, the mix was intolerable.

Seems like if you did all the leafy greens, plus the ginger parsley, celery, carrot , and cabbage then added some beets it would be quite tasty, though not quite as sanctimonious.

Quitting smoking is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. But also the thing that has made me feel better the most, long-term. I quit in ‘92 after 20+ years of a 2.5-pack a day habit. Friends and blamers, let me tell ya, I suffered. If you’ve seen the Chantix adverts, they tell you that using the drug can make you mean, psychotic, and suicidal. I quit way before Chantix, and I experienced these symptoms without it.

I sweated the cold sweats and shivered the hot shivers. I barfed like a roman candle. I took bubble-baths until I resembled an albino prune. I walked the soles off 2 pair of Reeboks. My bowels uproared, working overtime or not at all by turns. I accused my mother of trying to kill me. Fits of unexplained rage and/or weeping overtook me. The memory of the withdrawal symptoms, which lasted about 3 months (lessening as the time passed), keep me from ever picking up another cigarette.

The longer I didn’t smoke, the better I felt, to such a degree that I wondered what damage I’d been doing to myself all those years. And there is nothing else which confers greater sanctimony.