how to ruin a diet

Right from the start, my attempt at the Christian Bale Diet has been doomed to failure. My brother Sean had sent me a care package almost a month ago; it took its sweet damn time crossing the mainland US and the vast Pacific Ocean to reach me, arriving at my school's office just before New Year's Day; the office emailed to say a box had arrived. I went to the office the Friday after New Year's Day, i.e., January 2, to pick up the package. Sean had said that it "wasn't much," but when I looked inside my locker, there was nothing there, which led me to believe that the "nothing much" was too large to fit into the locker.

So I went to our department's office, right next door to the locker bank, and asked one of our assistants for the package. Sure enough, it was a sizable box. Another assistant demanded, with humorous imperiousness, that I open the box up right then and there, so I did. There was much "ooh"ing and "aah"ing as I brought forth marshmallow Peeps, Nutella, Lindor truffles, Jack Links beef jerky, cookies, and other assorted gifts. The Peeps were the first to die, as I immediately shared those with the office ladies. Later on, after having taken the care package back to my own office, I came back to the main office and offered the ladies some beef jerky and chocolate-covered cookies.

Here are two pics of the package. The first "portrait" image is full size; click on the second image to see it at full size as well. Hover your cursor over both images to see their captions.

I have an awesome brother. I felt bad, though, because the package had set him back $63 to send. I joked with him via text that the postage had probably cost him more than the contents. The Nutella recipe book contains some intriguing ideas that I'm impatient to try, but I can't make anything until I've moved into a place with an actual kitchen.

But I can dream in the meantime.


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