Confessions Of A Splenda Stealer

FREEBIE DAY GALORE!! Bleary eyed, as I walked out of the PATH station on 34th St. this morning, a guy was giving out FREE Quaker Oats granola bars! I grabbed two of some flavor with coconut and banana flavoring. Gotta love free promo samples. And to think that I almost used the 32nd St. exit.

Oh, thank jeebus! My gym is open today:

Its door was closed for the past few days, so I got nervous. Now, I know what you all must be thinking. But I implore you to think further, as a Splenda Stealer. Look beyond the dusty, musty staircase. What do you see??

First, before I tell you about my brilliant idea, let me tell you a story. One upon a time, when this Splenda Stealer first moved to Hoboken, she joined a gym that had the cheapest rate in Hobo–$69.00 a month. I had no cash to pay for a year up-front, but I was in dire need to work out and check out the guy eye-candy in my new hometown, so I signed the contract knowing I was half signing away my soul should I ever need to quit. TIP–if you can manage, never give a gym your credit card info, that way when you need to quit, you won’t be continuously billed for months, only to be told you have to take it up with the corporate office, whose phone doesn’t even have an answering machine.

Luckily, when I moved a year later to a new apt. downtown, my gym actually closed due to some sketchiness including the IRS or something. I WAS FREE!! I had to quit anyway, so timing was perfect and I didn’t lose out on any money.

Fast forward, a few months later, around turning 25 years old in November and again, I am in dire need of exercise. While I do walk a ton, I missed the yoga and pilates classes and easy cardio options that the gym offered.

Fast forward again to January 2009, and I made the typical resolution we all make–to get back in shape, but shockingly, I vowed to do it–WITHOUT THE GYM. Gym memberships in Hobo and NYC are so ridiculously expensive that I rebelled and challenged myself to get in shape without a monthly gym fee.

End of story, er, rant. Anywho, one day while opening the door to my office, I noticed that the door to the staircase was propped open, and I had an epiphany. As long as I’m not wearing heels, I could climb 20-30 flights of stairs whenever I need a break from my desk. Who needs a stepclimber machine (which always freaked me out anyway) when I have 30 free flights of stairs to use at my whim?

A few days of the week, when I feel antsy, I ride the elevator down to the lobby, run into the doorway marked STAIRS so no one sees me, and then I power it up to the 20th floor, sometimes further. While it’s a great cardio routine, it also gets my heart pumping because I’m terrified that someone will see me. I’m not embarrassed that I’m taking the stairs, but it’s the WAY I do it that’s a little embarrassing: on every step, I twist my torso from side to side, swinging my arms back and forth with bent elbows, tightening my core, and then I pretty much lunge forward with each step I take. I look absolutely ridiculous, and even more so because I’m usually in a pencil skirt.

One day I did pass another guy on the steps. I equate the experience with what it must feel like to be matched with someone you know on an online dating website: you are horrified that someone finds you, but then instantly relieved because they are doing it too.

Oh boy, do I like caffeine. MMM HMM. Well, I tell people that it’s really the coffee I love, but if that were really true, why on earth do I overload my mug with skim milk and Splenda? (Not quite as bad as my friend Ria, who puts so much half and half in her coffee that she doesn’t even refer to it as her morning cup, but rather, her morning milkshake.) It’s gotta be the actual addictive.

Those of us who like to drink coffee on a regular, if not obsessive basis, can all relate to the feeling of consuming too much caffeine, i.e., the feeling that you could rocket right out of your swivel chair at work.

Personally when I’ve imbibed a bit too much, my fingers get a little twitchy, and when I type, my words per minute rate probably triples. My mood switches from lethargic to super social butterfly Emily, and I furiously switch between Microsoft Word windows to Firefox, and open about a million tabs. I email everyone I’ve ever met in my entire life, and IM everyone on my Gchat list.

I usually jest that I am actually hallucinating during this phase of the caffeine buzz. Who needs to literally blow a few hundred or thousands of dollars on drugs when I can trip on my morning grande?

Well, guess what?

I WAS RIGHT!!

After conducting some research for one of my freelance gigs, I came across a new study:

“People with a higher caffeine intake, from sources such as coffee, tea and caffeinated energy drinks, are more likely to report hallucinatory experiences such as hearing voices and seeing things that are not there, according to the Durham University study.”

Fascinating. I mean, I knew that caffeine was a stimulant with mood altering magic, turning me from a morning Debbie Downer to a ILOVELIFE!, OHI’MBUYINGTHATSWEATERRIGHTNOW, or AWIHAVENOTTALKEDTOTHEMINALONGTIMEINEEDTOCATCHUPNOW sort of Splenda Stealer, but it’s a relief to know that I wasn’t really losing it. The researchers also say this type of hallucination tends to happen with people who have consumed over seven cups of coffee. I don’t drink that much, but I still blame the caffeine for my behavior.

In conclusion, I’ll take any study that comes my way and tweak it to make myself feel better.

Also, I admit that I laughed out loud when I read the following blog post. I really don’t remember how I came across this blog, but the blogger posted a pic of what she feels like after having too much coffee:

"I have had a LOT of coffee. One of the side effects of being really caffeinated is that I start to resemble the pictured prancing owl above."

I could not have said it better myself.

Ed. note: Here is another example of a day with too much coffee. This is a post from my previous blogger life.

Perhaps I don’t say it enough in this blog, but as much as I fully love NYC, for me to enjoy playing in such an urban playground, I live in a little town across the Hudson River in Hoboken, which some refer to as the Boken, but my fellow Hoboken friends and I have adopted “Hobo” or “Hobokia” as our term of endearment.

I love Hoboken. It’s quaint. It’s cute. It’s historic (Frank Sinatra’s birthplace, first game of baseball). It’s a perfect mix of small town and urban living all in one.

And then there are my own chronicles of Hoboken that I have collected ever since moving here in August 2007. The musical hippies I love that congregate for open mic night institutions like the Goldhawk and Maxwell’s uptown, my favorite low key bar Louise and Jerry’s, and where I live, 2nd and Adams, which I refer to as a Little Italy because of the famous Fiore’s Italian deli with their fresh, hand-made mozzarella, and the fact that my own living room smells of marinara sauce on a daily basis, that wafts in either from the Leo’s Grandevous restaurant on the corner, or the  Italian deli that is connected to my apartment building. There’s nothing like waking up to the smell of gravy (I threw that term in there for my Italian friends).

Lately, one aroma that I do not appreciate comes from the creepy culinary skills of one of my roommates. I live with two roommates. One is one of my besties, Ria, and the other is a Craigslister. I mean, she’s fine. She keeps to herself. She never uses the living room unless Ria and I are out. Whatever. But what really amazes me is her cooking.

The other night, while I was working out to a cardio dvd, I really, truly thought that she was cooking garbage. Honest to jeebus. I  mean, the girl is a bit of a health food nut, so who knows. I don’t know if she burns the beans sprouts, or wax beans, or whatever she prepares, then consumes in her room, but I literally thought that she was cooking trash.

Again, the other day, while watching some bad television, thank God my nose was semi-stuffy because I think she was saute-ing some litter. Maybe she is. Maybe she is an eco-genius, who has found the answer to what the world is looking for: a way to turn trash into sustenance. If so, I have a future Nobel Prize winner in my kitchen. If not, I have the makings of another chapter in “the characters I have come across in my life” book. She will be placed next to the woman I worked with at a publishing company a few years back, who wore a different Christmas-themed sweatshirt to work for every day in December.

Bizarre.

Oh, and the other day, Ria witnessed her mixing a can of tuna with prunes and broccoli. Sunday morning, I saw a tupperware vat of what looked like chunks of tuna or some other canned meat floating in a red broth. I think I heard her tell a friend she was making jambalaya. Honey, what is lingering in that plastic bin is an insult to the French Quarter.

Maybe she’ll get two chapters in my book…