The devil's food

Alas, I fear I am addicted to ice cream. I've always liked ice cream -- who doesn't like ice cream -- but it was never that big a deal to me. Except for the old-fashioned, everybody-takes-a-turn-at-the-churn homemade stuff. That, I always absolutely adored (especially peach), and when exposed to it would eat a sinfully large amount. But I don't think I've been exposed to it since I left home at 18.

In the last few months I've noticed that even unspectacular, supermarket ice cream has become quite a big deal to me. As in, I find myself wanting to have some every night of my life...and frequently having some. And not just a little bowl. I've caught myself eating half a small carton in one evening, and then finishing it off the following evening. Like somebody finishing off a bottle of scotch in two nights!

This is definitely not a positive development, for a number of reasons. It's very fattening, and this girl who was as thin as Twiggy in her youth, has been about 30 pounds overweight for...five years? All sorts of wearing apparel no longer fit. The last thing I need to be doing is adding weight.

Also, I'm hypoglycemic, which means I'm supposed to avoid sugar. I have tried eating no-sugar-added ice cream, but besides not being as satisfying, it's full of sugar alcohols, and I'm not sure that that's so much better. And milk does not really set well with me: the combin-ation of sugar and milk almost always produces unfortunate internal consequences within a few days.

So why have I suddenly become addicted to this thing that is not good for me? Well, why does anybody become addicted to something that isn't good for them? Because it gives them something they need. Alcohol makes a lot of people feel like they are cool, clever, can do anything. Cigarettes initially make people feel cool, properly rebel-lious, part of the in-crowd; later the damn things help them keep their nerves under control, keep them, as a smoking friend of mine said, from killing people. Drugs enable people, however briefly, to escape their wretched or boring and empty lives.

With ice cream, well, it's undeniably comfort food. When you're eating it, nothing makes you feel happier. And I reckon I've been craving a little comforting. Or maybe, a whole lot of comforting. My life is so very far from being what I'd hoped it would be, and in the last couple of years I've had to face the fact that circumstances and my own limitations will probably keep me from making it the way I'd hope it would be. Jezze, you've got to have a little respite from that thought. I've never been into drugs, or excessive use of alcohol. Or shopping -- another escape-from-unpleasant-reality for some people Let's see, what else is there? Ah, yes, Ben and Jerry's Vanilla Caramel Fudge ice cream. Or their Cherry Garcia. Or Haagen Dazs's French Vanilla.

But don't blame me. The devil made me do it.