It's definitely not a tumor.

But it's quite probably an ulcer. Yay!

This means that for at least a week I get...

• no full-fat anything
• no raw vegetables
• no spicy food
  
• no caffeine
• no alcohol

Since I'm pretty sure it's self-induced*, I'm okay with all of this except the last one. No alcohol? On November 4? Come ON! How the hell do I make it through that without a bottle of whiskey?

I'm also going to Oakland for 4 minutes next Thursday-Sunday and most of those 4 minutes involve alcohol and/or coffee and/or good food so that's unfortunate. But if I am careful (and don't down a bottle of something other than Tums on Tuesday night) I should be okay for moderation next weekend. Fingers crossed.

In the meantime, hooray for bland food! ... Meh.

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* I was trying on winter clothes a few weeks ago and realized that because I had lost about 10 pounds since May, nothing fit. So this winter I could either a) wear huge clothes and look like a bag lady, b) buy new clothes that actually fit, or c) gain 10 pounds fast to make the winter clothes sort of fit through the winter.

I figured a) would just depress me and c) is more cost effective than b) especially since I've already spent money on new summer clothes to accommodate the loss... Plus, c) would be more fun! Wine and cheese and pizza and ice cream and no gym and couch and TV for a few weeks! So that's what I went with.

Mission accomplished. The temporary depression from the past few weeks was an added bonus as it enabled me to eat more (and more crap) than usual... On the down side, one should probably not gain so much weight in a short period of time as it stresses out your GI system, and the depression probably contributed to stress which is not a cause of ulcers but it is a contributing factor.

Yeah, I did a lot of ulcer research between crappy daytime TV shows today.

So I'm not sure the cost of what this did to my tummy was worth the money I saved, all said and done. Let this be a lesson to you: buy timeless fashion and keep all your various sizes of clothes forever. And ever and ever amen.