My Weakness, Explained.

In writing news, I'm trying to write fiction, which I don't write and which I find incredibly difficult. For a few days I was thinking it might be the hardest genre, but I think perhaps they're all hard, I just do the others more often. In nonfiction, I'm adapting and thinking about my own life. In poetry, I'm playing with language. But in fiction, I have to turn a blank page into an entire world--characters and setting and thoughts and shoes and faces and hamburgers. It's an odd feeling. I'm trying to write about a woman who gives birth to a baby without eyes. Which actually happens: sockets, eyelids, no eyeballs. I didn't know. That's all I'll say.

In other news, I found out why I pick chocolate cake, in a general way. Before I get there, this is one of my favorite pictures of my niece, Ari. She dished up her own chocolate cake at my mom's birthday party. And this is when she realized she may have been in over her head, portion-wise. I can't tell you how often I feel like this. The only trouble is, I usually feel that way AFTER that mammoth chunk is in my belly. Okay, maybe not exactly that huge piece of cake because I'd probably throw up, but is this not a symbol? I keep it on my fridge, to remind myself to realize when it's still on the plate, so to speak, like Ari. I wish it worked better. Maybe I should tattoo the image on my hand.

Anyway, I was listening to a Radiolab podcast on choices. First they said that humans can only really remember 7 numbers at a time, plus or minus 2. This is why your phone number is 7 digits and your social is 9. See that? Clever scientists.

Just wait, they get cleverer. They did this experiment where they brought people into a room, gave them a number (2 to 7 digits long) to memorize right there, walk down the hall, and tell it to someone else. That's all they had to do. Only, on the way to the someone else, they were intercepted by a nice lady who told them they could have a snack: chocolate cake or fruit salad. Get this: the people with a whole 7 digits to remember were FIFTY PERCENT more likely to pick the CAKE than the people with a measly 2. I repeat, FIFTY PERCENT. I repeat, CAKE. That's really something. (And those other people, with 7 numbers who still picked the fruit, they're my mom--who has the will of an ox. The woman could swim a river of chocolate and not open her mouth. It's inhuman. Why couldn't she pass me that gene, why?)

I mean, Radiolab used it as evidence of something else, but for me this is the reason why I am always picking the chocolate cake or the cookie or the whatever else that looks appetizing. It's because I'm always stressed, like everyone else, trying to walk down the proverbial hall, keeping track of the proverbial 7 numbers! It's in my BRAIN! See. Chocolate cake, explained.