Hot bread. I get aroused just thinking about this.

It was my plan to start writing this post hours ago, but I had my eyes dilated during a routine eye exam this morning and couldn’t look at my computer screen without squinting until almost 5 in the afternoon. On the plus side, now I know what it must be like to take LSD. The colors were AWESOME, man!

Regarding the results of my eye exam, in case you’re interested, everything is perfectly swell and Dr. Field detected no adverse effects from my diabetes and high blood pressure. Her only recommendation is new progressive trifocals because my left eye has changed somewhat. She also says I have an early stage of cataracts in both eyes but it’s a slow-growing thing and probably won’t affect my vision for several years.

Cataracts? Holy crap. How reassuring to add yet another ailment to my aging shit-list.

And now for brief essay on BREAD. In the event you’ve never given this subject much thought, bread might be a diabetic’s number one most-missed food product. Sure, now and then we can fit a slice of bread into a carb-restricted diet, but what we — actually, I — really crave is stuffing my face with a TON of bread, not just one stinking slice. You know, yanking a whole loaf from the bread machine, tearing the thing in half and slathering it with butter while it’s still hot. (I get aroused just thinking about this.) The reason I decided to mention bread, however, is because I tried a new product today ... a LOW-CARB WHITE BREAD MIX that I ordered from Netrition.com. The entire loaf only has 18 carbs, and that’s one carb less than a single slice of Sam’s favorite whole wheat bread! It baked like a dream in my bread machine in only 58 minutes using the “express bake” setting, after which I lived the rest of my fantasy to the letter while devouring last night’s episode of “Downton Abbey.” Whoa.

As long as I’m discussing medical crapola I guess I should also mention something about my ongoing problem with chronic fatigue. I always thought the severe muscle pain in my legs and lower back were unavoidable by-products of age and weight, but I was WRONG! I read an article a few days ago that said many prescriptions can cause chronic fatigue and muscle pain, especially drugs for high blood pressure, anti-depressants and “statins” to control cholesterol. One or two of these medications would be enough to cause severe fatigue, except I’m taking FIVE of them: two for high blood pressure, two different anti-depressants, and Atorvastatin (generic Lipitor) for high cholesterol. I emailed Dr. M this morning to ask what I should do. She said Atorvastatin is probably the number one pain-causing culprit in my case and told me to cut my dose in half — and I mean this literally, i.e., with a sharp knife — and begin taking a dietary supplement called Co Q-10 improve my energy and stamina, 200 mg every night at bedtime. So I ordered myself a pile of Co Q-10 from Amazon along with all of the following: 1) a two-quart carafe for instant milk; 2) a nice new pair of nonstick Wilton pizza pans for baking the giant low-carb cookies highlighted in my previous post; 3) Dial body wash; 4) insulin pen needles; and 5) a dozen bags of zero-calorie Miracle Rice. I have a decadent life, don’t I?

Before I go bake one of those nice big low-carb cookies I thought I’d include my latest acquisition of free fonts. None of these is particularly exciting, although I’ll confess to a mild fondness for Speedy Casual.

Thank you for reading this!