I think I ate too many tomatoes today.

You see, I adore cherry tomatoes. I always have. When I was a kid and my dad was planting a veggie garden, I begged him to include a cherry tomato plant. He obliged, and while his massive beefsteak tomato plants held a majority stake on the garden real estate, that little cherry tomato plant was there. When I’d spot some ripe and ready to eat, I’d pop them straight off the vine and into my mouth. But it wasn’t just cherry tomatoes; I’ll eat a whole large tomato like an apple. Tomato sauce? I drown my pasta in it; I’ll eat it straight from the jar while I’m cooking the rest of my dinner.

Which is why when tomatoes landed on the “acidic foods you probably shouldn’t overdo” list, due to the painful acid reflux I was having my senior year of college, I was bummed as hell. I avoided tomato sauces for a good long while, but once I stopped having the reflux issues, I started eating tomato stuff normally again.

I may not have been eating tomatoes normally today.

And I’m feeling it. My stomach is rolling and rumbling and churning. I have fully overdone it on raw tomatoes for the day. I just want to plead, “OK! I’m sorry! I learned my lesson and I won’t do that again, but PLEASE calm down.”

But it will not calm down.

Let’s back it up.

This morning. Workout, chicken & potato. The usual.

MEAL #1

Same as the rest of the week. Still yummy. Note all those motherfucking tomatoes. I love those little bastards.

Today got a little busy at a certain point; I had stuff to do and didn’t have time to stop and have lunch yet, but I was super hungry, so I chowed down a few dried apricots to hush my angry tummy until…

MEAL #2

Oh look, more tomatoes. Was I sick of them? No, I was not. You can’t tell how many tomatoes are in the cup in this picture, but it was a significant amount. I ran out of my mini peppers! And I forgot to bring in the broccoli I was going to eat with my lunch, so all I had left veggie-wise to round things out was a crapload of cherry tomatoes. So I ate them.

Now, this lunch was light and I knew I was going to need a snack before I left the office. But I did not expect Revenge of the Tomatoes.

I ate an apple and some sunflower seed butter; hopefully the fats will help tone the situation down.

(I just did a double-take at the word “fats,” terrified that I had written “farts” instead. Like every time I write the word “popping,” I always look back to make sure that I didn’t write “pooping” instead. These are the things you have to worry about when you are a professional writer, people.)

My apple & sun-butter mandala.

We have this jar of sunflower seed butter in the office. Nobody likes it but me. I think it’s just fine, but it tasted like frickin’ MAGIC today. All nut butter has been tasting like absolute goddamn ambrosia. It’s all I can do not to sit at home at night and just eat spoonfuls of almond butter straight from the jar. Nut butter and dried fruit have become my new vices.

Anyway.

MEAL #3

Essentially what I ate yesterday, minus the arugula salad, plus being all chopped up and shoveled into my face quickly so I could get back out the door to a workshop. But even as I was hoovering this mess down, I was like “… this meal isn’t cute, but it tastes surprisingly good.”

Going the hell to sleep so that I can get up and hit an early spin class because *arm gesture that indicates I do not know what I am doing with my life*