New research claims that depressed people eat more chocolate than non-depressed people.  University of California, San Diego and UC Davis tracked 931 men and women and found that the depressed people ate 1 oz. per month or 8.4 servings of chocolate compared to the 5.4 servings of those non-depressed people.  

Here’s what I’m thinking – there must be an error in their calculations or a typo in the Chicago Tribune newspaper article.  An ounce?  We’re talking one?!  One ounce per month?! Are they kidding? A person who eats only one ounce of chocolate per month isn’t depressed in my books, but a pure masochist.  Who has that kind of control?

Fannie May Colonial Assortment

If I am depressed and eat chocolate to make me feel better, I am going to eat a tiny bit more than one ounce a month, more like, say, oh, a one pound box of Fannie May Chocolate Colonial Assortment or couple handfuls of Ghirardelli Dark and Raspberry Chocolate Squares.   Believe no person depressed or otherwise can eat just one, or two or three.  

The article goes on to say that depression may stimulate chocolate cravings as a form of self-treatment and prompts the release of certain chemicals in the brain such as dopamine which produces feelings of pleasure. 

But there is no evidence that chocolate can sustain an improved mood. According to another study, chocolate only improved mood for about three minutes.  . . Let’s see a one pound box of chocolates, that’s 16 ounces times 3 . . .so a depressed person  could be happy for a whole 48 minutes!   

One thing I know for sure. . . if you write about chocolate, you will crave chocolate so intensely that you will immediately get up, search for it in your pantry, and if necessary go to the store and buy some. . . gotta go!

In one of my presentations to women audiences, I often say, “Women are great at multi-tasking and men, well; they can only do one thing at a time.” This usually gets a laugh, because we believe it to be true.

But after reading the eye-opening book, The Myth of Multi-tasking by Dave Crenshaw, I must admit, that I am wrong. Women are no better at multi-asking than men! 

Research proves that the brain cannot effectively do two things at once. So, although it looks like multi-tasking, what we’re actually doing is switching from one task to the next, which proves to be way less effective and less efficient.

This explains why I’m still writing the same blog that I started at 9 a.m. and it is now 2 p.m., I mean 2:10 p.m. I just had to take that phone call and check my e-mail at the same time and then I switched back to the. . . Wait! I had to defrost pork chops for dinner. Now it’s 2:14 p.m. I mean, 2:20 p.m., because Champ needed to go out and wait, I remembered that I was updating my expense sheet, and oh, yeah, the guest list for my son’s wedding and now it’s 2: 37!

Although multi-tasking is a lie, Crenshaw claims that background tasking can be effective. This is when you are talking on the phone, changing a load of laundry, and yelling at your kid for putting clean jeans in the laundry basket and apologizing to the person on the phone for shouting in his ear.

Hmmmm. . . I think once I yelled at my kid, I switched from background tasking to multi-tasking.  I think I’ll switch over to the couch and lie down.

There are few things more Slightly Off than humor writers.  After spending this past weekend at the Erma Bombeck Writers’ Conference in Dayton, OH, I discovered some traits all humorists have in common:

1. Humor writers love to complain. Luckily they do it in a funny way, which makes it less annoying, but still annoying. 

2. Humor writers love to laugh. For two and a half days, I heard my favorite sound rolling through the conference room, out the door and into the classrooms – ah laughter, nothing like it.

3. Humorists make great stand-up comediens. I was amazed at how many brave writers took to the stage on Saturday night to try their hand at stand-up.  I was even more impressed with how good they were. And weird, very weird.  Topics ranged from circumcision to keeping husband’s remains in a Build-a-Bear. 

4. Humor writers will pay $9 for a glass of wine.

5. Humor writers love to buy books, and have them autographed, especially if they can wait in line with a glass of wine.

6. Humorists know how to blog. See #1

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Erma Bombeck, one of the great humorists of all time wrote: “I was going to have inner peace even if I had to break a few heads to do it.” and “Seize the moment. Think of all those women on the ‘Titanic’ who waved off the dessert cart.”

I was once told that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Well, my eyes are getting pretty bad and it seems more difficult to see beauty all the time. After 48 years on this planet, I see uglyness more easily. Destruction, war, murder, negativity, even everyday stress, cloud my vision and distort my perceptions.

I wonder, have I become too cynical, too jaded, too old???? To see the beauty beyond the alley?

In the Chicago neighborhood where I grew up, behind every apartment building, two-flat or single brick home, was an alley. The place for all things, dirty, rotten, and smelly resided there. Large rusty cans filled with garbage, stood in the back of each home, buzzing with stuff to keep Oscar the Grouch, flies and soon-to-be flies (if you’ve lived in the city, you know the disgusting white larvae I’m talking about!) content for a lifetime. The alleys themselves were strewn with junk that never made it to the cans.

You might think it the least likely place to find beauty, but as a curious kid, I discovered it all the time.

Gravel and dirt covered the pitted cement and if you looked closely, you could always excavate a diamond or two – a rock with specks that sparkled in the sun, or a piece of colored glass just the right size to hide in your jewelry box and show to your best friend, if she hadn’t tagged along for that particular expedition.

The rusty wire fence along one side was often dotted with another wonder, wildflowers, which quickly became bouquets we presented to our mothers or to have and to hold at our pretend weddings.

And these were only the most obvious treasures. If you were willing to go beyond the alley, peer around the garbage cans and brave barking dogs to peek over gates or between the slats of tall fences you might just get a glimpse of heaven.

Because in some backyards grew gardens of Eden. My eyes gazed upon flowers with shades of color so vibrant, I would catch my breath. In other small spaces, rows of green sprouted vegetabes, or a water pond mimicked the sound of a babbling brook, or gingerbread playhouses with white laced curtains sat nestled in the grass.

An alley is a Slighlty Off place to find beauty, but it’s a good reminder that if we look beyond it, there is always beauty to behold.

Let’s look beyond the alley today!