There are times in life when we should take what we see on TV seriously and there are times when we need to just consider it to be pure entertainment.  Unfortunately, I fell in the former category today.

 Tom has a penchant for nature-based reality television.  Generally, the shows are about a man in the wild trying to survive in something crazy like the Amazonian jungle, while living off of giant walking sticks or katydids.  Today, Tom was watching something that sparked my eye…or at least my taste buds.

 Man v. Food is an American food reality television series on the Travel Channel .  In each episode, the show’s host, Adam Richman, explores the “big food” of different cities in America then participates in an eating challenge of some sort. 

 In today’s episode, Richman visits Buffalo Cantina in Williamsburg, Brooklyn for the latest gastronomical challenge:  six suicide chicken wings in six minutes.  What’s in the suicide wings, you may ask?  A marinade made of habaneros, Thai chilies, serranos, jalapenos, and a liquid extract of pure pepper juice.  Watching the show made me hungry and being a veteran of extremely spicy food, I thought to myself, “I can do that” and we  decided to put me to the test.

 Tom and I took the kids to a wing joint known for spicy wings.  On the menu, there are 14 different levels of spiciness.  Although we’re not in Brooklyn and these are not exactly the suicide wings, I wanted to recreate the challenge as much as possible.  Therefore, I ordered six wings at the hottest level, #14.  I ordered extra celery sticks to go with my side of blue cheese (not because I felt I needed it, but because I just love the stuff. Really.)  I was really excited for the wings to arrive.  After all, I’ve eaten the hottest of hot, so how bad could this really be?

 My wings soon arrived.  Tom took out his cell phone to activate the stop watch feature and I picked up a wing.  Being incredibly hungry with my taste buds salivating, the first wing went down pretty easily.  By the second wing, I was starting to feel the heat.  By the third wing, my vision was getting a little cloudy.  By the fourth wing, I had tears running down the side of my face.  By the fifth wing, Tom was pleading with me to stop, but I couldn’t.  I had a goal to achieve:  six wings at the hottest level in six minutes.  By the sixth wing, I was ready to be done.  I took the last bite, plunked down the bone, and triumphantly declared DONE!  Tom looked at his stopwatch, then back at me.  Eight minutes…

 When I got home, I searched the internet for the Man v. Food episode that I had watched earlier.  Apparently, this was the second time that Richman had attempted this challenge.  At his first try, he had to walk away after having eaten only one wing.  For his second attempt, allegedly they made the wings “less spicy” for the purpose of letting Richman “complete” the challenge.  Seriously?  So in the end, Man was beaten by Food.  Not me.  I’m not going down like that, I thought, as I prepped myself for a rematch…

Many people write blogs for many reasons. These days, everyone has one, whether it’s good, bad or otherwise. I quickly learned that it was a way for many business owners to market their company. I get it. Blogging is a cheap and effective way to communicate to your customers. When I first heard about blogging, I didn’t quite know what to think about it. In a way, I considered it an “online diary,” if you will, of people’s lives and nuances. I didn’t quite understand it and wondered why anyone would put themselves out there for the world to judge. And now, here I am, having written my 47th blog, I guess I’m just as guilty as the next blogger.

However, writing a blog is about where I may differ from your average business blogger. I don’t write just to market my business, hoping to book the next event from a reader. (Given that many of our readers are overseas, I hardly believe that’s possible). No, I write for the mere joy of writing. For me, it’s therapeutic and for those of you who are avid writers, you know what I’m talking about. Most of my best and personal writing, however, have never been seen by anyone’s eyes other than my own.

One of the best gifts I’ve received as a preteen was a diary. I don’t even remember who gave it to me, but I do remember the countless hours I spent pouring my heart into this little binder of papers. I religiously kept a diary until one fateful day when I thought of the possibility of someone finding it. What would they think of the things that I had written? Scared to think about the consequences, I ruthlessly tore up and threw away diary after diary.

Many years passed before I had the courage to pick up the pen again to express my most inner thoughts and feelings about what may be going on in my life. What started as pen and paper has transformed to keyboard and monitor. In February 1999, I decided to get back to journaling. Since then, my “diary” consists of hundreds of pages resulting in thousands of entries. In it, I’ve poured my life’s experiences – sad, happy, good, or bad. My journal is so personal to me that not even Tom has read it, although he knows that one exists. I have nothing to hide and Tom knows that if he wants access to it, all he has to do is ask for the password (which I had to install ever since I found one of my brothers reading my journal many years ago…).

Someday I do want to share my journal with my kids. I want them to know who I was and who I’ve become. I want them to know that I’m just like everyone else. Not only do I have my fears, but I also have hopes and dreams. I want them to read about a side of me that I may not have openly shared with them in the past.

There are times (many times, actually), I wish that I never threw away those diaries from years past. Those thoughts, ideas, and youthful hope from when I was a young girl would be so precious to me to read now not only as an adult – but as a mother with children. Sometimes I wonder where that young girl with the diary went. Then I look within myself and think “Ah yes, she may have added on a few years, but she’s still there.”