Grey's Journal

My Confession

July 11th to July 18th

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Before we begin this week, I need to make a confession.

Over the years, I have told a few, close friends this secret. It has been met with universal appall and disgust. In spite of this reaction, I used to be OK with my problem. I used to pass it off as a joke. But, it has come time for me to deal with. The first step in overcoming a problem is to acknowledge it.

So, here I go.

When in foreign lands, I do not try the local cuisine. I do not run to the restaurants where the denizens dine.

I eat at McDonalds.

I'm sorry.

I have no memories of exotic foods. I have eaten at Pizza Huts from Poland to Portugal, McDonalds from Monaco to Maui, and KFCs from Cancun to Constantinople. I tell you this now, not because I am proud -- the ultimate American, in the US wherever he may go -- but because I recognize that my eating habits need to change.

McDonalds is slowly killing me and quickly draining my wallet.

It is going to be a long battle. When 95% of your food comes from the same six meals, it's hard to change. I can hear the gasps. "Variety! Don't you crave variety after all that sameness?"

Ah, we come to the heart of the problem. The sameness is what I know. New foods are highly unpleasant. They don't taste right and feel weird in my mouth. I'm sorry, but that's the best I can do to describe it. I spent the better part of the last few days trying to create the metaphor that would make people understand. But, I failed. All I can do is say that new food (however benign) is intrinsically repulsive.

I also hate that I have to eat. There I am, minding my own business, when thrice a day I am interrupted by a biological drive I despise (one of many).

"Pay attention to me," says my stomach.

"But I don't want to," I reply. "I'm busy reading The Order of the Phoenix. I'm sitting on the lion at Trafalgar Square. I'm thinking up absurdly complicated schemes to hit on women. I'm busy."

"Pay attention to me."

It is a futile struggle. Stomach always wins. The longer I wait, the weaker I get and the stronger it gets.

I just want to shut my stomach up and get on with what I'm doing. Going to a new restaurant and picking from an unknown list of foods with untested, stomach-appeasing properties does not appeal to me. Nor does sitting down and spending more than five minutes preparing a meal. I just want to silence biology and return to my life.

There is a solution...

Fast food.

Every Big Mac is an old friend. Identical to hundreds I've eaten and thousands I will eat. He's always nearby. Trafalgar Square, Times Square, Tiananmen Square, it doesn't matter. He's just a few seconds away.

But, it has to stop.

I'm going to try to eat better. I'm buying some books. It is time to do something radical.

It's time to eat a vegetable.

Thank you for listening.

* * *

The British Museum: where the English Empire stashed its loot.

I stepped inside and found myself in the entryway for heaven.

The British Museum foyer is blindly white. The walls are white marble. The several hundred square feet of floor are white marble. The ceiling is a glass latticework of frosted, white skylights. White marble statues and white information desks seem to float like mirages; it is difficult to get a sense of distance in all the whiteness. In the center is a white cylindrical building I approximated to be 65 feet high. This has a white marble staircase that spirals up around it for 75 steps. You get the idea. Sunglasses are needed in this room when the sky is clear.

Small-looking doors lead out of the entryway into the museum's collections.

The Egypt collection had the most items. The English had taken everything from mummies and sarcophagi, to pets and house keys. In spite of all this pillage, the legendary English courtesy shone through: they had left the Egyptians the sand.

I eventually found myself in a claustrophobic, temporary exhibit for Henry Wellcome, called the medicine man. The introduction on the wall described him as a philanthropist and collector -- and that may be -- but I would guess he didn't get along well with others.

After viewing what he collected, I imagine him to be the kind of man who would not be invited back to dinner parties. He would describe to you, in loving, affectionate, and creepy detail the medical abnormalities and surgical tools he kept. While he described the preferred method of shrinking human heads (as you were eating a melon perhaps), you would do your best to smile politely, but eventually you would excuse yourself, go outside for a breath of fresh air, and vomit in the street.

The way the British Museum chose to present his collection didn't help either. I wonder whose sense of aesthetics led them to display the amputation saws next to the obstetrical forceps. Was that juxtaposition necessary? The paintings of people unfolding themselves so you could see inside, and the x-ray of a two-headed baby didn't help the atmosphere either.

This sideshow was sealed off from the rest of the museum by heavy glass doors that made me feel as though there wasn't enough air. The museum must have added a hospital scented air freshener to give the place that unique smell of sickness and sterility.

I didn't linger among Mr. Wellcome's collection.

Back in the fresh air, I wandered over to the Assyrian display. Two, 20-foot tall, 30-ton stone carvings of bulls with human torsos guarded the entrance. I discovered that these statues originally guarded the gateway to the Kingdom of Assyria and had been carved from a single piece of marble. However, they are no longer in a single piece because when the British acquired (stole) them, they were cut for transport.

The British Museum is not a place to take Nymphadora Tonks on a date. Things are very out in the open. Roman heads sit atop precariously narrow stands in the middle of rooms. No banisters to keep people away. I was so unused to artifacts displayed like this that I was afraid of accidentally bumping into one and knocking it to the ground. I gave these displays a very wide `no enter' radius while walking to prevent accidental damage. The children playing tag seemed to have no such concerns.

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