My name is Rucha Desai, and I'm addicted to [insert unhealthily healthy fixation]

I hate addictions. It's not so much the object of fixation that perturbs me. To each his own, I've always believed, and so if you snort cocaine or send women lewd pictures of yourself or drink too much soda, I may hesitate to let my kids stay alone with you, but I would not ever pretend to understand you. (Well, drinking soda, along with microwaving food in plastic containers, is considered a sin in my family. But, still, I won't judge.)

Rather, I take issue to the act of addiction. Addicts lose their sense of independence, the one virtue I place above all the rest (I know it's not really exalted by the Pope, but seriously, prudence is a bit overrated. We can give that one the boot.)

And so, with this in mind, I decided to give up coffee. Since I started working, my love and intrigue of the coffee bean (I want to try coffee from every single country) grew steadily into an expensive and unhealthy dependency. I've always had white teeth and clear skin, even when I was a miserably awkward teenager, but over the last year, I could feel my teeth yellow and my skin curdle, like milk does in our broken refrigerator. I couldn't stop shaking and I couldn't sleep (I tend to fidget and am a light sleeper, but everything just seems magnified when you're hooked).

I decided I would reverse the effects. I came to work an hour early and researched foods that were good for skin--the wrinkle fighters, the blemish blasters, the glow enhancers--and wrote down easy recipies that included all of these foods. I baked a skin bread (whole grain bread with flaxseed, sunflower seeds, onions, spinach), roasted tomatoes and zucchini, and drank flasks of carrot juice, interspersed with bottles of water and cups of green tea. I would not touch my long term abusive boyfriend (whom I will call Joe for the sake of corny puns).

I did put my face in coffee ice cream once, but that was a low point.

The more I read about the effects of Vitamin E and Selenium and Beta-Carotene for your skin, the more I realized I may have a new problem.

Selenium Toxicity--my hair would soon fall out, I would have joint pain, fatigue, and nerve damage, and my skin would blister. And Carotenodermia--my skin would turn orange.

I started drinking coffee again last week. If I were to be a blistering oompa-loompa, I might as well enjoy some Joe.

Plus, coffee is linked to a decreased likelihood of Alzheimer's. I drank three cups yesterday--for my brain, of course.