Proper stance while eating

I was just reading the New Yorker online and it made me wanna write. So here I am. Bread is in the oven. Timer set. I'm sposed to be working on my novel but got cold feet even tho I'm wearing my $20 Walmart sandals that are falling apart.

After I kneaded the bread and set it to rise, I went food shopping. They say never to shop on an empty stomach. That's why I go directly to the cheese bar where they always have free samples. I popped a sample of spicy hot cheese and a delicious cracker into my mouth which fortified me for my nonmanic shopping excursion.

I always get a carton with a lid at the Giant which I use for my paper recyclables and the detritus from my Shark vacuum cleaner. Ah-choo!

Driving home I immensely enjoyed looking at all the cars and the people inside. Suddenly I realized how lucky I am. Several friends of mine are terribly depressed. They cannot enjoy the beauty of the world. Here I was this morning, pedaling away on my stationary bike, while looking outside at my b'ful backyard. Sparrows were eating bright red berries from some sort of huge tree, convoys of sparrows, they travel in packs. I imagined they saw me - who really knows? - and were trying to relay messages to me that I can't understand.

After they disappeared I hadn't finished my 10 minutes, so I picked up my autobiography of Claire Bloom which is a wonderful tell-all of all her affairs with great actors of her day. The great love of her life was Richard Burton. I'm a huge fan of gossip and used to subscribe to People magazine before it got horrid so this book is perfect for me.

When I came home from Giant, I shaped my bread into two neat loaves, and unloaded the Cuho salmon into the fridge. I was now ready to eat a small meal.

I have always been a hedonist. (Note its connection to that awful word 'anhedonia' suffered by depressed people.) When I eat I want to enjoy it to the hilt. Spooning out my cabbage-onion-noodle and cottage cheese dish, I plunged in while walking across the living room and dining room. Walking while eating seemed to intensify the pleasure. Just as we did in the caves of France (you see, at my advanced age I've forgotten their names), where I gobbled down the toasty remains of the mastodon thighs. Mmmm!

I find that if I read while I'm eating - the Times, Bill Hess's blog - I forget to taste my food. Plus, I'm always thinking, always thinking.

Hey! A total strange commented on my blog this morning. Check it out, the previous blog. He's a bipolar dude w/two great websites. I put them on the New Directions site under Andrew of St. Petersburg, FL.

Oh, I felt so guilty today after reading about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the 76-yo member of the Supreme Court who just returned to work today after surgery to remove a tumor on her pancreas. That woman is busy every minute of the day! Plus she travels and teaches. Me, I'm reading confessions by Claire Bloom and fantasizing sleeping with Richard Burton.

Here's a nice story. Scott came over around 9 last nite. I was sitting on the living room couch eating my vanilla pudding. He usually is so tired he goes straight downstairs to bed but he sat across from me on the opposite couch. He looked so adorable in his shorts and Hush Puppy slippers.

I'm eating the last of the Dr Oetker's pudding, I said. I'm not gonna buy it again.

That right, he said. It's too sweet.

Yeah, plus it's lumpy, I said.

I never minded lumps, he said. I love Cream of Wheat with lumps in it.

Really!

Yes, that's b/c I love to chew. You know that. I love chewing meat and hoagies. And you hate chewing.

Right, I said. I never advanced beyond baby food.

He will be very happy I'm making salmon tonite. It melts in your mouth, no chewing necessary.

Oh, one more quick story. My psychiatrist friend Pam always says, If she doesn't call me, she'd never hear from me. So yesterday I called her cell phone.

She works at Norristown State Hospital with really sick individuals. A reporter should go undercover and live on her unit and see how these people behave with one another. Anyway, she answers her phone with a whisper: I can't talk now.

Oh, okay, I say, I'll talk to you later. Love you!