November Begins

I am tired and the supermarket is out of Nerds. They have every other kind of candy known to man, but zero Nerds. I’m going totally around the bend, and I blame Willy Wonka. I found myself in my car, upset, down, with the blues, hating the imaginary strangers in my head who bought the Nerds instead me. Hate is not too strong a word. No way they love Nerds like I do. There’s just no way. I am a serious stay up late at night, stay at home, stay down in a basement writer! Stay away from my Nerds. I need at least two boxes a day, man. I’m not joking.

I eat string cheese. Someone mentioned string cheese to me in a late night g-chat a few weeks ago. I believe it was a conversation about the wedding, and invitations, and reaching out to people who were out of arms reach. I commended my friend Schwartz and said, “You are a great and graceful communicator,” or something the like, and he replied, “I eat string cheese.” At the time, I didn’t take him seriously, but days later in the supermarket I bought some, and he was right. String cheese and rice cakes are what I eat when I’m not in a restaurant, when Diet Coke isn’t enough, when I don’t have any Nerds. I like pepper jack the best.

This week I am experimenting with lightly salted rice cakes. It seemed like something was missing.