Shopping For One

I've just come back from a trip to the supermarket. The larder is bare, D is away, and I can indulge myself. Here's what I got: 10 for $5 cups of yogurt. Eight varieties of frozen diet dinners. Apples, Orville Redenwhoozie Popcorn, a Cantaloupe Melon (as opposed to a Cantaloupe What???), toilet paper, and an InStyle AtHome magazine. The last two items belong quite properly in the bathroom.

This is how I eat when I'm on my own. Quick and dirty, as it were. Without any thought at all. For much of my life, eating bored me. Food was fuel. I was pleased if it tasted good, but generally, I resented the time it took to eat. I had much better things to do. I can't remember what, but I can remember thinking so.

Then, sigh! as happens so often, life intrudes and food became--well let's just say we have had a rather too close relationship at times. There was the period when I couldn't go to sleep without a glass of milk and five Hershey kisses. I broke myself of that, but then when my mother died, I took to toasting marshmallows over the gas burners. My own little campfire in the privacy of my own little kitchen.

Life is--can I say 'extruding'?--these days. I'm not sure what I mean by that but I like the symmetry of the verbs. Whatever. At least for these days, I'm eating quick and dirty again. Yogurt, Lean Cuisine...and, yes, I admit it, Hersey's chocolate in bed at night. With milk. So sue me.