D and I went to Fuji with Amanda and Adam last night. I heart asparagus rolls. Oh, and carrot rolls. Oooohhh and TAMAGO!!! *drool*. So begins my food obsession. I’m rolling through them with more speed and intensity these days. Two years of non-pulp OJ and cream cheese bagels when I was in high school - one year of dry toast and spaghetti sauce - lots and lots of pickles - I’ve had this fixation on one particular meal for most of my life. My mother first noticed the pattern when I moved back with her and my family in Alabama. I think I demanded cereal. In the eighties (God, I’m getting old), somewhere around third grade, I fell in love with this fruity, nutty, too-healthy, full o’ bits of happiness and oats cereal. I think they sold 8 varieties - some with cranberries, some with banana chips, one with no fruit but lots of little balls of brown-sugar oat bits — and I wanted them all. I lined them up in the cabinet next to the stove, where I could sit on the floor and arrange them and rearrange, either alphabetically or by color (of course, each flavor had it’s own predominate color on the box, but they all shared the name and the same font style), for hours. I never finished all of those boxes, and I remember my mother being quite angry. She kept saying something like “you will starve to death because you are not eating anything else until you finish those cereals.” Obviously, I didn’t starve to death, instead, I fixated on this soup she made, and quietly threw the boxes away.

I need to do something while I eat. When I was young, my sister and brother and I read the cereal boxes, or what ever else we could while we ate. When one finished reading, we passed the box to the next person. Sometimes, I snatched before they finished reading. I read fast and they were too slow. So, snatch!! (insert cartoon sound here) I continue to read while doing other things. I am a big proponent of bathroom reading. I also like to read while listening to music, or when I am supposed to be working on my homework. Now, when I eat, I watch TV. I get it in where I can.

My stomach hurts.

Amanda made me realize that we only have a month left at Rollins. Holy shit.