2002-05-04 6:57 p.m.

On my way to the North Bay today, I decided to stop at McDonald's for a soda and a healthy snack to keep my hunger at bay until I arrived at my ultimate destination, a cornucopia of gourmet vendors nestled away in a seldom�visited enclave. The food court of the Santa Rosa Mall.

My day began with my voice lesson, but the day did not really start until I walked out of the lesson. I stood for a moment and thought about where I should go today; which direction I should drive. North or south? Something kept saying south, but my tummy said something else. As I stepped out onto the busy San Francisco street, I had a tiny rumbling hunger deep inside, and in a quiet voice it whispered to me undiscernable words. And I understood in the same way one does not need subtitles to understand a movie in a foreign language; the same way one does not need to hear the words to know the couple in that Honda over there are arguing. Even the marrow in my bones knew the answer to that question my hunger posed; knew the question which my blossoming spring hunger preemptively answered.

The question, the answer, Panda Express. And my soul and all souls everywhere that ever were told me to head north, young man. Head north, young man, to the Santa Rosa Mall, where the food court stretched and melted to the strawberry horizon. Where the teenage girls wore tight, low jeans�with sparkles carefully forming the shapes of eye�catching arrows pointing to available orifices�and begged to have their innocent mouths smacked as if by hammers with all manners of dicks and pricks as they clutched their Body Shop tote bags and sipped venti decaf double�triple mocha fuckleberry freezes. Ok, ok, ok. Not really. The truth is that most of me thought I should go visit my friend Caroline to the south, but my stomach was clearly in charge of this journey, and I think it was jamming my radar.

So, back to McDonald's. I just wanted a small snack, something healthy, something that honored my hunger for Panda Express as well as my respect for holistic health. Three cookies, a baked peach pie, and a large Diet Coke, please.

I sat on the tailbed of the truck and ate my health food, watching the fatties drive through the drive�thru lane. One fatty, two fatty, three fatty, four. So many fatties! They looked like they were poured into their cars. It was no coincidence that each fatty's car had bucket front seats�the only sort of seat which accommodates their waterfall�like lard overflow.

In order to secretly photo the fatmobiles, I carefully hid my camera behind my large Diet soda, that way no fatties would spot it and try to eat it, or me.

I took some pictures of myself, and people half�stared at me shyly, wondering what I was doing, and why I was not unhealthily obese.

On a warm day, nothing hits the spot quite like phosphates, caramel coloring, and carcinogenic sweeteners, chilled to temperatures designed to help promote instant gastrointestinal freeze�burning. The weird thing is that I actually not only enjoy the taste of Diet Coke�and Diet Pepsi even moreso�but I actually prefer these diet colas to their regular sugar versions. Truth is stranger than fiction.

When I arrived in Bronwyn's home town of Sebastopol, she shattered my dreams when she insisted that we NOT eat at Panda Express. Was this some sort of sick, cruel joke? What had I done to deserve this? I tried so hard to convince her; to bend her to my will. But, she was too strong, she would not rescind. We ate burritos instead, and walked around in a graveyard near Bodega Bay.

Even though I enjoy old graveyards, I am definitely not gothic. I do not wear a cape or think I am stupid vampire and I do not play retarded�ville RPGs with names like, "Retard Vampyre Legacy" and "Dark Camel Raper Gathering" and "I am Fat and Wearing Black Velvet". I just happen to really like to see the local history of a region as presented in graveyard format.

Some super�elegant, high�class American thought it would be nice to augment each and every grave in this graveyard with cut�rate plastic flags. The only cool thing was that the flags were so sun�faded that they approached grayscale.

Bronwyn and I were baffled as to why there were all these jugs of clear liquid sitting in the foliage around some of the graves. This grave had the biggest supply of gallons jugs of all. Moonshine? GHB? Vodka? Evian?

While my time with my much�missed friend was excellent, a part of me (the stomach part, to be specific) was left still hungering for juicy nuggets of virgin, juicy, willing panda loins. When, oh, when will this hunger be satiated?


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