Zen Garden

When I was a teenager, my friend Angela Dawn drove the Chicken Express delivery van through town, a large rubber chicken attached to the top. She drove about eighty miles per hour through our small town, and in a short time, everyone knew to move the hell away when the rubber chicken took to the streets. No one had to wait for their tenders, oh no! The irony was that Angela Dawn had a mild eating disorder, one that she honed daily with each piece of additional information we got in our health class about anorexia and bulimia. The warnings became her Bible, and I doubt one tender ever got past her mouth. At Jack in the Box, she'd take the greasiest fries in the container and dab off the grease, allowing herself two or three at a sittng. Try as I might, I couldn't care that much about what I put in my mouth. (As Hank would say, self-service humor, make up your own joke.)

The years weren't kind to my friend -- from the small town gossip and direct accounts, I know her marriage was abusive, her weight always an issue. An exquisitely beautiful girl who had the natural genetic make-up (thin build, huge breasts, long waist) that plastic surgery can never quite replicate, I never understood the downward spiral. But perhaps things are better now -- I like to think of her as she was a child in the trailerpark where we played croquet in her lot, right across from the Vietnam vet who had raked his lot to resemble a Zen Garden. And driving into the night, chicken on the top of the van, like an ambulance siren, warning of what I could have no idea.

Michelle's Spell of the Day
"Sure the world breeds monsters, but kindness grows just as wild..."
— Mary Karr

Cocktail Hour
Does anyone else enjoy the This Is Why You're Fat website as much as I do? A lot of the food looks disturbing, but then again . . twinkies cut like sushi topped with gummy worms looks pretty good!

Benedictions and Maledictions
Happy Monday!