Here's what happened: I got up nice and early Saturday morning so I could go to the farmers market before I started working. It began innocently enough -- baby artichokes and heirloom greens, cheese to bring to Mojie's for dinner and samosas for the yachtsman. But I started to feel like there was something missing. Something I wanted but could not name. I wandered from stand to stand looking for it. I bought bok choy and carrots and new potatoes. I sampled spicy pretzels and basil hummus. And yet I was still full of want. I continued to wander, thinking that when I saw the thing I longed for I would know what it was.
But while contemplating a pint of sour cherries, I realized what I was missing was fruit. Not blueberries or raspberries or sour cherries. F*ck sour cherries. What I wanted was a peach. A juicy, sink-your-teeth-in, juice-dribbling-down-your-chin peach. I wanted to eat that peach, and then I wanted to eat another. I wanted to eat a peach every day for a month. I wanted to eat peaches until I was sick of peaches.
But there are no peaches in Vermont. There are berries and there are sour cherries. There are sad little plums. So I bought a chocolate frosted donut.
Which made me feel ill. And not just sick to my stomach or full. I was depressed. When I got home I tried to go into my office and work, but it was like there was a forcefield between me and that red pen. And there was also a Siren calling me to the couch. So at 10:00 on Saturday morning, I put on my Couch Jedi outfit, laid down on the couch, and proceeded to watch the last four episodes of Season 2 of Gossip Girl.
You may call it lazy procrastination; I call it a vision quest. There were low points where I questioned the meaning of life (for example the '80s flashback episode, which was so bad I had to fast forward through most of it). There were moments where I thought I could do anything -- wear headbands, live in New York, play basketball in a velour sweatsuit. But on a bathroom break during the season finale as I tripped over the yachtsman's winter boots, which were wrapped in a plastic garbage bag because they'd recently been sprayed with a fire extinguisher, I had a realization: I'd spent the first sunny day in weeks watching TV, and we were living in actual squalor. So I saw Blair and Chuck and Serena and Dan through their senior year, and then I cleaned the house.
I still want a peach.
