“Why food?” I recognized the voice immediately. I turned around, and there he sat, in full chef regalia, on my love seat. Although I had not seen Hookie for quite some time, I was not particularly surprised that he was there. I have known him practically all my life; he was my imaginary friend when I was three years old. Eventually he disappeared for a long time, but for the past several years he has occasionally shown up wearing a costume apropos to whatever subject he felt like discussing at the moment. Obviously, this time it was food. “Hookie,” I said. “What about food?” “Why is it that whenever we meet with other people, we have to have food? On a date, attending a movie, playing cards, whenever we get together with someone else, we have to have food? Why can’t we just sit and talk, or walk in the park together, or take a long drive in the country? Even when we meet someone to discuss a business deal, we prefer to do it over lunch.” The only thing I could think of to say...
My alarm clock goes off every morning at eight, except for the few times when I have a breakfast date. Usually I wake up about an hour before that, or at least I partly wake up. It is important that I remain in a “not quite awake but not quite asleep” state, because I consider that time as the germination period for whatever seeds happen to have blown into my head.