I haven’t been eating. Honest. There are quite a few hours of the day when I’m hungry. So why, when I got on the scale this morning, have I put on one pound? Why? Things were supposed to be going in the opposite direction. They aren’t. And I have this goal: to fit into my suit before we hit the road at the end of August. The road leads to the Queen Mary, where there is a dress code involving suits. Actually, that code involves dark suits, as a minimum, several nights. Tuxedos being on prominent display.

And to digress, why does anyone put up with this suit business? Well, I do. Hard to say why. It’s a tradition. It gets everyone talking, maybe even thinking, on for want of better words, what might be called a “higher level.” No, once I’ve got myself dressed and into the ship’s dining room, seated at a table with 10 times more plates and cutlery than we ever use at home…well, I don’t know. Everything intensifies. I’ve had good conversations on such evenings. We even met a couple who later came to our wedding.

But I am far afield. I need to return to earth in the form of getting into my suit. I mean, I do like to eat. And I married a spectacular cook, which is a major occupational hazard, let us say. Still I thought I had things under control. Although certain things are not under control, like being a partial quadriplegic, lacking muscle mass, and increasing immobility. None of this adds up to easy weight loss, at least for me.

In any case, on this particular morning, having absorbed the bad bodily news, damned if I wasn’t off in search of neighborhood adventure. Which involves, you guessed it, food. So I began rolling down the hill, the great hill of life, otherwise known as the lower slopes of Twin Peaks. I did some shopping at Canyon Market. But frankly I was still reeling from the weight news. Downright addled, I was, trying to absorb my dietary failure along with various messages from my wife and from Susan, a friend arriving today from Los Angeles.

After Canyon, having managed to cover all the shopping requests, I hurtle off to Cup, there to have a moment of convivial introversion with the proximate company of Sam, his wife, plus a few others from the neighborhood. But damned if the place isn’t closed. I don’t even bother to read the sign. I can see that the sidewalk tables aren’t. So, I reverse course, heading back toward the tiny center of Glen Park, reviewing my options, which are precious few.

What do I need? I need someone to feed me. I need someone to feed me something good. I need to be out of the house, out of my office and away from the computer screen. And what are the options?

Well, Glen Park Café is out. Why? Because I went in there yesterday at about 1:15 PM, well after the American lunch hour, and damned if the place wasn’t full of people. What’s wrong with people? Well nothing in particular, if the door is open and San Francisco’s bay breeze is wafting through the place, COVID-19 being what it is. However. The breeze was so horrifically cold (remember, this is summer in California), and so strong, that the door was shut. Nothing but people talking and spreading virus. I ate there anyway. We will see what happens.

In any case, I’m not going back to that place. And a couple of weeks ago damned if I didn’t have a really good bagel with turkey and Gruyere, not to mention tomatoes and onions, at the little Canyon Market coffee stand. It’s a very urban experience, our neighborhood market. Everything miniaturized and crammed into an impossibly small space. And strangely complete. An in-house bakery. A delicatessen with excellent charcuterie. Not to mention all sorts of take away dishes for the neighborhood’s many hungry, working professionals. Of which I am not one. Still, Jane and I have been known to dodge cooking by the purchase of Canyon’s butternut squash lasagna.

So there I am outside Canyon, sitting at a steel table in a tiny outdoor dining space which includes a book swap shelf, three recycle bins. And now me. The bagel is, as predicted, excellent. Just what I needed. One of those everything bagels with everything you always wanted by way of seeds. Sourdough, made by a local company. Excellent turkey. Hard to beat Gruyere. I am finding it very hard to stay at this table. The arctic wind whipping around the neighborhood has really gathered force. I can’t stand being here. Buses are rolling by, whooshing and braking. Cars. And of course people, including a gaggle of kids apparently belonging to one family, the mother shopping inside, everyone speaking Spanish of a sort I can’t recognize. Not Mexican.

The overload, the weather, everything makes me to want to get this done as soon as possible. Which I do. Downing the bagel sandwich. Inhaling my macchiato. Then I head up the hill. Tense, somehow. Maybe this will help me lose weight.