Except I was reading something. I was in the middle of Marco Pierre White's memoir Devil in the Kitchen. Obviously it didn't make much of an impact on me.

I find I often have problems with memoirs. The main reason is that there is usually a great reason for writing a work about the person. The problem is that the writing and editing can fail to live up to the material. And then the book, in turn, fails to live.

Marco Pierre White is a superfamous, influential British chef and one of, if not the, originator of that bad boy chef persona in and out of the kitchen. Without him, there'd be no Gordon Ramsay, no Hell's Kitchen, no publicity for cooking mavericks. The book takes you through his lonely youth and passion-fueled career and various business and personal relationships. Though there are interesting insights into working in the restaurant business littered throughout and you get the sense that White is struggling through some tough personal memories, it all seems to fall kind of flat and generic -- the very opposite of his culinary creations and his own singular character. There's little of the personal analysis or shared introspection that Anthony Bourdain brings to the table (but perhaps his writing skills are better than his cookery?) in his food-world books.

In the photos that are included in the middle, MPW looks much happier, smiling, fishing and with his wife and kids. At least he seems much more content and at peace with himself.

Whatever, I know I'm not making much sense. But what I really want to know, is what is the rectangular block accompanying the burger and the salad in the lead photo in the article??? Is this rectangular block tasty??? Now THAT's a story.

I'm all for the health of kids. But I think I do miss the all-out gluttony of Cookie Monster. Well, I guess he still has monster-like eating habits, even for the fruit. And that is what is endearing.

My favorite monsters on Sesame Street were Oscar the Grouch and Cookie Monster. Telling eh?

Everything is better with muppets! For a second, I was scared that Feist would foist her loopy counting from the original song: 1-2-3-4-5-6-9-10. But that would've been silly. I learned how to count up to 10 in Spanish from Sesame Street. And that's the random personal factoid of today.

And then my favorite: "Further fueling the huge general demand is Chant's use in the smash-hit computer game Halo - this is chant for a new computer-gaming generation."

CHANT FOR A NEW COMPUTER-GAMING GENERATION!!! I can't think of anything more amazing. That utterance will surely grab that segment of consumers!!

Ugh. I am sucking at life. Because my attention is being caught by a hundred shiny things. Or my attention span is composed of a hundred shiny things. Twinkle twinkle. Any focus contained within me refracting (diffracting?) into a lot of little parts. Or maybe just mush. I'm either a bunch of sand or a pile of mashed potatoes. I vote to be mashed potatoes. With lots of butter. There, I feel better about myself.

I think this is because I am in between stages or chapters or whatever. That part can suck. Like what is ever between chapters, except maybe a page that says "Part II" or sometimes it's a nice picture, but usually it's nothing and dependent on the nice transition or narrative skill of the writer. MY LIFE HAS NO NARRATIVE SKILL.

This bridge hasn't really happened since that stage between high school and college. Here I am in what I've been doing and there, over yonder, is that future plan that will come to pass. Provided I am not run over by a bus. And then these past four years have been just floating around somewhere. But now the water is draining out and I feel like a pile of mashed potatoes.

When I know where I'm living, I'll feel like I've got butter, at least. And even garlic. If I had more money, I'd even be truffle oiled. But alas.

Uh. Yay metaphors.

Sometimes there are pieces that are like styrofoam that get into print for reasons that elude me. So many things irked me about this NYT Lives column -- a first person essay about an American living in Seoul. Perhaps his intention was to provide a lens, himself, through which we could understand something larger, something sharper, something clearer. But all Narcissus does is hold a mirror up to himself and admire it.

He's all: I am a foreigner in Seoul but that's okay because I feel like I belong! Because even though I do not speak the language, I can tell you the names of dishes and what they mean! I will even go so far as to use both the Korean and English term for dumpling, because either I or my editors forgot to include italics or parentheses. If it works for Little Caesars, it works for mandu dumplings! Seoul is, like, from the future! And the women here are, like, 75% plastic! And did I mention my students bow to me? Because I am the teacher, the Ivy-League Manliest American Writer and Gourmand. Dumpling dumpling! Bow to me, because my Korean girlfriend says I eat Korean food better than Korean men do. Bow to me because I have a Korean girlfriend! Bow to me, because I am so capable of understanding that Korean men think that I am stealing one of "their own" and I can use quote marks to indicate particular awareness of cultural sensitivity. Bow to me, because I am big enough to admit that I, too, have had to adjust to this Matrixy-Plasticky-Spicy world - I mean, what a surprise. Bow, kowtow to me because I take up the spotlight, I run the show.

*Grumble.*

p.s. I don't even know where to START with this vile vapidness.

*Despair, blurgh*

She has a very pretty, clear voice and the stuff I've heard off the full-length seem to escape the few complaints I had about the EP. Here's my favorite song off the EP which appears again on the album -- Dream.

There's a supermarket in my town that is totally lame and should have given way to another REALLY NECESSARY bank branch or drug store. It's the store where one grabs one or two things because it's on the way. A recent trip there included a five minute search for avocados. When we found them, we realized, Oh, it's because they look like shriveled green walnuts. GROSS. Were they fossilized? Tiny New York bodegas are stocked better, luxuriously even, in comparison.

This particular supermarket, like many others, has a wall of yogurt. Next to the six brands of shredded cheese. MM! Mexican cheese! This particular wall of yogurt seems to offer that proud American freedom of choice. The challenge?? Finding full-fat yogurt. Not one. A WALL-FUL OF SUBSTITUTE FOR HUMAN EXPERIENCE!