Eat, Pay, Lug

I WISH my life boiled down to more than this. I WISH I was able to say that after my dramatic Christmas Day brush with mortality, I leapt into the arms of a waiting lover, or headed to a soup kitchen and opened my wallet, or pledged the rest of my life to volunteer work with orphaned refugees.

Instead, here is how I spent Saturday afternoon, after my arduous journey to New York was finally complete:

I went to Macy's, and then I went to Katz's Deli on Houston Street. Jet lag be damned; I never felt more alive than when I scored great clearance bargains, and had that first orgiastic taste of pastrami. I didn't realize my Katz's obsession was so well documented until I got to the counter, where they offer free samples while carving your meaty masterpiece. The cute guy of indeterminate ethnic origin smiled and said he remembered me. That's when I realized that for good pastrami, I would track down Death himself and kick that sickle-bearing bastard's ass. I would snatch that Nigerian Knucklehead Terrorist by the neck and fuck him up TWO TIMES if he was blocking the clearance shoe aisle at Filene's, even if he was carrying a suitcase nuke.

The first bite of that velvety, juicy, flavorful pastrami erased all the stress and jet-lag. It elicited the obligatory moan of culinary ecstasy. It was better than a warm embrace from my dream lover, Idris. (Okay, that's a lie, but it was close.)

On the way home from Katz's in a cold rain, struggling with paper bags from Macy's that eventually fell apart, I realized the arc of my life is fairly straightforward. Barring great sex and a messianic mission, the true essence of my spiritual journey can be summarized in three words:

Eat, Pay, Lug. "Can a sister get a book contract?"