a brightness today, shopping is rewarding

I did not have an appetite this week. I ate more out of habit, and desire to taste things. I did not have any fatigue or irritability that I usually have when I don't eat. I assume that my body simply has all the nutrients it needs right now. I went to the farmers market this morning without eating breakfast and bought a bag of green tomatoes, some long beans, some smokled salmon, a bag of heirloom tomatoes to stuff with lentils, and a frozen rabbit. Sahagún reopened this week and I had some of my favorite hot chocolate and assorted chocolates after going a month without them. Elizabeth made some new fake lava nougats out of the perfumy tasting arriba chocolate that I LOVE. I am so happy the store is open again. Leaving the shop with a bag full of chocolates to give to friends for their birthdays, I felt the intense chocolate euphoria that makes me feel better than any drug I can think of. I like to shop when filled with choclate fumes. The danger of chocolate fueled shopping is that everything seems like the best thing ever to buy right at that moment. I began my chocolate fueled shopping spree by going to the liquor store to buy some Glayva.
When I went to check out I realized that I had cradled in my arms, nearly a hundred dollars worth of alcohol. I put some back.
I danced my way down the street to Kiehls and replenished my supply of cucumber soap and collected a sack of various samples. I felt so good from the chocolate, so light, so animated. Like- lead, or less dramatic wooden weights dropped away to leave me feeling very free. I hopped around other pedestrians as if I were invisible, as if they were merely boundaries that I could not touch. They would buzz. I went to St. Honore and ate one of their delicious Croissants and drank several glasses of water while reading Color Insulting to Nature. Buying all these things in NW portland, around people I do not relate to, made me consider my identity momentarily. I used to talk so much trash about west side Portland. I like all the same things these people with lots of money have. But I do not share their attitudes about life, I know this somehow. By hearing them talk? Regardless, the chocolate brightened my body. Made me insanely happy.
Tonight I drank countless teapots of oolong tea prepared in the Gong Fu style. Steam rose and opened the pores in my face. The smell of the first brewing entered my skin. I drank and drank, it tasted so good. I looked up from reading into a mirror in my room and was startled by how bright white my eyes had become since I had started drinking tea that evening. They are rarely so startlingly bright.