Supermarket sweep

Twice last week I found myself walking into the supermarket when I didn't need to buy anything. I wasn't even hungry. I eventually realized, or remembered: I just like supermarkets. So I let myself weave the aisles and then walk out, without a token roll of paper towels bought or anything.

A friend told me that one of the things she was most excited about, when she went back to work from maternity leave, was Midtown. The anonymity and convenience of that stupid neighborhood, the Prets and Sweetgreens, the Duane Reades. Going into the drug store to buy whatever you need that you don't really need—the urban version of that very true meme around Target. I work from home in Brooklyn and the nearest chain drugstores are a mile from me in either direction, so all I have is the surprisingly large supermarket on my block. Well but also, when I was up at Columbia last week for some meetings, I stopped into Pret on my way home every day. I'm sorry, I love those boxed-up sandwiches. I love their cookies.

It's something about convenience, but also abundance, and money—the freedom to spend your money on convenient, abundant sandwiches (or, as I also do whenever I'm by campus, on pens). But I didn't really have the money, and I didn't have the time for the convenience, either. The sandwiches were eaten on the subway platform, the cookies were eaten on the train. Am I really wandering through the supermarket on my way home from wherever for a few minutes of aimless solace? (A month into post–parental leave life, and we've come to this already?)

[Here I cut a paragraph about that literally ended with me making a lasagna instead of cleaning the bathtub, because every cliche about motherhood is embarrassingly true. The lasagna was great, though—the kale pesto lasagna from Anna Hezel's new book, Lasagna.]

[Here I cut a paragraph about trying to work on my book. I have yet to see whether I'll be one of those writers for whom motherhood lights a fire under the ass, for whom the new identity of mother includes the ability to get a day's worth of writing in three hours... or if I'll slowly drown under to-do lists and the awareness of the unwashed tub. Let's not rush to judgement on that front.]

I have absolutely no idea how to end this!! Here's my latest romance column: All's Well That Ends Well. It's specifically about how all's not necessary well that ends well, that even with the requisite happy ending, a romance can be too dark or disturbing for the thing it's trying to do. I usually write these about books that I love, books that are worth talking about because they're exciting; this time, I wrote about a book that I did not enjoy reading—enjoyment being the main thing you look for in a romance—but that was worth grappling with, in terms of what it was trying to do and what romance, as a genre, does. (It's more than tell love stories.)

Take yourself food shopping, if you want to, and can. Whatever that means to you.