Sunday, July 4. Quietude. My One Meal A Year At McDonald's. On this Fourth of July, with everybody except me in Washington, D.C., the house was very quiet, the stillness interrupted only by the summer thunderstorms. I didn't even turn on the music in my office. Just sat there shoveling at the pile. I'm nervous about all the work. I popped a beta blocker, then employed a gambit that serves me well whenever I get overwhelmed. I just make a list of everything I need to do. Doing that removes all fear of the unknown--because then it is known. And it feels good to check one thing after another off the list. It would require more left-brain dominance for me to do this all the time. I have no doubt that it would take a toll on creativity. But once in awhile, it's an enormous help.
A lot of items were scratched off by mid-afternoon. I went out to indulge my long-standing Fourth of July custom of having a cheeseburger at McDonald's. The cheeseburger is the most American of dishes, and certainly McD's version is its most famous. This practice started in 1982 or thereabouts. I had nothing much to do that day, and was between girlfriends. I headed out on a solo drive through the Mississippi countryside. Mississippi is one of the few states that has a lot of country roads that aren't marked with either numbers or names, and they sometimes lead to interesting out-of-the-way places. Not always; they have a chance of dead-ending. But even that is kind of fun. Or was, in those days. My first stop after crossing the lake was the McDonald's on Claiborne Hill in Covington.
Nowadays those very arches are the closest ones to where I live. And there I was again.
Last year, I broke with tradition and had the fast-food giant's new Angus burger, its attempt to move upscale. It was terrible. This year, I went back to basics: a double cheeseburger (a good choice, because they must make it to order), fries, iced tea, an apple pie. I think I'd rather go hungry than eat this hamburger again. It has no flavor at all, save for pickle and mustard. The cheese is bad even by the standards of American cheese. Spongy bun. . . aw, you know how it is. Nothing new learned here. Fortunately, it will be at least a year before my next stop in a McDonald's. God bless America.
