There is a God.

While living in the Bay Area, I had certain staples in my diet that I could not live without. Pho, Starbucks, eggrolls, burritos, and anything from Trader Joes. (This of course does not include the self made goodness of cutlets and sauce.)

I tried to emotionally prepare myself for the transition to NY, predicting that my body would rebel and my soul would be a little less bright. And I was right to do so. The food in my neighborhood is Brazilian and southern. The nearest Vietnamese place is in Flushings, Manhattan, or New Jersey. And the Mexican food place around the corner is pathetic.

So I resigned myself to these hard truths and assumed that Trader Joes was not a possibility, until this morning. When I went online. And right there at the Trader Joes website it said there was one, in Scarsdale. Thirteen miles from my house.

So I did better than run, I drove to my little oasis. And right when I walked in and saw the staff in their Hawaiian print shirts I knew-I was home. I rampaged the aisles to get my plastic boxed fruit, nuts, way too much dried fruit, and orange chicken. (If you have never had the orange chicken from TJ's, it is in the freezer aisle. It is the most ah-mazing thing ever. Go now.)

Of course I was upset to see they did not sell Dixie Peach Juice out here but I made up or it by buying lots of pasta, ricotta, and calamari rings.

I have enough food for weeks now and I feel like I can eat again. Because after shopping for years and TJs, going into a regular market seems blasphemous and I start to get wary of anything that is not organic and start staging grand wars in my head where my healthy cells are being battled by evil fruit and vegetables and chicken or beef that is not actually chicken or beef but really some strange version of chicken or beef that has larger parts but no eyes or beaks or feet. And I see the chemically enhances super non-food winning and my healthy cells dying a slow death and perishing quietly in the night with a soft little cry of "whhhhhyyyyy?"

So yes, I was traumatized by Professor Green's lit class freshman year of college. Never again will I look at GMOs and think, "So what?"

But Trader Joes. Fuck yes.

You really don't know what you got till it's gone, so if you live in Cali, go out now and buy yourself some dark chocolate truffles and $4 flowers from your local TJs. Because life is too short.