"So what went right with you today?" - I am forbidden to talk about it, but I think I can get away with 'so far, so good'.

I didn't get a donut :(

... but TPS, you have a Twinkie!

I can't eat The Twinkie!

Hot dog, teeps.

Have you ever tried cuddling a donut?

I took a dozen Krispy Kremes (assorted ones) into the office yesterday, but was really good and didn't have one. I adore KKs, particularly the chocolate bavarian with the custard filling.

Amazingly, despite the huge amount of food I ate in the States, I gained only 2lbs over two weeks. I'd have thought the butterscotch pancakes I had at the IHOP would have added at least 5lbs by themselves. I did walk a lot though (in NYC at any rate. During the two days in Ohio, I was rarely out of a car, nobody walks anywhere in Ohio.)

Have you ever tried cuddling a donut?

Have you ever tried cuddling a Twinkie? I'd fear for my life. My limbs at least.

I've never had Krispy Kreme because I refuse to wait in line to purchase them from the store in Shinjuku.

I can get an ok donut from Mister Donuts without waiting.

Yeah, Ohio and NYC are about as far apart on the driving/walking spectrum as can be. (Though I've heard Dallas/Fort Worth doesn't see much walking either.) Even after having reached a time in my life where I had to pay attention to what I eat, living in New York was pretty much a free pass to gorge, because I usually clocked at least five miles on foot every day.

SpiffyRob: my favorite Chicago-Texas dichotomy story goes a little like this

I was in Dallas for a wedding, in late May. I had attended college in Texas with the groom, but I had moved away. The bride was from the Dallas area.

I flew in from Chicago, got into my rental car, drove to my hotel in downtown Dallas (not far from the Sixth Floor Museum), parked, checked in around 5:00 on a Friday night, found I needed some toiletries. Went to the desk and asked where the nearest drug store was. Clerk pulls out a map and I say, "no, no. Isn't there one on the corner I can walk to?" Clerk looks puzzled and mentions that everything but the bars close at 5:00. Okay, no problem. I got upstairs, change for the rehearsal dinner. Come back to the desk for directions to the restaurant. The clerk calls to have my car brought up and pulls out the map. Spends about five minutes, giving me complicated driving directions.

I interrupt her. "Wait!" I say, pointing at the map. "It's just through this courtyard and at the corner?" She looks at me blankly. "A 3-4 block walk?" She looks to her fellow clerk for help. "I go out the door, turn right, cross this courtyard, turn left, and it's at the end of the block?" Her fellow clerk drawls at me "But you don't want to walk." Sure I do, I say. Don't have them bring my car around. Thanks. The give little shakes of their heads and then help the next person standing there.

I go back to my room, cause if I leave now, I'll be about 20 minutes early to the party. When I do get to the party, absolutely everyone I was introduced to, said "Oh! You're the one who walked here from the hotel."

Then we have those who insist on cruising a parking lot until a space closer to the doors opens. Conversely, I park in the first reasonable spot I find and just walk. I'm disabled and I know I walk more each day than most able people.

However, Boston may convince me to finally get a disabled tag.

Wait wait wait, no walking in Dallas is a social construction, not a physical one? Or somewhere in between? I was always under the impression that everything was miles and miles apart. I suppose the pervasive heat could also be a factor, though.

Yes, it's the heat. Those four blocks look easy until you hoof it across city traffic in 102 degrees in the blazing afternoon sun in fancy clothes. There's nothing like arriving for an afternoon wedding beet red and with your makeup melting. I've heard.

When I lived in Vegas, my solution to the heat was to sleep from noon til 8.

In my experience, it's both physical and social, Spiffy. The heat is awful, and a lot of the neighborhoods have no sidewalks, and shopping is concentrated away from where the living is, but it's also social. But in Austin, and in San Antonio, where I also lived for a time, people will walk to and from the ice cream store or the bar.

Larry McMurtry gives a really great riff on how it marks you as super-eccentric in Texas to choose to walk in Dwayne's Depressed, part of the Last Picture Show, Texasville story.