New Orleans—I woke up this morning with a hangover. No, dear reader, I haven’t returned to drinking. This hangover came from food—good food (no, GREAT FOOD!) but way too much of it. I know it’s almost as boring to hear about what someone ate as to hear dream recollections or anecdotes about who they’ve slept with, but please bear with me.

Yesterday, I ate a Creole shrimp omelet, biscuits and gravy and an order of “debris,” the shavings of a freshly-carved roast beef placed into gravy. The calorie count on this meal? Approximately 37,486. Two hours later, I had a roast beef po-boy with a side of fries. Calorie count? 12,349—the sandwich had lettuce, though, so it was healthy. Finally, for dinner I had a half-dozen raw oysters and a plate of fried oysters with fries—23,800, with a proviso that the raw ones came with lemon and horseradish, a fruit and a vegetable of sorts.

Given that, when in the Tiny White Box, I typically have oatmeal (300 calories) for breakfast, soup and crackers (350 calories) for lunch and frozen spinach with cheddar cheese (300 calories) for dinner, I ate as much yesterday as I typically do in three years. Even though I walked another 10 miles, that only burned off about 800 calories. To maintain my weight while eating like I did yesterday, I’ll need to walk from here to Patagonia and back—without stopping for snacks.

The food hangover does have certain similarities to my old friend, the alcohol morning-after. I was mad at myself for overindulging. My stomach was rumbling like Krakatoa. I wanted the hair of the dog to still my anxieties.

Yes, I gave in. Today I catch my flight back to New Hampshire and sensible eating, but I set my alarm so I could walk to a neighborhood greasy spoon and had biscuits and gravy, home fries and a Greek omelet—monkey-fist sized pieces of feta cheese and thick strips of gyro.

“My name is Keith, and I’m a glutton.”

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I don’t actually have a written list of my favorite cities, or at least didn’t until now.  While I love London, Berlin, Seattle and San Diego, the three cities I love the most are Boston, New Orleans and San Francisco.

Although it pains me greatly to say so, Boston is number three on the list. With its often-crummy weather, its segregation and racism, and its terrible, terrible accent (the only worst accent in the world is used by non-Boston Massachusetts residents), Boston just has too many negatives to overcome. It may have been the glorious metro of my childhood, but it won’t be of my dotage.

Tied for number one are San Francisco and New Orleans. I have a plane to catch, and want to post this before I get sucked out a window, so let me just put out a call to San Franciscans to pay for a trip to your fair city soon. After all, that’s the only way I can decide.