No Fortune

I'm sitting at home sharing vegetarian Chinese takeout with my girlfriend. I've got some buckwheat noodles in spicy peanut sauce and veggie kung-pao. She's got some veggie chow fun. The food's good, but then we break open the fortune cookies. Hers says something about travelling for business and pleasure, which is amusing since we spent last night discussing travel plans. I open my cookie. No fortune.

I stare my empty cookie. She comes over and asks what my fortune is. "That's not a good sign," she says. Is it? Is this because I'm not watching the Super Bowl? I've become a conscientious objector in the wars of the gridiron. But I don't think that's it.

I prefer to regard my cookie as a koan. The future's unwritten. It's up to me to make my own fortune. Meaning is not something you look for but something you find. Or is it vice versa? Either way, I'll go finish my kung-pao now.