It's a cold morning in America.

November 1—it's a cold morning for most of us.

And downright frosty for others.

It's a day of transition, a day burdened by the half-filled waterbed mattress of reality which some are compelled to bend over and hoist.

For a man named Herman Cain, an ill-advised, new campaign slogan has latched onto his Cinderella run at the Presidency: "It's November first...and the bubble has burst."

Following a Rocky-esque surge in the Republican polls, nutty America's love affair with the former Gandhi of Grease is regrettably waning. Allegations have surfaced that during the 1990s, Citizen Cain employed the old "9-9-9 technique" in attempt to seduce two employees while serving as president of the National Restaurant Association.

Apparently, he suggested that they meet on the ninth of every month at nine o'clock...and it would only take nine minutes.

They each responded that he should stuff his calzone and promptly reported his behavior to the association, subsequently reaching and undisclosed settlement.

When recently pressed on these allegations, Cain provided nothing but denials and non-answers. Each refusal to come clean has driven another nail into his pine pizza box, and Herman now appears to be foundering in the same rough political seas of which his rivals have long ago grown accustomed.

Another embattled icon arises this November morn, resolute to rub some dirt on her wounds and yank herself up by her nine-hundred and seventy dollar Prada stretch leather tall bootstraps.

Kim Kardashian awakens today to face life in the six foot, nine inch vacuum of her departed soul mate. Undoubtedly, she has by now exhausted every arrow in her shivering quiver to save a doomed love, lying panting in a pool of mascara after a seventy-two day ordeal. All that remains is a charred Tiffany box of a passion which burned white-hot like a...really hot sparkler, or something.

My thoughts extend to each of them; I know they're hurting.

As for the rest of us, we've been dealt a perennial challenge on this day. The two-month holiday season has officially commenced, and it kicks off with a massive supply of leftover Halloween candy, both at home and brought to the workplace. While the cache will rapidly ebb, we—okay, I—must summon the discipline to avoid grabbing, unwrapping and consuming everything in my path.

I cannot repeat last November's defining incident. I absentmindedly scooped up a Kit Kat on the way to the men's room and came to my senses too late: I was simultaneously chewing, swallowing and urinating.

Rock bottom.

With Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's looming ahead like a smoked gouda storm cloud, I am resolved to acknowledge everything that enters my pie hole; I don't care if it's a Dixie Cup of water. If I decide to slather half a cheese log on one Chicken in a Biskit, so be it, but I'm going to cognizantly process the entire sodium- and fat-laden event.

A famous Zen tenet is "when you are eating, you are eating."

Let's eat, then.