{"id":597,"date":"2026-03-03T22:02:01","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T22:02:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/?p=597"},"modified":"2026-03-14T15:59:31","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T15:59:31","slug":"string-theory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/?p=597","title":{"rendered":"String Theory"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Last week, I pushed the crotchety
side-eye-wheeled shopping cart 
down the too-narrow 
slightly claustrophobic Dairy aisle
at my local grocer\u2019s.
I dodged crouching employees
stocking yoghurts and enormous
vertical stacks of sour cream
veering into my path 
like calcium-enriched icebergs.
Meanwhile, my kid, unfazed 
by the chaos that laid before us
had said \u201cMom! I need string cheese!\u201d 
She grabbed the jumbo-sized bag
stretching at the seams with what
looked like 48 units of cheese
\u2014 enough to feed two squealing
classrooms of first graders.
\u201cUm.\" I begin.
\"Are you really sure you want this?
You will really want to eat them all?
You\u2019ve complained in the past
about cheese making your stomach
feel 'sick and blah.'\"
\"And I bought you 18 
mozzarella ball packets 
just over two weeks ago
and you didn\u2019t eat a single serving
\u2014 not one! Before they expired.\u201d 
She remained undeterred
if anything her combative 
energies had been activated:
\u201cNO MOM!
I LOVE CHEESE STICKS! 
I will OBVIOUSLY EAT THEM ALL.\u201d
So cut to this morning
as I search for my ten a.m. snack
and see 47 sticks left to go
and she'd eaten that one on the
car ride home from the store.
String theory: 
you never have enough
but always far too many
burdensome batons
of deeply desired yet
duplicitously detested cheese.
Now I'm off to ask generative AI 
if I can use my thirty-two pounds 
of cast-off cheese sticks 
like Halloumi; fry those sad dry logs
in a pan of olive oil, then 
drizzle with honey and herbs
And what to pair with this dish?
Perhaps a glass of wine
\u2014 and delicious silence. 

<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cString theory,\u201d a rant about the inherent fickleness of children, written March 3, poem 062 in a series of 365 poems written by Diana Ludwick in 2026. Photo, \u201cUnwanted Cheese,\u201d by Diana Ludwick (c) 2026. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":601,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,200,2,5],"tags":[245,247,9,40,244,10,243,246],"class_list":["post-597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2026-poetry-challenge","category-humor","category-poems","category-rants","tag-dairy","tag-groan-inducing-moments","tag-humor","tag-kids","tag-mother-daughter-dynamics-2","tag-parenting","tag-rants","tag-shopping"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=597"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":712,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597\/revisions\/712"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}