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I probably shouldn’t have dragged them all that way.
If I had a conscience, I’d feel guilty, but I got rid of mine sometime around the 10th grade, when I let a boy touch my boobs for the first time.
Thank goodness for that. The conscience-ridding, I mean. The boob-touching was less to rave about (teenage boys lack the tenderness that mammaries require).
Sometimes eating at chain restaurant won't leave you feeling dirty and sad inside. Really.
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In high school, I ate fast food nearly every day.
While my colon now involuntarily spasms at the thought, I lunched at Burger King on Mondays through Fridays for the better part of my junior and senior years. And yet, miraculously, I was far thinner than I am now. It was clearly a superpower of youth, one that I am unable to explain. In the words of Madonna, life is a mystery.
"You killed my father ... prepare to die."
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I was a vegetarian for 6 weeks when I was 19. It was a confusing, misguided time for me. I was dating a young man who didn’t eat meat, and, well … who hasn’t done something stupid for a boy? When he broke up with me, I treated myself to a dinner out: bacon-wrapped shrimp followed by a rack of baby-back ribs. I might have had a pork chop for dessert. I don’t really remember (it was, after all, ages ago).
The thing I realized as I nibbled on those ribs- or the thing I had started to realize at least (because I wouldn’t really get the message until I met Rand) is that you’ve got to be yourself, and you have to find someone who will love you for it. In my case, being myself involves eating meat. It’s not something that I hide from, it’s not something that I’m ashamed of.
It’s with a bit of guilt that I tell you about the Donut Whole in Wichita, Kansas. I just got back from Peru last night, and while I loved the trip, there were times when Rand and I both looked at each other and thanked the heavens that we were born with all the privileges and opportunity and excess that comes from living in America.
We live in a land where pork is put into desserts and cakes and doughnuts, and that is no small thing.
In Wichita, I had no less than three bacon-scented sweets: a bacon caramel chocolate (I deemed it mediocre), a cupcake sprinkled with bacon bits (not bad for breakfast), and a maple-bacon doughnut (YES). This last confection, by far the most superior of the three, was courtesy of the Donut Whole. A small, eclectic shop downtown, they specialize in cake donuts, of which I am a fan because IT MEANS YOU CAN EAT CAKE FOR BREAKFAST. If you are partial to yeast donuts, or a vegetarian, you may want to skip this post altogether. I’ll understand.
The shop itself is shrine to … I don’t know. Something. Really, you tell me:
Let's just go with "America."
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Rand once told me that people are happier when they’re given fewer choices. He’d read an article on it. Something about how we still like to have options, but when we’re faced with too many of them, we get overwhelmed. Our instinctual reaction is try to limit our options to only a few, and failing that, to curl into a ball and suck our thumb until someone makes a decision for us.
By the way, that latter technique? TOTALLY works.
He mentioned this phenomenon to me one afternoon while I was standing in the middle of an IKEA on the verge of one of my patented and adorable nervous breakdowns. If you are unfamiliar with the Swedish furniture mecca that is IKEA, let me tell you now: it could drive the most resolute soul into a mad rage, could reduce the happiest of mortals into sniveling mess. In 1998, Gandhi punched a dude who was trying to snag the last OMSORG shoe tree in stock. True story.
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I was so grateful I had brought a cardigan.
I chalk it up to my Auntie P. “Bring a cardigan,” she tells me, even if it is 85 degrees, and we are leaving the house for approximately 5 minutes, all of which will be spent in the sunshine. “Bring a cardigan,” she says, even if I am already wearing one. And if I refuse? She will carry an extra one for me. She is unstoppable in her quest to clothe the bare arms and shoulders of America. You’d think she had stock in … I don’t know, some company that exclusively makes cardigans (that’s a thing, right?)
The cardigan is, to my aunt, what the towel was to Ford Prefect in Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The ultimate travel accessory, it solves all problems, tackles all inconveniences, and somehow, according to her, “prevents you from catching a cold.” And when I left the house that morning, and stepped into the 90-degree Kansas heat, I was thankful that I had it with me.
Within 30 minutes, I had tugged it on. Was I chilly? Nope. I was in the midwest in the MIDDLE OF A HEAT WAVE. But I was more than moderately ashamed of my tank top and shorts. We had just walked through the door of Carriage Crossing – a Mennonite restaurant in Yoder, Kansas, a fifteen minute drive from my friends’ home in Wichita. My friend Christine had to work that day, and her son Jackson was at daycare, so it was just her husband, Jason, dressed in a polo shirt and shorts (he politely removed his hat as we walked indoors), and me. Dressed like a TROLLOP.
My family members do not always understand me. I feel like a foreign exchange student in their homes – I’m most definitely welcome, but damn it, I’m strange. My accent is funny. I don’t eat pasta daily. I don’t have several gallons of sauce sitting in my freezer, in the event that we might have unexpected company. I purchase pre-made gnocchi, and I don’t drink wine out of a box.
And most significantly, I like sweets. This is perhaps one of the biggest things that separates me from 80% of my blood relations. They are perfectly content to go days, if not weeks or lifetimes, without anything that even remotely resembles sugar. I’ll never forget the time my aunt once told me not to frost a cake that I had made.
“You know,” she said, gently, “because some people don’t like frosting.”
“Bwa-whaaaaa?” was all I was able to sputter out before promptly fainting. She might as well have asked me not to bake the cake, too, so ridiculous was her request. (When I came to, I frosted it anyway.)
