Onward spaghetti squash!

The Latin name for spaghetti squash is Cucurbita pepo. Which I interpret as koo-kurr-BEE-tah PEE-poh. I find them so pleasingly strange. Clearly part of the squash family in taste and shape, its insides appear run-of-the-mill. But they aren't. They are somehow literally and conceptually one of the most delightfully comforting eats around. Spaghetti. Freakin' spaghetti. Ok, let me emphasize. They are a squash, a vegetable, filled with spaghetti. Which is a pasta, people. A pasta. Crazy? Crazy.

The main reason why I am so excited about spaghetti squash right now is because I just grew one. Well, sorta. It has yet to reach its teenage years, or even its first day of kindergarten. But its infant leaves are big and turgid and lovely. Several weeks ago, Grassfed and I tilled and mulched and tilled and fertilized and tilled and furrowed. We pushed seed after seed into fresh soil, glancing at each other with clueless hope.

I recorded all of our planting in a journal. When I have no idea what I'm doing, it helps me to keep a log of all of my actions so I can then attempt to identify how I screwed up when things go horribly wrong. But thus far, things have not gone horribly wrong. Yes, the parsley and the carrots were slightly developmentally delayed, but they've caught up and poked their heads out. They almost seem to say 'Ok, ok, we're coming, dude. Take a Valium.' And yes, I have recorded the conversation that was had with them in the journal. They have my easygoing personality and Grassfed's strapping good looks.

So far, the coolest thing about having a vegetable garden is not the fact that we can consume the freshest produce around. It's putting your hands in the soil next to someone who has farming in their blood. You figure, Something has to grow. Didn't your father make a living from this? You must have learned something. It also helps that this person who is tamping down the rows next to me is tall and gives good bear hugs.

Real Housewife of El Cerrito

There are people in this world that are so good at doing laundry that it would make you want to cry. It’s so much more complicated than darks and lights. The mere idea of darks and lights only scratches the surface. I am not one of these people. I don’t hate on laundry, it just doesn’t make me happy. There are people in this world that live and die for glass without spots, flawlessly gleaming floors, the perfect room with the perfect placing of the perfect rug.

On some days, I find myself unrecognizable. I get up early and stay up late. This should provide me with so many hours to create so many things, about which I can feel so much pride, so much accomplishment, and so much satisfaction. But it doesn’t. It seems that all it provides me the time to do is put away dishes and refill a dishwasher, throw in a load of darks and then an hour later, throw in a load of whites, bake something for someone somewhere or for no one in particular. Sometimes I wash the kitchen table or rid the duvet cover of cat hair. Sometimes I try to take a nap and end up doing nothing instead. I ask myself why this is what I have come to do.

I think about all of the things I did to get here. That seemed like a job in itself. Cancelling things. Scheduling things. Meeting deadlines. Purchasing plane tickets. Having a yard sale. Putting the shit that didn’t sell at the yard sale out on the curb just to get rid of it. Making sure I have everyone’s address who I would like to see or talk to again throughout the course of my life. Getting rid of my car yet still finding a ride to all of the places that I need to drop something off or pick something up.

I’ve changed. I don’t know how to use my time anymore. I don’t know how to fill it up with things that make me feel good. I know how to go to the grocery store and pick up things on a list. I know how to go to the hardware store and pick up things on a list. I know how to follow a recipe. I know how to alienate myself. From whence did these skills come?

If you think about it ever so slightly, all we have in this world is time. It pains me to think so slightly. Mostly because it’s nearly embarrassing to think about all of the things I haven’t done.

I pulled weeds for three hours recently and that made me feel so great I wanted to run to the top of the hill and yell down to the rest of the bay area, “HELLOOOOOO! I GARDENED KINDA!”

I baked a cake for a friend’s birthday last weekend and fashioned a pastry bag out of a Ziploc with a hole in the corner to decorate it and, in a feeble place in my mind, it was so beautiful that I looked on Craig’s List to see if anyone was hiring bakers.

I like assignments. I like deadlines. I like a purpose larger than my home can hold. I never thought I would say or even think this but I like having a job. I’m aware of how ill-formed work culture is in this country but I think that there is a place out there where I can be happy working. Perhaps I only feel this way at the moment because I’m so bored that my work and myself are just begging to be judged by someone.

There’s some quote out there about how boredom is simply a result of not being smart enough to fill your time. That’s not exactly how it goes but it only takes me a moment to know that that’s not the reason why I’m writing this or even feeling this. Part of me is lost somewhere. Maybe I left it behind as I flew over a bunch of places like Cleveland to get here. I will never be sure. But I need to stop sitting. I need to at least lean on something or saunter somewhere. If I don’t, I could end up on the planet’s saddest, emptiest, but most intriguing corner: reality television.

Or worse yet, I'll start saying things like, "I can only be me. And only I can be me."

I made a friend! And then I yelled at her.

Sigh.

I get so angry. I try not to. I try to push it down. But every time I'm forcing down whatever wrath has been conjured, it fights me back. Knowing when to shut up is an art. Or maybe the real art comes when you figure out how to say what you say without making it about being angry.

So this friend of mine, who shall remain nameless obviously (I'm not in the gossip business. Yet.), found herself in a compromising position with a young man where she should have spoken up and didn't. Her reasoning?

Guilt.

I grew up your quintessential WASP. New England born. Mayflower roots. Never supposed to talk about money or bodily functions. Although I find guilt to be mostly a Catholic thing, the 'in' WASP thing to do is feel guilt when you think others might be disappointed or uncomfortable. The logic in this is archaic, yes. However, the practice runs so deep into the culture that I have yet to shake my twisted understanding of it. It makes people do crazy things.

And by crazy I mean old-fashioned.

It has forced women to apologize profusely when there is no need. To put someone else before you when they don't really deserve it. To worry more about what people expect of you than what you expect of others. Guilt has perpetuated unhealthy relationships, fights rooted in delusions instead of fact, standing up for others and not for oneself. It's not a good-lookin' force. The worst part of it is that people act in response to the threat of guilt and not to actual guilt itself. Meaning "I won't do this or say this because I don't want to end up feeling guilty at some point".

So I reacted in anger when my new friend expressed guilt over not pleasing someone (a man, to be specific). I don't feel guilty about getting angry. I feel bad for not communicating calmly and effectively. In addition, I think my new friend rocks and I'm disappointed that she would give up her own comfort for someone else. It's one thing to give and take in a relationship but it's another to be unaware of your limits or your limitations.

And on one last fire-feminist-raging note, haven't we done enough, suffered enough, and overcome enough to know that we don't have to live our lives pleasing men and not ourselves? Or better yet, find some sort of balance between pleasing and being pleased?

Let's show our new and improved biceps, shall we?

I didn't want to believe it, but it's true.

Before the feminist attacks begin, I just want to qualify by reinforcing that I can only speak for myself and from my own experience. And I have discovered that it is, in fact, true that I may sometimes, as accused, be irrational. Although I may not describe my own behavior as 'insane', I will admit that when faced with similar behavior from others, I have, at times, described them as 'insane'.

I may also be guilty of using lots of commas. Some might say 'too many'.

Yesterday I had to admit that I was in a bad mood. I couldn't escape it. I rode a train for five minutes. As the hills to the east passed by, I tried to rid myself of all annoyances, of all irritations, of all things that I attach myself to and can't let go of until I run it ten feet deep into the hard ground, jump up and down on top of it yelling obscenities, and finally stop, shake the dust from my feet, and leave in peace. All in my own time of course. It's a lot to try and accomplish in five minutes on a train. Especially when there's a dude sitting four feet from you talking to himself about falafel.

When I arrived at my destination and Grassfed picked me up, I was still irritated. The list of thorns is long and gets applied to everything. Here are some examples:

• I'm unemployed.
• I recently gained 15 pounds.
• None of my pants fit.
• My cat meows irrationally at night.
• I bowled really terribly last week.
• I've been late to things recently.
• There are ten unopened cans of Bud Light in my backyard.
  
• My leg itches.
• My garage was made into a beer pong room and never switched back into a regular garage.
  
• I have two cowlicks.
• I hate my coffee table.

These things are all related. These things are all reasons for other things not working and other things being annoying. Does this seem irrational to you? Insane, perhaps? Yeah. Yeah, I thought so. Feminists, put your signs down.

144. Digital.

I don't own a scale. It's not a protest or anything. I just never cared about numbers. After I realized I couldn't eat like a normal human, I had about fifty doctors' appointments, most of which involved the intro of "blood pressure-pulse-weigh-in." Weigh-in interested me the most because I hadn't been that thin since I was nineteen. The numbers wavered. 127. 131. 129. I hardly associated the numbers with myself. It may as well have been a receipt from the grocery store. Yogurt, $1.27, Salt shaker, $1.31, Chocolate bar, $1.29.

Last night at a birthday dinner for Grassfed's partner in crime, he suggested I use their scale. I thought hey, why not and hopped on without hesitation. The first number that arose. 146. That can't be right. Let's give this a second whirl. 144. Ok, then. Approximately 15 pounds, it is. I needed to remind myself that although that number was looking up at me without remorse from its digital perch far below, my ego was no match for the facts. The fact is that I'm 15 pounds heavier, I can eat what I want, when I want to, and my body is no longer yearning for nourishment.

With the risk of sounding self-righteous, I feel refreshed with my own outlook. This has never been the case, as I'm normally self-deprecating for effect. But I think about how many women I know that are constantly talking about dieting and love handles and calories and "being good" and drinking light beer instead and keeping clothes that don't fit in the hopes of one day slipping back into them. Slipping back into an old body. Instead I'm trolling the jeans rack at Macy's not knowing what size I am and grabbing three of everything without looking at the price tag. And then following up the shopping with a full rack of ribs and two pints of Newcastle.

It feels warm to not worry. To not worry about the size of my thighs, as long as my pants fit around them. To not worry about how much of something I'll be able to eat. To not worry that I will have to leave the table or leave the party or leave the bowling alley. To not worry about what I don't know about what's happening inside of me. To just KNOW. Knowledge isn't as much power as it is comfort.

Watch out. THIS is coming for you.

Brandy. Wears a braided chain made of finest silver from the North of Spain. A locket. That bears the name of the man that Brandy loves.

I'm an end table, with a lamp on it

Last night, as I desperately sought comfort in my bed, I rolled slightly toward Grassfed and said "I feel like a piece of furniture." It was true. There was an ache around the circumference of my abdomen and it was so distracting that I had convinced myself I was a useless ball of flesh and instead of just being there, I should have some sort of function. "I should at least be serving food." That actually came before the furniture comment but makes more sense as a followup. The state of my body last night is hard to describe. Even more difficult to articulate is the connection of it to my mind. I had been able to somehow justify that the solution to whatever I was feeling physically was to turn myself into something inanimate but useful, such as a platter carrying shrimp balls and mini quiche. Or a coffee table that doubles as an ottoman. You know, meaningful things.