Category Archives: Personal

Behavior, Eats, Food, Humor, Opinion, Personal, Social Rules

Snobbery

Leave a comment

Snobbery

I’ve irritated some people in my life. Especially those who are arrogant or irritating about the culinary world we experience subjectively. Pineapple on pizza. Ketchup on steak. How meat should be cooked. Whether painted-on eyebrows look strange. I grew up listening to my Mom say, “You don’t know what’s good.” She could eat some things that the vultures would shriek and fly away from. My Dad forced me to eat some nasty stuff; I can laugh about it now. But a part of me laughs and rejoices because I now know he was among the worst to fail to appreciate all the kinds of foods in the world.

There is no right and wrong regarding what you eat or what you like. It doesn’t work that way. And, of course, everyone knows this. For some, the idea of eating fish eggs or oysters, aka snotshells, is as repulsive as watching a 6-year-old pick his nose and then salt and pepper it.

Whether you like your steak bleeding or burned to a crisp, it lies with each person to decide what they like. I watch people argue and criticize what other people eat. The ones criticizing tend to eat some of the most outlandish and nasty stuff on the planet. My brother Mike liked to dip. He’d mock people’s food choices relentlessly. He didn’t take it kindly when I pointed out that it looked like he had let a raccoon poop inside his lip.

If you want to put chocolate pudding on prime rib, fire away.

If you like fresh jalapeños on vanilla ice cream, pile them on there.

And if you like head cheese or liver and onions, I will gladly watch you smile and burp appreciatively as you consume it. Don’t get me started on raw celery, aka The Devil’s Anus.

But if I’m eating burned popcorn or a steak so well done that the fire department is about to come in and you make snide remarks… you’re going to find head cheese or pineapple pizza under your pillow later that night.

Everything about what we like and dislike is subjective.

There are no rules.

We can’t even agree that ties are a stupid anachronism that should be discarded. Or that shrimp are the cockroaches of the sea. But we can mock someone eating fried bologna as we gleefully munch on foie gras as if our choice is superior to theirs.

If you like to eat literal cockroaches, you’re in luck. In my world, I’m going to be fascinated by anything that I consider unusual. But I’m also going to bite my tongue because I embrace the difference in taste that we all experience.

I’m judging you if you judge others for what they put in their mouth. You better check your pillow if I hear you doing it.

It is the lowest form of mockery to mock or attempt to humiliate someone for what they eat or how they enjoy eating it. This is doubly true if you do so in front of other people while they are doing it. I don’t tell you that your pants make you look like one of the mentioned symptoms in a WebMD article; the least you can do is bite your tongue.

“Hunger does not need a cookbook.” – X

“In matters culinary, there is no greater arrogance than objecting to what someone chooses to eat or how they season it, sauce it, or flavor it. I’ve yet to meet anyone who isn’t an idiot with their food, and the feeling is undoubtedly reciprocal.” – X

Love, X
.

Humor, Personal

The Invention of New Curse Words

Leave a comment

The Invention of New Curse Words

I’ve been surprisingly under the weather with some strange virus that’s left me with intense fever and body aches, ones similar to those felt after listening to a co-worker talk for fifteen minutes about how busy they are. I went to the doctor twice. It’s better to have a javelin protruding from your leg than to suffer from a virus. At least you can take the javelin out and go about your day.

Because people tend to dislike the stench of body odor, I opted to take a shower. Even though it was the last thing in the world that appealed to me. Yes, even behind voting sensibly.

I entered the bathroom and asked Alexa to play “Passera” by Il Divo. As the song began playing, Guino jumped up on the counter, expecting me to trickle the faucet for him. The song lifted my mood.

I stepped into the shower, being careful for once to keep my balance. I stood unusually close to the dual showerheads for the same reason. That’s when the fun commenced.

Being feverish causes forgetfulness and inattentiveness, not to mention really terrible hair.

I pulled the round knob out on the old assembly. It’s tricky because it can often come off. One of the many advantages of living in an older building is that you learn tricks. One of my learned tricks is to pull the control knob away quickly and with full water pressure. I always remember to check to see if the control valve is down.

Almost always.

Instead of the water coming out of the bottom spout as god intended, it came out of both shower heads at full force. With my achy skin, to say that the torrent of water that came out was cold would be the grossest of exaggerations. Because I was standing so close, the full force of the arctic blast of water covered me immediately. I tensed up as if I’d been tased. I’m not sure how I avoided falling. Had there been a window in the shower, one thirty feet above the ground, I would have gladly hurled myself through it.

Instead, I stood in the freezing water, convulsing like a suburban Karen complaining about the cheese on her Big Mac. While I can’t remember the words I shouted, they were new to me. My recovering, feverish brain opened a new portal to surprise and unhappiness as it created on-the-fly curse words for this special occasion. I shouted so loudly that I might have triggered an alarm on the vehicles outside. While I don’t remember what I shouted, the words sounded foreign and deeply insulting. Complete gibberish, as if I’d recently graduated from an Effective Management course.

I had no choice except to stand and wait for the water to warm up.

That’s how the best curse words are invented.

But I don’t recommend it.

X
.

Fayetteville, Justice, Law, Opinion, Personal, Social Rules

I Told You So

Leave a comment

“What could we have done?” This is often the go-to response after a tragedy. About 3 weeks ago, an innocent person was killed during a high speed drug-related car chase here in Fayetteville. The driver of the car already had multiple charges but was free. 

That’s not the worst part. The Northwest Arkansas drug task force knew about him more than 2 years ago. I had posed the hypothetical scenario of what might happen if they didn’t take appropriate action. And this is the answer. What’s worse is that there was another individual who had engaged in much more sinister behavior. The authorities had his activities handed to them on a silver platter and still didn’t take action. I’ve told a lot of people that this is why it’s hard to have faith that the right thing will be done when it needs to happen. 

I’m a complete liberal when it comes to drugs. But I also have a keen radar and when it triggers, it pisses me off when I make the effort to intervene before something terrible happens. More often than not, nothing will be done. The other person is still out there. I hold my breath because I know that someone’s life will be ruined at some point. Much like the innocent person who was killed in the high-speed car chase. Or victimized on a personal level. I am 100% certain that it will happen, more so than I was before.

I will get off my soapbox now. 

The person who was killed in the high -speed chase died for no reason. We can’t blame everything on resources or bureaucracy. In this case, people who knew failed to act. 

X

.

Lemon Moment, Personal

Cold Loneliness

1 Comment

I drove the roads at 2:00 a.m. . I didn’t have to worry about lanes because there was no other traffic to impede me. I swept my stairs again and salted them because, well, no one else was going to do it. Wearing knee-high boot covers, I didn’t have to worry about wet or cold feet. It was a balmy negative two so I didn’t have to worry about overheating as I swept some of the areas around work. I love the abandoned world that snow brings. But I did take time to stamp ribald messages in a few places with undisturbed snow. To imagine the consternation of anyone who reads them this morning. At one point, my laughter was uncontainable. My voice carried and echoed strangely across the snow and in the undisturbed world. It was beautiful, but also a bit lonely.

X

.

Lemon Moment, Personal

Cold Color

Leave a comment

In the earlier hours this morning, it was one degree. With winds of about ten mph, it was breathtaking. I once worked in a -40 work environment. If you’re lucky enough to have trees with leaves still on them, you know that the melody the wind creates sounds like falling rain or heavy snow when it’s this cold. Unlike most post-midnight Saturday nights and Sunday mornings, traffic was non-existent. Everyone was huddled inside somewhere, undoubtedly with blankets piled and tucked. I walked to the road and watched and listened as the dead leaves above me rustled. It was a beautiful, abandoned world with just me in it to observe it. The crosswalk and street lights shone vividly in the air. Color in this cold takes on a new life. I stood there until the bottom of my legs began to ache from the cold. A cup of bitter coffee and another cup of hot cider waited for me back at the apartment. But still, I stood there, waiting for some unidentified moment to propel me back inside. Nothing happened. Sometimes that’s the most beautiful thing. 

X

.

Art, DIY, Lemon Moment, Personal

Given Light

Leave a comment

Someone asked me, “X, why haven’t you been making solar bottle lights lately?”

I was certain that the grin I gave shouted the obvious answer: “I haven’t stopped.”

In the last few months, I’ve left several in front of people’s houses with a note attached. The Johnny Appleseed of decorative solar light bottles. A few more, I’ve left in odd places where I knew they would be discovered and taken by someone interested. 

I didn’t want all the bottles that had been saved and given to me to be wasted. So for anybody like Jay or Burke or others who shared their bottles, just because I haven’t mentioned it doesn’t mean I haven’t given new life to the bottles given to me. To strangers. It’s a pleasure to give one to someone personally, something I’ve made. But it turns out that it is equally fascinating to put them out in the world without having any idea about the lives of those who receive them.

This afternoon, I walked behind a building and looked over the fence. The bottle I had left on their front porch weeks ago sat facing the sun, charging as much as possible in the low winter light so that it can later add color however the new owner sees fit.

Love, X

.

Behavior, Cellphone, Entertainment, Humor, Lemon Moment, Movie, Nostalgia, Opinion, Personal, Psychology, Social Rules, Technology

The Magic of Focus

Leave a comment

What makes going to the movie so special? It could be the excessive butter that leads to gas-propelled walking and making you regret every decision you’ve made in your adult life by eating too much of it. The kernels that plague your teeth and make you reaffirm the decision that, yes this year, you need to go to the dentist. It could be the occasional narcissist who thinks that we need their phone lit up in order to see that they are checking their Tinder for people who are really into selfishness. Rarely do you see a brain surgeon at the theater. I really doubt that Chad or Karen needs to check their phone every 16 seconds.

And that leads me to one of the most joyous things about theaters. It is one of the last remaining places that we are supposed to pretend that our life doesn’t require our personal and immediate attention. We get to focus on a fantasy world, feel our heart race, and even feel a tear sometimes form in the corner of our eyes. Without the distraction of devices. We’re just sitting and absorbing a collective story that brings us happiness.

I’m old school. I want to see and hear the nuance on the screen and to dive in to an alternate reality for a couple of hours. To feel the spark of creativity and originality fire in my brain as I watch and listen. And that requires focus. No matter how people defend their restlessness, entertainment without focus is a diluted shadow of the experience when you aren’t aying attention.

I know people roll their eyes at me when I tell them I don’t get bored. There’s no secret to it. Even if you’re sitting alone on a quiet porch, there’s an entire world within your view. And another one inside of your head to match it.

It’s being in the moment and giving each moment your attention. I can’t help but think that so many people are sitting in the passenger seat of their car ignoring the world as it passes by. At the fulcrum of most people’s lives are their phones. They are the best communication and entertainment devices ever invented. But you have to remind yourself that for every second you are distracted by your phone, you are missing the world and the people standing right next to you. If if first come first serve is truly important to us, then surely it follows that the people already with us deserve our undivided attention.

And that’s one of the reasons I love movie theaters. We haven’t quite lost the expectation of being in the moment and focused.

Like all experiences, a great movie that is shared takes on new life. Much in the same way that doing something together has the same result. All of us can list seminal movies that changed us in small ways. None of it could happen without allowing the magic of imagination and focus to envelope us.

Yes, we also get to eat a bushel of popcorn and drink so much soda that we are afraid we might not make it to the bathroom before the movie is over.

Love, X
.

Eats, Food, Humor, Personal

Oops! Oral Pyromania

Leave a comment

A couple of days ago, I made a batch of healthy soup and portioned it into four separate containers. Last night, I wanted a bowl of it for supper. Not because of the cold weather, although that provided additional justification.

Here’s where my life suddenly went wrong. Like sticking your tongue in a blender wrong.

A coworker bought Erika a mix of hot sauces for her birthday last month. I’m known to love sauces. I’ve been using them all in a constant pattern like I always do. They’ve all been interesting and distinct. Erika has them in a basket by the fridge. I just grab one, often without reading the label. I like surprises.

Last night, all these tendencies came to a head. Most surprises are great. Some, however, are like opening the toilet lid only to set off a glitter bomb filled with both glitter and sneezing powder.

If you’re familiar with Carolina Reapers, you know that they are massively hot. Among the hottest possible peppers. They are about ten times hotter than habañeros and are the source of many of those crazy videos on the internet wherein idiots consume a chip seasoned with them and then vomit through their eyeballs and sweat like a manager having their expense reports scrutinized.

I heated my soup a little in the microwave and then grabbed a random bottle from the basket, pouring about 1/3 of the bottle into the soup bowl. I sat down to eat.

This is where the fireworks started. With the first bite, I thought I had eaten a spoonful of liquid fire. My tongue went numb, which turns out was worse than immediately feeling pain. Painful heat would have clearly told me I had made the wrong move. I continued to eat spoonful after spoonful of the soup, unknowingly laden with the equivalent of Hawaiian lava. I felt my eyes dilate, and that’s when the numbness abated, and the heat began to sear me like a human barbeque.

Despite this, I decided to eat all the contents of the soup and leave aside the liquid. My reptilian brain thought this might help. The heat continued to grow. As I finished the solid part of the soup, I felt like a cartoon character whose hair suddenly lit up with fire. I went to the kitchen and dumped the liquid.

Luckily, there was old ice cream remaining in the freezer. I grabbed the remnant of it, took the ice cream bucket to the living room, and began to use it in an attempt to appease the fire gods celebrating in my mouth.

I sat and imagined that if the amount of Carolina Reaper I’d consumed hit me wrong, I might find myself duct-taped to the toilet this morning or suffer the additional indignity of having it forcefully come back up and out my nose. The incredible heat of the Carolina Reaper sauce was already making me feel like I was breathing inside a chamber filled with Vick’s VaporRub.

As much as I protested to Erika, I don’t think she realized how epically I had misjudged the heat of that hot sauce bottle. I did my best to control my breathing. Before going to bed, I quickly drank two full glasses of water from the sink. When I lay down, I was certain I would awaken in a few hours and hear the thunderous rumbling of my stomach as it attempted to process what can only be described as fiery insanity. And then I would need to impersonate Usain Bolt in a vain attempt to reach the bathroom before the carnage ensued.

When I woke up this morning, my stomach wasn’t protesting more than normal, but I did feel like I was floating from the dose of preventive water the night before. After sitting and drinking a cup of coffee at 1:30 a.m. I felt the rumble.

So far, I’ve not found myself writhing on the floor or being able to shoot fire out of my nostrils like a bad comic book hero. But I do feel like I’m breathing with a mouthful of Vick’s VaporRub.

But I am nervous.

I made the mistake of Googling the consequences of consuming any such quantity of Carolina Reaper.

I didn’t know it at the time last night, but I basically consumed more of this pepper in one sitting than most hot pepper-eating champions can. It’s because I was unaware of what I was about to consume; had I known, it would have never occurred to me to try it.

Keep your fingers crossed for me.

This could be one of those days where you see me sprinting across the parking lot with my pants down, hoping to sit in the cold water of the creek. Witnesses will probably see one of the rarest of sights: fire underwater.

Love, X
.

P.S. The first thing I did was drink five glasses of water, one after the other before having a cup of coffee this morning. I’m an optimist, but after Googling this damned pepper, I think I might need an IV later.

Animals, Lemon Moment, Personal

Unseen

Leave a comment

I took a great picture of… Nothing. I was wandering around, thankfully with shoes firmly on, oblivious. Something behind me crashed through the brush. It wasn’t instinct. I decided not to turn around because whatever it was would have already been on me by the time I turned. The unseen thing went up over the rise before I let myself pivot. It’s more fun imagining what it might have been. Perhaps a creature from Where The Wild Things Are. Even dangerous magic is sometimes worth it.
X
.