I would like to reach out my hand
"I'm living in a co-op next year," I'd say. Luckily, I would explain, you don't have to cook - don't worry, I won't cook - my room may be messy, but I do know how to clean, I'd say. I'll clean. You do four hours of work a week. If you had to cook, well, then things might be different.
But cooking was not required, so it would be awesome enough, I'd think. I might not enjoy cleaning four hours, but that's what you do, right?
I moved in, and that night, I danced to music and to no music, and I suggested peanut butter in place of honey, and I was gleeful that muffins turned out shaped like muffins. (Shaped like muffins! That silly joy is different now - "I should hope so," I can hear most of you say - but it is still there, when I take things wot are shaped like muffins out of the oven.)
The next day, I sauteed vegetables while vaguely on the phone with my mother. That was a full minute out of the conversation for fun to be made of me, and I knew to expect it. I was, after all, the kid who narrowly averted a macaroni disaster when she was thirteen years old. - Suffice to say, I didn't understand the proper order of combination of noodles and boiling water, but that was seven years ago.
I've been here for about five months.
I have a lot to say on the subject of places lived, and about this place, a lot to say, in different tangential sorts of ways. Most of it is generally not worth saying, or is too verbose to be worthy of space, especially when it's obvious. Often this stuff I 'have to say' touches upon convoluted things; even more often, it goes better without saying (singing in the common room and grins and random hugs, and one-footed dances in circles and applause, music and books and board games and sarcasm and legends and math and tickling and baking and everything else).
This is home. But that's not what I'm talking about.
This is interesting.
Instead, I'm interested right now in a section of the many things I find a little bit fascinating and mildly astonishing, and by that I mean me + food-making. It does astonish me a little, and maybe it's a little bit symbolic in my silly brain, but at least partially, it's exactly what it sounds and looks like. Things have changed, and they've changed well, and I'm proud of how. I don't care how stupid that might be - it's not stupid.
"I don't have to cook." I said this more than once; I said it often and a lot, and I comforted myself with that. There's been a lot of in-between in these five months, and I'm sure there is to be more. I said the other day that I've done a lot of things this year I've never done before, and I certainly have done that. Those. Whatever.
I'm not sorry for any of those things.
This is not to say that I'm not sorry for anything this year: I haven't changed that much. (And by this year, really I mean academic year, because that's how I split things up these days.) I've been nervous and anxious and scared. I was in a hospital waiting room and I burnt a pot so badly it took me an hour or more to clean off, but though most weeks are odd weeks, this one's a good one and so have so many others been, and I found myself saying to our Work Manager last week that hey, if you really need someone, I can head chef on Fridays.
I corrected myself immediately after that line, but it was because of time constraints rather than straight-up self doubt or any of this business, and a co-cheffing arrangement was worked out and agreed upon (awesome). I was in the kitchen yesterday helping with dinnery things because of some schedule difficulties a friend and I agreed to do so, and that kind of comfortable - none of what I was doing was difficult, but I knew all of it. I want to say that I felt like I was seven and beaming over something, just for a second, which, possibly, but mostly, I felt like I was twenty and doin' really damn okay, and that was true.
And that's pretty nifty.
I don't know. A lot of in-between, a lot of which I'd like to think about and possibly to write about more carefully; a lot of which I think about a shitton often anyhow.
Here's the thing about which I am concerned right now. Seven years ago, I half ruined Kraft macaroni and cheese. A year ago, I was jealous of ease in the kitchen and convinced I'd use my talents at doing dishes. (Now, I gotta say, I make pretty fantastic pumpkin muffins and sweet potato cupcakes. AND ALSO. There is happiness and comfort and accomplishment and fascination and curiosity and sometimes, all at once. In a fucking kitchen! Ahem.)
Five months. Time isn't that important in the end, I guess, but nevertheless. A lot of things within that, but as for what I'm talking about: tomorrow I am co-cheffing! and we'll see how it goes, but
a) it'll be just fine, and b) boy, it [will be able to be] metabolized!, and c) I was excited when it was decided, and I think we'll be awesome, and I am excited still.
That's pretty cool.
I love that. (Experiments! Peanuts and pineapple! Recipes like whoa! Ovens and spontaneous plans!)
I have a Jewel Detergent sticker on the back of my sweatshirt. I like that too.
But cooking was not required, so it would be awesome enough, I'd think. I might not enjoy cleaning four hours, but that's what you do, right?
I moved in, and that night, I danced to music and to no music, and I suggested peanut butter in place of honey, and I was gleeful that muffins turned out shaped like muffins. (Shaped like muffins! That silly joy is different now - "I should hope so," I can hear most of you say - but it is still there, when I take things wot are shaped like muffins out of the oven.)
The next day, I sauteed vegetables while vaguely on the phone with my mother. That was a full minute out of the conversation for fun to be made of me, and I knew to expect it. I was, after all, the kid who narrowly averted a macaroni disaster when she was thirteen years old. - Suffice to say, I didn't understand the proper order of combination of noodles and boiling water, but that was seven years ago.
I've been here for about five months.
I have a lot to say on the subject of places lived, and about this place, a lot to say, in different tangential sorts of ways. Most of it is generally not worth saying, or is too verbose to be worthy of space, especially when it's obvious. Often this stuff I 'have to say' touches upon convoluted things; even more often, it goes better without saying (singing in the common room and grins and random hugs, and one-footed dances in circles and applause, music and books and board games and sarcasm and legends and math and tickling and baking and everything else).
This is home. But that's not what I'm talking about.
This is interesting.
Instead, I'm interested right now in a section of the many things I find a little bit fascinating and mildly astonishing, and by that I mean me + food-making. It does astonish me a little, and maybe it's a little bit symbolic in my silly brain, but at least partially, it's exactly what it sounds and looks like. Things have changed, and they've changed well, and I'm proud of how. I don't care how stupid that might be - it's not stupid.
"I don't have to cook." I said this more than once; I said it often and a lot, and I comforted myself with that. There's been a lot of in-between in these five months, and I'm sure there is to be more. I said the other day that I've done a lot of things this year I've never done before, and I certainly have done that. Those. Whatever.
I'm not sorry for any of those things.
This is not to say that I'm not sorry for anything this year: I haven't changed that much. (And by this year, really I mean academic year, because that's how I split things up these days.) I've been nervous and anxious and scared. I was in a hospital waiting room and I burnt a pot so badly it took me an hour or more to clean off, but though most weeks are odd weeks, this one's a good one and so have so many others been, and I found myself saying to our Work Manager last week that hey, if you really need someone, I can head chef on Fridays.
I corrected myself immediately after that line, but it was because of time constraints rather than straight-up self doubt or any of this business, and a co-cheffing arrangement was worked out and agreed upon (awesome). I was in the kitchen yesterday helping with dinnery things because of some schedule difficulties a friend and I agreed to do so, and that kind of comfortable - none of what I was doing was difficult, but I knew all of it. I want to say that I felt like I was seven and beaming over something, just for a second, which, possibly, but mostly, I felt like I was twenty and doin' really damn okay, and that was true.
And that's pretty nifty.
I don't know. A lot of in-between, a lot of which I'd like to think about and possibly to write about more carefully; a lot of which I think about a shitton often anyhow.
Here's the thing about which I am concerned right now. Seven years ago, I half ruined Kraft macaroni and cheese. A year ago, I was jealous of ease in the kitchen and convinced I'd use my talents at doing dishes. (Now, I gotta say, I make pretty fantastic pumpkin muffins and sweet potato cupcakes. AND ALSO. There is happiness and comfort and accomplishment and fascination and curiosity and sometimes, all at once. In a fucking kitchen! Ahem.)
Five months. Time isn't that important in the end, I guess, but nevertheless. A lot of things within that, but as for what I'm talking about: tomorrow I am co-cheffing! and we'll see how it goes, but
a) it'll be just fine, and b) boy, it [will be able to be] metabolized!, and c) I was excited when it was decided, and I think we'll be awesome, and I am excited still.
That's pretty cool.
I love that. (Experiments! Peanuts and pineapple! Recipes like whoa! Ovens and spontaneous plans!)
I have a Jewel Detergent sticker on the back of my sweatshirt. I like that too.