I’ve learned how to utilize about sixty-five kitchen utensils and appliances since meeting T. When we moved in together, into my place, we couldn’t fit all her knives and bowls and mixers and spreaders and choppers and stretchers, et al. So we had to go to Goodwill. With my stuff. I don’t think either of us had storage. Well, she used her mom’s as storage. When I ran out of room for things I used a dumpster.
When T cooks, our cupboards and drawers are all picked through and our countertops are an eighteen-car pileup, all lanes blocked, north, south. It’s because she’s focused, like a good cook, on the dish. I tend to focus on what steps are left and how much work I’m creating for myself when this is finished. I’ll mix a salad in my hoodie pouch if I can keep another bowl clean. It’s what makes my lunches mediocre, the ones I make for the workweek and put into separate little bento-style containers, and why T has never been tempted to eat one of these reheaters. Taste is probably third on my list of essentials. It goes safety, speed, cleanliness, appearance, digestibility. I guess it’s further down.
Last night, I had that dream again where our arguments in the kitchen were reviewed by an online cooking magazine. I can’t pull any quotes because I can’t remember much else, other than our fights were reviewed and they’re worth watching. I’d be surprised, though, if they’re worth watching. They’re not heated, mostly pretty tedious and quiet, in fact, lots of mumbling. T gets frustrated with me for standing too long in one place, and I resent T for her feeling so at home in space. Once these two facts are established and said aloud in more offensive terms, we let the ingredients simmer and you can taste the petulance in the air. And in certain meals. Any rice dish, or potato, or any starch that absorbs flavor.
The pausing. About that. I pause in certain places to perform tasks. I’m pausing more lately because, I think, I’m not handling a new medication well. Or I miss the medication it replaced. Can’t tell. The old lethargy that controlled my mania has lifted somewhat, and now the old compulsions levels have been turned up. Ordering me to perform tasks. I’m touching, touching, touching, touching, usually a kind of brushing touching with my left-hand thumb, over it and over it and over it, whatever I’m touching, usually just a spot on a countertop, not a real spot, just a bit of space I’ve been tasked with obsessing over, and I’m grunting, always grunting, left shoulder twisting, head rolling, and some two-inch slides to the left, repeat, repeat.
A satisfactory conclusion only arrives when I break the circuit by saying fuck! and goddammit! or oh no and jerk backward away from it, from the place, the little spot I’m brushing.
I talk a lot on this new medication, too. Yesterday, I said uh uh to a housefly, like I was admonishing a dog. Today, I said sorry to a sink while washing my hands. I say nope to doors and oh shit to light switches and go ahead to ladders when I move them up or down. All creatures great and small, and all things, too. I converse with them. I know how prophets feel.
What I won’t talk to, actually, there’s one thing I won’t talk to, won’t talk to mirrors. They don’t talk nicely to me. Not the reflection, no, nobody’s reflection talks. That’s not what I’m saying. It’s not my reflection as a surrogate for me saying terrible shit to me. This won’t be resolved when I learn to forgive myself or go easy on myself or some such asinine shit. It’s not the reflection. It’s the mirror. It says terrible things. And it works itself up like Jeremy Allen White.
Does anyone else think The Bear should have quit after one season?
I would end things if one of my voices started saying chef to me.
I should wash the dogs.
I should read more Murakami.
What if I start jogging?
todd of tacoma 