For Shirley, 16 Years Later.

I don’t remember what my grandmother looked like when she died. To be completely specific, I was not allowed to see what my grandmother looked like at the time. I know that I was in grade school when she started to forget things and get angry out of nowhere. She was always short-tempered and impetuous, the kind of woman who would heat up a Lean Cuisine and then get so caught up in an episode of St. Elsewhere that she’d end up feeding the whole thing to Junior, her horrible little black Chihuahua. Normally I rather liked Chihuahuas; they seemed a little more in control of themselves than the dopey, galloping mutts that were always in residence at my house. But Junior had a nervous sort of personality, and he smelled weird. Bubby had a blue shag carpet all through the house and around the time she started to forget things, she’d neglect to clean up the messes when Junior pooped or peed on the carpet, ostensibly because she had also forgotten to take him out for a walk. It was things like that, that stacked up, one on top of the other, to slowly and quietly form a distinct problem that none of us saw coming. 

In my memory it feels as though it happened very fast – one day I had a beautiful weird grandmother, the next day I was not permitted to see her and my mother cried constantly, and the day after that, I was told to pick out something black for her funeral. I don’t know how I feel about the fact that when I think about her, the end flashes before me like fuzzy snapshots and all I’m left with is the fact that she’s dead. I asked my mother about it and of course, she didn’t want my brother and I to see her like that. She wanted us to remember her happy and healthy, and she didn’t want us to know what it felt like to look into her familiar wrinkly face and realize that she had no idea, none in the world, of who we were. 

I can’t imagine how that must feel. Looking at the person who raised you, who taught you everything, who punished you and yelled at you and came to every single school play and hugged you when boys broke up with you only to have her look back at you like she would the unfriendly grocery store clerk or crossing guard. I know you’re a person but that’s it. You aren’t special to me, I have no allegiance to you, now please go away.  I think perhaps that might have hurt me worse than the black empty dent where the last years of her life should be in my head. I think not knowing might be less awful. But it doesn’t change the thing I hate most about all of it – I did not get to say goodbye to her. 

Even if I had when she was sick, it wouldn’t have meant anything. I think part of me wishes that someone had come to our house with a telegram, long before anything changed. I wish they would have come with a note that said, dear sir or madam, I’m sorry to inform you that your mother/grandmother/friend is going to start forgetting things, one by one, very soon, and in a couple of years you will mean nothing to her and she will be incontinent and unable to chew or swallow or even digest food. If there is anything you want to say to her before she is inevitably and very slowly taken away from you, I insist that you do it now.  You’ll be glad you said goodbye while it still means something to her, because very soon, even the mention of your name will do nothing to bring her back.

musings of an unemployed something-or-other.

As much as I don’t want to admit this, being unemployed has changed my life. I wanted to be one of those disaffected women that says with a sigh, “Well, now that I don’t have an oppressive 9 to 5 job, I can finally get started on my novel/wedding photography business/cupcake mail-order company/Montessori school/organic home garden.”  Wouldn’t it have been lovely if being asked to leave my awful job had resulted in that kind of earth-shaking revelation? Wouldn’t it have been lovely if I had realized it over a cup of chai tea, while staring calmly out the window of my local café?

This work, the work of being unemployed, of having to craft your own days, of trying to figure out if what you were doing was what you wanted to do, and if it wasn’t, what it is you actually want instead, is harder than any job I’ve had. It requires resilience and creativity and even though I believe I possess those two things, I don’t believe I have them in the quantity that this situation calls for. Some other things I have a little bit of, but not enough: Patience. Self-love. Forgiveness. Confidence, even.

I realize that this doesn’t have to be a rearranging period – that I could just focus on getting a job in the same vein as before and hope for the best, knowing that a steady paycheck and dependable schedule will be enough for me. But that’s just it.  I don’t know that those things are enough.  I’ve gotten used to them, I’ve become accustomed to them, and I’ve readjusted my life based on their existence. I spent years working a cockamamie schedule for peanuts, never knowing when I’d have a day off or whether or not I’d be able to pay all of the bills. And in retrospect, when I hold that part of my life up to my new 30-year old standards for happiness, it looks as though I wasn’t actually happy.  I had very few friends and I drank more than was advisable for a girl my age and I was making far less than I deserved for the work I was doing. But at the moment, way back then, I didn’t know I wasn’t happy. I’m sure I didn’t greet every day with a yawp of deranged joy, but I was good. I was making it work and surviving and doing my best to have a little fun.

Why am I suddenly under the impression that that’s not enough anymore? Why am I terrified to loosen my death grip on my creature comforts? I’ve come up with this theory that anything different than a new version of my 9 to 5 life will result in extreme, endless poverty. I will be unhappy all the time and I’ll never eat out at a restaurant or order Indian take-out ever, EVER AGAIN. Every time my friends ask me out for cocktails, I will whistle into my hollow bank account, ravaged by student loan payments and book costs, and shake my head solemnly. Sorry, ladies, I’ve committed myself to a life of navel-gazing and ramen-eating. No whisky sours for me.

This ugly habit of mine – making my fantasies as extreme and finite as possible – is not a new one.  When I fantasize about the future I will have with a boy I’ve been dating for only a few weeks, I suffer the same fate. The pictures I paste together are severe, painstakingly detailed, all of something or nothing at all. Every job I imagine accepting is the greatest job in the history of jobs. Each dress I buy on credit will result in an immediate improvement in my hairstyle, complexion, sex life, and IQ.

Perhaps my problem isn’t the unemployment, or the confidence/patience/etc. that I perceive to be lacking. It’s moderation. I need to moderate my imagination, allow myself to dream that perhaps, life will simply shake out as life will. That perhaps, some things will work out swimmingly, and other will simply work out, and others will fall flat on the floor with an audible thud. That perhaps, even with all of this messy gray area to deal with, I will make the best of this cobbled-together, sometimes-wonderful-sometimes-ordinary situation, because I actually am resilient, and creative, and all of those other things. And, not least of all, because I always do.

The Great Road Trip (Nights 1 & 2)

Night 1:

Did you ever see “Synechdoche, NY,” that truly mind-bending movie with Philip Seymour Hoffman? I'm here to tell you that Schenectady, NY, the real town, and its surrounding villages, are just as weird.

Tonight I pulled into the motel near the Albany Airport, ready to have a lovely night in a quaint little hamlet. After a nap and an attempt to make me NOT look like I had been driving for the last four hours, I took a long ride down a two-lane road. I passed a lot of people on porches, setting off illegal fireworks, beating their kids, and fighting over the last cold beer. I passed a biker bar named Humpy's boasting karaoke every single night. Humpy's. I pulled through a depressed sort of ghetto and came upon 2 blocks where the roads narrowed and there were fake facades on the old buildings. Brand new trees, plopped in plastic planters painted to look like actual terra cotta. Brand new parking meters that don't actually function. Two restaurants (both closed), a CVS, and a movie theater. Not a soul in sight. Wait, sorry. At the next intersection, up where the manufactured town turned back into a concrete, tired hood, there was a woman in an oversized pink t-shirt and no bra on, fighting with her significant other, a man who was seventy years old if he was a day, smoking a blunt and cursing. Shirtless.

I knew at this moment that I would not be spending a darling evening in Schenectady, NY. I knew what I was going to do: hop in the car and drive like hell until I got back to the mini-mall which featured a P.F. Chang's and a Regal Cinemas, right where Albany turns into Colonie. The rest of the night was nothing to speak of – satisfying dumplings from a Chinese fusion chain, and a late viewing of “Magic Mike,” which was about ten times less magic than I was hoping it would be. Frankly, I feel a little dirty and disoriented. I'm looking forward to a good night's sleep, a questionable breakfast at Denny's, and three-and-a-half easy hours north to my true destination, the place I belong – Montreal. 

Night 2:

 

Today was my first almost full day in Montreal. I wonder if it will ever not be disorienting to hear French spoken everywhere with little English curses and proper names sprinkled in. it's like having amnesia with 2-second spurts where you remember absolutely everything. Fleeting, distracting, but you're always looking forward to the next one.

After a two hour nap (otherwise known as me trying to figure out which channels work on the TV), I headed out for dinner to a recommended restaurant by my hosts, Sushi Mikado. After a lovely walk down Rue Sherbrooke, then Rue St-Denis, I looked, but did not find. Three sushi restaurants, but none called Mikado. I walked into one, seeing as it was the busiest, and hoped I took the right chance.

I didn't.

It was an all you can eat sushi house where nobody pays attention to you and the rice is overcooked. My food was fine, until I got a piece of something un-chewable in my eel roll, and decided it was time to bounce. My standoffish waiter informed me that all you can eat sushi palace would cost me $22, but I gave him a look. A look that clearly meant, “I had no idea this place was all you can eat because my French is awful. I barely ate any food and I want to leave. Don't do this to me.” he made my check a-la carte and if I understood French, I know he would have said to his waiter friends, “This poor fool from the States. Learn to read!” the same way we make fun of people from New Jersey when they can't drive or park or walk down the sidewalk. I was the silly American saying, “merci, desolee, merci, desolee” when all they could think was, “give it up, sister. Just say thanks and go back to your hotel.” I seriously should have consulted my guidebook closer. I had seventeen restaurants highlighted in that neighborhood alone.

After that I did what I do best in strange cities – I took in a movie. Tonight it was “Take This Waltz,” another movie where Michelle Williams walks around being simultaneously adorable and depressing. Seth Rogan also tried his hand at a semi-dramatic role, but I realized that his earnest puppy dog face and serious under bite make it impossible to take him seriously. Ever. It looks like he's about to launch into baby-talk all the time, and in this movie, it sure didn't help that he actually did. I did enjoy the Michelle Williams part of it, but I'm going to say this – I'm not sure if this movie made me believe in love more or less. I know it wasn't supposed to be sad, but when it ended, I cried like someone had just smacked me really, really hard. The premise was simple and not unexplored – Michelle and Seth are married, and they have happy moments and stupid moments and moments when everything the other person says is awful and wrong. Michelle meets Mystery Guy and he's amazing, either because he's actually amazing, or because she knows nothing about him. It almost doesn't matter. Almost. Because she's married, she does nothing, but this doesn't stop her from meeting him illicitly, and it doesn't stop him from graphically describing a sex act to her for twenty minutes in broad daylight in an empty bar. After endless minutes of her staring into space because she loves two people at once for different reasons, they finally admit they're in love, Seth suffers the consequences, and then Michelle and Mystery Guy legit get together, which we know thanks to a montage of some seriously graphic fuck scenes. 

The movie goes on for twenty mostly pointless minutes after that, showing the clumsy clean up of a failed five-year marriage and the inevitable decline of a hot fling into another mediocre relationship. What I'm not sure of here is what I was supposed to take away from this. There are a few possible lessons. Everything new becomes old, so stop chasing shiny stuff and leaving the dull because it will all be dull one day? Love is amazing and rare, so it's OK to leave the person you've been semi-happily married to for five years if you find something better and more intense? Go with your gut? Don't go chasing waterfalls? I seriously have no idea. 

What I do know is this – at the end, when Michelle goes back to the tilt-a-whirl ride where they play The Buggles and spin you around too fast, the site of quite possibly her most intense, pressurized, feverish moment of desire with Mystery Guy, and she spins around alone, trying to recapture that sense of dizzying wanting and insane, dopey happiness, I just wanted to die. I felt like someone punched me in the gut. There's so much glitter and music and noise in that scene but it's so desperate, so empty, so unbelievably familiar, like when you go back to an amazing restaurant for the second time and nothing's quite as good. You order the same thing, you sit in the same booth, but the little ball of fire that made you want to jump out the window is gone, and you feel like you might need to go to a million more restaurants before you find it again. That's how I'm feeling right now, as I sit on the terrace of my little apartment and watch happy couples amble down the street, giggling and drunk after dinner. Like there a million restaurants ahead of me, but only one amazing meal, and I don't know if I have the energy to go find it.

should-ing all over myself.

I've been thinking a lot lately about doing what we should vs. doing what we want. Examples:

On the daily, I know that I should use what I have in the house to make dinner, because money doesn't grow on trees, and what I cook will most likely be ten times more healthy than anything I could buy. But then it's 6:30 PM, and I'm starving, and it's been an annoying day, so I want to buy sushi or a cheeseburger or Hawaiian pizza. Again. And I do. Because if you have read this blog, you know that I stress-eat. 

the humble beginnings of edamame salad

I know that I should exercise or go to the gym or something because lately I've seen about twenty videos telling me that if I don't move 30 minutes/1 hour/6 hours a day, I will likely die in about five minutes and nobody will find my body and it will smell awful because I'm unhealthy and full of crap. But then I remember the laundry that's not done and the DVR television shows that have gone unwatched and the grody toenails that are unclipped and half-polished, so I want to go home and have a sedentary self care night. Again. And I do. 

my new abode, which compels me to lie down. often.

I suppose the lesson I'm hearing myself say as I write this is, “Neither of the two options are wrong – you just have to find a balance.” For every one day of SushiPizzaBurgerFest, try three days of cookin' at home with what you've got. For every one night of lazy slothy plucking my own eyebrows obsessively and watching six consecutive episodes of The Golden Girls, try three days of taking a walk around the building at lunch or doing a silly workout in the living room. That way the nagging voice that tells me I'm lazy and ever-widening won't get too loud. And I probably won't die in five minutes. It will more likely be five years, and I could perhaps get some things done in that time, like have sex again and build some shelving in my house. I mean, I could leave a real legacy.

This musing on guilt and what it does to me comes to you on the eve of a trip I'm taking, one I'm thoroughly excited about. I'll be spending four and a half days in beautiful Montreal, right near Parc La Fontaine, one of the loveliest places I think I've ever seen. The agenda, freeform at best, consists of reading books in coffee shops, seeing circus performances, going to the movies, walking a lot, shopping in funky thrift stores, eating fantastic food (French fusion! Bagels! POUTINE!), taking a boat tour of the St. Lawrence River, and sleeping as much as I feasibly can. I'm hoping to report nightly on the sights, the eats, the vibe...

Because I want to.  And I should.

A Nosh-less Week.

For the last five days, I've had gastroenteritis – a stomach virus. This was no cute fluffy virus where I had a few cramps and blew my nose and it was over. This was an epic, almost James Cameron-esque sickness, which lasted far longer than it should have, and probably had a few too many twists. I will not go into details, because of all the things this blog should highlight, my intestinal fireworks is not one of them. I will say that this was the first sickness I've had where eating was the last thing on my mind. Usually with a cold, I gorge – mostly pickles, grapefruit juice, really any leftovers, passing wild animals. I just graze all day. Today, for the first time in five days, I felt hungry. I thought about food and didn't go, “Ugh.” I had to celebrate. 

The weather is getting warmer so it's grain salad season. It's the perfect lunch nice and cold out of the fridge. It's utterly customizable – whatever you're in the mood for, you can adjust it. Best of all, it's guilt free in my book. Packed with protein-rich grains, succulent roasted veggies, and tangy citrus dressing, you won't even get bored after a few days of this lunch. I'm excited for a (mild, cool, almost autumn-like) summer full of meals just like this one. And being healthy enough to eat them. 

Southwest-Style Quinoa Salad

1 c quinoa

1 medium garnet yam, diced

1 c corn (frozen is fine)

1 red bell pepper, diced

1 15 oz can black beans, rinsed

cilantro

cumin, chili powder, garlic powder

olive oil

2 limes

salt + pepper

First, get the quinoa going. Rinse the kernels until the water runs clear through a sieve – that dusty stuff on the outside can make the finished product more gummy. Put the quinoa in a small pot with 2 cups of water and boil, then lower to a just-there simmer, cover and let cook for 15 minutes.

While that's cooking, turn the oven to 375 and prep your vegetables. I like to roast the diced sweet potato, diced red pepper, and corn all together on one baking sheet. Toss the vegetables with ½ tsp each of cumin, chili, and garlic, a bit of salt and pepper, and about 1-2 tbsp olive oil. Make sure everything is covered in plenty of seasoning and oil, while not swimming in the stuff. Roast in the oven for 30 minutes, and resist the urge to open the oven – you're more likely to get browned and crunchy bits.

Once the quinoa is fully cooked, pull the pot off the heat. In between the lid and the pot, set a clean dry kitchen towel. Let the quinoa sit like that for 10 minutes – this will help the grain absorb the remaining liquid without collecting all the left-over condensation in the pot. After that, pour out the grain onto a clean baking sheet and let it cool. By the time your vegetables come out of the oven, it should be in good shape.

In a small bowl, whisk together the juice of both limes, 1/3 c olive oil, and ½ tsp each of your cumin, chili, and garlic. Combine the quinoa, vegetables, drained beans, and dressing in a big bowl, sprinkle with chopped cilantro, and toss well. It's good right away, but I like it after it's been refrigerated for a while. 

From Whore, With Love.

Tomorrow is Mother's Day, and in the insanity of preparing the new house, packing the old house, doing as much writing as possible, having an incredibly stressful time at work, and taking a class online... I have neglected to do anything to celebrate my #1 Lady. We've never been big on the minor holidays in my family (Grandparents' Day? Guy Fawkes Day? Who cares?). But this year, I do want to acknowledge the awesomeness that is Mama Ger. 

I spent a big part of my younger years looking out for her, very much in the way she was looking out for me – I just didn't know it. Her parenting style was very laissez-faire. I made my mistakes (plenty) and cleaned up the messes, having been warned that my actions have consequences. Every lesson I learned growing up with her stuck hard. I give her a ton of credit for never uttering the words, “Because I said so.” There was always a good reason, and I was always allowed to argue it. 

What she lacked in the kitchen (I perhaps ate the same 5 meals repeatedly over a 10-year period) she made up for in street smarts. Among the invaluable things I have learned from her:

• You can smoke pot, but don't overdo it, or you might forget what your mother looks like, and you will FREAK OUT.
• If you do acid, don't catch sight of yourself in a mirror.
• Dating 2 guys at once can be fun, and it's not wrong to borrow one of their cars to take the other one out.
• There is no such thing as an “inside voice.”
• Pay more than the minimum payment on your credit card every month, and always a few days early. They will be throwing 0% APR cards at you in no time and your credit score will be awesome.
• Say what's on your mind always. If people get pissy or offended, you probably shouldn't be around them anyway. The ones who stay will show you everything you need to know about love and tolerance.

Ger, even though this year on Mother's Day I will be laying a vinyl floor instead of showering you with scented candles and potted hyacinths, I will forever be grateful to you for being the MOST FUN person I could have spent the last 30 years getting to know. Your method of parenting may have been wild enough to make Mary Poppins hemorrhage and bleed out of her ears... but I had a great fucking time. 

Eating my feelings.

Food is emotional. Sometimes I don’t want it to be, because a voice in my head (she’s attached to this loud, skinny bitch that I just hate) pipes up every time I get sad and reach for a pint of Ben and Jerry’s. “Don’t eat your feelings! They’re going to have to wash you with a rag on a stick one day!”  I mean, always tell that little bitch to shut up and enjoy the ice cream, but still… it’s a thing.

Another voice in my head (the one attached to a normal sized girl with fantastic hair and clothes, I love her) reminds me that I understand moderation on a basic level, and as I am wont to check in with myself on all sorts of levels all the time, it’s not likely that I will end up as a person who needs to be removed from her house by a crane. 

I'm getting ready to leave my apartment in about 17 days. I've lived here for three years with Q, and I haven't felt so at home since I left my parent's house for college.  I've also never moved away from an apartment/house/dorm without being 100% sick of living there. This is the first time I'm leaving a place, a place I love and feel part of, willingly. I'm not running away from anything, for once. I'm just... leaving. 

True, I'm leaving a 2 bedroom apartment for a 3 bedroom house with a back deck, and my monthly rent will be cut by about 70%. It's a very attractive, lovely graduation - a home, a chance to improve my credit and build my savings, an opportunity to live without feeling temporary and like I shouldn't make too much of an imprint. The next few years of my life will be about nothing BUT leaving as big an imprint as possible.  But...it's a seriously emotional time.  

For this particular cocktail of emotions, I needed vegetables, but also.. cheese. So much cheese. A big cheese hug. I found this fantastic recipe after hearing my dad go on and on about my mom’s famous cauliflower gratin (which no doubt involves synthetic cheeze, half and half, and Ritz crackers) and had a go. Tons of veg. Tons of cheesy cream sauce. Tons of “nommy nom” noises while I ate this and watched “Girls” on HBO. (Have you seen this? We clearly need to talk about it.) 

Get yourself a nice warm cheese hug and let those tumultuous feelings melt away. It’s a legit way to deal. 

Broccoli and Cauliflower Gratin

(Adapted from The Kitchn)

Serves 8

2 pounds broccoli
2 pounds cauliflower (about 1 large head)
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 small sweet onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 cups whole milk, scalded
1 cup grated Gruyère cheese
1 /2 teaspoon mustard powder
1/2 cup breadcrumbs or panko (I used breadcrumbs)
1/4 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
1 tablespoon olive oil
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste

Preheat oven to 350°

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Cut off the woody bases of the vegetables and tear or chop into bite-sized florets. Add the vegetables to the water and cook until the broccoli is bright green, about 1- 2 minutes. Drain and place in an ice water bath to stop the cooking. Set aside in a large mixing bowl.

In a large skillet, melt 1 tablespoon of butter over medium heat. Add the onions and sauté until soft and translucent. Add the garlic and cook for an additional 30 seconds. Remove the onion mixture and set aside with the vegetables.

Wipe out the skillet and melt the remaining 3 tablespoons of butter over medium heat. Whisk in the flour and cook until the mixture is smooth, about one minute. Pour in the milk (which really SHOULD be scalding – I added it cold and things got awkward) and continue to cook, whisking frequently until the sauce is thickened. Turn off the heat; stir in the Gruyere and mustard powder until the cheese is melted and the sauce is creamy. S+P to taste.

In a large baking dish (I used my trusty 9x13 Pyrex) put together the veggies and cheese sauce and mix to combine.  Season with S+P to taste again if it needs it! Mix together the breadcrumbs, Parmesan, and olive oil. Sprinkle over the vegetables and bake until hot and bubbly, about 40 minutes.

Eat while packing boxes to prevent crying, singing Bette Midler songs, and hugging the cat for an inappropriately long time.