mashed potato

She was making lists in her head when she left the house. She was determined to get it all done, a.s.a.p., and be that disciplined version of herself she lost a couple of months ago.

No wait, she thought to herself, that was actually more than a year ago.

She couldn’t quite remember when or why exactly it had gone away, it was more like a slow fade-out of the person she had worked so hard to be.

Looking back now it seemed to her like she had just given herself a little time off, to relax – cause she deserved it.

At some point she wasn’t so sure anymore whether she still deserved it or if her credit for that had been used up and she was going into debt.

 

Lately she would wake up, feeling a wave of  discipline and wanting to ride it like she was a surfer – she had never surfed, nor did she want to, but she liked the image nevertheless – she’d start cleaning up, herself and her apartment, arranging things, paying bills, eating eggwhite omeletts and buying things she felt would be essential for the comeback of her discipline.

She would think very far ahead, so far she sometimes forgot what brought her there.

But then the wave would die away some time around 3.30 in the afternoon.

Just like that all these very undisciplined thoughts were creeping up on her. She was battling herself, the thoughts, the laziness, the chocolate.

 

The chocolate and the laziness really weren’t the issue. She had always been able to handle them – but the thoughts! The thoughts made it impossible not to give in to the rest. Rest. That’s what she should do! Rest and think, just until tomorrow.

The thoughts were strange, at first theoretical and abstract, but shortly after they filled her with a sweet aching feeling of home.

They started with one word. The word grew, grew into an image – melting like Dali’s time, lurking until eventually it had something to do with her.

The word wasn’t big, or important or deep – no, it was small and meaningless most of the time.

Potato soup. Yolk. Flower pot. Paperback. Horseradish. Cotton undies.

Often they had something to do with food, and that was part of the reason they were so dangerous.

 

Icing, she would think, picturing a very small cupcake with confetti sprinkles that came in a box of six from Publix. Box of six from Publix she would think,

that’s a lot of x’es. I never use that many x’es.

The cupcake would then somehow come to her in her imagination, the icing looking just right, creamy and a little grainy, waiting to touch her senses in whatever way it could.

Yes, the cupcake had intentions. Intentions to make her feel good, like a lover or a very well-meaning friend. The icing was making her happy just being close.

 

Comfort would spread all through her body, her hands and shoulders relaxed like the icing caressed her gently, leaving a sugary sweet smell lingering in her nose. Pure bliss.

 

There must be other people who love the icing as much and her imagination wandered, melting with reality. The confetti sprinkles were flying all over the place like pretty rose petal autumn leaves.

People were walking around, happily carrying their cupcakes and feeding each other, laughing when the icing stuck to their nose.

She felt like she was floating in a candy snowglobe and love was somewhere in close proximity, just behind the sprinkle drizzle.

 

She would picture the man who adored the icing the same way she did.

 

Usually it would be the owner of the little restaurant around the corner which she started going to around the same time she lost her self control.

 

He had a girlfriend and probably liked cheese better than icing, but in the snowglobe it didn’t matter.

Gruyere and icing went quite well toghether there, like goat cheese and fig mustard or honey.

The feeling inside her would be breathtaking at this point, befuddling her senses until everything was warm and tingling and she couldn’t feel her eyes anymore.

A glorious fusion of molten cheese and icing. Peanutbutter, she would think, and the whole thing was about to turn orgiastic.

 

 

 

This can not happen anymore she decided as she was making her list.

She had spent far too many afternoons on her sofa, lost in daydreams about being  embraced by food or velvet curtains.

Velvet curtains the color of beetroot. 

 

 

Self Pity and the City

Metropoloneliness

Thursday night in a big city, somewhere in the world. The annual self-pity tsunami is hitting single-girlville with full force once more. 

This usually happens around dinnertime, but only if you somehow forgot to go grocery shopping.

Here are the first warning signs: 

3 pm: Your friend cancels the dinner date second evening in a row.

4pm: You leave class with the intention of going to the supermarket and buying yourself some healthy veggies and  fish for dinner.

6pm: For some reason you still haven’t left the house, eventhough you really wanted to go to the gym and then hit the grocery store.

7pm: You make a list of what you’re going to do tomorrow, check the TV programs for later on tonight and think about what you want for dinner. Weirdly all you can come up with is stuff they serve at restaurants you would never go to alone, especially not in the evening. 

7.15pm: You consider skipping dinner for various reasons: a) you’re too fat anyway b) you don’t want pizza delivery again c) you don’t want to go out in the cold, alone, again d) you don’t have any cash at home, so even if you  skipped on a), b) and c) you have no option. 

7.30pm: You know better and realize you’ll probably regret not eating dinner by 10pm because you’ll raid the fridge and kill your secret stash of chocolate.

7.35pm: You put your jacket and uggs over your sweatpants and leave the house looking like shit, hoping you won’t run into somebody you know. 

From now on it can go many possible ways. Here is mine, tonight.

Inspired by a facebook post I go on a quest to find summer rolls somewhere in my neighborhood. Instead of going to the little Vietnamese place on Mulackstraße I decide to try the other one which is closer. 

Since they don’t have a menu outside I am forced to go in and ask for a menu. As I look around I see couples sitting there, talking and eating. The two people who are there by themselves are men. Unfortunately there are no summer rolls on the menu and everything else is fried, which is not good for my diet, so I leave. 

I walk down the street and see a pizza place. For a second I consider just getting something carby and greasy in order to get back home a.s.a.p. and watch Law & Order. The tiny spark of discipline I have left isn’t having it. Come on, you already went outside, might as well go get something halfway healthy. 

While I am walking I remember I haven’t called my food-friend Jan in ages. I call him because I am thinking of food and we should go have dinner again soon. As I am telling him this he goes: Yes hun, absolutely, but not tonight. Of course not! What do you think, I am spontaneous or something? I mean, I have to study anyway. 

Somehow this makes me a little sad. I try to cheer myself up, thinking that other people are just getting off work and probably a lot of them are eating by themselves tonight. Nobody will know, nobody will know. 

I walk by my favorite bookstore and see Kurt, my literature critic of choice sweep the floor inside. I say hi. He seems in a hurry to get out and is not really into having small talk right now. I am bummed, for no reason at all. He is your bookseller, come on. 

The idea of noodlesoup hits me, but I don’t remember exactly on which corner the place is, before or after my Vietnamese. I decide that I’ll go for whichever comes first. 

Noodleplace is first. The place that is usually empty is now crowded with happy, international people. I am standing in the way a little arkward, asking to see the menu. The mute waitress hands it to me, I feel watched. Somehow Sex and the City, Miranda, chocolate cake and chinese takeout come to mind. As I order with the other waitress she tells me that the wait is going to be 20 minutes or more. I can’t bear standing here for that long, so I say thank you and turn around. She says: Sorry! and I feel caught. She knows. She felt it. She felt that I am lonely, and now she made it come out. 

As I exit the restaurant, still sans food, I start crying. The little tear rolling down my cheek feels hot in the cold air outside. I turn the next corner to get away from people. Through the  misty window of the candle-lit Italian place I see happy people on first dates. I start feeling pathetic. The usually dim street seems bright and there are too many pedestrians for my taste this minute. I hear a mother yelling at her child and think to myself: I wish i had your problems. Then I pace myself, forcing rationality into my brain, but somehow it’s not quite working. I am embarrassed for being lonely and something tells me it’s ridiculous. This is the catholic in me, not allowing a thing as self-pity. Other people are worse off than you. Think about the shit thats going down in Israel right now. Yet, I can’t help it and keep walking and crying to myself. The world is such a sad, sad place. The argument inside goes on. I want to go home, but not without dinner!

I get to the Vietnamese place and discover something I had never noticed before. It is split in two! A restaurant and a take-out bar. Hope on the horizon. Two people are sitting inside, both by themselves, each drinking a glass of wine. The man is reading a magazine and the woman is reading a book. Hello fellow loners! I feel like I’m in heaven when the owner greets me without sympathy. We’re all alone by choice the atmosphere seems to say. The two guests seem perfectly content. Being by yourself is not a shame. I wish I had brought my book so I could stay as well. Creative people stick to themselves! But I have not, so I operate according to plan. I get my food and realize I’m not hungry but I want a cigarette. I quit smoking a while ago, but after all this it seems like I deserve an unhealthy drag. 

Pretty cheerful I walk home. Nice, I think, this is a good place. Maybe being a bookworm isn’t so bad after all. 

On the last 100 meters to the deli I have another argument with myself. Should I really buy smokes? Why? What will the deli-guy say? – Who is he to say? He wants to make money, so he won’t judge you for smoking! He’ll judge you for not smoking! – Oh God, Mel would be so disappointed! – Everyone has their vices…

As expected, he greets me saying: I haven’t seen you here in a while! – Well I don’t smoke much anymore…do you have yellow Gaulo—-he interrupts me with a smile: Are you pregnant? 

This is more than I can take, yet I laugh. He apologizes after I tell him that he can never ask a woman that unless he is absolutely sure. And if I was, he shouldn’t sell me smokes. For a split second I imagine what it would be like.

I catch myself and summarize the lesson learned tonight. 

Never put your wallet, keys and cell phone in your jacket pocket. You’ll look fat. 

Peace kids, I’m out. 

http://www.manngo.de/

 

much ado about nothing

 

 

 

Cultural Differences Pt I – Etiquette

Cultural Differences Pt I – Etiquette

 

We live in the 21st century, thinking that evolution has brought us here and we are the cream of the crop.

We  (meaning me) spend our time analyzing ourselves, worrying about our looks, the future and what not…in a world without any lifethreatening problems, I am the master of creating issues and wanting to do exactly what I am not doing. Procrastinating or, as they call it in the United States of America: A D D (yes we can!)

 

As every other girl (or human being I guess) I have a history of unhealthy relationships, a dysfunctional family and  I think that I could do better in life.

Because I don’t know exactly how to go about that I just think, reconsider, analyse, take everything apart and put it back toghether until I am even more confused than before and then I write it down for your amusement. 

Lately I have come across an enitre universe of cultural differences (between the Western civilisation and the -uh- just Western, I guess) when before I always thought it was me.

It is not. I am not a nagging bitch (at least not to the degree I thought I was) and the American boys are not bad-mannered assholes on purpose (most of the time).

Here is where ze good old German etiquette and Mickey Mouse clash, Part One.

 

Once upon a time I fell in love with an American boy. It was love at first sight  and also at second and third. Just that he drove me nuts when he was eating, speaking, talking, sleeping, drinking — in short living.

 

I was very young back then and thought that’s how love was, then figured it had something to do with the drugs he was using like they were going out of style.

When he left my life, so did my aggravation about his tablemanners.

 

I waited a while until I fell in love with an American again…this time he was only half as abusive (when it came to me and even the drugs) and I was very much in love.

 

As the romantic phase came to an end and dinner actually started being about eating rather than about looking into each others eyes and feeding one another until we could go and have fantastic sex again, I noticed that he ate like he was never going to eat again. (That’s how he made love too, but I will come to that later. GREEDY!!!)

He ate like had not seen food in weeks. He ate until the plate was clean and then grabbed some more bread and dipped it into the nonexistent leftovers of the sauce (did not do that making love, f.y.i.).

He cut his meat and then singlehandedly stabbed it with the fork. He put 200 grams of filet mignon on a piece of baguette. Yes we can: Make everything into a sandwich!

I somehow connected this with him being a big boy from the Bronx who had to defend his food against his two brothers, father and a hungry sister (oh no she didn’t!) – a situation I as an only child had never been exposed to.

As subtly as I could I tried to teach him flawless etiquette.

First by staring at him with the most disgusted look I could come up with, hoping that he would notice and recall something he once learned from his mother. No dice Anna. There was nothing to recall.

Instead the reaction I got was: You not eating this? – and there went my dinner, straight onto a slice of bread, topped with some hot sauce and off into his mouth where I could see and hear it being chewed for another half second until it was ready to be gulped down with a big sip of 2002 Sangiovese.

I then proceeded to calmly talking to him about the good old ‚fork left – knife right’ and elbows off the table and when that didn’t worked I started begging (weirdly he called it nagging) that he a least not hug the plate with one arm while hunching over it.

Gladly this was not the only problem in our relationship and when he slept with another girl the memories of slurping and burping faded everso slowly.

 

The next guy I came across did not fall into the same category – yet.

He was a marine gone supermodel gone actor of Japanese descent and handled the chopsticks like no one else.

Also he was on a strict no carb, no dairy, no fun- diet which was bad for my mood but fabulous for my figure…gym, all bran, salad: no dressing, sushi, green tea, gym – hello abs and slender thighs!!!

Unfortunately one can’t eat salmon sashimi forever and (after thoroughly studying the code of the samurai while hearing him recite Richard III at 4 in the morning and trying to remove all-bran crumbs from my bed permanently) eventually I was confronted with a very unpleasant situation: him and a big steak, cooked medium rare and topped off with fried onions. As if the raw meat wasn’t bad enough, this was also the first time he had to use silverware in front of me.

Fork in the right hand, knife in the left, both elbows on the table, moving the meat around on the plate. Oh yeah!

I tried the big eyes-disgusted-look again, this time with the following outcome:

While I am getting mildly sick from watching him, he looks up from his plate, still chewing with his mouth half open and then feeling insulted as only a  former Marine can be (that kind of humorless „oorah DEVILDOGS“-style):

„What?“

„Oh…umm…here in Germany we use the fork in the left and knife in the right…“

„Well you know what? I am a Marine, thoroughly trained, been through bootcamp…I KNOW MY ETIQUETTE!!!“

 

Right. Soldiers are known for their tablemanners. In bootcamp they learn how to properly fold a napkin.

 

As you can imagine this relationship, too, ended shortly after because I found myself turning into OCD-Anna-Monica from Friends meets Bree Vandekamp the nagging perfectionist bitch from Desperate Housewives.

 I have, since then overcome this state of being and returned to my usual, hungry self.

Until very recently, but more about that LATER.

till then, check this out:

http://www.knigge.de/themen/bei-tisch-202.htm