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| part eight, i think |
| 06.16.04 (5:46 pm) [edit] |
Since Greg was fourteen, there had been few days when he had eaten anything but egg whites, broccoli, strawberries, peanut butter, or ice cream, and few days when he had drunken anything but water diet coke, or alcohol. “I don’t know why it is,” he wrote, “It just is.”
Greg, as we know, had always been a very intuitive person. He imagined that self-understanding, the kind that sometimes requires biting honesty, is an essential element in the search for meaning in life, so he routinely evaluated himself in ways that others didn’t think or care to do.
How is it, then, that such an introspective person couldn’t understand why he felt obliged to stick to a very regular and entirely boring eating routine?
If he were giving advice to someone else, a friend maybe, he would probably say something like: “Most people choose not to reflect, really reflect, on their lives and behaviors because, well, they just don’t want to think about those things. Others, though, take a different route. They build an exterior of apparent intuition and self-understanding so that they can hide from or neglect the things that really matter. There’s a good chance I’m one of those people.”
And if Greg had permitted himself the introspection he claimed to have, he would have recognized that his fear of foods, most foods, is a symptom of, well, perhaps, this particular existential problem:
He was afraid to trust anything or anybody.
He imagined, for instance, that most food, no matter the quantity, would make him fat or sick. And perhaps more direly, he imagined that most people, no matter how good they seemed, were dishonest and, eventually, unfaithful.
And where did he develop this pessimistic outlook on life?
From inside.
He couldn’t trust himself. He imagined, at times, that his feelings and passions were real. But when those feelings and passions waned, as they tend to do, he realized that what seemed so real wasn’t ever so. And if he couldn’t trust his own feelings and passions, then he certainly couldn’t trust anyone else’s. Or even food.
So why do I delve into this mumble jumble? Well, now you understand, I mean, you really understand, why he was such a bad cook.
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He fretfully explained his humorous predicament to his mother. “She’s sooo beautiful,” he said. “What else could I do?”
She laughed and said, “You could have told her the truth, and offered to take her to a nice restaurant.”
“But cooking is so much sexier,” he pleaded. She laughed again.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “Everything will be alright. I know some very easy salmon recipes. Salads and sautéed vegetables are a cinch to make too.”
His mother dictated the recipes to him over the telephone. He hung up and drove to the supermarket to buy the necessary ingredients like garlic powder, green peppers and bread—food items he never imagined he’d touch. When he arrived home, he put the food away and frenziedly cleaned his apartment. And as he scrubbed the toilet seat, she called.
“Do you mind if we get together a little early?” she asked. “I told a friend I’d see a play with her later tonight. Oh, and it’s cold outside. I can either freeze while walking to your apartment, or you can pick me up. Umm… and I’d like to buy us a bottle of wine, but I forgot my driver’s license. Can you drive me to the liquor store when you pick me up?”
He didn’t clean the toilet nearly as well as he would have liked.
He picked her up. “She wore a tight black dress that revealed most of her perky breasts and cut off just below her, um, well, panties. And her legs and lips were glistening in the moonlight.” It wasn’t his most prosaic diary excerpt, but for our purposes, it does well.
They went to the liquor store, and, true to her word, she paid for an eight-dollar bottle of wine. “It wouldn’t be right if I didn’t do my part,” she said.
Upon entering the apartment, she spent a few minutes touring its three small rooms. As she left the bathroom, she said, “Even your toilet rims shine. I’m very impressed.”
Inside the kitchen, she uncorked the bottle of wine, poured two glasses, handed him one, and raised hers to toast. “To the beginning,” she said. They clinked glasses. “To the beginning,” he replied.
He had forgotten to buy measuring cups and spoons. So he improvised and said “Measurements are no fun for professionals like me.”
He coated twenty ounces of salmon with a hodgepodge of breadcrumbs, salt, garlic powder, eggs, oil, baking soda, and other ingredients that he knew nothing about. As he was coating, she asked, “How should I cut the vegetables?”
He answered, “Cooking is about self-expression. Cut them however you feel. That’ll be perfect.” And though she followed suit and cut the vegetables into unique shapes and sizes, she wondered whether he was as good a cook as he advertised.
Luckily, by the time the fish, sautéed vegetables, and salad were done, and he couldn’t find the cooking mitten that lay on top of the oven, or the napkins that hid in the cupboard beside the oven, she had already finished two glasses of wine, and she didn’t mind as much as she otherwise might have.
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