Fair enough.

Yesterday marked the three week anniversary of me being back where I grew up, back "home" which is strangely somehow still home even as it no longer much resembles that which I once knew.

It's been a bit surreal, to be honest. I've hung out with people I haven't seen since highschool; visiting is someone I met when she was 13 and is now turning into a woman and would be driving if she were American. My brother is gone and moved out, out in the Big Scary Real World with a Real Job. Which he doesn't like, but what gives. I guess I am used to a long-distance relationship, at least with him, as we haven't seen each other for more than 4 weeks a year for the past three or four years. And speaking of long-distance relationships, even though I've never wanted one, I've got one with the boyfriend I left behind in Germany. Figuring out how to be a plural through email and skype is hard, and frustrating, and the best we can do right now.

I didn't want to leave Germany; I've made no secret of it but it is not due to not wanting to "go home", but rather a desire not to leave the friends that had become my family in Germany. The first week was pretty hard for me, and I had another taste of the depression I only very seldom feel, which is therefore always to some extent unexplored territority. My mood has improved with time and the support of my long-suffering family.

My laptop and I have had a deep and personal relationship these past weeks. Though I do (did) have two very large papers to write (ca 25 pages, 1 1/5 pt spaced, in German) and on which I have been working furiously, I won't deny using my computer and my drive to work as a way to a) shut out the world and b) have space of my own. I'm not used to living in a family, even mine, and I think the opposite is true--that my parents aren't quite as used to having kids around as they were when we all lived there. I'm not used to always having people around, to eating together all the time, to people coming and chatting, etc. Family dynamics are never simple, and four discreet adults living in one space leads to issues of various natures.

Running into old acquaintences is difficult for me, because with every meeting I realize that I have almost nothing more in common with them. I might as well be speaking German for all they understand; our conversations tend to fizzle out after
"hi, how are you?" "Fine," "how was Germany?" "Germany was great; how's school?" "Oh, just fine". Superficial of course, and it can't be any other way, but my life seems to be so much outside their frame of reference that I find it difficult. Not that these people don't still care about me, or what happens to me--but I almost feel as if I am better in the 3rd person, as a story my parents are relating to someone rather than something I am telling someone. My old friends are all still lovely people, and we still get along. Sometimes our conversations dwell in the past, in the only area we may still have in common, though I am learning to like and love them for the people they have become and not just the people they were. I cannot change the fact, however, that many of my closest friends here have moved on.

Our houseguest, my mother and old friends have got me out of the house, sometimes against strong resistance on my part. That is the sign that made me realize I'm not always doing as well as I appear to--it doesn't bother me to sit inside on a gorgeous day and work on the computer. I usually view that either as a punishment or to be untertaken only in dire need. I'm not itching to get out; the part of me that was immersed in nature and outdoors is the part of me sitting quietly in the corner, trying to pull herself together, at least for others' sake. But my second paper is coming along and nearing its conclusion, leaving me with no excuse to bury myself in work. And I know I will be okay with time; my buoyant personality and almost perpetual optimism and cheerfulness has not completely deserted me, and as I immerse myself in what will become my life I will have friends and activites that don't leave me feeling quite so stranded.

I've got a week of break, five pages and revisions on the paper to go, and a lot of stuff to take care of remaining. My semester will be full; aside my heavy courseload I will be applying for scholarships, grad schools and internships in three or four countries and in at least two languages. I am determined to graduate in May and move back to Europe, though I don't know where and only slightly know how. And the prospect, as exciting as it is, is also scary. This time, I am not intending to go for anther year and come back, I am going to stay. Which means I have to string along studies and jobs and internships, working as a foreigner under visa restrictions, and making it on my own. My parents' extensive contribution to my education will conclude with my first degree, leaving me to make the life for myself that I want. I may be dependant on friends where I would otherwise be depenant on family, and I don't have it all figured out. Still, I relish the challenge, and the first one is getting there.

Channeling Julia Child

Thought: Why does man kill? He kills for food. And not only food: frequently there must be a beverage.
Woody Allen (1935 - )

I have an interesting relationship with food. Even as a kid I never quite ate what normal kids ate. It would not have occurred to me to describe it as ‘unusual’. Like most kids I was a picky eater, with phases where I refused pizza, sausage, hamburger-based dishes, tacos, and grilled chicken, all framed within a constant dislike of spaghetti sauce, frosting on cake, peanut butter, salad of any persuasion, or any dish in which the vegetables were mixed together. I have no memory of particular culinary terrors (lima beans, brussels sprouts, etc) filling me with dread, just a long list of stuff I didn’t like.

Food is the most primitive form of comfort.
Sheila Graham

As we age our tastes change, either as a result of social and emotional development (in the scheme of things, eating vegetables is not as terrible as when younger) or because of biological change. I no longer particularly care for sweet or oily foods; I prefer salty, sour, and bitter. I prefer vinegar to oil, drink unsweetened tea and coffee, and repeatedly bake my cakes with half the required sugar and usually a dose of lemon juice. Hot sauce, mustard, chilis, jalapenos, curries, and other such foods have become favorites of mine, and I often eat them plain.

Most vegetarians look so much like the food they eat that they can be classified as cannibals.
Finley Peter Dunne (1867 - 1936)

Usually I would not associate the term “picky eater” with myself; my single ground rule for what I will and won’t eat excludes anything with eyes and anything that can move of its own volition (a corollary added to exclude slugs and snails, which apparently do not have eyes). Yet in many senses, I am quite choosy about what I eat. I have the delightful reputation of being the only person to pack her own lunch at the university cafeteria, for reasons of economy and taste. I don’t like mass-produced food, sauces or meals from a box or package, and often am convinced I could do better myself—and am usually willing to spend the extra time to try.

The trouble with eating Italian food is that five or six days later you're hungry again.
George Miller

I would also describe myself as a wannabe gourmand. I enjoy good food, and because the Mr. Scrooge part of me refuses to eat out, I am led to put particular effort and time into cooking. When a group of people come to my house to cook it tends to be complicated, and particularly designed such that everyone (or most everyone) has a job to do, allowing us to make and eat things I personally would never have had the energy to make alone. Of course, not everyone necessarily wanted a job to do, but I figure it’s more fun if two people aren’t cooking alone while 8 people sit around.

We are indeed much more than what we eat, but what we eat can nevertheless help us to be much more than what we are.
Adelle Davis

So my consolation, as I sit today in the cafeteria with my broccoli curry, leftover from yesterday and lovingly packed in a tupperware container, enduring the bemused looks of my compatriots, is that at least I don’t have to ponder the deeper meaning behind “parts is parts”, contemplate the gelatinous-looking attempt at a sauce, or slurp down mushy french fries.

Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.
Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)
(and apparently, becoming vegetarian does more to reduce CO2 output than switching to a hybrid car. End of commercial)

The battle of sushi fields

I had a small altercation with a piece of sushi yesterday. Middle of nowhere on a bike, somewhere between the Rhine and home, I get a call from A., who is back from a fabulous concert in Zürich and up for dinner. With a bit of effort I tracked down another friend who, plus her boyfriend, mine, his brother, my roommate, A., and the two friends she ended up bringing with, resulted in quite a crowd.

For a shared flat I have a big kitchen, enough for six to comfortably cook and eat. The nine of us had a bit of problem fitting everyone in, but sushi is work-intensive, and our particular economy had a comparative advantage in labor. So, knives flashing my faithful fellow cooks evicerated the vegetables, reduced the rice to a defenseless mass, and turned a tower of lettuce into a mustardly masterpiece. I myself went to battle against three bricks of spinach and a can of tomatoes, which, pitted against the pitiful three layers of lasagne noodles on hand resulted in something resembling a casserole but without aspirations of ever becoming a lasagne.

So, sushi. Cook rice, cool down rice, mince vegetables (carrots, radishes, cucumber, bamboo sprouts, baby corns, avacado), spread rice on nori (yes, it is seaweed), line up the vegetables neatly and carefully (the heretics added fish), and...roll. Someone pointed out the apparent affinity of my menues to tend towards "rolling". Freud would probably have something to say to that but I'd rather not speculate; suffice to say the evidence is against me (sushi, spring rolls, an attempt at soft tacos).

But I digress. We roll and we slice, we lift, we dip, we eat. For those brave of heart and tongue or devoid of taste buds, there is the evil green drug known as wasabi, cunningly addictive, leaving us red in the face, noses burning, coming back again and again for our next fix.


The opposing army...

Sometime later in the evening, after I had already eaten two or three hundred pieces of sushi and my ration of casserole and salad I went for another sushi piece, dunked it liberally in wasabi (I, ever the modest one, brag of my ability to eat it plain, with a spoon--not just idle chatter). And the bloody piece of sushi attacked me, getting stuck somewhere between chewing and swallowing; the wasabi, sensing weakness, moved in for the kill and in a brilliant flanking manoeuvre, managed to incapacitate me completely. I sat rigid in my chair, slowly turning red, gasping like a lifetime pack-a-day smoker mountain climbing, trying to swallow, or spit out, or do something, anything, but the persistant piece will not release its hold, going for the jugular like a bulldog. As my distress becomes obvious I am surrounded by a ring of horrified-looking dinner guests, probably looking like the unholy cross between a tomato and a fish out of water.

But I rallied the troops and counterattacked, managing to force the sushi into retreat and eventually into my stomach. The wasabi relinquished extremely unwillingly, and I was left with the last vestiges of the rearguard in my nose, giving me the appearance and the stuffy nose of a serious allergy sufferer with a headcol; these battle wounds would remain with me throughout the remainder of the evening.

My victory meal of apple sauce and crêpes was not the least diminished by my uncooperative olfactory organ, though I imagine I could have appreciated the taste as well as the consistancy had I been more astute or graceful in my initial sushi sortie.