Workaholics

There’s an ant massacre in my freezer.

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I’ve never seen anything like it. Reminds me of the D-Day stencils of 9,000 dead soldiers, just done in Normandy last week.

d-day stencils normandy

d-day stencils

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Poor guys. The strangest part is that when the swarm and frosty die-off began, there was nothing even IN the freezer. Really, nothing. Three fingers’ worth of ginger and an old bag of ice from my housewarming brunch — that’s it.

At first I thought the ants might want the water in the ice, but then they could have just stormed the sink where there’s plenty pooling in the undone dishes. On the freezer floor you can see a drip of some caramel-looking substance (ice cream?), but the pattern of the tiny corpses doesn’t suggest the spill as the focus or destination.

On the bright side, now there is food in the freezer. Because I made a trip to the real grocery store, rather than a corner store run, and for the next few days my dinners will graduate from chips-and-salsa to ravioli-in-jarred-sauce or saag-paneer-heated-in-the-oven.

If you know me, you know that this is a sorry state, and somewhat unusual. I like to cook. Hell, half this blog consists of cooking photos.

The simplest explanation is overwork. Too many projects, paid and unpaid. I finish work, exhausted, and rush off to a meeting or plop down to edit a political video. By the time I get hungry, my body is at a total loss for what it wants to eat. I sit and stare into space, trying to key into whether it’s soup or tofu or salad or what. I end up with chips and salsa.

I always wondered how my mother did it: working more than full time and feeding us every night. She used lots of cans and boxes. Dinty Moore beef stew. Frozen peas (which I still love). Stove Top stuffing. Mom didn’t enjoy cooking (unlike me), and though she would grill up fresh chicken or fish, or brown some sausage to throw into the Ragu spaghetti sauce, the main objective of dinner was efficiency. I get it now.

But what doesn’t make sense is why she should have had to work so hard — why any of us should have to work as long and hard and anxious as we do. Shouldn’t we have all the time in the world to cook and feed each other, if we want to? I mean, listen. People used to have to write everything out By Hand. Deliver it on horseback. Then came the printing press, the personal typewriter, and now the computer and internet. We can work a bajillion times faster, more efficiently. But instead of everyone doing less work and enjoying more free time to fucking cook and relax, the people with jobs get squeezed more and more, work longer and harder, and the ones who can’t find a job… good luck to you.

Work, work, work, then die — in a freezer. Hunting for who even knows what.

Throw Like A Girl

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For months now, I’ve been wanting to teach the neighbor-girls across the street how to throw a football, like my dad taught me.  They’re always hanging out on the porch inventing games, waving to me out of boredom, friendliness and mischief as I walk to my car.  I even got a junior-size ball so they could hold it easier, but the very same day I bought it, it wound up waylaid at a friend’s BBQ birthday party.  (Hard to resist a game of catch, you know?)  Finally recovered this week, the mini pigskin enjoyed its debut on the block.

Once I showed the girls how to arrange their fingers on the laces, it only took about three tries before one of them (maybe 8 or 9 years old) could throw a solid spiral.  The older one (12 or so) didn’t throw so hot but could catch just about anything she touched.  The youngest (7?), too shy to try, sat on the roof of the blue car, playing music she downloaded to her smartphone. (!!!).  We all sang along to Alicia Keys and Nicki Minaj.

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Offerings

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Ginger-braised kale with curried chickpeas and toasted coconut.

feeling so scattered lately! creeping overwhelm, dropping some things, hiding from others.

amazing people around me, but the thought of trying to keep up with everyone makes me twitch a little.

projects — grad school — paid work with Buddhist Peace Fellowship (climbing toward a setup where more people can be compensated for their work) — solidarity with a long-term campaign to democratize a union, keeping revolutionary politics at the center — political meetings that meld seamlessly into feliz cumple fried chicken dinners and laughter, laughter — reading the communist manifesto out loud at alameda beach with a friend — vivid, vivid dreams — monkey-mind internet reading — still looking for the thing that is mine to give, mine to focus on.

meanwhile, i cook to come back to myself — a self seasoned with others. today’s kale was saqib, sierra, salima, aneeta, ryan…

may you (yes, you) be safe, may you be well fed, may you know you are loved, may you defend others fiercely, may you know your gifts, your historical context, your people and your purpose.

A Love Song For Valentine’s Day After A Long Flight

Sometimes when you get home after a day of airplane travel, haggard and tired, you’re still buoyed up by a song.

“Blame It On My Youth” I learned just yesterday, thanks to my friend and award-winning jazz musician Kavita Shah, who just released her debut album featuring Lionel Loueke (one of my favorites!), and whose version of this tune (she arranged it herself) is just gorgeous.

 
Check out more of Kavita’s amazing work, and give a love song to yourself today, some kinda way!

Why Today Was A Win

1. host-friends took me hiking in snowy wilderness preserve and helped me stay upright despite my hazardous “fake snowboots.” (DKNY, soles like sea glass, years-ago gift from california mom worried about cambridge winters.)

tottering along, i think of ani difranco:

when i look down
i just miss all the good stuff.
when i look up
i trip over things.

but i don’t mind looking down, concentrating on not falling. it’s a walking meditation, a game of balance punctuated by laughter, just as good a time as any.

 
2. after three days and four nights snowed in with them, host-friends are still not sick of me. he calls me “honey;” she shows me how to use a dip stick. they both teach me about art. their lovely house is full of tales; the soot of courage sticks to the walls. this couple is sharp and bright, with a base of warmth (like host-friend’s diced vidalia onions and cilantro on top of our paprika-and-pepper black bean stew).

this morning host-friend Dana lightly cursed her empty bottle of insulin (type 1 diabetic). brightly, as if on cue, Victor took the refrigerated reserve and warmed it in between his palms. “if it goes into your body cold, it hurts,” Dana tells me.

 
3. reading well-historicized analysis (a draft, a sapling) of revolutionary organizing methods, thoughtfully written in criticism and kindness. joyful joyful. makes me think hard; makes me grateful for people with whom to think and with whom to Do — people with whom to truly attempt. i read in my host-friends’ library nook, on a great lilypad of a chair.

 
4. weeks of dry, indoor-heated air have given me lips of eucalyptus bark. host-friend Dana gifted me a stick of raspberry balm from the amazing goodie basket that she keeps stocked in her guest room, but i was already so far gone that the stuff didn’t do much good. today, however, revealed a godsend tube of medicated blistex hidden between couch cushions.

 
5. brief moment of anonymous public crying, at a cafe. output salt of tears helps to balance input salt of delicious poutine (made vegetarian with butternut squash gravy). anonymous public crying makes me feel old and young at the same time.