5 posts tagged “word list”

I grew up eating my steaks done to medium.  I remember going to a certain steakhouse with my family fairly often, maybe as often as twice a month, because my father loved steak and he knew either the manager or the owner.  Honestly, I was so young and I cannot remember which.  But I have a very clear memory of the steaks coming out of the kitchen with these little plastic tabs that stated how cooked each steak was.  Medium was always a dark blue tab, and that’s what dad always got.  By default, so did I.

Steak was my favorite food for a very long time.  Every year we would each get to ask my mother to make whatever we wanted for dinner on our birthday.  My sister would inevitably ask for something new and interesting (and I can’t remember a single meal she requested).  My father often asked for things that were off the wall (green eggs and ham, I kid you not – my mother managed it).  I always asked for steak, mashed potatoes and corn on the cob.  In winter.  My mother might be a saint (or the long suffering abbess, from so many movies).  And, as always, the steaks were cooked between medium and well done.

Well, eventually we all grow up, and our tastes change, as my mother always says.  However, I find it interesting when we can pinpoint those exact moments when our tastes change.  For me and steak, it came in the form of a boyfriend.

T was a mistake, pure and simple.  Looking back, I’m shocked at the sheer idiocy of dating this man.  He wasn’t a pleasant person, he had significant self-esteem problems which he then took out on my own self-esteem problems, and I suspect he had significant mental health problems to boot.  His outward demeanor was that of a strong-willed, stoic man who knew a lot about his chosen interests.  In truth, he was a complete popinjay with his opinions and need to keep up certain appearances.  A terrifying parody of the man he wanted to be and the apogee of my poor high school choices.

All of that said, I can’t deny I learned a lot from that relationship, and one of the more mundane things I learned was that beef is better rare.  I remember going out to a steakhouse with him and a few other people once and him saying, in his “tough guy” voice, “Fire, meet meat.  Meat, meet fire.  This meeting is now over.”  This was how he described to his friends why he’d ordered his filet “as rare as possible”.  In truth, he was right.  I had some of his dinner that night, having ordered my own medium filet (a thin line of pink in the middle), and probably would have devoured it all given half a chance.  Between this, and his introducing me to sushi (and that meeting lasted quite a long and luscious time), I can’t help but look back and be thankful for having dated him.  Sometimes that teenage girl bone-headed need to please her boyfriend leads to something good.  On occasion.  I don’t think I’d have tried “raw fish” for anyone else.  Knowing his obsession with Japanese culture and wanting to keep him happy lead to another wonderful food experience.

I used to look back at that relationship (and others, of course) and think about how much better my life would have been if I’d never dated him. We all have these moments in life, where we wish we’d done something different, but I think we almost all eventually come back to owning those choices and saying, “Forget that.  It may have been a stupid choice, but it was MY choice, and it helped forge me into who I am today.”  Perhaps, though, that is dependent on our liking ourselves.

This is also an attitude I tried to convey to my friend J awhile back, when we were discussing her grandfather’s death, and how he’d told her he had a life of no regrets, and she wished she could say the same.  I love J dearly, and I wish she could look at her “regrets” and see that they helped her be the woman all her friends find so wonderful.  Or at least understand that perhaps all her grandfather was saying was that, looking back on the entirety of his life, if he’d made other, “smarter” choices, he would quite possibly not be viewing the picture he had made by the end – and that he loved this picture and wouldn’t have it any other way.  I not only failed to convey this to J, but had my friend A trying to tell me the same thing I was trying to tell J when I shared this conversation with her.  Clearly, my communication skills need some work.

This doesn’t mean I believe “everything happens for a reason”, because that’s not the case.  I don’t find it credible that I was guided into dating a psycho SOB just to learn to like sushi and rare steak.  If there is a guiding force in this universe, I’d think it would find a better way to teach such mundane lessons.  I just think perhaps that when I look at the knots in the rope I’ve climbed to become this person I am – this person that I rather like – they’re more like a curlicue design and there is something to learn in both the hardship and the good.

And there was plenty of good that could become hardship, or things that seemed to be hardship that ended up being exactly as I wanted them to be later.  I certainly can’t help but wonder what might have been when I look back at certain parts of my life.  If that’s not basic human nature, I don’t know what is.  And I am not so free of desire that I don’t wonder.  But I no longer listen to Calliope’s siren song of what might have been, and write whole new lives based on her ethereal words.

Or, at least I don’t listen to her when she speaks to me of what might have been.  She’s still got my attention when she talks to me of what could be.  I just suspect that what lies ahead never seems so epic compared with what lies behind, so she has less to say.  Let’s face it, my life could be changed if I wear that risqué shirt or manage to otherwise change my apparel in an aesthetically pleasing way, but mostly what will change will be that I’m feeling better about my clothing choices.  The Odyssey, this is not.

I guess the journey I did have came in the form figuring out how to accept what happened without overly dwelling on those things I sometimes wish I could change.  Because when I think about what I could change, it’s so easy to think about it all coming together the way I want it to.  When I take the time to look back and see how I could change it and how the change would realistically change my life, it’s almost never a more appealing life than the one I have now.  The things that would make my life more appealing are often not within my control.  Woe is me.

Oh, and for the record, my mother probably wishes I’d never dated T.  Not only did she see what a loon he was from the beginning, but she is disgusted when I get my steaks rare.  But she likes the person I am too, so she accepts me – rare steaks, psycho exes and all.

My mother really is a saint.

 We’ve probably only spoken of hot chocolate twice.

Both times you expressed a deep delight in it.

The second time, though I had only the written word,

I could see the joy on your face and the glee in your eyes.

“I love hot chocolate.”

I’m more a hot tea person

But something about the winter calls for hot chocolate.

I guess it’s the richer feeling in the mouth

The thicker taste

It fills the belly better too.

I’d have to drink an ocean of tea for the same effect.

A bit uncomfortable.

I’ve been complaining about the weather a lot recently,

And expressing amazement when I don’t feel that need.

I can’t help but wonder if I make you laugh with all my bitching.

After all, no one can control the weather

And railing about it, albeit in glorious fashion, doesn’t change that.

The snow is here, and with it a lot of memories.

I appreciate it that you’ve listened

To the making of memories

Especially when the forging hurt,

Because I was making memories when rudely awakened from a long-time dream.

This snowy year has been the hardest one in terms of weather

Which I bitch about.

But it’s been a far easier winter than so many of recent times.

Used to be that the weather determined the severity of winter

Now it’s too complex for mere meteorologists to explain.

But I’m enjoying the puppy in the snow.

She, of course, capers about

Snowy playing in inverse proportion to how much I want to be outside.

It’s a toy, a jungle gym, fluffy, and food all in one

What’s not to love?

I admit, I have no answer.  What's not to love, indeed.

There’s no shadow on this year’s snow.

Or under the eyes in the looking-glass

Winter’s harsher than before, but much more happy.

Plus, there’s a lot more hot chocolate

And I leave no cup unfinished.

Miss you.

Today's thing is based on yesterday's list.  I'm not sure I'm pleased with today's written work, honestly.  I was trying to combine my feelings on two events into one idea, based on inspiration on what I could write using the word list I had.  I don't think it came together well.  Perhaps those two, though inspiring many of the same feelings, are not enough alike to distill down into one short poem.  Even so, here it is.  Again, I edited it as I wrote it, but it's the effective first draft.

=======================================================================================

As cars slip on the road below I consider cold.

Cold weather is one thing.

I can handle it.

But as much as I tell myself,

“It’s over”

Well, I’m not sure I like the feeling of

Cold Comfort.

I thought I had air-tight logic.

I'd found the solution

When I was exhausted.

Fire in my veins

Could leave me a burnt-out shell

And still I don’t appreciate that

Cold Comfort.

Sometimes I let my liver

Get the upper hand

And display some anger,

Some idea, some worry

Some suit against my joy,

While my mind gnaws on itself.

At least it’s over, I suppose.

Cold Comfort.

This becomes the test, I suspect.

A cold, grey moment.

The city brightening with the chill

Every wreck a trophy

Wearing the white, the now blinding lights.

I have stronger barriers now.

Cold Comfort.

=======================================================================================

I think it’s going to be an average day for me.  It’s a bit hard to see the future, even just a couple of hours away, but going from past experience, I will be unsurprised if the day goes exactly as all the others have since I moved here.

I’m caring for a puppy right now.  She belongs to my roommate, or my roommate belongs to her, however you want to look at it.  She came to live with us when she was about eight weeks old.  I’d forgotten how tiny they are at that age.  And she’s getting bigger so fast.  Today was the first day that she refused to go through her little puppy gate – I guess that makes it not average after all.  We have to block of parts of the house to keep an eye on her, but the blockade in the kitchen has a puppy gate that we can use to move her to different parts of the house.  Coming out of her bedroom today, she gave me a look that quite clearly said, “I want to be where you’re asking me to go, but I can’t do this.  I’ve tried, and I don’t fit anymore.  I’m confused; I’ve always been able to do this before.”  I guess she’s growing up.  She doesn’t understand that, though, and it’s interesting to watch.

She loves snow, though.  Which is good, because we have plenty of it right now.  It’s blowing and snowing outside.  Having just moved north (far north, to me), I’m surprised that I can stand outside right now and honestly say, “It’s not that bad out.”  The snow is definitely piling up, and I think I shoveled snow for the first time in my entire life yesterday (and the second this morning), but it’s not terribly cold or windy.  I’ve seen some gusts, though, that make me glad I’m inside.  They also make me wish I had a fireplace.  I hold tight to that old, romantic vision of a fireplace, a book and a cup of hot chocolate.  Instead, I have a puppy, a cupppa tea, and a laptop that runs very warm.  It’s not the same, but it certainly works for me.

The puppy has finally settled down to chew on her bone.  I’m thankful for this, as she was driving me batty earlier with her pacing around.  It’s only been recently that she’s housebroken enough that I can trust her to signal me when she wants to go outside.  Unfortunately, now that it’s snowing, she wants to go outside all the time.  I can’t seem to explain to her that it’s better to be inside.  But as the leader of the pack, I get to make these decisions.  Most of the time.  I don’t want her having any accidents, of course.

And, of course, as I’m typing the above, she gets up and starts pacing around again.  I know she doesn’t need to pee, she just did.  She just wants more space to roam.  I can’t blame her for that, I always want more space.  But she isn’t so well mannered yet that she can have the run of the house.  I tried giving her more freedom a few days ago, and while she had no accidents, she did manage to start on the destruction of one of our welcome mats.  That was the end of the extra freedom.  As she grows up, she can have more.  For right now, though, if I let her have the space she wants, I think she’d either go for the mat again, or try to eat my roommate’s dying mint plants.

She certainly has a thing for plants.  My roommate had to move two of our outdoor potted plants because the puppy would run by them and grab and eat a hunk every time she went outside.  Of course, this was complicated by the fact that both pots were frozen to the ground.  We had to wait for a warm snap to get them moved, and we spent a great deal of the interim shouting, “No!”

The problem is that this puppy is one of the most food motivated puppies I’ve ever met, and given how food motivated most puppies are, that’s saying something.  We can get her to do almost anything for food, but she also comes to expect it.  And we couldn’t always prevent her from swallowing a hunk of plant, so she was being rewarded every time she stole a piece, despite our attempts to make it undesirable.  I’m glad the warm snap came, but I’m concerned we’re not finding a way to make her leave plants alone.  Perhaps when it’s not icy out we can move the plants back, and take her out leashed and on a corrective collar.  A few quick leash pops, and I think we’ll get it through to her.  She’s very sweet, mellow, and eager to please (even without food), so I expect we’ll find a way to communicate with her.  It’s just a matter now of getting her to want to please us more than she wants food.  With this puppy, that might be a challenge, but at least she does have an innate desire to please.  I’ve met puppies that don’t, and it’s much more difficult.

Well, she went pacing around again, and when I finally let her outside, I watched the window panes.  I’ve never before lived in a place where frost builds up on the windows.  I feel as if I understand some of my English class readings better now.  Somehow, I find that frost cozy looking – perhaps because it’s not something I used to ever have.  Watching it all slowly melt, though, was incredibly fascinating as well.  The little rivulets of water streaming around, slipping this way and that, until meeting up with another droplet, and suddenly speeding up, until so many have joined together that they are careening for the ground.  It’s nifty to watch, but not so nifty to consider the consequences of all that ice building up right behind my back door.  I’ll just have to make sure that I keep shoveling as needed.  I’m not as good at is as my roommate, but I think my efforts help.

This work has been both longer and more “stream of consciousness” than I expected it to be.  I hope when I put it up for review by random strangers on the Internet, it won’t be too panned for those qualities.  On the other hand, it may simply depend on the first comment it gets.  There’s occasionally a herd mentality on the ‘net, and it can result in everyone saying roughly the same thing.  In effect, if one person says, “Whoa, this is good”, than the work is deemed good – whether it deserves it or not.  Same for, “Whoa, this is crap.”

Of course, the most likely thing is that it will garner no comments at all.  The other aspect of that herd mentality is that we all want to put something up, and we all want feedback (though some of us only want it if it’s positive), but then there’s too much to take in.  And we rarely take the time to scout out other works.  Thing-a-day should help with that, by bringing together a great different number of creative thoughts and works in one space, but even that is so large that it is hard to take it all in.  I know that before I sat down to do my “thing”, I read through much of the current front page, but I wasn’t mentally able to go on to everything else that was posted.

I guess it’s just another sign that information, in whatever form, is flowing at us far faster than we can process it these days.  I wonder what that means for us, and where we will take it.