I’m skeptical to post these with all the negative criticism, but really. If you don’t care for the imagery or “propaganda” of it all, just close your eyes and listen to Whitman. Even if it is—as many angry youtube users cried—”liberal commie propaganda,” it still makes me warm inside to see a campaign that—alas!—utilizes the wonders of beloved poetry. That said, enough whining about diversity, live and let live. Ehh yey yey.
Category: Uncategorized
One Wing
Another concert I would love to have been at.
One wing will never ever fly
Neither yours nor mine
I fear we can only wave goodbye
Neither yours nor mine
I fear we can only wave goodbye
I really hate to admit it, but I’m having a hard time resisting the utter absurdity of this…
I choose the rooms that I live in with care
The windows are small and the walls almost bare
There’s only one bed and there’s only one prayer
I listen all night for your step on the stair.
Krab Salad
On December 01, I celebrated my first anniversary of vegetarianism. This, as I mentioned several posts ago, is a gigantic achievement for me; and as this past year progressed, my life underwent gigantic changes. I waitressed for cash, took my cash on a European excursion for two months, found myself under a hairnet in a hospital cafeteria for the next two months, jetted off to the east coast for a much-needed getaway, settled into a cozy house in Fargo, and have been relearning how to live on my own. Relearning how to live on my own, I’ve found, includes relearning how to eat—and learning how to eat like a vegetarian.
This sounds like a scary book, How to Eat Like A Vegetarian and Other Things Your Mother Didn’t Teach You. I can almost see it in a forboden corner of Barnes & Noble, right next to the other books that know they’re not worth reading. Truth be told, I’ve a lot to learn. It turns out the practice is much more difficult than buying a jar of peanut butter and jelly, a loaf of bread, and container of multivitamins. It’s about motivation and dedication—and timing, to ensure that you eat your produce before it goes bad. This is where I struggle. As traveling would have it, throwing myself across the ocean yielded many, many meals of eggplant and fromage. And living now on a college budget sometimes means canned beans and a bag of lettuce (ramen noodles don’t make the cut—nothing with “powdered cooked chicken” gets in my basket).
There’s been progress, and many things I’ve learned. For example, if an ingredient in, say, Sage Dressing (a Hornbacher’s deli special if I ever saw one) is “Roasted and natural beef juices,” that product is indeed not veg-friendly. Sometimes you have to take the magnifying glass to a food, or employ your Inspector Gadget intuition. Soup might look safe, until you realize it’s chicken-based. Sauces with pureed bacon bits aren’t kosher. Beware of crab, krab, and yes, crabby krab salad. Whatever. Just yesterday I conversed with a deli customer about the spectrum of vegetarianism as he debated over which potato salad to purchase. A fellow vegetarian himself, he wasn’t aware that in addition to meat, some vegs exclude eggs from their diet (see lacto vegetarians). “Yeah, you mean a vegan,” he said. No, I don’t mean a vegan. (I believe there are many mistruths about veganism, as well as vegetarianism, which I won’t get into.)
So I’ve practiced at home, away from home, and across the ocean (where I ate my weight in eggplant). I’ve stuck around for one year, and am going to give myself a shameless pat on the back.
Pat, pat, pat. Okay, the moment’s over. Happy eatings, all.
Summer? Yes?
Once upon a time…
I saw Leonard Cohen: Live in London last night on Prairie Public. It had been a while since I’d heard Cohen, and was reminded of earlier years when I’d listened closer, and seen him glow and low voice sung from the TV screen in a friend’s apartment. I miss that.
This is one of my Cohen favorites, Chelsea Hotel — a number I didn’t here in Live in London.
Happy Cold Pizza Day! (A new holiday cuisine)
Let’s face it — Thanksgiving was not created for vegetarians. It’s a well-known fact that pulling that shiny Butterball from the oven is, indeed two-fifths of the fun of Thanksgiving (Grandma’s antics provide the other three-fifths). When you take away the turkey, a herbivore’s delight are the mashed potatoes, the cranberry relish, and the cold pizza that your brother brought home from work last night.
Due to working conflictions of other family members, we’ve not eaten our dinner yet. This is kind of a problem, because aside from the bowl of oatmeal I ate for breakfast/lunch, I’ve been gnawing on cold pizza all afternoon. I’m not blaming this on anyone. Clearly I could run to my refrigerator right now and shove a package of deli meat in my mouth if I so pleased, but in keeping with my desire to remain veg, I’ve restrained myself. Next week marks one year without meat, and I intend to reach that mark and then some. (Note: This is the longest I’ve stuck with anything, ever. Not even my longest relationship, or consecutive months of not shaving my legs beat this.)
I made a grocery store run this afternoon with the intention of buying a bag of potatoes, and a side intention of finding a turkey substitute. In a city where 0.5% of residents claim vegetarianism, and the other 99.5% are on a strict meat and potato diet, I found nothing but buffalo sausage and birds. I was actually skeptical to ask where the tofu was, for fear of that look…you know, the look, the one that reminds you that tofu was not eaten by pilgrims at any national celebration of citizenship and/or discovery. The look that says, “You and your vegetable-eating psycho environmentalist inconveniences of friends are the exact reason why my faith in humanity is waning.” The look that says, “Substitute? Why not just eat potatoes and cold pizza?” I walked out of the store with a sack of potatoes.
On second thought, an orchestra of awkward stares at the questionable turkey substitute on my plate would, in fact, not be worth the trouble. Dodging the questions to follow could prove tricky (“That looks like…what is that?”), and aside from being nutritional, I can’t think of any reason why it would beat cold pizza and potatoes.
One thing to be thankful for: Pumpkin pie. No meat in that.
Happy day, all.
approximatelyes.com 