The Rites of Passages

I don't think anyone reads this anymore. But I thought I'd check by posting a non-sequiter.

It's an age old question, how one eats, but I have taken the time to break this mystery down in the present volume. I want to approach this very simplistically, although libraries of scholasticism devoted to culinary academia have already been written on the present subject. That is not my goal here. I want this subject to be available to the Everyman, to the blue-collar middle class, to the fairly illiterate. My approach is going to be very simple and straight forward. How to Eat - it may sound overwhelming and complex. But after reading this short volume, I guarantee you that you will not only understand, but you will be eating. In no time!!

Let's start with step one. Open mouth. Go ahead, give it a try. Don't feel ashamed, even if you are reading this in a public setting. Open it up like you would at the doctor's when he/she sticks that flat wooden stick on your tongue. Go ahead. Try it. Maybe even say "aaaaah," as a verbal helpsake. Or maybe pretend like you are yawning really really big. YAWN. Maybe that will help. Or if those don't work, pry your hands into your mouth and forcibly stretch your jaw away from your skull. Did you do it? Good. Now we are really close to eating. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Step two is almost as fun as step one.

It is still an extremely common problem for people to confuse thinking for deciding and vice versa. For example, a person sitting down for a meal at the local pizza eatery may voice to her companion in consumption how terribly hungry she is. The two then peruse their menus. She flits from item to item reading in depth but never truly thinking about the item in context of eating it. Rather, she bounces from emotional tangents: 'I will never be able to cook items as tasty as these', 'I need to be working out more than I am', 'i like/dislike the color scheme they have chosen for this menu/table/napkin/curtain'. While this is certainly thinking (albeit problematic in its lack of direction and prioritizing), it is very far from deciding. Nevertheless, upon being asked by the waitstaff for her order, she replies,"I am still deciding." And that is how my wife inspired me to decide to publish the third edition.

"Can we keep him? Can we keep him?" I knew it was only a matter of time before I heard my son ask me that question again. It had been almost four months since Johnny was at the front door holding a brown cat in his arms (a one-eyed cat) begging for us to keep him. I buckled under the question and Johnny later named that one-eyed cat Macaroon who had since been present in every family photo taken.

But now Johnny stood, bent over and scratching behind the ears of a yellow, well, more black because of the oil and filth, mutt. Unlike Macaroon, this animal had both eyes. It was missing a leg though. I couldn't bare the sight. Between the three-limbed dog and the glassy eyes of Johnny I caved. "Of course you can keep him."

Johnny named him Nong out of his insistance that the mutt looked like Egg Nog, which of course Johnny always mispronounced as Egg Nong. "Merry Christmas mom," he would say, "Can we have some Egg Nong now?" And like clockwork his mother would try to correct him, "Johnny, it's Nog, not Nong!" And like a digital watch, Johnny would come back with the usual, "That's what I said - Nong." Round and round they would go.

After a two hour bath, the three-limbed mutt joined the one-eyed cat as our household pets. And with Johnny turning 30 this year, there was no telling what was going to happen.

Well, I suppose it all started out like everyone else's childhood, only mine was spent in France. Paris, actually. It is only the city known for romance and fine wine. And so just like everyone else I have talked with over the course of my life, we grew up and went to school, only, of course, my life was spent in France. Did you know the French invented the garlic press?

Academia came easy to me. School was nothing but a drudgery, like most kids experience, only mine was a French drudgery. And it came easy to me. I made straight A's. Straight French A's. In Paris. I'm pretty sure the French invented the letter A.

I fell in love when I was 15, only to a French boy. His name was Jean. Not John. Jean. We would take long walks around the Seine and visit the Notre Dame. We would hold hands as we ate bagettes on the cobblestone streets of Paris. We would drink French coffee and smoke French cigarrettes. Ah, we were in love. French love. Did you know that France is the number 1 exporter of diapers in the whole world?

Jean and I broke up 2 weeks later. And University was next for my life, only I didn't study abroad as so many of my French classmates had done. No, I stayed in France to study. I studied French. So many people thought it was so funny that here I was a French girl in France studying French. But I didn't think it was so strange. I thought it was quite natural. Afterall, the French invented French.

I found this book disturbing.


That's right, if you have a scab touch it. What does it feel like? Hard, bumpy. Like scales on a lizard. Like the hard earth in a parched land. Like the skin of a t00-oft tanner. Like a heart locked away.

Smell it. What does it smell like? Nothing. Existential non-ness. Like a piece of dead skin. Death itself. Good like that. Like a mystical walnut.

Go ahead, eat it. What does it taste like? Like an over-cooked filet. Like beef jerky left out in the rain. Like a neglected kimono. Delicious perhaps. Strangely, even provocatively so. You shouldn't like it but you do.

This what is good about scabs - you can grow them yourself, as much as you want. To touch. To smell. To eat. Scabs.

"Mr. Sanchez?" announced the nurse to the waiting room.

Rick looked up from his staring into the sterile tile floor. The nurse knew it was him.

"Come with me," said the nurse.

Rick followed her down the hospital's long corridor. He was glad to be moving on to the next stage of the evening's strange unfolding of events. Nonetheless, he was still anxious about seeing the state that she was in. The state to which he had delivered her.

"She seems to be stable," said the nurse, opening a door gently. "But, we need to keep her at least overnight."

Rick stood staring at the body slowly breathing under the white hospital sheets. He swallowed the lump in his throat.

"Why must you keep her--what's wrong with her?" asked Rick.

"Well, she's 'hot-blooded'. We've seen a few cases of fever like this recently--inexplicable causes. In any case, she is burning up."

"But she looks fine," said Rick as he approached the bed. "There is no sweat."

"Check it and see."

Rick extended his hand slowly toward her forehead. The skin was soft--just as he remembered it to be. Rick's eyes widened slightly upon feeling the heat. He looked toward the nurse.

"She's got a fever of a hundred and three," said the nurse with eyes the showed compassion enough for the lady on the bed as well as the man with his hand on her forehead.

"I'll leave you," the nurse said, as she turned to leave.

Rick watched the door close. His head turned back towards the woman. Suddenly, he felt her little hand move toward his hand on the bed. With such little strength, the little hand grasped at his. Rick's whole being was seized.

"Come on, baby!" he whispered, exasperated. His eyes glimmered with the welling of tears.

Only a moment later, her grasp had gone. He layed her hand back down gently on the bed.

"What have you done to me?" he asked, as a smile broke across his face as the tears rolled down his hot face. He laughed and wiped the tears from one of his cheeks.

"We are given only so much time in this world. I had already retired... I had already assigned this time to commit acts against love. To crush such irrationality. To save lives. To secure freedom."

Rick paused, looking deeper into her angelic face.

"God... freedom. I didn't even know what that was. But it was right there--the whole time--in the way you danced. Your body. The way it moved. For so long, I didn't see. How could I?"

Rick snickered to himself, at himself.

"And to think that I even asked, 'do you do more than dance?' It is so easy to ask these questions from an ivory tower. You do more than dance. You set people free. You ignite the one true passion in this life. You set fire coarsing through my veins."

Rick stood up straight.

"Because of you, I'm hot blooded. I'm hot blooded!"

ROBERT. What are you doing here, Dobbs?
HAL. My timing sucks. I am really sorry.
ROBERT. Don't be silly.
HAL. I'll come to your office.
ROBERT. Stop. Sit down. Glad you're here. Don't let the dinner thing throw you, you'll bounce back. (To Catherine) This should be easier. Let's back off the problem, let it breathe, come at it again when it's not looking.
CATHERINE. Fine. (Exiting.) Excuse me.
ROBERT. Sorry, I'm rude. Hal, this is my daughter Catherine. (To Catherine) Don't go, have a drink with us. Catherine, Harold Dobbs.
CATHERINE. Hi.
HAL. Hi.
ROBERT. Hal is a grad student. He's doing his Ph.D, promising stuff. Unfortunately for him his work coincided with my return to the department and he got stuck with me.
HAL. No, no, it's been--I've been very lucky.
CATHERINE. How long have you been at U. of C.?
HAL. Well I've been working on my thesis for --
ROBERT. Hal's in our "Infinite" program. As he approaches completion of his dissertation, time approaches infinity. Would you like a drink, Hal?
HAL. Yes, I would. And, uh, with all due respect... (He hands Robert the envelope.)
ROBERT. Really? (He opens it and looks inside.) You must have had an interesting few months.
HAL. (Cheerfully.) Worst summer of my life.
ROBERT. Congratulations.
HAL. It's just a draft. Based on everything we talked about last spring. (Robert pours a drink. Hal babbles.) [...]
ROBERT. Drink this.
HAL. Thanks. (He drinks.) I decided, I don't know, if it feels done, maybe it is.
ROBERT. Wrong. If it feels done there are major errors.
HAL. Uh, I--
ROBERT. That's ok, that's good, we'll find them and fix them. Don't worry. You're on your way to a solid career, you'll be teaching younger, more irritating versions of yourself in no time.
HAL. Thank you.