Mixed feelings about being good at food.

Okay, I am eating this:

From our garden shed, which has a view of this:

As you can tell by the bright, sunny weather, it's mid-July out here in Seattle.

Now, in the photo of our garden, you can see the very same kale and broccoli plants that I'm eating, in the photo of my plate.

Look, most of the food is now gone:

This meal is nutritious, it tastes good, and is almost as homemade as possible. 

The fried polenta cakes were sliced from one of those pantry-stable loaves at Trader Joe's. The butter I used was the Kroger store-brand from Fred Meyer. The fork was store-bought. The plate was store-bought. The vinegar I used on the brown-butter polenta and the lemon olive oil used as a finisher on the brown butter broccoli was from that Pike Place run I wrote (boring to read, thrilling to live) about about a week ago. Bam:

And the kale salad had Trader Joe's store brand cilantro dressing massaged into it, and also the Parmesan cheese was from somewhere, too. I don't have any dairy animals, and I don't make my own cheese. I buy cheese.

But the kale and broccoli came from some seeds that my husband and I planted in the garden boxes that my husband and I (mostly him, because I was doing homework all spring) built earlier this year, on a raised yard area that my husband and I, several friends, and our landlord all built together last summer. WE BUILT THAT SHIT FROM SEEDS!!!!!!

Besides that, the food I'm eating was also a home-cooked meal that I prepared, and it doesn't suck. It's still simply made, it's still vegetarian, and it's still greasy. (Not that I think vegetarian meals suck, but the ones I prepare often are, especially to carnivorous palates.) So my own standards were met. But I set my youthful dedication to being kinda icky aside, and gave this a real shot. And the shot landed where it needed to, and the whole thing was lovely.

Any time that something youthful is set aside, I get this horrid little ticking clock feeling inside myself, like my cells are decaying, and I only have a finite number of years as an organism, and I may never have children because my health is quite bad and also because I really love taking very effective contraception (it's awesome), and, and, and even if I live a vivid life of love, adventure, laughter, and social connection, that I too will die. Oh, the sadness. I am the first person ever, who ever lived, to have such precious feelings about my own unique, special mortality. 

(*belch*)

But really, the "running out of time" anxiety I'm feeling is about 87% just that it's Sunday afternoon, and the grad school assignments that were due at 5pm on Friday still aren't done. I have a note, I always have a note, and I can get freshened-up doctor's notes at any time. 

I'm usually whiz-bang at school-stuff, but I'm not yet at the "Eureka!" stage. I'm stuck in the "I reek-a" stage, which is laaaaammmmeeeeee. Ugh. 

I probably say this all the time, but I wish that I still lived in the sweet bubble of clock-obliviousness in which I spent my intoxicated, dropout teens, before sobering up and upgrading to the higher-brow high of academia. Except that I was still a virgin, and I didn't have a driver's license, I didn't know how to fill out a job application, and I threw a lot of tantrums that I now deeply regret. So, I guess I should probably shut up about it, because adolescence sucks. 

Adolescence is, at best, like a shitty version of retirement. Entirely too few memories, not enough personal autonomy, and typically a deficit of shuffleboard. Typically. Whereas being a really old, retired person is (probably?) way cooler on every level.

UGH, NOW I WANT TO BE REALLY, REALLY OLD. Like, Ruth Gordon in Harold and Maude old. Or Ruth Gordon in Every Which Way But Loose old. I could make old look so cool! So, fuck. Homework. Fuck. Gotta get to second-not-shitty-childhood already. Gotta keep pushing. Gotta get there. Gotta get old. Gotta just get my young adulthood over and done with. Winnebago Warrior, brave as old John Wayne, feed Doritoes to the bears, tell your graaaaand son who's the boss!

I am aging too fast, and I am not aging fast enough.

Uh...gotta think of a good way to end this...uh...

Huhhuhhuh I just "saw" some caulk. Huhhuhhuh "caulk."