The Burned Flesh of Dead Animals

We went to Bertucci's on Beacon Street on our first date. I mentioned how much I loved their veal marsala. Her lovely blues eyes rolled. Her lips scrunched. She took a breath and then told me the real story about veal. I ordered the Fettuccine Alfredo with a side of sauteed broccoli.

I have a friend who hasn't eaten meat for half a century. He does enjoy fish, and getting stoned, and walking his dog, and also carries about 40-50 pounds of excess girth. His approach is simple, "I don't eat anything I can pet."

My current partner says that she grew up eating what her father declared were only the best cuts of beef. Left-handed and naturally athletic, she swam competitively, was a cheerleader and played first base with a right-handed mitt. But then she hooked up with a macro-biotic herbivore. Today she'll eat a fish and enjoys my roast chicken. She rarely spoke with her father over the last ten years of his life.

Me? I'll eat almost anything. I really shouldn't say that considering the organs and critters gleefully devoured by Anthony Bourdain, and other gastronauts on TV. I admire Mr. Bourdain, his wise-ass persona, cultural insights and his "I don't give a crap what you think" approach. I'm just not interested in asking my digestive track to deal with the glands and mystery parts of another mammal.

My choice to enjoy the burned flesh of dead animals floats up from my choice to believe in reincarnation. This life in this body is temporary. There have been and will be others. Other times, other places, other life forms, families and species. This time around I have enjoyed a steak, steamed crabs, roast turkey, escargot, chicken sausage, lamb chops, and a Cuban sandwich. I am not a hunter although I have killed spiders, and trapped mice. I have loved dogs and cats. I have also been bitten by a small dog and infested with body lice. I feel connected to all God’s creatures. We share this space. We share resources, breathe the same air, and eat each other.

And then there's evolution. Change happens, sometimes on its own, and occasionally as a result of the choices we make. At some point, most of us have chosen alternatives to cannibalism. As our sensibilities evolve, we can see beyond the cave, the clan, the tribe. True, we get stuck every so often on race, religion and politics. But we all eat, and we pretty much eat stuff that at some point was alive. We don't, like seahorses, eat our young. We don't eat our pets, although some do raise, adore and eat their chickens or pigs. We grow, hunt, harvest and eat living things because that's how life is sustained. There is no life in sand, rocks or metals. Trust me, if there was, we would eat that stuff too.

Trying

What a day, a sunny Sunday. Clear bright sky, 72 degrees. So tomorrow things change. There's concern, a kind of worry with a smirk. Will I sleep tonite? Will I sleep at my desk? What about food? What about all the new people? But mostly what about my brain, my ability to learn, to focus, to understand this new mess. Brett called it a mess. I've created a new empty directory, "SST" and a sub-directory "Compliance." I need to unload or push aside the moodle stuff. I can't really say there's anything there. Most of what I learn these days doesn't really stick. I've got teflon where I need velcro. It's always been that way. I couldn't remember the formulas I needed to succeed in college. I have trouble remembering stuff I read. Lately, I tried saluting my poor memory as one of my best features. I am a designer of information systems. They work because my memory doesn't. I'm more concerned about my mistakes. I used to think that spontaneity was a good thing. It probably is a good thing to trust your gut, but my first impressions are almost always wrong. I react to information without taking the time needed to really get the message. I seem to be working with a slow processor. There are also way too many sub-routines running, clouding my ability to perceive clearly, and now Ellen has introduced a new condition - Brain Fog. I've been fogging up my nervous system forever. I used to think that drugs would set me free. That didn't work for me and yet my best hours of the day are four to nine. Crack a bottle of wine or pour a vodka, chop some onions and garlic, sizzle some fish or bake a chicken. It's all good. Flip on msnbc, enjoy the meal, pour another glass, pass out in the chair. Wake up, gobble a few FRS and head to the pool. What the hell am I going to do now! Dinner in town, walk across the Common, sober up and go to the gym?

I wish Jane was here. Her image of me is so much better than mine. I miss her face, her skin, her sneezes, chuckles, and other noises. But Jane is not here. She is in love where she is. Her Ginger with Baby. Her Jesse with Devin. They are lucky to have her and I am the loser in that equation because she cannot be here and there. She has made her choice. Nothing beats knowing who you are and knowing what you want. When Jane is with Devin she is full. As she waits and watches Ginger as she blooms, Jane blooms as well. And I love her.

Very

It is clear that I am at my best alone. Caring way too much about what others are thinking, how they are judging me is my broken bone. It's a bone in my brain. A basic mechanism of my conscious life that I have wished away, fought, tried to squash, with absolutely no success though out my life. At some point I looked to drugs, meditation, therapy. Nothing works. It doesn't seem to matter. A random driver, some guy in the pool or the shower, a girl friend or child, a co-worker, a boss, a waiter. They get my attention. I shake my head. It's so stupid. Such a waste. I have labeled it a weakness. I have given it a name - Libran Disease. When it strikes I shake my head. Who gives a shit about the guy across the street. Why to care so, even for that instance it strikes. It hits my spine, my gut, my tongue. How silly and stupid. The only solution is solitude. There I can do and be whatever. I can't write whatever because the real stuff going through my mind, if written and then read would hurt - not me but someone close to me. The shit that flows through the mind reflects little. My mind is an open channel like a scanner on a radio receiving messages without value. Here's this, then that. Random fantasies of sex, of power, of achievement, of whimsy. My choices are perhaps more important. But not so much when driven by fear, the fear of the reactions of others. I've written this kind of crap before but now things are different. I am older. My parents are gone. How much more time there is to wait, to hope or pray when I know in my heart there is no cataclysmic occurrence around the corner that will make it stop, that will unleash me from these foolish concerns.

I go for a walk. I cut vegetables. I clean a chicken. I open a bottle. I suck in the aroma. It's three in the afternoon - cooking time, three to five. It high time, peaceful time. Jane will arrive in the next hour. The couscous waits. I'll slice the tomato and the avocado. I'll boil the water. She will walk in, smiling, relieved, happy to be home, happy to see me, ready to eat. These 3-6pm slices of life are done. These hours in an office will soon be a struggle to stay awake, to stay with it, to answer some random emails or sit through another meeting. I'll be drifting back to cooking time. To the late afternoon hours with a glass of wine, an olive, a slice of gruyere.