Chowderhead is hungry

Violet tells me that I should stop casting negative spells on myself—my words can come true if I am not careful. But what if they already are true?

I feel like a loser chowderhead today. There, I’ve said it. In fact, I have been a loser chowderhead this whole month. I got A’s on mid-terms with minimal effort, but scored a big fat C- on my personal project. I don’t know why I do not try harder to impress the people that matter—the ones that actually care about me and not the ones who do so in words only.

I left class at 8:30 p.m. with nowhere to go, having been cancelled-on by the same man today. 12:58 p.m.-Flight delayed. How about tomorrow? 3:03 p.m.-Oops! Daughter’s play is tomorrow evening so that’s bad, too. Lunch? Bollocks. I’m going to Pearl’s.



A lot has been made of the rivalry between Pearl’s and Mary’s: Who makes a better lobster roll? For my money, that’s really asking the wrong question. Why Pearl’s? The Brussels sprouts, dear reader. I pounded on the counter and asked the waitress for a plate of it, a big heaping portion, two to three servings on one dish. Did I know that it comes with carrots, parsnips, and lardons, she asked. But, of course!

Perhaps it was wrong of me to find solace in food after two hours of blowing hot air on socioeconomic disparities and the institutionalization of hunger. Oh wait, sorry. “Food instability” is what we’re calling it now. Because “hunger” is an emotionally charged word, embedded from infancy with ideas of well-being and love.

Feeding is more than the squirting of nutrients into a gastrointestinal tract…It is a situation of embrace, pressure, contact, fondling, cooing, tickling, talking, stroking, squeezing; it is the warmth of the body, the pulsation of the parent’s heart, the brushing of her lips, the smells of her secretions. This extended environment reinforces the child’s fused image of security and food. (Willard Gaylin, In the Beginning Helpless and Dependent)

The waitress laughed when she saw me. I was a ravenous biit before a bowl of julienned carrots. I had the urge to put down my fork, stick my face into the steaming dish, and savage the vegetables. The French woman sitting to my left stared for a minute, checked her menu, and then leaned over towards me.

-Excuse me, what are you eating? Whatever it is, it smells great.

-Bwussels Spwouts!

NOTE: The recent Joint FAO/WHO Expert Consultation on diet, nutrition and the prevention of chronic diseases, recommended the intake of a minimum of 400g of fruit and vegetables per day (excluding potatoes and other starchy tubers) for the prevention of chronic diseases such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes and obesity, as well as for the prevention and alleviation of several micronutrient deficiencies, especially in less developed countries. (FAO/WHO, September 2004)

You ask if I am drunk, dear reader. After three and a half glasses of Sancerre with only Brussels sprouts in my belly, you’re goddamn right I’m drunk.