Cooking, Like Life and Keeping a Blog, Is Hard

I have been terrible, dear readers, with keeping up with the blog as of late. One explanation, though not an excuse, is that I am now commuting back and forth from my place of business in New York to my place of residence in far-away New Jersey. Another is that I have not been contemplating my own existence lately. That ends now.

What have I been up to lately? Well, this past weekend, I evacuated my apartment. I say evacuated because it was quick and poorly organized, though appropriately done, and has resulted in a great deal of cleanup after the fact where all of my stuff currently resides back at home with my parents. After that was Memorial Day, which consisted of me playing with my sister's children ad exausteum (nope, not a word) and then consuming unhealthy amounts of meat. In fact, I would say that was a theme for the weekend. Ethics aside, each helping of processed meat beef was delicious. Normally I do not eat meat, but sadly, not because of a moral inclination on my part, but instead because it was too expensive for me to buy when I was living alone. Now, my parents buy the meat, so I eat whatever they put in front of me. And hey, if hot dogs and hamburgers are not present at a Memorial Day cookout, something's not right.

As a side note, Memorial Day isn't about patriotism, my sister informed me, but about honoring those who died. She's right, of course, but that does not preclude me from shivering at the sight of the American flag, even if it accompanies delicious beef. In spite of that, I had a lovely time.

Then began the week of work and three hours of commuting every day, which is decidedly not fun, not to mention this week and next are the longest in recorded history. You see, readers, after next Sunday, I will be living full-time with my girlfriend of nearly two years. First with my parents, and then with hers, but by then we will begin our lives together - and that is a reason to celebrate. I see the light at the end of the tunnel, but still I must work, which is... hard.

Beyond commuting, which is hard enough, I am getting discouraged by my lack of abilities. The thing I am focusing on currently is cooking. I cannot cook, and I think it's because of my undiagnosed attention deficit disorder. Basically, I start cooking, I get distracted, I try once again to reel myself in and focus, I do something for 5 minutes, and then I am back to not paying any heed of the boiling/steaming/sauteeing mess on the stove for which I am responsible.

I tried to make rice on Tuesday night, figuring I would bring in rice and beans (possibly in honor of Rent) to work. Sadly, I cannot for the life of me get the proportions of water to rice down to make an acceptable pot of rice. It either comes out burned or overcooked and pudding-like. After I failed once again, I had about a pound of terrible rice to deal with and decided to try to make fried rice. The recipe was near the stove, and I decided not to follow it at all and, naturally, I managed to make an eggy, soy-sauce-ey, oily pan of mush unacceptable to any human being. I became enraged and vowed not to cook until I stopped being an idiot.

I thought to myself, maybe I simply needed inspiration. I decided to pick up the nightstand book Aphrodite by Isabel Allende, which is exciting, intoxicating, and totally hot. This, however, made me want to burn calories, not put them together into an interesting dish. Sigh. At least the book is nearly over.

Part of growing up is facing the truth about yourself. One of those truths may be that I am not interested in cooking. I rarely enjoy it when I am alone, because I cook to feed myself, not out of pleasure. If it is mixed with something else, perhaps time with friends or a romantic activity, it's fun, but otherwise, I do not truly possess a love of food. I like good food, but I'm not a foodie.

Another truth is that I have no attention span. Work is hard for me. I wish I could have been born a more gifted athlete so I could be a professional soccer player. I seriously believe that was my calling, and somewhere along the line, I veered off course. Thus, I am forced to discover something else in which I take as much pleasure as soccer.

I'm tired of being asked what I'll be doing after I leave New York. I still am no closer to discovering my path than I was a week ago, so please, stop asking. I'm back to being depressed and pessimistic about my career, so I will be thriving on my personal life while I struggle to reconcile my dreams with reality. At least I still have dreams. And after all, I've managed to see the light at the end of my relationship tunnel. It's only a matter of time before I start to see the end of the next large tunnel in work life, right?

Luckily, or somewhat sadly, depending on how you look at it, at the age of 22, time is really what I have.