O, to Eat in Peace

So we all know that my life revolves, unequivocally, around food. Food, food, food all the time. I wonder what I'm eating for dinner as I pour my morning bowl of cereal (if it's a weekday); create grocery lists for fun with ambitions of making something from any one of my dozens of cookbooks (which I then don't follow through on, opting instead for a tried-and-true crave-worthy favorite); I chart out my meals for the week, planning calorie- and indulgence-wise what makes the cut for what day, based on what else I eat that day in question. Everything food, 24/7.

It then pretty much goes without saying that to me, eating is one of the most pleasurable experiences one can possibly go through. A good meal is tantamount to pretty near anything. A cracked peppercorn-encrusted, dry-aged New York strip steak, with a rosy-tinted juice running in rivulets onto a sizzling plate with snapping clarified butter beats the hell out of having sex, and cutting it into small pieces guarantees it lasts longer, too. Roast duck in a fragrant, dried shallot-infused broth with fresh wonton noodles cooked al dente is a powerful bargaining chip if someone ever seeks to bribe me, as my father used to do to get me to the dentist. Even something as simple as my grandma's sweet and puffy battered fried shrimp with a side of garlicky sauteed spinach and brown rice has the power to turn a shitty day into a wonderful one. And a well-crafted whole-wheat burrito with coconut and cilantro rice, fresh pico de gallo, moist steak, ooey, gooey cheese, and slightly charred onions and peppers, flavored with chipotle pepper? The things I'll do for a trayful of those.

And so on, and so on. You get the picture. I secretly ate a really, really fat kid in my past, and continue to harbor those tendencies. There is no satiating the compulsive eater in me. And having an endless appetite? Well, honestly, I kind of love it. The more room I can make in my belly, the more I get to just taste things, one of the most hedonistic senses to awaken. Oh, yum. *Shivers.*

With all that info in mind, I will now launch into my tale of woe and sorrow.

My favorite things to do consist of this:

1. Get in bed with my book of the day, and a good meal, and eat and read simultaneously in clothes I keep aside just for getting messy.
2. Get in bed, flip on one of my favorite sitcoms, and eat a good meal as I watch mindless television programming. This is also done in my "eating clothes."

Therefore, it's all the more tragic to me that I never get a single meal of peaceful eating anymore.

Case in point: Because I'm a fan of the snooze button (it tells me how long I can cuddle my dog for before I have to get up) and have thick, "spirited" hair, I don't have a whole lot of time to get breakfast together in the morning. Usually, bites of Wheaties ('cause I'm a champion) with juicy raisins or Rice Krispies in 1% are taken between packing my lunch, feeding the Lil' B (the puppy), and making sure he pees and doesn't eat his own poo. There is no relaxation time there, and it's go, go, go until I sit down at my desk at the office. This, my friends, sucks. Back in the golden years, during college, I would sit in the sun with my full breakfast and contemplate my textbooks until I had to get dressed for class at 11 AM. The good old days.

Exhibit B: at work, because I like to read and eat at the same time, I hide out in my office with a novel and munch. However, because I'm in my office, people don't seem to realize that I am, in fact, taking my hour lunch. Everyone else plays video games for an hour and a half in the conference room, so it seems completely reasonable that I take a mere 60 minutes to enjoy a break in the day and do something I love. Right? Apparently, WRONG. Since we have yet to replace our receptionist, I--as the lowest-paid non-new minion and general lackey (it seems)--get the unspeakable pleasure of dealing with pissed off orthopedic surgeons and their wives/assistants, who are so tech-savvy that they often attempt to email our web site or call to yell at me for their content-less site not showing up on Google's first page for something as generic as "knee."

Anyhoo, because I take my lunch at my desk, I'm often asked to schedule meetings (ironically, between the person asking that I schedule a meeting ... ironic because it's that person is usually on the phone with the person they are to meet with), answer questions ("What's a browser and where do I buy one?"), or other random things. So then, that meal is quickly shot to hell for enjoying in leisure, as I drip chicken cutlet sandwich all over my keyboard, chomp as discreetly as possible into my phone, and greasify my mouse. Wonderful.

Exhibit C: Now that I live with my fiance, we don't see each other very much. I know--what a paradox. But the thing is, you stop putting time aside to hang out, you each have your own lives to live (his is school; mine is work), and when you do get home, you just want some alone time. Unfortunately, his alone time is during the day and spent in relative leisure, compared to my forced social interaction of the workday. So when I get home, he wants to have the TV blasting on something utterly inane or grisly (The Boy is a sports fan, and also enjoys his TruTV [aka CourtTV]), and tell me completely irrelevant things about himself before I even get a chance to settle down and let the tension in my neck unravel. Before my plate hits the table, and before I even get one paragraph into the book I'm trying to read amidst all the din of that night's football game.

Although I love The Boy dearly, when I get home from work, the last thing I want to do is spend any time with any other person in close quarters. I'm partial to long, brisk walks for decompressing conversation, but the tinny treble of the television set and artificial lighting indoors is not exactly conducive to any kind of significant interaction ... so why bother? If I'm in an environment like that, all I want to do is eat something extremely unhealthy and read a book that may kill as many brain cells as it engages (enter Tweenage Fangirl), going straight to my happy place. No, I don't care about your day. I'm EATING.

For Chrissakes, dear Lord, give me one meal a day that I can indulge in peace my biggest vice: gluttony. For without simple pleasures, what is life?