A few months back I crept out, a shy blossom, to timidly and blushingly post my first ME!ME!ME! entry (September 11, 2010). This is a special entry that all bloggers must do at least once, in which they gas on about themselves endlessly...and ONLY about themselves. Somehow or other, God knows how, this turned out to be huge fun for me. Almost as if I was a big flaming ham and not a wee modest posy at all, although that is impossible, of course. In fact I got used to that ME!ME!ME! stuff real fast. So here is the second installment, again in a Question and Answer format.
Q.: So, have you learned to love cilantro? You were sort of struggling there for awhile...
A.: I just hate that nasty ditch weed. You might as well take a stinking moldy corpse-white plant growing above a grave, and roll it around in your soup. The flavor is not just bad, it's EVIL.
A.: What do you feel about cosmetics? A lot of women are going totally bare-faced these days...
Q.: I adore lipstick, and wear it all the time. The colors are so pretty. And a little eye-pencil can be fun. I live in the type of Green and rabidly PC city where a lot of the women feel really smug at going bare-face. They're like, 'Look at me, I don't give a crap, and that's great!' I always want to say to them, 'Where's the virtue in looking like a bleached steer's skull all day? For God's sake prop up the ancient bones with a dot of blush!'
Q.: So you think we're too casual, careless?
A.: I think we're thinking like Popeye: 'I yam what I yam.' But why? At home we put on clothes so dumpy we'd hesitate to donate them to a Salvation Army bin, and we wear them in front of the people we love best in the world. We should do better. My ideal is the French writer Colette. Even when she was 80 years old, she wouldn't let her husband see her in the morning until her hennaed curls were all fluffed up, and she had her eyes lined with kohl and a silk ascot on and the perfume he liked the best. We should take more trouble for each other. We'd be happier.
Q.: I remember you said you talk to yourself. Are you still babbling away?
A.: Yup. More than ever, since the election. Overnight, our nice Blue state became as Red as a maniac's eye.
Q.: I'm sorry I have to ask this, but are you making any headway regarding the Forgiveness thingy? As in forgiving your enemies?
A.: Not really. (Sigh.) I'm afraid the truth is that I don't want to forgive assholes. I want them to suffer.
Q.: Jesus is going to be so mad at you!
A.: You think Jesus likes assholes? He is way too smart for that.
Q.: I've heard you love Japanese movies. Why?
A.: They speak in a clear voice to our minds as well as our hearts. But be warned, a Kyoto ending can rip you up. I just saw a movie whose cheesy American title is THE SAMURAI I LOVED (Japanese title, Autumn Rain of the Cicadas.) The hero and heroine are childhood sweethearts who love each other their whole lives. Because of family tragedies they can never marry. They make heartbreaking sacrifices for each other. They can never embrace until the end...briefly...when they have to part forever. One kiss. Then he's in a canoe and she's in a palanquin, going in opposite directions. He's in agony because he knows he'll never see her again, but he holds himself together--because he doesn't want to hurt her with his pain. Then his canoe floats around a bend in the river. In the next shot of the canoe, we can't see him. Now, did he fall to the bottom of the canoe as though he'd been shot in the heart? Or in his anguish did he jump in the water and commit suicide? What a noble puzzle! And that's the end. Isn't it beautiful?
Q.: Well, it's, umm...I mean, it, ummm...well, it's definitely no barrel of monkeys. One freaking kiss, you said? For their whole lives? I have to ask: What did they get out of their love?
A.: Knowledge that the other person was alive in the world. That someone existed who loved them completely. And a profound, nourishing respect for the other person's---I guess I'd have to say, honor.
Q.: Well, that ain't no Hollywood ending, all right. Let's get back to food. What is one of your happiest mealtime memories?
A.: Wintertimes when I was a child. You have to understand that our state is a real mean sumbitch polar bear in the winter, you don't live here unless you MEAN it. I'd run into the house after school, late on a blue-black icy Friday afternoon, and that polar bear would be roaring after me. Then I'd be in the kitchen, and it would be warm, with a golden light, and would have this ragingly delicious smell of well-browned pork roast. On top of the refrigerator would be sweet rolls and coffee cake rising. My sisters and brothers and I had the whole fine weekend opening up broad and shining before us as we sat down to the table. And our mother and father would be there. So I know about heaven, or as close to it as makes no difference.
Q.: And there was no cilantro?
A.: No cilantro, at all.
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No cilantro either. ewww. glad I learned more about you! you! you!
ReplyDeleteGlad to see you back and to be able to add more details to the picture I have of you in my mind. These are some great questions.
ReplyDelete"This is a special entry that all bloggers must do at least once, in which they gas on about themselves endlessly...and ONLY about themselves."
Acting with honor at one's own discomfort is just about the greatest action a human can commit I think.
I will take your word about the cilantro.
least once? My entire blog is a love letter to myself.
Why should I ever forgive my enemies? They are my enemies. In literature the greatness of the hero is often a measure of the greatness of the evil pitted against him. And I am nothing if not a GREAT fictional hero
Copyboy, thank you, I'm glad I got a chance to warn the world about the Cilantro menace! Say, I visited NOT WORTH MENTIONING! today and thought your picture was handsome. The caption is ridiculous.
ReplyDeleteKal, your Comments are always kind and full of juice. Thank you. And I agree you are a great hero. A lot of people sleep more peacefully at night, knowing you are on a high promontory keeping watch over land and sea and ready to light the signal fires for when some mutant cephalopods become amphibious and invade the beaches. And that day WILL come. I know the Cilantro menace is tiny by comparison, but I feel that we bloggers can save humanity bit by bit if we coordinate our obsessions. We will prevail!
Wonderful interview of the author, permeated by the crackling sizzle of pork roast--if a little hard on the cilantro--surely, with lemon and chopped Brandywine tomatoes and little red onion in a salsa it's dirty-tennis shoe taste will blend in delightfully! or with sour cream, on spicy black bean soup with cayenne and an addition of orange juice, it's tender-just-picked crispness??
ReplyDeleteOh Margaret, like the slow roasted pork, your childhood sounds delicious! My hands could not but clap at your comments on make-up.. tho' I believe more than for others, we owe ourselves to be and look the best we can be, at all times. It is tiresome to daily go through those motions, especially if you have not one intention of seting foot outside - but it cossets the soul, besides, should the house burn down, least you will present a suitable corpse! (I confess, my eyeliner is permanently tattooed, as are the finer definitions of my eyebrows - so lovely to wake with no smudge or burden to see my face naked come each morn)!
ReplyDeleteI do not have quite the passion left as you - gone are the days I cared enough to hate my enemies - it's not so much that I forgive them, as I just don't give any toss to grant them the power to fester in my heart.
Thank you for the chuckles, and for knowing you a little more. (x)
this was great Margaret! Funny and very interesting... But I gotta call you on the cilantro! Mexican food and a WHOLE BUNCH of Asian food has cilantro in it. Of course the Asians call it "Chinese Parsley," but it's the same thing...
ReplyDeleteLoved this post! Hope your holidays were good!
Robin, the dishes you suggest so tantalizingly sound delicious, and I want them RIGHT NOW, with one tiny change--that where you say CILANTRO, I get to substitute SCALLIONS. And then to my mind (and taste) the meal would move ahead royally. Yumm! :^)
ReplyDeleteShrinky, your picture is lovely, and it's obvious you have the whole Face-care thing both expertly and naturally in hand. I think you're absolutely right that it cossets the soul. As for the healthiest stance toward "enemies"--I think you're right about that too.
Pat, have mercy about the cilantro! I was curious about why some people (me too) have such a violent revulsion toward the herb, Googled it and found out there's a genetic component...and Julia Child was one of us! Whee! In an interview she said she would pick cilantro out of her soup and throw it on the floor. Hey Pat, that's good enough for me! :^)
Cilantro is evil, I agree. The only way to stomach it is to mask it with a bunch of other stuff that has flavor.
ReplyDeleteWomen (and men) that go without showers are disgusting, but cosmetics? A little bit can go a long way, but it seems like an exercise in vanity to spend more than a few minutes a day primping unless one has an interview or a big date or a wedding or a funeral.
Yes, Wisconsin embarrassed itself in the last election, especially in displacing Feingold, just as they'd done in 1980 to Gaylord Nelson when they gulped the Reagan-Kasten snakeoil. One can only hope that the dim bulbs of swing voters light up before November 2012.
Assholes do deserve to suffer. The only reason to forgive someone is if it was unhealthy not to 'cuz fate is random and you can't count on the universe to even the ledgers.
A coffee cake story...that explains a lot!
Good post. Very thought-provoking.
Thanks for visiting the blog, Anonymous! I totally agree with you in the hope that "the dim bulbs of swing voters light up before November 2012." And I really think they will.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad to finally learn some more about you, Margaret. I hope to hear a lot from you in the new year! :)
ReplyDeleteThank you W.B. I enjoy the compelling sories on your blog! :^)
ReplyDeleteHi, that was great!
ReplyDeleteI found you at Shrinky's place, BTW.
Back for more soon!
Hi Rock Chef, I enjoyed your post about your pup. They're family members, whadayagonnado??!! :^)
ReplyDeleteYes, you you you you!
ReplyDeleteFollowing :)
p, youyouyou yourself! :^) Thanks for following. I'm going to check out your blog now.
ReplyDeleteSorry to took me a while to visit.
ReplyDeleteWhy do people either love or hate cilantro? I haven't found anyone who's "meh" about it. I'm sorry to say this, but I'm a lover.
I still have great respect for you and enjoyed this post. I hope I'm forgiven.
xoRobyn
Hi Robyn, if you're lucky enough to be a lover of cilantro, you should eat it! I wish I could.A grown lady should not be picking tiny green bits out of her enchiladas and hiding them in the napkin... But it seems there's a strange genetic component which makes it taste like soap to some people. :^(
ReplyDeleteThanks lot for this useful article, nice post
ReplyDelete