Savoring, or illness as instigation to hedonism

My knee-jerk idea of hedonism resides somewhere in the juncture between spinster-tame and ridiculously outdated. On the tame side, I curl up on the couch with a steaming cup of tea and a book, or a crackly OTR Shadow broadcast, or a Buffy episode on hulu. The ridiculously outdated version looks more like this:



Lately I've been feeling more and more self-indulgent in matters of the senses. Food appreciation I recognize and can understand, but it goes further than that - like I almost drowned and came back. Don't get me wrong. My flareup was not a near-death experience, no matter how much I hurt/writhed around/felt sorry for myself before regaining my senses and letting A. take me to the ER. But I find myself wildly more appreciative toward everything physical and tactile ever since.

Anyway. Food is still my main sinkhole here. Food is now to be savored, my mind tells my body when I open my mouth. I've been reading and marking recipe books like a junkie. I see my current food behavior mirrored in a woman I know who was sick for an extended period of time last year with a staph infection. She now eats turkey bacon every day. Before you protest and say, that's not hedonistic, it's TURKEY bacon, I say Turkey bacon IS good. But then, I grew up trading fruit snacks for turkey jerky from one of my dehydrator-possessing friends. (I thought those things were so cool. Wow, I was such a dork.)

Also, speaking of bacon, look at this:
Carrot Bacon
That sounds fantastic. Deep-fat fried anything is just as bad as regular bacon, isn't it? But still. Better than a fried twinkie, and if you're a homicidal maniac, I'm sure carrots would make a better defense, too. I am confused, though, by the captions saying that the carrots are too big to eat? Since when? The carrots A. and I get at the farmers market (seen earlier in this amazing puree post) are all about that size or sometimes bigger, and they're sweet and delicious and perfectly edible. What's the deal? Is it a South-versus-North soil thing? I know my folks' carrots usually didn't get that big...

To get away (partially) from food-only hedonism, here are some of my other recent self-indulgences:

Chocolate. I love chocolate without bias or snobbery. Dark? Sure. Milk? Sure. White? Sure. Truffles? Sure. Peanut M&Ms? Sure. I will eat it all. But I haven't been hoovering it lately. Granted, I can't; Ouchy Gut doesn't like hoovered chocolate, or much chocolate at all, hoovered anything really, which has changed my eating manners somewhat. (My mom would be proud, though, I bet) But I can't stay away from it for long. Perhaps, like Sunshine, my veins need it for functionality. With a tentative gut, my chocolate desires get more choosy. So, Peanut M&Ms? Sure. But these days, they better be fresh.

My job. I'm less worried about the facets of it that suck and the way it feels so dead end, and more chuffed about the paycheck, the health benefits, and the fact that I know we will not live here forever. (Please, please don't let us live here forever.) I'm not used to this attitude - I want to love my job. I want it to be my work, something I do wholeheartedly, not a watch-the-clock, need-it-to-eat job, a job where my worth is based on my ability to copy and paste and say yes with a bright face to the right people who will forget I ever said anything fifteen minutes later. It's just that kind of a job right now, and that's okay.

Travel. A. and I kicked into high gear and we suddenly have plans for a bunch of little trips (to places like San Jacinto or ACL) and big trips (San Francisco, Minnesota, Antwerp). Another area where the paycheck of work trumps the work.

Weather. We've been enjoying some cooler temps lately. Makes me miss things like the big blazing maple tree in my folks' yard and the Minnesota autumn in general, but the drop in oppressive heat is glorious. Our morning walks with the dog are now filled with chilly breezes, stars and rustling leaves.

Wow, my recent posts have been chockful of naval-gazing. Maybe it's the prednisone? I'm also experimenting with scheduled posts, so please bear with my technological fumblings.