Wednesday 25 December 2002

Pic of the day: Nothing as simple as this screenshot from The Sims. Though I am pretty sure there was turkey too. And the black suit.

Stuffed like a turkey

These are the days where you feel like a gastro-intestinal tract with feet. Like a thin wrapper around all the food you have swallowed and keep swallowing. And not from second and third helpings either: No, just by sampling each of the seeming endless courses of meats and vegetables, sauces and salads, desserts and snacks. We visited Big Brother, and were awed by the sheer range of foods, and then by the quality of it all. That a private household would cook up a table like this seems to defy the limitations of ordinary reality.

While I tried to sample a little piece of most things, my (still unrequitedly) beloved heaped up a mound of her favorites on her platter and attacked with the same vitality that she radiates in other things. I enjoy watching her eat. I am a sick, sick person in my brain. But at least I had some space for the dessert.

***

The afternoon I spent mostly watching a first-grader who had got a PS/2. Believe me, parents, giving a first-grader a PS/2 is horrible, mind- numbing overkill. It's like swatting a housefly with a sledgehammer and then getting rid of the remains with a military grade flamethrower. Despite the exhortations of his extended family, he was quite satisfied with the first level of the first game he happened to open. It was a small cartoon dragon called Spyro, running around colliding with jewels and sheep. This went on for a few hours, and then we drove home.

Well, not directly home. We stopped by the apartment of Designer Girl, where I had never been before. It was pretty, but the balcony was scary. It was high above the ground, and it seemed to me it would be just too easy to accidentally jump over the railing and plummet to a certain and painful death far below. I can't believe they consider using this for partying. And I am surprised not more people fall off balconies and die. Perhaps they do but it never makes it to the papers. It's not like you are likely to inform the world. "Our dearly beloved, irreplaceable son and brother and husband hastily fell off the balcony while roaring drunk and went to his eternal home, wherever that may be." I just don't see that in print, though I can certainly see it happen.

***

And then we went home and ate more sweets. We also played Malarky, but Designer Girl got seriously fed up with me getting the answer card every other time or so. We were 6 players, so statistically I should get the answer card 17% of the time. I gently offered her to mix the card and deal them herself. She did, and of course I got the answer card. She quit, and we went on to eat snacks, I believe, or something. Can I help that these people believe in me so strongly that weird things happen? I don't believe that much myself anymore. But I still run into people who believe that I am special in some way, and so these anomalies occur. Reality is malleable to faith, it seems. I observe it, but I am ambiguous about it. I can see how religious leaders, who swim in other people's faith, may easily become puffed up and think that it's all about them. While it is really about clouds of faith drifting around looking for someone to attach to.

But in food we trust. It is easy to understand. All you need to do is eat.