Here I Am

storytelling, COVID brain, and 90's infomercials

I’ve been up since 2:30 am. This isn’t an accomplishment- I am tired to be clear. I want to be sleeping. Some days, nights, rather, I wake with a surge of something. I wouldn’t call it energy and it isn’t always anxiety. It’s like the moment my eyelids begin to flap their lashes against the weight of sleep my brain literally begins to sizzle with whatever. I wish I could report that every morning (or night) I awoke with a fury to write. To proverbially barf the brilliant ideas that swim under my skull while succumbed to my illustrious rest, but alas. It’s usually something like-

Lashes barely astir- Christ in a bonnet, it’s hot in here

Lashes beginning to flutter- rice cakes! Are they in the freezer or the fridge? Fuck, I need to clean out the fridge still

Eyes barely a crescent- if you shut up now you might be able to clock 30 more minutes before the sleeping four year old’s nervous system that’s pressed against yours detects a shift in your breathing, your awake breathing, and wakes up. absolutely not.

Not yet.

Eyes open- are any of my joggers clean?

And then I’m up. Recently though that sizzling has in fact turned to anxiety. It makes sense what with the accident and the thrown-out-the-window schedule with our kids. Anaya’s work trip. My second round of Covid.

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The day we left the midwest and the hospital that holds my husband’s brother I gave the pieces of obsidian I brought directly to his brother’s partner instead of one to her and one left on his hospital bedside table. I tell her I didn’t want to scare the locals into thinking the family might be entertaining devil worship- she laughs and laughs. Anaya and I both laugh. Someone came by and asked if we were the religious type as they have been praying and after a long bout of silence, her eyes shifting between me and Anaya, she simply said “you always have your hope!” with palpable earnest. When she left we laughed. She wasn’t wrong, we do have hope, and sometimes the only thing you can do anymore is laugh. I laughed hard in the courtyard of the hospital reading a text from a friend. My chest heaved forward, my mouth fully agape as though I were a Venus fly trap. Several people turned to admonish the sounds of joy emanating from somewhere too close to the trauma-unit. The audacity. Who could blame them? Anaya and I laughed and laughed while he told me stories about his brother from their childhood. The ones I’ve heard before and ones I hadn’t with our heads tucked in close to one another, resting on our hotel pillows. Delirious with lack of sleep and the warmth from the cocktail over an actual dinner we shared, we fell asleep listening to Radiohead once the laughing turned to crying. It happens so often just like that, doesn’t it? Black Market Crystal Exchange: a memoir

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I have been entirely alone for 3 whole days. I don’t actually remember the last time this happened. Yes I do, it was March 2022. I miss the kids in a primal way- practically foaming at the mouth until the moment I can literally smell the crown of their heads so hard their soft hairs begin to vacuum into my nose. A girl can dream. I miss my husband in a way that makes me itch to talk on the phone (?!), to taste the inside of his mouth, to bury my face in his neck. I need to be held. I need to hold. I’m like a teenager with free range over my palace except I have Covid so there are no parties- just me and too much tv. So much tv. The absolute most fucking television.

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I miss 90’s cooking shows. Give me Julia Child absolutely rawdogging a sirloin with her hands. Slicing a raw hunk of meat against the grain, reaching for the olive oil with her meat-hands, literally massaging the fat into the muscle fibers, then using that same hand to handle the bottle of soy sauce nearby, nary a hand towel or contact with soap to be found.

Go, best friend. 

I have always been an early riser. I would tiptoe out to the living room to sit in front of the enormous box set that would change the channel if you jangled keys at it?! What?! Is that even real?! I still don’t know if it is or if my mother or another adult in the house was teasing me, but that’s what I remember and that’s what is true to me. I would watch Emeril and all his BAMs that induce secondhand embarrassment now. Before that, when it was really early, I would watch infomercials that sold microwave popcorn-looking bags that you could roast entire chickens in! Mom! Whole chickens! In the microwave! We need it!

I would make a list of all of the infomercial jewels re: kitchen items that we needed, literally a list, and make her coffee before presenting my finds because I wasn’t a dummy. Bring her coffee, black with two sugars, before you dare whisper the words microwave chip maker.

I was a fucking joy.

Honestly, I was and I wasn’t. I was weird and I don’t even mean average weird. Like, our kids are weird. Most kids are weird. All kids are weird. But I was, like, really weird.

I would ask my mother existential questions such as-

Mom, have you ever thought about how nothing is nothing

No, no. Not like, NOTHING, but think about it! If the earth was gone, and the rest of the planets were gone, and the universe was gone, then what?! Like, nothing is nothing is nothing?!”

All before 6 am.

What can I say? I had questions. I still do.

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The brain fog that has attached itself to this round, my second round, of covid, has tentacles that have reached deep into the folds of my cerebellum, leaving them hot and wanting. I feel as though I’m in some sort or dreamlike state where I know what I’m trying to say, I can feel the word beginning to form inside my mouth but it’s full of bees and I end up losing it.

It’s like that sometimes, hey?

xxx

I have nothing in regards to recipes this week as I have not cooked an actual meal in… 13 days. Not unless you count “making” instant ramen and tossing in whatever remnants of the vegetable drawer I can find that hasn’t completely withered. If you dice anything fine enough you can barely tell you had to remove half the bell pepper from itself in order for it to be edible. Once a Garbage Pail Kid…

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With the exception of Substack I have officially been away from all social media for a month in addition to sifting through what is my trauma vs what is my ADHD explorative “project” that I discussed here. Even with the life thrown at us I am really pleased with how the month has gone and I look forward to understanding more about myself in the months to come. That being said, I don’t think I will ever go back to social media the way I used/abused it before. My intention is to keep the apps off my phone and to truly use it for showing blips and photos and not to use it predominately for work and marketing. I’m still interested in learning more ways to work smarter and I want to use this newsletter for the in-the-guts, the intimacy, the updates, the personal essays, the discourse. I want to stay here.

It’s my intention to call in a bit more structure to these weekly newsletters with very cut//dry (who is he?!) definitions of what you can expect here without putting myself in a box. Will I batch out posts? Probably not, it’s not my style. For now. But I would like there to be a bit more consistency and I like the idea of knowing that people signing up to take up space here know what they’re getting themselves into. An example of where I’m going with this-

Week One: some kind of meal plan/ideas/recipes. Will it center around a certain type of produce? Maybe. Will it be seasonal? Yes. Will it be “quick and easy” or “projects” or a mix of both? Probs.

Week Two: Personal Essay

Week Three: Personal Essay + recipe

Week Four: Recap/updates similar to this newsletter today

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A reminder that Evocative: a CNF workshop is alive and very well. A weekly, ongoing, casual, drop in//drop out, suitable for all writers from all backgrounds to come and be in (queer) community for an hour-ish each week. Plus, it’s FREE. Thursdays at 11 am MST.

I will be announcing baking classes like the one found below for the last quarter of the year next week so stay tuned. food//and subscribers receive a significant discount and as always, if you would like to attend and cost is an issue, you just slide into my DMs or shoot me an email and we will get you there.

Biggest love,

AR

Currently Listening To:

Currently Reading: I’m quite proud of myself for reading what I have in the queue instead of hopping around. I’ve made it 65% through a novel by Ruth Reichl and I was into it and now I’m not… I’ll give it another 20 pages or so before I DNF

Currently Watching: I was surprised to find that I really enjoyed Your Honor on Netflix

Currently Cooking: don’t get me started

Recently Published: coming soon