obsession

For Valentine’s Day, which was very lovely and Valentiney, I made a small feast. I made steak with a rub and a nice salad and roasted garlic mashed potatoes. The steak was excellent, the salad was okay, and the garlic mashed potatoes were the stuff of creamery, buttery, garlicky perfection in a gigantic pot of potatoes and I wanted to put my face in them and fall asleep and maybe asphyxiate in potatoey, garlicky happiness. It’s a fitting end for me.

I started them first, because the garlic had to roast for awhile, and then peeling the potatoes took an age and a half and also a knuckle. I focused on my potatoes as they came together, almost like magic. Garlic-smelling magic. The boiling, the concentrated mashing, the adding the entire stick of butter and the cream, the careful seasoning, the whipping in the soft, roasted cloves, the careful adjustment of seasoning, the struggle with myself to not put my face in the pot–at every stage it came together so beautifully, I nearly cried.

I can’t keep up with whether it is cool to like Valentine’s Day now because it celebrates the universal spirit of togetherness we must embrace in order to make it through these dark times and to honor our renewed spirit of national hope and optimism, or cool in the spirit of irony and the embracing of dorky things like Care Bears and heart-shaped boxes of chocolate, or uncool because it is cliched and commercial and who really needs another pair of edible panties and it is exclusionary of those not in relationships and also cheesy or lame.

My personal stance, my plank in the platform, is that I am very fond of Valentine’s Day. I am a fan of love; I am glad that there is a day that honors love, in all its forms, filial and fornicatory, penetrative and otherwise.

You know the three wishes game? Which is pretty much–that. You get three wishes. And you spend a lot of time crafting them carefully, wording them in very specific ways so that you are not screwed by a mischievous genie over a technicality because you had a dangling modifier or forgot to be precise in your choice of adjective. I spent a lot of time working on my major wish, and it was this: to be perfect. I don’t remember how, exactly, I phrased it, but what it boiled down to is that I wanted to be perfect in every way–physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually perfect. That is a whole lot of perfect. That is a whole lot of wishing.

I want to be perfect and unassailable. I want to be absolutely bullet proof. I want no one to ever find fault with me, because there are no faults to find, no cracks, seams or crevices.

My memory is notoriously spotty–I do not remember what I’ve said ten minutes ago (and sometimes–more often than I’d like to admit–directly after I’ve said it) and I do not remember events, people, places, names, or things. It makes for an exciting world in which everything is constantly new and interesting and absorbing. Every experience is a new experience! Every person is a new person to get to know and love! Every birthday is forgotten unless I’ve taken great pains to write it down in one or more spots and then set up email reminders and a singing telegram to remind me.

It is not unusual to forget things, to require an outside brain that is made of paper and is operated with a pen. Almost everyone needs lists and reminders and notes and strings around their fingers, and I am only a little embarrassed that I need to add things like “take vitamins” and “shower” to my to-do lists.

A month or so ago I realized that I was long overdue for flying away somewhere and not being in my life for awhile; naturally, I thought of San Francisco. Short plane ride, distinct lack of snow, people I am fond of and babies to dote on, a tattoo to finish, some grooming, and also a lot of shopping. Not that I could have spent any money, but just kind of–touching. Admiring. Pulling down a rack of cunningly skull-embroidered sweaters in H&M and rolling around in them until they kicked me out or I developed a rash from the synthetics. Heaving myself up hills and going BOY THIS PLACE IS PRETTY! Sweating! It’s been a long time since I’ve sweated. I am so long overdue for all of that.

Having the vague outline of a plan quelled some of the restless, itchy shiftiness that had started to make me scratchy in my pants, and I’ve been looking at flights and thinking about domestic arrangements and mentally compiling my packing list (oh, the joy that comes when you realize you can wear cute shoes and your new pencil skirt what has moths on it andomg, dorky outfit planning ahoy).

One of my cherished notions about myself is that no one knows the extent to which I am a nerd. Oh, I have plenty of geek cred, just enough to make you think that I am so smart and interesting and alternative. You know, totally hipster. I love Doctor Who and I grew up watching Star Treks and will follow Joss Whedon around with love in my eyes if only he’d lift the restraining order, but that’s all okay, right, because it makes me cool yeah?

That level of nerdery is okay, even totally awesome; when I start going deeper into nerdtown, I start to get embarrassed. I start to feel uncomfortable about the fact that I like computer games, that I have nostalgic thoughts about the Dragonlance series, that I accept invitations to go play D&D on a Saturday night.

It is Friday! Seriously, it is. You can check. It is Friday, for reals, and if I am very careful, play my cards right, use my time well and am dedicated and industrious, I will only spend most of the weekend working instead of all of the weekend. This is a goal that I am shooting for. This is a goal that is going to find me up at three a.m. on Sunday, blood shooting out of my tear ducts and foam drying on my chin and down the front of the t-shirt I haven’t changed in four, five days.

What I want to do this weekend: well, it boils down to not work. But writ smaller and in list form, it goes something like sleep in, not-sleep in, waffles, nap, not-nap, load the dogs in the car and go hike up a mountain to the waterfall and go “ooooooo,” lattes and pie, nap on the couch with the TV on and the comforter tucked under our feets, fighting over the Wii controller, mac and cheese for dinner, nerdy nerd time with nerdiness in on EverQuest, retiring to not-sleep, then sleeping covered in dogs who steal the blankets and fart on your pillow.

If I am not very careful and do not watch my back, I am going to be packing healthy oat-nut granola bars into a fanny pack that I strap onto the waist of my high-tech snow pants, which I have tucked into my space-aged padded socks that peek out of the tops of my light-weight, nubby-soled, extra-tractiony shboots (which I double-knot for safety), snapping the chin strap of my floppy sun-protecting hat briskly, hauling on my survival backpack and snatching up my sturdy, polished-to-a-gloss walking stick as I stride out the door, the dogs at my heels.

“Come!” I will cry out to my faithful companions. “We have mountains to conquer! Valleys to probe! Rocks to scale and small, tree-lined paths coated in sucking mud to wander down confusedly because we’re not sure exactly where we’re going! It is adventure we seek, for hikers we are! And we hike! Away!” The dogs will be wearing hats, too.