A Thing with a Name

I intended to write today and the days before today. Since the beginning of quarantine actually. But also, years prior to that. I’ve always kept a blog of sorts and they all somehow took a wrong turn. I was losing interest with this one because I’m sick of its pseudo-intellectual, omnipresent voice. Must be from my short comings in my day job as a philosophy teacher. It’s always a case of saying too much and saying too little. I was under the impression that maybe writing outside of work could seal all the cracks with gold. Of course, I was wrong. It was mud and now they’re crumbly and all over the place. The self-awareness comes as a form of hindsight. After hindsight, after hindsight, after hindsight. Until there is nothing left to be aware of because the present moment could not see a past that is yet to unfold. The present cannot see past itself. The present cannot contemplate upon itself. It’s kinda paralyzing.  To not know what to do with your person.

I am locked up with my boyfriend. Boyfriend sounds so juvenile. I’ve been with this person for a decade. We’re good to go, honestly. We have jobs. I’m in my optimal child-bearing age. But to hell with matrimony. But also, children. The more we are stuck with each other, in this shoebox or wherever, the more we realize that we are responsible for each other but also for our individual survival. My lifeboat today came in the form of potatoes.

My system wants cheese and potatoes. I checked in with Google: cheese, potatoes, no bake. It showed me stovetop potatoes au gratin. “Okay, it has a name.”, I thought. I found comfort in that. Knowing that what I desired had a name for being previously desired by someone else. All my satiety requires, according to the recipe, are as follows: potatoes, flour, milk, garlic, butter, onions (they make me cry, I disregarded), cheese. And in hindsight, the fact that the thing has a name.

So I messed with his mom’s pyrex. Again, that sounded so juvenile. This thing I’m writing is proving so far that we are actually just kids as long as we don’t have kids of our own. Anyway.

I said I messed with his mom’s pyrex. I used a knife to spread the butter and thought I should just stick with it all the way through. Reason, I’m sick of doing the dishes. However, I realized later on that I could not mix the thing that has a name with just a knife. Most specially if I put too much flour. So I added more milk which made everything worse as far as mixing the thing with a name with a knife. For a split second there, I almost reached out for my phone and see for myself that if the thing has too much flour it becomes a different thing with a different name. Would be a relief. But I rebelled, “just cover the damn thing, I’m done.” In my defense, the potatoes needed to soften so we don’t die from cyanide poisoning. I learned this from a professor way back in college. Back then, I thought it was ridiculous. But now that I’m confronted by potatoes cramped in a mixture of too much flour and curdly soy milk, maybe a few minutes wouldn’t hurt. At least, it shouldn’t kill me. The earlier you cover the damn thing, the more chances you get at life. But of course, I had to check every five minutes which just made everything useless.

Ah the thing was cooked. It should be. The pot started to smell burnt. I ate some first and then I gave my boyfriend some. He said they were great. I gave him the softer, more cooked (less to zero cyanide?) ones. I, Juliet with the dagger, ate the hard ones.

I should’ve used a bigger pan so all potatoes cook evenly and none of us bear the burden of dying. Or living.