Carrots

So, ... I like to eat. And to cook. And to eat.

So, but I'm not a like health nut, but I'm not a junk-food junkie.

ARG! This post is just so hard to start.

Okay, so certain foods remind me of certain ... girls.

So, like, for Julia, there's the potato pancakes, because her husband, Jeff, made them when I visited two Christmases ago. But there's also carrots, because Julia was a red head, a carrot top, just like (that Wild) Cate. So I like to juice carrots with an apple and then, from the separated, shredded, carrot leavings, I make carrot-nut-raisin bread:

Preheat oven to 350°F

In a bowl combine:

1½ cups flour
½ teas salt
1 teas cinnamon
1 teas baking powder

In another bowl, mix together

1 cup vegetable oil
3 eggs
½ cup sugar
¼ cup molasses
½ teas vanilla
1½ cup shredded carrots
1 cup raisins
1 cup chopped walnuts
(optional: ½ cup chocolate chips)

Stir in the flour mixture into the carrot one, pour contents into a bread pan, and bake for 1 hour.

This recipe has been a work in progress. The last time it was too salty, so this time I reduced the salt from 1 teas to ½ teas and that worked much better.

And I have yummy, (sorta) healthy, carrot-nut-bread dessert.

Kate also gave me radishes. She always had a fresh bag of radishes, and she would just take one out, wash it, and eat it, raw, just like that, at her apartment, when I was ... visiting her. So I have a bag of radishes with me, and whenever I eat one, I think of her.

She would have a cigarette after sex, too, and she just thought it was so funny when I took a drag from her fag and coughed and coughed. It tasted minty. She wouldn't let me smoke after that one drag.

Both Kate and Julia were shorter than me.

So, what's my type?

Red heads? Shorties?

I had a fifth grade teacher, and he would always proclaim: "I'd rather be dead, then red ... on the head!" He grew up during bomb-shelters and the Cold War. I just thought that was so mean to Julia, but Julia and I were just friends in 5th grade, so I never did nor said anything.

Or, I must have an infatuation with blondes, right? 'Cause of my Rosalie-fixation and that film noir post. I was just about to say I never had a blonde, you know, as a ... special friend, but then I remember Brenda.

Brenda was a blonde, in every sense of the word: leggy, curvaceous. Brenda introduced me to wine, and cooked me these lavish dinners, like grilled steak served with brussels sprouts. She would say, 'have another glass of wine, Melissa,' you know, in that pleading, possessive, hopeful voice of hers, which, reflecting on how she said that, she really meant, 'stay a bit longer.'

And now I know she meant, 'don't leave me.' That is: 'don't leave me to be alone.'

Brenda ... loved me. They all did. They all do. She loved me as a mother loves a child, and she taught me so many things in the bedroom. She would curl me around her and I would hold onto her for dear life and I would just lose my mind, and then she would turn around and hold me so tightly for a moment, and then turn me away and just hold me as I fell asleep in her arms.

I never really felt that until Brenda. I mean, she was a total femme, and she just wrapped me in her embrace, and I never felt so ... what is the word? protected? just cocooned in her arms like that. It was like I was her baby girl and her teenaged daughter and her lover all at the same time, and she just so needed that, after her husband died, I guess, she just so needed me.

And I did leave her. I did leave her to be alone.

So, it's white girls, then, that are my preference? No, because there was Melanie. And yes, nothing happened, but it very nearly did and it wasn't for the want of desire on either party's part, let me tell you.

So, then you don't go after the Asian chicks, then, eh?

Oh, my goodness. You would not believe the number of Asian girls in college that were ... exploring their sexuality, being away from home for the first time and all that. In fact, I was accused of being an asian-lover in school! They called me an 'egg'! You know: white on the outside, yellow on the inside. I mean, there was Grace, and Amy, and Sue, and ...

And ... *whew*! Um, excuse me a moment ...

Okay, I'm back now.

Um.

So, a type? Okay, so, now you've got me: I only go for the brainy ones.

Yeah, okay. There was this knock-out girl who instantly turned me off when she opened her mouth and out came all this racist stuff. Two girls, actually: Tanya and ... hm, forgot the other girl's name. So, brainy girls, right?

Well, okay, so how do you explain Brenda? She was matriculating, and her prof told her that all she could ever be was a B-student.

Good thing I never met her prof. I would have kicked his teeth in. Or hers. I was furious when Brenda told me that. Listen, if you're a prof, don't do that to a student, okay? And if you're a student, and a prof does that to you, take those words and say: 'okay, I'll show you!' And show him. Or her.

Brenda wasn't smart in that she claimed she wasn't smart. But she was kind. And motherly. And ... well, a survivor, and ... she took care of broken little me when I was so far down and made me feel special and wanted.

And, so, well, beautiful, then, `phfina?

Sure, looks can draw me in. I'll admit that.

But, funny thing. Beauty, ... well. So I went back home after college and I ran into Chris (no, not Chris) and I always looked at him (yes: him) as this big, dumb sports jock. And always in the hunt, cruising for chicks for an easy lay.

He never hit on me. I guess I wasn't an easy lay. For him.

Anyway, he met this kindergarden teacher at a bar, and next thing you know, when I met him again, he was just gushing, you know, and they got married and had a kid and he's now a proud papa.

Anyway, I said hi, and we talked and I mentioned something about Julia, and he say, 'Oh, yeah, you two were like ... you know? weren't you?'

I was like shocked. I mean, Julia was my world, but to other people they could care less and totally forgot about it.

And then he said the real shocker: 'She was kinda skanky.'

I was like, what?

And he was like, 'Yeah, that nasty, freckled, red-headed thing!'

And ... well, the conversation moved on, but that was the first time I ever saw Julia from somebody else's eyes. Somebody who didn't love her or care about her. Julia, to me, is beautiful, and that's all how I'll ever see her.

And maybe that's all how I ever see anything. I look and, yes, I have my prejudices, but when I see you, and I love you, and you love me, does it matter what type you are? how smart you are? how (ill-)tempered you are? I am me. You are you. And I love you for you being you, and I get so, so furious when you don't see me as me, or when you refuse to see you as you.

I'm going to go off now and have a salad with grilled salmon steak. Salmon: smart-people's food.