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October 2, 2002
mark thomas I keep forgetting to eat. I'm on an irregular schedule, where I wake up and go to sleep at vastly different times each day, so a normal routine of lunch and dinner is not a part of my life. I knew someone once who moved to New York, started a new job, and got a new apartment all within a few days. He was really strung out, and somehow he went nearly 72 hours before remembering to eat anything. His words of wisdom from this experience were "I highly recommend eating." It's amazing how easy it is to forget to do basic things. I've been working a lot lately but it's been mostly at home, right here on this spot, without the benefit of much direct human interaction or a frame of reference as to what time of day it is or how long I've been doing something. I suppose I'll be nostalgic about the schedule-less lifestyle at some later point in life, but right now it's twisting into nonsense any semblance of a routine to work around. And eating is not on my radar some days. I am not much into exotic cuisine, but occasionally I try to do something besides throw a steak on the grill. I started making fairly elaborate food creations a couple of years ago. Pretty much everything I ate I made myself. After a few months of this, what amazed me was how nasty fast food tasted. The difference was that I knew everything that went into what I was eating. So if something tasted wrong or disgusting I knew what it was, and I could take that out or change it next time. I'm not someone who carries on or even thinks twice about food that tastes good. To me eating is a bodily function, and I eat food for one reason: To stay alive. In my opinion, any satisfaction that comes from eating should be kept private. Raving about great food is like saying you enjoy shitting. Well, who doesn't? But it's not polite conversation. I also can not stand the sound of a lot of words commonly used in discussions about food. Meal. Mouth-watering. Menu. Why do they all start with M, anyway? That reminds me: Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm. That's another food-related word I can't stand. Add to the list: Delicious. Tasty. The most I'll say about something that I ate is that it "Hit the spot," although even that is a bit suggestive. So after making my own elaborate food creations for several months I went to a fast food burger place and ate one of their burgers. The taste sensation was not how I remembered it from the last time I ate at this place. This time my reaction was "What the hell am I eating? What the fuck is in this?" I couldn't even describe or imagine what the ingredients could be, but breaking it down as I ate it it tasted like plastic and garbage and dirt and mashed-up animal body parts. I didn't come to this realization from reading activist literature about fast food. It just didn't taste like a burger at all. Even the bread was gross. It tasted like soft, edible nylon. Well, I just ate a ham sandwich. That is all I have to say about it.
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