Monday, March 27, 2006

Embracing your inner contradictions

Since moving in, housemate K has expressed a degree of surprise at the number of lipsticks and dangly earrings that she finds lying round the place, not to mention the newly candy pinked radiator in the bathroom.

This is entirely understandable. When I became a woman, I put away girlish things. It was far more important that people Took Me Seriously. And to a very large extent, it still is.

But every now and again I drive out into deepest Oxfordshire and wrangle with myself with the help of a psychotherapist. It's a process that's given me (among many other things) the space to acknowledge and enjoy things that don't easily fit together, and not worry about it too much.

It's the same with food. Yesterday my cousin and his girlfriend came for lunch. We had a LOT of organic vegetables and talked about eating and cooking and food and how lovely and delicious and important it all is. Most of the time, we eat good things: fish and vegetables and lentils and rice and nuts and seeds and porridge and salad and soup.

Tonight: SuperNoodles and Diet Coke. Tonight I needed something instant and stodgy and salty. Bad day at work, little weep in Wantage, slow recovery from Saturday night's slighly mad excesses (dinner with housemate K and her parents, trip to the pub with A&L, back to meet M and some improvisers, decision that turning up to J's party a) incoherent and b) at 3 am was probably not a good plan), pointless mission to B&Q, as so many of them seem to be. It was not a night for healthy food.

But that's ok.

If you're similarly inclined, the following serves 2:

2 packets chicken SuperNoodles (which are suitable for vegetarians)
1 tin tuna
Encona
Black pepper
4 tomatoes

Boil the water, add the tuna and the sachets of chicken flavouring, bash the tuna around to break it up. Add a big slug of Encona and then the noodles. Cook till gloopy. Turn off the heat and add the tomatoes and black pepper.

Curl up on sofa. Feel small.

joella

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