The Modern Peasant's Guide to Life and Eating: Chapter 2

Well, there's still plenty of Bender Soup to be had; however, variety, eh? It's kinda good for most, absolutely necessary for some. So, it's been over a week since my return home, and my boyfriend has finally returned the last of the money he temporarily removed from my account—one of his many attempts to manipulate my home-coming.


What does that mean? Well, a lot actually. For me, at least, recovery means reintroducing myself to old routines and habits that previously defined (and then, trapped) my life. So, with a restored account and a forced sparkling outlook, we took to the grocery store for some overall light shopping, along with the makings of a veggie pizza in mind.

I mistakenly let myself get overexcited. My expectations were misplaced and badly disappointed.

Before we continue, it is necessary to establish some context. As with four years ago, the fall comes with scores of damages, one of which is an assault on my health. Last time this happened, when I was transitioning from a boyfriend and a lover to another lover-trying-to-turn-boyfriend, I contracted an intense strain of strep that landed me in the emergency room one night with a blood pressure rate that seemed as if it was trying to tap Morse code on the ceiling. I was a salivating like those horny cartoon wolves from old animated featurettes, and it felt like I was swallowing razor blades, all of this, no doubt, resulting from the pea-sized white drainage patches expelling their poison from my tonsils like so many toxic springs. They gave me antibiotics and Lortabs, and sent me on my way. I'm too old for the pills-as-recreation-generation; however, I distinctly remember how happy those little tabs made me.

This time, I didn't get strep, but I did get the flu. Not a terrific vomit flu. But definitely an ear, nose, and throat congestion/inflammation. Lots of neck pain. Walking through the grocery store, my build up expectations of the moment inevitably rubbing against the reality with too much force, along with the body pains and dissociation that comes along with illness and its treatment (love that NyQuil) I found myself descending into a foul mood of puerile, almost foot-stomping measure. It wasn't good, none of it, not now, and never again. More hatred for my abject failure to create a positive reality. Stupid.

We got home, and I started to prepare making the pizza and putting things away, etc. The maintenance of a life that, at my worst, I had romanticized with such incredible longing when I sat on the bed opposite my lover/bender partner, when my body was filthy and greasy, reeking of alcohol, old sweat, and...I guess you could call it, sex, came upon me in the grocery store and spilled over in the apartment. I wanted that created image to fill me up the way it had then, at my worst. But the idyllic creation of the life that I had risked leaving, which had then filled my brain like a blow to the face, which had felt like that first perfect swallow of drink that splashes in the gut and blossoms like a night-flower, which had pulled me out of the darkness, I was forced to recognize, once again, in the light of day,- was a sad symptom of an ongoing inability to cope with reality. The everyday still wasn't everyday enough and was all too everyday. No equilibrium. Still peaks and valleys.

The oven pre-heated, and most things put away, my boyfriend unexpectedly slapped me across the face. Instantly, tears sprung to my eyes. I knew what was coming next, but I was in no position to appreciate. That doesn't matter. In this new world, where I've betrayed him, I have to be continually punished. In fact, it's the absence of punishment that we suspect is partially to blame for my straying. So, he hurts me now in an effort to abate his own shame and disappointment and to tether me in the way that I need. It sounds so awful in print, but there it is.

The flu has made my neck so sore, so when he violently wrenched it back using my short ponytail, I cried all the harder, which he seemed to enjoy. Completely broken down, he pushed me to the floor and used me.

And I got to cry and cry and cry. I snotted during and after. And it was a completely satisfying release.

And then I made pizza.

Recovery Pizza

Ingredients:

1 pizza dough or crust (We chose dough, pre-made from our grocer's bakery, seeded and crunchy.)

8 oz sliced fresh mozzarella

1/3 cup Parmesan

1/4 sliced red onion

2/3 sliced green peppers

4 oz sliced mushrooms

20 or so sliced black olives

1 cup or so tomato sauce, made, embellished, or fresh

20 or so ribbons of fresh basil

6 to 7 cloves of minced garlic tossed with a little olive oil and spices of your choosing

olive oil

Recipe:

Pre-heat your oven with your pizza pan. Dice and slice your veggies as needed. Heat up your sauce. Oil your pan. Stretch the pizza dough over the greased and warmed pizza pan. Evenly spread your warmed sauce over the dough. Evenly space your mozzarella slices. Spread out the Parmesan. Evenly spread the peppers, onion, mushrooms, and olives. Put the pizza in the oven. Halfway through cooking, sprinkle your garlic and fresh basil over the pizza. Sprinkle other dried spices of your choosing. Finish cooking the pizza. Remove, and let cool for five minutes.

He remarked with incredulity at the redness of my ass as I made the pizza. He apologized for the beast, and I hoped that the eagerness with which I forgave him wouldn't give me away too much and limit his enjoyment of the abuse, leading to its subsequent suspension. Because I want to be with him.

When it was done, we each ate half. It was really good. I'm gonna get fat again, at this rate. Sigh.