Sometimes Comfort Sometimes Complicated

Welcome to a Secret Subject Swap. This month 5 brave bloggers picked a secret subject for someone else and were assigned a secret subject to interpret in their own style. Today we are all simultaneously divulging our topics and submitting our posts.

My “Secret Subject” is:

What is your go-to comfort food and why?

It was submitted by: https://Bakinginatornado.com

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Having a chronic illness that comes with a lot of gastrointestinal issues really changes the concept of comfort food. I don't think it's wrong to ask this question by any means, but I do want to point out that food is such a big part of culture and society that we tend to take it for granted that everyone has access to their comfort food or could eat it. And I'm glad to have an opportunity to talk about how poverty and disability have impacted by my relationship to food in negative ways.

I've had different comfort foods in my life related to where I was and what I had access to, but they've always been shaped by how poor I was at the time. When I was a kid, it was boiled peanuts. My dad often had access to farms through his welding work and a perk of that was getting some food to help us make it through the year. Peanuts are a huge crop here, so my dad would bring home whole bushes, and we'd sit outside in plastic dollar store chairs pickinf off the peanuts and eating raw ones until we got sick. And then peanuts would be in the freezer all year long for any time I felt down and needed a little salty nugget of comfort.

In my early teens, it was chicken and dumplings. My grandma made it often when we were kids, and it was one of my favorite things back then, but after my parents divorced, she'd make them every year for my birthday, and it always gave me a warm, full belly and a reminder of better times. But hers were always made from biscuits in a can, and while she fancied hers up, learning to make them that way taught me how to make them cheaply. I can't tell you how many times I made a pot of them myself (when I could still eat them) for a few bucks. Chicken broth, a little butter, and can biscuits can make a good ass meal for several days for a person or few. Add chicken and eggs can add money but also make it more filling. The point being it maintained its ability to give me a full, warm belly and a bit of comfort.

After I moved out on my own, I was making just over $5 an hour and trying to make pay all my bills. It was rough, and most of the time I didn't know how I was going to eat and took napkins from the bathroom at work to use for toilet paper, but I would be damned if I was going back home. I couldn't. So I ate mostly groceries my grandma gave me when her cabinets got too full and ramen. If I wanted to splurge for a little comfort though it was chips and salsa con queso. If I couldn't afford the whole jars I could still get a pretty cheap nachos lunchable. The first time I saw High Fidelity, I was sitting in the middle of my little apartment's living room with a jar of each and some baked tostitos scoops. I was so entranced with the movie I forgot they were there after awhile. It was pure bliss. If I was lucky, I'd also grab a pack of twizzlers. When I had nothing, sometimes it was the junk food that brought me comfort. Things I took for granted when I still lived at home made me feel like things might be ok.

French toast was a thing I loved to make when I finally got a raise for training I did for the job I had at the time. Whenever I needed some company and comfort because life had been (and still is) very fucking hard, I'd invite all my friends over for a french toast night. The ingredients were cheap as hell and I could make some banging ass french toast. We'd sit around the table with a stack of it and a huge bowl of syrup in the middle to dip. Yeah yeah unsanitary. We didn't give a shit. Eggs, a couple of 75 cent loaves of bread, and a bottle of syrup plus the secret ingredients I kept on hand when I could, and we'd sit around the table laughing and with full bellies.

After I got married, I couldn't tell you... That part of my life just wasn't all that great, and I don't have memories with food because of it. We were always broke and eating ramen because he blew our money on unnecessary shit. We struggled to find time to cook. I was always dieting and quite honestly after working 14 days in a row sometimes all I wanted after work was a beer when I could afford comfort (or maybe some Chinese buffet). That's part of the reason I no longer drink. I stopped the moment I found out I was pregnant, but I never really drank often after that. I could have easily been my dad when things were rough. By that time, too, I'd had my gall bladder removed, so I couldn't have a lot of the things I previously loved without issues. They really don't spend enough time telling you how badly having your gall bladder out can change your response to food, and I wasn't in any way prepared. I really had no good relationship in those years with food between being sick for months when I was pregnant and the gall stones and problems after it was out. It hurt. My relationship with food was so damaged from years of being bullied by family and peers and then hating to eat when I was sick that I just lost all sense of comfort from it at all.

So it probably shouldn't be a surprise that being a single parent really didn't change that much. My kid ate well. I always made time to fix him something he wanted, but at most I maybe had a pouch of tuna or a couple of pop tarts. We didn't really have the money for fast food, and I was also doing school full time so I didn't have time to make anything fancy. I had trouble still eating the things I had always loved. It wasn't a great time. We made due. But every now and then I'd still take the kid to our favorite Chinese place. We'd get dressed up for no reason, and he'd talk to our waitress like they were old friends. He called chicken and broccoli "wet chicken" and that became our thing, a bright spot in a dull, stressful world.

And now? Oh lawd. Now my relationship with food is probably more complicated than it has ever been because I can't eat. I mean I have a few foods I can keep down but even those aren't consistent. One day I'm fine, the next it comes back up. And despite all that the side effects of being that sick all the time, I'm still fat. One of these days y'all might have to admit it's not as simple as calories in and calories burned. But at least for now, I do have one thing that brings a little smile to my face. Grits. I've embraced being from the South more and more over the years. We're more queer than any other region of this country. We have more marginalized populations. And we have a bunch of politicians who have worked really hard to make sure that we don't have a voice, but that never seems to stop us trying. Our culture is so intertwined with food--from making due with scraps the way I have all my life. It only took me over half of it to realize this. Every morning I get up and make breakfast. Usually we have grits as part of that breakfast. Maybe some of y'all don't know what grits are because for the most part they've always been a staple in the south and ignored until fancy restaurants realized how much markup they could get on a shrimp and grits dish. Grits are basically porridge made from cornmeal, but with the right cook and the right seasoning they become a divinely creamy, savory dish that sends your taste buds into a frenzy. They're good any time of day but getting your belly full on grits first thing in the morning just sets the day off right unless of course you're on the receiving end of grits used as a weapon. Just ask Al Green about that ;)

Food is complicated for most folks. Eating disorders are all too common. We're sold fad diets and cookbooks and new devices. Sometimes comfort just isn't possible and that's ok too. But also if you take anything from what I've said here, let it be that comfort food can look like anything. It can be a $1 pack of lunchables nachos or it can be the thing your grandma made you even if you were hurt by that same grandma. Comfort can be anything that nourishes your body to keep you going. Comfort doesn't have a look or a box it can easily fit in. Take it where you can get it.

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Here are links to all the sites now featuring Secret Subject Swap posts. Sit back, grab a cup, and check them all out. See you there:



Baking In A Tornado https://www.BakingInATornado.com

Wandering Web Designer https://wanderingwebdesigner.com/blog

Climaxed https://climaxedtheblog.blogspot.com

What TF Sarah https://crazymamallama.blogspot.com

Part-time Working Hockey Mom https://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch/

Don't Open

Today’s post is a writing challenge. This is how it works: participating bloggers picked 4 – 6 words or short phrases for someone else to craft into a post. All words must be used at least once and all the posts will be unique as each writer has received their own set of words. That’s the challenge, here’s a fun twist; no one who’s participating knows who got their words and in what direction the writer will take them. Until now.


My words are:

cerebral ~ exorcise ~ mortgage ~ savory ~ terrain

They were submitted by: https://wanderingwebdesigner.com/blog

I'm not sure if I will or won't write more... Enjoy! CW for creepy Halloween and violence 

Perhaps You Are Mistaken

Welcome to a Secret Subject Swap. This month 5 brave bloggers picked a secret subject for someone else and were assigned a secret subject to interpret in their own style. Today we are all simultaneously divulging our topics and submitting our posts.

My “Secret Subject” is:

"Dear __..."

It was submitted by: https://crazymamallama.blogspot.com/

I don't expect this sentiment to be shared by everyone here reading but I also don't care about that.

There Is Still Room for Hope

Today’s post is a writing challenge. This is how it works: participating bloggers picked 4 – 6 words or short phrases for someone else to craft into a post. All words must be used at least once and all the posts will be unique as each writer has received their own set of words. That’s the challenge, here’s a fun twist; no one who’s participating knows who got their words and in what direction the writer will take them. Until now.

My words are:

daylight ~ see ~ bug ~ collapse ~ woods

They were submitted by: https://Bakinginatornado.com

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A lot of us look ahead and see the potential of a societal collapse.

I'm certainly guilty of that myself, but Im trying to get better. Obviously I get that line of thinking, though. We're in a post normal world now. The damage done to our climate and the related side effects from progressing climate change and atmospheric heating cannot be undone. Experts agree now that even if we went to net zero carbon emissions tomorrow, we couldnt erase the changes we are facing (and will continue to endure) before the end of this century, and we aren't even close to any sort of net zero emissions even as many countries are beginning to come together for timelines of when that may happen. Raging fires, ice storms, heat domes, lack of water sources, billionaires looking to space for the answers... it's all here to stay in our life times. Combine that with growing fascism in multiple countries, increasing street violence in those countries, civil wars, our fears about Afghanistan and the Taliban, weaponized unreality, the culmination of decades of science denial for the sake of profit, and a going on 2 year fight against a pandemic, and it's no wonder so many of us cannot see a future that isn't at least somewhat apocalyptic. Add in that it doesn't help when even the more "liberal" parties make promises of going back to easier times, promises that sound so good to many of us in theory but are outright lies in the face of climate change science, and you have a pretty heady mix of negativity. Yes, even without Trump or any of the other shit of even the last ten years, we would still be pretty royally screwed when it comes to being able to live and breathe easily from this point on. And constant promises of returning to a state of normal make it harder for folks to consider bracing for an ever changing future.

What I think we're getting wrong though is an end to everything as we know it being the immutable result of all this. I think, or at least want to hope, we can do better than that.

I live in a hurricane zone so I tend to keep some things on hand for emergencies, but I've made lists even on this blog for resources in case we do experience black and brown outs here and how to live off the land or pack a bug out back if things were to get really rough. I think there's a lot to be said for preparation, for the anxiety relief that tends to come with knowing you can weather most storms with a little know-how, work, and a few tucked away items.

But I think we also have to focus on the potential for rebuilding something new and better and to do that through mutual aid and community building. If there was one strong take away from the last couple of years at least, I would hope it's that we can, in fact, come together to handle most things for each other even while our politicians fight over which party can do as little as possible for the populace and get away with it. We can come together and build communities and mutual aid networks. We can be the hope we want to see in the world.

And perhaps most importantly, we can adapt.

Even if you just consider the changes that have come since 1900 when industrialization here in the u.s. was in full swing, our country grew, we got the automobile industry, plane travel, telephones and tvs and all manner of improved methods to listen to music, space travel, undersea exploration, the internet, computers that were as big as houses with barely any capabilities to computers we carry in our pockets. We've worked on defining human rights and adapting what those should be and who they should apply to. We've survived world wars and pandemics and companies hell bent on profit over people. And while some of us have done so with less grace than others here we are considerably better now than 100 years ago and still changing. It's entirely understandable to look at the last several years at the very least (and much of history for many folks) and feel like the pendulum has swung too far into hate and division and greed and destruction to be corrected, but the future is still wide open, and we could still make it swing the other direction with the right kind of work.

I'd love to run off into the woods and hang out with my pet alligator in a bayou hut far from civilization. I even painted myself one to look at every now and then. But there's still daylight at the end of this tunnel if we choose to make it that far, and I have to believe we can do better. There's no less reason to be prepared, but for all of us and everyone that comes after us, we have to build something different than we have, than we've ever had.

The challenge is in the not giving up, in seeing this through, in doing more than voting and going back to the day to day. We have to build not subsist on the same bullshit we've been fed all these decades. The challenge is in reimagining everything we know to be unchangeable and building something that works and not just a marginal step at best that will be undone every 4 to 8 years. We have to listen to the folks hurt by existing systems and who have always done their work to protect the world, and we have a limited time to stop questioning them and hear what they're saying.

We have to take "impossible" off the table.

There's still more than enough time for the future we have to be one of building a new way forward and not like you know being cannibals that eat each other to survive in a Mad Max landscape of hellfire and water shortages. We don't have to fight each other to the death for a bit of water. We just have to believe in how much better we can be and make it happen.

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Links to the other “Use Your Words” posts:

Baking In A Tornado https://bakinginatornado.com/

On the Border https://dlt-lifeontheranch.blogspot.com/

Wandering Web Designer https://wanderingwebdesigner.com/blog

What TF Sarah https://crazymamallama.blogspot.com/

Part-time Working Hockey Mom https://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch/

Hero Worship

Welcome to a Secret Subject Swap. This month 5 brave bloggers picked a secret subject for someone else and were assigned a secret subject to interpret in their own style. Today we are all simultaneously divulging our topics and submitting our posts. 

My “Secret Subject” is:

Who is your hero? Why?

It was submitted by: https://wanderingwebdesigner.com/blog

Can't Stop Us Being Loud and Proud

Today’s post is a writing challenge. This is how it works: participating bloggers picked 4 – 6 words or short phrases for someone else to craft into a post. All words must be used at least once and all the posts will be unique as each writer has received their own set of words. That’s the challenge, here’s a fun twist; no one who’s participating knows who got their words and in what direction the writer will take them. Until now.


My words are:

clutching ~ woeful ~ happy ~ stretched ~ hop

They were submitted by: https://dlt-lifeontheranch.blogspot.com/


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Ok I'm gonna need y'all to have some discussions with your friends and family who have full on gay panicked over Lil Nas X and every famous gay who didnt make themselves quieter for the straights' comfort before him if we're being honest. 

 
I hope they stretched real good before all the reaching and clutching of their pearls they've been doing about how gays will corrupt their children and how unnecessary his open gayness is and the devil and HIV and all the other little homophobic things. But now it's beyond ridiculous. Do you have any idea what it's like to wake up in 2021 as a gay, get on your phone, and wade through homophobic rant after homophobic rant? Woeful doesn't cover it, and a lot of this could be avoided if they got a little education.

First of all, if anyone is worried about music corrupting your children let's start with not letting your kids listen to explicit hip hop or any other genre of music for that matter. ALL of them except maybe gospel will have people talking openly about sex. Lucille Bogan's songs from the 30s have made even ME blush, and we all know how my mouth and mind are. There are dozens upon dozens of country songs about sex and sexualizing women. There's an entire subgenre of indie Americana called murder folk. No genre is safe, but these same people are the ones in hundreds of videos I've seen who are happy and think it's funny when the kids are singing along about their broken hearts or honky tonk badonkadonks until it's a gay man doing the singing especially a Black one. What will your kids learn? I don't know. That it's ok to love who you love? That sex isn't shameful? That their parents are wrong? That's the crux of this isn't it. If kids are exposed to gay people making a success of themselves by societal standards, gay people who are happy, who aren't tokens, who love no differently than anyone else, who aren't at all different than anyone else, that proves more than any bullshit lie their parents tell them and then they might think for themselves or *gasp* feel safe to come out themselves.

You can also happily report to them that their christian religion actually says nothing about being gay as a sin. The Bible discusses sexual exploitation. None of the passages y'all's folks point to in order to declare homosexuality a sin are actually about loving relations or consensual sex between same gender partners. These passages are actually mostly talking about assault of minors, rape, and exploitation. Homosexuality actually didn't show up in the Bible until 1946 as a bad translation paid for by christians in America who wanted to demonize homosexuality and knew the best way to accomplish that is through religion (the same happens with different sects of Christianity and abortion too actually). Jesus never once talks about same sex relationships in the new testament. If anyone does it's Paul. Jesus though did say the number 1 commandment, the thing we are to take to heart more than anything else to live the life wanted us living is to love one another. Above everything else he said, love one another was the thing he wanted everyone to practice.

There is no gay agenda to corrupt y'all's kids. I need your family and friends and, hell, some of mine to know that. These kids are coming into a changing world. Gayness is more socially acceptable now than it's ever been at least in some countries and while we still have a long way to go to equality, we have, through hard work and decades of activism, given space to new generations to come out into a safer place, to meet others easily just like them, and with a variety of labels to help specify their needs and wants in romantic and sexual relationships. Society isn't gayer all of a sudden because of some weird gay agenda to corrupt the kids (which is honestly just another facet of satanic panic). These kids have support now that they never knew was there before. They have people accepting and loving them as they are. They're coming into a world where yes they still face bigotry, in everyday society and systemically, but it's improved. Equality isn't now, but it doesn't seem nearly as far off.

That's the only gay agenda there is--that we get to live our lives in peace like anyone else. We want a world where being gay won't get us fired in any state, where we aren't denied adoptions, where homeless shelters for disowned gay teens aren't filled to capacity, where a small town judge can't deny a wedding because of his beliefs (yes it still happens here), where no one is worried about marriage equality being overturned by a stacked conservative court. We want a life that doesn't punish us for being born.

We don't need to corrupt any children to being gay. They already are gay, and they quite often get mentored by those of us who are out because their own parents failed them. They're gay and trans and asexual and fluid and beautiful in all the ways these identities co-exist. Whether you know get to know it or not and get to be a supporting character or a villian in their stories is up to you. And I can guarantee--and be sure to tell y'all's folks this part--hearing you verbally destroy a gay kid with a successful rap career for being unapologetically queer tells your kid a lot about how unsafe you really are and is a first class ticket to being the villian.

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Links to the other “Use Your Words” posts:


Baking In A Tornado https://bakinginatornado.com/

On the Border https://dlt-lifeontheranch.blogspot.com/

Wandering Web Designer https://wanderingwebdesigner.com/blog

Climaxed https://climaxedtheblog.blogspot.com

What TF Sarah https://crazymamallama.blogspot.com/Part-time Working Hockey Mom https://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch/

language barrier

Welcome to a Secret Subject Swap. This month 5 brave bloggers picked a secret subject for someone else and were assigned a secret subject to interpret in their own style. Today we are all simultaneously divulging our topics and submitting our posts. 

My “Secret Subject” is:

Pick one person and tell them something you think they need to hear.

It was submitted by: https://Bakinginatornado.com 

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I'm typically the kind of person who says what they think and not necessarily bluntly or no holds barred either. If I think your partner sucks, I'm going to say that. If I think

there's a problem between us that we need to discuss, I'm going to tell you and open the floor for that discussion. And that's true for Facebook friends that ask me for advice, people I see every day acting like a butthead, and people I write in prison. If I think it and the friendship matters to me in some way, I'm going to say it. If I think something is important or somehow valuable, I'm probably going to make a post about it. If I want to talk about how much men being whiny assholes makes me enjoy the He-man remake even more, I'm gonna post that too.

But I also have boundaries on that. It's neither productive or useful to say some things to my mom. It's past the point of being useful to wish I could say something to my dad who died in 2006 and honestly the fractured relationship we had said a lot without words. There's not much left to say because it's been his absence from my life that let me find peace with who he was. The things left unsaid and unresponded to helped me find a way to accept the reality of our lives. I am better for the things left unsaid to him at this point in my life. And I certainly no longer drag out arguments with internet strangers for the sake of being right. If they're open to information, sure. I don't think it's productive or at all valuable to do what so many folks online do--tell someone to Google it. I give resources and information and help them understand with my own words. But a stranger? A stranger in the comments of a news story or public page who is hellbent on fake outrage and moving the goalpost and sealioning? Nah. Not worth my time.

And while there's a part of me that wishes I could gather some younger people around me old granny style and ask them what the fuck and request that they please stop using leftist ideologies as brands and for making monetized "content," I also know that generation grew up at a time when 10 year olds could become internet famous and they have to learn certain lessons the hard way. Nothing I could say will stick without personal experience.

So if I could say anything to anyone I think I'd like the opportunity to talk to my dog and have him understand not just key words but what is actually meant by the whole of my statement. And yes I do refer to him as a person as weird as that is. Just ask my kid who always points out when I call any animal a person in this house like I've lost the plot.

"Mother, that dog is not a person."

"I mean, I know but yes he is.

So here's to Fizz:

I did not realize I needed you til you were here. I had my big goofy buddy dog, but you're my anchor. My velcro. In the year you've been here you've grown into such a loving little guy who actually learned some tricks and how to calm down around feet and that humans won't just hurt you then give you up. But I need you to listen to me.

I have to cut your hair. Have you seen yourself without a haircut? I have pictures if you need them. Your hair wasn't cut when you got here, and honestly you could have been an extra in a star wars film. Your poop gets in it. Your food. Buddy, it's gross. You look like a toupee for Andre the Giant and I imagine that's what a toupee worn by Andre the Giant would have smelled like too.

Your nails? Also have to be cut, bruv. You click clack on the kitchen floor like all 3 Billy Goats Gruff, and it's a little annoying. And it will get painful. I'm not going to hurt you, bud. I've done it every month for a year and a half and here you are still alive.

You get ear infections like they're a new TikTok dance to learn, bro. How? And when you get them you do not help matters by being mad about the medicine and the ear cleaning. Got to do it.

Cats are not for humping. Now I know this doesn't happen very much but you know seeing your pup trying to literally raw dog a neutered cat in the middle of the living room doesn't have to happen *often* to be awkward. I know they're your buds and all that but, uh, buds don't hump. Ok some do but not you and the cats.

Yes you need baths. It's not up for debate, buddy, and while we're at it, I need you to know that you have to go outside even when it's hot. I know you'd rather just hold it because you're not pooping and peeing inside either but that's not healthy. Y'all all have to go outside rain, cold, hot, or even when, gasp, the grass is kinda tall.

Sleeping time is not chewing your ass time. I swear to God if you wake me up 5 times a night rocking the mattress to get a better grip on whatever is itching you like I've put 50 cents in a motel bed, there will be a reckoning. And while we're at it, going that hard on your itches is just going to make you more itchy. It's science.

Alright, buddy, I love you. You're doing good. You're my best bud. But you know let's just keep this in mind for the future. There's some chimkins and tacos in it for you.

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Baking In A Tornado https://www.BakingInATornado.com

Wandering Web Designer https://wanderingwebdesigner.com/blog

What TF Sarah https://crazymamallama.blogspot.com/Part-time Working Hockey Mom https://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch/

Part-time Working Hockey Mom https://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch/