i haven’t been in the right frame-of-mind to write for a while now.

both my grandmother and my mother recently tore their rotator cuffs, and for the past few months (well, since mid-january, really), i’ve been acting as a sort of family caregiver. this has involved a lot of schedule-juggling and a fair bit of commuting, since my mother lives in baltimore and my grandmother in annapolis. being a caregiver is scary, and even now, after all these months and despite my family’s reassurances, i have little confidence in my own caregiving abilities. i also have the utmost respect for those individuals who choose caregiving as a career. 

my mother finally had her surgery yesterday, and my grandmother’s surgery is on friday. with this sort of repair, however, surgery is not a magical fix. they’ll both have to dedicate themselves to some major down time, followed by months of physical therapy. full recovery isn’t expected until six months to a year after the surgery. as stressed or overwhelmed as i might be by any or all of this, i know it’s a much more difficult reality for my mother and my grandmother. but i also know something else, something that they don’t always remember, so i’m doing my best to remind them both as often as possible: my grandmother and my mother are both tough cookies. this sucks, but it’s not forever. and life is going to get better from here.

so, with all of this in mind, i’ve decided to forgive myself for this bout of writer’s block. forgiving has always been the hardest part for me. i’m a planner when it comes to posts: i create long lists of ideas, i save links. i write in large batches, keep a calendar, and schedule things ahead of time. and that’s just for the cactus garden. my independent projects are sculpted by to-do lists, mind-maps, and excel spreadsheets charting novel plot lines. writing isn’t just a process for me; it’s a way of thinking, a style of seeing the world.

the problem with this sort of mentality is that when i can’t do the work i want to do, i guilt myself. over time that guilt builds into a seemingly unsurmountable wall between me and creativity. and that’s where the writing halts - not with a screech, but with a painful, empty silence. and, in that silence, everything becomes procrastination: chronically not charging the laptop’s battery, grey skies, not enough coffee in the pot, a cat sleeping on my feet in bed. even extensive research on a subject i want to explore is really just a guise for not formulating a semi-coherent sentence of my own. and now, sadly, over these past few months, i’ve added caregiving to that list, which just isn’t fair to anyone. 

that’s why i’ve decided to accept my writer’s block, because i’ve realized my writer’s block isn’t a block at all. it’s the culmination of a series of unrealistic expectations of myself. caregiving, as i said earlier, is hard. it’s mentally and emotionally difficult, even when it’s not physically difficult. it’s not anyone’s fault; i don’t begrudge my mother or my grandmother for needing me — in fact, i’m happy i can help. i’m glad i’m here. i want them to depend upon me, because i love them and i know that, were the situations reversed, they would care for me. and they wouldn’t just do that because we’re family; they would do it because they are genuinely wonderful people. and if i can grow up to be like anybody in the world, i want to grow up to be like them. 

so, am i sad that i’ve had to take such a long break from my work? yes.

do i wish i hadn’t stopped so suddenly in the middle of my “welcome to my thesis” series? also, yes.

do i have an incredibly long list of things i want to write for you all and then discuss in detail? of course i do.

but you know what? whatever.

life happens. we take breaks from our work, and then we come back.

if we can do something meaningful in the interim and spend time with the people we love, so much the better.

because that just means that it’s not writer’s block at all; it’s just a writer’s vacation.

you can read the first part of this series and my paper's abstract here.

and the second part can be found here.

alcohol and participating in the observations

i learned early on that there are two sorts of reactions you get when you tell people you’re writing your master's thesis about drinking holidays. 

people who celebrate, who like drinking holidays, or are just generally receptive respond with a fascination and a glee — an almost infectious exuberance. i get excited about my work all over again just explaining it to these people.

and then there are the people who don’t get it. they look at me like i’m crazed, and no amount of explaining will change their minds. perhaps the best word to describe their reactions is incredulous? at the best, i get a wary “sounds… interesting.” at the worst, i’ve gotten accusations of being an alcoholic looking for an excuse to drink. i find these people… interesting. luckily, for my self-esteem and stamina, the people in this second category are fewer and further between.

writing about alcohol is difficult, within academia and without, and there are inherent problems in conducting ethnographic fieldwork focusing on alcoholic consumption. in my paper, i write:

keeping in mind possible dangers i might encounter, i made a definite decision before all three holidays to avoid taking any shots of alcohol. i also made a concerted effort to try to stick to one drink an hour to avoid impairing my observations. despite those efforts, however, i understood that alcohol would affect my perceptions and ultimate analysis. when possible, i took notes en route between destinations, as well as at the bars. i also took photos to attempt to provide some balance between experience and memory. recognizing that my alcohol intake, although controlled, may have affected my cognizance, i approached my notes with heightened reflexivity. this meant being aware of how my comprehensions of events may have been altered and how those understandings might influence my conclusions, while still understanding that consuming alcohol was a key component of the celebration and the participant observation. the altered state of consciousness from alcohol consumption was therefore a necessary part of the research, one that allowed a lived understanding of the ritual.

the truth is, when you drink alcohol, it affects your perception of events and happenings. and the more you drink, the more effect it has. there’s no way to get around this. 

conversely, to conduct an ethnographic study of a drinking holiday and to not drink would also be problematic. the resulting work would be “observation,” not “participant observation.” 

complicating this is that fact that celebrations are communal events. to not drink on a drinking holiday is to not participate, to be atypical, to stand apart. 

playing a primary role was the importance of group dynamics and groupthink on individual behaviors. celebrations are inherently communal activities and, whether celebrated with friends or families or strangers just met at a bar, they provide opportunities to interact with others and encourage a sense of conviviality and connection. while sharing a pitcher of harpoon ale with my companions at the stadium bar & grill, our second stop in the early afternoon, one of my friends turned and pointed out a girl sitting alone in a booth, keeping her head down and doing her best to avoid interacting with anyone else.

"what do you think is wrong with her?" timothy* asked. 

this question highlighted the importance of the group and emphasized social interactions: participation requires companionship. not having companions on a holiday is in itself atypical, however, this sort of deviance, exemplified by this girl, implied to my friends a rejection of celebration and participation. susanna barrows and robin room iterate this notion, stating: “the essentially social nature of drinking is indicated by the fact that solitary drinking is commonly considered to be a problematic symptom” (1991). isabel gonzález turmo considers the question of whether or not drinking alcohol is a social or individual act, suggesting instead that drinking is simultaneously both a social act and a solitary act (in de garine and de garine, eds. 2001:131). the meanings and intents embedded and imbued within the prescribed actions and performances create social connections that can cross cultures and language boundaries. in this way "[d]rinking is always an individual act, since each drinker necessarily has to situate himself, more or less consciously, according to the change of emotions produced by the ingestion of alcohol;" and yet, "[i]t is also a social fact, even when drinking alone, since it is loaded with socially assumed meanings. it is a language that, on many occasions, needs neither words nor expressions" (gonzález turmo in de garine and de garine, eds. 2001:131). my companion’s observation of the lone drinker emphasized the silent language of ritual behavior and the ways those messages could be perceived.

* all names have been changed

you can read the first part of this series and my paper's abstract here.

choosing the holidays

in our origin story, i mentioned how i missed out on using halloween as part of my study. no lie, that was a bit of a bummer.

in many ways, though, i’m grateful i didn’t end up using halloween; partly because the holidays i ended up studying ended up having some fascinating connections of their own, but also because halloween in boston in 2011 was cold and wet and gross. i’m incredibly grateful that my graduate career is not commemorated in an ode to how i froze my feet off as i waited in line for hours trying to get into the cambridge brewing company, as the freezing rain turned to snow. just saying.

when i sat down to look at my proposed timeline, three holidays made sense to me: st. patrick’s day, cinco de mayo, and the fourth of july. 

a lot of people have asked me why i didn’t include new year's eve in my study. to be frank, the original reason was timing. having only just started my graduate degree in september and given the proximity of the holiday to the end of semester deadlines, along with the fact that i had only just turned in my thesis proposal in the beginning of december, there was no sane or sensible way to include new year's eve in my research.

instead, i lied and told my parents i couldn’t come home to baltimore for the holiday because i was going to use new year's eve as one of my participant observations, then snuck home to baltimore and hid in am the elder’s apartment, and surprised our parents at our normal friends and family party. that wasn’t a convoluted sentence at all. 

in picking st. patrick’s day, cinco de mayo, and fourth of july as my holidays, i ended up providing a framework myself that was incredibly useful later. here’s how i describe how and why i chose these holidays in my paper, and how i proposed to go about studying them:

my plan was to conduct participant observations of three holidays — st. patrick’s day (march 17), cinco de mayo (may 5), and american independence day (july 4) — in boston, massachusetts. i hoped to observe how these ethnic and nationalistic holidays were interpreted through celebratory drinking in order to better understand how holiday drinking practices engender and reinforce concepts of community. i chose these holidays for their perceived ethnic and patriotic associations that have been appropriated and subsequently reinterpreted by the american public. the participant observations would all start in the morning and range into the early hours of the following day. i intended to observe the relationship between ritual drinking and the celebration of the holidays: who was celebrating, by gender, ethnicity, and age; how celebrants were dressed to represent the holiday; what they drank and how much they drank; what their celebratory behaviors were, both sober and intoxicated; and how drinking served as an embodiment of the holiday for the celebrants. being relatively unfamiliar with boston, i primarily chose field sites based on perceived popularity among drinkers in their 20s and 30s, as opposed to specifically ethnically self-identified bars. i would spend st. patrick’s day in south boston with a group of friends, cinco de mayo in faneuil hall and allston, and independence day in somerville. south boston was chosen for its strong irish american neighborhood identity. faneuil hall and allston were chosen for their perceived popularity among young celebrants. somerville served as a contrasting residential neighborhood. i planned to conduct informal interviews with participants i would meet throughout the holidays about why and how they were celebrating.

i will admit, choosing secular holidays rather than religious holidays was a conscious choice. there is a lot that has been written about religious ritual in relation to alcohol consumption. there is a lot more that can be written about religious drinking holidays. my choice of secular holidays primarily came from a spatial factor: i was looking at public spaces, bars, etc. i don’t know if i’ve ever seen anyone out having their customary four glasses of wine for passover in their local pub. (that would be mad impressive, though. now that i think about it, i might need to be the first. or not.)

i also shied away from the religious holidays from a practical feasibility point. there is a lot of work that has been within alcohol studies focusing on the religious; it’s a bit overwhelming and it’s difficult to know where to start and where to end. certainly the amount of material there is book-length, not master's thesis length. (though, i will admit, given more time and more research, i could see book-length material developing from my finished thesis.)

alternatively, secular holidays also held a certain attraction to me simply because there was less work already written about them. the secular drinking holiday is a phenomenon that i feel has flown largely under the radar. it’s there, academics know it’s there, but for whatever reason, there’s less of a draw to write about them.

i’d like to address a few points specifically about each of these holidays, because i’m sure some of you out there have concerns with my defining each of these three holidays as a secular drinking holiday. and for those of you who don’t — maybe they didn’t occur to you, maybe you’re not accustomed to this sort of academic discussion, whatever (it’s okay, i know we have all sorts of readers here in the garden. nobody’s judging anybody) — there are reasons why you should want me to fully explain my definitions. primarily, i, like all researchers, should be held accountable for my work. and if i can’t explain what i did or why, i’m not doing my job.

firstly, this was an ethnographic inquiry. the research i completed was all here-and-now. yes, my literature review included the historical perspectives of these holidays. however, the primary focus was to gain a better understanding of current practices.

and so of course it’s important to acknowledge the fact that st. patrick’s day began as a religious holiday. however, in the here-and-now, the celebrations i observed were of a secular nature. 

this here-and-now perspective also applies to the whole “drinking holiday” aspect of my observations. none of these holidays were founded with the intention of selling more guiness or providing a venue for sombreros on college campuses. (at least, i’m pretty sure they weren’t.) however, it is the intent of the participants to drink on these days that transforms these holidays into drinking holidays. 

thus, by this reasoning, i consider st. patrick's day, cinco de mayo, and the fourth of july all to be secular drinking holidays.

my next post in this series will discuss questions and concerns dealing with actual alcohol consumption and participant observations.

Ritual Drinking on Nationalistic Holidays and the Creation of Cultural Identity

This paper examines ritual drinking practices on the nationalistic holidays St. Patrick’s Day, Cinco de Mayo, and American Independence Day. The objective of this study was to understand how alcohol is used as a ritualistic tool during these holidays, and how extreme drinking is encouraged by participants as a mode of community formation. Employing anthropological methods, I conducted participant observations in Boston, Massachusetts at neighborhood bars on all three holidays and at a house party on independence day. Through these observations, it became clear that young adults celebrated these nationalistic holidays through ritualistic practices that included stylized modes of dress, the collection and use of material artifacts, the liminal experience of secular pilgrimage, and ritualized actions that facilitated processes of assimilation and acculturation. 

goodness. 

there is so much here i want to discuss that i think we’re going to have to break the conversation up into segments so i don’t get lost.

this is the first part of an extensive series of posts, so please bear with me.

the origin story

i first had the idea to write an academic paper about drinking holidays while i was still working on my undergrad degree. 

aptly, the idea came to me while i was at a bar, having a ridiculous brainstorm session with one of my best friends, ap. (one day, ap, i promise we’ll make our short film, “add and ocd go to a bar.” it’ll be epic.)

the first idea was broad, with no limit to holiday, no spatial or locational structure (though there was the passing mention of spending each holiday in its place of origin — carnivale in brazil, oktoberfest in germany, and so on). there was no theoretical framework, no discerning focus to direct the study.

and, like so many ideas, it remained an idea. 

an amusing idea, an idea i hoped to pursue, but just an idea all the same. 

and after a while, as my undergrad career ended and as life went on, i forgot all about it.

it wasn’t until three years or so later that i came back to the concept of completing an anthropological study of drinking holidays.

midway through my first semester as a graduate student at boston university i was faced with a quandary. because i was a full-time student and intended to remain so for my entire graduate career, i had to decide my class schedule and final track route almost as soon as i began the program. this may sound a little confusing, so let me break this down a little bit to be clear. 

essentially, with the way boston university’s gastronomy program breaks down class credits, graduate students take ten classes. there are four required courses (anthropology of food, experiencing food through the senses, theory and methodology, and history of food). the rest of the classes are electives. along with the classes offered, students can also elect to do a four-credit thesis/project or an eight-credit thesis in lieu of one or two elective classes, respectively. 

i knew early on that because i eventually plan to continue on into a phd program, i wanted to write a thesis. and so, when it came time for me to start thinking about planning my spring semester schedule, it was also necessary to  consider how to handle my summer class registration. 

i’m not sure when exactly i remembered the original drinking holiday study idea, but i believe it was either on or directly after halloween. 

in fact, i’m pretty sure of this timing because i seem to remember thinking “expletive!! well, there’s no way i can do a participant-observation study for that holiday now!”

and while halloween was a wash, i was lucky to have remembered the idea when i did; it gave me enough time to discuss my idea over with the gastronomy program coordinator, rb. besides being wonderfully supportive, rb also agreed to be my thesis advisor. 

it also gave me enough time to submit my proposal before the spring semester began. despite the fact that i wouldn’t register for the eight-credit thesis until the summer, because of the temporal nature of my study, i actually began work on my thesis in january. 

we’re almost done with our origin story, but before we finish this up, i’d like to discuss the fluctuating nature of this paper, because it’s certainly been a theme throughout my experience writing it. 

when i first approached rb with my general proposal, my idea was to write about drinking holidays, taboos, and social deviance. and while the drinking holidays certainly remained the central focus of my work, you can see simply from my title that social deviance and taboos did not. i still discussed elements of social deviance and taboo, but they certainly were not my linchpin.

i struggled for a good bit this past summer to be okay with that, and i don’t know if i can fully explain why. i got trapped by a working title, an idea that my paper was a square peg when it was really circular. and i also got caught in the trap that because i had written about ritual in anthropology before (in fact, i’d taken whole classes on it), i had to avoid it and write something entirely different. 

in other words, i was an idiot. 

but we can get to those troubles, and how i got over them, later.

i have a secret that’s not a secret.

it’s more like a constant, startling revelation. 

i have a masters degree. 

how awesome is that?

if you’ve been around here before, you might know that in the end of summer 2011, i quit my full-time job working in marketing and development and moved to boston to be a full-time graduate student in boston university’s gastronomy program. 

it was scary; it was intense; it was amazing.

i took four classes at a time in both the fall and the spring semester, something i’m not sure i would suggest doing. overwhelmed doesn’t even begin to cover how i felt most of the time.

for me, though, it was financially and mentally the right decision to jump in feet first and continue on full speed; that’s just the kind of person i am.

along the way i took some wonderful classes. 

in the fall, i confirmed my love for anthropology in my anthropology of food class (and, incidentally, received the julia child scholarship for the work i did in that class — how crazy is that?!); i remembered my love of archeology and gained a new appreciation for my new home’s foodways in my culture and cuisine: new england class; i was not only absolutely fascinated by my history of wine class, but i was also able to establish some groundwork for my thesis research with some of the materials we covered; and, perhaps most importantly, i discovered a passion for food policy — a passion that i think will direct my future professional and academic career(s).

in the spring, i mostly took core courses, which included the history of food, theory and methodology, and experiencing food through the senses. i also took a food and film class, which, while out of my academic comfort zone, gave me a great excuse to call my sister, am the elder, more frequently. (it also inspired the creation of the cactus garden’s bloomeria lumiere.)

i also began work on my thesis last spring, a process that took me all the way to this past december, when i successfully defended my thesis. 

the defense, in itself, was an amazing experience. 

i had no clue what i was getting myself into, and saying i was nervous would be a massive understatement.

the truth is, once the defense began, it was actually a lot of fun. 

(even more honestly, if you had asked me beforehand what word i’d use to describe defending my work, “fun” would not have even been on my radar.)

writing my thesis was difficult. it was a large project with some inherent problems that i knew about going into the whole undertaking, but by the time i got to my defense (and even though i doubted myself far more than was probably healthy), i knew my stuff. 

i love academia, and getting to sit and seriously discuss my research with my advisor and reader —both inspiring food anthropologists— was incredible. staggering. spectacular. phenomenal. 

i could go on, but i’m sure you all have access to your own thesauruses.

i’m pretty sure you get the idea, anyway.

that buzz from the defense still hasn’t left me, and that’s why i say i have a secret that isn’t a secret: because every so often when i’m doing something mundane, like making my coffee in the morning or driving or talking with my friends and family, i stop and it hits me.

i have a masters degree. 

how awesome is that?

khayelitsha, the view from vicky's front door

in the end of may 2008, i went to south africa with one of my undergrad university’s anthropology classes. 

it was on that trip that i met kb, our distinguished seeds contributor who just so happens to be one of my best friends.

it was also on that trip that i realized my love of food anthropology and began my first forays into the field. 

in 2009, i posted a few excerpts from the paper that resulted from that trip, “cooking up a new south african identity: an exploration of food, identity, and gender in nine courses,” in the garden.  

this week, i wish i had shared more of that piece. 

in particular, i wish i had shared what i had written about vicky ntozini, the former owner of “vicky’s b&b” in khayelitsha.  

i say former because, as kb and i recently found out, vicky was murdered by a relative in november.  

rb, who was our tour guide on our trip, wrote a beautiful, touching piece about vicky, about her wisdom, integrity, and creativity, and about the importance of her work and the ways in which she enriched her community.

the shock of hearing about vicky was surreal, not just because it’s been so long since i met vicky, but because all this time i’ve lived with the sense that there was this amazing, indomitable woman in the world, a woman who saw problems and dreamed solutions.

hearing of her death inspires a shattering sense of loss and disillusion; another good one is gone. 

with all of the news in the world this past week  － the students and teachers murdered in newtown, the woman gang-raped and brutally beaten in delhi, it goes on － there really are no words for the current state of things.  

the violence of it all is overwhelming. 

at this point, at this time, there isn’t much i can do, not about any of it, and soon it will time for us to move on, to think about what’s next, next, next.

that's the way of the world.

but before we do, i’d like to share with you some of what i had written all those years ago about my stay at vicky’s. 

because even though you likely never met her, i wish you had.   

 vicky, june 2008 

i have never breaded chicken using a plastic bag before, but if a system works, why change it? 

our first, and only, night in khayelitsha and i’m in an anthropological heaven helping vicky make dinner. her kitchen is a microcosm of south africa: a third world country smashed headfirst into a first world country. 

the success of her bread and breakfast has allowed her to build and expand where her neighbors cannot. in the sandy land of one level shacks and lean-tos, vicky’s house is one of the few towering buildings that has two floors. her upstairs, almost complete, has three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a den. a balcony is still in progress. the whole upper portion of the house looks like it belongs back in cape town rather than khayelitsha. her downstairs is still reminiscent of the area, though. it’s darker and more cluttered. half of vicky’s kitchen has been redone – new fridge, new counters, new cabinets – but the other half still speaks of harder times. 

the rest of my group has gone out on a walking tour of the township, but the kitchen is still crowded. two of vicky’s neighbors, mama africa and beauty, have come over to help prepare the meal. vicky’s two older daughters are also pitching in. it’s clear that this is all routine they’re used to when the b&b is booked. 

vicky’s husband hovers around underfoot. he is obviously uncomfortable in the room – there’s an unspoken acknowledgement that this is a women’s space. i try not to laugh when he explains to me, in lengthy detail, that it is important for xhosa women to be able to cook – and cook well. if they don’t, their husbands will buy prepackaged food to eat, which is just bad. everything must be fresh, all the time.

by the time he’s done talking, it’s almost dinnertime. the group has returned, already talking about plans for the rest of the evening and laughing about the walk. dinner is fried chicken, an apple and carrot coleslaw, creamed and mashed pumpkin, a vegetable chutney medley, and sautéed spinach and onions. for desert, there is a trifle decorated with m&ms. even before anyone serves a piece of the trifle, the color from the m&ms starts to bleed into the pudding.

i am torn between eating with the group and hanging back in the kitchen. i can’t help but notice that vicky and her family don’t eat until they’re sure their guests are finished. i try to help clean up, but all that I’m allowed to do is stack plates. 

Source: Vicky Ntozini and South Africa's Smallest Hotel (http://www.greatguides.org/Story_161_Vicky+Ntozini.html) by Roddy Bray

back in 2008, the cactus garden was an awkward little blog that couldn't decide what it wanted to be when it grew up. 

now it's a full website with a kick-ass staff who all got together today to celebrate the blogday by drinking mimosas, putting not enough (because there's never enough) bacon on sandwiches, eating triple boston cream pie cake, and cheers-ing the new blog year with some sweet bubbles. 

so what's coming up in this new year?

am the elder is beginning a new segment, bloomeria lumiere, examining all things culture in film.

her first post will be up tomorrow afternoon, so keep an eye out for it!

nj is joining us as our in-house artist.

her first project will be illustrating our on-going king of the road story.

we'll be reposting the first chapter and a half with her illustrations here in the garden before we continue on.

(yay! no more awkward stock photos!)

to make commenting more user friendly, we've added a page where you can join the cactus garden as a member.

to sign up, visit the become a gardener page.

drunk food book club will be kicking off this year reading alone in the kitchen with an eggplant, which is a fun read even if you don't like eggplant. 

we'll be commenting as we read and drink over on the open forum until about december 20 or so, when we'll pick a new book. 

as always, feel free to drink and read along with us --- the more the merrier! 

books on my parents' shelves will be returning this friday. 

stay tuned for a special post there.

our dear friend, the second lieutenant, is currently m.i.a. (there are fears he may be lost behind enemy cat lines).

am the elder's juliet has volunteered to stand in as stunt double until our humble mascot is found.

juilet also has the honor of posing next to the cactus garden's current actual cactus, oliver. 

normally in these blogday posts we tell you a little about the past year, the stats and all that, but this past year was a quiet year, what with sm up in boston as a full-time grad student, so we don't really have anything too interesting to share there, except...

except...

as in past years, we took a moment to look at the recent past search queries to see what readers were looking for when they found us.

most made sense, but one was mildly baffling and incited riotous laughter.

so we'd like to ask you, our wonderful readers, who went looking for cactus croquet porn?

and more importantly, why???

fess up now.

as for the rest of you, happy blogday.

we're glad you're here.

last year, as some of you might remember, i set about a personal project - a 365 day food photo project. 

each day i took pictures of food i encountered and, from the mix, picked one photo to represent the day. 

some of the foods i ate, some i didn't.

some i just marveled at.

by the end of the year (and continuing on well into this year), i had some thousand(s) of food photos.

f.y.i. raw meat looks like brains sometimes

today i deleted just about all of those photos.

except for a handful i truly love, i let them go.

food photography in general has developed a bad rep.

ke, the frau doktor doctor, recently sent me the link to this food photo rant.

some of the irritations expressed in this letter are valid.

it's easy to complain about instagram and facebook newsfeeds filling up with images of calzones and cappuccinos, just as it's easy to complain about the abundance of wedding, baby, and pet photos. 

but what's the real irritation here?

it's not the life events.

we don't sit in our chairs, jealously wishing our co-workers didn't get to have lunch because their tapas looks far better than our squished pb&j — just as we don't sit wishing our best friend didn't get married or that dog didn't get adopted from the pound.

it's not the life events we dislike, it's the copious amounts of milestones and landmarks we are exposed to at any given moment.

with the over-abundance of photography and photo-altering apps, we are losing the significance and the value normally embedded in our photos.

simply put: the stories of our lives are losing meaning and the sheer proliferation has overwhelmed the memory capacity of both our technology and our minds.

also, we might be eating too much sugar. or not enough. one or the other.

over the past several weeks, i've spent a lot of time sitting around, first waiting for medical diagnoses and then waiting for meds to kick in.

for those first several weeks, as i was contemplating the worst — organ failure, epilepsy, even possibly parkinson's disease — i didn't go looking for pictures of that bowl of pad thai or salt and pepper shakers sitting on a restaurant table. 

i went looking for these:

kb and sb at the hunt valley wine festival

photo-ing up food photographers dc, ja, and mk at the fancy food show

ap showing some 3 am diner love

nd's last senses class of the spring taking a boozey turnkicking it up screw it style with mrjs taking a mad swing during epic croquet

all of these photos have something to do with food or drinks (okay, mostly drinks because my friends never seem to sit still long enough at the table), but they're not food photos. 

so, do i miss taking however many gazillion photos photos with kb before each meal?

sometimes.

do i feel a need to go back to it?

no.

but i can still be recursive and take pictures of kb taking food photos.

the food doesn't make the photograph, it's the people with you at the time who make the memory.

chronically check-in online everywhere you go?

are you the virtual mayor of a building you drove by?

 

this might be (for) you:

there's been a lot of humor clips like these going around recently.

i've lost count of how often this clip has shown up on my fb news feed:

while the overt intent of these videos is to amuse and entertain, there's a greater underlying message being conveyed.

as our virtual interactions have grown, so, too, have our perceptions of real world experiences and the ways in which we express and comment on these encounters.

these videos are a commentary on the conflicting transient and enduring aspects of online reviews: reviews are snapshots of a singular experience. often they are written and then forgotten. and yet, these stories remain available to the public and can influence future decisions.

food lends itself well to this commentary because food, in its own nature, is both lasting and ephemeral. 

we remember past meals, dishes loved and dishes detested. 

many life events can be recalled or related to what was consumed. (or, alternatively, what was not consumed.)

conversely, eating is an impermanent action: the actual action itself is short-lived and though basic bodily needs require regular consumption, the meals themselves are not necessarily remembered. 

from this, it seems possible to consider that the above clips (and the one below - you've kept reading so far, it only seems fair to give you another) are not just observations of the digital food dialogue, but they are also commentaries on food and remembrance.  

why do we remember certain food experiences and not others?

what inspires us to try (or not) new food experiences?

and, importantly, what compels us to share these experiences with others?

all of this is just me hypothesizing, though.

after all, i don't have a yelp or a chowhound or whatnot account (and i'm too lazy to get one), so all i can give you is an outsider's perspective.

oh, and there's still coffee in my cup.

and now, for listening to me ramble:

that's not really a reward, is it?

i'm sorry.

Source: Restaurant Chronicles - "McDonalds" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ikOtPfr45U&feature=relmfu) by studio8
Source: My Lemonade Stand - An A-Hole Reviews (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssHekfTGoUE&feature=player_embedded) by Giveup Pants
Source: Real Actors Read Yelp Reviews ™ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEdXhH97Z7E) by Joe Plummer

or whatever. 

this post is a list of things.

one:

yes, i totally made that someecard.

kb and i have been having a someecard war for a few months or something now, and i'm totally losing at it.

shh, nobody tell her i finally figured out how to write my own.

or whatever.

two:

it's been a slow summer, but kb and th have been keeping things going while i've been m.i.a.

come august, things will be picking up pace around here.

keep an eye out for some changes and additions.

or whatever.

three:

this is the big, stupid bit of it all. 

i've been sick.

and not in a take-a-few-aspirin-sleep-late-and-then-walk-it-off-sick, it's all sort of an unknown entity.

there are pain killers.

and muscle spasms.

and a whole other bunch of nonsense. 

it's whatever.

but until we know what it is, we don't know what it is. 

it's a very specific situation. 

so, until future notice, please just be patient.  

in other news, i finally went to fenway.

so everything's okay.

zounds.