We Grew This

Turns out, Chicago is a busy month for journalists and journalistas. Hence my lateness to this post, which I've actually been looking forward to for a few days now. But you know, as a friend says, #amwriting #amediting. Tis the thing we strive for.

So, you say, what's the thing you were waiting to blog about?

It's my fourth anniversary with my love. <3 nbsp="" p="">Four years, man. It's a long time. The foundation was laid long long before that, in a friendship we kept up for yearrrrs, but now it's a bigger, better thing.

I was looking for an image to represent what I wanted to say about this, and I landed on this rose. It's from our own garden, from this year. We had these roses in the yard, they were planted long before I was here, and they just weren't blooming. Couldn't figure out what the problem was, tried pruning them the one year and nothing, took them to the Master Gardeners at the county ag department...in any case, two years in, they finally bloomed. Gorgeously, and they were incredibly prolific. I could not believe how beautiful. And we grew that. Trial and error and doubt and all.

And that's...how it works in a relationship. Sometimes you cut too deep, sometimes you don't address things you need to. Sometimes you do a lot of work and it doesn't seem to get you anywhere. But you keep working at it and you grow something. And that thing can be incredible.

The beautiful parts of us are some of my favorite things on Earth. It sounds like nothing, but one of my dreams was to have someone who'd eat ice cream in bed with me while we watched some silly show. And we do that.

I hoped for someone who would cook with me. We cook together ALL the time. We make a hobby out of it every single week with 52 Weeks of Cooking and that was the lens I used to talk about us last year at a live event.

We nerd out together. We mangle and strangle the English language so badly together that sometimes I think it's only the two of us who could understand a word we're saying sometimes. Just for fun. We write together, game together, watch the Cubs together, and have a HUGE list of nerdy shows we are huge fans of.

He brought me into the world of Star Trek, and especially when times are so dark...Star Trek gives me hope. It makes me feel like there's this beautiful way we can all exist together if we keep trying for it. The characters and worlds there are gold, and I love that we share it, and I love how it's still sorta "ultra" nerdy in that way where people are like "oh you're a TREKKIE?" because I love how proud we stand together when we say "yeah! Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra!" and wait for the sneers. I love how we can be ourselves together because it's us against the world and being weird together is powerful.We don't have anything to prove.

I love our trips together. I love the relaxation and intimacy of our time in Door County- we got snowed in this last time and it was some of my favorite travel ever, even though we didn't leave our hotel at all that day. We cook while we're there too, and play board games and watch movies and eat cheese and drink wine. We locked ourselves in the Mall of America for his birthday this year.

I love watching him. He's like this over-easy egg of sunshine. It spills right out of him when you take the time to get to know him and talk to him and you see the big beautiful heart, the hearty laugh, the nerdy core and the generosity and kindness just flow out like a river. I love watching people's faces change when he cracks a smile. I love going on walks with him or to the grocery store and holding his hand or knowing that we can make even that fun.

It's not all easy. We spend so much time together by virtue of working at home together that, honestly, we drive each other nuts sometimes. There's internal pressures and household stresses and the regular "uncovering all each other's bullshit" that gets to us. There's the ways that a person you love shows you the worst parts of yourself. But there's ways we show each other the best in ourselves too.

All I need to know sometimes is that I never fall asleep faster than when he's there. When he's not, I can't turn my head off. I know that when I'm not with him, I'm already planning what I'll call or text him, and what he might have liked. I've probably taken pictures of something I wanted to see, and probably saved something I wanted to buy for him in a folder on the internet somewhere (don't peek if you read this.) I'm probably planning all the adventures I want us to have in the future somewhere in the back of my head.

Life gets to me. This  house gets to me. Sometimes, we get to each other. But I've learned so much trying to grow this. Life has a way of showing me how much I haven't learned too, but the bottom line is, we grew this. Four years in, I hope it just keeps growing and going strong.

And hey, you, who's busily reviewing games behind me...I love you. <3 p="">

You Can Always Order Pizza

So, I love cooking.
You probably know this, as you've probably read here there or everywhere about the various cooking exploits I've been on on my own and with my wonderful SO.

I spend a fair amount of time mining the internet for new recipes and stuff, and so I read food blogs and food sections of papers and magazines.

Today, I read this.
In which an intrepid reporter from Chicago magazine has Grant Achatz, yes, THE, yes he of the 3 Michelin stars (that's hard to do in Europe let alone the U.S.) help her with a dinner party.

It's a great article, and a lot of that is in a bit of schadenfreude, I spose, and relating with someone who is nervous around people sometimes. During the course of her time with the chef, she frets about how he'll perceive her and the things she already has in her house, if he'll be stern and a taskmaster, and proceeds to drop a pepper grinder in a bowl of cream as well as grate herself (which I do more than I'd care to admit) and cut herself.

Achatz has accomplished a lot. And first off, he could've felt "above" this sort of story and not done it, and second, he could have done it and not been whole-hog with it. But the whole time he's a calming presence, even forming a sort of eye-rolling-but-in-good-fun role for himself that endears me to him, even having never met him.

He still does what he does and teaches, helping her every step of the way, but he makes himself unimportant and unintimidating. I *love* people like this, and there are far too few of them. People that can shake off the bonds of their fame and just be people are the best kind of people to have fame, if you ask me.

Anyway, the deal was he shops with her, emails her, and then the day of, helps her to a point til he has to go back to Alinea, to, y'know, run a 3 Michelin star restaurant in one of the largest cities in the US. Cuz...well, important.

In any case, one of the things that stuck with me on this was how the author finishes the story.
Because of course, you're wondering if somehow, in that last stretch without him there, she's gonna somehow ruin everything (the way that you feel like you would, if you're like me)

Everyone loves everything despite even  her perceived errors, like overbaking the dessert a bit.

But in the end she remembers Achatz consoling her in a moment of panic by saying that if everything is awful, "You can always order pizza!"

I love it.

On so many levels. I think of Michelin star chefs sometimes as these battle axe sort of people, who are unrelenting, exacting, precise and unforgiving of mistakes, from themselves and the people under them. And that's there, or else they wouldn't be getting the accolades they do. Consistency and precision are key to that sort of craft so that what you put out one day is still what people taste five months from now should they order it.

But as serious as he is about food, and about cooking...if it doesn't work? Fine. Order pizza.

It reminds me to chill the hell out when I'm stressing about whatever it is I'm stressing about.

Because really. You can always order pizza.

It's not to say not to be precise or not to try your hardest to do things as best as you can.
It is to say that if something goes wrong, maybe try not to beat yourself up about it and move on.
Learn from it, sure, but then just...keep on' keepin' on.
And order pizza.

So that's my thought of the day, followed by my sleep of the night.
Now I want pizza.