Monday, February 27, 2012

Cookin' Up Some Hobbies

Oh gosh. So, how's that "writing a little every day" thing going, Ms. Puke?
Whatever. I've been BUSY. Busy with my new hobbies.

I have never been a hobby person. My favorite activities are, in fact, the creature comforts: consuming foods and drinks that taste good (preferably right out of the carton or bottle), sleeping in as long as I can, curling up with lots of pillows and stuffed dogs to watch Jersey Shore and laugh out loud at Snooki falling face-down in the sand, and also hugging. I like to make Matt lie directly on top of me, and then try to breathe. I enjoy the weight of a full-grown man on my ribcage. I could make him do this for hours, but unfortunately he's an autonomous being who has other ideas about how to spend his afternoons. And, anyway, these are not hobbies.

During the past year, I've become way more serious about cooking. And you know what? I like it! I don't think there's anything magnificent about being able to whip up a tasty, fresh, and well-balanced meal - it's really just a matter of multi-tasking - but people seem to think I have some talent at this.

I've always been skeptical of great results I've achieved easily just by doing what I think feels right. You know, getting a stellar grade on a speech in high school or receiving compliments on silly drawings I've done - I just assume that I've managed some kind of miraculous bullshit that's fooled people into thinking I'm awesome. Sometimes, I even lose a little respect for the admirer, because I assume they must have a few screws loose. Isn't that terrible?

I tend to be good at boring activities, like writing bibliographies and filling out paperwork. Or activities that don't matter, like beating you at Ticket to Ride on the iPad.

It's taken me a long, long time to discover what I naturally do well and enjoy. Cooking! Not just dumping crap in a pan and stirring it on high heat, either. As of late, I have been experimenting with different kinds of gluten-, dairy-, sugar-, and meat-free meals (sometimes all at once, waaahh!), but with lots of taste. I still like salt, but I'm learning as much as I can about how my body works to digest various kinds of food so that I can be healthier. I like to think of myself as a little furnace, and I'm throwing in the fuel at the appropriate times and in appropriate portions. You wouldn't toss a potato chip bag or an empty ice cream carton into a fire to make it burn longer, would you? No. No, you wouldn't. (Not that you'd really throw almond milk and kale in there either, but I'm ending this analogy now.) So, in addition to cooking, I've gotten nutrition happy. It helps that I have a nutritionist, and she's helping me to learn not just what to do to stay healthy, but how to do it. It makes me so proud to be able to modify raw products from the earth into a party.

Best of all, these changes mean I'm sleeping more regularly. Apparently my body was just incredibly unhappy with me for eating sporatically and being dehydrated. It has been four weeks since I had a totally sleepless night.
For this next one, I can thank my good best friend Ashley in Memphis for getting married. (And her fiance Sam for asking her.) As a gift, I offered to create their wedding invitations by hand. (Mainly because I hate Photoshop and don't want to pay for a printer - plus, isn't it whimsical?) The past week, I've been working hard on the bachelorette party invitations (the project before The Project), and I'm excited by how they've turned out. I've never received so many positive comments from coworkers and passersby who have just happened to see my neck craned down and my right hand working those colored pencils like a toothbrush on linoleum. Yeah, Crayola colored pencils.

Turns out, you don't need sophisticated equipment or techniques to create lovely work. My whole life, I've been obsessed with handwriting, color, different kinds of paper and inky pens, patterns, shapes. My problem is that I don't doodle; I need a reason to be creating. I don't particularly love to create renderings, and I'm not interested in package design or computer art, so I never thought my obsession with this type of art added up to a real passion. Was I wrong?

Here is how they've turned out!






And then I made confetti for inside the envelopes, because confetti is so much fun, until you're cleaning it out of your carpet.

So, in conclusion, if I were applying for a new job, and I was asked the inevitable and unnerving "What are your interests apart from work?", I could, for the first time since high school, answer confidently, "Cooking, nutrition, and graphic design." And I wouldn't even be lying. Maybe, just maybe, I've finally figured it out. Whatever it is.