Tag: human
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The Monkeys Got to the Caffeine Again
There are certain things about yourself that you can spend years misunderstanding. You know something is different. You can feel it. You see the evidence scattered around your life like breadcrumbs, but you don’t always understand what they are pointing toward. For me, ADHD has been one of those things. I’ve known for a long…
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Just Scrape the Cheese Off
There are certain foods I cannot eat. Cheese is one of them. This sounds simple enough.Four words. A perfectly manageable dietary limitation. I cannot eat cheese. Surely civilization can handle this. After all, we have landed people on the moon, developed tiny computers that can recognize our faces, and invented a machine that will vacuum…
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The Persistence of Character
There are some people you encounter after years apart and think, Oh, how nice. I wonder how they’ve been. And then there are people you encounter and immediately realize that, despite the passage of time, the universe has apparently made no meaningful attempt to alter the trajectory of their existence. Recently, during district-wide professional development,…
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The Song of the Cicada
There is a certain sound that belongs to summer. Not the sound of sprinklers ticking across a lawn, or the distant hum of an air conditioner fighting a losing battle against the heat. I mean the cicada—that high, electric song that seems to rise from every tree at once, filling the afternoon with a sound…
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Conflicting Operating Protocols
I can’t sleep… and I know virtually everyone on this planet at some point in their existence experiences this. Many will see this as a recurring event. For me? It is an existential truth. There is an interesting moment each night for me—the point where my neurodivergent brain meets the absolute absence of energy left…
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Pass the Brown Bean Juice.
If someone were tasked with writing my owner’s manual, the first page would contain one very important warning: Do not operate before coffee. I’ve learned a few things about myself over the years. Some are admirable. Some… not so much. But one truth has become impossible to ignore. I don’t ask for much from life.…
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I May Have Been a Cowboy in a Past Life
I’ve always been drawn to Westerns. It doesn’t really matter what era they’re set in. Give me an old black-and-white Western from the 1950s, a sprawling epic from the 1960s or ’70s, a modern Western, or something set so far back that everyone is still riding horses because automobiles haven’t even entered the conversation yet,…
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Beef, Brine, Heat & Harmony
Picadillo: A culinary symphony in several movements Composer: Mr. Hungry Overall Rating: ★★★★★ There are dishes that announce themselves with complexity. They arrive carrying a long list of spices, sauces, herbs, and techniques, each demanding its moment in the spotlight. And then there are dishes that understand something far more important: You don’t need a…
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A Beginning… And an Ending
August used to mean one thing to me. The end of summer. The beginning of another school year. New schedules. New faces. New names to learn. Another first day. Now August means something else. My mother’s birthday is August 16. This year, the first day of school lands on August 17. She passed away on…
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A Complicated Relationship with Food
I have a very interesting—and complicated—love affair with food. Not an unhealthy relationship. Not necessarily. I mean, I’m not saying food has control over me. I’m simply saying that if food ever needed a restraining order, there would probably be some very uncomfortable questions asked in court. Because I love food. I genuinely love food.…
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Some Days Just Suck
They’re unpredictable. They show up when you least expect them, usually at the exact moment when you absolutely do not have the emotional bandwidth to deal with one more thing. And, naturally, they always arrive when the coffee has gone rogue and disappeared from your immediate reach. That alone should be considered a warning signal.…
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A Day To Do Nothing
A day to do nothing; that’s what I need. No responsibilities, no chores, maybe even not get out of bed. There is something strangely luxurious about that idea: a full day where nothing is waiting for you. Not a “catch up on rest so you can be productive tomorrow” day. Not a “finally clean the…
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Cookbook Incoming? It’s Complicated.
There comes a point in every serious home cook’s life when they entertain a dangerous thought: “Maybe I should write a cookbook.” It’s a bold idea, considering there are already thousands of cookbooks lining bookstore shelves, millions of recipes floating around the internet, and approximately fourteen billion people posting videos explaining the “one secret ingredient”…
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Unplugged
Funny observation… Everywhere I go, people are plugged into something. AirPods. Earbuds. Noise-canceling headphones. The giant over-the-ear ones that make you look like an air traffic controller. Every now and then there’s the brave soul carrying a Bluetooth speaker, generously sharing their playlist with everyone within a fifty-foot radius, whether we asked for it or…
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A Manual Selfie of Sorts
Self-portraits… a manual selfie of sorts. When the world gets quiet, my thoughts usually don’t. Today, they settled on the only subject I know from the inside out: me, and the journey that’s brought me to this moment on the third rock from the sun. No what-ifs. No forecasts. No reinventions. Just who I am…