I'm not always fun to be around

I’m sure there’s a certain place between the second and third circles of hell for those of us prone to food lust, and it’s called the two weeks before my first paycheck(s). I now spend thirty-two hours a week making mountains of organic produce and rearranging fresh crusty breads and glass jars of tapenades, and roughly seven hours a week surrounded by tempura king crab with truffled béamaise and big square platters of octopus salad. Incidentally, we actually have a maki called the Dante: hamachi (whitefish), cucumber, mizuna (a Japanese mustard green), and a habanero tobikko relish (very spicy fish eggs).

As I type, I am boiling black beans and rice for the millionth time, and I don’t even have anything to go with it. I have avoided checking the coffee can for fear that I might not have enough to make it to work all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed by seven in the morning.

There’s something singularly upsetting about having less than $5 in one’s bank account. Don’t gasp; I do actually have three jobs, and I’ll make rent, and I won’t starve, and I even still have some beers squirreled away. Just the same, peanut butter sandwiches and beans and rice get old real fast.

A sea of purple outside the Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago

I went home to Chicago for my sister’s graduation last weekend, which, for the most part, was great—I got the chance to see my aunt and grandma and hang out with the rest of the fam, ate some delicious food (there’s a great place for cannoli and gelato in Lincoln Square, if anybody cares), visited the shiny new Modern Wing at the Art Institute (I have to do a separate post on that later). And oh yes, I had the privilege of witnessing that thrilling rite of passage that is the High School Graduation.

I’m not being a dick, I promise—I’m just saying that it was about as exciting as any high school graduation. I recall not wanting to go to mine, but maybe that was because I had just spent three days in the hospital and wasn’t on speaking terms with most of my friends (the two were unrelated). The salutatorian did his thing, there was Pomp, there was Circumstance, there were crying babies, there was a fairly innocuous little senior prank involving the principal and some colorful stickers. The valedictorian got up to do his personal thing, and then it hit me-

Holy shit. These kids have no fucking idea what’s happening to them. The speeches were all we will remain the close-knit community that makes us strong! and this high school was so special and wonderful to have prepared us to succeed as we face challenges ahead! and we’re going to change the world!

For the first time, such naïveté made me really sad.

I understand that graduation is a very special day for hyperbole and absurdly inflated parental pride and maybe a sort of giddy optimism forced by a fear of what’s ahead. I also understand that I am jaded, and I am a jackass (beat you to it, Dan).

Maybe I’m jealous. Maybe I wish I still felt that way, if I ever did (I can’t recall, but I kind of doubt it). Maybe it’s because I hated high school and made a hash of college, and now that some rich assholes killed our economy, a college graduate can’t even get accepted to be a fucking volunteer, let alone find a job (What's the number of employed recent graduates now? 21%? Holy shit). Maybe it's that I never thought, as I listened to my own shiny-faced classmates' bombastic overtures of misguided optimism, that I would have less than five dollars to my name, eating beans, and excited to wake up at an ungodly hour to work at a grocery store.

I don’t know. As usual, I have no conclusions. I’m just going to eat these beans and read my book until I fall asleep. For now, here is the best part about going home for family functions:

Heineken and homemade guacamole

The Bean Eaters
Gwendolyn Brooks

They eat beans mostly, this old yellow pair.
Dinner is a casual affair.
Plain chipware on a plain and creaking wood,
Tin flatware.

Two who are Mostly Good.
Two who have lived their day,
But keep on putting on their clothes
And putting things away.

And remembering . . .
Remembering, with twinklings and twinges,
As they lean over the beans in their rented back room that
is full of beads and receipts and dolls and cloths,
tobacco crumbs, vases and fringes.