Quality of Life

Have I blogged about spam yet?
Today, I blog about spam.

I actually really like spam. You have to get turkey spam, though, otherwise you'll be dead inside three bites. Sodium, cholesterol, intestine: spam has it all, and probably several more frightening things besides. Turkey spam has less sodium and fewer calories than even light, or low-sodium spam.

Spam tastes really great, thinly sliced on a grilled cheese sandwich, or inside a quesadilla. It can work cubed in a salad, or just fried with veg.
There are two other reasons to buy it: it stores well, and it's relatively cheap, as meat goes.

I am 2.45 months into a 3-month stretch without a paycheck. I am counting the days, and watching all the summer sales pass me by. I am eating food-storage. Last week, I drank milk I bought sometime last April. My oldest and very dear friend Jennifer just helped me out by donating a week's worth of freezer meals for a two-hour babysitting job (I shall have to tell the story of the crenellated shirt sometime). I beg for zucchini. I qualify for food stamps.

My lifestyle is unusual, even for people in similar circumstances. I know very few graduate students reduced to spam. Eating spam, I mean. We're all spam, if you've ever seen Soilent Green. . .

Sorry. Brief cannibalistic tangent. I get those sometimes.

Meanwhile, my best grad-student friends are buying into local co-ops, Facebooking their shopping sprees, and pinning meals made from things that must be purchased. In a store. When my first paycheck comes in, I'm jumping right on that. I'm going to cook so hard, the house will settle.

But meanwhile, I slowly consume my winter harvest over the lean, summer months.

And bless the creation of the amazon universal wishlist.

I actually really like spam, but when I smell the roast, or when I see my roommates steaming rice and broccoli, or when I walk into the pantry again for a dessert of canned peaches, I really hate spam. And I think "I have canned peaches! I could make crepes. . . if I could afford to buy eggs and cream." I could bake potatoes! If I had any potatoes. I could throw something in the crock-pot, but why? It's just coming out of a can anyway.

This week, spam made me cry.

The truth is that my quality of life is not permanently tied to my food, or my clothes and accoutrements. There are moments when spam hits me so hard, it leaves a dent, but my life and my brain are so full of wonder, that spam becomes just a giggle. It's a joke, like Monty Python are implying. I might not be eating roast for another few weeks, and after I finish Jennifer's freezer meals, my food might all taste like poverty again, but I live in a library. I'm surrounded by books and technology. My air-conditioning works (when provided with shifting electrons by municipal power companies - 'nother story). People speak to me kindly. I just outlined what sounds to my tin ear like a really fun regency novel. I finally pulled the masking tape off the ceiling nipple-light (it's the little things). Life is good, and the food will get better.