onion bagels

Every morning I have an onion bagel for breakfast. I eat half a Lender's brand bagel, with Philadelphia cream cheese on top. It's always a half, unless I'm eating really early, and it's always full-fat cream cheese. The bagel is toasted until lightly burnt (medium brown, not black), and the bagel is allowed to cool for a minute or so before the cream cheese is added on top. The goal is for the bagel to be hot, but for the cream cheese to remain cold. The cream cheese is shmeared on in a semi-thick layer, not thin like butter, and not so much that the texture of the cream cheese will overwhelm the texture of the bagel. I always eat it off of a pink, plastic, heat-warped, sparkly plate that my wife acquired in college. We used to have more colors, but her college roommates slowly melted them all past repair by putting them in the dishwasher.

When I was a child I went through different breakfast phases. There was the cinnamon sugar Poptart with no frosting phases, the no breakfast phases, and the bagel with cream cheese phases. I never had cereal, especially not with milk, and I never, ever had eggs - I still have trouble eating anything except for hard boiled or scrambled eggs. When I was younger and would have a bagel, I would eat it off of one of the hand-made and hand-glazed plates my father had made for my mother. I'm not sure where they are now, but even after their divorce, I think my mother still has them. Back then, Lender's bagels were bought frozen, not refrigerated, so you first had to thaw the bagel, and then toast it. I often remember eating breakfast on top of the table in my parents' kitchen, the table that now resides in my studio, its beautiful metal top covered by my rotary cutting mat.

I still love something about the luxury of an onion bagel, even though it's neither a luxury nor a very good breakfast. It's something I miss horrendously when I have to skip, whether it be from traveling or running out. I'll eat any kind of onion bagel, esepecially the New York-style ones found locally(-ish) at either Ellwood Thompson's or Bodo's, even more so if they're found above and below an egg and cheddar breakfast sandwich. But, somehow, my heart still belongs to Lender's. I think it's the sentimentality of it, because I am nothing if not sentimental. Deeply, to my core.

My dad used to eat bagels for breakfast, too, occasionally. He would toast both halves until it was absolutely burnt, take it out, add cheese between the layers, and smoosh it. One of our favorite activities was to be able to make a "daddy bagel" - if we got to help, we were in charge of the smooshing. He would place the bagel between two pot holders and let us sit on it (the potholders were allegedly there to keep butt germs from getting on his bagel)!

Every once in awhile you'll still catch me making a daddy bagel. It usually happens when my wife has forgotten to buy cream cheese or I'm really hungry or I need something that I can carry easily. Havarti or cheddar are my two go-to cheese choices, the choice usually dictated by how much melting I want (I don't eat melted cheese that much). I don't burn mine quite as much, but I still love smooshing it.

Thursday morning...

Right now I am sitting alone on the cold tile floor of my kitchen. I almost want to lay down, or is it lie down?, and relax here. I don't know why, because it's so cold and hard. The sky is heavy, as if we will soon be delivered a soul-cleansing thinderstorm, but I really think it's just going to snow. I really should be eating, not writing, for my hunger is making me melancholy and strung-out.

Yesterday my wife passed out in the shower. She is okay, buy it was scary, although not as scary as one would expect. Today she is back at work, and I can still see her falling in front of me. She did spend some time on a cold tile floor yesterday, just her time was in the bathroom, not here in the kitchen with me.

I recently read something about how many of the pains in our lives are caused by assumptions. So here I sit, assuming away. I assume that I will be used up and thrown away. Or that those expectations were just BS anyway. I assume that I am being lied to, or at least over-promised.

A friend (or a friend of my wife's or an acquaintance or a former-friend, let me not claim too much of her) just posted a #tbt picture of herself on instagram from 1991. Her hair was still straight then and her beautiful jaw is somewhat softened by the face of a 4-year-old. The caption says something like "#tbt to 1991 during the fall of the Soviet Union. My father and I foraging for food in the Siberian woods." Can you imagine? I can't, but I want to give that beautiful, mysterious woman who is my friend a hug, even though I'm not sure that's what she wants or needs.

Today I will ask those questions. Today I will find out whether I'm really wanted and what it is that is needed. But first, let it all start with lunch, which I am grateful for and lucky to have.

Savor or Save-up?

I like to savor things. At least that's what I tell myself. In reality, I like to save things. I was the kid who would save the best Halloween candy for last to the point that it would go bad (or get stolen by my parents and brother). I'm the person, now, who spends an exorbitant amount of money on cheese and then doesn't eat it all before it gets moldy.

Why is this? Is it some trauma- (or perceived-trauma-) induced coping mechanism? Is it my personality? Am I saving up so that the last bite of Halloween candy I remember will be the best? Or is it that I can't imagine a world without said stash of candy or cheese or "nice" notebooks and "nice" pens or Toy Story stickers or this hand sewing project? Or, has my obsessive awareness of my own mortality somehow twisted itself around into saving up for the good times instead of having the good times?

I found myself thinking the other day "oh no, you can't submit that story because it's a special one and that will be one less special one to put on your own blog." To say that I find this statement irrational is an understatement. It's not like my stories will cease to exist like the end of a hunk of cheese, barring some horrific accident. My stories don't cost me money and they don't make me fat. In fact, if I made an effort and wrote more, I'd have a somewhat endless supply of writing and the reserve-stock of best-stories would become greater in number because I would become a better writer.

So what does this say about me and my ever-present lusting for good foods? Maybe that I really need to savor instead of save-up. So similar and so different. Enjoy the cheese while it's here. Know that Halloween will come again. Save for the big trip, but make allowance for the small expenses of enjoying your real life, in the weeks of here and now. Write. Write to savor. Write to improve. Write to notice the blessings and lessen the pain. And, most of all, savor the writing and share it freely, with love.