Superheroes are important to the revolution

Ok, so superheroes aren’t really important to the revolution. And basically, I think the whole idea of heroes is a load of crap. Everyone has the power to be the best they can be, just some of us do it and others don’t. Lately, however, I’ve been thinking about my friends as superheroes. Just who are the Unmentionable superheroes? Here’s what I’ve come up with:

M., my illustrious husband, would be Super Reference Man. I’ve actually already dubbed him Mikelikus, god of research. This could be his other name. He’s a librarian and he can pretty much find anything I need to know. Knowing where to find information is a very important part of the revolution. His supplemental superpower would be reading and folding maps and being able to calm down the high strung superheroes when they get upset.

A., my illustrious partner in crime and belly dancer would be Useless Trivia Girl. Who says that all knowledge has to be useful? All knowledge is power and why should useless knowledge be any less powerful. Her other superpowers would include taking criminals down using an intricate mix of belly dancing and Krav Maga. She would also be able to read at the speed of light. This would be a useful skill in conjunction with Super Reference Man. She would also be able to cook with her mind and write grants to help fund the revolution.

P., a fabulous all around guy whom I adore, would be the Naked Furnace Salesman.This may seem useless, but think of how distracting it would be to a criminal. Picture this: a guy from Wisconsin comes in to your lair to sell you some duct work and…..he’s naked. Sounds like a done deal to me. And it could be a lucrative way to fund the revolution. His supplemental powers would include making vegan smoothies to feed revolutionaries, locating co-ops and being able to break any computer just by staring at it long enough.

J., a total nut whom I adore, would be Useless Degree Man. (To be fair, J. is currently working on a degree that will be useful, but has several that have not been so far.) He would be kind of like Useless Trivia Girl, but he would write papers to send to people about why we are participating in the revolution. He would do this in a Hunter S. Thompson fashion so he would scare the crap out of anyone who would dare to stop us. His extra powers include being able to break windows and beer bottles with his head. He can vomit on couches in a single bound.

C., great friend from college, would be Psychotherapy Man. He would do psychological profiles on the criminals so we would know how best to defeat them. His extra powers include blacksmithing, inventing useful gadgets, home improvement and being able to eat large quantities of anything inedible.

What would my superpower be? Well, I would be Useless Memory Girl. I can remember almost anything that is completely useless. Ask me what I ate for dinner 10 years ago at a restaurant in Omaha during Spring Break and I could tell you. As me where I bought a pair of shoes, I can tell you where, what year and how much I paid for them. Fortunately this power also translates well to people. I have a knack for remembering names and phone numbers and pointless details about any situation. This could benefit us if we needed to remember who we met at a party and could help us locate fellow revolutionaries. My extra powers would include getting really, really angry when I can’t remember things…this could freak out criminals…and I would drive the car of the Unmentionables, which would be some sort of super fuel efficient Honda hybrid large enough to fit all of us. I am the only member of the Unmentionables who has taken an evasive driving course – in my mind. During the day I would work as a continuity expert for the movie industry and be a stunt car driver.

So, I think that’s a pretty good group. With a little effort I think we can be successful. I’ll see if I can think of anymore to add. Maybe I’ll even think of crimes for us to fight! Woah, that would be a step in the right direction.

Flying is important to the revolution

I am on a plane to Seattle. Wow! Fucking technology rules (MS word says this sentence is incorrectly phrased). Ok, technology mostly rules. I am excited to be on a plane and typing for the first time every. I would be more excited if the “h” key on my flimsy Dell keyboard had not fallen off the first time I opened my laptop. I hate Dells. I say this with passion and meaning. I did tech support for 2+ years and I formed a lot of strong opinions about certain products. Dell was one of them. I had to call tech support to figure out how to open one of their poorly constructed cases. The guy on the phone could hardly tell me how to do it. Anyway, back to flying. I love flying. I have loved flying ever since I was a little girl. There is something empowering about flying…I guess weird empowerment issues is the topic of this blog! I love getting on the plane and fastening my seatbelt, waiting for that rush as the thrust of the plane lofts you into the air. What a high. I travel fairly often and have just come to love the feeling of it - the anticipation that tingles through my body as I get my boarding pass, the exciting anxiety I feel as I go through security – will they stop me, will they search me? They’ll never take me alive!! ARG! Just kidding. I’ve been searched a couple of times. I’ve never in to the airport screaming “Viva La Revolution!!” But I have thought about it. Today when I went through I stripped down almost to my underwear. I took off my belt, my jacket, my shoes. It was pretty crazy, but I didn’t get stopped. I also have a strange affinity for shopping at the airport. I never really buy anything, but I love going into all of the strange little shops and checking out all of the places to eat. Today I saw a bicycle toy shop w/lots of antique pictures of bicycles. Go figure. Who would have thought that a shop like that would be at the Denver airport. Seems more like something that would be at the Mall of Hell. I also enjoy people watching in these situations. Lately, there’s been a lot of people decked out in their “patriotic” flag wear. It’s a little bit thick in the Midwest and basically makes me want to wretch. It’s much more exciting to people watch at airports in big cities, like LA. Not so many flags, just lots of Louis Vuitton handbags and cell phones.

The important thing about flying right now is to not be afraid. M. and I flew only about two months after 9/11 and so many people were surprised. I was upset that they were so shocked. Why the hell wouldn’t I fly? They have considerably beefed up security – see note above – and not flying means that they have won. I don’t just mean “they” as in those men who flew those planes into the WTC and the pentagon. I mean “they” as in the fear mongering morons in power. They live to make us afraid so that they can fuel their pointless war machine and ask us to buy a bunch of crap that will make us feel “safe”. This illusion that we can ever be safe is such a crock and is something I’m sick of hearing about. We can make ourselves emotionally safe to some extent, but never really physically safe. People in power and in the media would have us believe that “unsafe” looks and feels a certain way. Tell that to the girl who gets raped by her boyfriend or the woman who gets abused by her handsome rich husband. No one can predict what can happen, not GW, not the illustrious Dick Cheney…NO ONE. “Unsafe” doesn’t have a face or a name. It isn’t something you can put your hand on or buy an alarm to warn you about. You just have to have fait and know that whenever you leave your house - or hell, even at home! - you are not safe. Listening to the lies of the media and Washington puts us in an unsafe place emotionally. This unsafe place is a constant state of fear. Yes, I know things will never be the same. And they’re not. But that doesn’t mean we have to take what others say at face value. Live life…be happy! Besides, you could get hit by a bus tomorrow and where would you have spent your last hours? Hiding at home watching Wolf Blitzer or Mr. O’Reilly and stockpiling weapons? Or out enjoying a drink with a friend, laughing, singing and enjoying a beautiful spring day. Or better yet, on a plane somewhere to some far off exotic providence like Bellevue, Washington. If my plane goes down, I know that I have had a great run of it. I told my husband I loved him and kissed the cat. I will not regret getting on board because I know I did so without fear.

Learning to cook is an important part of the revolution

When I went to college I had no clue how to cook. My mom, bless her heart, thought that I would be ok, since I could read and was relatively good at following directions. As I quickly learned, any fool – well, almost any fool – can read a recipe and turn out something rather pleasant to eat. I was one of the fortunate fools, but I didn't really know how to cook. I didn’t really realize this until I spent some time in the kitchen with my best friend, A. She is a goddess in the kitchen. She was fortunate enough to get some tutelage in the kitchen from her father who would make her name ingredients contained in dishes he would make. My dad spent time slaving over a hot stove of Spamburgers and toast (although he makes a killer fried egg!). After growing up on chicken and dumplings, lots of TV dinners and who knows how many packets of heart attack inducing Ramen, A. brought a new dimension to culinary masterfulness into my life. I remember eagerly lurking while she cooked in her upstairs apartment on Grand Ave. I wanted nothing more than to figure out how the hell she could do all of that and not have to read a recipe. I did not understand that food actually had a life of its own and if I could understand that life I could make it work for me. Who knew that you could actually put real garlic into food and not just garlic powder?! Having grown up on salad bars of iceberg, I didn’t even know that there was more than one type of lettuce until I got to college. I also had no idea that you could buy fresh vegetables in the store – we always ate them out of cans, if we ate them at all. So, it was a real treat to get to watch A. cook. Her adeptness at knowing exactly what she wanted was astounding. I completely admired and loved her for it. I fell in love with her spirit in the kitchen.

I quickly became addicted to cooking shows. After my classes were over, I would come home and lounge on my beat up green couch and religiously watch “Great Chefs” and Graham Kerr. I learned how to chop garlic and that you can strain all the liquid out of yogurt if you wait long enough. And that more than anything else I desperately wanted a “bash and chop”, which I now own and rarely use. But more importantly, I had my very own personal teacher in A. I would ask stupid questions and she would always answer with a smile. I felt a little bit more empowered because of this. And as time went on, I felt completely empowered by this. The cookbooks started rolling in. I now have two shelves full of them. I started to eat better and feel better and realized that a can of corn or kidney beans was NOT a dinner.

Eventually, A. & I started putting my future husband, M., to work in the kitchen. He was already an exceptional omelet maker, but he learned how to do all of the prep work. It turned out that he was really good at it and enjoyed doing it. It was now a family affair. The three of us ended up living together for a few months and during this time we ate VERY well. My husband-to-be even learned how to make salad dressing. (There is a long story behind that one!) This was the boy that used to eat Triscuits and hummus while standing over the dining room table and called it a meal. Cooking great meals brought us all closer together and gave us something constructive to argue about.

Eventually those short months together ended and M. and I moved to LA and A. stayed in St. Paul. One of the things I missed most in those first months in LA was cooking with A. I felt very lonely and incapable without her there. There was something about being in a kitchen filled with our energy and making food together - an alchemy that could not be achieved alone. I eventually got brave enough to start and do things on my own. I subscribed to Food and Wine magazine and continued to build on my repertoire of food. It was great. My new found skills gave me a feeling of efficacy. I could actually look at a recipe and know where it had to be improved and where artfully thought out methodology was better than what was written on the page.

I know this all seems a little pointless, but I strongly believe that learning how to cook is a very important skill. When people know how to skillfully nourish the body it nourishes the soul as well. A. gave me that gift. And even though she thinks that the kitchen has gotten too small for both of us to be there, I still wait for and cherish those moments. I love standing in the kitchen and bickering about the best way to do things, learning from what we have each royally screwed up in the past, handholding during pastry creation, talking each other down when things flop and total ecstasy when we succeed. Together we have discovered how to make things work - each to her own ability in the extreme. For us, being in the kitchen is, above all other things, a great place to learn what it means to be in a cooperative situation. It is the height of direct democracy and collective decision making, anarchy at work in a fluid fashion.

Resources: RecipeSource - a fantastic online archive of recipes!