Updating on the Fly

Neverland has no phone lines because Thomas owes Southwestern Bell more than three-hundred dollars. I will remedy this situation once I am paid, because I really like the Internet, but in the meantime I have to take my typing as it comes. Presently, I am at Patrick's computer, having broken into his dorm room while he's in an accounting class.

[CUT TO ROMIE in NINJA GEAR scaling the side of a BUILDING while beneath her is a POOL of RADIOACTIVE GLASS SHARKS. In a SPLIT SCREEN effect, we simultaneously see PATRICK in MUTED BLUES operating a SLIDE RULE and a BALANCE SHEET.]

[The SCORE is written by PHILIP GLASS just to annoy my SISTER who HATES him.]

My room is now a bright red - stop-sign red, fire-engine red, crayola red - and full of artwork. It has a wall full of hats and a bureau in the neo-classical Spanish prostitute style. You would love it, and if you didn't, you'd tell me you loved it out of fear for my rage and blatant psychosis.

The biggest fans of The Red Room are the three cats, who I think are half ferret. Every night, I have to hook a folding chair under my door handle and barricade the heating vent so they don't crawl through.

Cats: Romie, we are very fond of this room. It is the best room in the house.

Romie: Yes, but that is partly because I keep you out of it since one of you is not properly housebroken. Thus if I were to let you in, it would stop being the best room in the house.

Cats: Will you not think of it as the equalizing pressure of gasses, wherein we automatically seek the area of lowest cat-density?

Romie: No.

Cats: Please?

Romie: No. Go bug Thomas.

Cats: We will seem to go away, but instead we will seek some kind of alternate route, perhaps eating a hole through the window.

Blast! Patrick has returned and I must minister to him as he is vexed by his dreadful car.

Today I Bought Carmine Instead of Dinner

She awed you with The Pants Agenda. . . She scared you with The Telecom Conspiracy. . . But nothing can prepare you for . . . STARVING ARTIST: THE POST-GRAD YEARS.

SEE Romie's quest for nutrients!

FEEL Romie's need for vitamins!

HEAR Romie complain about her hunger

IN HIGH-DEFINITION STERIOPHONIC SOUND!!!!!




Something I have noticed when cataloguing my life is that I tend to live with cooks. I'm not talking about people who can cook -- I can do that myself, and very well at that. I'm talking about people who love to cook, who enjoy cooking, who are providers. My mother is one of those people, one of those people for whom the entire day leads up to six o'clock when she commences final preparations for the evening meal. I brought my own school lunch all the way up through senior year, (when The Parents moved to Boston,) packed with eggplant paremsan, or shrimp diablo, or turkey a la Russe. After a year of a cramped kitchen and microwave dinners, I left for college - where I immediately fell in with Raine, who both worked in the cafeteria and was willing to prepare all my meals.

Back in Dallas again, Stretch was taking a year off to do full-time housework - dinner every night. Then I moved in with Val, for whom cooking has no equal but gardening.

I'd like to re-stress that I can cook. Well. It's part and parcel of being an artist and a gourmand, not to mention an above-average chemist. Moreover, it's something I take pride in; it pleases me greatly to present others with a fine meal, aesthetically arranged on the proper place setting. I can create a multi-dimensional dining experience. I can cook.

The difference between "can cook" and "does cook" is a vast one, especially when you consider that I am the same Romie who goes into hacker mode when presented with any problem and can forget to eat for days at a time.

Thomas is picking up Val's slack the best he can, popping in at odd times with macaroni or a peanut-butter sandwich and saying "Romie. Consume Food. Now." And I do remember about once a day to go grab a hamburger or something cheap and fast, thanks to a kick in the stomach by my rabid-hyena metabolism and general high level of physical exertion.

All I can say is, I think everybody's looking forward to Friday, when I begin to work in a dining establishment that will force me to try all its wares.