it's soft shell crab season! or en espanol: la temporada de cangrejos.
con-grey-hos. it's my new spanish word of the week. all tuesday night, every time i walked into the kitchen, the dishwasher would ask: como se llama, mami? and even though the first time, i said "Corrie!" and the kitchen exploded with laughter, (i thought he was asking how you called me, not how you called the crab) i got it right after that.
for the right person, nothing would turn you vegetarian faster than working in a restaurant. i said "hello" to the above crab and then watched as, a second later, first his eyes and brain and then his butt were cut off with a pair of scissors. (no, i don't know why the butt). boom. dead.
granted, none of this stopped me from eating his brethren a few hours later after they were dredged in egg and cornmeal, pan-fried and served with a delicious garlic lemon sauce.
however, i did make sure to say: "thanks congrejos, i hope you get to come back as something with two legs."
it also made me think about how quickly any life can end, by a pair of scissors or something more human-inflicting.
it was a rainy, cloudy week in Brooklyn. one of those weeks that are perfect for writing. unless you wrote your heart out last week and need to think about your plot twists for a minute. then it's just rainy and cloudy. which is what it was for me. knowing my mindset could mirror the weather at any second, i planned to keep busy and go to something called The Interview Show. it sounded interesting - people from all walks of life being interviewed. i looked it up on youtube only to discover that John Green was the very first guest the show ever had.
i didn't go out last night. the rain convinced me otherwise. but i did watch all the interviews with John Green. the first was in 2008, above is 2009. they did another in 2011 when there's no denying John is pretty damn successful. the interviewer asks if fame made everything better. and John's (Mr. Green's?) response is along the lines of, well, i thought it would, but i feel as equally annoyed and unsettled as i did before.
this line is mimicked in just about every author interview i've ever read. and, well, if a giant pair of scissors is following us around, and achieving what we always wanted does nothing to lesson the intensity of that feeling, then i guess we need to get a little more creative about how and where we look for satisfaction in this life.
yes, clearly, grey week = deep thoughts.
it's right around this time, that the words of the most amazing man i ever met on an airplane come back to me. "everything happens in the exact season it's supposed to." what's planted is planted and if it hasn't bloomed yet, it only means it's not the right season.
kinda like the above peony. there's no doubt it'll be a beautiful flower. we know that, but i couldn't help wondering if it knew that. or is it poised on the bush being all: "geez, i feel so pent up, like i haven't reached my potential, like i could be more at this." while the big, bushy flower behind it just laughs.
um yeah. so life, flower, and soft-shell crab metaphors on the blog today. that's why i like grey weeks. it's good to be reminded that we're all standing in the middle of this:
and every now and then we need to LOOK UP, DAMNIT!
on a side note, tonight i'm having a girls night and going salsa dancing. because while it's interesting and kinda fun to have a grey week, it's even better to kick your heels up that it's over.
