Last night I made a Lebanese dish from memory. When R and I first moved to St. Louis we celebrated our unpacking by going to Saleem’s in the loop. Last night I attempted to make the dish that I had ordered and I came close. First you make brown rice, ideally you use chicken stock instead of water – but my ex-roommate absconded with more than half of my spices – my stock mixes – etc. oh and she also took the telephone I loaned her for her room. I’m sure more is missing, but I suspect accident more than intention on all missing items, whatever. Ok – in a wok you brown minced garlic and then add one whole chopped white onion. As the onion becomes transparent you add two dried red peppers for flavor and as they darken in color and release their heat you extract them (watch your lungs on that one) you begin to stir fry the lamb (three lamb shoulder steaks diced and seasoned with course pepper and sea salt (except I think Erin took the salt)) adding a tablespoon each of cumin and cinnamon (and perhaps more to taste). If I would have had chicken stock I would have added that as well in small portions to make a sauce. It was a good meal – it could have been a great meal – particularly with more vegetables (eggplant? Carrots?) anyway not bad for a first attempt. Angela and Mary both liked it and our initial dinner conversation was structured around where I could go next with the meal. It’s one thing to move out and stick me with all the bills (150 in utilities plus 425 in rent – ouch), it’s another thing entirely to take a cook’s spices. Here’s a funny detail, when R moved out she took most of the food from the fridge. She left the canned food, but she took the can opener. I’m on the phone with her explaining that before we became romantically involved I could open cans. Hahaha – I bought a new one, which Erin has kindly left here.


Mary knows some of Erin’s friends and thinks that there is a house in the loop somewhere that she may have moved into. All crush theories have fallen before the Vanessa quote, “sometimes it’s hard to live with cool people”. I’ll let you unpack that one at your leisure. Mary succinctly put it, “she overestimates her charm.” Erin left an email on my computer written to a friend of hers, but saved in word (that’s a passive aggressive gesture – why leave that behind – ah a second note), in which she says she is depressed by my furniture (and by me in general), but does not want to bail on me, “but I haven’t signed anything” that’s deep – so for future knowers of the E her word is meaningless, get a contract. Apparently the furniture became too oppressive (both psychic and upholstered). If I try to kindly unpack that one I would say – Mr. junk shop materialist – that I have a lot of stuff and it was hard for her to feel like this was her place too because of how much of me is here expressed by my taste and by my stuff. R used to say similar things. Feng Shui experts say sometimes you need to get rid of shit to make room for people in your life. Clear your clutter with Feng Shui!

Karen came by last night – upset over the P debacle – the most juvenal shit imaginable – I bitch about Erin’s childish departure, but that’s some childish shit right there. They’re playing the, “who gets the phone number game.” I tried myself to maintain with P but, simply put, R needs P more than I do. I have mountains of good friends who love and respect me, I’ve never known R to have that and she really needed that when we moved here. P got upset when R and I lived together, I’ve known her much longer, but when she would call I’d pass the phone to R because R felt so lost among my friends. Between P & R I get to be the villain, that’s fine – I have some shit to own there but it takes two to burn a relationship house down – there is no love lost among my St. Louis friends for R – most of them were relieved when it was over (well we’d both been so unhappy for so long trying to make this dead relationship live). R used to put me in situations where I was supposed to choose her over something, the television whatever. For her some kind of competition needed to exist where part of the game was that kind of “I won over the thing you love so you must love me more.” This style never went over well with me and when she started trying to make me choose her over my friends, wow that was the coupe de lead zeppelin. Simply put, the only woman worth choosing over your friends is one that would never put you in that position.
Ok well lets get some closure on this Erin thing. Erin, you could have achieved the same result and not burned your bridges, if not happy in the living situation, by taking responsibility as an adult and saying, “you know I just can’t afford this place and your dog sheds too much, and I don’t like it when your friends come over and drink” or whatever you were feeling – own it – face it – express it and all will be well. Fucking vanishing and leaving a note leaves all these open wounds – one mark of adulthood or maturity is taking responsibility – but even as I say that, we can of course all imagine the times in our own life when we haven’t done that – ah well, live and learn. Erin live and learn.