HUMOUR — Every now and then I walk by a bakery and am hit by the smell of freshly baked bread, wafting out all warm and rich and vaporous and moist.
I hate it. The smell of freshly baked bread makes me sick. It’s like rich, gasified dough that soaks into your lungs and pores and settles there like moist, pungent sludge.
I don’t like bread at all. Bread is spongy paste.
Lots of people like it. But then people also like cheese, melted cheese, all gooey and drizzling down into everything like chewy rivers of plastic.
I hate cheese. It isn’t real food. It’s goo. It’s oily goo.
Perogies are basically disgusting.
Yet, always, I look at the people around me and watch them happily chew on their dough, all dreaming and sharing and loving things that I don’t understand. I realize, example after example, that I am an outsider to the universal human condition. I try to understand. But I can’t.
What is the appeal of eating goo and paste? Do people like anything that’s rich and melts in your mouth? Do people enjoy eating toothpaste? Glue?
I like foods with the textures and tastes of real things. Leaves and stems and muscle fibres, chlorophyll and tannic acid. I can recognize these foods.
I don’t like hard-boiled eggs. They are flavoured rubber. I prefer raw eggs. During my athletic days, I once ate a dozen raw eggs in a sitting. (Don’t do this.)
I also once ate an entire jar of peanut butter in a day. Never do this. Peanut butter is kind of gross, actually. It’s like oily paste.
I never drink coffee. I can’t stand hot drinks. When I drink tea, I wait till it gets cold and then drink it all at once.
My favourite foods include bok choy and cucumbers. I eat a lot of bok choy. I also really like watermelon and cantaloupe and raspberries. Watermelon on a hot day is possibly the best thing ever.
So is running through a sprinkler, on a hot day, and drinking lemonade.
I also like raw lemons. And slushies and popsicles. And comic books.
I think about water a lot. If I cannot be around water, I begin to stare at pieces of glass, because they remind me of water.
I get along well with dogs. We have similar interests, like water and running through things. But I also relate to cats. But I don’t like cat GIFs. Cat GIFs objectify and demean cats. I respect cats.
I don’t like jackets. They’re too confining and heavy. I would rather just be cold. Anyhow, I am hardly ever cold, and I hate being too warm. Being confined and warm is the worst. Pullover sweaters make me panic.
When the sky is always blue and the weather is always sunny, I become restless. It’s too stable and monotonous. Rain is refreshing, cathartic. When I live in the same place month after month, I become restless. Moving frequently is refreshing, cathartic.
I don’t like forks. Why is it necessary to stab food before you eat it? Why not just pick it up?
My computer runs Linux. I eat with chopsticks. I don’t own a towel.
I strive for normalcy.
