oats. finger food.

She taught me how to make oatmeal on the stove, as we waited for our delivery. It was absolutely necessary to be high before dinner at Ethiopian. That was the logic. I had been wrong, she had been right, oatmeal tasted better when it hadn’t been zapped in the microwave. What had I been doing for so long? Removing it after a minute, portions sticking to the plastic turntable, shaking cinnamon powder on top as it oozed over the mug. It looked stale, but I enjoyed it for the cafeteria memories it effectuated. This time, she showed me how it was really done, adding cinnamon and raw sugar, stirring as it became heavy in the pot. My sister made beef ramon and in between oatmeal bites, I brought the broth to my lips adding more cayenne pepper when she wasn’t looking. Typical college students, yet it seemed like dorm life had been memories from another life entirely. Forty-five minutes later, we were on third-street settling into a tight space lined with mirrors that distorted the sides of the street. The entire meal, I was mesmerized by this perverted perspective. I just couldn’t seem to believe it was contorted. I wished it were a true representation. It reminded me so much of side streets in Milan minus all the vendors selling balloon characters filled with flour. They looked like putty, and I would try and mash them up as I waited for my margarita pizza, only to end up with what looked like thick white dust all over my forehead and dough’s ashings on my hands. I’d miss stracciatella just to go back and buy another, so I could eventually break it’s skin and have it burst into the air again. It was funny and childish, the potential for invisibility that is.

I was pleased to finally be back at an Ethiopian restaurant. I always felt self-conscious saying it, but it had been my favourite experience while in Paris. Tucked behind the Sorborone in some district of sorts, easy to remember but which I never did, the four of us sat in a room underground that resembled a cave. A big pot of mashed beef, chicken, peas, carrots, lentils and collard greens were served to us. In Paris, we ate with our hands, cabbage stuck beneath my nail bedding. I didn’t eat bread then, too fearful of carbs. But that was what you were supposed to do, if you wanted the entire experience. I didn’t. I was fine with looking like a baby with a mouth covered in applesauce. And anyway, I was in a foreign city, in a cave bathed in black light. I never worried about the impression. However, this time eating Ethiopian in New York, I was more conscious of my desires, the practicality and perhaps respect. So, I took all the crepe-like dough that was prepared like pigs in a blanket and came in batches and ate the dish like it was supposed to be eaten. It all looked rather crude and for a few good minutes during dinner I couldn't restrain myself from commenting on how phallic the dough felt, “like a wet vagina”. No one really laughed, only questioned how I would know. I was totally out of line, but I knew there are times when I needed to be. Perhaps moments when I wanted to keep myself from yawning or when I was all up in my head, or when I just was tired of others taking/expecting me to be so serious. I won’t out myself, since I often follow that trend of thinking, too. When I left the apartment the following morning, I made sure to leave extra oatmeal on the stove for her when she woke. But in the evening, when I came home to an empty apartment, I recognized she hadn’t eaten a bite. And as I am writing this, I am sitting with my leg up and a bowl of oatmeal to my right that, for the first time, is golden. She made it, but I haven’t gotten around to taking a taste.