Eating Apples
9/26/08

Eating an apple is the best thing that I can do when I am frustrated. I tried smoking, but that never really worked. It’s cosmetic. You’re supposed to have a cigarette when you’ve got a lot going on and you need a break. I quit doing that though. It never really worked. The only time a cigarette is really enjoyable is in the middle of the afternoon when it’s the first one you’ve had all day. When you can sit down somewhere on stairs or a bench or something. That makes sense. That works, you can feel it. Otherwise it’s something from a movie or a book or a song.
Lately though, there are these apples I love. I get them at Dillons. Honeycrisp apples. They are really expensive. I think I bought four apples last time and they cost me a little more than four dollars. They’re worth it, though. And this is the new thing, every time I get really frustrated or upset with someone I wash off an apple. I like wiping off the water on my shirt because I like doing that. Then I bite into it really hard and it is incredibly delicious. The way I always imagined an apple tasting when I was a kid. Completely sweet and juicy and I get to savor every bite like it’s the most delicious food on Earth because at the moment, it is.
I don’t know if anyone else eats apples with such anger. It’s love and hate. It has to be. Like clichéd prison fists. I like taking a big bite and holding it in my mouth a minute. Then I bite half of it off and hold the other piece in my hand and I stare at it and then eat it. I chew as hard as I can, breaking through the skin. Anger shouldn’t be this pleasurable, but it is. That makes it ok, it calms me down. I just wish they weren’t so expensive. Fruit is more expensive than cigarettes now and it’s discomforting. Twenty apples for five dollars would be so much more appealing than twenty cigarettes.
Sometimes I pretend I’m biting out somebody’s jugular vein. Someone I’m really frustrated with, I pretend the apple is their neck and I bite down really hard. And then it’s really delicious and I forget what I was angry about, bite by bite, piece by piece. Ultimately an apple is much more satisfying than smoking a cigarette. I just wish they weren’t so expensive and hard to carry around.

Beowulf

So, I'm up really late again (actually it's only late now, really late is the time after four and before 6, the time that I am usually up until) and I'm reading Beowulf for Brit Lit WHILE watching the Republican National Convention. And I'm realizing how apt a metaphor this is for the upcoming election. Of course, Barack Obama is Beowulf, wielding Hrunting, the divine sword that MOSTLY works which he will use to cut down Grendel, who of course is represented by John McCain. Grendel's Mother is probably Bush and the Republican Party itself is pry that dragon at the end. I can't decide who Sarah Palin, though.