Goose

I've been thinking a lot lately about hedonism.



Of all my recurrent urges, one of the most specific is to dine on a single cupcake. The flavor varies, but the urge is always the same: I want a single, well-made cupcake, icing (but not too much!) and all. This can be is a difficult urge to satisfy. Cake batter does not keep very well, and it's difficult to siphon just one cupcake's worth of powdered mix from the box. I can't eat a whole batch anyway, and unless I have willing friends (sometimes) or indifferent coworkers (more often) then making them myself is not an option. Birthdays only happen so often and the likelihood of one being celebrated with cupcakes is slim in a world of sheet cakes and hasty last-minute preparations. (Although, perhaps if I get a foodier circle up here, perhaps this will change. Is it wrong to select friends based on snobbish hobbies?) (Yes.) And anyway, offices tend to try and eat healthier things for birthdays these days, and who am I to argue, but how can a girl satisfy her lone cupcake needs?

The thing about me that you know already, is that I really like to satisfy my urges. While the pining after it is great and all, (I guess,) the whole point wanting something is getting it. So you can start the cycle all over. Thirst, quench. Lather, rinse, repeat. Satisfaction. That's what I'm after.

So you can imagine my elation when, the other evening, I walked by a cupcake shop. That's what they make. Cupcakes by the dozen. They bake other things too, but their number one specialty is cupcakes. And pleanty of them.



So today, just as I've dreamed for months and months, I dined on a single cupcake. Carrot-spice, with buttercream. Though, the debit card limit necessitated the purchase of two cupcakes. So there is a lemon-berry in a little box. Oh my yes. Happy day for me.

I bring this up to celebrate the cupcake-osity, but also to open up the floor on this notion of seeing what you want and going for it.

It’s a strange place to be in right now — I’ve had two people tell me that they are envious of my life and where it is right now. It’s flattering, yes, but also kind of strange when you really think about it. It worries me that people will spend time talking about wanting this or that, but spend no time actually trying to make what they want happen. If I saw someone whose life I envied, I would tell them maybe, but I would also work hard to appropriate what bits of their life I found enviable and incorporate that into my own. If I weren’t living somewhere I loved I would move somewhere I did love, or I would work to make where I was a better place. If I were stuck in a dead-end job I didn’t enjoy, I would look for a new one, or fix what made me unhappy about my own job. And so on.

But that might just be me assuming a certain amount of flexibility. I am young, I don’t have children, and I have a strong enough relationship to follow my own agenda while still being supported and cared for from afar. (Until you can join me out here, natch.) I have parents supporting my decision, so that my destitution is still comfortable. I do not for one moment take for granted that I am very lucky to have all this. Not at all. So perhaps I should stop dispensing the dime-store epiphanies and stick with the pictures.



On the other hand, maybe I'll just go back to enjoying myself.



(I should mention Portland is not entirely brimming with milk and honey -- for some reason I cannot find powdered malt (that isn't Ovaltine's chocolaty flavor) in any store. Anywhere. I've looked everywhere but Wal-mart, and if when I go I see some by God I will buy it. How can I live without a nightly warm milk if I also don't have a warm body to snuggle against? Less...warm milky. At night. If you call that living.)