it's over. move to somnia.

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Forbidden Fruit with Pickles and Mustard*

I was standing outside a greasy spoon early this afternoon, awaiting the arrival of my order--a quarter-pound burger and a vanilla milkshake--when it struck me that it's Lent, it's Friday, and I was planning on abstaining from meat today. I'll admit I don't go to Mass much these days, and I'm not quick to defend the Church's actions and statements, but I do observe certain traditions. I can't help it. (For the curious: I don't put stock in the concept of "Catholic guilt." My definition of sin is probably not too orthodox, and I don't subscribe to any sort of self-flagellation. I like a challenge: I wonder what it's like to want something, and I guess I experiment with discipline and willpower a little this way.)

I picked up my order and thought back to a time in rural South Carolina where a vegetarian friend was served a salad covered in bacon bits. He looked at it for a second, then began eating. "The pig is already dead," he explained. "There's no reason for me to waste this." His reason wasn't religion, I recalled: it was conservation. I walked away, burger in bag, sipping on the milkshake. I suppose it's odd in a way that I decided to make this sacrifice based on a belief I'm not sure I actually hold, but I think in some small way it makes me stronger. People of sound mind have willingly endured a lot more for more mysterious reasons.

Anyhow, all I'm sure of right now is that the midnight my clock strikes midnight, I'm grabbing that damn thing out of the fridge and chowing down.


*I was going to try to meditate on the fact that no one really knows what the fruit of knowledge of good and evil was (we've mythologized it into an apple, but it could just as well have been a pomegranate), and on the feminist response to the blame pinned on Eve for introducing sin, but I can only work with one unsurety at a time right now.
peachy as always, Mike at 9:46 PM