new life philosophies in the name of spaghetti

...earlier, on iGoddess...

y'know, i have my dinner beginning its transmutation on the stove, mystically blending the powers of fire and herbs and balsamic vinegar in the bubbling cauldron of my kitchen divinity as it journeys from a motley assortment of ingredients, through simmering meditation in the semi-covered dark, into the crowned and blazing glory that will be my marinara sauce.

satori often comes to me with my wooden spoon of culinary wisdom in hand, sweating in the breath of my food as it steams on my face and spatters on my fingers. hot grease leaping from the pan to baptize my exposed flesh in burning revelation often sends me into states of being where, in that sizzling pop of an instant, i embody the 10th dimension and pain is only a transitory vehicle.

and sometimes boiling water is just boiling water.

as i stood there, blending the rapidly softening tomato paste into the vinegar, i flashed forward in time to a conversation that i may have in one of many possible futures. i was warding off a curious and peckish *ds* as she stood hunched over, one hand on the open refridgerator door, hunting down some nukable gnoshies to quiet her stomach and appease her plummeting blood sugar levels.

"that's mine," i say, when she holds up the sacred marinara, enshrined in medium-sized plexiware with a navy blue seal-ready lid.

"oh," she says, disappointment a momentary ripple across her face. the sacred marinara falls a little bit from its place on high in her hands. "mind if i have some?"

i think about it a moment. "no," i finally say. "you can find something else. it's mine."

i know her well enough to know she's not too sure about herself after that response, and she's replacing the sacred marinara in its hallowed spot of refridgerated sanctuary with a hint of trepidation and discomfort. she's wondering if she recently did something wrong to irritate me, which was furthest from the truth, and i wonder how i can ease her discomfort without waffling and apologizing for being declarative, like i usually do. the hard point in my tone came from elsewhere. however, having only extremely recently awakened to the knowledge that i, too, can and may and have every right to say "no," claim what's mine, and declare what i want in an unselfish tone of voice, i haven't yet mastered schooling my tone. the hard point comes from my still-present fear i will be scolded and abused for being defiant, for trying to claim something as my own.

"is there any reason why not?" she finally asks.

inwardly, i praise her diplomatic abilities and bravery, having always admired them as things i want to learn and foster within myself. so i think of a response that is worthy of her own strength. i take a breath and hold it. my lips scrunch to one side like they always do when i'm trying to think of a way to say something that might possibly be hurtful in a way that won't end up being hurtful. i am here to create truth and beauty, not grief and pain.

"i would," i finally say, my tone expressing willingness yet also regret, "except you might feel guilty by what i say."

and right then, as the tomato paste and vinegar blend into one seamless whole with the rest of the sauce and thereby begin the transmutation process, i realize what my explanation would have been, and how i've been doing something similar on a larger scale all my life.

had the vision of that possible future continued, *ds* would have told me she would have liked to hear my explanation anyway, and i would have told her that for the last week i've been restless and pacing with a hunger just bordering on surly. the house of dragons' rest has come to be able to gauge my hunger by my mood. they've come to learn that sleep, nourishment, and stress all affect the pH levels of my transitory chemical states, and have come to recognize the subtle differences in my behavior that differentiate lack of sleep from skipping a meal from emotional distress.

and for that i bless them a thousand times each sunrise.

i had believed, on a subconscious level, that even though the house of dragons' rest is splitting into two dens, we are still one horde. the after-work rituals of feasting together with *ds* and *kas* were things i enjoyed and looked forward to, and had thought would continue. i have fallen asleep waiting for them to come home, and neglected to sate my own appetite when my stomach called for supper in the hopes i would be able to fill it in the presence of those other members of my horde. but nobody's home, ingredients are in the cupboard, and i'm tired of waiting. i decided to make spaghetti and just fucking eat.

so, too, have i waited on the sidelines, perpetually on the edge of just-hungry-and-tired-enough to aggrivate the crumbly precipice of sanity, as i wait oh so patiently to be included. my heart has been sleep-deprived, and my soul has been malnourished. i've endured the conditional love of a neurotic and perfectionist woman whose resentment-turned-hatred against the phallocracy that stole her power and independence was so corrupted she misdirected those feelings at her children as she played the role of eternal victim; the love/hate abuse-glory of a misogynist so poisoned by his own forefathers' demons he projected their --and now his-- poison onto his female offspring; the conditional fascination of two women who saw me not as a woman, but as a child and dust of the earth to mold into their own image and, if i did not parrot my lines back to them perfectly, if i did not believe them unquestioningly, and if i did not play my role as dancing sycophant around their selfmade thrones parodying the Queen of Heaven, i was cast out into the lands east of Nod (not that I have anything against Nod...); the love and guidance of a man so bloated by the honor and admiration and awe that so many other people give him, he cannot help but believe it himself and deride anyone who will not leap when he says 'frog'; the love-scorn of a boy i loved too much, who pretended i was nothing when i suffered in my darkest hour; men who did not honor my worth and who stepped on my potential; rapists; trusted neighbor-turned-molester.

and i must love them more than i love them. i must swoon with ecstatic and dionysian, jubilacious lust that sets my hair on fire, opens my third eye, and flips my foremothers ass over teakettle in their graves. if the only way to slaughter the apocalypse, to reverse the genocide of the imagination spoonfed to us live from the entertainment criminals of the phallocracy, is through all those people who hated and hurt me...and if the only way to win the war through them is with stupendous kali love and epicine bliss for them, then so be it.

but that's a story for another time.

however, this isn't a "oh tragedy! nobody loves me, everybody hates me, i guess i'll go eat worms" kind of post. there ain't no stinkin' self-pity at iGoddess! i have two loving and hilarious and unconditional parents not forty miles from me who give me --freely!-- those things in my heart i've always needed; i have the house of dragons' rest, who are friends and rookery siblings altogether; i have my younger siblings, who are always together with me no matter how far away we are physically; i even have dear and beloved friends who, from mere hundreds of miles to thousands, to on the other side of the planet, care enough to see me for what i really am and put in that little extra effort it takes to stay connected. it's there.

i'm just going to fucking eat. and i say that with the most salacious of grins.