Quinoa with white beans

I ate mid-shift, standing a respectable ten or so feet away from the reference desk, scarfing down my lunch and reading the Daily News. Serena Williams is comfortable in her own skin. And Bloomie doesn’t have a mandate.

 

Quinoa and chickpea salad

I got so cold eating with J. and B. down in the Quizno’s kvetching (really) about the intolerable revision problems with the new APA style guide. Intolerable! You send seven pages of errata and all your sample papers are wrong and you won’t just replace our copies? Also, a flow chart for DOIs? Really? Are you serious with this? It is cold outside, but I didn’t really understand why it was so cold inside until we were leaving and I put my hand down by the vent and discovered that it was blasting more cold air into the room.

 

Quinoa, chickpeas, and some cheese

Heated up a bowl of quinoa and chickpeas with some slices of cheese, watched Ed Hartwell say to Lisa for the first time that he might give up on his football dream. His knee just isn’t getting better. That’s so intense, when you realize something you always wanted just isn’t going to happen. Poor Ed.

 

Lettuce, chickpea, and quinoa salad

I lost my bamboo fork. Despair. It must have bounced out when I went wrangling for my Metrocard. Maybe it’s still at home on the counter. Maybe. I don’t know. But I went and asked A. if rumors were true, that she keeps a stash of plastic forks somewhere in her cube. She looked at me. Opened the door of the cabinet above her desk. Plunged her fist into the darkness. Rustled. Wrangled. And pulled out a plastic spoon and fork set. The spoon is white with a white plastic ghost for the handle while the fork is black with, M. and I decided as we ate kvetching and catching up at a table in the courtyard, some kind of haunted witch-hat-wearing jack o’ lantern handle that would fit better in a much smaller hand. Because I know you take care of your things, said A. as she handed them to me conspiratorially. I didn’t have the heart to inform her otherwise.

 

Quinoa, chickpeas, and arugula salad

I took a break from copyediting this totally depressing article about the militarization of anthropology in the wake of the war on terror to give some undivided attention to the second quarter of the Jets game over a plate of Friday’s leftovers. Wish Sanchez’s guns had been a’blazin’ like they were in the first quarter. In other words, can’t stop thinking about war.

 

Quinoa, chickpeas, and arugula salad

You know what’s great? Little bit of lemon, squeezed over everything. Just so refreshing. I loaded up a plate, ate in front of an episode of Top Chef, so glad I wasn’t eating that deconstructed chowder flan.

 

Quinoa with chickpeas and tomatoes, plus cheese

Put down the list. Back away from the list. Fill a bowl with what you swallowed last night when you finally got home from class. Turn on the Real Housewives of Atlanta, which you missed last night because you were in class. Think about how great the housewives are in Atlanta, how honestly loud they get when they’ve been wronged. Think about how much therapy has reduced your ability to be wronged. Feel wronged by your therapist. Rinse and repeat, it feels like, every Friday in late summer. God.

 

Quinoa and chickpea salad in lime dressing

A handful of things I can’t get enough of: popcorn since L. taught me how to pop it in a pot on the stove, scrolling through screens of L&O on my DVR and reveling in the glorious bounty, photos of my cat on my cellphone, writing with a just-sharpened pencil. And before today I would have said the marvelous tartness of fresh-squeezed limes. But that was too much lime. The recipe called for three tablespoons, I halved it in my brain, and then didn’t bother measuring, squeezing and mindlessly squeezing as I talked on the phone with A. about her terrific news. So lunch in my cloffice reading Equiano’s narrative and chattering with a colleague about minutes from the morning’s software demo struck an unappealing note of  Sour Patch Kid.

 

Quinoa, salad greens, cheese, and chickpeas

Taking a break from the whirlwind of furniture moving (how amazing that the new people moving in across the hall wanted some of those pigeonhole boxes, and one of the old book shelves! it’s fate!), I did my best to get somebody else to make lunch for me and my beloved. But alas, Sunday brunch–the taco place would only deliver eggs. In the rain. I’d rather eat quinoa, salad greens, cheese, and chickpeas. L. and I kicked up feet and watched 48 Hours: Mystery. Apparently, the entire population of the Philippines is really, really dangerous to white Americans. I consider myself warned.

 

Quinoa and chickpeas

After a 25 minute encounter (that started in the last three minutes of my shift) with the total chaotic disaster of public school education in some parts of this country (seriously? nobody even taught this student to write? are you serious? how much shit went wrong on the way to my reference desk, and why aren’t the people in charge over there held criminally responsible?), I was frustrated and angry and hungry. I stomped into my cloffice and sat and ate my quinoa and chickpeas, wishing I could make my dish a ten-piece Chicken McNugget just by wanting it so.