This post is a part of the Amish Tech Support 2003 Blog A Day Tour. The Church of the Blinding White Light of Stupidity has graciously offered to host my post for January 1, 2003 to ring in the New Year.
Happy New Year, everyone.
In order to ring in the New Year, I need to go back and think about one prevailing theme that's been in my thoughts the previous year. No, it's not the absurdity of the Palestinian urge to destroy within themselves all that which would be fundamental to or deserving of even the most basic permanent nation. Nor is it the increasing doubt that I may never see the inside of a server room in a professional capacity ever again with the job market like it is.
It was ham. No matter what the occasion or lack of occasion, my thoughts were firmly on ham. Everything that went through my mind ended up ham-soaked, and it takes me a great deal of effort to remember when there wasn't a day contaminated by ham.
I'm not just talking about the Oscar Meyer packaged ham slices, either. People who are utterly obsessed with such a low quality cut of ham, well, those folks are crazy. No, I'm talking about the good ham. The honey-glazed and slow-cooked stuff that you have to pre-order and pick up from a specialty shop. It's the stuff that a large group of people will stand around and pick at while the dog growls at anyone who tries to take the cast-off foil he's been licking instead of his balls for once.
There's a Honey Baked Ham store on one of my walking routes, and I like to stop and close my eyes and breathe in the ham-scent. I don't actually go in there, since you can't satisfy such a ham-craving with a few slices of ham off of one of those honey-glazed ham hocks... you have to get the whole thing, spiral cuts and all. You have to go whole hog with the ham to knock ham out of your mind.
Well, last night at the second party my wife and I attended, her brother had one of those glazed hams as the centerpiece. I felt like this was the end of a line of some psychic quest, where I've been waiting for this moment all this time. Something was Going To Happen.
I cut off a few of the slices, I spread on some of the large-grained mustard, and I tried to eat a slice.
Fat. Gobs and strands of fat. The honey flavor completely vanished as I chewed and chewed trying to find the bits of ham meat among the ham-landfill of fat. Where my dream-ham had nice and isolated marbelization of fat, this all-to-real ham had that fat right there and in my way. I found myself trying to eat around it, pick out the meat, and forsaking all good table-less table manners.
This is what I was dreaming and obsessing on all year? My dream of ham, shattered. The dream-ham had been perfect. This was reality.
Was this the message I was supposed to come away with?
Sure enough, there wasn't a single ham in my dreams last night. The imaginary odor is not wafting through the air and tempting me, like Willy Loman drawn towards to the flutes that tormented and teased him all throughout his final desperate days.
No, this time I dreamed of tangerine juice.
I think I will buy some at the store at the first opportunity. I don't want to end up tangerine-obsessed like I did with the ham, ending my year with a rancid and watery glass of tangerine juice. I may even go out and buy some tangerines and juice them myself to give myself the best tangerine experience.
Thanks for reading, and who knows where the next stop on the Amish Tech Support 2003 Blog A Day Tour will be tomorrow.
Posted by Laurence Simon at January 1, 2003 10:13 AM