Smells Like Happy

Only Connect...

I was at dinner with friends the other night, and one friend remarked how much she hates people. In fact, she said, she's starting to hate people more and more. It was funny because she's not a sociopath. She was talking about work and bosses and the kind of people who say, at first meeting, "I AM THE DIRECTOR OF MANY IMPORTANT THINGS. AND WHO DO YOU PURPORT TO BE." And then they walk away.

That brought up something that I've been thinking about: I'm liking people more and more. I said this to my friends, with slack jaw, dopey grin and wide eyes. You know, the kind of look that would make you say, "Oh, no, you don't want to like me. I'm a terrible person," while backing up and fumbling for the pepper spray.

But you know what? I like those people too. Those funny, suspicious people. The ones who reflexively say to approaching, smiling strangers, "NO, I DON'T have thirty seconds for the environment. Jesus." I like those people because they want to be smiled at without being asked to sign a petition, and that's a legitimate wish. I like them because, like me, they don't know a single person in their whole apartment building, probably live a good five hundred miles from where they grew up, and quickly warm up to any genuine offer of community that they receive. I know this because they are human, and because I am too.

Only connect.

In cities full of strangers, it can be terribly difficult for two individuals to connect. All of the old guideposts are gone: We typically can't tell whether we have the same religion, or any religion; we can't tell what town we're from, but it's often not the town we're wandering around; we can't tell our political leanings or our economic status or our how nice we are to our parents (and that last thing is really the only one of importance in that list). Most of the time, our dour faces won't even betray our moods. Sunglasses hide our eyes. Headphones plug our ears. Purpose snaps our lips into thin lines. We walk quickly.

But we all crave the same thing: to connect. Even the ones who say they disdain people want this -- and if they're playing such offense, it's a sure sign that they really want to connect. This desire is coded into their DNA, our DNA, because connecting is how we humans survive. Evolution gave us this need for community, just as it gave us opposable thumbs and a narrow pelvis for walking upright. Generally, humans only isolate if they feel isolated, point if they feel pointed at, discount if they feel discounted.

I see it all around me, in strangers and in friends.

For a spell in my late teens and early 20s, that was me. I was an armadillo, a "little armored one." I suppose I felt isolated, pointed at, and so I reflected those feelings. But the very presence of my armor said much more about me than it said about anyone else.

I'm not like that anymore. (If you're very lucky, a bit of age will do that to you.) And now when I meet people whose defenses are clouding their base nature, I feel more compassion than annoyance. They're not bullshitting me any more than they're bullshitting themselves, but it's OK. I get it.

But it is bullshit nonetheless. And I'm pretty sure that the truly happy people in this world don't slog around in their own bullshit all day.

I often think we'd all be more connected and honest if we could get in touch our inner six-year-olds. Kids have no bullshit. They have no capacity for it. Kids are perfect. They smile when they want to smile, cry when they're upset. Even when a child is touched by ugly circumstance, her core is clean and honest and, usually, available.

I was perfect when I was six, and I bet you were, too. At six, my mistakes were innocent, my intentions were pure. At six, I was always in love, with everything. With dolls, with boys, with patent leather tap shoes and a pair of pink shorts that said "Buzz off" on the back pocket. With a Laura Branigan record and a microphone. With Miss Spain, who was my teacher, not an Iberian beauty pageant winner (but every bit as extraordinary to me). I rang neighbors' doorbells and performed choreographed dances when they answered. They cheered.

Now, I try to keep one hand on that girl at all times and let her lead the way. Because when it comes to connecting, she knows what's up. She's my touchstone: If it works for her, it works for me.

That's why I made a decision, about a year ago, to walk around with a smile. Just a small, pleasant smile. And it changes things. People smile back, automatically, because we're programmed to exchange these nonverbal communications and to accept kindness at face value. In urban life, we build little walls around our humanity and staff those walls with little guards in little watchtowers. But when somebody smiles at you for no apparent reason, your little guards freeze. Confused! And before the guards can issue orders ("MAINTAIN! LIPS! DO NOT BREAK FROWN FORMATION!"), you have smiled back. And god damn it if everybody doesn't feel a tiny bit better.  

This meandering manifesto is leading to something that you might have figured out ages ago. Or maybe you're still not getting it, but here it is: It's not about you. It's about us.

Maybe it took me a little longer to figure that out and incorporate it into my life. I feel a little silly saying that.

But here it is. And here's what I'm doing with it.

1. I'm matchmaking. My relationships don't have to stop with me, so I'm spreading them around. Friends, acquaintances, colleagues -- I have so many good people in my life, and some could benefit from knowing each other. I'm being the conduit for their connections and watching what happens.

2. I'm advocating. I started a local chapter of an organization that I believe in very strongly. The people we help are in desperate need, and I have the ability to help alleviate that need. So I'm doing it. It's highly political (although something of a no-brainer for people on the left and the right, I believe). Maybe such public advocacy will mean that I won't be writing for major newspapers anymore. I don't care.

3. I'm investing in others. I've known about Etsy.com for a long time, but I've only recently discovered it. I'm blown away by the artwork and by the people behind the art. I'm going to buy exclusively handmade products as gifts for a while because I believe in supporting people who create, either to throw more good into the world or rid themselves of the bad that tries to creep in. And when a thing of art speaks to you, a thing born out of the head and hands of another, you can close the circuit. You can say to the person who created it, "You made something beautiful, and it makes me happy. I am investing in you." That feeds you both. It's a gift, the giving of which feels like, I don't know, waking up tomorrow and seeing on the front page of the New York Times, "WARM APPLE PIE, KITTEN SNUGGLING PROVED TO CURE CANCER."

Today I received a print that I ordered from artist Jeannie Lynn Paske, whose work speaks to me so deeply that I can't easily explain it. I envision a wall of my office lined with her prints. I don't know her, but I don't have to. I feel connected to the part of the artist that creates this art because it expresses something I feel in a medium I cannot master. And I feel grateful to her for making that possible. (Please go find some artists on Etsy who make you feel the same way.)

4. I'm creating. If I can give someone else that sense of connection, it will all have been worth it.

5. I'm forgiving. That's a verb, not an adjective. Forgiving is such an active task, sometimes requiring constant renewal. People don't always know what to do with you when you try to connect with them. Maybe they're lost. Maybe they're just not interested. Maybe they're hurt and messed up and temporarily closed for business. Regardless, when I feel let down -- especially when someone lets me down repeatedly -- I have a choice: I can get sad or angry, and swear and denounce; or I can step back from the situation and wish, with a heart full of kindness, that they can conquer their demons. I've learned -- and I promise that this, more than anything else I've said, is absolutely, immutably true -- that other people can't be made to fix themselves, no matter how much I plead or shout or persuade. No matter how much I try to connect. And I've also learned that anger blackens the heart. So when anger tries to move its big, ugly, stinking baggage into my heart, I say, sorry, all I can offer you is the couch. For one night. And I'm not feeding you.

 

Like I said, maybe you integrated this idea into your life a long time ago. Maybe you think it's nonsense (I think you're wrong). Maybe you're seriously afflicted by a lack of connection or maybe it amounts to nothing more than a minor annoyance in your life. Or maybe you, like me, benefit from the occasional reminder that the world is out there, waiting to connect with you.

If you're walking the world with a scowl, let your lips step out of formation. Your mental guards won't shoot.

If you're slogging around in your own bullshit, maybe after years of feeling disconnected and discounted, well... that's harder. I know it is. But just realize that it's a choice. A conscious choice. And once you realize that, you will have no one to blame but yourself -- and everyone to thank when they accept the hand that you reach out.

Surprised By Love

I'm skeptical of hype. If everybody's looking right, I generally look left. That's partly due to my contrarian nature and partly due to the idea that interesting things happen when nobody's watching and, on the other hand, predictable things of questionable motive happen when everyone is watching. Sometimes this tendency protects me from annoyance and sometimes it deprives me of joy, or at least makes me a latecomer to the party. This is all an overly analytical way of leading up to my point, which is that I finally read the entire Harry Potter series, and HOLY MUNDUNGUS, I LOVED IT.

LOVED. LOOOOVED. Are you getting this? LOOOOOOOOVED.

OK, it's true: I'm one who falls hard for, um, lots of things. Where overexuberance is the charge, I will not only confess but also gladly emblazon my chest with a scarlet O.

I loved this series so much that I've been sad ever since I closed the last book. The story line was so engrossing and the characters were so knowable. (It's plot-driven fiction, for sure, but the characters are quite well developed.) Go read the books if you haven't yet. Just take my word for it and keep going -- they get progressively darker and the stakes get progressively higher.

Of course, if you think that such a popular series is inherently unworthy reading, that it must be too commercial and unsophisticated to meet your towering literary standards, then you are a snob. And also probably late for tea with A.S. Byatt. (P.S. Don't be a snob.) (P.P.S. Maybe skip the MFA.)

Alas, it's time for me to move on. I've had a couple of weeks to get Harry and that world out of my system but it hasn't been easy. Surely people who love to read understand what I mean, right? I was at dinner with a friend who is an occasional reader and I confessed that it took me these two weeks to feel excited about reading anything else; my friend did very little to hide her reaction of bewilderment. Oh, come ON. Like I'm the only one who ever doodled "Mrs. Atticus Finch" on her notebook and wondered how Scout and Jem will react to having me as a stepmother?

Anyway, Amazon left a box of sustenance at my door today. I'm on to "Then We Came to The End" by Joshua Ferris, the first chapter of which I've already enjoyed thanks to my husband's new Kindle. (Also love.)

What are you reading? Give me your recommendations. Help me through Harry rehab, lest I run back to book five for a late-night fix.

A Little Therapy

Whenever you need to feel better about the pathetic state of the world -- impending nuclear war, erosion of freedoms, death of all that's good and decent, et cetera, ad infinitum -- here's what you do: You invite a toddler to spend the weekend, squeeze her fleshy little upper arm every hour (give or take ten minutes), and color. With crayons.

 

This is Alise. If you don't know Alise, please read this. It's the best way to quickly acquaint yourself.

But if you can't be bothered to read her fascinating ideas on children's privacy rights with respect to popular blogging practices, I'll tell you this: She's the daughter of my friends Mindy and John. She's also a double PhD who wrote two dissertations: "Mass Media and the Rise of the Infant World View," followed by "The Secret Lives of Puppets: Social Darwinism At Play." Both successfully defended.

Of course, that's a lot of work to do before turning 2, so she had never visited Washington, D.C. We took her around the city and showed her a monument or two. We also took her to the Cherry Blossom Festival parade, where Abby Cadabby was scheduled to appear. Abby is apparently a member of the cast of Sesame Street and a fairy godmother in training. Alise very much respects Abby's theories on the function of folk magic belief among human children, and I think she was hoping for a minute alone with Abby to discuss those theories. So she was really disappointed when Abby and all the other Sesame Street people just walked by and waved like we were all drooling, empty-headed babies. How insulting! "I'd expect that from Elmo and Cookie Monster," Alise said, shaking her head, "but not Abby."

But we approached the situation philosophically; Abby Cadabby has to make a paycheck like everybody else. Alise said she'll try to engage Abby in written correspondence, which might enable Abby to respond on her own time when The Man isn't forcing her to pander to babies with hypnotic, doe-eyed expressions.

We tried to show Alise the cherry blossoms but, alas, they bloomed a little early this year. We settled for tulips at something called the Tulip Library, which was FULL of hundreds of brilliantly colored tulips -- and did not at all amount to settling, in my opinion.

Alise said she'd never seen such springtime magnificence as we saw in the Tulip Library, and that this was unlike any library she'd ever closed down at 1 a.m. after a long night of studying.

Then we went back home and cleared our heads with a power nap followed by some intense coloring.

Dude, coloring is therapeutic. For people like me, anyway -- I just stay inside the lines that are already drawn and I pick whatever color I feel like. Purple eyes! Green noses! I don't think, I just do, and I feel like a carefree kid again. But Alise is a passionate colorer. She disregards useless conventions such as lines. "How can you create art within the confines of someone else's framework?" she asked. And I had to admit that she might be right.

Then I asked for a red crayon, and do you know what she did? She handed me a green. Point taken, young master. Point taken.

But Alise wasn't all seriousness. We found a bit of Curious George programming on TV and she was so happy about it that she was reduced to baby talk ("Jooj!") just like she reduces me to baby talk ("Aliiiiiiiiisey!"). We all have our buttons.

Then she grabbed a phone charger, ran up and down the hall a few times, and showed that she can be a wild child with the best of 'em.

RAWWWR. It's like that scene in "School of Rock" when the Jack Black character takes the Joan Cusack character -- the principal -- to a bar. He gets her good 'n' drunk so she forgets her primness and starts babbling about Stevie Nicks and belting out "Edge of Seventeen." If only Alise's academic advisors could have seen this!

We had a toddler in our house for only two days, but those were some nice days, let me tell you. She was a breath of fresh air and totally made me forget that poor children go hungry and doggies get hit by cars. Her upper arm? Sweet Jesus. Just try to give it a squeeze while maintaining coherent thought. I challenge you.

When Mindy and John weren't within earshot, I offered Alise a deal: Stay here. Stay here and we will let you play in the office with which you are so fascinated. It's yours! You can go out on the patio whenever you want, as long as you wear some kind of safety harness, and we'll dance to Vampire Weekend every day until you get sick of it.

"Oatmeal every morning?"

"Yes! Yes, and those cheesy goldfish crackers too. For lunch."

"I prefer the Dole fruit bars. And I get to climb on the coffee table whenever I want?"

"Of course! We'll put rubber bumpers on the corners."

"Don't insult me."

"Sorry, it's just... your muscle tone and coordination. They're still developing. But whatever, no bumpers. Do we have a deal?"

She thought for a moment. "Look, it sounds nice -- and I totally appreciate the coffee table thing -- but I'm afraid it's just not possible."

I sighed. "Nana?"

"Yep," she nodded. "You're nice, but you're no Nana."

So Alise, Mindy and John returned to their home and their Nana and GrandBob. And I sit here with nothing but memories and her leftover YoBaby (vanilla and banana) to comfort me as I wonder what else I could have done to sweeten the deal.

Sigh. I guess we'll always have D.C.

That's Democrazy, Yo.

So here we are. April 15. Have you paid your taxes? Oh, GOOD. Because now the country can pay for a bunch of stuff, like infrastructure and social services. And even though you probably don't feel like you authorized those expenditures, you sort of did. You elected the people who authorized them. And in our representative government, that's the way it works. Yay democracy!

Except here. In Washington, D.C., the city that perhaps represents better than any other city all that this nation stands for, we have no representative government. And BOY, did I pay some taxes, yo. Yay democracy!

Oh. Wait.

We have no senators. We have no voting congressional representatives at all. We have Eleanor Holmes Norton, who is allowed to sit at the table with the big kids and raise her hand when she has something polite to say. But when it comes to voting and actually, you know, mattering, she has to keep her hands firmly in her lap.

Did you know this? You probably did, even if you didn't realize it. That's what happened to me when we were considering moving here. "One hundred senators, two for each state, but D.C. isn't a state, so... oh. OH."

If you care, you can read a little more about it here. And if it really gets your undies in a bundle and you happen to live in one of the states whose senators are using all kinds of funny filibustering hijinks (silly boys!) to block legislation that would give li'l D.C. voting representation, you can maybe call those senators. Tell them to quit playing games or you'll go to the press with proof of their, uh, mafia ties? Indecent liaisons with high-priced hookers? Undocumented lawn care specialists? Indecent liaisons with low-priced hookers? Third nipple? Just keep shouting them out until you hit a nerve.

(No. Don't do that. That's blackmail! Blackmail is not nice. But effective. But not nice! Try threatening to TP their houses with that super-cheap, one-ply crap from Costco the night before a good rain. NOT SO FUNNY NOW, IS IT, SENATOR.)

You Just Might Learn Something

I have some amazing friends. I'm not saying they're more amazing than your friends. I'm just saying... they might be.

Anyway, these friends of mine do some cool stuff. And when I think you might like to know about these cool things -- or I just want you to BUY something from my friends -- I'm going to share them with you.

So my friend Beth Finke. She wrote this wonderful book called "Hanni and Beth: Safe and Sound." It's a nonfiction children's book about Beth's relationship with Hanni, her guide dog, and I recommend that you parent-types pick it up as a bedtime read. The illustrations are beautiful -- all soft and done in oils. My sense is that kids will love it because it's about a dog (KIDS LOVE DOGS), but it covers the life of a dog and her human in a way that most kids have never heard. I think all of you librarian types (and I know I have a few of you as readers) should put it on your shelves. The School Library Journal agrees.

I learned a lot about guide dogs from Beth's book. For example, you're not supposed to address a guide dog when the dog is working. Did you know that? I didn't, but I do now. Which is why I'll never again give Beth a big ol' kiss on the cheek and then stoop down and shout, "HI HANNI!" while I hysterically clap my hands and stomp my feet. And Beth will never again have to scold me.

Hopefully, anyway. I have a hard time ignoring dogs, and I'm not nearly as well trained as Hanni is.

High

I spent two hours on Sunday standing on the corner of 14th and U Streets holding an Obama sign as high as my arms would reach. You'd think this would be easy, because a sign is a piece of paper. But you would be wrong about the first part. When your arms are roughly as strong and taught as al dente linguini, holding anything --nothing -- above your head for two hours is quite difficult. The wind was gusting to fifteen thousand mph, and eventually I couldn't feel my fingers. I started to wonder just how far I'd go for Obama. Aching shoulders? Runny nose? FROSTBITE?

I'm slightly more cynical than Pollyannaish. But I have to tell you that standing on that street corner while hundreds of people drove by, honking and pumping their fists in the air and shouting, "Obama!" gave me so many warm and gooey feelings that I thought my insides had liquefied.

People of all colors and ages stopped to ask for buttons and posters. Pedestrians clapped and cheered. Bus drivers and cab drivers peppered the air with the sound of horns. And then rainbows filled the horizon, the sick were suddenly healed, and all the people in the D.C. metro area spontaneously broke into a chorus of "The Star-Spangled Banner." With angels singing backup.

But honestly, it was really nice. Really, really nice. Even nicer than Slice of Pink's Banana Carmel Chocolate Spice Pie, which I made today. (And trust me, people: That's saying a lot. That pie is a circular piece of heaven.)

I urge you all to go support your candidate and then come home and enjoy a delicious bakeless pie. Because the combination of a democracy high followed by a sugar high? The only thing I can imagine taking me any higher is a 30-minute slow-motion video of puppies running through fields of wildflowers. And since I don't have one of those on hand, I may have to eat another piece of pie.

Tenuous Lifeline

I returned to the States to this news on Saturday night. The article from The Independent says that 38,000 people have signed the petition to urge the UK Foreign Office to pressure the Afghan government to prevent the execution of the Afghan journalism student who was sentenced to death for downloading and distributing material on women's rights (which an Islamic court deemed blasphemous). A more recent number is in the box to the right of the article: 48,000.

If you added your name, thanks. If you haven't, please do. Thanks to international pressure for justice -- of which this petition was a part -- Pervez Kambaksh now has the opportunity to appeal his case. But that doesn't mean the appeal will necessarily result in a sentence commutation or pardon, or that he or his family are safe.

Keep the pressure on. With the assassination of Bhutto and the resurgence of the Taliban, Central Asia is an increasingly unstable region. It would be a tragedy for this case to be lost among the chaos.

Pretty Little Things

In addition to writing three articles, revising three datasheets and pitching three article ideas to a new editor, my list of tasks to finish before we leave town includes this very nagging item: "FINISH THANK YOUS." The difference is that on my private list it's followed by five exclamation points, but I'd like to maintain some modicum of punctuational decency in this public blog.

I know. Our wedding reception was at the end of October, which means I am approaching the three-months-later mark and still haven't finished thanking everyone who so graciously attended and gave us gifts. The etiquette guides are unclear on whether this is a gross injustice and abuse of people's generosity, but if Emily Post comes a'knocking on my door with a stern look, I will go a'knocking out her teeth. Because in all, we have to write nearly five hundred of these things. Of course, it doesn't help that I also insisted on making every one of them by hand, including lining my own envelopes.

What's that you say? Emily Post has been dead these forty-some years? Now I'm really feeling a surge of bravado.

My love affair with paper began when I was able to grasp and manipulate a pencil, leaving scribbly thoughts in its wake. After that came all the other tools -- the scissors and glue and crayons and paint -- that could turn plain paper into pretty vessels of personal expression, so tactilely satisfying. Not that I amounted to anything in Friday art class; I have absolutely no talent when it comes to drawing, and art class always seemed to be about who could most accurately draw someone's or something's likeness. Even when I draw my best stick girl, she still doesn't look anything like Kate Moss.

My love affair with paper intensified this summer when I decided to make our wedding reception invitations. I can't show those to you because they have all kinds of personally identifiable information, but I can tell you that they were brown and golden yellow and lovely. I also can show you one of the envelopes, which featured the story of our relationship, told in the third person, in a very faint, pretty script on a shimmery golden-yellow liner.

The story continued all the way to the bottom of the envelope, where anyone curious enough to tear it apart would find a secret message. (I was surprised at how many people did go exploring.)

When I realized that I could customize envelope liners with pretty much anything I could imagine, I really started having fun. Geeky fun. On Saturday nights.

This is a liner with an image of my brother, age 7, holding me, age 6 months, holding a little bear that I still have. I used it to send him a thank you for standing up in our wedding.

Then I started making cards for just about any reason. Here's a "congratulations" card to my youngest niece when she decided to go to cosmetology school.

So now I'm down to the last 45 thank yous, wondering what the hell I was thinking (which is the same question The Mouse has been asking me for months), because the volume, my god, the volume. But there will be no excuses for not getting every last one out the door by Saturday morning. I'm hoping that coming in just under the three-month mark is somehow acceptable. For what it's worth, I immediately sent thank yous to anyone who sent gifts in advance -- usually the next day -- and all of the closer family and friends received their thank yous quite promptly.

I've attended weddings with 700-plus guests, and some of those brides and grooms sent pre-printed, generic "dear friend" thank yous. Surely it's nicer to get a personal note, even if you have to wait a little longer?

You can tell me what I want to hear. Really, you can.

Brief Notes on A Young Year

It's 2008, and I still can't tell you about the subtle differences between Argentinean chocolate and Australian chocolate because I never found the international chocolate sampler that was supposed to be the star of last night's party. But I can tell you about the taste of tiramisu that has been stuffed into tiny plastic cups for mass serving: still pretty darned good.

The Italian Embassy looks nothing like you would think. If you're imagining St. Peter's Basilica or anything with grand Roman arches and columns, you are mistaken. The results of some Googling indicate that the building is something like a post-modern palazzo, which means nothing to me other than "not ornate" and "not super old/cool looking."

So it was no Renaissance, but the food was extremely good, the drinks were included and the people-watching was prime. The best fun was seeing guests emerge from the chair after having their caricatures drawn, disproportionate renderings in hand. One girl smiled politely and thanked the artist, then quickly turned her back to him to hide her horror.

"Does my nose really look like this?" she asked a friend, her voice full of apprehension.

People with shaky confidence should not pose for a caricaturist.

I started out dreading my choice of New Year's Eve activity, mainly because it did not include pajamas or closed eyelids, and I ended up braving the cold weather and resolutely ignoring my brain-numbing congestion and fever just to GO OUT. MUST GO OUT. And we had a darned nice time, which is more than I can say for the next seven to ten days of anyone who came into close contact with my germs last night. (Just kidding! I didn't sneeze on anyone without their informed consent.)

I would post a photo of us, but why post a photo when I can post a video of us waiting for someone to take our photo? It's far more amusing than the photo itself. It also shows what happens about every time I ask my husband to PLEASE SMILE FOR THE CAMERA LIKE A NORMAL PERSON IS THAT SO HARD.

That is me, sans six inches of hair. I'm sure that my hair still looks long to some of you seasoned shorties, but it represents a fairly significant change for me. Significant enough that my stylist, scissors suspended in mid-air before their attack, said, "Are you SURE? Did you tell your husband about this?" I quickly produced a signed, dated and notarized "Permission to Make Independent Decisions About Hair Style" form; she shrugged and went to work.

The only notable development since midnight's mumble-through of Auld Lang Syne was the arrival of an email from my landlord. You remember her -- the happy, smiley ray of golden sunshine? Well, she responded to my request that we be allowed to foster a helpless, lonely, downtrodden, orphaned kitten with a resounding NO. I can only imagine that she's worried that a kitten might pee on the nice hardwood floors but that fear seems to rely on the assumption that I won't pee on the hardwood floors, a course of retaliation currently under consideration.

That's all I have for you, people. It's 2008, that's fabulous with me, and I have a pan of warm brownies and a warm husband waiting for me in the living room. No warm kitten yet, but 2008 is young.

Secret Ingredient: Intimidation

Since we landed in D.C. in early September, we have been searching for pizza. Not gourmet pizza -- there's plenty of that in D.C., and it serves a different purpose -- but killer delivery pizza, the kind that is greasy but not soggy, shows up in 30 minutes and costs maybe $15 ($12 with a coupon!). And we can't find it. We've tried four different restaurants in two months, even agreed to drive to a restaurant and carry out a promising-looking pizza, but they all sucked. Badly. I know the saying: "'Tis better to have eaten Giordano's thin crust pepperoni and moved far from Chicago than never to have eaten it at all," but after several moves that have taken me away from that divine establishment on Belmont, Dish Dash in Sunnyvale, Rose Market in Mountain View and Thai Spice in Cambridge, I'm really starting to question the whole philosophy. Because knowing what I'm missing is just too painful.

At any rate, we rarely eat out these days. In fact, I have been cooking so much over the last two months that I scarcely recognize myself. I once again have a nice kitchen with a gas stove, which makes me feel like the real deal and gives me a confidence boost that may actually translate into better food. The former me thought the best I could do was rice, overdone steak, soy sauce  and a side of apology. But now my kitchen is always full of red peppers and onions and scallions and chives and coconut milk and portobellos. My hands often smell of freshly minced garlic and ginger root, and if you think that is disgusting then I strongly advise you to keep my fingers out of your mouth.

I'm still not very good, but I'm creative. I'm bold! Most times I do well. And when I do make a bad meal, I remember that the best defense is a good offense: Shake entirely too much cayenne powder on any meal, and no one will ever accuse you of serving up flavorless mush. They'll cough and sputter and gesture for water, and suddenly you are strong and powerful while they are weak and pathetic. Eating lots of cayenne pepper makes people look at you like you are a Real Man, one who stinks of Old Spice, smokes a pipe and has hair on his chest. They forget to question your culinary skills and instead implode with self-doubt about their own intestinal moxie. All that remains is for you to say, "Really? You find that spicy?" And you're back on top.

And that's a critical lesson that I had to learn on my own, one that Rachael Ray will never teach you: If you can't always cook a good meal, at least be good at mind games.