day eight: everybody's name sounds like food

When we were in NYC the Summer I was 21, we ate Indian food in the Village on the Fourth of July. So full our bellies could explode, we shuffled back to your apartment on Carmine Street and layed on your bed next to the window. I watched people below eating in a courtyard under white lights, squinted at the big glass bulbs until how my belly felt and what I saw was the same mixture of light and decay.

Exercise: Everyone's Name Sounds Like Food
Goal: List each member of your extended family and jot down the first food you think of when you say each name out loud. Imagine all the food from your list on a huge platter, and consider what the different flavors and colors representing these people in your world says about what your love would taste like and everything. Here's mine:

Jewish family first:

charles=dark meat chicken, fried, leg and/or thigh
roselyn=roast beef in a buffet, Sunday morning brunch in the 80s, skip the crepe bar, straight to the heavy stuff
donna=punch with ginger ale and maraschino cherries
steve=something breaded, too
mike=crisp apples and flavored bottled water
irvin=instant mashed potatoes and gravy from MCL, disappointed, no strawberry shortcake this time
tom=chocolate pudding pops, swirl maybe, but not straight vanilla

Italian:

deedee=Sara Lee coconut cake
nettie=gin martini; lots of olives with big pimentos
john=milk and single cookie
ross=meatball; so easy
tracy=overripe watermelon in the 80s, seedless, but still with the white chewy half-seeds