Jaguares’s “Hoy” is just how I feel today. (Hoy = today)
Morning
Why must breakfast always be toast, eggs, yogurt, or hot cereal? Where does this breakfast notion come from anyway? Lose self in Wikipedia entry: Moroccans eat a dip made of toasted almonds, argan oil, and honey; in Afghanistan, green tea and milk are flavored with cardamom or rose; in Bangladesh, a morning meal includes roti/chapati, potatoes and vegetables, chicken curry, dal, spicy egg omelet, and tea.
Decide on toasted brioche with homemade mayo and Fra’Mani salame rosa. Open fridge: odor of rotted greens. Realize paper-wrapped salame packet does not cool my hand. Call landlord; begin to toss food. Out goes the Brunswick stew my sister and husband made yesterday for our family dinner; out go the zongzi my aunt bought for the Dragon Boat Festival; out go three sticks of softened butter.
Fridge man arrives, pronounces our fridge placement “a challenge,” and commences work. I put laundry in the washer.
Fridge man finishes replacing motor, and leaves. Landlord arrives and leaves. Erik cooks noodles; I cut up mold-spotted green garlic, wilted kale, and fuzzy onions for the compost. While eating, I look outside and realize, as if painting, that our flowering dune gilia needs a background of either lighter green foliage or equally bright blooms; I step onto the deck and rearrange the pots.
Afternoon
Faces: pencils
An hour spent pencilling dots and connecting them, an hour spent drawing faces from magazine photos. Forty-five minutes prepping for lentil loaf. My pencil traces the curve of a jaw, the shape of an eyelid. Is someone smoking outside? The angle of a nose. Seriously, is someone smoking? My lentils!! I lift the pot lid to reveal grey clouds and a scorched odor. I remove the top layers of lentils and hope the charred flavor won’t harm the finished loaf.
Faces - edge shading
Erik emerges from the closed bedroom, work finished for the day. I stroke my pencilled faces with paint. He walks into my office with a jar of Thai shrimp paste. Minutes later, he leaves the office: “Internet says it’ll keep without refrigeration.” Minutes later, he returns with a jar of Korean citron tea. I tell him to toss it, it’s old anyway. Repeat with worcestershire sauce, tamarind paste.
I enter the kitchen to find Erik washing up jars. Lentil loaf comes out of the oven smelling of ketchup.
I remember the laundry.
satsumabug.com | Lisa Hsia 
This reads more like a story– so many details that drew me in emotionally. Aside from it being your life, and a hard day mostly, do you like how you wrote it?
Glad it worked for you, Ré! I wanted it to be a little more sensory than it came out, not quite so expository. But I don’t mind how it came out — it will be a fun thing to reread in the future. 🙂
I like this, Lisa. The writing, as usual, is excellent. And it is an intimate piece, a snapshot of your life. We often get your thoughts, but don’t know what your life is like. And you know what? Your life is just like mine, and probably everyone elses. Everyday events strung together like a necklace. Whether that necklace is made up of priceless pearls or snap together beads is our choice. It is all a matter of perception. Take breakfast. I eat oatmeal (not instant!) five out of seven mornings a week. It helps that I actually enjoy oatmeal. I have been planning meals for 45 years, and I love that at this point I really only have to plan dinner. Yay for a simple breakfast!
Thank you, Sherry! I love that it feels intimate to you. I’m always wildly curious about other people’s day-to-day lives too, and that’s why I wrote this one — I thought maybe someone would feel the same way about my life!
Yay for simple breakfasts indeed. I love oatmeal too, but I also love variety, so that’s where my wikipedia-breakfast-searching came from. 😉 Today: baguette with butter, strawberry jam, and orange-carrot marmalade. And raspberry-peach Tulsi tea. I used to feel bad about not having balanced breakfasts (protein, fiber) but after reading about all the countries where people just have coffee or tea and a pastry, I decided I could do the same once in a while, especially when I wake up closer to lunch than I’d like!