A tender spot in my heart for cripples, bastards, broken things, and deep fried foods
Headed out to Queens yesterday to see another doctor.
Ended up grabbing lunch with my brother, who’s in town for the week. The thing about the two of us, and my sister, is that we have pretty strong stomachs, which I think is direct result of us growing up poor. My parents tried their best to give us a rounded diet but we essentially ate anything we could get our hands on.
Him: (picking at fish) This is terrible. Do you want to try it?
Me: No! (thinking) On second thought…
There’re all these dishes that are the result of poor people taking scraps and making something amazing out of them: oxtail soup, collard greens, liverwurst, broiled bone marrow, and fried rotten tofu (as seen above).
People are no different from the food they make.
In Game of Thrones, Tyrion Lannister says, I have a tender spot in my heart for cripples, bastards and broken things.
I think I’m similar, for similar reasons.
Some of the most broken things in the world aren’t easily seen as such. A good tailored suit can cover up almost anything.
But I suppose that if you had some device that could look and see what we look like on the inside, I’d be a patchwork of duct tape, splints, and glue. All baked in steady childhood of beans, canned tuna, caned ham, white rice, and slightly stale bread.
I have a tender spot for those of people patched together and baked in a similar way.
My brother’s a doctor and I’m a lawyer, but there are few things that give us as much simple pleasure as eating at a local dive.
If I meet people like us in the world, I’ll ask if they want to grab a $5 meal at the local dive around the way.
And if they’re members of my tribe, they’ll have no problem sitting down to a meal complete with plastic forks and sticky condiment bottles.
Me: We probably shouldn’t have eaten all that.
Him: Yep. (standing up) I’m going to get some caffeine.
Me: Good call.
Location: snowed in again
Mood: full
Music: I can’t be free from all of the things that I used to be
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4 replies on “The broken and the baked”
I’m a G.o.T. geek too. When I took the ‘Which G.o.T. character are you?” quiz, I was not surprised that I got Tyrion, his description matches me perfectly:
http://www2.pictures.zimbio.com/mp/UsYBfDg_V7nl.jpg
If you want to take the quiz:
http://www.zimbio.com/quiz/hpbWxCCmzMR/Game+Thrones+Character?result=oB2QoKn19NG
I have a suspicion that you are Tyrion as well. 🙂
If I was any character, I suppose I’d be Tyrion – a lot of my friends have been taking that quiz and posting results online. I suppose I’ll end up doing it at some point once things settle down.
Sorry to hear that misfortune coincided with success (the upcoming release of your book).
There’s a famous boxer that always says, very incorrectly, “You gotta take the good with the good and the bad with the bad.” Always makes me laugh and wonder where the heck he got that, but the intended meaning rings true.
I bought your first book a few months back, but won’t get to take a look at it until these 65 hour work weeks end. Till then, I wish you lots of good with your good and even some good with your bad.
Thanks for the kind words, Paul. It really is a strange time for me as I’m being pulled in all these directions. Even worse, most of what’s going on is going on to people I care about rather than me so I feel more helpless than anything.
Glad you got a copy of my first book – hopefully you’ll find some time to read it or the other book at some point.
Once you do, def. let me know your thoughts.