The Ginger Complex

There are many randomly acquired theories I rely on to hold up the precarious philosophical foundation that is my belief system. Theories such as:

The best part of waking up is candy.

Never trust anyone who listens to nickelback.

There is always some brunette ruining my life...

....usually of the coke-infused hipster bitch variety.  They're either dating my ex, fucking my ex, flirting with my ex, playing pool with my ex, is the ex of my ex, or is my ex. Interchangeably, the term "ex" can be modified with the term "bae", "crush", or (in a more recent case of ruining) "barista putting whole milk in my coffee instead of soy".  Either way, my very biased theory will be just as equally true and stand to be just as equally aggravating. I am constantly amazed at how often there exists a brunette that intimidates me to the brink of such obsessive fury...that it interferes with even the simplest decisions or actions required for me to go about my life in peace. I rarely make new year's resolutions, but this year I decided something must be done, about my dark haired nemesii.

I began by taking a critical look at my slightly over-dramatized portrayal of the situation. This battle of the locks may exist mainly in my neurotically created reality, but it's fueled by my socially structured insecurities as a red-head. So, to be completely fair, my defensive behavior is simply a misunderstood side effect of too many years as a lone warrior.  Lack of tribe, pride, and confidence in the fact that I am a member of one of the most enigmatic cults in the world: the ginger heads.

Everybody loves a redhead, because being ginger is often like being living gold, a rare ginger trait that causes one to wander in constant flux between magic and trouble. Most people see you as treasure, because you belong to a fading clan, who's ginger gene is so recessive that eventually one day, we will no longer exist. This is the reason we have endured years of childhood taunting that involved, hair pulling, brutal nicknames like "carrot top", and humiliating comparisons to the color orange.  As youth we are treated like sideshow freaks, and eventually left to believe that we should give up, shave our heads, or dye our hair another color (brown??) in order to fit in with the rest of humanity and face our recessive weaknesses in silence.  It has taken me years to realize, that this teasing, was just a wicked attempt at destroying the incredibly strong intuitive sense of specialness that all true gingers enter into the world with. Why would anyone want to bring a redhead down? Because everyone knows, that a ginger in her fully empowered state, could probably take the world.

Yes, our spirit lives up to it's recklessly infamous nature. Ginger is warming, healing, and sweet with a little kick. However, being genetically rare comes with some weaknesses. I recently saw my physical therapist who, as she nursed me through yet another ligament injury, lectured me on being careful with myself, because I'm "special". The special she referred to was not the golden-spicy kind, but the kind that has virtually no potent dna remaining, leading to easily tweaked tendons and inflamed joints.  In addition to temperamental connective tissues, I regularly see an acupuncturist for my overly sensitive food/environmental allergies that constantly have my immune system in a state of repair. Yea, sometimes being ginger isn't so glamorous.

However, when it is glamorous, I'm a fiercely bred cocktail of Samson, Rapunzel, and Pippi Longstalking.  Some kind of sacred rock star: an image that requires a massive amount of flair. This persona can be intimidating to live up to, and I will admit that I have had to rally on more than one occasion to back that mane up. Often, I can't even wear my hair down, because when I do I get mobbed.  Apparently, we are fading faster than I thought. It's a scary ginger deprived world out there, and it's challenging to endure when you have scandalous brunettes putting undesired bitters in your cocktail.

Perhaps it is simply jealousy. Pure envy that brunettes don't need mascara to have eyelashes, or that they can easily pull off red lipstick, be "tan", and wear green without any uncomfortable leprechaun/Peter Pan references.  I once heard someone refer to brunettes as treacherous. Very true, and probably the most untouchable trait of all. A redhead can pull off a lot of things: fiery, flirty, foxy, etc...but I couldn't pull off treacherous if my sweet and sour soul depended on it.

Maybe, it's a simple enough answer, that my intimidation exists because I know that brunettes are their own dominant genetic cult. The ones that will ultimately live on, because no matter how novel it is to be redheaded, the brunettes have already won this futile battle of natural selection. At first glimmer, people cannot resist the opportunity to satisfy their curiosity surrounding the shiny glowing light of a genetically unlikley redhead, but eventually their practical biological instincts take over and they powerlessly flock back towards compatible brunettes for more resilient odds in pro-creation.

I recently met a brunette with a mean case of ginger fever. Now, being ginger I never get ginger fever (no, statistically, that would be like dating a distant cousin).  However this woman couldn't stop gushing about the undying love she had for her gingerbread boo and the many ginger babies they were going to have. I wasn't sure whether to be honest and crush her dreams of the next ginger baby boom with cold hard data, or to bite my tongue and relish in this rare moment: a peace-making between enemies, and a cursory fondness for all ginger-kind.

Death by Cheese: My Love/Hate Relationship with Dairy

I dislike labels. I dislike any label that would render me deficient in some way, lacking of a skill, or other wise common human process. These types of labels I dislike usually begin with non, anti, in or end with ism, ite, or ant. So, when asked at dinner, if I have any dietary restrictions, cringing at the encroaching label and all of it's stereotypical connotations, I will deny it. I will toss up a chuckle and shrug, brushing off any possible side effects, explicitly renouncing affiliations with any such label, club, or group. Then, I will eat your brie and regret it silently when I am alone, in a dark corner where I question the very moral fibers of my being. Why? How? What, was I thinking? Once again, I vow to stop the vicious life-long cycle of abuse then and there...to boldly face the label that has been quietly stalking me for some time: "lactose-intolerance".

It all began with an innocently seeming vegetarian/vegan experiment, which, like an unruly wheat-grass consuming Frankenstein, went horribly, horribly awry. This madness, lasting five years, brought me closer to the world of food sensitivities in a way I never thought possible. Five complicated years of faux meat patties, soy based dairy alternatives, and raw food juice fasting. Never to fear, it is as gross as it sounds. It is also not very cool at parties, restaurants, nor on dates.  Eventually I emerged from the ashes of my social life, setting my weird veggie investigation aside (for a while), but dairy and I were never the same again.

My ride on the plant-based food bus was momentarily brief at the time.  Regardless of precious lost hours spent aimlessly wandering the soy section, I managed to not only date but fall in love with a cook. The kind of traditional chef that eats meat, cooks with grease, and serves in courses. This drastic change in lifestyle has caused quite a raucous in my gut. Requesting my dear fellow to prepare cuisine suited to his french preparation-ally trained liking, that does not include the pre-fixe bread or butter, is a challenge. Not the ambitious "iron-chef" kind of challenge, mind you, but the "argue over the menu for an hour-I stay up alone watching Netflix and eating popcorn for dinner" type of challenge. Thus lie the underlying enablers of my repeated patterns for self-inflicted violence: returning again and again, to my abusive lover, like a pawn with a death wish for dairy.

Perhaps it is the ginger in me: the diet of cheese, bread, olive oil, and wine deeply ingrained into my dietary lineage. Or perhaps I am just ridiculously stubborn.  Or perhaps it is because I, like many, am caught in the ravage battle between the attachment to my own suffering, and the addiction to my own commitment-phobia (a debilitating side-effect of living among SF's alternative foodie cultures).  The fear of formally obligating oneself to an isolated self-restricting nutritional claim only to be sent away to some warped commune where members are confined to kale-beet "kool-aid" therapy groups, rice-dream shake cleanses, and gluten-free meditation walkabouts, is a very real and wholly justifiable fear of mine.  Once you open the door to anything labeled "non-dairy" all the freaks come out to play.  Strange parades of folks with juicers, dehydrators, and sad cheese-less, wheat-less "dinner" parties where all the sauces are made with nuts.  No, I need to make it clear: this is NOT a choice, I would never choose this fate. No this, my friends, is a tragedy. A terrible gastronomic tragedy with no cheese plate or ice-cream cone at the end of the meal. The oddly incorporated lives of these hardcore herbivores seem exhausting to me, and I refuse to identify with their cause or accept any substitute.  These surrogate food-movements exist mostly to make sense of such cruel realities as those of my current digestive state, to help us deal with what we don't understand, and to make us feel a part and validated in our edible dilemmas.

So why all the drama?  It's a matter of taste, principle, and desire. Truth be told, my love for cheese goes far beyond my love for my intestinal tract.  Faux cheese, like faux ginger, is not hard for me to spot, but significantly harder for me to swallow. You just can't fake the good-stuff, so why would you even try? More importantly why would you even want to?  Many non-dairy spin-offs often contain unnaturally derived ingredients that can do more harm than good.  I feel as though in our venture for health, wellness, and the pursuit of a toned digestive tract, we have totally lost sight of reality as well as any sort of place resembling the point: eating and regret should never come within twenty four hours of each other, and calling nuts cheese feels like the dietary manifestation of blasphemy.

Despite my current "hater" status, I have been forced by the clutches of dehydration (and those who share a bathroom with me) to come to some kind of resolution.  Within my soul search, I have found that avoiding what my body doesn't understand, indeed reduces chronic cases of PTDS (Post-Traumatic-Dairy-Stress), but leaves me little freedom.  Conclusion?  I'm simply not ready to break up, but I must find peace.  So, instead of taking sides and waging war, I choose compromise.  These days, I enjoy small thrills involving low-lactose options: goat and sheep milk products, as well as the occasional slice of buffalo mozzarella.  I tread cautiously through the dark allusive free-sample fueled underworld that is the cheese aisle at Whole Foods, bringing forth from the shadows deliciously androgynous, bipartisan crowd pleasers like hummus-avocado dip and wasabi almonds.  Caving-in just enough to get out both alive and unmarked, my new lease on life brings relief to my unsettled belly, yet goes unnoticed by most players on either side of the nutritive debate.  Flexetarian, Vegan-ish, 80% plantasaurus rex are labels I throw out there if I must.  I say I'm doing it for the earth or the baby cows, but I'm not dogmatic nor do I believe in enforcing my plant-based policies on others.  I am satisfied in this arrangement, but no matter how far off the radar I go, I never refer to dairy as my ex.