.SOMETIMES RAW.

For some, love in the time of Corona is pretty tough. Are you currently dating? I came up with a quiz to determine if you even are in a relationship. With all my experience (cough, cough, #eyeroll) I will help you out. Dating Quiz: Is your thing with *___ (insert any name here) a relationship? You have been hooked up for a few weeks but are too nervous to define the relationship? You need answers? Take this quiz.

1. On your last date, where did * take you?

A) To a dorm party, at which he played dart and ten rounds of beer pong because he was “on fire”. Then back to his “crib” at 3 a.m.

B) To a baseball game, at which he bought two six-packs of Budweiser, hotdogs, and popcorn.

C) To IKEA, to shop for comfortable couch for his new apartment.

2. How often does he text you?

A) Three to six hours after you send him a message, or maybe more depending on how long it took you to respond to his last text. Or maybe not at all.

B) Frequently, but WHY IS HE NEVER SENDING ME THE RED HEART EMOJI? Why the green one?

C) He responds shortly every time you send him a text. He also sends you e-mails with references to jokes that you don’t always get. He is also interested in helping you with your gas and heat bill to find a cheaper solution.

3. How many of your friends has he met?

A) He has met your dog. Does that count?

B) He has met your shrink. Does that count?

C) Many. Some think he is constantly all over you but you don’t mind. You like it. Also, he won’t formally introduce himself to your friends all the time which you are cool with, too.

4. When you told him that you really like the movie Dirty Dancing, which song did he personally record a cover of and send to you?

A) “Eenie Meenie”, by Justin Bieber

B) “Hallelujah”, by Leonard Cohen

C) “Shine on you Crazy Diamond” by Pink Floyd

5. For your birthday, he gave you _________

A) A text message reading “big horny dick” two days late.

B) Sad flowers from the gas station.

C) Breakfast in bed and La Boheme opera tickets.

6. When he sleeps over over, he wears/brings__________

A) A robe his ex gave him last Christmas. A detail that he mentions constantly.

B) An adorable, cute pyjama. Also, a sleep mask, earplugs, and cream to moisturise hands and feet.

C) Nothing. He prefers body-to-body contact when he cuddles you all night long.

7. Your last fight was about __________

A) You asking him if it is possible to drink less and stop wearing sagging pants.

B) How he shouldn’t have been the one apologizing when the waiter spilled soup on his lap. Ask him if he is Canadian.

C) You are not sure if it was even a fight? You both just stopped talking at dinner and then didn’t say anything for forty minutes and it seemed kind of weird, but also, shouldn’t you be able to enjoy silence together?

8. What does he say when he climaxes?

A) “YEAH, I f****** nailed it!”

B) “Do you need help filing taxes? We should do it right now!”

C) “I love you.”

9. What did you both dress up for Halloween?

A) He forgot that you wanted to do a couple-costume and showed up in his Borat sling swimsuit. You were a single pea without a pod.

B) He went as Donald Trump. You tried to tell him that it was a bad idea, but he kept insisting, “I know him!” You stayed home.

C) Harry and Sally. He somehow had both of your costumes already.

10. You have been seeing each other for three months. For your anniversary, he takes you to ________

A) McDonalds, his favourite restaurant, across the street from his place, even though this food has already made you sick twice and you told him about it.

B) An upscale restaurant. He hired a band. He proposed at dessert but spells it “desert”.

C) A picnic at a small park in the city, where he carves your initial into his favourite tree.

The Results

Mostly A’s: I hate to break it to you, but you and * aren’t in a relationship. In fact, * is a complete asshole flirting with a group of twenty-one-year-olds by showing them his juggling “skills” and telling them that he owns a hotel in Zanzibar. Honestly, you can do better. And you will.

Mostly B’s: Yeah, so…… * is just a “project” who probably knows you have “greencards” for Canada and the U.S I guess, you already want to change a lot about him. So does he. It is hard to fall in love, but it’s way harder to get a visa. Use caution with this person but I guess it could work out. I have heard stories. And I have seen things, man.

Mostly C’s: Yes, you are dating *! Congratulations! This could be the real deal! Just be careful though. Take a closer look at that tree he showed you. Maybe yours weren’t the only initials he carved next to his.

“And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.” — Haruki Murakami

Quarantine has, undeniably, turned me into my best and my worst self. Before this pandemic, the future had a somewhat defined shape for me. Now things feel nebulous. At points, I am no longer certain where I would go from here, where the world and the economy go from here, where humanity goes. I don’t think what I valued before will be what I value after. I already have indications that those values have changed. I ask myself why I am suddenly waking up at 6.30 a.m. every day and practicing yoga daily and caring for my body more than ever before. It does not feel like it is just the extra time I have on my hands.

These days, I am taking pictures of trees, magnolias, flowers whose petals are now just beginning to brown at the edges, while feeling grief settles temporarily in my shoulders. Just the way grief does, and from my inability to be inside a store without a face mask. I miss strangers, I miss bodies, I miss festivals, I miss readings and real lectures at my university, I miss the moments of getting no seat on the subway, I miss going to work. I also noticed that I have the weirdest dreams lately. I guess due to my weird sleep cycle. It is universally understood that to talk about your own dreams is entertaining, while listening attentively to someone else talk about their dreams for more than 2 minutes is next to impossible. Having said that, quarantine dreams seem to hold my interest a beat longer than dreams would in average circumstances.

These days, my dreams seem to be brimming with extra weirdness and symbolism. I dreamt for example that I packed my suitcase for a trip to (ha!) Italy while the plane was already taxiing on the tarmac. I also dream a lot about meeting friends. A couple of nights ago I dreamt I gave birth to a cat in a public restroom at the local movie theater. Why? What would Sigmund Freund say about this? Or this rather Kafkaesque dream of me being taken to prison for not wearing my face mask. At the prison, it turned out that it’s not a prison but an insane asylum like in the movie Shutter Island. And I am here because I killed everyone at the local grocery store. Did I just deposit my weird coronavirus-era dreams into a virtual dream catcher?

But these weird dreams may occur because my sleep-cycle is completely off. During the week I used to go to bed at around 11 p.m. and woke up at 6 a.m. Maybe a 30-minute interlude wedged somewhere before of after. I used to sleep deeply without waking up and felt rested when waking up. On weekends I stayed up later and slept in which was fine, too. These days, I tend to sleep in a weird rhythm. Two hours just after 1 a.m., another two between 5 a.m. and 6.30 a.m. I sleep in chapters, in fragments. These days, there is no softness or continuity. Even with this messed up sleep cycle, however, I exist among the living in this new Corona world. In the morning I get dressed, I brush my teeth and get ready without going anywhere in particular. At night, when my son is asleep, I am this other thing, disenfranchised from the swell of standard human behavior. Caught in an expanse of hours that contain writing but no routines and obligations.

I continue to function, more or less, according to the rules of social normalcy. I am okay with the fact that, currently, I am a broken biological clock, a circadian rhythm sans metronome. The world is crazy these days. My sleep rhythm is weird and crazy but this is what it is. In fact, it’s become something of an asset. I have the luxury that this sleeplessness guarantees me something exclusive: a unique, thoroughly intimate relationship with myself. Insomnia and I have become friends, even. We pass the time together and all of it reframes the night until things get back to “normal” again. For now, not sleeping is simply more interesting to my body than attempting to sleep. I savor the extra time to read, to write or to work on my dissertation. Or to prepare elaborate midnight-snacks that I won’t consume alone. Especially if it is something with chocolate.

I have gone through worse, but I have never been a better version of myself. Corona seems like a condition of the world we are forced to live in now, and it may last for longer than I am prepared to handle. But I will power through that, too. Maybe you, too can give yourself the space to let your multitudes exist and offer them compassion: the good, the bad, and the turbulence in between. What? That’s crazy.

A couple of days ago, when we were on what felt like our hundredth walk of the day, I asked my son a question….

“What are your top 5 most favourite restaurant meals?”

I find that asking a child a “Top 5” question will usually get the conversation flowing, quarantine or no quarantine, but this time the exercise prompted an hours-long drive down memory lane and around the world. While we walked around, we spoke about the perfect lobster roll we enjoyed at the beach in Connecticut. Or pasta in Spain. Or fries at the public pool in Germany. Or Schnitzel in Austria. It felt therapeutic talking about the restaurants we miss and the time we spent at my parent’s house last year.

Before quarantine started, I would regularly write weekend to-do lists that in retrospect seem to have encapsulated the most ambitious pursuit of the person I wanted (or thought I wanted) to be. I am really trying here. Among the usual asterisks to populate the to-do list were art projects using natural ingredients such as coconut flour to make Play-Doh and turmeric to dye it. The desire to read (to him) a lot. More tidying exercises be it for the bookshelf, a pantry, his room, and of course, there is always this weird desire to cook or bake something. These days, whenever I set out to cook, a deluge of excuses would interrupt the effort: Don’t waste the chicken soup. You just had lunch. For this recipe, we just need too many ingredients so let’s go to the store. This seems too complicated to bake. Can you relate? I am just so f****** tired of cooking. I used to love cooking. I used to, before Corona.

I am not into fashion at all but what I am realizing now is that cooking is not so different from it in that anyone can do it. From the outside, it seems so damn intimidating, like it is impossible to break in, but eventually, you realize the only barrier to entry is yourself. As far as fashion goes I guess you just have to be proud that you like to wear clothes, and then wear them. To get good at cooking, you just have to try. Then you keep trying and definitely will fuck up, over and over, until you learn the language and boom: a new skill is born.

I didn’t always enjoy cooking but I love healthy food and trying new things. It is way less soul-crushing than I thought it would be. Worst case scenario: Just toss it in the garbage. All I am really doing is chopping shit up, then assembling it and turning on fire. Sometimes, without fire. Just as fresh as it gets. Really, that is it. To be clear, I am usually exclusively making very easy recipes. I love recipes with fewer ingredients that don’t require ten special spices that are not in my pantry. I need something simple, fast, and nutritious. My son and I are dairy-free, eat less meat (and if, just local, organic meat), enjoy more plant-based meals, and local fish once in a while. Which we actually had yesterday. Food always tastes better if someone else cooks it for you. Someone who knows how to enhance the flavor by adding a bit of white wine and a mountain of butter to fry those fishies. Of course, while drinking wine. And talking.

I love vegetables but my son sticks to what he knows. If you have questions regarding food and how to feed your kids veggies, send me an email or leave a comment below and I will help you out. I am a Certified Holistic Nutritionist and have a healthy collection of simple, approachable breakfasts, snacks, lunches, and dinners that they will enjoy and appreciate. Instead of getting frustrated that your child does not get excited about a kale salad, how about you flip the script. What do they like? And how can you add veggies into that? My son loves meals between bread. I would like to share his favorite veggie burger.

Vegan Veggie Burgers

(Makes 6 patties)

8 oz. (250g) mushrooms, cleaned and well chopped
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic
1 egg
1 tablespoon tamari or soy sauce
1 cup cooked (brown) rice
2 tablespoons flax seeds
1/4 cup oats
salt, pepper and whatever herbs you desire
(I love to add 1 tsp. chili powder and fresh parsley)
3 medium-size potatoes (just grate those uncooked)
1 cup cooked black beans, drained well

How to:

I use avocado or coconut oil for cooking. In a medium pan, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the chopped mushrooms, onion and garlic, along with a pinch of salt. Sauté for a moment, then leave it all undisturbed for a few minutes, so the mushrooms release their water. Sauté again, until browned in some parts and excess water has evaporated. Set aside to cool completely and add into a large bowl. Add the egg, tamari, rice, flax seeds, oats, 1/2 tsp. salt, chili powder, and herbs and then (with your hand) you mix, mix, mix your Corona anger out. Mix, mix, mix your anger out. Mix, mix, mix your anger out. Add grated sweet potatoes, black beans, and cooled mushrooms for another minute until everything is in tiny pieces.

Set aside mixture. Add some coconut oil into large pan and preheat. Now start forming the mixture into patties. If they are too sticky, add some flour. Pan-fry and turn patties in pan until golden brown on both sides.

To Assemble:

Use any bun or bread you desire. I like whole-wheat sourdough buns or English muffins. Then I add avocado slices, lettuce, cheese slices or a bit of tomato sauce. Leftovers make an awesome lunch in a lettuce wrap with some avocado and tomatoes.

Booooaaawne app-uh-teet!

Stay Sane. Stay Happy. Stay Healthy.