Thursday, April 05, 2007

Lunch Feats

There are things that are hard to understand that I pretty much grasp, like Standpoint Epistemology, or Gertrude Stein, or Buckwheat. Then there are things that are easy, straightforward, and seemingly impossible to not grasp that stump me. One of these, ladies and gentlemen, is lunch.

You heard me. I don't understand lunch. My whole adult life, I have never quite gotten behind the concept of lunch. I'm telling you, it's the most enigmatic of meals, and it continually looms just outside of my reach. It's maddening.

Breakfast is easy for me. I get into phases where I can just eat the same goldarn thing for brekkers every damn day. Right now, I am in a longstanding grapefruit and oatmeal phase. Day in and day out, I eat grapefruit and oatmeal in the morn, and it makes me happy. I had a Cheerios phase before that. And a hard-boiled egg and toast era before that. Easy peasy. No soul searching required.

Dinner. Also easy. Dinner is the time to mix it up, anything goes, whoo-hoo, crazy time! Hankering for a burrito, or stir fry, or chick pea curry and rice, or ravioli? No problem! Go nuts! Ok, ok, and the truth is, Nordic Boy is the chef of the house, and I seldom have to make my own food choices for dinner. Easy. I eat what I'm broughten, and I like it that way.

But lunch! Why can't I figure this out? Every single day, around midday, I start to feel hungry, and I have NO IDEAS. I'm telling you, this happens to me every day! A sense of confusion comes over me. I don't know what to do. The other day, Biology Girl called me to see what I was doing, and I was walking around, trying to figure out what to do for lunch. Walking around, in my very own neighborhood, where I already know what all the options are, but for some reason, I feel like I have never seen lunch options before in my life. When I finally decide on the grocery store, I wander the aisles. Nothing looks good. Nothing. WHY? I could walk in there five hours later and rustle up a dinner, no problem. I have some sort of lunch block in my synaptic pathways. Maybe I have been hypnotized to go into glassy-eyed confusion whenever the concept of lunch comes up. Because I end up eating a Cliff Bar and an orange on more days than I can count. And I don't really WANT a Cliff Bar and an orange. But at some point I just give up.

What do you guys eat for lunch? Teach me, oh blog-reading, lunch-eating yodas out there. The part of my brain that decides on lunch is missing. Along with the part that understands the metric system.

Kiss the rings, I'm out.
Librarian Girl

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

a sandwich - usually works. Simple, even, traditional. Try ham and cheese, beef and condiment, or veggie of choice. yogurt. bagel. beer. soda. milk or coffee. That usually works for me. . . another librarian

Anonymous said...

My latest kick involves some of those prepackaged, ready-to-eat greens with ranch dressing, sliced almonds, golden raisins and Bacos. (Bacos!) Then I have a turkey sandwich with lite mayo and spicey, stone-ground mustard. Then some kind of sweet and chocolatey thing. Then I am happy.

You can do this. I know you can.

The Kelly Green Rogue said...

oh, lunch is the meal I don't think much about and generally eat on the run. A couple of bits of the leftovers from last night eaten over the sink, two bits from the pineapple in the fridge, a piece cheese, whatever happens to be around. If I'm going really crazy I might eat canned soup in the winter or one of those frozen dinners.

french panic said...

Get Nordic Boy to make more food than for 2. Leftovers!

Anonymous said...

I'm with you. Lunch is confusing. It requires forethought if I'm not going to go out: I have to bring something from home. It's difficult enough getting me out the door in the morning. Me w/ a meal is impossible. So, mostly, diet Coke and a Slim Fast bar. And, if I'm still hungry after that, half a pound of oatmeal raisin cookies from the cookie store in the hospital. Which, of course, more than cancels out the Slim Fast bar and diet Coke. But there you go: lunch is problematic.

Jen Robinson said...

I also find lunch a confounding experience and do the wandering thing . I just never FEEL like anything when it's noon (or 3pm). I feel like breakfast. I feel like dinner. I don't ever feel like lunch, even if my stomach is rumbly. I make up for it by eating breakfast right before work (even if it's 11am), dinner right after work, and lots of snacks instead of a proper lunch. Usually I have granola or some sort of mixed nuts at my desk, and I bring a yogurt to work for one of my breaks. Add a banana at some point during the day and I'm pretty taken care of. I usually spend my lunch break sitting in the easy chair in the break room spacing out in 30 solid minutes of blessed quiet.

srcsmgrl said...

I have pretty much given up, but in the effort to save money and idly walking down aisles in the grocery, I usually stock up on Lean Cuisine (which are yummy) or I bring left overs. Sometimes I even cook a big batch of something I like and freeze it for future lunches.

I am always hungry and can almost always eat. It is a curse.

Anonymous said...

Corn dodgers and stew?

-Neighbor J

Librarian Girl said...

Yes, Neighbor. With a side of a certain type of chutney, please.

Darlene said...

I'm not big on the lunch concept either. I usually do one of two things:
1) Skip breakfast & bring my Vanilla Almond Special K to work and eat it when my stomach starts to growl.
2) Run to Starbucks and get another venti extra hot, non fat caramel macciatto. This usually ties me over until I get home at 3:30 - then as I'm preparing dinner, I'm eating Cheetos out of the jumbo Costco bag....

Anonymous said...

I'm a leftovers girl too. Usually leftovers, fruit and some chocolate.

I'm totally with you on the breakfast phases, too! Right now it's all Special K, all the time.

Anonymous said...

Lance crackers of some sort (peanut butter, or nip-chee or those cheese ones), some Sierra Mist, and the rest of my lunch hour is available for a nap. The nap is much more important than the food.
K

Katie Kiekhaefer said...

Ahh, I am so glad that I am not the only person who can't grasp lunch. I try to bring sandwiches but I always make the same ones, over and over again and then I get bored. And that's when I start eating pop tarts from the vending machine at work.