There are a lot of ways pictures can both represent and distort reality. Take this one for instance. It is a plate of food on a bed. You see that the bed does not have sheet. Because I am a bachelor without a lady in my life and I am so incredibly lazy that I have not bothered to put sheets on. You will also notice the plate- cheap but effective.
Finally, your eyes will come to the food. It may look like a dinner right out of a package that you can easily buy at the grocery store. But far from it. Eyes will stray across the cheese- cheese that I added at the last minute. Cheddar because that's the only thing I have; the only cheese I bother to carry because again, I am alone, why do I need to carry multiple cheeses? Cheddar is solidly American, a man's cheese, a sharp cheese.
The vegetables, stir-fry, that again I added in the last moments because I wanted to be at least sort of healthy. The bread, too, came late. Organic honey bread that I bought even though I am not a hippy bear.
You will observe the chicken. What is there to tell about? Nothing much, really. You cannot see the marinade I put it in. You cannot see that this tasted actually good. You will notice that it is not a koolaid purple like my last attempt with chicken. But you will not notice how I prepared it- that I took about 1/5th of my light Italian dressing, poured that into a plastic bag, took about an equal amount of white wine and poured that in the ziplock bag and then tossed the chicken in there before taking my California Lemon Peel spice container and tossing some carelessly onto the chicken.
Finally, what you cannot see is the look on my face as I taste the chicken. You certainly have read about my lack of taste buds but you will not be able to register my satisfying expression as I note, for a split second, lemon, wine and surprise, an overtone of Italian dressing or as I suck delightfully on the tender meat.
And most importantly of all, you will not- and cannot know- my feeling of delayed gratification- that I was so tempted to go to the CAC or the Bowling Alley after the gym because I was so hungry- but stayed the course and made an actually decent meal.
The picture shows many things but it certainly cannot show you that. Or the feeling of a job well done.
The End.
YAY! :)
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