Hell is other people, paradise is a lonely place.

If hell is other people, then paradise is a lonely place

Or

The last kid picked for baseball.

The restaurant I work for is having a party tomorrow. The owners’ parents are throwing it for the owner, who’s getting married. The owners’ mom invited me. She can’t remember my name, but she told me to come.

No one else asked. Not the waitress I fooled around with, not the owner, not the angry drunken pantry cook (who has invited me drinking and who does not want to go,) not the owner.

Not one person asked if I was going except the owners’ mother.

Flash back to being a little kid, when my best friends’ parents ran a home for retards. We didn’t play on the playground; we played way out by the fence: out past the soccer field, out past the baseball diamonds, where all the other kids who were running and playing tag and chase-the-boys and every other fucking thing looked the size of ants.

Sometimes, when it got bad enough, I’d stare at an ant hill and envy the little fuckers. Sure, I could understand that they were preprogrammed drones, but they were preprogrammed drones moving about purposefully, interacting with one another, getting along, and doing something I’d never experienced.

Being part of something. You see, I never got invited to parties back then unless the kids’ mom invited everyone in his grade or something.

In middle school, as my brother started going crazy, it got even more fun. Being poor growing up, I’d always worn whatever happened to be around. Between elementary school and middle school, I shot up from little kid size to pretty much my full height. It helped a lot having an insane older brother, not having developed any social skills or friends, being in a new school, and being physically much different than all of my peers.

I went from being isolated to actively mocked and ostracized.

I started fighting a lot, drinking a lot, hanging out with older kids, getting weird haircuts, I started fitting in with people who were so fucked up they couldn’t tell who they were hanging out with. I never got invited to parties; I just went until someone noticed that an eleven year old was doing a keg stand.

In high school, I started hanging out with smart older kids. They smoked pot and had philosophical conversations. I was their pet punk. I was angrier, drunker, faster to say whatever cut through the bullshit. I fought more; I came to school missing skin on my knuckles.

I had thrown in the ‘getting picked first for baseball hat’ as I came to think of it.

Fuck it, if I’m going to be outside, I’m going way out. All the way out, if I can find a way, and I’m going to burn this whole place down when I find the exit.

Not particularly a healthy way to think, but what the hell, I was a teenager. It’s not a healthy age to be.

I grew up. I refined my technique. Things clicked. I didn’t want to be out, I wanted to be above. I worked hard. I eschewed friends. I moved fast, hit hard. Things refined themselves.

It got better. I got better. I got good. I got above.

I’m still outside, out by the fence, looking back, but fuck it. I’ve got talent. I’ve got drive. I’ve got a soul made of brass.

I got promoted de facto. I got promoted for real. I got recognized; I got up, and held my head up.

I moved up. I got people. They said it’s lonely at the top, but it’s not so bad.

Shit cohered. I found drive. My people got taught. My people got better. I got included in the ranks of people doing a good job. I didn’t get invited to any parties, but I didn’t need too. I had pride in the fact that I wasn’t like them. I was better than them, and I was pushing them to be better, and they pushed themselves hard to be better, because they wanted to be like me.

Shit de-cohered. Things fell apart. No one wanted to be like me. They thought they did, but they couldn’t see inside, where the cogs were grinding and the gears needed oil. The winning streak went on for too long. Things went sideways.

And then, now, working here in god forsaken Fort Meyers, Florida, I am working on a kitchen line again. I’m not the boss, or even the boss’ right hand man, I’m supposed to be part of a well oiled machine, and no one gets my jokes, and the waiters are afraid of me, and someone’s mom has to invite me to the party.

I know it’s just one more thing to get above, but sometimes I just envy the anthill.

And sometimes, when I’m looking down on all those little ants, I want to just fucking annihilate the thing, just as payback for all these long years of getting picked last for baseball.

The part that hurts is just being close enough to know that I wanted in. The part that hates is knowing not now, not ever, will I get in, and that I learned to hate that anthill just to deal with the fact that hell is other people, and paradise is a place that’s way out by the fence, and it’s lonely.

When cooking eggs, get a nonstick skillet of approximately 3” radius for every egg you want to cook. Put 2 oz of clarified butter for each egg in the pan, and turn the heat onto medium. Put your finger in the butter. When you are starting to get uncomfortable with the amount of heat in the pan, remove your finger and wait another thirty seconds or so. Crack your eggs into the pan. If they start to bubble, your pan is too hot. The water in the egg is boiling through the whites, causing craters, and your egg will wind up looking like a Martian landscape. The water needs to evaporate, not boil. They egg should start to go from clear to cloudy to white smoothly. This is the proteins denaturing, contracting like rubber bands in reverse. This is why overcooked eggs are very bouncy.

Let the white cook about a third to halfway through. You should have three “layers” to the egg: the lowest is the broadest layer, then the slightly higher plateau of egg white surrounding the yolk, then the yolk itself. The egg should be submerged to just over the lowest layer in hot butter.

You may notice that the egg is sticking to the pan, even though it’s a nonstick skillet. Turn the heat up higher. You want to blast it a little at this point in time, because the water stuck in the egg white at the bottom of the pan will steam and burst it loose from the pan, so it is floating in the butter.

Grab a spoon, tilt the pan so that the hot butter pools on one side of the pan, and start spooning hot butter over the yolk and remaining white until cooked to desired doneness.

Lift the egg out of the pan with a slotted spatula, so all the excess butter remains in the pan.

Now you have a beautiful and delicious egg.

P.S. Do not salt an egg before you cook it. If you’ve ever killed a slug with salt, you will know what happens to an egg. Salt it after you cook it, so the flavor comes out, but the texture is unchanged.