There’s a ketchup packet on the bottom shelf of my fridge – the solid, plastic shelf above the crisper drawers where I would store fruits and vegetables if I had fruits and vegetables. There was a time in US bureaucratic history and policy when the USDA was considering classifying ketchup and pickle relish as vegetables for school lunches. This particular ketchup packet wasn’t part of my attempt to introduce more vegetables into my diet. It’s left over from the fries and cheesesteak I ordered last night. It is, in some ways, a representation of my desire not to waste perfectly useful condiments… but more than anything, as I open the fridge to get out the butter (vegetable spread that’s technically not margarine but pretty close to it) for my morning ritual of frozen waffles and coffee, the ketchup packet is a symbol and reminder of my bachelorhood: an empty-ish fridge where the bottom shelf has 9 beers neatly lined up, two by two on one side and one ketchup packet, faced-side down on the the other. This is the fridge of someone who lives alone (and hasn’t gotten groceries for the week). It’s sparse, cavernously empty. The tiny light shines brightly and unobstructed in every direction.
This is how I start my day. The sky is gray and misty. The air is cool. A crow on nearby rooftop caws at the top of his or her crow lungs. A garbage truck rackets and rumbles, clangs and grumbles outside as it hauls away the city’s refuse. And I’m meditating on the ketchup packet I tossed into the fridge after dinner before my evening walk.
It’s 7am. I’ve been up for a little over an hour. As I tried to recall the circumstances surrounding classifying ketchup as a vegetable, I got sidetracked reading an excerpt from Dan Quayle’s memoir in which he explains the infamous misspelling of potato(e) incident. This is also part of my morning: hopping down small rabbit holes – thankful in my ability to turn around and find my way back.
I’m hoping the sun comes out, but I’m more than ok if it doesn’t. The digital book I borrowed from the library, A Short History of San Francisco, gets returned this afternoon at 3:52pm. I still have 80 pages to go. I’ll feel less guilty spending my day reading if it’s cool and gray and misty out. I need to get groceries. I should have more than a ketchup packet and some beer in my fridge. I think I’ll cook up some bolognese this afternoon. Maybe I’ll fold the laundry – laundry that I did yesterday and dumped on the bed and then dumped back into the basket when it was time to go to sleep and I was faced with a mountain of laundry on the bed. This, too, is a symbol of my bachelorhood: wrinkled clothes and a sense of indifference to domesticity. It’s not that I don’t have time to fold the laundry or money to buy groceries – it’s just that I’d rather do other things: go on long walks, attend poetry readings and block parties, sit by the water and read. The job, when I get one (and I feel like I’m close), will put more of a premium on my time. It will put into place a sense of regularity and order that has been diminished, if not entirely absent, these past few months.
Until then, I’m learning to not feel guilty about my mornings of contemplation and frivolity. I’m learning to embrace the crooked stack of books on the table by the sofa, the laundry that gets shuffled from basket to bed and back to basket again with the best intentions in mind, and the lone ketchup packet at the bottom of the fridge – the only vegetable in this stripped-down, minimalist existence.