Inchoate (It’s apt, plus I’ve always wanted to use that word.)

I was lying in bed with my honey one night, farting around on the Internet while he flipped channels. Every so often, I casually mentioned a recipe I’d come across. Because I, the vegan, do 99.9% of the cooking for us, I want to make meals my meat-and-potatoes man will enjoy—so I’m always talking about food. 

There’s also the fact that I am completely obsessed with food—so much so I’m fairly certain I have a tapeworm. I think about breakfast while I’m in bed at night. I think about lunch while I’m enjoying breakfast. I think about supper while I’m wolfing down lunch. And I pretty much fantasize about snacks all day. 

Needless to say, mama’s always wearing a really fabulous eatin’ dress.

A few minutes later, I came across an image of a tiny piglet and squealed so loud that I’m pretty sure my mama heard me from two states away. Before I could even shriek “Baby!” to get his attention, my love asks “What is it? A picture of a lesbian holding a puppy while she eats a salad?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” I asked, laughing.

“‘Animal, vegetable, vaginal’ is what I’m talking about,” he said. “Damn near every time you get on the computer, you can bet you’re looking at something to do with animals, vegan food, or feminism.”

It only took a second for me to realize he was right. I am constantly online, essentially jerking off to recipes, restaurant reviews, and pictures of food. I’m still feeling the effects of the carpal tunnel I gave myself over the Landreth Seed Catalog. Like a woman torn between lovers, I grew weak from the two days it took me to pare down my heirloom tomato seed order to the 8 varieties I simply could not live without. And that was just the tomatoes.

When I’m not obsessing over vegetables, I’m reading about animal welfare or looking at pictures of animals. Otherwise, I’m reading about the latest assaults on women’s rights or our latest political or ideological achievements. 

So this is it. While Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle was the story of her family’s deliberate foray into the locavore movement, Animal Vegetable, Vaginal is, to borrow Kingsolver’s words, my “part memoir, part journalistic investigation” into my three biggest obsessions. There will likely be some deviation here and there, but that’ll be interesting, too.

Welcome to Animal, Vegetable, Vaginal.