No accounting for taste

I ate oatmeal for the first time today. I found a packet of maple and brown sugar instant oatmeal in a cabinet while cleaning, left behind by a former roommate. The expiration date said it was still good so I thought, why not? I'm sure you're thinking, oatmeal, whoop-dee freakin doo, but I've always hated oatmeal, especially as a kid. I found it slimy, mushy, very reminiscent of the gruel served at the home for orphaned boys in Oliver Twist. Ewwww.

But today, while writing in my journal (the "blog" that no one gets to see), I pondered how tastes change over time. As a kid I hated potato salad or anything else prepared with mayonnaise and I found bread crust so disgusting that I would peel if off my sandwich and stuff it around the edge of my plate (as if my mother would somehow never find it there). I died at the thought of putting cheese on my hamburgers. Once my brother and I tried to flush our cheerios down the toilet because, hello?...cheerios didn't come pre-sweetened. Dammit, how dare you Mom! A note to all: Cheerios don't flush, they float, so imagine our surprise when mom's angry voice interrupted our Saturday morning cartoons.

I also think about the things I used to love to eat. White bread, spaghetti-o's--pretty much anything canned by Chef Boy-Ardee or Franco American, Crunch Berries cereal, and Kool-Aid. Oh Kool-Aid, as a child no one could could convince me that there was anything finer to drink on the face of the earth.

My taste in food is not the only thing that has changed. I grew up listening to all my mother's favorite music, Earth Wind and Fire, Stevie Wonder and the Parliment Funkadelic. Then I met my friend Leigh who convinced me nothing would be greater than to move to London and be a part of the fledgling punk scene--all purple haired, studded belts, and safety pins in our ears. Oi!! I probably would've given my left arm to have a boyfriend with a nose ring and a mohawk. Then I moved on to the 80's hair bands; Motley Crew, Poison, Ratt, Cinderella--you name it, I loved it. It's probably good that I was too young to party back then or I woulda been one coked out groupie slut. Then I made the change to hip-hop. My first cassette tapes were Run DMC, 'Tougher than Leather' and Salt-n-Pepa, 'A Salt wit a deadly Pepa'. I played those tapes till they popped and my love of hip-hop stayed with me for a long time--hell, it's still with me today. In 1998 I discovered electronic music; jungle, drum and bass, HOUSE...too many genres to name. I became very much entrenched in the rave scene: the drugs, the parties, the clubs, the DJ's and the people.

All the while the music I listened to influenced my clothes. I always felt the need to dress the part. I was punk, metal, raver, candy. When I listened to nothing but hip-hop hardly a day went buy that I wasn't rockin baggy jeans, Timbs, and a polo or some kind of T-shirt--hoodies in the winter of course. Oh yeah, don't forget the ever present backpack and headphones.

Now, I'm just me. Parts of all these things have rolled up into what is now Maisha. I still hate potato salad or anything else prepared with mayonnaise, but bread crust is no big deal. White bread, canned pasta, and kool-aid are now on my top ten list of things to never eat and or drink ever again, but cheese on my hamburgers is essential. My music collection now consists of so many varying artists that it's hard to pin down a favorite genre. I must say I like what I've become.

Oh yeah, back to the oatmeal. It was good. Still a bit slimy and mushy but not nearly as gruelish as I recall. I think I learned the trick that less water equals more to my liking. Who knew?