An Intimate Look at a Twenty-Somethings Grocery List

There are few things so painfully emblematic of being a mid-twenty something than the grocery list pictured above. So, for the sake of shits and giggles, lets take a minute to examine this list and what it says about me.


Item number 1: Pumpkin Cream Cold Brew. For the slower folks in the audience, it is now obvious that I am a white woman. And do you know what? This drink was delicious, 100% worth the 2.50 I spent on it.


Item number 2: Flirt with the guy in the deli. TBH, this whole list was sort of an excuse to go to the store so that I could DO THIS THING. He wasn’t there.


Item number 3: yogurt. I get these store-brand raspberry flavored yogurts with chocolate chips in the flip-top. They’re really cheap and yummy. Also, *healthier* than ice cream, so you can tell I’ve started tracking my food again.


Item number 4: bolthouse smoothies. Yep, I sure did misspell that when I wrote this list. See above: I’m tracking my food again. The only flavors I like are the daily greens and blueberry goodness, and if I’m short on either veggies or a fruit one day, I’ll just chug one of these and put it into my app.


Item number 5: goldfish. Because I am still a child at heart, I get the colors.


Item number 6: raisins. Not as healthy a choice as you think, because I got the dark-chocolate covered ones to satisfy my daily craving for chocolate.


Item number 7: popcorn. The goldfish and raisins were part of a buy five save five sale (the only reason I let myself by the raisins. They’re 3.49 without the sale!) and I needed two more items to get the sale. So I got the smartfood sea salt flavor popcorn.


Item number 8: parsley. I actually got out to my car and realized I’d forgotten this! It’s for a recipe I wanted to try, so I ran back in to get it.


It just goes to show how much one can learn from a grocery list. What does your grocery list look like? What can you tell about yourself form it, and what could others tell about you from it? How do you think mine will look different a year or five years from now?

Abiogenesis; or, The Beginning of Something New

Abiogenesis bugs me.

According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, abiogenesis is “the idea that life arose from nonlife”. Sure, okay. Life started here on earth, right? We know this, we’re the living proof. But let’s, for a minute, just break down the word abiogenesis.

The prefix a- means “without” or “not”. It indicates the absence of whatever it is prefacing. ANd then there's “bio” originating from Greek and meaning “relating to life”. And finally, there's genesis, which means a beginning of something.

absence + life + beginning

Roughly, we’re talking about the absence of life beginning life.

I like the word, really I do. I think it’s a great word that indicates its meaning really, really well.

What I don’t like is having no idea or explanation for abiogenesis. At some point in earth’s past, there was not life. And then, there was. Why? What happened? There aren’t even really any theories to explain it. Even if we don’t know for sure (which, to be clear, we rarely do) I want an idea that I can throw my weight behind and say (You know? That sounds right enough? I’ll believe it and my narrative will make sense with it.”

That’s what I want. I want a story.

The thing is, the rocks I collected as a kid aren’t suddenly going to become alive in the box where they sit under my bed. That’s not in the nature of the things. Things that aren’t in motion don’t start moving without causes. That’s just not how it works.

So, I’m starting a new blog. This might be the beginning of a new life. And it might seem to be coming from nowhere to the outside observer. But I can tell you, there are a myriad of things behind the scenes that are causing this. So maybe that’s the point of abiogenesis? A lot of little things added up over a really long time until at some point, inorganic compounds were moved to life.

Oh well, it’ll do for now.