Tonight my aunt took my family out to a fancy restaurant on Harbor Island and my parents shared a large paella. Like most paella dishes, it looked super impressive and gorgeous. But when I tried some, it was alright. I realized I have this over-idealized concept of paella, and feel like I should love it because everyone raves about it. On a similar note, my pastor once offered me a green vegetable smoothie that I immediately snubbed, but later gave it a chance and was pleasantly surprised that it was delicious (is there a lesson here?). Thus I have been inspired to list a few things that I tend to like the idea of more than the reality, and vice versa.
Things I like the idea of more than the actual thing:
1. Paella - Every now and then on Reddit, someone will post a picture of a giant paella dish that their father/grandfather/uncle cooked for their neighborhood/company/entire extended family, and there will be hundreds of comments on how "that looks sooooo good." It also seems like paella is always the most popular thing at every farmer's market. I even stole this picture from Wikipedia to showcase how paella is a visually pleasing dish, especially if you like seafood.
But eating it? Eh. I think I personally just don't like most moist rice dishes (the same goes for risotto, which is another thing everyone seems to love). The saffron gives it a nice color, but I don't really care for it. Also, every time I think about saffron, I remember the great drama on Top Chef season 2 between saffron king Ilan and the wolverine Marcel. Oh, good times...
2. Traveling - Okay, I'm not saying I hate traveling, but rather that my expectations seem to exceed what actually happens, and I forget that traveling involves fatigue, illness, and blisters. I'm sure this is influenced by people telling me how excited they are for me, or how jealous they are of my life. In reality, I'm just going somewhere to take some pictures and spend a lot of money on food. I also prefer to travel by myself and not do anything too crazy, so maybe if I found myself a travel buddy and YOLOed more often (another sketchy European night club???) things might change haha.
3. Alcohol - At the ripe old age of 23, I have pretty much given up on trying to like alcohol. I do like the bitter aftertaste of hard liquors in mixed drinks, but nothing else. It's expensive and I don't enjoy the warm, "loosening up" feeling that comes with it. Alcohol is one of those grown up things I should strive towards liking (like coffee), but I'll stick to my milk tea, thanks.
4. Binging on television shows - I like the idea of watching TV because it gives me stuff to talk about with people, but I just can't shake the feeling that it wastes so much time. The only time I can recall binging on a show was when I went through 4 or 5 seasons of Mad Men, but that was when I was knitting and needed something to make it less boring. I kind of grew to enjoy watching a lot of TV when I was in grad school because one of my good friends would always want to watch something whenever he hung out with people, but I never fully embraced it. I do still mooch off his Netflix account, though, so that's nice.
Things I like more than the idea of:
1. The beach - Yup, I am a native San Diegan who hates the beach. It's too sunny and you need sunscreen and sand is gross and the wind blows sand in your face and it smells and you just get so dirty. I find nothing appealing about baking in the sand and chilling. But every time I begrudgingly agree to go to the beach (usually for the sake of fellowship), I feel refreshed and productive. And I guess cleaning sand off isn't THAT unpleasant. I really do think I am blessed to live near a beautiful and relaxing coast.
2. Games - For those of you who know me in real life, y'all know that I'm never down to play games. Board games, video games, group games, sports games... just... no... stop... go away. So of course what ends up happening is I'm coerced into playing because 1.) there aren't enough players or 2.) I can't come up with a good enough excuse. But it's okay because I do end up having fun (my current favorite is Ghost Mansion Party on Wii hehehe).
3. Smartphones - I resisted getting a smartphone for the longest time because I didn't feel a particular need for such an advanced phone. But eventually I got sick of carrying around both a phone and an iPod, and being unable to spontaneously go anywhere without planning out my route first. I still don't use my phone to it's maximum potential, but I love how organized it makes me feel! All my texts are saved, I can read my Feedly feeds in the morning to help me wake up, and I can easily upload/send/transfer images if I need to. Spotify has made boring chores so enjoyable that I actually volunteer to do them. Also, I downloaded this offline travel map that saved my life when I was in Europe. I don't think I could have gotten around with just a paper map, especially with all the confusing streets.
But as a tribute to my old dumb phone, here's an awesome picture from 2013 when I was driving around LA with one of my friends. The picture (taken from my P&S) shows his phone (we had the same phone back then), my poorly drawn map, and his iPod touch (connected to my car). We joked that with our powers combined, we almost had the same capabilities as a smartphone. This will be a great "back in the day" story in the future :)
4. Cooking - I think cooking is one of those "ugh activation energy is too high" sort of things. But once I get over the slump of laziness, I do enjoy it quite a bit. I've been doing weekly cooking adventures with another unemployed friend of mine, so that has been fun.
