fishy thoughts

Before I do any real writing, I submit to you this:

An Open Letter to Dr. Laura: Why can't I own Canadians?

And now that that's done, on with the show.

I'm in a mood to rant a little today, partly because I'm starving and partly because I have a dentist appointment tomorrow to clean my teeth. The starvation is the more pressing of the two, since my stomach acid has already eaten through my stomach lining and is getting to work on my spine. On the other hand, the dentist visit is something that can't be solved except with time and is therefore more irritating, like pain that hasn't quite graduated to full-blown agony yet but is only one credit short.

That said, I have very little in my life to rant about. As a few random encounters last night reminded me: all in all, I'm doing pretty well. I have a job that pays well -- 15% less well than it was when I started, but still better than my old job -- and treats me with, if not respect, at least an impartial, impersonal malice. I have an apartment with heat, a roof that doesn't leak, quiet neighbors, an outstanding landlord/building manager, and more toys for my entertainment than Walt Disney World. I have a roommate I like, who is never there and therefore gives me fairly free rein. I have a boyfriend I wouldn't kick out of bed unless he were eating crackers (in my own defense, crackers on flannel sheets are a bitch) who makes me laugh.

I have teeth that would be perfect if my sister hadn't nailed me in the face one day with a baseball. Or a rock. I have my eyesight. I have, relatively speaking, my health; I'm in no pain or discomfort that isn't of my own making. I have all five limbs -- I count my head because I can use it to bang on things -- and all my fingers. I have all my internal organs, love my family, and have friends I love and respect. I have no grudges against any person, always excepting Dubya (though that's another story altogether). I am not oppressed, repressed, controlled, or abused in any way. I have no mental illnesses, and as many people will tell you, am a ludicrously happy person.

All in all, I'm one of the most fortunate people in the world.

Believe me, I know it.

In the abstract, I do not have any particular objections to fish. It has been, traditionally, one of the primary sources of protein for the Japanese people, who have never had the ostentatious amount of acreage more fortunate people have had for breeding cattle. Tracing back through the genetic line, I probably owe my ultimate well-being and existence to the fact that the waters around Japan were bountiful and generous. The Japanese, I think it's safe to say, have made a virtue out of necessity when it comes to a primarily piscatorian diet. There are few things involving fish that have not been explored in depth and with fanatical vigor by Japanese artists, chefs, and craftsmen; we are a tenacious race after all, and given the limited entertainments of a small island -- sex, war, and suicide -- eventually one starts to go a little bit mad.

What baffles me therefore, is why people (and I don't exclude the Japanese themselves in this) seem to assume that simply because one is Japanese, one will therefore like fish. My parents were under the delusion that I should like fish because I have Japanese blood in me; I remind my mom from time to time that I don't like fish, and she's consistently surprised, baffled, and I think almost hurt.

"You don't like trout?" she says, surprised. "Why don't you like trout?"

"I don't like fish, Mom."

"Just try a little," she'll encourage, and wave a baked fish under my nose. As per Japanese tradition, the head will still be attached, and viscous white eyes will stare reproachfully at me from under my chin. "You'll like it."

"You don't like halibut?" she says, baffled. "Why don't you like halibut?"

"I don't like fish, Mom."

"Just try a little," she'll encourage, and again a gaping, blind-eyed fish will be waved under my nose. "You'll like it."

"You don't like smelt?" she says, hurt. "Why don't you like smelt?"

In my own defense, there are very few foods that I don't like. The majority of the foods that I've found I don't like have been things the College Boy bade me try back when I was working at Excite@Home. These were strange, unidentifiable objects that he'd picked out of bins in San Francisco's Chinatown, curious tubs covered with flies placed next to buckets of gloomy frogs and squirming turtles. I felt both justified and righteous in not liking those things.

Fish, on the other hand, is not so much an issue of principle as it is of overexposure. One night when I was pretty young, 8 or 9 years old, my parents jolted both me and my sister out of sleep, bundled us up in warm winter clothes, and hauled us to the car. In the back of the car were giant fishnets, several buckets, and garbage bags.

I don't remember the drive; I don't remember where we went, although my notoriously flaky memory thinks it was Turtle Lake. My parents were extraordinarily excited. Apparently, the smelt were in the lake doing some smelty thing, and my parents wanted to eat them.

For the next half hour or so, my parents waded into the lake, scooped haphazardly with their nets, and came up with pound after pound of wriggling, irritated smelt. By the time they were done, the back of the car was full; my disconcerted sister and I watched, occasionally poking a squirmy, slimy fish, only to run away shrieking when it squirmed and slimed.

The end result of this was smelt every day in every way for the next three years. We had pickled smelt, broiled smelt, baked smelt, fried smelt, marinated smelt, sauteed smelt, boiled smelt, braised smelt. We had smelt with lemons, smelt with vinegar, smelt with sauce, smelt in sauce, smelt with rice, smelt with soup, smelt with tofu, smelt with vegetables. We had smelt sandwiches, smelt dinners, smelt for breakfast, smelt for snacks. For three years, almost every meal included smelt, until the very sight or whiff of a fish would make me vomit.

My mother, who has a forgiving memory, has reduced those entire three years to one meal. "That was good smelt," she says dreamily.

"You don't like fish?" She's always taken aback by this, as though every time I tell her is the first time she's heard it. "Why don't you like fish?"

I don't like fish.