Tomato soup never gave up on me. Once every couple of years growing up, the idea would get stuck in my head, “Boy would some tomato soup be delicious right now,” (except that I never really spoke in that tone, inner monologue or not.) But I would be eating at my Grandma’s, like I did more days than not, and the urge would come over me to ask her if I could have some tomato soup with dinner. I would imagine how delicious the warm orange coating would be going down my throat. I’d picture the line of identical Andy Warhol Campbell’s cans in the grocery store and decide that it only made sense that one of them was a good match for me, since there weren’t any other kinds of soup I’d request. And I’d wonder, “How have I gone without tomato soup for so long?” Asking my Grandma for it didn’t just seem like a move toward instant gratification, it felt like the first step on a journey: my new life with tomato soup.
By the time I ate it though—wait, do you eat soup or drink it? This kind of thing drives me crazy. I feel like I eat something if I use a utensil the whole time I consume it. But once I pick it up and slurp it, it’s officially drinking. Like after I eat my cereal, I drink the leftover milk from the bowl. I’m trying to make this grand orchestration of a point about how I convinced myself time and again that I wanted tomato soup, only to realize that I had no particular taste for it whatsoever. And yet all my brain can think about is whether or not soup gets eaten or drunk. I suppose that’s fitting. We become so convinced and focused on what we’re certain that we want that we become distracted from things that start to genuinely matter to us.
But that’s just how it is. I spend two nights in a row watching DVDs of TV shows I rented and I begin to wonder if it’s time to go back to school and get my Masters, studying television—and really sinking my teeth into it, not half-assing it this time. I once made a pledge to myself that I would stop talking about ideas that I had of things that I hadn’t yet done. I could only talk about what I’ve accomplished. But that’s just another idea that sounds better than it works out. When I was getting ready to take my train trip this summer, it was thrilling to have something to talk about with just about anyone I encountered. People were always eager to plot out with me what route I was thinking of taking, what sorts of places I would stay in, and how I’d spend my time on the train. Everyone loves the sense of possibility. In a way, people almost feel like maybe they are gonna take that trip with me. They start co-navigating as if they need to think about what they’ll wanna get up to in Madison while I’m off lingering outside Lorrie Moore’s door. And you know what, maybe they will join me. There’s nothing saying they absolutely can’t.
But after you slurp that bowl of tomato soup, that’s it. ‘So how was it?’ Oh, not as good as I expected. It was kind of plain actually. I don’t even think I finished it all. So honestly, I’m not sure whether I’m an official tomato soup slurper or not.
‘But it’s definitely ’slurp’?’
‘Yeah, I think I’m pretty stuck on slurp.’
‘Well at least we have that.’
Tags: futurism
