Breakup Pancakes

Make pancakes while you break up with your girlfriend. While pancakes are essential, girlfriends aren't. Eat the ones left over ten days later, frozen in a smashed together silo, inseperable. Heat them in a pan with lots of butter, serve with frozen lemon yogurt, slivered almonds. Realize you're a genius. Realize there are two ways to live. Well, three. Well, many; let's say two. The first: everything around you could be out to get you and your life could be bad. Very bad. Look at all the bad things that happen. Things break. Things are lost. Things are stolen. And even the police can be bad. They are rude, dismissive, belitting. They say, "Oh, you're upset? Why don't you go to talk to your boyfriend about it?" These things are bad. Yet. Yet.

Believing in bad breeds badness. Believing in badness inflates it with air, affirms it; its badness.

There's a second way to be. Become a master of interpretation.

You don't need a girlfriend. Your iPhone was distracting. Your laptop, distracting. Leave it on a plane in Cleveland. The chauvinist policeman, a reminder of your feminine strength. The people who call you a fool are foolish themselves. These pancakes are delicious. They are symbolic of nothing. Your stolen phone, leaving you untethered, symbolizes everything. You are a master of interpretation. These pancakes really are the best you've ever had. The world is beautiful, and delicious. You love pancakes. You love life. These pancakes are delicious.