Salty-Ass Steak

When I was telling the story to family members of my recent trip to Pittsburgh, my five-year-old niece, who happened to be listening (you can’t get anything by her these days), said, “Andrew, that’s because he needs money for food.” Her ability to comprehend and appreciate emotional intricacies is far beyond the average adult. I should go back. 

The whole thing feels like income and bills and over time, the complexity and frequency of those dynamics seem to do nothing but grow. You must keep income coming. A friend asked the other night: “How are you going to make money? You have to make money.” He hit the nail on the head about life. There is rent, insurance, groceries, utilities, phone, car, doctor, dentist, dermatologist, neurologist, therapist, and I’m sure I could think of at least a dozen other things that seem to drain my wallet. There is no alternative unless you drop out. 

At first, I didn’t mean to not earn income in my twenties per se. In fact, thinking back, I really did want to earn income. I was really stressed about income. I wanted income to come but no income came. So I tried many things far and wide. Still, no income came. Then I met someone who had income. She always had it so she gave me some of hers: she paid for everything. And then we broke up and the problem returned. 

Then I found some internet jobs for ten years or so. I found each of them more unbearable than the last. I had to talk about the internet all day in meetings. I was supposed to design the internet but mostly, we just talked about it. And so here I am. I was laid off again from an internet job and have been considering if I should keep looking for internet jobs. But still, no matter what, the income question must be answered. It seems to me that the more you look for it the more you won’t get it. That’s what I’ve observed. When I’ve stopped looking for it in the past, it actually was coming after me. When I was living at a zen monastery, the head abbess wanted me to design her internet. The funny thing about the internet is that everyone has a little bit of it and they always want you to help them with their internet. 

I often wonder about the emphasis out there that one should find their passion, love their job, and align oneself with the so-called mission of an organization. An article, or Steve Jobs quote for that matter, about finding your passion is just about the easiest thing to find on the internet: you’ve got to find your “why,” brand yourself, become an influencer, an expert. What a privilege it is to do so. Of the 8.1 billion people, it must be a sliver of the population that can equate passion with career. 

The trend of late though seems to be going anti-passion in your job, that you should or could find the same amount of meaning in a hobby. Best of all, you might even avoid stress and burnout since you essentially, being somewhat aloof, leave all the hard work for those overachievers. 

Even then, the idea of any passion is really just a dream, put into pursuit, eagerly climbing and progressing towards a goal in order to put into the background the difficulty and monotony of daily living. It also suggests to me that you still have the advantage of free time to develop some kind of leisurely activity. But what about those without dreams? And how many of those dreams were crushed so young that the only chance of any kind of pursuit is pure survival? 

In downtown Pittsburgh, at roughly 10pm on a Monday night, I was carrying my fishing gear from the garage back to the hotel. It was a short three blocks. Halfway through, I woke on the pavement on the corner of Smithfield and 5th Ave with a man rummaging through my pockets and yelling in my face, “You took my money motherfucker!” 

My initial reaction that evening when I got back to the hotel of course was that I wanted to stab the guy. I was pissed. I had never been sucker punched before, nor even knocked out, and was in shock. In retrospect, I probably should have considered the hospital. I didn’t really notice the pain in my jaw until the next morning. The anxiety and depression that follow from a concussion are also somewhat delayed but ineluctable. 

But even that night, some empathy was creeping in. He had half a dozen teeth left at most, was bedraggled beyond belief, and I would assume, hadn’t slept in days or at least not well (and for that matter, he probably hadn’t slept well in years). In short, the guy was most likely suffering from mental illness and who knows what else given the external situations that must consistently exist when you’re without a home. I’ll say this though, you sure don’t need a home to throw a good hook. The bastard licked me good. 

I have no money to give him for food since I have no income. I’m sure he figured that out pretty quickly since he found nothing on me other than fishing rods, boots, and a net with a wooden handle that he broke over my head. Instead, I’ve decided to dedicate a recipe to him, hungry as he might be as my niece has pointed out, since the only useful thing I know how to do is cook (and design internet). If you live in Pittsburgh, kindly cook the following steak and leave it on the corner of Smithfield and 5th Ave for me. I’m sure he’ll find it. 

Salty-Ass Steak 
(feeds one hungry a**hole)

1 - Purchase a thick ribeye (like 2 inches)
2 - Pat the steak dry with paper towels and salt liberally. Wait 20 minutes
3 - Pat dry, salt, wait 20 minutes
4 - Turn your grill on high heat
5 - Pat dry and salt one last time and throw on the grill once it’s heated properly
6 - Flip every minute for several minutes until preferred doneness 

If you could go ahead and serve him some greens and maybe a sweet potato, that would be wonderful.