The first time I ate Indian food, I absolutely did NOT get it. I was at a summer journalism camp at
Syracuse University, with all the other nerds, and young enthused wordsmiths. I was hard at work finalizing my diabolical plan to revolutionize the high school newspaper (award-winning, you guys. AWARD-WINNING high school newspaper) that I was an editor of.
Not the editor. Just an editor.
I had a theory about “modular pages,” a term I coined. Coinage without value as it turns out, because unsurprisingly no one cared. And look, you still don’t care, and I’m still talking about it. I’ve been known to beat an idea to death, revive it with paddles (CLEAR!), and kill it again. Like right now. I’m Tracy Flicking. Hard. Ok, Frances. That’s enough.
At the time, we spent our days maturely discussing statewide publishing trends, and our nights doing the same, but in a non co-ed dorm with Biore strips on our noses. It just gets better, doesn’t it?
We were able to go off-campus for dinner, and in a dramatic blaze of free will, one night we went to an Indian restaurant around the corner. We inched up a flight of carpeted stairs and into a room constructed entirely of brass accessories and pure odor. It was a sensory circus: the saturated colors, the glinting gilded tableware, and a million olfactory notes whizzing through the air. The spicy-sweet warm buttery air worked its way into every nook and cranny, until I was not only breathing it in, but breathing it out as well.
