swimming in fort zach's atlantic, while feeding fish and disturbing cephalopods, i became unequivocally betrothed.
i am absolutely ecstatic.
check out alligator death roll on today's date.
Friday, September 28, 2007
Friday, September 21, 2007
Fuck You, Kitchen!
I may have made it out this time.
F'real.
I'm painting for income and loving, loving, loving it. I have absolutely no emotional attachment to it. I can come home with a clean conscience. I am not prepared to fight to the seeping marrow for my "painting ideals." I am free...
I am free to cook, to bake in the ways I believe are right and true. Free to feed people--all people, not just the few who can afford it--as I believe they should be fed: with love.
So, fuck you, commercial kitchen! I hope I don't cross your path for a good, long while.
F'real.
I'm painting for income and loving, loving, loving it. I have absolutely no emotional attachment to it. I can come home with a clean conscience. I am not prepared to fight to the seeping marrow for my "painting ideals." I am free...
I am free to cook, to bake in the ways I believe are right and true. Free to feed people--all people, not just the few who can afford it--as I believe they should be fed: with love.
So, fuck you, commercial kitchen! I hope I don't cross your path for a good, long while.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Guerrilla Food Wars
I read in "Restaurants & Institutions," a culinary trade magazine, that 52% of US consumers, aged 25-34, would "prefer to use convenience foods instead of cooking from scratch," "even when time is not a problem."
This disturbed the hell out of me: over half of UStians my age would rather not cook for themselves or their loved ones if offered a plastic-wrapped alternative.
How fucked up is that?
Do people remember how to cook?
How to sustain themselves without the help of corporations who lean toward profit rather than nutrition?
Do their tongues even know the difference between real and mass-produced food anymore?
To the last question, I present this observation:
To combat the oppressive heat and emotional simmering of the kitchen where I am employed, I started making ginger syrup for homemade ginger ale. Fresh ginger + sugar + water, cooked down to a thick, strong syrup, then mixed with soda water and a squeeze of fresh lime; it's absolutely refreshing. On my favorite prep cook's suggestion, I mixed the syrup with Seagram's ginger ale (loaded with high fructose corn syrup and artificial flavor) instead of soda, and was told by most of my coworkers that these new drinks were even better than the original, unadulterated product. My tongue being what it is, I wholeheartedly disagree with them, but that's a little to the side of the point. The point is that most of the cooks in this fine-dining establishment, cooks whose palates are daily exposed to high-quality ingredients, to better quality methods of preparation (food mills vs. giant mixers, hand-chopped vs. food processor, etc.) still craved the chemically enhanced taste of factory-produced soft drinks. We're not talking people who don't know better. We're not talking about folks with no other frame of reference than fast food. We're talking about fucking professionals whose job it is to know true flavor when they find it.
And, y'know,
...they didn't.
Inga Muscio offers this illustrative example in "Autobiography of A Blue-Eyed Devil":
"An old woman in Mexico was given a tortilla-making machine. It was explained to her how it works, and how much easier her life would be if she used it, and how much more convenient it is than forming tortillas by hand. She wanted nothing to do with this machine, and the person who gave it to her tried to patiently explain that she was being ignorant.
"The old woman sighed deeply.
"She patiently explained that her life, love, thoughts and memories all go into each tortilla she makes. It is this that nourishes her family, and the tortilla is merely a vehicle through which this nourishment is absorbed into the bodies of those she loves and feeds. A tortilla machine made no sense to her because it would separate her from the act of making tortillas, which was the whole fucken point of making tortillas.
"So who, exactly, is the ignorant one in this story?
"...You are what you eat, and when our entire culture eats mass-produced, machine-made food that is rarely, if ever, touched by caring human hands, it is no wonder that there is little compassion and respect for our food, our world, and one another."
Yeah.
What she said.
Why is this trend as ubiquitous as it is?
Better yet, what the hell can we do to stand in the face of it?
To threaten it?
To turn it back?
This isn't just the US.
Not by any imaginative means.
Cradled within the NAFTA contracts is a (UStian) law that destroys and prohibits collective, indigenous farms (ejidos) in favor of US-style agribusiness. Whole communities are now unable, by law, to feed themselves, their families and communities, in the ways that best nourish them. Subcomandante Marcos of the Zapatista movement refers to this as "a death certificate for the Indian peoples of Mexico."
The new Iraqi constitution, also handed to them by the US, prohibits Iraqis from using seeds that they have saved from previous harvests, demanding instead that they purchase their seeds from companies like Monsanto, companies that have trademarked seeds bred by generations of Iraqi farmers. Stealing people's livelihood and selling it back to them for exorbitant profits, at the expense of entire, ancient, tried & true means of survival. This is not only colonization, 21st century style; it is part of the New Slavery.
Along with rape, I believe that fucking with people's foodways is about the most destructive, invasive, soul-killing method of imperialism practiced on this planet. It is absolute physical and psychic murder, drawn out over generations, that will result in wide-ranging cultural genocide. And the thing is, we UStians, the ones who are exporting this shit all over the world, were the real test subjects for this brand of indoctrination. We didn't always eat the crap we currently tell ourselves is food. We didn't always eat like this. At the ripe age of 32, I am one of the only people of my generation I have ever met who was raised on home-baked breads, home-grown vegetables and fruits, and self-slaughtered animals. I am one of the few people I know who has a pretty damned good idea where my food comes from. I know what real food tastes like, although my taste buds generally suffer in this regard, living as far from any real farms as I now do. Too damned many UStians have never had this culinary luxury.
Maybe we are no longer able to see how our food choices impact our lives and the lives of our progeny, the lives of the animals and plants with whom we share our great blue-green home. Perhaps we are unable to see how our dietary proclivities affect our minds and elusive spirits as well as our bodies. We don't receive proper nutrition from boxes, regardless what those boxes advertise on their exteriors (low fat! low cholesterol! high in nutrients and vitamins!). Our bodies do not absorb chemically manufactured vitamins as easily as when they are naturally occurring in our food. For example, we are obviously better able to use the Vitamin C found in fresh oranges than we are in orange-flavored chewable vitamin-pills; so why do we, as a nation, so often choose the latter over the former? Are we so goddamned lazy that peeling a fragrant, dribbling-down-our-elbows, pop-juicy orange is too much trouble for us to handle in the middle of our workday? Are we so hopelessly inured to our truly meaningless, wage-slavery jobs that we cannot take an extra couple of minutes to care for ourselves the way our employers never will?
Have we forgotten, collectively, how joyous eating can be?
Have we forgotten that joy is necessary to our evolution and survival?
This is an opportunity for guerrilla warfare on a domestic scale if ever I've seen one. With agribusiness not only flooding our grocery stores, but also whittling our food choices (both in product and production) down to a Lesser of Evils decision, growing our own food, or paying our neighbors for their willingness to grow real food for us, is tantamount to sedition. I believe it is a choice that will bring heavier penalties from the corporate-government as time goes on; a choice that may one day require us to pay with our lives and/or livelihoods, much as it now does in places like Mexico and Iraq. If we're not brave enough to stand up to our government and its corporate henchmen (or is it our corporations and their government henchmen?) over basic things like healthcare for all people, equal and adequate pay for equal work, or the ridiculous breach between monetarily rich and poor peoples, then maybe, maybe we can find it within ourselves to at least stand up for dinner. Quit making excuses, start scrubbing our brains and palates clean of the pap we've been fed by people who don't give a shit about us, and do a little something that
might
mean
everything.
Find the space. I've grown tomatoes and herbs in buckets in my bedroom when I didn't have gardening space. There are tiny strips of dirt in every urban area, just begging to be brought to life. Herbs and vegetables, especially all kinds of lettuces and greens, will grow in the tiniest of spaces, with the tiniest bit of care.
Make the time. How cool would it be to just push back a little dirt with your fingers and plant some seeds leftover and dried out from that awesome tomato you had on your sandwich last week? Or that cool-looking cucumber you saw in someone's trash? How hard is it to do this in a little weed-patch on your way to work or school, somewhere you pass every day? How good would it feel to actually care for something that will in turn care for you?
Find the space, find the time, find the heart still beating in your chest---
y'know, the one that still cares?
The one that isn't totally jaded and Over It?
It feels So.
Fucking.
GOOD!
to bring your own food to life!
It feels even better to be able to grow enough to share with a friend, whether that friend is human or animal. And fer chrissakes, preparing food for ourselves doesn't necessarily mean dragging out a bunch of pots and pans, dirtying plates and forks and counter tops; it can be as simple as plucking berries from a vine or fruit from a tree. I am faaar more satisfied with simple snacks of found-food than I am with anything taken out of ecocidal plastic and reheated in a cancer-causing microwave. Done and done. It is high time...hell, it's long past time that we extend an effective middle finger at the forces that try to stiflingly rule us. They're not gonna listen to us, no matter how loudly we shout or how pointed our protest-sign slogans. We've gotta do something meaningful. Take back what no one has ever had any right to take from us. We have got to relearn what food IS and how it is us, from seed to waste.
52% of a population is a scary statistic.
That's a lotta people done been brainwashed into thinkin they can't care for themselves,
or that caring for themselves is best left to someone else.
To this brainwashing, I say,
"Pffft!"
We're smarter than that, damn it!
Way smarter.
And we deserve better.
We all do.
The whole crazy mess of us.
Now, how best to disseminate that knowledge through a vast population of people too nervous to hear the truth of their own bodies....
This disturbed the hell out of me: over half of UStians my age would rather not cook for themselves or their loved ones if offered a plastic-wrapped alternative.
How fucked up is that?
Do people remember how to cook?
How to sustain themselves without the help of corporations who lean toward profit rather than nutrition?
Do their tongues even know the difference between real and mass-produced food anymore?
To the last question, I present this observation:
To combat the oppressive heat and emotional simmering of the kitchen where I am employed, I started making ginger syrup for homemade ginger ale. Fresh ginger + sugar + water, cooked down to a thick, strong syrup, then mixed with soda water and a squeeze of fresh lime; it's absolutely refreshing. On my favorite prep cook's suggestion, I mixed the syrup with Seagram's ginger ale (loaded with high fructose corn syrup and artificial flavor) instead of soda, and was told by most of my coworkers that these new drinks were even better than the original, unadulterated product. My tongue being what it is, I wholeheartedly disagree with them, but that's a little to the side of the point. The point is that most of the cooks in this fine-dining establishment, cooks whose palates are daily exposed to high-quality ingredients, to better quality methods of preparation (food mills vs. giant mixers, hand-chopped vs. food processor, etc.) still craved the chemically enhanced taste of factory-produced soft drinks. We're not talking people who don't know better. We're not talking about folks with no other frame of reference than fast food. We're talking about fucking professionals whose job it is to know true flavor when they find it.
And, y'know,
...they didn't.
Inga Muscio offers this illustrative example in "Autobiography of A Blue-Eyed Devil":
"An old woman in Mexico was given a tortilla-making machine. It was explained to her how it works, and how much easier her life would be if she used it, and how much more convenient it is than forming tortillas by hand. She wanted nothing to do with this machine, and the person who gave it to her tried to patiently explain that she was being ignorant.
"The old woman sighed deeply.
"She patiently explained that her life, love, thoughts and memories all go into each tortilla she makes. It is this that nourishes her family, and the tortilla is merely a vehicle through which this nourishment is absorbed into the bodies of those she loves and feeds. A tortilla machine made no sense to her because it would separate her from the act of making tortillas, which was the whole fucken point of making tortillas.
"So who, exactly, is the ignorant one in this story?
"...You are what you eat, and when our entire culture eats mass-produced, machine-made food that is rarely, if ever, touched by caring human hands, it is no wonder that there is little compassion and respect for our food, our world, and one another."
Yeah.
What she said.
Why is this trend as ubiquitous as it is?
Better yet, what the hell can we do to stand in the face of it?
To threaten it?
To turn it back?
This isn't just the US.
Not by any imaginative means.
Cradled within the NAFTA contracts is a (UStian) law that destroys and prohibits collective, indigenous farms (ejidos) in favor of US-style agribusiness. Whole communities are now unable, by law, to feed themselves, their families and communities, in the ways that best nourish them. Subcomandante Marcos of the Zapatista movement refers to this as "a death certificate for the Indian peoples of Mexico."
The new Iraqi constitution, also handed to them by the US, prohibits Iraqis from using seeds that they have saved from previous harvests, demanding instead that they purchase their seeds from companies like Monsanto, companies that have trademarked seeds bred by generations of Iraqi farmers. Stealing people's livelihood and selling it back to them for exorbitant profits, at the expense of entire, ancient, tried & true means of survival. This is not only colonization, 21st century style; it is part of the New Slavery.
Along with rape, I believe that fucking with people's foodways is about the most destructive, invasive, soul-killing method of imperialism practiced on this planet. It is absolute physical and psychic murder, drawn out over generations, that will result in wide-ranging cultural genocide. And the thing is, we UStians, the ones who are exporting this shit all over the world, were the real test subjects for this brand of indoctrination. We didn't always eat the crap we currently tell ourselves is food. We didn't always eat like this. At the ripe age of 32, I am one of the only people of my generation I have ever met who was raised on home-baked breads, home-grown vegetables and fruits, and self-slaughtered animals. I am one of the few people I know who has a pretty damned good idea where my food comes from. I know what real food tastes like, although my taste buds generally suffer in this regard, living as far from any real farms as I now do. Too damned many UStians have never had this culinary luxury.
Maybe we are no longer able to see how our food choices impact our lives and the lives of our progeny, the lives of the animals and plants with whom we share our great blue-green home. Perhaps we are unable to see how our dietary proclivities affect our minds and elusive spirits as well as our bodies. We don't receive proper nutrition from boxes, regardless what those boxes advertise on their exteriors (low fat! low cholesterol! high in nutrients and vitamins!). Our bodies do not absorb chemically manufactured vitamins as easily as when they are naturally occurring in our food. For example, we are obviously better able to use the Vitamin C found in fresh oranges than we are in orange-flavored chewable vitamin-pills; so why do we, as a nation, so often choose the latter over the former? Are we so goddamned lazy that peeling a fragrant, dribbling-down-our-elbows, pop-juicy orange is too much trouble for us to handle in the middle of our workday? Are we so hopelessly inured to our truly meaningless, wage-slavery jobs that we cannot take an extra couple of minutes to care for ourselves the way our employers never will?
Have we forgotten, collectively, how joyous eating can be?
Have we forgotten that joy is necessary to our evolution and survival?
This is an opportunity for guerrilla warfare on a domestic scale if ever I've seen one. With agribusiness not only flooding our grocery stores, but also whittling our food choices (both in product and production) down to a Lesser of Evils decision, growing our own food, or paying our neighbors for their willingness to grow real food for us, is tantamount to sedition. I believe it is a choice that will bring heavier penalties from the corporate-government as time goes on; a choice that may one day require us to pay with our lives and/or livelihoods, much as it now does in places like Mexico and Iraq. If we're not brave enough to stand up to our government and its corporate henchmen (or is it our corporations and their government henchmen?) over basic things like healthcare for all people, equal and adequate pay for equal work, or the ridiculous breach between monetarily rich and poor peoples, then maybe, maybe we can find it within ourselves to at least stand up for dinner. Quit making excuses, start scrubbing our brains and palates clean of the pap we've been fed by people who don't give a shit about us, and do a little something that
might
mean
everything.
Find the space. I've grown tomatoes and herbs in buckets in my bedroom when I didn't have gardening space. There are tiny strips of dirt in every urban area, just begging to be brought to life. Herbs and vegetables, especially all kinds of lettuces and greens, will grow in the tiniest of spaces, with the tiniest bit of care.
Make the time. How cool would it be to just push back a little dirt with your fingers and plant some seeds leftover and dried out from that awesome tomato you had on your sandwich last week? Or that cool-looking cucumber you saw in someone's trash? How hard is it to do this in a little weed-patch on your way to work or school, somewhere you pass every day? How good would it feel to actually care for something that will in turn care for you?
Find the space, find the time, find the heart still beating in your chest---
y'know, the one that still cares?
The one that isn't totally jaded and Over It?
It feels So.
Fucking.
GOOD!
to bring your own food to life!
It feels even better to be able to grow enough to share with a friend, whether that friend is human or animal. And fer chrissakes, preparing food for ourselves doesn't necessarily mean dragging out a bunch of pots and pans, dirtying plates and forks and counter tops; it can be as simple as plucking berries from a vine or fruit from a tree. I am faaar more satisfied with simple snacks of found-food than I am with anything taken out of ecocidal plastic and reheated in a cancer-causing microwave. Done and done. It is high time...hell, it's long past time that we extend an effective middle finger at the forces that try to stiflingly rule us. They're not gonna listen to us, no matter how loudly we shout or how pointed our protest-sign slogans. We've gotta do something meaningful. Take back what no one has ever had any right to take from us. We have got to relearn what food IS and how it is us, from seed to waste.
52% of a population is a scary statistic.
That's a lotta people done been brainwashed into thinkin they can't care for themselves,
or that caring for themselves is best left to someone else.
To this brainwashing, I say,
"Pffft!"
We're smarter than that, damn it!
Way smarter.
And we deserve better.
We all do.
The whole crazy mess of us.
Now, how best to disseminate that knowledge through a vast population of people too nervous to hear the truth of their own bodies....
Thursday, August 23, 2007
The Bile Piles Higher
I either have time for the briefest of notes, or I have time to write a novella.
Welcome to my see-saw.
Yesterday the 'chef de cuisine,' someone who was once an ally (I thought), engaged in a completely unprovoked, very personal, verbal attack against me that very nearly turned physical.
Kudos to me for avoiding the assault train.
I was in the bakery, back to the room, beating egg whites with a frenzy, when I hear this chef say "Are you done fucking over my friends?!"
What?
Is she actually talking to me?
Jeezus, she is talking to me.
What the fuck is it this time?
I thought she was in a good mood today, and I could slip out largely unnoticed as soon as my work load was finished.
Wrong.
She has apparently set it in her mind that I am in league with the Devil and have been doing my all-fired best to screw over everyone she knows. Her initial question, followed by my repeated queries of "What are you talking about," followed by a string of accusations of a purely personal sort (I've gotta stress that through this whole confrontation, not a single word about my job performance was uttered), quickly escalated to her pointing at me and yelling, "Fuck you! Fuck you!"
At that point, I realized that this was never going to evolve past vituperation into an actual conversation, so I started packing up my things to go. For the record, I never leave my necessary jobs unfinished, so, y'know, I was pretty upset. I've worked straight through 14 hour days, with a vomiting migraine, without leaving my work undone. However. I had told the executive chef, last time this happened, that if it ever occurred again I was gonna walk. Fair's fair. So, I get almost all the way out to my bicycle before I realized I'd forgotten to clock out. I returned to the kitchen and clocked out, with her sending up high-school style taunts of "Oh yeah, that's a good idea, fuckin clock out, you stupid bitch."
Fed up, tired, and...well, just fed up and tired, I sighed, "man, fuck off" as I was walking out the door. I heard her behind me, heard her anger building in her voice, say, "What did you just say to me, you little bitch?" as she's stomping, trotting, running up the ramp behind me. As she exited the kitchen, 10 feet behind me, in full chef's whites, she yells in full view of incoming clientele, "Do you wanna fuckin GO?!"
"No, Martha. No, I don't (just keep walking, get on your bike and go, go find Niki or Otter or anyone who will let you be calm and help you think)."
"Fine, then! Get the hell outta here! And don't come back!"
sigh.
Now, the fucked up part was (yeah, more fucked up than all that), she waited until everyone had exited the kitchen to unleash her vitriol...everyone except the three illegal immigrants who work with me, the three people who could never in a million years stand up for me in any legal sense because to do so would be to endanger their families and their livelihoods. She did that the last time, too.
Diabolical.
Absolutely diabolical.
I talked to the head chef on the phone, after I had calmed down considerably, and briefly explained what had happened. He's such a sweetheart, and I truly love him as a fine and very funny, warmhearted human being; he is also even more averse to confrontation than I am. When he told me he'd "try to get to the bottom of this," I understood that she would likely run roughshod over him the same way she does over everyone else. It's a lose-lose situation.
So, now, right now, I'm looking at the clock, know she's done "working" and is outside drinking at the bar by now, and I am absolutely sick at the thought of having to return to that place. Absolutely sick.
I'm looking for alternate employment, but, let's face it folks, this is the off-season, the hurricane season, when most places are shuttering up for the first few weeks of September. Ain't nobody hiring right now. My weekly checks are a full $500 less than they were in the winter months, so it's not like I've got a big ol' pile of cash to support me. Otter has a lovely new job, but he, too, took a massive cut in pay when he went to a smaller, more "respectable" restaurant. I mean, we'll get through. It's not like we're in a war zone, not like we're in Mexico having to kowtow to NAFTA-endorsed slave labor. We can still feed ourselves and we still have a roof over our heads (and a rare-as-emeralds sweetheart of a landlord). We have a wide base of beautiful, wonderful, openhearted friends who have shown their willingness to help us in whatever ways they can.
...But, goddamn.
Goddamn.
I think I've shown myself to have some pretty good willpower, some no-small-power to put up with a lot of psychically damaging nonsense, but...
...but goddamn.
I'm holding monetary struggle in one hand and my sanity in the other. I know what's most important to me. But how many other people are gonna have to pay for my decision? Otter, of course. But also the executive chef, who will have to take on all my baking work until they can find another freakishly-rare baker/pastry chef (and why is that? why are bakers so goddamned rare when bread is, and has always been, the acknowledged Staff of Life?). How many people have to pay for my sanity?
I say, goddamn.
Welcome to my see-saw.
Yesterday the 'chef de cuisine,' someone who was once an ally (I thought), engaged in a completely unprovoked, very personal, verbal attack against me that very nearly turned physical.
Kudos to me for avoiding the assault train.
I was in the bakery, back to the room, beating egg whites with a frenzy, when I hear this chef say "Are you done fucking over my friends?!"
What?
Is she actually talking to me?
Jeezus, she is talking to me.
What the fuck is it this time?
I thought she was in a good mood today, and I could slip out largely unnoticed as soon as my work load was finished.
Wrong.
She has apparently set it in her mind that I am in league with the Devil and have been doing my all-fired best to screw over everyone she knows. Her initial question, followed by my repeated queries of "What are you talking about," followed by a string of accusations of a purely personal sort (I've gotta stress that through this whole confrontation, not a single word about my job performance was uttered), quickly escalated to her pointing at me and yelling, "Fuck you! Fuck you!"
At that point, I realized that this was never going to evolve past vituperation into an actual conversation, so I started packing up my things to go. For the record, I never leave my necessary jobs unfinished, so, y'know, I was pretty upset. I've worked straight through 14 hour days, with a vomiting migraine, without leaving my work undone. However. I had told the executive chef, last time this happened, that if it ever occurred again I was gonna walk. Fair's fair. So, I get almost all the way out to my bicycle before I realized I'd forgotten to clock out. I returned to the kitchen and clocked out, with her sending up high-school style taunts of "Oh yeah, that's a good idea, fuckin clock out, you stupid bitch."
Fed up, tired, and...well, just fed up and tired, I sighed, "man, fuck off" as I was walking out the door. I heard her behind me, heard her anger building in her voice, say, "What did you just say to me, you little bitch?" as she's stomping, trotting, running up the ramp behind me. As she exited the kitchen, 10 feet behind me, in full chef's whites, she yells in full view of incoming clientele, "Do you wanna fuckin GO?!"
"No, Martha. No, I don't (just keep walking, get on your bike and go, go find Niki or Otter or anyone who will let you be calm and help you think)."
"Fine, then! Get the hell outta here! And don't come back!"
sigh.
Now, the fucked up part was (yeah, more fucked up than all that), she waited until everyone had exited the kitchen to unleash her vitriol...everyone except the three illegal immigrants who work with me, the three people who could never in a million years stand up for me in any legal sense because to do so would be to endanger their families and their livelihoods. She did that the last time, too.
Diabolical.
Absolutely diabolical.
I talked to the head chef on the phone, after I had calmed down considerably, and briefly explained what had happened. He's such a sweetheart, and I truly love him as a fine and very funny, warmhearted human being; he is also even more averse to confrontation than I am. When he told me he'd "try to get to the bottom of this," I understood that she would likely run roughshod over him the same way she does over everyone else. It's a lose-lose situation.
So, now, right now, I'm looking at the clock, know she's done "working" and is outside drinking at the bar by now, and I am absolutely sick at the thought of having to return to that place. Absolutely sick.
I'm looking for alternate employment, but, let's face it folks, this is the off-season, the hurricane season, when most places are shuttering up for the first few weeks of September. Ain't nobody hiring right now. My weekly checks are a full $500 less than they were in the winter months, so it's not like I've got a big ol' pile of cash to support me. Otter has a lovely new job, but he, too, took a massive cut in pay when he went to a smaller, more "respectable" restaurant. I mean, we'll get through. It's not like we're in a war zone, not like we're in Mexico having to kowtow to NAFTA-endorsed slave labor. We can still feed ourselves and we still have a roof over our heads (and a rare-as-emeralds sweetheart of a landlord). We have a wide base of beautiful, wonderful, openhearted friends who have shown their willingness to help us in whatever ways they can.
...But, goddamn.
Goddamn.
I think I've shown myself to have some pretty good willpower, some no-small-power to put up with a lot of psychically damaging nonsense, but...
...but goddamn.
I'm holding monetary struggle in one hand and my sanity in the other. I know what's most important to me. But how many other people are gonna have to pay for my decision? Otter, of course. But also the executive chef, who will have to take on all my baking work until they can find another freakishly-rare baker/pastry chef (and why is that? why are bakers so goddamned rare when bread is, and has always been, the acknowledged Staff of Life?). How many people have to pay for my sanity?
I say, goddamn.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Whatchoo Eatin?
Proposed introduction to Otter's and my joint food history/education project:
This project is an endeavor to educate ourselves and each other about the stuff we all eat.
This isn't to suggest we all eat the same stuff.
Not by a long shot.
This is to suggest that, amidst the gamut of worldwide gustatory experience, we do crash into each other's mouths a lot more often than most of us think.
We are related by a whole string of culinary coincidences, a zillion different people peppered along a chain of sociopolitical, economic, religious, you-name-it events in which food has often been our only common bond.
What we aim to do is illustrate how we're formed and connected by a very basic, very necessary understanding:
We need to eat.
The Ways and Whys and Hows of our eating proclivities are the places where all the really interesting stuff comes in. Those are the places that teach us about each other and ourselves. There are old folks and young kids and everyone in between, scattered all over the globe, who are inventing new ways with food and/or sustaining ancient traditions, many of which are rapidly disappearing in our "free-traded" world. We love learning about, and challenging, sacrosanct truths concerning food and diet, and some of the best ways we've found to do that is by, flat-out, asking questions of absolutely everyone about absolutely everything food-related. We encourage you to do the same.
Hell, we demand it.
We love food. We absolutely, passionately adore flavor. We will eat damned near anything and are attracted by everything from home-grown vegetables and wild-gathered fungus, to alligator backstrap and duck-stuffed Javalina. When it comes right down to it...
We just love to eat,
We love to feed people,
And we love to learn about food:why we eat what we eat.
Salud.
This project is an endeavor to educate ourselves and each other about the stuff we all eat.
This isn't to suggest we all eat the same stuff.
Not by a long shot.
This is to suggest that, amidst the gamut of worldwide gustatory experience, we do crash into each other's mouths a lot more often than most of us think.
We are related by a whole string of culinary coincidences, a zillion different people peppered along a chain of sociopolitical, economic, religious, you-name-it events in which food has often been our only common bond.
What we aim to do is illustrate how we're formed and connected by a very basic, very necessary understanding:
We need to eat.
The Ways and Whys and Hows of our eating proclivities are the places where all the really interesting stuff comes in. Those are the places that teach us about each other and ourselves. There are old folks and young kids and everyone in between, scattered all over the globe, who are inventing new ways with food and/or sustaining ancient traditions, many of which are rapidly disappearing in our "free-traded" world. We love learning about, and challenging, sacrosanct truths concerning food and diet, and some of the best ways we've found to do that is by, flat-out, asking questions of absolutely everyone about absolutely everything food-related. We encourage you to do the same.
Hell, we demand it.
We love food. We absolutely, passionately adore flavor. We will eat damned near anything and are attracted by everything from home-grown vegetables and wild-gathered fungus, to alligator backstrap and duck-stuffed Javalina. When it comes right down to it...
We just love to eat,
We love to feed people,
And we love to learn about food:why we eat what we eat.
Salud.
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Come on, Hurricane!
There's a hurricane headed our way.At the moment, it's a tropical storm, goes by the name Dean. By the time it gets here Monday or Tuesday, though, it should be the real deal, a Category 3 or 4, if the meteorologists are to be believed. Of course, it may bypass the Keys completely and just head to the interior of the Gulf of Mexico. Yeah, 'cause New Orleans and the Yucatan totally need to get hit again.
The impending storm has finally managed to give us a break in the hordes of gawping tourists that plague Key West year-round. We island-dwellers are doing all the regular preparedness stuff: stocking 20 gallons of water per person (though that can hardly be enough the way Otter and I drink and cook), gathering candles, checking all the shutters for both windows and doors, dragging potential projectiles (lawn chairs and tables, and etc.) inside, making sure the genny's in good working order and has plenty of fuel and that we've got propane for the screen porch stove. Of course, we also have to make sure we have sufficient amounts of our chosen inebriants, good books we haven't read, games to play, and a 5-gallon bucket of lubricant.
Just in case.
Wait, wait, wait...the two of us, shut in for a few days with just enough power to keep food and cook it? Baby, that ain't nearly enough to keep us occupied. There's gonna be a lot of drinkin, smokin, and fuckin, and not too much ambient noise to shield my yelling from the neighbor kids.
Come onnnnn, hurricane!
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Saturday, August 11, 2007
चंगे Willful Evolution
Man, it's crazy how fragile human emotional webbing is.
Just finished reading "Bastard Out of Carolina" by Dorothy Allison, and all my will to go out and see Otter at work, to see Niki rock her Hairstiks at Mallory Square, to do anything but mourn the cursed relevance of that book to my own experience, just kinda got swept out with the tides I won't be swimming in tonight. Lord almighty. I squirmed and fidgeted, put the book down and smoked a bowl to stop my nervous, ghost-encounter tremors. Yeah, the story mirrored enough of my own childhood that I was nearly derailed by the Flashback Memory Train...
...but it was more the idea of another living human being having to go through that bullshit, more the idea of another unfinished child being forced to mature like that, so lopsided and hardened, so broken by force and mended by will alone, that drove the meaty, bruising fist into my belly. Oh, what an aching thing.
I decided a long time ago that I could either be victimized by my experiences or I could learn from them and make myself grow strong enough to never let them hurt me again. Strong enough never to hurt another person out of some backhanded effort to get back at my own past. Sounds easy enough, but, y'know, it's a daily decision-making process. A willful reformation of one's own ethos. I am still, a thousand years and a million miles later, affected by the virulent rage that accompanied my maturation, still feel like fighting at the slightest provocation, still am afraid to get too drunk or too wound up because that fire is still in my belly. Though I have learned to control myself most of the time, though I have learned to soften my brow and loosen my muscles, though I have learned to express my rage through more effective means, to meet anger with love and find laughter in slaughter,
The fire in my belly still burns.
Goddamn it, it burns.
I do not desire children of my own, indeed I fear for any offspring of my body, but I am fiercely protective of other children. Protective of children, animals, any who are not able to defend themselves effectively against unsought pain. I vacillated from wanting to destroy absolutely everything to wanting to destroy the people who think like me. Like I used to think. Like, some days, I still do.
Mama taught me, forever ago, that the only thing I can change with any certainty is Me.
Both my parents were beaten, lacerated, bruised, and just outright abused when they were children. When I developed language skills, my erstwhile father naturally assumed his parental role as household tyrant, raining down the verbal, emotional, and daily physical abuse that he suffered in his youth. Mama, on the other hand, realized how fucked up it was to have the people you were s'posed to trust treating you worse than the dog got treated, beating and cursing you like the meat they wish they'd never met, and she decided never to do that shit to her own kids.
She didn't always succeed, from what she's told me.
More than once, she laid her hand across me and meant it.
But I don't ever remember her beating me.
Never.
I remember her getting mad sometimes.
After I turned 11, I remember her being really tired a lot.
Tired in some place in her head that I couldn't touch.
Somewhere I couldn't help fix.
Somewhere that was probably my fault.
Maybe...
I probably had that same look myself.
...
It's pretty astonishing to me to hear people excuse their aberrant behavior with the phrase "I can't help it." Like that just fixes it all up and makes it just another shitty hand we all gotta play as best we can. Like there's nothin for it.
Baby, back the fuck up and look at yourself:
The shitty hand you got dealt was your bigoted community.
Was your manipulative, vindictive mother.
Was your hard-drinkin, fist-swingin father.
Was your sexually abusive grandfather.
Was your lack of family.
Was your lack of history.
Was your abject poverty.
Was your minority status, by sex or pigmentation or economics or religion or whatever.
The Way You Play Your Hand is the way you choose to conduct yourself in spite of what you've been dealt. The way you play is by trying to find and create honor in dishonorable circumstances.
To create love where there is too little love to sustain you.
To obviate violence with compassionate action.
To find peace deep in the very eye of chaos, deep within the bones of your ribs.
To reinvent yourself as only
You
Have the Power
To Do.
It's maybe the hardest thing you'll ever do. It'll keep you busy all your long life. But, y'know...
You're it. You're the only one. You are the only person in the whole wide world who can teach you to be the most rock-solid, fun-lovin, life-grabbin, experience-swallowin person that only you can be. I've heard a thousand times that the Cycle Ends With Me, that the violence has gotta stop somewhere, and it's gonna stop with me.
And that's true.
But what's also true, is that you are, I am, We Are the crazed solo inventors of our own fuckin cycle. The Cycle Starts With Me, goddamn it. The Love's gotta get up in my life somewhere, and I'll be damned if it's gonna be in anybody's bed but mine.
I choose.
You choose.
You're it.
I love you.
Just finished reading "Bastard Out of Carolina" by Dorothy Allison, and all my will to go out and see Otter at work, to see Niki rock her Hairstiks at Mallory Square, to do anything but mourn the cursed relevance of that book to my own experience, just kinda got swept out with the tides I won't be swimming in tonight. Lord almighty. I squirmed and fidgeted, put the book down and smoked a bowl to stop my nervous, ghost-encounter tremors. Yeah, the story mirrored enough of my own childhood that I was nearly derailed by the Flashback Memory Train...
...but it was more the idea of another living human being having to go through that bullshit, more the idea of another unfinished child being forced to mature like that, so lopsided and hardened, so broken by force and mended by will alone, that drove the meaty, bruising fist into my belly. Oh, what an aching thing.
I decided a long time ago that I could either be victimized by my experiences or I could learn from them and make myself grow strong enough to never let them hurt me again. Strong enough never to hurt another person out of some backhanded effort to get back at my own past. Sounds easy enough, but, y'know, it's a daily decision-making process. A willful reformation of one's own ethos. I am still, a thousand years and a million miles later, affected by the virulent rage that accompanied my maturation, still feel like fighting at the slightest provocation, still am afraid to get too drunk or too wound up because that fire is still in my belly. Though I have learned to control myself most of the time, though I have learned to soften my brow and loosen my muscles, though I have learned to express my rage through more effective means, to meet anger with love and find laughter in slaughter,
The fire in my belly still burns.
Goddamn it, it burns.
I do not desire children of my own, indeed I fear for any offspring of my body, but I am fiercely protective of other children. Protective of children, animals, any who are not able to defend themselves effectively against unsought pain. I vacillated from wanting to destroy absolutely everything to wanting to destroy the people who think like me. Like I used to think. Like, some days, I still do.
Mama taught me, forever ago, that the only thing I can change with any certainty is Me.
Both my parents were beaten, lacerated, bruised, and just outright abused when they were children. When I developed language skills, my erstwhile father naturally assumed his parental role as household tyrant, raining down the verbal, emotional, and daily physical abuse that he suffered in his youth. Mama, on the other hand, realized how fucked up it was to have the people you were s'posed to trust treating you worse than the dog got treated, beating and cursing you like the meat they wish they'd never met, and she decided never to do that shit to her own kids.
She didn't always succeed, from what she's told me.
More than once, she laid her hand across me and meant it.
But I don't ever remember her beating me.
Never.
I remember her getting mad sometimes.
After I turned 11, I remember her being really tired a lot.
Tired in some place in her head that I couldn't touch.
Somewhere I couldn't help fix.
Somewhere that was probably my fault.
Maybe...
I probably had that same look myself.
...
It's pretty astonishing to me to hear people excuse their aberrant behavior with the phrase "I can't help it." Like that just fixes it all up and makes it just another shitty hand we all gotta play as best we can. Like there's nothin for it.
Baby, back the fuck up and look at yourself:
The shitty hand you got dealt was your bigoted community.
Was your manipulative, vindictive mother.
Was your hard-drinkin, fist-swingin father.
Was your sexually abusive grandfather.
Was your lack of family.
Was your lack of history.
Was your abject poverty.
Was your minority status, by sex or pigmentation or economics or religion or whatever.
The Way You Play Your Hand is the way you choose to conduct yourself in spite of what you've been dealt. The way you play is by trying to find and create honor in dishonorable circumstances.
To create love where there is too little love to sustain you.
To obviate violence with compassionate action.
To find peace deep in the very eye of chaos, deep within the bones of your ribs.
To reinvent yourself as only
You
Have the Power
To Do.
It's maybe the hardest thing you'll ever do. It'll keep you busy all your long life. But, y'know...
You're it. You're the only one. You are the only person in the whole wide world who can teach you to be the most rock-solid, fun-lovin, life-grabbin, experience-swallowin person that only you can be. I've heard a thousand times that the Cycle Ends With Me, that the violence has gotta stop somewhere, and it's gonna stop with me.
And that's true.
But what's also true, is that you are, I am, We Are the crazed solo inventors of our own fuckin cycle. The Cycle Starts With Me, goddamn it. The Love's gotta get up in my life somewhere, and I'll be damned if it's gonna be in anybody's bed but mine.
I choose.
You choose.
You're it.
I love you.
Friday, August 10, 2007
Bitter Bakers
There's such a dark undercurrent that runs through every kitchen I've ever frequented (and is probably why I keep going back), but professional bakers...
Bakers are somethin' else.
If most kitchen denizens delight in being analogous representatives of bright, slickey slaughter, bakers stand in for the darker, stickier blood, the next-day's-leftover stuff that's still thick and viscous by the bed, even after buckets of hot water and heavy scrubbing, ever ever after.
I think it may have something to do with...aw, jeezus, with a buncha stuff.
Like working day after day with egregious, brashly joyous celebrants of carnage who obviously would never in a million years have the patience and meticulousness to gracefully, mercifully kill another living being.
Thursday, August 2, 2007
Vitriolic Vituperation
This is a Crab-Like Spiny Orb Weaver. This spider lives in my backyard. The exquisite arachnid not only does not bite me, but also eat gobs of other bugs that do like to bite my flesh and suck my blood. Thus, CrabLikeSpinyOrbWeaver is not only totally hot, but also one of my favorite Key West carnivores...and don't its markings make it look happy? Of course, what looks happy could just as easily be Nature mocking me for my lack of superhero silk-production glands in my backside. Like she already mocks me for my marrow-rich bones, incapable of easy flight. Damn you, Nature! I'll mutate yet!Just you wait.
I get kinda confused sometimes about, about...y'know about a lot of things. Anyone who can see several different perspectives at once is bound to get a little turned around now and again. Lately, though, like over the last several years, magnified over the last several months, I've been getting tied up in the Justice of Balance.
How much Beautiful can outweigh or balance how much Awful?
And how awful is it if you're learning stuff from it? How beautiful if it's hurting you?
And isn't there always, always, always a vast expanse of Grey Plains that stretches endless between the black and white extremes we hold so dear?
How much do you take before you fight back, and then how should you fight back?
Yeah, maybe that last question's the real one, the one that keeps me up most nights. I spent so many years not asking too many questions about whether or not my self-righteous anger was justified. Or, y'know, fuck that, whether or not my high-volume vituperation was always totally justified. ...And, y'know, actually...goddamn it, I am tied up so tightly in this web, I'm choking on my own desire for wisdom in the form of pat answers. I am so twisted over another person's drama I can hardly sleep some nights. I have been making every effort I can, lo these past 7 months (aw, jeezus, has it really been that long?), to act honorably, to refrain from returning this person's vile and prolific gossip, refrain from behaving as spitefully and as egotistically as she. And lord knows...
Lord knows I'm about at the end of my goddamned rope. Yesterday, she tried (tried) to diss Otter in front of a kitchen full of our professional peers, then pulled Otter aside, ostensibly to apologize for her behaviour, but really to tell my Otter how awfully I had burned her, how I habitually burn people, and that she loves Otter and hopes he's not just the next victim on my list.
...Grrr...
Now, first of all, Otter is smart, is canny, is wise in a lot of ways, and, fortunately, can see through bullshit like it was virgin kitten breath. Like it was Wonder Woman's airplane. So he didn't buy into the manipulation she was layin down. I don't have to worry that she's gonna worm under his fur any time soon: her skull is just another mussel to be bashed against the stone Otter carries on his belly. Otter can see my heart through the miasma of my reasoning and knows that my Love is true, just as I know Otter's love is true.
I'm not worried, I'm just...
I'm just...
I'm just incredibly pissed off! I mean, this woman---well, her diabolical girlfriend should really be included in this, too, as an instigator on a power trip---these women seemed so down-to-earth when I met them 11 months ago. They seemed bereft of the overweening egos I find running so thickly among rock stars of kitchens and bars; they seemed like they valued food and communion above status. They seemed honest.
...They seemed like they might Get It.
And, oh lordy, was I ever wrong. I was so Wrong, I was out of sight of Right. I have never seen such aberrantly malicious posturing, such a campaign of abuse and slander directed by people who apparently have absolutely nothing better to do with their energies than manufacture a pouting resentment and vengeful vitriol against someone who did not turn out to be the succulent angel they assumed her/me to be. I've tried to figure out where it all started, and the closest I can come is the night I turned away the girlfriend's lascivious advances. She was very drunk, trying very hard to make out with me, said that they (the girlfriends) "had an arrangement" and that it was okay for me to kiss her, and I, I didn't want to kiss her or touch her or anything her; I couldn't bear the thought of her bitter, petulant mouth against mine. And the next day, the next many days, her manipulative crying began and continued. The gross gossip I overheard in the middle of the night when they thought I was asleep. The physically abusive things she did to Frida, my now-disappeared feline familiar. There were long months of violently whispered insults, the most hurtful followed by some gift or another (chicory coffee for my Sua Da, antique fabric so beautiful it hurt to look at it, a nice word or two dropped on my behalf to someone sure to repeat it to me), followed in turn by even nastier gossip, even more strenuous efforts to get anyone who might know me to see how hollow and callous I could be...though I have no idea why they really think those things.
There's a long string of indecencies, including these two colluding to ruin the food I make for work (oh, and you wanna see me go all Mama Bear, just fuck with my loved ones or my food!)---taking desserts out of the freezer and leaving them on the counter, repeatedly turning off the heat beneath my cooking custards, etc. There were several weeks where I had near-strangers approach me and tell me how sorry they were about what these two women were doing to me, weeks where people would ask me what was going on between me and the awful couple, when I was forced to reply honestly, "I have absolutely no idea," and listen to third parties relate lie after lie they had been told about me. And then when Otter and I got together? And when we were both so good for each other? So happy? Oh, lordy. Those women were aaangryyy! They've vociferously accused me of trying to take all their friends away from them, but the only thing I've done is try not to put same friends in the middle of whatever imaginary battleground these women have created for themselves. By refusing to return the women's slander, I have refused to force our mutual friends to choose between us and, thus, they have chosen for themselves (though I think that having to choose one-or-the-other is a buncha bullshit). As I said, I've been working my emotional ass off trying to follow my Mama's admonition to always treat people with respect, to respect them as the tortured individuals they and we all are, and, naturally extended from that, to never, ever gossip about someone, to never talk outside my own experience. And, y'know, the moral high ground thing does feel right, does feel like the appropriate action to have taken these last several months, and...
...and I'm fucking sick of it. Like, I just want to grab both of those women by the hair and drive their faces into brick and mortar until they are totally unrecognizable. I have dreams about putting them in unimaginable pain, about looking them in the eye and seeing that they know they got what they deserved. Short of physical violence, I at least want to return their vitriolic naysaying, a game at which I have no doubt I could emerge an unquestioned champion. I know the short-lived satisfaction of choosing violence over more difficult communication; I know that violent outbursts are common and generally endorsed in this society, that there are a lot of people who'd back me up if I chose that route. I mean, jeezus, I at least want to quit my fucking job, just so I don't have to see these women all the time, don't have to depend on the monster to order basic ingredients I need to do my job. ...Oh, yeah, one of 'em is almost my boss, is the 'chef de cuisine,' just under (resentfully so) the executive chef. The EC and I get along well enough; I like him and love him like family; but then he's not on a massive power-hungry ego-trip like she is. He's not out to induce an entire island, including my beau, to loathe me like these women are trying to do.
Man, I'd love to know what I did to trip these women's Psycho switches. That's a kind of thing so powerful, you don't wanna do it by accident.
So, back to the Balance I wrote of at the beginning of all this bitter drivel: this is where I'm at, trying to figure out what to do. The Awful Twins are obviously trying to goad me into quitting my job, or making a grand mistake (oh, 'cause you know she'd love even more to get to fire me), or just breaking down and crying. Or returning fire. Of course, the last option is appealing far and beyond any of the others, at the moment. But, I dunno. If I can find other work, I am fucking out of that kitchen; I don't care about the kitchen or its so-called reputation; I just care about the food, yo (aren't we all supposed to feel like that there?) But, if not, do I really want to stay in this opressive environment until we move to New Orleans in six months or so? Are the lessons I'm learning worth the frustration? Worth the daily temptation to maul and physically maim another human being? Or two? Is it worth the lost sleep? The pitiful turns my food takes in the face of so much negative energy? Is the revenge taken by not crumpling beneath their pressure enough? Is it worth it? Will it balance?
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Envy.
That skydive, that preternatural flight, was absolutely extraordinary. I needed to see this particular part of our planet from just that height. Needed to see Nurse sharks patrolling from 1200 feet. To run my toes through the top of a rainbow. To pass through cumulus clouds with my own fast-moving skin. I needed to fly through rain into sun. Needed to feel a planet impacting my feet, so gently so gently. Needed, just for a few moments, not to be jealous of the birds...though I envy them for much more than their effortless flight now. Now I know the soft, open whistling that composes so much of their auditory lives. I cannot help but want to hear it, too.
Monday, July 30, 2007
जुम्प. A Good Day to Die.
A couple of weeks ago, I told my Otter that I wanted to get off the island, off the Keys. Gettin kinda feverish with my lust for space, for breathing room.
So today, I got up, had Cafe Sua Da and a fresh-made bagel, and then, under the aegis of the literally-minded Otter, tossed myself out of an airplane, two miles up in the air, with some guy I'd just met strapped to my back.
...As you can see, I was terribly indifferent to the whole endeavour...
Honestly, it was one of the sweetest, most exquisitely beautiful things I've ever experienced. I totally expected a titanic adrenaline rush, expected to be giddy, shaking and stuttering when I hit the ground, but instead I was happy, calm, fulfilled. Grateful, more for the experience than for my continued life. There's nothing like participating in something 'common sense' dictates is a Really Bad Idea to make your blood flow a little more smoothly, to remind you to breathe.
...It's so...
Y'know, it's so calming. It really soothes me to put my body and my sanity in Harm's way; it soothes me to teeter at the edge of an airplane door, over 10,000 feet up, and know that today is not my day to die...and if I'm wrong, if it is, so be it.
It's a beautiful day for an Exit.
I'm still not really sure how to function in the Day-to-Day, in the mundane; but if you wanna throw me out of an airplane, drive 85 mph down West Virginia mountain roads at dusk, or dunk me in the Atlantic with a spear gun I don't know how to use, wearing a 20-year-old pair of fins...well, then! Baby, it's on!
I did go spearfishing a few days ago. I managed to get all the job-baking done in about 4 hours, then ran home to meet Otter and team up with a hardcore, shark-hunter friend of ours for an afternoon's shenanigans in the big Blue. I was more anxious learning how to use a spear gun in the high-rollin ocean water, with an inebriated Otter and a Captain on a killing spree, than I was falling out of that Cessna today. Fer damn sure. I was prepared to hit the ground and die instantly if anything went wrong in the air; I was not prepared to suffer, or watch anyone else suffer, the injuries I imagined a misfired spear gun could inflict on human flesh.
Unfortunately for my documentary madness, I forgot both an underwater camera and my super-cool, super-retro, early 60s turquoise-colored bathing cap with white plastic flowers. Pity. 'Cause with my beautiful bathing cap and a spear gun? I'd look like the love-child of Aquaman and Esther Williams. I'd look like the love-child who, early on, fell in with a gang of surly chefs and rebellious literati, who chain smokes and has a fondness for both saporous sinsemilla and herbaceous elixirs from South of the border.
Photos for my imaginary posterity.
Funny...
I thought that after plummeting through the troposphere, I'd be spilling over with verbiage, with my effulgent circumlocution, what Otter calls my "high-wire vernacular." Ain't the case, apparently. I can feel the spill coming, can feel myself full and needing an overflow, but I keep stopping short, keep getting distracted. I'm a goddamned butterfly today instead of a Luna moth; I am driven by distraction instead of burning passion. My heart is too calm.
...Huh.
And here I thought peace was something I needed more of.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
म्म्म्म. The Kitchen of Inebriation
Mmmm...
This is how we do it in the undulating kitchen:
Simmer Chayote (a.k.a. Merliton) with Jalapenos.
The Peppers' texture is mellowed by squash, the squash's subtlety set afire by the chilies.
Drain 'em, chop 'em up with Avocado, Cilantro, Chipotles. It's just enough smoky red to accentuate the layers of soft, creamy greens; the herb and pepper's vivid viridian to the squash and stone fruit's berylline subtlety. Sultry, creamy, sinfully sensuous textures playing footsie with cheek-reddening heat.
Fresh Corn still on the cob, whole Tomatillos, quartered Red Onions and navel Oranges, whole Jalapenos and cloves of Garlic, Coriander and Cumin seeds, a little Thyme: toss in olive oil and roast together.
Fresh, sweet Costa Rican Pineapple, cut 3/4" thick on the latitudes: smear it with Date Sugar, Molasses, Olive oil, Cayenne, roast it 'til it softens a little, 'til it browns a bit, 'til all those earthy flavors really lock tongues with the sunshine, 'til Soil brings Sun closer to the ground without compromising either's intensity.
After all that roasting, everything falls beneath Knife: cobs kerneled, vegetables and pineapple chopped, caramelly oranges squeezed over all. A handful of chopped fresh Cilantro. Good sea salt. Smoked Paprika.
Lasciviously rub cold muscle, Rib Eye, with Spice, --Spice!-- complex and hand-mixed; a great part of the mix's heat supplied by homegrown, home-dried, home-ground chili peppers from a friend in New Smyrna;
This Spice is so spicy, it sends me into convulsions of sneezes when Red, Red Meat hits hot Cast Iron.
Sear it. Bloody rare. Cut on diagonal, 1/4" thin or so.
Tortillas (masa o harina), warm and soft, homemade if I'm not too muddled to deal with all that kneading and rolling.
Perfectly ripe, raw Avocado.
Two really stoned and inebriated cooks, terribly in love and surprisingly self-satisfied.
Tuck in.
Let the grinning begin!
Let Fingers and Teeth commence their voracious degustation!
This is how we do it in the undulating kitchen:
Simmer Chayote (a.k.a. Merliton) with Jalapenos.
The Peppers' texture is mellowed by squash, the squash's subtlety set afire by the chilies.
Drain 'em, chop 'em up with Avocado, Cilantro, Chipotles. It's just enough smoky red to accentuate the layers of soft, creamy greens; the herb and pepper's vivid viridian to the squash and stone fruit's berylline subtlety. Sultry, creamy, sinfully sensuous textures playing footsie with cheek-reddening heat.
Fresh Corn still on the cob, whole Tomatillos, quartered Red Onions and navel Oranges, whole Jalapenos and cloves of Garlic, Coriander and Cumin seeds, a little Thyme: toss in olive oil and roast together.
Fresh, sweet Costa Rican Pineapple, cut 3/4" thick on the latitudes: smear it with Date Sugar, Molasses, Olive oil, Cayenne, roast it 'til it softens a little, 'til it browns a bit, 'til all those earthy flavors really lock tongues with the sunshine, 'til Soil brings Sun closer to the ground without compromising either's intensity.
After all that roasting, everything falls beneath Knife: cobs kerneled, vegetables and pineapple chopped, caramelly oranges squeezed over all. A handful of chopped fresh Cilantro. Good sea salt. Smoked Paprika.
Lasciviously rub cold muscle, Rib Eye, with Spice, --Spice!-- complex and hand-mixed; a great part of the mix's heat supplied by homegrown, home-dried, home-ground chili peppers from a friend in New Smyrna;
This Spice is so spicy, it sends me into convulsions of sneezes when Red, Red Meat hits hot Cast Iron.
Sear it. Bloody rare. Cut on diagonal, 1/4" thin or so.
Tortillas (masa o harina), warm and soft, homemade if I'm not too muddled to deal with all that kneading and rolling.
Perfectly ripe, raw Avocado.
Two really stoned and inebriated cooks, terribly in love and surprisingly self-satisfied.
Tuck in.
Let the grinning begin!
Let Fingers and Teeth commence their voracious degustation!
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
मोवे ओवर! Interdependence Day
On this our Interdependence Day, I would like to call out those who believe we are truly independent and ask them...from what, exactly, do you believe we are independent? And is this really an ultimate goal? One that we even understand? And what's so wrong with interdependency, especially when contrasted with codependency? And why do we so resent anyone else fighting for the desperate independence of which we, ourselves, are so proud? Why do these series of rhetorical questions always come back to the same goddamned one: Who the fuck are we to think we have the right to tell absolutely anyone, anywhere, what to do or how to think? How out-of-control is that ego?
Bluh. It's not even 6a.m. and I'm already clambering up on the first available soapbox--not really making much sense about it, but definitely making a mess and a ruckus. Most days I just wake up growling, y'know? Not mad at anything, not in an ill mood, just...ready to sink my teeth into some kinda meat and shake the life out of it.
However, it's kinda difficult to pontificate wildly about the ills of the Earth when I am otherwise so deliciously happy. When all possibility lies prostrate and smiling mischievously before me. As I sit in the burgeoning dawn and try to put down Some Great Meaning before I head off to my meaningless job, I am aware of my Otter, on my vision's periphery, sleeping soundly, sweetly, on the couch, ensconced in pillows and fuzzy blankets and beauty, O! in beauty... My anger melts in the face of this Love. It's funny how immediately my Life To This Point has begun to make sense (even if my ramblings this morning do not). I dunno. Maybe this shit happens to everyone. It's a first for me. The first time I've watched so many movies pass my eyes and make sense,
make sense!
Like,
Oh, That's why I went through that terrible, awful, heartwrending, mindnumbing bullshit; so I'd be really ready for this really amazing, fulfilling part now. Okay, I guess that education doesn't suck as hard as I thought it did. Fair's fair, in a really fucked up kinda way.
Everything, everything has clearly led me to exactly where I am at this moment. The lessons I've learned, from rolling in the various piles of shit the Universe has left out for me, are duplicitous and deep and often seem ridiculously, unnecessarily dramatic. However...
...well, sometimes you do what you've gotta do to get through to someone, y'know? Especially someone as goat headed as I am. Ain't no way in hell I'd've been able to accept, and I mean really gratefully openheartedly accept, the Love I am being given now were it not for some murderous bullshit knocking me off my Pedestal of Untouchability and showing me that vulnerability doesn't always mean defeat. Sometimes it means we get to refuel and fight even longer, become even stronger, pair our righteous anger with heartfelt compassion. That's a pretty powerful lesson that I maybe only could learn by powerfully violent means. I never in a million years would've accepted the gifts I have been given had I not been metaphysically tied down and forced to accept them at some point.
And lord knows I tried to struggle, tried to wriggle out from under it, tried to deny, deny, deny, until finally I collapsed and had to admit,
had to admit
I couldn't stand in the face anymore.
Had to admit Mama was right,
had to admit the wisdom of my own wisdom,
had to admit that we deserve to be loved as much as we deserve to be punished.
Had to admit I deserve...
...I deserve...
I deserve the Struggle, deserve the Fight, deserve the Pain because I can feel the PainFightStruggle a thousand miles, a thousand years away. I deserve my Cassandra-sight because I will not, I cannot ignore it. I deserve my heartsickening Empathy and merciful Anger because my voice and will cradle and strengthen them. I deserve punishment for humanity's ills because I hold the root of these ills within me...
...And I've known this shit since I was a little kid, yo. Kind of a fucked up thing for a 9-year-old to understand on a fundamental level.
Thing I didn't get, am just beginning to get, was the whole Love part of the equation. Like, I figured I was this one-woman emotional balancing act, the Scales of Justice made fat and bone; all evil in the world could enter through me and be somehow purified into love, love that would then leave my flesh to find those who needed it most.
And, y'know, sometimes it worked. Sometimes I really nailed it and was able to give some beautiful succor to those who really needed it.
Sometimes I was able to save people.
But the Love...
Oh, the Love.
Man, I had no idea I needed Love like other people needed it. That I maybe needed it more than most other people needed it 'cause I was draining it outta myself so quickly, so often.
I was empty.
Empty and desperately tossing down whatever I thought might take up space in the reservoir. Empty and without hope of there being another living human who could possibly comprehend all the girls in my head, all the pounding ache in my heart (and most of it not even mine!), all the rage in my muscles, and understand that these are Love.
These are how Love escapes my skin, this is how Love looks when it is under- or malnourished.
This is the burning in my eyes, the vitriolic admission of Need that my lips will never allow to escape,
not ever,
not never.
And then this Otter,
this Otter walks up outta the river, outta the Ocean, outta the water that surrounds my solitary island, and it looks me dead in the eye and sees those fuckin girls hidin out and gettin lazy and jaded, and they see the Otter and feel kinda like lookin at god and feelin ashamed of being naked and damned if they know why, and they kinda sheepish stand up slow and increasingly brazen, defiant; and the Otter grins at my all-girl firing squad and tells me it thinks it'd be just grand if I(we)'d come swimming this afternoon, and it's not like we could say no, y'know? In fact, one of the more mischievous girls said,
"I would absolutely love that"
before I could shut her mouth,
before I could remind her, remind her that we don't need,
we don't,
don't need...
don't need any mythic creatures because there aren't any on this continent, not any more, not besides me,
and I don't really remember the old Magic, how to turn the Earth inside out, 'cause I got tired of having to justify and explain it,
so I just kinda quit and
kinda forgot and
and just ended up with all these voices who weren't allowed to speak, who grew swollen throats and milky eyes and bitter, icy hearts.
Tell you what...a talking Otter who laughs and swims webs of bubbles around my body, who can not only see all the girls behind the screen door, but also entice them out to play, an Otter who accepts, without question, that Mama found me under a mushroom at the foot of the tallest tree in the forest (glowing blue, glowing blue),
an Otter who can
See.
Me.
...That's something I shouldn't walk away from.
Can't walk away from.
Not after all this, after all this leading up to...
This.
This is my Interdependence Day.
I thank the Water for this Otter, for these lessons indelibly written in my heart.
I thank the Sky for showing me my weakness and reinforcing my strength.
I thank Tragedy and Disaster for laying me low so that I could be raised up.
I thank the Otter for needing me as much as I need it, and for reminding me of things I had long forgotten.
I am grateful.
And holy.
And going back to bed.
Bluh. It's not even 6a.m. and I'm already clambering up on the first available soapbox--not really making much sense about it, but definitely making a mess and a ruckus. Most days I just wake up growling, y'know? Not mad at anything, not in an ill mood, just...ready to sink my teeth into some kinda meat and shake the life out of it.
However, it's kinda difficult to pontificate wildly about the ills of the Earth when I am otherwise so deliciously happy. When all possibility lies prostrate and smiling mischievously before me. As I sit in the burgeoning dawn and try to put down Some Great Meaning before I head off to my meaningless job, I am aware of my Otter, on my vision's periphery, sleeping soundly, sweetly, on the couch, ensconced in pillows and fuzzy blankets and beauty, O! in beauty... My anger melts in the face of this Love. It's funny how immediately my Life To This Point has begun to make sense (even if my ramblings this morning do not). I dunno. Maybe this shit happens to everyone. It's a first for me. The first time I've watched so many movies pass my eyes and make sense,
make sense!
Like,
Oh, That's why I went through that terrible, awful, heartwrending, mindnumbing bullshit; so I'd be really ready for this really amazing, fulfilling part now. Okay, I guess that education doesn't suck as hard as I thought it did. Fair's fair, in a really fucked up kinda way.
Everything, everything has clearly led me to exactly where I am at this moment. The lessons I've learned, from rolling in the various piles of shit the Universe has left out for me, are duplicitous and deep and often seem ridiculously, unnecessarily dramatic. However...
...well, sometimes you do what you've gotta do to get through to someone, y'know? Especially someone as goat headed as I am. Ain't no way in hell I'd've been able to accept, and I mean really gratefully openheartedly accept, the Love I am being given now were it not for some murderous bullshit knocking me off my Pedestal of Untouchability and showing me that vulnerability doesn't always mean defeat. Sometimes it means we get to refuel and fight even longer, become even stronger, pair our righteous anger with heartfelt compassion. That's a pretty powerful lesson that I maybe only could learn by powerfully violent means. I never in a million years would've accepted the gifts I have been given had I not been metaphysically tied down and forced to accept them at some point.
And lord knows I tried to struggle, tried to wriggle out from under it, tried to deny, deny, deny, until finally I collapsed and had to admit,
had to admit
I couldn't stand in the face anymore.
Had to admit Mama was right,
had to admit the wisdom of my own wisdom,
had to admit that we deserve to be loved as much as we deserve to be punished.
Had to admit I deserve...
...I deserve...
I deserve the Struggle, deserve the Fight, deserve the Pain because I can feel the PainFightStruggle a thousand miles, a thousand years away. I deserve my Cassandra-sight because I will not, I cannot ignore it. I deserve my heartsickening Empathy and merciful Anger because my voice and will cradle and strengthen them. I deserve punishment for humanity's ills because I hold the root of these ills within me...
...And I've known this shit since I was a little kid, yo. Kind of a fucked up thing for a 9-year-old to understand on a fundamental level.
Thing I didn't get, am just beginning to get, was the whole Love part of the equation. Like, I figured I was this one-woman emotional balancing act, the Scales of Justice made fat and bone; all evil in the world could enter through me and be somehow purified into love, love that would then leave my flesh to find those who needed it most.
And, y'know, sometimes it worked. Sometimes I really nailed it and was able to give some beautiful succor to those who really needed it.
Sometimes I was able to save people.
But the Love...
Oh, the Love.
Man, I had no idea I needed Love like other people needed it. That I maybe needed it more than most other people needed it 'cause I was draining it outta myself so quickly, so often.
I was empty.
Empty and desperately tossing down whatever I thought might take up space in the reservoir. Empty and without hope of there being another living human who could possibly comprehend all the girls in my head, all the pounding ache in my heart (and most of it not even mine!), all the rage in my muscles, and understand that these are Love.
These are how Love escapes my skin, this is how Love looks when it is under- or malnourished.
This is the burning in my eyes, the vitriolic admission of Need that my lips will never allow to escape,
not ever,
not never.
And then this Otter,
this Otter walks up outta the river, outta the Ocean, outta the water that surrounds my solitary island, and it looks me dead in the eye and sees those fuckin girls hidin out and gettin lazy and jaded, and they see the Otter and feel kinda like lookin at god and feelin ashamed of being naked and damned if they know why, and they kinda sheepish stand up slow and increasingly brazen, defiant; and the Otter grins at my all-girl firing squad and tells me it thinks it'd be just grand if I(we)'d come swimming this afternoon, and it's not like we could say no, y'know? In fact, one of the more mischievous girls said,
"I would absolutely love that"
before I could shut her mouth,
before I could remind her, remind her that we don't need,
we don't,
don't need...
don't need any mythic creatures because there aren't any on this continent, not any more, not besides me,
and I don't really remember the old Magic, how to turn the Earth inside out, 'cause I got tired of having to justify and explain it,
so I just kinda quit and
kinda forgot and
and just ended up with all these voices who weren't allowed to speak, who grew swollen throats and milky eyes and bitter, icy hearts.
Tell you what...a talking Otter who laughs and swims webs of bubbles around my body, who can not only see all the girls behind the screen door, but also entice them out to play, an Otter who accepts, without question, that Mama found me under a mushroom at the foot of the tallest tree in the forest (glowing blue, glowing blue),
an Otter who can
See.
Me.
...That's something I shouldn't walk away from.
Can't walk away from.
Not after all this, after all this leading up to...
This.
This is my Interdependence Day.
I thank the Water for this Otter, for these lessons indelibly written in my heart.
I thank the Sky for showing me my weakness and reinforcing my strength.
I thank Tragedy and Disaster for laying me low so that I could be raised up.
I thank the Otter for needing me as much as I need it, and for reminding me of things I had long forgotten.
I am grateful.
And holy.
And going back to bed.
Sunday, July 1, 2007
Like I Didn't See It Coming...
This rating was determined based on the presence of the following words:
hell (6x)
fuck (4x)
shit (3x)
fucking (2x)
piss (1x)
...HELL yeah! I'm the Profanity Princess!
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
मोविंग Moving In & On
Been hipshot, off balance, skewed and skewered for so long that I've become accustomed to it. I forgot to remember where my produce grew, where my sustenance sprouted, where the mushrooms erupted from the earth (truffles being a product of the Earth's orgasm). And now...
Now I'm moving in.
That term, 'moving in,' has acquired so many nuanced layers recently: embarking on a nesting with an Otter outta the Mississippi River, outta Baton Rouge; moving into a markedly different phase of life, rife with all the possibilities I've aligned in my Cassandra sight/saint's light; moving to New Orleans, come December; moving to new rhythms, or moving newly to the old; moving into my new skin, shiny and smooth beneath my molting layers. Moving,
Yeah. Moving...
Now I'm moving in.
That term, 'moving in,' has acquired so many nuanced layers recently: embarking on a nesting with an Otter outta the Mississippi River, outta Baton Rouge; moving into a markedly different phase of life, rife with all the possibilities I've aligned in my Cassandra sight/saint's light; moving to New Orleans, come December; moving to new rhythms, or moving newly to the old; moving into my new skin, shiny and smooth beneath my molting layers. Moving,
Yeah. Moving...
Got this shift change happening, see. Can feel the Old Guard slumping at the mouth of the Ice Caves, and lo, this burgeouning Southern heat is melting down the walls, dropping stalagtites like swords, and I am on the run, bolting into Recrudescence.
I am anxious. Ravenous. Though I'm nowhere near ready, I want the high-speed journeying now, now, now. Key West is a boon become a burden that my shoulders ache to slough, and the laying down is just around the corner. The laying down and taking up and multiplying magnificence by massive magnitudes and oh, Atlas, --O, Atlas!-- your little sister is not leaving you so much as running ahead to clear your path down the Mississippi's steep and muddy banks, to secure your ferry across the Algonquin's Big River. I'm movin in, brother, into my sea-mammal Papi, movin on to my real life's work, and I have never felt more sane or more at home.
Monday, May 7, 2007
लोवे Alligator Death Roll
My beet-bloody platelets are in a microscopic logjam, and oh, and oooh sweet jeezus none of them know which direction leads back to the Heart,
to the Pulmonary Precipice since, y'know,
the Heart is everywhere this week, is smeared rice-paper-thin and foie-gras-rich across the long skin's surface.
And I,
I just,
uhmmm...I just gotta put this in metaphors of food and drugs and mental illness or else I won't be able to get it out at all:
I've got my Manic on and oh, Oh! it feels delicious! Mania's such an addictive thing, a goddamned narcotic, stronger than any pill or powder or apocryphal elixir;
and y'know,
y'know,
Fuck You if you don't dig it 'cause
I have done the shiniest meth and the most virginal cocaine,
I've spent long, tawdry weeks wrapped up in bottles of mezcal and pills,
my veins have met the points a time or two,
and still I stand 50 feet tall, shouting my lungs bloody,
absolutely certain in my knowledge that this particular mania,
that this high-tide drowning,
this rash of fissile lightning bugs,
this thoracic nitroglycerin,
this BlueAlligatorDeathRollLove bullshit is way waaay better than any padlocked-cabinet-strength amphetamine. It's the very best bit of the bipolar rollercoaster that undulates serpentine in the long acreage of my spine.
I am high, muthafucka,
and I mean High
on some sorta uncontrollable compulsion to participate in a total molecular exchange with an otter from an alluvial plain and,
and oh,
oh, I twitch and jitter for this,
and oh, I want to go on feeling this until I die from it, and
and that's what I'm talking about, y'know, that sensation of not really wanting to physically die, but wanting even less to ever come down, to ever hit the end of the high, the end of the trip, the end of the spiritual headfuck, the end of the endless dinner. I want to peak like this forever, want to feel like this when my body finally expires, want to be neck-deep in the understanding that all the other trauma and pain and annoyance and sometimes downright tragedy was
Worth.
This.
Was totally worth this single instance of hyperbolic excess velocity,
this simmering, pregnant, primordial swamp of possibility and communion.
When you're ready, baby,
Oh, when you're ready, I want you to wrap your scales and tail and 1200-pound crushing power jaws around me, cause when I come down,
oh when I come down....
to the Pulmonary Precipice since, y'know,
the Heart is everywhere this week, is smeared rice-paper-thin and foie-gras-rich across the long skin's surface.
And I,
I just,
uhmmm...I just gotta put this in metaphors of food and drugs and mental illness or else I won't be able to get it out at all:
I've got my Manic on and oh, Oh! it feels delicious! Mania's such an addictive thing, a goddamned narcotic, stronger than any pill or powder or apocryphal elixir;
and y'know,
y'know,
Fuck You if you don't dig it 'cause
I have done the shiniest meth and the most virginal cocaine,
I've spent long, tawdry weeks wrapped up in bottles of mezcal and pills,
my veins have met the points a time or two,
and still I stand 50 feet tall, shouting my lungs bloody,
absolutely certain in my knowledge that this particular mania,
that this high-tide drowning,
this rash of fissile lightning bugs,
this thoracic nitroglycerin,
this BlueAlligatorDeathRollLove bullshit is way waaay better than any padlocked-cabinet-strength amphetamine. It's the very best bit of the bipolar rollercoaster that undulates serpentine in the long acreage of my spine.
I am high, muthafucka,
and I mean High
on some sorta uncontrollable compulsion to participate in a total molecular exchange with an otter from an alluvial plain and,
and oh,
oh, I twitch and jitter for this,
and oh, I want to go on feeling this until I die from it, and
and that's what I'm talking about, y'know, that sensation of not really wanting to physically die, but wanting even less to ever come down, to ever hit the end of the high, the end of the trip, the end of the spiritual headfuck, the end of the endless dinner. I want to peak like this forever, want to feel like this when my body finally expires, want to be neck-deep in the understanding that all the other trauma and pain and annoyance and sometimes downright tragedy was
Worth.
This.
Was totally worth this single instance of hyperbolic excess velocity,
this simmering, pregnant, primordial swamp of possibility and communion.
When you're ready, baby,
Oh, when you're ready, I want you to wrap your scales and tail and 1200-pound crushing power jaws around me, cause when I come down,
oh when I come down....
Monday, April 30, 2007
गेट Get Your Filthy Proboscis Away From Me!
NoSeeUms.
A.k.a. Biting Midges.
I had never heard of them, much less run into any until I moved to the subtropics. They, however, apparently know me well enough to recognize my inherent value as a meaty, freckly, nonstop, Vegas-style, gorge-'til-you-explode, insect buffet. I am covered with the results of their gnawing on my flesh. I look like I got in a fight with an icepick-wielding madman, like my body is the arena for the Insectival Olympics. This is ridiculous. Everyone who's seen my legs recoils, to one degree or another, in some shock, some disgust. The NoSeeUms win the gold for Prolificity; Mosquitoes take the silver in Amount of Damage Inflicted with a Single Bite.
The concensus is that I am allergic to whatever filthy, disgusting, virulent plague these barely-visible parasites carry within their miniscule bodies. Most people, when bitten, host small bumps that annoy for a few hours, maybe an entire day; I break out in winding hillocks of tumid pestilence, little lumps of un-ignorable itching that, within minutes, start wending and swelling their way toward my heart...my heart. No joke. It's fucking freaky.
Of course, most of the places I really, really, really want to travel are rife with hundreds of thousands of bazillions of these rotten beasties, as well as umpty-dozen other worms and insects and arachnids that wouldn't think twice (assuming they think at all) about burrowing beneath my skin, into my veins, and swimming upstream to where the blood is really fresh and delicious. I mean, I'm flattered that my flesh is considered to be so goddamned succulent to such a wide variety of creatures, but seriously...get your filthy fucking proboscis away from me!
...Gross!
A.k.a. Biting Midges.
I had never heard of them, much less run into any until I moved to the subtropics. They, however, apparently know me well enough to recognize my inherent value as a meaty, freckly, nonstop, Vegas-style, gorge-'til-you-explode, insect buffet. I am covered with the results of their gnawing on my flesh. I look like I got in a fight with an icepick-wielding madman, like my body is the arena for the Insectival Olympics. This is ridiculous. Everyone who's seen my legs recoils, to one degree or another, in some shock, some disgust. The NoSeeUms win the gold for Prolificity; Mosquitoes take the silver in Amount of Damage Inflicted with a Single Bite.
The concensus is that I am allergic to whatever filthy, disgusting, virulent plague these barely-visible parasites carry within their miniscule bodies. Most people, when bitten, host small bumps that annoy for a few hours, maybe an entire day; I break out in winding hillocks of tumid pestilence, little lumps of un-ignorable itching that, within minutes, start wending and swelling their way toward my heart...my heart. No joke. It's fucking freaky.
Of course, most of the places I really, really, really want to travel are rife with hundreds of thousands of bazillions of these rotten beasties, as well as umpty-dozen other worms and insects and arachnids that wouldn't think twice (assuming they think at all) about burrowing beneath my skin, into my veins, and swimming upstream to where the blood is really fresh and delicious. I mean, I'm flattered that my flesh is considered to be so goddamned succulent to such a wide variety of creatures, but seriously...get your filthy fucking proboscis away from me!
...Gross!
Friday, April 6, 2007
I'll Take A Lifetime in Four Months, Please...
...Yes, yes, of course I'll pay in sweat and blood; I'll take the ulcer and the Hard-Way lessons. I'll take the whole sleep-negating lot, only 'cause I'm impatient and goatheaded and saddled with unbridled curiosity like that. Just, y'know, couldja bitch-slap the living hell outta me until I can stand in front of my own ego and look it in the eye? That'd be great. I've spent months working on my Ten-Mile Stare.
Jesus tits, it feels like I've learned a lot recently. Or maybe I haven't; maybe I'm just now noticing what 7 years in Seattle has taught me, how those years molded and affected me. Either way, I am still having a difficult time not loathing most people, but I am suddenly more comfortable with shoving them around and taking their money.
...No, wait...
I guess that's kinda true, but its opposite is also true. I still can't stand the willfully ignorant (which is, what, 97% of the human population?), but I am at least not so interested in trying to save them from their own fear. I've become a lot more comfortable with saving myself, and...it's nowhere near as cold and savage as I thought it'd be. In fact, sometimes it's just fuckin great. Sometimes it feels like I fit into my own skin like no one else could, and sometimes I even remember who I was when my mama found me under that giant mushroom: a ceruleal star with a great, wide hunger and a moon-chewing grin.
Tonight, I am blowing off my culinary obligations for a couple hours just so I can write. I haven't made that choice in weeks. Hell, looking back at these posts, I suddenly remembered that, Hey, wait a minute...I can write! Oh yeah! I, like, totally forgot and stuff! If I hate working the professional kitchen so much, what the hell am I still doing there? I mean, the dining car on this particular Opportunity Train is providing more hard and fast lessons than any I've been on in quite some time, and that is precisely what I want (always, always, always), but, y'know...I already know how much people bore and annoy and disappoint me. I already know that the -Ridiculously Long Weeks Stressing the Fuck Out Over Something That Should Be Joyful and Creative and Communal and Is Instead Competitive and Heartless- thing is not for me. Y'know? I figured that one out pretty early. But I love the food...the goddamned fooood! And so I keep coming back 'cause they keep asking me back, and I keep killing my writing opportunities with sleeplessness and stress and, currently, a return to unabashed alcoholism. Though I am aware how appalled I will be, next time I see this post, at how scattered and inelegantly worded and ranty and simpering this little tirade is, I am high as hell, riding on great blue Joy in my veins...not "joy" like heroin or something, but Joy like the kind that bumps my skin when I sit down to write. It feels so goddamned good to selfishly spend a few hours doing what I'd really love to do for a living instead of bowing before the Gods of Sustenance I choose to worship. Feels like playing hooky from church and feeling finally free to live Life instead of acting it out, a minor character in someone else's seen-it-before play.
I have other ideas for interacting with food, ideas about which I am terribly excited and may actually pursue. But the writing has to be there. And the reading. And the not giving a fuck about whether or not anyone else agrees, or cares, or whatever. I just write 'cause it gives me joy. And if I'm happy, so is absolutely everything else I come into contact with. Who could help it?
Jesus tits, it feels like I've learned a lot recently. Or maybe I haven't; maybe I'm just now noticing what 7 years in Seattle has taught me, how those years molded and affected me. Either way, I am still having a difficult time not loathing most people, but I am suddenly more comfortable with shoving them around and taking their money.
...No, wait...
I guess that's kinda true, but its opposite is also true. I still can't stand the willfully ignorant (which is, what, 97% of the human population?), but I am at least not so interested in trying to save them from their own fear. I've become a lot more comfortable with saving myself, and...it's nowhere near as cold and savage as I thought it'd be. In fact, sometimes it's just fuckin great. Sometimes it feels like I fit into my own skin like no one else could, and sometimes I even remember who I was when my mama found me under that giant mushroom: a ceruleal star with a great, wide hunger and a moon-chewing grin.
Tonight, I am blowing off my culinary obligations for a couple hours just so I can write. I haven't made that choice in weeks. Hell, looking back at these posts, I suddenly remembered that, Hey, wait a minute...I can write! Oh yeah! I, like, totally forgot and stuff! If I hate working the professional kitchen so much, what the hell am I still doing there? I mean, the dining car on this particular Opportunity Train is providing more hard and fast lessons than any I've been on in quite some time, and that is precisely what I want (always, always, always), but, y'know...I already know how much people bore and annoy and disappoint me. I already know that the -Ridiculously Long Weeks Stressing the Fuck Out Over Something That Should Be Joyful and Creative and Communal and Is Instead Competitive and Heartless- thing is not for me. Y'know? I figured that one out pretty early. But I love the food...the goddamned fooood! And so I keep coming back 'cause they keep asking me back, and I keep killing my writing opportunities with sleeplessness and stress and, currently, a return to unabashed alcoholism. Though I am aware how appalled I will be, next time I see this post, at how scattered and inelegantly worded and ranty and simpering this little tirade is, I am high as hell, riding on great blue Joy in my veins...not "joy" like heroin or something, but Joy like the kind that bumps my skin when I sit down to write. It feels so goddamned good to selfishly spend a few hours doing what I'd really love to do for a living instead of bowing before the Gods of Sustenance I choose to worship. Feels like playing hooky from church and feeling finally free to live Life instead of acting it out, a minor character in someone else's seen-it-before play.
I have other ideas for interacting with food, ideas about which I am terribly excited and may actually pursue. But the writing has to be there. And the reading. And the not giving a fuck about whether or not anyone else agrees, or cares, or whatever. I just write 'cause it gives me joy. And if I'm happy, so is absolutely everything else I come into contact with. Who could help it?
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Right When I Needed It
Oh, Key West, you found me just in time.
It is snowing back home in Seattle, and here you have me sitting in a long, loose, terribly vivid skirt and tiny shirt, under the royal palms and papyrus, caressed by a hundred felines, teased by mosquitoes and tiny lizards, entranced by brown pelicans, vultures and ospreys and wild chicken families. I have made and eaten wonderful food. I am in love with your piece of the endless Atlantic. Your residents warn me of their strangeness and their eccentricities, but they breathe calm and lovely to me.
Thank you for embracing me when you ignore so many others. Thank you for giving me what I did not know I needed. Thank you for your joy and your passion, freckled as they are by humanity.
Behold my newness, scrubbed clean of my grey skin, my eyes unpeeling and a breath of future wisdom at my neck.
I will do right by this opportunity.
It is snowing back home in Seattle, and here you have me sitting in a long, loose, terribly vivid skirt and tiny shirt, under the royal palms and papyrus, caressed by a hundred felines, teased by mosquitoes and tiny lizards, entranced by brown pelicans, vultures and ospreys and wild chicken families. I have made and eaten wonderful food. I am in love with your piece of the endless Atlantic. Your residents warn me of their strangeness and their eccentricities, but they breathe calm and lovely to me.
Thank you for embracing me when you ignore so many others. Thank you for giving me what I did not know I needed. Thank you for your joy and your passion, freckled as they are by humanity.
Behold my newness, scrubbed clean of my grey skin, my eyes unpeeling and a breath of future wisdom at my neck.
I will do right by this opportunity.
Monday, October 30, 2006
Cucurbits and Tubercles
(...or Squashes and Root Veggies, for those of you who don't garden, speak Latin, or make love to words like an OCD logophile)
I love eating food in season, not just for its superior quality, but also for its perfect fit with the turning year's mood swings. In the segue between autumn and winter, just around the first frost of the hermetic season, root vegetables (tubercles and the like) attain a sweetness and a depth unmatched at any other time of year. They are perfect for roasting, for steaming and blanching and sauteeing and frying, for mashing and smashing and bathing in butter. Burrowing roots and tubers are the winter kitchen's blank canvas.
The other great autumnal rock stars are the brilliantly armored winter cucurbits---the humble squashes. O Kabocha! O Calabaza! All you earthly-hued cousins of sweet meaty flesh! You cry out, insistent, for heated sacrifice. You are tragically resplendent hollowed and roasted, your shiny skins filled with your own dressed innards. I love you sweet and savory, creamy and rough, smeared on face and speared on tongue. If root vegetables are the canvas, winter squashes are the ochred foundation painting. These two are the basis for comfort & joy in hearthside hibernation.
Scattered and smashed and artfully married with these are the brightly colored palettes full of winter fruits, window-grown herbs, late-harvested grains and cold-tapped sugars; apples and quinces, sage and thyme and rosemary, hard wheats and rich, earthy molasses and maple syrup.
These are the foundations of our burgeoning cuisine. These are the meals of preparation and promise. The pumpkin colored carpet leading to the dirt-velvet burrow. These are the offerings of hunt and forage, of stiff-fingered plucking and digging. This is plunder hard-won from the cold & sleeping earth.
Dine well this winter, sweet gastronomes, and be grateful for each mouthful, for every morsel pushed backward on the tongue.
I love eating food in season, not just for its superior quality, but also for its perfect fit with the turning year's mood swings. In the segue between autumn and winter, just around the first frost of the hermetic season, root vegetables (tubercles and the like) attain a sweetness and a depth unmatched at any other time of year. They are perfect for roasting, for steaming and blanching and sauteeing and frying, for mashing and smashing and bathing in butter. Burrowing roots and tubers are the winter kitchen's blank canvas.
The other great autumnal rock stars are the brilliantly armored winter cucurbits---the humble squashes. O Kabocha! O Calabaza! All you earthly-hued cousins of sweet meaty flesh! You cry out, insistent, for heated sacrifice. You are tragically resplendent hollowed and roasted, your shiny skins filled with your own dressed innards. I love you sweet and savory, creamy and rough, smeared on face and speared on tongue. If root vegetables are the canvas, winter squashes are the ochred foundation painting. These two are the basis for comfort & joy in hearthside hibernation.
Scattered and smashed and artfully married with these are the brightly colored palettes full of winter fruits, window-grown herbs, late-harvested grains and cold-tapped sugars; apples and quinces, sage and thyme and rosemary, hard wheats and rich, earthy molasses and maple syrup.
These are the foundations of our burgeoning cuisine. These are the meals of preparation and promise. The pumpkin colored carpet leading to the dirt-velvet burrow. These are the offerings of hunt and forage, of stiff-fingered plucking and digging. This is plunder hard-won from the cold & sleeping earth.
Dine well this winter, sweet gastronomes, and be grateful for each mouthful, for every morsel pushed backward on the tongue.
Sunday, October 29, 2006
...Are Those Feathers I Smell Burning?
I have been so full, during these last many months of growth and opportunity. This nonstop balancing act of homage and betrayal and calm, calm, calm has left me largely unable to write with any kind of regularity. I'm too close to see the thing, too close to make out details... "The Thing," of course, is the trajectory of my life-pattern segue, the path from There to Here to There. The overgrown machete-cut trail of murder and love and bewilderment and beauty. The Artery of Understanding....
And I still don't get it.
I reckon that's what I'm doing here: trying to figure stuff out. Writing down what knowledge Experience has given me. Trying not just to remember, but to live what my Mama taught (and continues to teach) me. Trying to acknowledge with my Absolute Everything the rhetorical query of George Eliot, "What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other?"
Of course, I am only now realizing that sometimes "making life less difficult" entails adamantly demanding others Piss Off and leave me the hell alone so I can think. I used to be so good at that when I was still a belligerent teenaged drunk....
These days, in lieu of shouting, I am moving 2725 crow-miles away (to a subtropical island, no less) before I leave the US entirely for a while. I'm afraid Seattle's oyster-broth winters have been in my hair a bit too long. I've got too much rain in my eyes to see, too much blood on my skin to be able to feel anything but vicious extremes. And christ almighty, the whole Terrified-to-Idiocy climate of oppression gaining momentum in this country is making my goddamned skin crawl. People are getting dumber and meaner, and I've been exposed---to my last howling nerve---to too much cruel and violent bullshit this year to be willing to put up with any more. Period. I'm not saying I'm the only one stripped to the marrow. Not by a long stretch. I'm just done keeping my bones in the petrol-fire. I'm done seeing it, smelling it, being reminded of it every day. I'm tired of coughing up loathing every morning with my coffee...
So, I'm getting out.
Giving myself a metaphysical electroshock. Letting the sun burn the bile from my skin. Engineering my own recrudescence. Planning my own bonfire, my own smoldering ashpile, my own PhoenixNest from which to rise.
Lo, I am already on fire.
And I still don't get it.
I reckon that's what I'm doing here: trying to figure stuff out. Writing down what knowledge Experience has given me. Trying not just to remember, but to live what my Mama taught (and continues to teach) me. Trying to acknowledge with my Absolute Everything the rhetorical query of George Eliot, "What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other?"
Of course, I am only now realizing that sometimes "making life less difficult" entails adamantly demanding others Piss Off and leave me the hell alone so I can think. I used to be so good at that when I was still a belligerent teenaged drunk....
These days, in lieu of shouting, I am moving 2725 crow-miles away (to a subtropical island, no less) before I leave the US entirely for a while. I'm afraid Seattle's oyster-broth winters have been in my hair a bit too long. I've got too much rain in my eyes to see, too much blood on my skin to be able to feel anything but vicious extremes. And christ almighty, the whole Terrified-to-Idiocy climate of oppression gaining momentum in this country is making my goddamned skin crawl. People are getting dumber and meaner, and I've been exposed---to my last howling nerve---to too much cruel and violent bullshit this year to be willing to put up with any more. Period. I'm not saying I'm the only one stripped to the marrow. Not by a long stretch. I'm just done keeping my bones in the petrol-fire. I'm done seeing it, smelling it, being reminded of it every day. I'm tired of coughing up loathing every morning with my coffee...
So, I'm getting out.
Giving myself a metaphysical electroshock. Letting the sun burn the bile from my skin. Engineering my own recrudescence. Planning my own bonfire, my own smoldering ashpile, my own PhoenixNest from which to rise.
Lo, I am already on fire.
Thursday, October 5, 2006
Bullfighter
(Seattle)
There's an oil painting of a bullfighter, mesmerizing a wild-eyed bull, hanging in our dining room. It used to hang above the fireplace in the Palindrome House. The painting is old and crackly, beginning to lose flakes of color and layers of vividity. Its kitsch value keeps it around, as well as the inexplicable draw it seems to have on every person who spends any time with it. Yesterday I noticed something new: the painting is pocked with dozens of tiny holes. Like from dozens of tiny moth mouths.
Or from the edges of a shotgun spray.
Now I can't stop staring at it.
They're probably not shot-holes, though, right? I mean, every other shotgun blast I've ever seen (like the one through my bedroom wall) leaves holes a bit bigger than the ones in the bullfighter's bony hip, in the bull's meaty flank, peppered through the mustard-and-gangrene sky that seems to sicken them both. And the painting was still hanging when I went through the old house, so I have no idea whether or not those holes continued through the wall behind. Still...
It's everywhere. I can't go anywhere in this town without feeling the tap-tap of tragedy on my right shoulder, waiting for me to turn around so I can see its wide, bloody grin.
I get it, already. Jeezus.
Leave me alone.
...Of course, it won't leave. Can't leave. Is maybe bound up here forever, caught in the silken nets of fog that extend over the valleys, tripped up in the pointed tops of needled trees and in the teeth of mountains. My shoulders are not big enough, despite my Atlas-training, to shake this grinning, gnawing beast free. I have to get outside the pit, outside the fight, to see what I'm dealing with. It may only be a tiny thing with big teeth and bigger bark...but it may be a monster. Either way, I am ill-equipped to continue fighting. I need to recharge, to shift my perspective. I cannot in good conscience keep ruminating our little Tragedy when we live largely untouched by the Great Tragedy of the world. I need to go and meet people wiser than I, people who live beside the Great one all life long and grin in spite of it. Or because of it. People with wider views of suffering and joy.
UnAmerican.
Unspoiled.
Uninterred.
There's an oil painting of a bullfighter, mesmerizing a wild-eyed bull, hanging in our dining room. It used to hang above the fireplace in the Palindrome House. The painting is old and crackly, beginning to lose flakes of color and layers of vividity. Its kitsch value keeps it around, as well as the inexplicable draw it seems to have on every person who spends any time with it. Yesterday I noticed something new: the painting is pocked with dozens of tiny holes. Like from dozens of tiny moth mouths.
Or from the edges of a shotgun spray.
Now I can't stop staring at it.
They're probably not shot-holes, though, right? I mean, every other shotgun blast I've ever seen (like the one through my bedroom wall) leaves holes a bit bigger than the ones in the bullfighter's bony hip, in the bull's meaty flank, peppered through the mustard-and-gangrene sky that seems to sicken them both. And the painting was still hanging when I went through the old house, so I have no idea whether or not those holes continued through the wall behind. Still...
It's everywhere. I can't go anywhere in this town without feeling the tap-tap of tragedy on my right shoulder, waiting for me to turn around so I can see its wide, bloody grin.
I get it, already. Jeezus.
Leave me alone.
...Of course, it won't leave. Can't leave. Is maybe bound up here forever, caught in the silken nets of fog that extend over the valleys, tripped up in the pointed tops of needled trees and in the teeth of mountains. My shoulders are not big enough, despite my Atlas-training, to shake this grinning, gnawing beast free. I have to get outside the pit, outside the fight, to see what I'm dealing with. It may only be a tiny thing with big teeth and bigger bark...but it may be a monster. Either way, I am ill-equipped to continue fighting. I need to recharge, to shift my perspective. I cannot in good conscience keep ruminating our little Tragedy when we live largely untouched by the Great Tragedy of the world. I need to go and meet people wiser than I, people who live beside the Great one all life long and grin in spite of it. Or because of it. People with wider views of suffering and joy.
UnAmerican.
Unspoiled.
Uninterred.
Thursday, September 7, 2006
Incensed
so, apparently the pentagon released the new edition of the army field manual today, a revision that implicitly denies soldiers the rights to torture prisoners, that says that soldiers must obey many of the guidelines of the geneva convention, etc. within hours of the manual's release, bush gave a speech saying that the cia needed to torture people to get information, even though the only admissions we've been able to use have been given by people who were not tortured.
so, basically, what i'm hearing here is that bush just likes to fucking torture people.
he endorses the cia tactics that not only break international laws (that the u.s. agreed to, back in the day), but break our own laws as well. dude! this almost makes bush's speech two days ago, the one where he compared bin laden to hitler, seem almost funny. yeah, bin laden's a pretty twisted fucker, from all accounts, but bush is the one actually setting up death and torture camps, right fucking here on u.s. soil (and of course in cuba, cause we love the irony). oh yeah, and bush also acknowledged yesterday that we have secret cia prisons. isn't that great? he flat out, openly said, "yeah, we're totally torturing and unlawfully imprisoning people, but i betcha they're terrorists! and we gonna torture 'em until they admit it." this doesn't just sound like hitler's germany to me; this sounds like a cross between hitler and the horrific spanish inquisition, where church fathers (elected of god, just like bush?) would either kill you if you were a witch (terrorist) or torture you until you confessed you were a witch/terrorist, at which point the victim was usually dead or dying anyway. this is not okay; this is not stuff that happens to someone else; this is our motherfucking country, our words and votes and hopes that this megalomaniacal monkey is twisting to fit his depraved and downright cruel wishes. i don't know what to do to stop him, you know? maybe there's nothing i can do. my goddamned vote certainly doesn't mean anything, though i cast it again and again and again. i mean, when our own supreme court rules that the u.s. must follow the guidelines of the geneva convention (and the courts made that statement--again--on 29 june of this year) and then the puppeteer president says, "uhm, ...nah... we don't gotta do that," what the fuck are we to do? at this point...hell at the point three years ago when the idiot declared war on the entire middle east (one impoverished country at a time), we had every constitutional right to publicly hang him for high treason. with as many other treasonous acts as he's committed since then, we could probably kill his whole fucking family, rape him, and then set him on fire, just like the 5 u.s. soldiers did to the 14-year old iraqi girl, abeer hamza, back in march.
our country is being run by the powerhungry, by the cowering congress and courts that bow before them, by a homicidal maniac and buildings full of complacents afraid to lose their seats on the bench; it's being (over)run by a bunch of fucking skeksies. ugh. what's a gelfling to do? stay awake; stay aware. this gelfling will fight with the most powerful weapons i've got: the tempered steel of my words and the indomitable muscle of my love. always fight, always couteract evil with love, as powerfully as i can.
and fer cryin out loud, stay informed:
http://www.notinourname.org/
http://www.phrusa.org/ (physicians for human rights)
http://www.votersforpeace.us/
http://www.counterpunch.com/
so, basically, what i'm hearing here is that bush just likes to fucking torture people.
he endorses the cia tactics that not only break international laws (that the u.s. agreed to, back in the day), but break our own laws as well. dude! this almost makes bush's speech two days ago, the one where he compared bin laden to hitler, seem almost funny. yeah, bin laden's a pretty twisted fucker, from all accounts, but bush is the one actually setting up death and torture camps, right fucking here on u.s. soil (and of course in cuba, cause we love the irony). oh yeah, and bush also acknowledged yesterday that we have secret cia prisons. isn't that great? he flat out, openly said, "yeah, we're totally torturing and unlawfully imprisoning people, but i betcha they're terrorists! and we gonna torture 'em until they admit it." this doesn't just sound like hitler's germany to me; this sounds like a cross between hitler and the horrific spanish inquisition, where church fathers (elected of god, just like bush?) would either kill you if you were a witch (terrorist) or torture you until you confessed you were a witch/terrorist, at which point the victim was usually dead or dying anyway. this is not okay; this is not stuff that happens to someone else; this is our motherfucking country, our words and votes and hopes that this megalomaniacal monkey is twisting to fit his depraved and downright cruel wishes. i don't know what to do to stop him, you know? maybe there's nothing i can do. my goddamned vote certainly doesn't mean anything, though i cast it again and again and again. i mean, when our own supreme court rules that the u.s. must follow the guidelines of the geneva convention (and the courts made that statement--again--on 29 june of this year) and then the puppeteer president says, "uhm, ...nah... we don't gotta do that," what the fuck are we to do? at this point...hell at the point three years ago when the idiot declared war on the entire middle east (one impoverished country at a time), we had every constitutional right to publicly hang him for high treason. with as many other treasonous acts as he's committed since then, we could probably kill his whole fucking family, rape him, and then set him on fire, just like the 5 u.s. soldiers did to the 14-year old iraqi girl, abeer hamza, back in march.
our country is being run by the powerhungry, by the cowering congress and courts that bow before them, by a homicidal maniac and buildings full of complacents afraid to lose their seats on the bench; it's being (over)run by a bunch of fucking skeksies. ugh. what's a gelfling to do? stay awake; stay aware. this gelfling will fight with the most powerful weapons i've got: the tempered steel of my words and the indomitable muscle of my love. always fight, always couteract evil with love, as powerfully as i can.
and fer cryin out loud, stay informed:
http://www.notinourname.org/
http://www.phrusa.org/ (physicians for human rights)
http://www.votersforpeace.us/
http://www.counterpunch.com/
Sunday, November 6, 2005
Autoerotic Autodidact
This is a collection both of my writing and writings of other brains more accustomed to the intricacies of our economic, political, and sociological systems, and their historical contexts. The overarching theme of everything you'll find here is this: "This Sucks (And Here's How), But You Can Find Joy In It While You Change It." I'm really fucking tired of people recognizing that there are huge, unenjoyable, inconvenient, sometimes torturous parts of their lives that are controlled by Someone Else (whomever that may be), and then rolling over under a coverlet of supposed helplessness or, worse, apathy, convinced there's not a goddamned thing they can do to improve their situations. In this country, for fuck's sake. To these I say,
Fuck You, Retard. If you aren't willing to kick yourself in the head and heart and fucking do something Impossible, Improbable, or even just Not A Good Idea by general Amerikan societal standards, then shut the fuck up and let the rest of us get on with changing our lives for the interesting.
If we don't want to live the way the obscenely wealthy tell us, need us to, then we've got some fucking work to do. Fuck that Life of Ennui bullshit. Fuck the family, the dependable spouse and stinky-spoiled offspring; fuck the house, the multiple vehicles, the steady job, the one- or two-week vacations to somewhere our economic policies and gluttony have decimated; fuck the whole idea of an Amerikan Dream.
I am an American second and a Human first. As an entity capable of pushing my own evolution, it is my absolute obligation to do so. Eating others' mandates for dinner isn't providing the nourishment I need. I must hunt, kill, prepare, and consume my own ideas and parameters of acceptability, must form the tangled and mysterious pathways of my evolving self before some fucking corporation comes along and tries to make it into a goddamned straight-shot superhighway to Conformity.
Get educated, get depressed, get inspired:
...And then fucking DO something about it.
Fuck You, Retard. If you aren't willing to kick yourself in the head and heart and fucking do something Impossible, Improbable, or even just Not A Good Idea by general Amerikan societal standards, then shut the fuck up and let the rest of us get on with changing our lives for the interesting.
If we don't want to live the way the obscenely wealthy tell us, need us to, then we've got some fucking work to do. Fuck that Life of Ennui bullshit. Fuck the family, the dependable spouse and stinky-spoiled offspring; fuck the house, the multiple vehicles, the steady job, the one- or two-week vacations to somewhere our economic policies and gluttony have decimated; fuck the whole idea of an Amerikan Dream.
I am an American second and a Human first. As an entity capable of pushing my own evolution, it is my absolute obligation to do so. Eating others' mandates for dinner isn't providing the nourishment I need. I must hunt, kill, prepare, and consume my own ideas and parameters of acceptability, must form the tangled and mysterious pathways of my evolving self before some fucking corporation comes along and tries to make it into a goddamned straight-shot superhighway to Conformity.
Get educated, get depressed, get inspired:
...And then fucking DO something about it.
Tuesday, September 27, 2005
Mama's Favorite...
hokay. remember at volunteer park sunday, when you put your water bottle beside me, "in the shade of you," and i wrote it down and said i'd do something with it? did this on the bus today:
In the shade of you, the long-spent day of you,
Your slipping toward eventide with only trees to give you comfort.
You solace,
You joy,
You end of day and succor,
I am awestruck and unmoving,
Caught in an Endless gasp for air,
In a bubble of recrudescence.
Struck still and slow in the shade of you,
In the quiet and cool.
thanks, mom.
love,
rd
In the shade of you, the long-spent day of you,
Your slipping toward eventide with only trees to give you comfort.
You solace,
You joy,
You end of day and succor,
I am awestruck and unmoving,
Caught in an Endless gasp for air,
In a bubble of recrudescence.
Struck still and slow in the shade of you,
In the quiet and cool.
thanks, mom.
love,
rd
Monday, September 19, 2005
your horses ate my cat.
an introductory letter to a.p. smith, upon my finishing his book "welcome to the land of cannibalistic horses." it was the first (and last, to this point) time i've ever written to a total stranger who inspired me...
(*pouring shots of tequila: one for me, one for you, and one for an unsolicited email from a near-complete stranger who is suddenly tongue-tied and fey after finding out there is another single person not from down-looziana who actually knows and uses the word 'lagniappe.' suck the fucker back, biatch. ...now, go make an ass of yerself.)
Hokay. So. I met Mike Force (illustrator of "Horses") through A~, my sweet-muffin coworker. Bought a copy of your book from Mike the day before he went back to New York. I read it and, uh, would *love* to buy you a fuckin drink/bowl when you're in Seattle. Seriously. At the risk of sounding cloyingly trite, my songbird of a scribe seems to have been hiding between the covers of your goddamned book. I haven't been able to write fucking ANYthing for the past few months. Like I had cottonmouth in my brains and fingers, was too damned dry and scratchy to supply the banana-peel lubriciousness that all those delicious words and ideas need to wiggle and shake their way outta my skull. The mental aridity thing, coupled with a creeping sense of apathetic nihilism...well, just watching us fuck ourselves and each other violently, needlessly, day after day after day... it kinda left this girl, regardless how big my heart and mouth, with a niggling, whispering, "what's the fuckin point?" feeling some days. Or months. You know. The Unholy Lonely of being unable to imagine anything you do ever making any appreciable difference. (gawd, summer's depressing)
Yeah. Anyway, I blew through "Horses," laughing by myself in bed at night, holding my bile over so much of the now-standard American Brand of Willful Retardation, identifying, sparkling, seeing myself and all of us in those bound up words and images. I felt sooooo good when I finished it, so overjoyed that there was someone else out there still belligerently determined to fuck with our federally mandated status quo, to get me pissing myself laughing at the same time...made a difference in my mental outlook.
I'm sorry, did I say it "made a difference?" Yeah. What I meant to say was, It kicked me in the fucking head when I suddenly realized that this collection of essays and journal entries and goofy pictures and, really, a conglomeration of the mental and emotional detritus of one person's experience of the world fucking Gave Me Hope Again. Ha. That's the saccharine shit right there. Kinda gets a little sticky on the tongue, but it'll have to do.
So, yeah, it's like I've suddenly rediscovered my brain's uvula and have been poking that fucker with a stick for at least a week. My eyes burn, my fingers are ink-stained and calloused, and I am constantly exhausted trying to juggle those "up 'til 3" writing purges with my "up at 4" baker's schedule. ...And Lo, I Am Ecstatic.
Thanks, man. Take me up on the drink offer, will ya? I'll wear my cowgirl hat and egregious good humor.
High fives all around, then.
-rd-
(*pouring shots of tequila: one for me, one for you, and one for an unsolicited email from a near-complete stranger who is suddenly tongue-tied and fey after finding out there is another single person not from down-looziana who actually knows and uses the word 'lagniappe.' suck the fucker back, biatch. ...now, go make an ass of yerself.)
Hokay. So. I met Mike Force (illustrator of "Horses") through A~, my sweet-muffin coworker. Bought a copy of your book from Mike the day before he went back to New York. I read it and, uh, would *love* to buy you a fuckin drink/bowl when you're in Seattle. Seriously. At the risk of sounding cloyingly trite, my songbird of a scribe seems to have been hiding between the covers of your goddamned book. I haven't been able to write fucking ANYthing for the past few months. Like I had cottonmouth in my brains and fingers, was too damned dry and scratchy to supply the banana-peel lubriciousness that all those delicious words and ideas need to wiggle and shake their way outta my skull. The mental aridity thing, coupled with a creeping sense of apathetic nihilism...well, just watching us fuck ourselves and each other violently, needlessly, day after day after day... it kinda left this girl, regardless how big my heart and mouth, with a niggling, whispering, "what's the fuckin point?" feeling some days. Or months. You know. The Unholy Lonely of being unable to imagine anything you do ever making any appreciable difference. (gawd, summer's depressing)
Yeah. Anyway, I blew through "Horses," laughing by myself in bed at night, holding my bile over so much of the now-standard American Brand of Willful Retardation, identifying, sparkling, seeing myself and all of us in those bound up words and images. I felt sooooo good when I finished it, so overjoyed that there was someone else out there still belligerently determined to fuck with our federally mandated status quo, to get me pissing myself laughing at the same time...made a difference in my mental outlook.
I'm sorry, did I say it "made a difference?" Yeah. What I meant to say was, It kicked me in the fucking head when I suddenly realized that this collection of essays and journal entries and goofy pictures and, really, a conglomeration of the mental and emotional detritus of one person's experience of the world fucking Gave Me Hope Again. Ha. That's the saccharine shit right there. Kinda gets a little sticky on the tongue, but it'll have to do.
So, yeah, it's like I've suddenly rediscovered my brain's uvula and have been poking that fucker with a stick for at least a week. My eyes burn, my fingers are ink-stained and calloused, and I am constantly exhausted trying to juggle those "up 'til 3" writing purges with my "up at 4" baker's schedule. ...And Lo, I Am Ecstatic.
Thanks, man. Take me up on the drink offer, will ya? I'll wear my cowgirl hat and egregious good humor.
High fives all around, then.
-rd-
Tuesday, April 26, 2005
Mama's Blood Loss
to my brother, herding goats in spain...
darling delicious delectable d~,
gladder than meat-puppies to get your email today, darlin. missin you like cowgirl boots (that's a hell of a lot). got hair dye today so t~ can recreate the mediterranean sea on my head this week. am almost done bleeding. am respected among my retarded genius friends. i have much to be thankful for.
i think it's kind of funny that you, across an ocean and many mountains, know more about what i'm dealing with than anyone here does. i can't seem to share this stuff out loud and am too damned shy (if you can believe that bullshit) to share this writing with everyone. i, as most other humans, feel a desperation to be understood. that's our true loneliness, i suppose.
so, i wrote this in my journal the other day. my mom's two giant uterine tumors are not getting any better; may, in fact, be getting worse. they can't operate because she only has 5% of her normal coagulants in her blood; e.g. if they cut her open, she's gonna bleed to death. meanwhile, she's already bleeding to death on a slow, daily basis. i'm trying not to worry, not to allow fear to become my bedfellow. oh, but it is difficult some days.
forthwith:
-----------------------------------------
Spoor of temporal movement, of action and reaction, of knowing All There Is To Know. I am not a bit satisfied. I, too, am unimpressed.
And I miss my cat.
There's something creepy and amazing about the course of health, of sickness and wellness in a body. Every breath is someone closer to death. Every chortle and guffaw, every sigh and moan is onespacecloser. ("you're older than you've ever been, and now you're even older, and now you're even older, and now you're even older...")
I don't want my mom to die.
Not allowed. Not allowed just yet.
I do not fear my own death and have, indeed, been dreaming it a lot lately. Last night, I fell from crazy height, hundreds of storeys. I don't remember whom I was with, just that it took ages longer than I expected it would to fall. For the first time in my living memory, I did not hit the ground (been having these falling dreams since I was a toddler). I freefell through a mental process of forced relaxation, supplemented by continual reminders to let go, let go, let go. In the middle of a longwinded, longitudinal plummeting---unexpected,undeniable---my thoughts went back like a killer to a crime scene, forever chanting "Ain't Nothin You Can Do, Baby. Relax and Enjoy."
Tense. Relax. Tense. Relax. Tennnnnsssse...aaaand...Fucking Let Go, Already.
It was me; I was falling forever and over...but in retrospect, itseems I was falling through Mom, falling through her illness.
(Let Go. Let Go. Let Fucking GO.)
I've had this lifelong revulsion for people who cling to a Desperate Denial of the Inevitable. I wholeheartedly salute those who jab a middle finger in Death's grinning visage, who stand chest out and chin jutting, brave and laughing to the end. My contempt is reserved for those who, for lack of any better analogy, throw tantrums, hoping dumbly, blindly that Mortality is as soft-willed as their own mothers. Nauseating, really.
I will not go quietly. Neither will I go snivelling or screaming, making a weak-willed ass of myself, and generally making my own last moments on Earth a conscious hell. It's both ridiculous and unattractive, selfish and futile. I will not behave this way on the death of my mother.
No, sir.
(not that she's going to die, ofcourse)
Nooo, no, no, no sir.
It was New Year's Eve, maybe three years ago, when Mom and I stumbled home from a party and talked about her death. Said she didn't want to scare me, make me uncomfortable---just wanted to let me know she'd thought about it, was planning for it, so her children wouldn't be burdened with an overweight jockey of a coffin salesman atop the saddle of our grief. I wasn't threatened, uncomfortable; I was even grateful she'd taken the time and expense upon herself, though she knows we'd sell our last organs for her everything, anything. See, Death ain't so serious in the abstract. Abstraction warps emotional weight, makes it manageable. It is easier to talk about mortality when it applies to goldfish, or to ideals, or to some far-off Future Person, or just to Not Now.
We had our New Year's Eve planning/confessional long before she knew about the tumors...
...or did she already know? Deep in her cells, could she already feel cool breath on her neck? Did I miss the ground last night because I don't get the easy way out on this one? Because it's Mom who's gonna hit this time? Is she still dreaming the two of us atop elephants, crashing through the jungle, laughing 'til tears streak our dirty faces? Is she falling, too?
The women in my family are so fuckin butch when it comes to pain and tragedy. We grit our teeth and grin sardonically through the whole damned thing. If the pain's too much to grin through, we shoo everyone out of the room so no one will be obliged to suffer our annoyance with us. Ain't nothin we hate more than company that tries to talk us out of our misery. As if we hadn't already tried that. If you want to sit quietly with my head in your lap, that's one thing. If you want to try and soothe this family's savage breast with the Everything's Gonna Be Okay mantra, you are wasting your fucking breath. We're at least two pragmatic thoughts ahead of you. Weknow it's all gonna work out. We fully grasp how inconsequential are our corporeal troubles. We mourn in private. We die in solitude. We are bitches to the bitter ends: jealous of our time, overprotective of our privacy, exorbitant with our Love. Effusive,even.
We smell fear like bees, and will have no truck with weakness. Not even if you're trying to help. ...Especially then.
Like bees, we are honey and anger. Like bees, we smell the stench of our own emotional reaches. Like bees, like poets, like adventurers and seekers, we, too, are
Not A Bit Tamed.
We, too, are not satisfied.
Gathering pollen, creating Sweetness. Immortality.
Gathering swarms, creating Chaos. Death.
Gathering the slip-satiny Folds of Time's Fabric Skirts about ourwaists to ford the realities-deep mud of every Moving River.
We get the futility. And we do it anyway.
Grin at it always.
I do not want my mom to die.
But I will be there, big-mouthed and laughing, when she does.
--------------------------------------------
am i the only one who cries when she reads this? emotional content aside, does it flow? make sense? i'm thinking of posting it to my livejournal pages that i'm veritably sure no one reads.
i'm wiped out. need to find a house this week. and a(nother)job.
i'm not as depressed as this sounds. just a little overwhelmed. but for the pms-hangover a couple days ago, i've been in very good spirits. i'm sorry to hear about your breakdown, for lack of a better term. i hope you are feeling a little better after the release.
goats are a pain (especially to try and *herd!*), but they are some of the purest little meat-envelopes of unadulterated freedom i've ever played with (or milked!). i'll try and take pictures of my newly ceruleated tresses to send you. blue hair always makes *me* feelbetter. :)
how is your health and all that, btw? are you generally eating well and taking care of yourself? t~ sends you bigbig love and hugs, as, of course, do i.
...ah, christ, all i've got is hugs and love for you. wish i could actually give them to you in person.
otherwise, i am and will be your eternal penumbra,
your goat skull and cat teeth,
forever and always,
til death do us confuse,
doxy
darling delicious delectable d~,
gladder than meat-puppies to get your email today, darlin. missin you like cowgirl boots (that's a hell of a lot). got hair dye today so t~ can recreate the mediterranean sea on my head this week. am almost done bleeding. am respected among my retarded genius friends. i have much to be thankful for.
i think it's kind of funny that you, across an ocean and many mountains, know more about what i'm dealing with than anyone here does. i can't seem to share this stuff out loud and am too damned shy (if you can believe that bullshit) to share this writing with everyone. i, as most other humans, feel a desperation to be understood. that's our true loneliness, i suppose.
so, i wrote this in my journal the other day. my mom's two giant uterine tumors are not getting any better; may, in fact, be getting worse. they can't operate because she only has 5% of her normal coagulants in her blood; e.g. if they cut her open, she's gonna bleed to death. meanwhile, she's already bleeding to death on a slow, daily basis. i'm trying not to worry, not to allow fear to become my bedfellow. oh, but it is difficult some days.
forthwith:
-----------------------------------------
Spoor of temporal movement, of action and reaction, of knowing All There Is To Know. I am not a bit satisfied. I, too, am unimpressed.
And I miss my cat.
There's something creepy and amazing about the course of health, of sickness and wellness in a body. Every breath is someone closer to death. Every chortle and guffaw, every sigh and moan is onespacecloser. ("you're older than you've ever been, and now you're even older, and now you're even older, and now you're even older...")
I don't want my mom to die.
Not allowed. Not allowed just yet.
I do not fear my own death and have, indeed, been dreaming it a lot lately. Last night, I fell from crazy height, hundreds of storeys. I don't remember whom I was with, just that it took ages longer than I expected it would to fall. For the first time in my living memory, I did not hit the ground (been having these falling dreams since I was a toddler). I freefell through a mental process of forced relaxation, supplemented by continual reminders to let go, let go, let go. In the middle of a longwinded, longitudinal plummeting---unexpected,undeniable---my thoughts went back like a killer to a crime scene, forever chanting "Ain't Nothin You Can Do, Baby. Relax and Enjoy."
Tense. Relax. Tense. Relax. Tennnnnsssse...aaaand...Fucking Let Go, Already.
It was me; I was falling forever and over...but in retrospect, itseems I was falling through Mom, falling through her illness.
(Let Go. Let Go. Let Fucking GO.)
I've had this lifelong revulsion for people who cling to a Desperate Denial of the Inevitable. I wholeheartedly salute those who jab a middle finger in Death's grinning visage, who stand chest out and chin jutting, brave and laughing to the end. My contempt is reserved for those who, for lack of any better analogy, throw tantrums, hoping dumbly, blindly that Mortality is as soft-willed as their own mothers. Nauseating, really.
I will not go quietly. Neither will I go snivelling or screaming, making a weak-willed ass of myself, and generally making my own last moments on Earth a conscious hell. It's both ridiculous and unattractive, selfish and futile. I will not behave this way on the death of my mother.
No, sir.
(not that she's going to die, ofcourse)
Nooo, no, no, no sir.
It was New Year's Eve, maybe three years ago, when Mom and I stumbled home from a party and talked about her death. Said she didn't want to scare me, make me uncomfortable---just wanted to let me know she'd thought about it, was planning for it, so her children wouldn't be burdened with an overweight jockey of a coffin salesman atop the saddle of our grief. I wasn't threatened, uncomfortable; I was even grateful she'd taken the time and expense upon herself, though she knows we'd sell our last organs for her everything, anything. See, Death ain't so serious in the abstract. Abstraction warps emotional weight, makes it manageable. It is easier to talk about mortality when it applies to goldfish, or to ideals, or to some far-off Future Person, or just to Not Now.
We had our New Year's Eve planning/confessional long before she knew about the tumors...
...or did she already know? Deep in her cells, could she already feel cool breath on her neck? Did I miss the ground last night because I don't get the easy way out on this one? Because it's Mom who's gonna hit this time? Is she still dreaming the two of us atop elephants, crashing through the jungle, laughing 'til tears streak our dirty faces? Is she falling, too?
The women in my family are so fuckin butch when it comes to pain and tragedy. We grit our teeth and grin sardonically through the whole damned thing. If the pain's too much to grin through, we shoo everyone out of the room so no one will be obliged to suffer our annoyance with us. Ain't nothin we hate more than company that tries to talk us out of our misery. As if we hadn't already tried that. If you want to sit quietly with my head in your lap, that's one thing. If you want to try and soothe this family's savage breast with the Everything's Gonna Be Okay mantra, you are wasting your fucking breath. We're at least two pragmatic thoughts ahead of you. Weknow it's all gonna work out. We fully grasp how inconsequential are our corporeal troubles. We mourn in private. We die in solitude. We are bitches to the bitter ends: jealous of our time, overprotective of our privacy, exorbitant with our Love. Effusive,even.
We smell fear like bees, and will have no truck with weakness. Not even if you're trying to help. ...Especially then.
Like bees, we are honey and anger. Like bees, we smell the stench of our own emotional reaches. Like bees, like poets, like adventurers and seekers, we, too, are
Not A Bit Tamed.
We, too, are not satisfied.
Gathering pollen, creating Sweetness. Immortality.
Gathering swarms, creating Chaos. Death.
Gathering the slip-satiny Folds of Time's Fabric Skirts about ourwaists to ford the realities-deep mud of every Moving River.
We get the futility. And we do it anyway.
Grin at it always.
I do not want my mom to die.
But I will be there, big-mouthed and laughing, when she does.
--------------------------------------------
am i the only one who cries when she reads this? emotional content aside, does it flow? make sense? i'm thinking of posting it to my livejournal pages that i'm veritably sure no one reads.
i'm wiped out. need to find a house this week. and a(nother)job.
i'm not as depressed as this sounds. just a little overwhelmed. but for the pms-hangover a couple days ago, i've been in very good spirits. i'm sorry to hear about your breakdown, for lack of a better term. i hope you are feeling a little better after the release.
goats are a pain (especially to try and *herd!*), but they are some of the purest little meat-envelopes of unadulterated freedom i've ever played with (or milked!). i'll try and take pictures of my newly ceruleated tresses to send you. blue hair always makes *me* feelbetter. :)
how is your health and all that, btw? are you generally eating well and taking care of yourself? t~ sends you bigbig love and hugs, as, of course, do i.
...ah, christ, all i've got is hugs and love for you. wish i could actually give them to you in person.
otherwise, i am and will be your eternal penumbra,
your goat skull and cat teeth,
forever and always,
til death do us confuse,
doxy
Tuesday, March 15, 2005
Keeping an Eye Out
Note from Mama: "What does that mean anyway? Keep an eye out. Do you remove your eye, periscope-like, and look around? I don't get it."
It's both punishment and threat. See, both eyeballs apparently missed whatever it was you wanted to see the first time. So, then you take out one of your eyeballs, chastise it soundly, and leave it outside on the front porch to locate your quarry.
Of course, both eyes know the possible dangers of staying outside for the night, even so close to the front door. They could be rained, snowed, or hailed on, chewed to smithereens by hungry dogs, kicked in disgust by proselytizing mormons, or taken by crows to fly atop their nests to intimidate both predator and prey, much like the Jolly Roger was flown above pirate ships of yore.
The eyeball left outside (let us call him Slim) is, of course, terrorized and, if he survives, will surely stay alert even while you sleep, afraid to miss anything ever again. This could be a problem if you are an individual who absolutely must have her eyelids closed while she sleeps.
The other eyeball (whom we shall call Verna, for the sake of this narrative), the one that missed the brunt of your wroth, will be incredibly intimidated by your vitriolic measures against her brother and will likely endeavour to avoid such future punishment, by any means necessary.
...However, Verna may also be closer to her twin than at first surmised. In this case, there is a chance, however slight, that Verna might mutiny, sever her own optic nerve, and dive out of your skull to save poor Slim.
While this is, indeed, an unfortunate turn of events, all is not lost. Verna may just want to reciprocate your 'tough love' by showing you that she, too, is not without power. Just give you a little scare to make sure you know that she both gets your earlier point, and that she will not be intimidated by her own host body. An awkward but resolveable dilemma.
...Or your errant eyes could also burn down your fucking house while you're staggering around blinded, hands over gaping ocular cavities, screaming obscenities at the Eyes That Done Me Wrong.
Then, Verna and Slim would hop, squashing and stretching and squooshing all the way, nerve in nerve, out into the great wide world, leaving behind the charred and skeletal remains of the Host That Went Too Far, a grisly testament to the advantages of staying on speaking terms with all one's organs.
~An End~
...damn, that needs illustrations.
It's both punishment and threat. See, both eyeballs apparently missed whatever it was you wanted to see the first time. So, then you take out one of your eyeballs, chastise it soundly, and leave it outside on the front porch to locate your quarry.
Of course, both eyes know the possible dangers of staying outside for the night, even so close to the front door. They could be rained, snowed, or hailed on, chewed to smithereens by hungry dogs, kicked in disgust by proselytizing mormons, or taken by crows to fly atop their nests to intimidate both predator and prey, much like the Jolly Roger was flown above pirate ships of yore.
The eyeball left outside (let us call him Slim) is, of course, terrorized and, if he survives, will surely stay alert even while you sleep, afraid to miss anything ever again. This could be a problem if you are an individual who absolutely must have her eyelids closed while she sleeps.
The other eyeball (whom we shall call Verna, for the sake of this narrative), the one that missed the brunt of your wroth, will be incredibly intimidated by your vitriolic measures against her brother and will likely endeavour to avoid such future punishment, by any means necessary.
...However, Verna may also be closer to her twin than at first surmised. In this case, there is a chance, however slight, that Verna might mutiny, sever her own optic nerve, and dive out of your skull to save poor Slim.
While this is, indeed, an unfortunate turn of events, all is not lost. Verna may just want to reciprocate your 'tough love' by showing you that she, too, is not without power. Just give you a little scare to make sure you know that she both gets your earlier point, and that she will not be intimidated by her own host body. An awkward but resolveable dilemma.
...Or your errant eyes could also burn down your fucking house while you're staggering around blinded, hands over gaping ocular cavities, screaming obscenities at the Eyes That Done Me Wrong.
Then, Verna and Slim would hop, squashing and stretching and squooshing all the way, nerve in nerve, out into the great wide world, leaving behind the charred and skeletal remains of the Host That Went Too Far, a grisly testament to the advantages of staying on speaking terms with all one's organs.
~An End~
...damn, that needs illustrations.
Wednesday, March 2, 2005
After Rope Bondage
To my dear friend, the gentleman who physically introduced me to the art of Japanese rope bondage...
i'm sorry to hear you haven't been feeling well; was wondering where you'd been. would love to call, and am out of a telephone again. i'll be largely restricted to email again for a bit, until i can get a gang of bikers to fuck up the geniuses in the phone company's accounts receivable department.
ahem.
otherwise, i would love to hang out again soon, as well. i had great fun saturday and am anxious to do it again. having done it once, i have a little better feel for what would grease my brain-and soul-wheels a bit better next time. i was totally right in needing c~ there, though i was having difficulty properly articulating the reality of why. quickly (for myself as well as you):
i (consciously) take a long goddamned time to think about stuff. i have worked all my tiny life on maintaining control over my actions, reactions, on forcing myself to slow down and make decisions based on logic and love, not on guilt or obligation. i learned how to shut off my sex drive for the same reasons (largely). the only time i allow these controls to relax (and then never fully) is in the presence of another being that i'm veritably sure i can trust implicitly. lord almighty, but those are few and far between! very generally, i only cry in front of my cat, only cut the reins on my modifier tongue with this particular group, only remove the bit from my libido's foaming mouth with that one. you get the idea.
during tying, as soon as my brain realized i was losing control of my equestrian lustmonkeys, that i was not only not in absolute control of my sensual faculties but might also completely lose control over them at some point, my mental maintenance team just went through and threw the breakers to my muladhara root chakra; just shut the fucker down. i've found that it either (A) takes and act of god to reopen those, or (B) takes a lot of naughty positive personal history and a fuck of a lot of maintenance to keep them open in the first place.
like when a~ was playing with my nipples? a~ whom i adore and have only known a few months? i knew it was happening; i didn't feel much of anything. felt my brain step back, get out its endless pens and paper, and begin madly scribbling notes for future reference. behold my inner clinician, my inner documentarian. i've got notes on how best to kill and clean most birds, on the dynamics (mental, emotional, physical, sensual) of beatings, of rape, of incest; notes on the insidiousness of brainwashing and its association with all religion. every tiny trauma in my life has been documented as thoroughly as possible so that i can turn this shit around and use it as my own personal arsenal. i was trained to be a first-class martyr, but i got no time to be a fucking victim. save that shit for the willfully ignorant. i got sleepers to awaken. i've got living to be eating.
lookit my instincts! all coping with trauma before it even gets a chance to beset me!
i don't feel at all ready to do piercing suspensions yet; am pushing myself through cogitation around it, though. i hate the idea of being afraid of anything and yet have had to admit that i am. it's only amatter of time and patience before i get over it. this isn't any sort of diva rock star nonsense here, just a lustful, focused, absolutely willful pushing of my own evolution. "the goat and cat are waking..."
i live for freefall.
my every waking moment yearns to strain, chest out and pounding,
toward a wide-open apex of experience.
i live for mad veined straining toward a single suspended breath,
an expanded moment of empty,
a shaved single second to sit in time's lap
quiet
open
...slow hungry grinning...
and dive, dive, DIVE toward
~forward~
~the big moving, the swift flying~
(cause, baby, it ain't about the destination)
i live for that subsequent rush of turbulent atmosphere,
the joyfully furious whipping of death's cloak
~undulating, ululating, uncontrolled~
close behind my left shoulder.
i breathe for these high-speed, high-octane, high-drama
dates with the prankster twins of gravity and destiny!
i want speed,want danger,want to dance
close
sweaty
libidinous
with death herself;
rest my fingers on her hip curves,
feel her palm against my neck;
i want to push a fevered cunt against her
and look her grinning in the eye.
~ i reveal what i value by what i am willing to risk. ~
sometimes i just get too full of words and images; or passion feels too full, hot-heaving and squirming. gotta spill now and again. check my overflow to open up my influx. scrape the sweat of verbage from my belly and use that shit like high-quality lube. the 'talking to the bighead' stuff i was doing while hanging? that was once a litany of favorite words (lecherous, libidinous, lusty, lewd, lascivious, ululate, tinntinnabulate, pugnacious and viscous, my philologic puissance found its soapbox in pain). funny the ways we choose to evolve, out of necessity real or imagined.
i've got a cooking date with jesus tonight, so i've got to go furiously plan and obsess over flavor combinations for a few hours. sometimes you can force genius...but it rarely tastes as good or stays as wet.
more tying and hanging!
fear my mighty ego for my verbosity will destroy tokyo!
waving and grinning, stroking my too-few bruises,
rum doxy
ps: let me know if i can do anything for your sick ass, okay? :)
i'm sorry to hear you haven't been feeling well; was wondering where you'd been. would love to call, and am out of a telephone again. i'll be largely restricted to email again for a bit, until i can get a gang of bikers to fuck up the geniuses in the phone company's accounts receivable department.
ahem.
otherwise, i would love to hang out again soon, as well. i had great fun saturday and am anxious to do it again. having done it once, i have a little better feel for what would grease my brain-and soul-wheels a bit better next time. i was totally right in needing c~ there, though i was having difficulty properly articulating the reality of why. quickly (for myself as well as you):
i (consciously) take a long goddamned time to think about stuff. i have worked all my tiny life on maintaining control over my actions, reactions, on forcing myself to slow down and make decisions based on logic and love, not on guilt or obligation. i learned how to shut off my sex drive for the same reasons (largely). the only time i allow these controls to relax (and then never fully) is in the presence of another being that i'm veritably sure i can trust implicitly. lord almighty, but those are few and far between! very generally, i only cry in front of my cat, only cut the reins on my modifier tongue with this particular group, only remove the bit from my libido's foaming mouth with that one. you get the idea.
during tying, as soon as my brain realized i was losing control of my equestrian lustmonkeys, that i was not only not in absolute control of my sensual faculties but might also completely lose control over them at some point, my mental maintenance team just went through and threw the breakers to my muladhara root chakra; just shut the fucker down. i've found that it either (A) takes and act of god to reopen those, or (B) takes a lot of naughty positive personal history and a fuck of a lot of maintenance to keep them open in the first place.
like when a~ was playing with my nipples? a~ whom i adore and have only known a few months? i knew it was happening; i didn't feel much of anything. felt my brain step back, get out its endless pens and paper, and begin madly scribbling notes for future reference. behold my inner clinician, my inner documentarian. i've got notes on how best to kill and clean most birds, on the dynamics (mental, emotional, physical, sensual) of beatings, of rape, of incest; notes on the insidiousness of brainwashing and its association with all religion. every tiny trauma in my life has been documented as thoroughly as possible so that i can turn this shit around and use it as my own personal arsenal. i was trained to be a first-class martyr, but i got no time to be a fucking victim. save that shit for the willfully ignorant. i got sleepers to awaken. i've got living to be eating.
lookit my instincts! all coping with trauma before it even gets a chance to beset me!
i don't feel at all ready to do piercing suspensions yet; am pushing myself through cogitation around it, though. i hate the idea of being afraid of anything and yet have had to admit that i am. it's only amatter of time and patience before i get over it. this isn't any sort of diva rock star nonsense here, just a lustful, focused, absolutely willful pushing of my own evolution. "the goat and cat are waking..."
i live for freefall.
my every waking moment yearns to strain, chest out and pounding,
toward a wide-open apex of experience.
i live for mad veined straining toward a single suspended breath,
an expanded moment of empty,
a shaved single second to sit in time's lap
quiet
open
...slow hungry grinning...
and dive, dive, DIVE toward
~forward~
~the big moving, the swift flying~
(cause, baby, it ain't about the destination)
i live for that subsequent rush of turbulent atmosphere,
the joyfully furious whipping of death's cloak
~undulating, ululating, uncontrolled~
close behind my left shoulder.
i breathe for these high-speed, high-octane, high-drama
dates with the prankster twins of gravity and destiny!
i want speed,want danger,want to dance
close
sweaty
libidinous
with death herself;
rest my fingers on her hip curves,
feel her palm against my neck;
i want to push a fevered cunt against her
and look her grinning in the eye.
~ i reveal what i value by what i am willing to risk. ~
sometimes i just get too full of words and images; or passion feels too full, hot-heaving and squirming. gotta spill now and again. check my overflow to open up my influx. scrape the sweat of verbage from my belly and use that shit like high-quality lube. the 'talking to the bighead' stuff i was doing while hanging? that was once a litany of favorite words (lecherous, libidinous, lusty, lewd, lascivious, ululate, tinntinnabulate, pugnacious and viscous, my philologic puissance found its soapbox in pain). funny the ways we choose to evolve, out of necessity real or imagined.
i've got a cooking date with jesus tonight, so i've got to go furiously plan and obsess over flavor combinations for a few hours. sometimes you can force genius...but it rarely tastes as good or stays as wet.
more tying and hanging!
fear my mighty ego for my verbosity will destroy tokyo!
waving and grinning, stroking my too-few bruises,
rum doxy
ps: let me know if i can do anything for your sick ass, okay? :)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
