Wednesday, December 26, 2012

All lined up

Family is the greatest blessing of all. We are able to be together, all together, several times a year. It feels so good to savor this time, to relax and recreate with my family. To forge stronger bonds that will last throughout the year. It feels good to be home. I feel surrounded by love, boundless love. Cats, food, games, good talks, walks, movies, cookies- these things I cherish and give thanks for.

Saturday, December 8, 2012

Creation Myth

Flour + Water + Yeast comes alive.

I gave myself a minor coughing fit by putting cayenne pepper into boiling water and inhaling the vapors.


Wholesome things bring more joy than grocery store cellophane sweets.



We'll need onions, honey, tea, and applesauce.


Early Saturday morning is all potential and sometimes it gets realized.

Friday, November 16, 2012

Personal development

I like the sense that I'm going somewhere. What I see now is not everything that will ever be. I will grow and develop and improve. I will have a positive impact. I will read hundreds of books and cook fantastic meals. The best conversations I will have have probably not happened yet. These things make me happy. And what I have is already so good. If things can get better than this, I will really have it made. Things to be thankful for, before Thanksgiving.

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

things we have

A beautiful day in our beautiful nation's capital, Washington, D.C. An unseasonably warm and rich day. A canister of pineapple chunks. Concert tickets. Roasted beets and leftover pizza.

Saturday, September 1, 2012

Archival material


I got hot sauce on my finger while I made the chili. It burned my tongue afterwards when I licked the finger. Unexpected, that burn, but not really unpleasant. I ate a pineapple that had to be refrigerated, or it would have been hot like every other thing in the whole place. Even the sheets seemed to be collecting heat, storing it until it was needed to burn me when I sat down on the bed. When the rain came, I celebrated the cool coming back; I didn't have to pine after winter, at least for the moment.

Saturday, August 11, 2012

The scientists say, it'll all wash away



On the 31st floor
A gold-plated door
Won't keep out
The Lord's burning rain

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

The Dark Night?

And where is the Batman? HE'S AT HOME WASHING HIS TIGHTS!
-The Joker

Only villains will call him The Batman. It's derisive or disrespectful in some way. By not using The, you acknowledge he is the only one. The means he could be one of several Batmans (Batmen?) i.e. This Batman vs. That Batman. Although really, it would be very safe to assume that there is only one reclusive billionaire genius who dresses up as an anthropomorphic bat and terrorizes criminals by night. Not too much competition in that category.

Sunday, August 5, 2012

Blessings

We live in a huge house in a quiet neighborhood. We have a skylight and two sinks in the bathroom. There is a we to speak of. There are dreams that are more than things you scatter and pile in a basement. We are free from illness and hunger and free from want. We have jobs where we are valued and well compensated. We can cook what we like and watch movies or just read quietly. We can live without harm and help each other grow.

Saturday, August 4, 2012

Early August Heat

-An overactive icemaker that can be heard for miles around
-The bottom drawer of the fridge freezes everything you give it on account of a vent that circulates air between the freezer and fridge compartments
-Getting used to (a new set of) other people's kitchen and cleaning habits
-Condo association regulations on the size of trashcans
-A little less space that is indisputably my own
-Violence Cormac McCarthy describes in minute detail that only seems to lead to more fastidiously explicated violence

An afternoon spent stewing

The kitchen is heating up gradually and it's on account of me! Stew day is here. We have pounds of carrots, potatoes, cabbage, and broth. We have gas (as of Thursday). We have a drafty, commodious new house to fill with smells of cooking. What better than stew to solve these problems?

The container of Trader Joe's Carrot Ginger Soup in the pantry was calling my name too (and the expiration date was calling 8/9/2012, more pointedly).
The color orange has figured prominently in my life at home of late. It's A's favorite color. Orange is quite visually attractive, I've decided spontaneously after being exposed to it so much. A stew of sweet potatoes, carrots and curry powder; are we detecting a theme here?

Sunday, July 15, 2012

DC Tap Water

Hot days make you want to stay inside, where the air moves artificially. Crumbs on a plate. Audio is my favorite. Newspapers pile up during the week. A giant pot of beans benefits from the addition of corn. End tables can be moved easily. A sandwich in a box reminds me of you last night at dinner. An undefeated person should think about not playing anymore.

Saturday, June 30, 2012

With the lights out

Power outage for 24 hours that had me thinking of dystopian fiction. What if we lived in a land of constant shortage? How would I provide for my unborn children? We're incredibly reliant on electricity. I counted myself accomplished just to make coffee this morning by the elementary step of pouring boiling water over grounds in a filter. This can't mean anything but that I'm coddled. Resolved: to find ways to decrease my reliance on cars and electricity, even in this suburban Maryland environment. I might have to become a pedestrian activist, or an activist pedestrian, or both.

Thursday, June 21, 2012

Clear some space out so we can space out

I'm about to accuse myself of being insincere- would anyone like to defend me?

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

A bientot

She stood, not 6 feet away and leaned down and waved at him, smiling the brightest smile. Just saying goodnight, for the second time. It was a moment of untrammeled happiness. She smiled and waved and smiled more. He couldn't even see her without ducking beneath the roof of the car, and yet there she was, waiting for a reaction to her happiness.

Monday, May 28, 2012

Hello

He is happy. He is drinking coffee in the morning, or walking at lunchtime, or driving on long flat stretches of road at night. And happy and surrounded by love and light and warmth. Peace came on suddenly, with the knowledge that it was there all along and could be found again.

Thursday, May 10, 2012

In our post-industrial Western democracy,

Cooking as career seems counter-intuitive. Too much striving and slaving for something that ought to be magical and exciting. To prove my point, I'm making curry while I write this post. To wit, I already made rice pilaf this evening. It was simple, enjoyable, and gave me the thrill of the chemistry experiment I never knew how to do. Why beat all the fun out of that activity? This will have to be one of the places where I stand on simplicity.

Sunday, April 29, 2012

And would you like me if I stayed forever young?

What do you call a Nikon that has trouble getting coverage in the mainstream media?
-Camera Obscura

Herman Cain and Abel - Am I to be my Godfather's Pizza deliveryman?

What's the difference between Mitt Romney and a silverback gorilla?
-While they look exactly the same, the gorilla enjoys the respect of his peers

So they did a study recently to see if membership in the British Royal Family was statistically related to higher intelligence levels. Turns out the researchers were foiled by that time-honored maxim known to Psych 101 students everywhere: Coronation does not equal causation

I heard that Manchester City is thinking of splitting up its famous Togolese sibling midfield partnership (the Toures). They thought they had a transfer done in August, but all the pundits said it would be like sending Kolo to Newcastle

I heard that Facebook has a new avian mascot. Yeah, they're calling it the Mark Zuckerbird. So...I don't know what that's all about

Sunday, April 22, 2012

When I feel like a juggler runnin' out of hands

It will be written down on a piece of paper and shuffled on a desk, meaningfully shuffled, but shuffled, forgotten except in case of a persistent person who needs something from you. She will shuffle too, to the kitchen for a quick 30 minutes. Something in us that abhors work, so we feel entitled not to do it, even while they're paying us to be here. American workers, too smart for their own jobs. Fixing, scheming, faintly conniving always to get a little bit ahead. Of themselves, really. But what would be the fun in doing something you're perfectly well qualified for, or never lying a little about what you're able to do? I have told happy, ambitious lies to employers, or tried to get them to let me do so. I have made myself out to be a fully qualified professional copyeditor. I have overstated, drawn false analogies, and talked past my inadequacies. I'm no better than anyone else.

Sunday, March 25, 2012

A more precise view of who the Santorum voter is

-French electronic music duo Justice
-Nat'l Fed. of Independent Bus. v. Sebelius
-Samuel Eliot Morison
-Beautifully overlapping styles of N. Krauss and J.S. Foer, spouses and novelists
-Confidence that wearing a vest affords
-Book club snobs
-Possibly overpaid community college professors
-"There's panic on the streets of Carlisle, Dublin, Dundee, Humberside."
-Quietest place in the house, a tiny back bathroom with one small window
-Circular tables are conducive to camaraderie
-Can one be coerced into commerce, constitutionally?
-SONG 1 at the Hirshhorn
-When someone says "Boo" to something, say, "Are you a ghost?"
-Supply of books is outpacing demand
-I only have eyes for you
-Doctor Faustus, A Novel by Thomas Mann
-Weekly church attendees

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Benito Juarez's Birthday

206 years for him, 2 years for us. Better now than ever before. Enough said.

Monday, March 5, 2012

Dearth of Pronouns

Saw your words on my computer screen, late at night, and was reminded. Why I came to this place and why it was a victory, in and of itself. Decided to strive more, be something of significance. For the sake of you and I.

Monday, February 20, 2012

Ben-Hur

Wallace will outlive the war, but I will not. Early will write his memoirs, but I will not. The Georgetown Pike, after the covered bridge has burned, I will fall there not to rise again.

Pictures of Success

Colonel Truex brought me the order today. We are to decamp in a fortnight. Impending doom and damnation. And all of the whiskey is gone.

The adjutant had received word that few men could be spared from the siege of Petersburg. I would be relying on Ricketts' division, the thousand or so hundred-days' men that remained to me, and whatever of my wits I could muster. The whiskey was gone and not coming back.

Early would have his ransom.

Monday, January 30, 2012

Pizza for breakfast

I like making pizza dough, at least I think I do, because it is inexact. Imprecision is allowable in its making. The product of the effort will be more yeasty, a little light on flour, more bubbly, too salty, or overly sweet, but the imperfections are expected in the homemade version. A wide breadth is allowed from Cook's Illustrated perfection to the time I mistakenly used self-rising biscuit flour, or topped it with American cheese. Mistakes in the recipe could even become a source of pride over time, with guests commenting on the particular twist that the cook accidentally gave to his now-specialty.

It also brings the joy of chemistry, melding unlike things in varying amounts of powders and liquids to produce a warm, pleasant, rising growing mass that is almost alive. The ball of dough is expanding as I write, softly inhaling and pushing upwards towards the kitchen towel ceiling. It's difficult to leave it alone for the time it needs to rise. I can't wait until the dough is ready to be eaten as pizza, but I cherish the process of putting it together and my central role in its parenting.

Friday, January 27, 2012

Initialisms, among other things

I had a capacious thirst from having walked the streets of downtown Washington, D.C. for several hours. I bought a large, capacious bottle of Gatorade sports drink, which was in the process of trying to write itself out of existence by changing its name gradually but perceptibly to only 'G'. Why have for your product's name a recognizable, concrete thing when you could transition your "branding" to a meaningless abstraction? This was the question Gatorade had asked of itself and answered on its own, without assistance. It was in this way similar to the public radio distributor American Public Media, soon to become a trio of letters whose bond and claim to a corresponding meaning were irrevocably severed. This may not seem important, and yet it is. The fashion is for abstraction, high-mindedness without deeper meaning. Not that consumer products are an area from whence to derive a great deal of meaning, but it feels like we have started a car rolling down a hill without any plan on how to stop it. George Orwell said it best.