Fermentation

Everything is building to me making mead this weekend! I have my supplies and tools in place. I'll probably be doing primary fermentation in the airlock-equipped bucket from my beer kit. I won't be doing the five gallon batch that all recipe seem to specify, but I'm going to try a pretty large batch. Looking for a sweet mead, still if possible, with some nice color and depth of flavor. Dry and sparkling don't sound like qualities I'm interested in quite yet. I will report on the findings here and on the fermentation/food blog I'm planning to start.

The smell of New Jersey

Listening to New Jersey bands as the bus transits New Jersey:

Bands/artists (and their most NJ-emblematic song)

-Saves the Day (Always Ten Feet Tall or Shoulder to the Wheel)
-Titus Andronicus (Fear and Loathing in Mahwah, NJ or My Time Outside The Womb)
-Bruce Springsteen (Open All Night)

What is it with New Jersey and producing great music? These are three artists whose music I haven't gotten over. They all have reams of really good songs across multiple albums. New Jersey is an idea to me, raw and unfiltered, symbolizing everything good and bad about America. The music reflects that.

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.

Winter trains part 1

The coffee came to 1.07. I had the nickel at the ready, expecting 1.04, but the tax had gone up under Democrat control, and I fumbled with two pennies, hastily produced from some pocket.

The coffee's purchase was a thing definitely settled, and in my arrogance I thought it marked me out as a seasoned traveler, beater of chills. With hot liquid input and vigorous walking in the station, I could overcome the dual disadvantage of a pronounced lack of personal insulation and 15 minutes on the platform in sub 10-degree Ipswich already chilling the flesh. This is special cold that can't be rooted out by the heat in most train cars; it is the rare one that can play the role of microwave and re-heat humans who are starting from a refrigerated imbalance, it being hard enough to maintain the warmth of people who enter the cycle at a neutral level. I was unable to get rid of the cold in my feet, which felt like wet soldiers in draft canvas tents at Valley Forge.

The chill is an unwelcome houseguest, insisting on one more glass of wine after an awkward dinner, and then another glass, reveling in others' discomfort. After it is gone, the hollow remnant of its presence lingers. It can't be forced but by bluntness and boldness. Even this, though, requires appropriate conditions.

The coffee was hot and needed but I had rashly chosen the Dunkin Donuts medium over large at the same price from McDonald's. I was already cold again before the last sip. Sidling up to the rail employee in front of the service window, I wait for other harried commuters to ask longsufferingly about their trains, which are as a matter of course delayed so long they aren't worth asking about (assume twenty-five minutes off the top). Trying to play the cool customer, seen-it-all-before commuter rail veteran of a dozen cold Januaries. I smile nonchalantly as I mosey over with my inquiry queued up in the brain-catapult, but stumbling on the destination (usually Haverhill, now Lowell) I ask the question and get the answer everyone else is stuck with; a 5 or 10 minute delay in theory stretches out to around 30 in the real world.

Dens-Laps Re-Coded

-They drew first blank.
-Confusion rings when the duck flies over the glass.
-Let's disgust this.
-The pits just keep on coming.
-Oh, I think Mosby's gonna be plain soon.
-That bowl is flaky.
-Brood, you love tree brinks.
-I have grew in the fiddle of the ice.
-Big heart, get to our flame here.
-Crawling rave by Noy-Verte.
-Burning their second flower play of the period.
-Tike Wean looks to the heavens.
-Pour but.
-Is when me lathe it away at the hew line.
-We will give us cheesy buns on the get.
-Laughter the mop of the puck.
-Pat sings the iron.
-Crumb the league office din Toronto.
-We can never tell if this buck completely flosses the toll line.
-Huck grew.
-I'm milling blue hoe up to fifty.
-If the Russian gores fear, he ends the maim.
-Fooling to stay hero.
-Won't flurry about mitt.
-To fled further gown the bench.

Can't help myself, I want you and nobody else

In the manner of a diary entry:

I spent December 11th in the company of A. We walked the streets of Washington. We remarked on Millard Fillmore's official portrait. My face eventually hurt from laughing. It was a day to remember.

The bar has been set high.

Lorne Michaels' Couch

I have been away from the blog.

With good reason.

I went swimming in Walden Pond and the Atlantic Ocean.

I ventured into the Allston Cafe with A.

I ate quiescently frozen confections.

I piloted a bumper boat.

It was a fun weekend, as you can tell from my dry, adjective-free descriptions.

It really was a good weekend.

More Adventurous

I felt the wind on my cheek coming down from the east
And thought about how we are all as numerous as leaves on trees
And maybe ours is the cause of all mankind
Give love to make more, try to stay alive
-Rilo Kiley

like a waterfall

you've given me so many songs,

ones that kept me going on when i'd wonder why

I'm wondering about the meaning of love, and the importance it has in the life of anyone. I want to be with someone, because every now and then I feel a sort of nagging, quite subtle loneliness. I know what it is. I want someone to share things with. I want someone who gets me on my terms, so that I don't have to change how I am to impress them. And now it seems like that person will never come around, and maybe even that I'm wasting my twenties not being in love. That's no fun of course, to feel like something is slipping away, specifically the chance to be young and in love, but I'm trying not to worry about it. Things have the darndest way of turning around on you when you expect it least. For now I'll bide my time until destiny shuts me up.

think of you that way a lot,

singing to the coffee pot and the kitchen wall

(lyrics by Kate Wolf)