more about the cheesecake....

ever since
i decided
to make cheesecake
i've been having these wild ideas

the first to come to me
almost instantly:
smoked almonds

what???!!

no, wait

it came to me in a flash
rather than graham cracker, or whatever
though
maybe not only smoked almonds
that might be too salty
the trick
i think
would be to find
unsalted
(or very lightly salted)

and
brie
not all brie
just enough
and honey

it took me a while to decide honey
because
believe it or not
i considered
for a long long time
the possibility of a savoury cheesecake
like as the main course
with like a wheat pilaf

and i'm definite about the wheat
have to do the wheat

but
you know
cheesecake is meant to be sweet
and the milk and honey thing
that's just right
maybe marble the brie and honey in

and
for some reason
maybe i just want salty
but i'm thinking about quiche with olives and feta
which would be good with the pilaf
but
hello
green vegetable much

but
i have a strong feeling
for fresh figs

maybe in some sort of salad

that might be too much going on at once

can you tell
i really enjoy this

all done with mirrors, apparently

i had no idea
that book
it's taking me places

the redemptive power
of passion

reflecting
lacanian
je
into a future

moses didn't believe

and
it was the women
with their little fishes
and mirror games

600,000

don't break my thighs, moses
turn your head
and see the burning bush

it's all in what you see

so far loving that book....got new tarot cards too

guess i wasn't supposed to tell you
just wrote this long long post
about my new cards

and

plans for finally learning
to make cheese cake

and

something to do with
merkabah

but

then my system shut down
for updates
that i didn't see coming
and i lost it

so
maybe i wasn't supposed to tell you

which i haven't, exactly
now

just stuff

i got this book
the particulars of rapture: reflections on exodus
which i'm excited about
i'm hoping it's my speed
it's by
avivah gottlieb zornberg

i was going to get
have been looking at for about a year
(without being able to quite make myself buy it)
the murmuring deep: reflections on the biblical unconscious
and i may still
but not right now

i hope i like her writing as much as i think i will
and then maybe i'll read them all, eventually
but i'm taking this as my point of entry



i have to tell you something:
i don't like ritual or set prayers
that may be part of the reason
i've never been comfortable with religion

i talk to god
all the time
in my own words
and the idea of saying someone else's proscribed words
sets my teeth on edge

and
the idea that i need a special place to talk to god
i'm not so ok with either
i got into the habit
as a kid
i think
of pretty much always talking to god in the bathroom
cause you're unlikely to be interrupted there, i guess
plus
you're not really needing to divide your attention
and
it's not like you'll forget to go there
it just seemed like, obvious
however, i imagine, that's probably profane, or whatever

don't get me wrong
i talk to god other places
like
wherever i am when i got something to say


it occurs to me
this bathroom revelation
might open up a lot of stuff, contextually

...and rip torn as the dark knight

today

i thought about you
wondered what you were doing
today
today it was your ears, beloved
the twist
the curve
the way the sun shines red
through the tender conch
i have tried to paint them
but
their beauty defies me
i am so transfixed
i forget even
that ears are ripe for nibbling
they are the very david of ears

along with his soulful eyes
i hope he has your ears
she can have my ears
which are quite fine enough and feminine
she can have my eyes too
how disconcerting
to look into those eyes
she will be a challenge
she will look into my very soul

does it ever frighten you

it won't frighten him though
he'll just open his eyes wide
and i'll fall into them

don't let me spoil him

tell me i should spoil you instead

you're much more ornery
it won't hurt you any

smoke dreams

i was travelling
going to a festival
i had the living out of the car thing
solid

but i'm not sure what kind of festival it was
but there was weed
and a bong
and
though it's been three years
i guess
i still remember how to inhale
hard and pulling deeply down
then clamping down
then relaxing
feeling the thc enter my bloodstream

there was more, i know there was more

i was selling something
but not at a booth
through some sort of centralized vendor
the girl running that told me:
none of your sales are going through
i adjusted something
something to do with communication lines
then everything went through

but
there was this girl
she was hanging all over me
really irritating me
her name was debbie
and i'm not really sure how to interpret this
but
she had her finger up my ass
right out in public
and
i didn't want to be in private with her
i wanted her to leave me alone
so
even though i was out in public
i removed her finger
and told her to keep her finger out of my ass


i find this section
kinda confusing
and marginally disturbing
how am i supposed to interpret that


then i was in a house
in a neighborhood that i wasn't too sure about
i'm not sure if i thought it was dangerous
or just that it was maybe really run down
but
it didn't really seem that run down
and there was a deck
which gave it a ship-like quality

i went out on the deck
other people were out on their own
so it had the feeling
of ships sailing in close proximity
and there was a sort of camaraderie
not too close
but comfortable

and the light had the most unusually quality
not as shady as dusk
but not as colorful as dawn

it was a bright darkness

and i could see

a lovely place
i hadn't known existed

i got somethin but it didn't have much to do with decor

i got some general impressions
before i even got into bed

whereas i had been thinking in waking hours
of a draped version of this:

http://www.anthropologie.com/anthro/catalog/productdetail.jsp?id=56501&parentid=BAYNOTE

the general impression i was getting was more like this:

http://www.anthropologie.com/anthro/catalog/productdetail.jsp?id=960063&parentid=BAYNOTE

not specifically that bed
just something big-solid-wood-sturdy-imposing
but then
i got pretty much nothing else of the room
what i got was
reiteration
of why the bed needs to be big and sturdy

i don't know if this is just my fantasy working
but there seems to be a lot more rolling around
than i remember ever doing before
even in the kissing stage

so i don't know if that was you
hell, it's entirely possible that
every psychic thing i think you've sent
is all my imagination
maybe you don't even believe in psychic communication
either way
the campaign bed does seem a little flimsy
i have traditionally leaned more toward platform beds

anyway
i guess you know
whether you sent anything out or not
so you get the scientific results

have a beautiful day
much love
and thanks
for rolling around with me

i love you

hope everything's good
had some random stuff
i was gonna say
but
the most important of it was:

hey, i love you


i'm hoping tonight
i'll dream about the bedroom
cause i'm liking the decor theme
and the bedroom
is a tricky one
because, ya know
you have to walk that line between
restful enough to sleep
and
temple to passion

so
if you want
send dream thoughts my way
which i don't know if you know how to do
but i'd be fun to try

just send the thought out
it's sort of like a psychic pneumismatic tube
if i get it
you'll know
because you'll recognize it in what i write

see
super scientific

i'm totally not kidding

i should be asleep in 15-30 minutes

choosing a table and kitchen redo

i was in an old apartment
i was trying to fix it up
i had apparently already done the bathroom
and i was trying to edit
the dining...
i'm gonna call it a nook
because
even though it was a room
it was small
and
really half of it was gonna have to be
something else

but there were two tables
neither of them was quite right, somehow
but i thought both of them were beautiful
but they belonged to my mother, apparently
and she wanted to sell them
but it was like she was selling my childhood
i felt emotionally attached
wanted to hang on
even though they didn't work
i have a desk like that
i keep wanting to replace it
because it just doesn't work
but it's got too much history for me

i keep thinking i'll refinish it
fancy it up
use it as a dressing table
but
who am i kidding
i don't need a dressing table
maybe if i have a foyer
whatever

one of the tables
had a bentwood oval
to rest the glass upon
one had beautiful carving
i was leaning towards the glass top
because it leaves a more open feel
and it was a small space
but now i'm realizing
maybe what it really needed was a booth
maybe i could build in a U-shaped banquet
with under storage
and use the glass table
hmmm, maybe

then i moved into the kitchen
and
it had a super high ceiling
but it was all plaster dust and messed up
and i wanted to paint the top eight feet
and wall paper the bottom whatever it was
five or six
with some easily cleanable stuff
but then too
i thought
maybe i should do a drop ceiling
hang stuff
for extra storage
but
i was totally not competent to do that alone
the benches
i could have done
although
power tools
kinda terrify me
because
i have a tendency to the clumsy
and one of my dad's friends cut off three of his fingers
with a saw when i was a kid
they sewed em back on
and they worked
sorta
but
it made a scary impressing
so
maybe i wouldn't
or
maybe i'd use a hand saw and it'd take forever
(ooooo there'd be no storage with this option
but old fold down wooden stadium seats
would be really cool
though less practical, i guess)

but
i think a drop ceiling is a two man job
but that be cool
a wooden grid, say
suspended down from the high ceiling
although
maybe not
because
if i could reach it without a ladder
it might be a head risk


damn it
where am i going with this
i was so excited about this apartment
and now
i'm not sure if my ideas work

oh well
probably not a very interesting post, then

movies and mooses

i dreamed i was living in some sort of communal living arrangement
and i was trying to find a place to put my books

what do you think the books represent
i always seem to be worrying
about those books

anyway
i think i ended up stacking them against the wall
in a walking closet

and there were two cats
one was my cat
one was a stray
we were trying to integrate
mine was a black cat
and the stray was too
but i could tell them apart immediately
even though they had identical markings

there was this topiary mattress
that one of the cats
shredded
eviscerated

which was not going to make it popular
but i kept wondering:

what is the point of a topiary mattress
it's not like mattresses are so pretty
that you need a shaped one on a decorative wrought iron post

i have no idea what any of that's about


there was this couple
the girl reminded me of sharon tuttle
one of the computer book department people
i used to work with at the book store
and the guy
i'm not sure who he looked like

they had a pet moose

they laughed and said:
our gift is the sign the moose wears:
not insane

which i guess meant they were kindly letting you know
that it was not a dangerous moose

and maybe that means
it is finally time for me to tell you
my moose story
so maybe i have to write it
i hate to
i've been saving it
it involves ping pong and mean-ness

i totally can't play ping pong
but i used to could
when i was like ten

i guess ten was a big year for me


anyway
right before i got up
i had this really weird dream

i use my cell phone as an alarm clock

i'm not really sure why
i have an uber loud german brass windup clock
i have a tweeting bird clock i got in chicago

i have an awesome shiva clock i got in santa fe
(but it never worked)
when i got home with it and put batteries in it
it was not singing shiva songs
only the clock part works
which pissed me off

wow, that was a long aside, i guess i needed to vent

cell phone clock

so it had gone off
the first time
i got up
fed the cat
got back in bed
it's gonna ring in thirty minutes

normally
it either goes on the bedside shelves
or on the bed next to me
but today
i was laying on my back
and i just held it on my chest
which led to something
it wasn't much like a dream

i took a video of myself laying there
a sheet covering the lower half of my face like a veil
actually
it started out with a black screen
and you could just hear me
then you could see me
and i looked kinda scary
kinda like those ads i keep seeing for hanna
then i got up out of the bed
and walked to the sliding glass door
slowly
and filming myself
but there was some kind of music playing
and i'm not sure how to describe it
it was heavy
multi layered
and maybe appropriate for a horror film
but beautifully haunting too
and maybe i was wailing
or maybe it was just the music

then
when i got to the window
i played it back
watched the whole thing

it could have happened

it was quite like an out of body experience


anyway
weirdness

dreams were weird and really i guess i wanna chat

there was one dream
where there was a telephone receiver
like probably no one has anymore
connected to the heavy curling cord
the dream girl got a call
but there was no phone base
she followed the cord back to a barn
as she walked toward it the cord pulled in
harder and harder until she had to let go, the phone disappearing entirely

there was something dangerous in the barn
and there were people under sheets on gurneys
with wolf masks on their heads

when she went back home
the door was hidden
it just blended into the apartment building wall



there was another dream
i was in my old attic room
but i lived there now
i was so happy to be back there
because i miss it
i did not have the same history in the dream
that i do in real life
i was younger
and had lived alone for all those years
i don't think i knew you either

and
i think i might have been a clothes horse
because i was trying on clothes
for most of the dream

now
i go back to that room sometimes in dreams
but this seemed different
and i'm not sure what it means

maybe i'm feeling like i've lived my life foolishly
like i wish i could do it all again

but
to be honest
i really don't want to have to do it all again
i'm just not sure how to fix it now
and i've been thinking about different weights
i was at different times
charting the ups and downs
so the trying on clothes might have to do with that


i haven't lost more weight
i haven't really tried
i've been eating
and i'd inched up from the peanut butter
and lost it back with the chlorella diet
but
i've been eating
and feeling pretty good about eating
and just maintaining

i want to lose more
but i have been feeling good, physically
and i think i'm seeing changes without weight loss
that might be coming from the stuff i'm eating
like maybe my body is using the extra protein and fat
to work on my muscle and skin
i was a little worried about my skin
it seemed a little loose
so i haven't been in a big hurry to lose more weight
until it had kinda caught up
which it seems like it is, i think
i think the step-n-tone shoes are definitely doing something

i'm still too fat
but it's different

on the one hand
i want to do drastic things
and lose the rest of the weight in three months
but on the other hand
i don't want to do drastic things

i'm not sure which is better
just feeling okay about myself for a while
or pushing to get better

but i am slipping a bit
i've had some eggs and dairy
and i haven't been taking my supplements regularly
specifically royal jelly, dha, and cod liver oil
and i had a pretty poor showing this ovulation cycle


oh yeah, i forgot
i had a dream that i was driving across country
and i stopped in some small western town restaurants
and weird roadside gift shops
none of which i remember very well
but somewhere in there was a potted cactus
about two feet tall
with a beautiful milky pink flower


i hope everything is good with you
that you are happy and healthy and with loved ones
i love you very much

thoughts as the water boils, almost a story

so i'm in the kitchen heating water for tea. used to be i'd use a bodum kettle, but it's getting old and turns out to use too much electricity so i switched to stovetop. stovetop is gas. i use this little pot i think was designed for turkish coffee, but stainless. whatever. it's just the right amount of water. so. like i said. i'm heating water for tea. it hadn't yet boiled when i noticed something floating. yuck. i thought maybe it was a spider. is it bad luck to kill spiders? however, it was not a spider, when i fished it out it was a fruit fly. definitely not my fault. had to have flown in. how long do i need to boil the water to kill fruit fly germs? i wasn't sure.

maybe a slow count to sixty.

and my mind could have gone anywhere, but it took me back to ten years old. in the kitchen boiling water for tea. not my tea though. tea for the stepmother.

there is something distilled in that moment.

i hated her. plain and simple. i thought she was stupid and worthless and evil. the very first cuss word i ever used was the first one i ever learned and i would sit in the dark in my closet and call her that word over and over like it gave me power. she had migraines, or maybe she didn't, they certainly seemed to be conveniently timed.

maybe i've told you this story before...

anyway, one day she had a migraine and i had to make her tea...

we had one of those whistling tea kettles. it always sat on the stove. it had a little water in it. i didn't dump that water. it was going to be boiled; whatever was in it had been boiled. it didn't really occur to me to check it. i boiled the water. it whistled. i shut it off quickly. she had a migraine. i put the tea bag in the cup. i poured the water.

three large swollen cockroaches floated to the surface.

i hate cockroaches.

i stared at them.

i needed to make the tea over. there were cockroaches in the tea. she would yell at me for taking too long if i started over. there were cockroaches in the tea. she had probably heard the kettle. there were cockroaches in the tea.

i fished them out.

i took her the tea.

she thanked me.



she deserved it.

yes yes, fine. she created an environment where doing the thing i actually wanted to do was the one thing most likely to avoid punishment.

our only win-win.

and i won.

i would not have given my worst enemy cockroach tea. but i wasn't going to be yelled at for saving her from cockroach tea. fuck her. drink up.



and it really isn't like that was my finest moment.

but in a way it was...

...58...59...60

well, something weird, i don't know about good, but different

i dreamed
i was trying to get somewhere
i had a dream vacation planned, or something
but i was snowed in everywhere
i couldn't get to the airport
i couldn't get to my destination
and time was running out

i don't know what that means
but it doesn't seem good

but it wasn't like a nightmare, either
just like i was trying everything i could think of


but
this next part
i don't know, really don't know
what to make of it


i was standing in my kitchen
and i really needed to pee
so i did
like right there
and it just kept going and going
hot and yellow and making a giant pool on the floor
and i thought:
man, this is going to be a huge mess to clean up
and it reminded me of the time i saw the percheron piss
and it was like i couldn't finish
it just went on and on
but in a very releasing sort of way

when i was a kid
i read a book that was supposed to explain sex to kids
and it described the feeling of an orgasm:
the way you feel when you pee when you've really got to go

which i sensed at the time couldn't be right
and later
after i finally had one
made me wonder if that author had ever had one

so i'm not saying
this was orgasmic peeing
but it did feel good
and
other than the clean up
i wasn't all shamed up about it

so finally i finish
and i go to get clean up stuff
and my father comes along and puts down a rug
and some wicker furniture
right on top of it
i'm watching the pee soak into the rug
which is at least a thick cotton washable rug

and
i'm not sure whether it's weirder
that he put a rug and wicker chairs in the kitchen
or the fact that it was my father who did it

what do you suppose that's all about
sheesh

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBMcc9l6Jw0

last night i went to see just go with it for reasons other than that i thought it would be a brilliant tour de force

but i find i have thoughts...
and
i'm not sure they would have continued beyond walking back to my car
except that
i have a tendency
(unless i really have to pee)
to watch all the credits
(i figure those people deserve it
and often i want to see something with the music
which is usually listed last
and
sometimes they'll show you something
at the end
so i watch
usually)

and this time i saw that just go with it
is what i think they're calling now
a re imagining of
cactus flower

and i'm all like:
wait
what
no way

so i guess now i'll have to watch cactus flower again
goldie hawn totally stole the show in that film, as i recall
and i'm not sure it was planned that way
cactus flower is to almost famous
genetic book ends
somehow in my mind
and maybe that doesn't make sense
but it was just
the way my brain works

the point is
brooklyn decker
just pretty and nice
but nothing in the personality department
couldn't be (to me) the same movie
which, of course, isn't how that works
they'd be basing that on the plot or something not the movie
which surprisingly
even against
adam sandler
nick swardson
nicole kidman
and bailee madison (who gives everyone a pretty good run for their money)
brings out something amazing in
jennifer aniston

which is maybe sad
because this isn't a great movie
but she was incandescent

now
i've never been a big jenifer aniston fan
she's always been fine:
cute funny kinda one dimensional but good at her thing, ya know
i would never knock her
it's hard enough to get a thing to be good at in hollywood, ya know

but i am specifically trying to support this little trend they got going
the over 40 actress in romantic leading roles trend
i think it's a good good thing
and i'm willing to see
stuff i wouldn't go to see
to support that trend
the proposal for example
which actually turned out to be worth the price of admission
for betty white's performance
(sorry i could never like golden girls betty)

anyway
brooklyn decker
seemed like a set up really
as a pale by younger version of aniston
who may have had some work done before this film
i hate to say that
and i don't mean to sound like a bitch
it's just that i've looked at her a lot
specifically because
i've been thinking of getting my hair cut like that
for actually
like a couple of years now
and i just can't decide
her face is so much squarer than mine
and i'm afraid it will make me look like a campbell soup kid
so i've looked at her face pretty intensely
and
she doesn't look different
just sort of perfected

so what i'm saying:
if she had work done
it was fucking good gad damn amazing work
and everyone should run not walk to her surgeon

and
i don't mean to remain firmly focused on the physical
really i don't, but it is important here for the sake of the over 40 thing
to mention:

once jennifer aniston took off her clothes to reveal
her 40 something bikini clad body
every time brooklyn showed up after that
i couldn't help being all like:
oh yeah, is she still here

but she wasn't just
the most beautiful piece of meat there
which frankly
would have been a cultural victory in a way
she also came across as a real person
even though the situation, hell, the whole movie, was uber contrived

adam sandler is charming and has played romantic lead before and better
there is here nothing really new or inspired about his performance, except
after their kind of accidental date
where she needs him to pretend to be her husband
the way he has needed her
except
in her case
it is to make herself look good to an old sorority "friend"
the date was pretty good
aniston and kidman is a combination i would never have thought of
but wouldn't mind to see again
but
the walk down the hall
when sandler and aniston are returning from her lie to his
his realization
that he likes hers better

pure gold



i'm not saying
that i'm going to rent her back catalog
but
i wouldn't be surprised
to see something astonishingly good from her in the future
and i'm gonna try not to miss it

don't have much time right now

dreams were all full of
potted plants
don't know what that means

and large spaces
with wooden beams

coconut
palms
chocolate
trees
and
some
overarching reason
for all of this to be together
sometimes in elaborate planters

a glittering black guitar case, for one
and i was
poor

trying to figure out
how to finance my own
beautiful tree

not sure what it all means
but i needed to get it down
before i completely forget it


i love you very much
take good care of yourself

for a while now, i've been having complex dreams which i subsequently could not recall; but last night might be the weirdest of all

i was in a park
or
some place
naturally
beautiful

i was
on a blanket
i was
talking to a little girl
telling her a story, i think
but having a conversation too
to get a sense of what she wanted, in a story

what was coming out, it didn't make much sense to me
and i can't remember anything that was said in this process

then
i stepped away from the girl on her blanket
i looked down at the ground, and sort of concentrated
and big pages started to appear, like
maybe 2' x 2'
and
right there in front of my eyes
they were binding themselves up
creating this enormous book
children's book


then from there i got up and walked over to
what seemed like kind of a sacred spot in the park
so maybe it wasn't a park because i don't think parks
have sacred ground

anyway

when i got there i knelt
and
next to me
was an indian
i don't know
was he an actual man
was he a spirit man
but
i did know him

tell my ancestors i love them
i'm sorry i'm so pale
it might give me privilege, but it isn't wanted
i hope i bring honor

he might have said something
i can't remember

hey, i found it...

http://www.anthropologie.com/anthro/catalog/productdetail.jsp?id=963191&catId=SHOPSALE-FURNITURE&pushId=SHOPSALE-FURNITURE&popId=SHOPSALE&navAction=top&navCount=84&color=015&isProduct=true&fromCategoryPage=true&templateType=E

and it is a really beautiful sofa