the bottle was green over brown glaze ceramic with a silhouette of a bird

the scent
aromatic trees
butter
just a touch of sweet onion cooked down to a caramel
and
some spice
i couldn't quite put my finger on
it had a sweet note
and it was indescribably delicious
but it wasn't bay rum
and it wasn't basil
and it wasn't rosemary
maybe it was a blend of spices
and maybe it included caraway
and maybe a little tonka bean

i don't know
i just couldn't stop sniffing it

is that what you smell like
i'm not sure
i've never gotten a complete whiff of you
i get very excited when i see you all sweaty
but
you just don't have a very strong smell
or else
i'm always so distracted
and in the seconds i have available
i just can't put it all together

i love you

i'm going to bed

i'm dragging you with me in spirit
and
if i can totally wear you out in my dreams
i'm afraid
you'll just have to be tired in the morning

i will know your secrets

one way
or
another

i feel you again

and i wonder

i mean i'm really curious

when i feel you like that, what

what are you thinking

i feel you seeing that i've written you something

as this sort of catch of excitement

but it's electrical too

i guess

what i mean is

just how specific do your thoughts get

i was trying to get answers from the ether

some sort of psychic exercise

[which might all be a bunch of hooey, but]

when i asked it

what it was that you would dream about

what about me would make you fantasize

what i got:

my skin

and

that's a possibility

whether it's true or not

this morning

when i woke up

i lay in bed for over an hour

thinking about you

what i wanted right then

was to mount you

to feel you slide against my inner eye

to bring the monsoon

to mark you with my scent

i didn't think about

procreation

only the creative force

where the mind turns off

and i'm one with everything

i want you

and

i can't stand it

i can't stand it at all

what are you doing to me

for hours

i feel you

touching me

not like a hand or a finger touching
like
a pressure
holding me
stroking my nerves, electrically

it's different, somehow

what are you doing to me

i love you sweetness

marfa has roaming bands of street turkeys

and i almost hit a kamikaze deer
the folks in alpine
are all bitter about marfa
we have art that's of stuff
they say
but i like alpine too
as a little town
it's like the texas version of chico, maybe
but smaller
and not such a party school

marfa
maybe i never said
i don't like primarily as a town, as such
it's more the landscape
and the lack of any cohesive attempt to be
something

if you read the thing i wrote last night
which i think you did
because when i got into bed
i thought maybe i was having a seizure
but in a good way

but then i thought
it might make you worry
or be sad, or whatever
and anyway, it wasn't very up

and that other thing, you know
it's so awesome that it can loop
last to first
and it works
great
maybe
you know
how awesome you are

so, i'm a bad person

i really am
i am looking at my mom
seeing every tiny way that i am like her

and
planning how i am going to eradicate that trait from the future me

my legs
totally her fault

and
does she think i'm retarded
i think yes

it's just little stuff, but it's continual
like:
i say i do not need a "triptic"
i have tried to use them and they do not help me
i have a system
she gets a triptic anyway
and then she's all like we need to be switching highways somewhere near...whatever
and i'm like, yes we need to take exit number blah blah on highway blah south towards blah blah blah in x number of miles
and still
she distracts me and almost gets me lost in san antonio
she has me taking the loop
why did i listen to her
how is looping around the city going to be the direct way
and she's all, but how can it be exit 511 we just passed exit 26
god damn it
we were supposed to say on 10
now my system doesn't work and i'm at her mercy

see
i'm a bad person

sushi, eagle pass has got it, sort of

apparently
all sushi rolls
must have cream cheese
i like cream cheese, but
not in my sushi rolls
i mean, ok, sometimes i might eat a piece of philadelphia roll
if i'm at a buffet or it's on an assortment tray or something
but i'd never order a whole order of anything with cream cheese

cause then you can't really taste the fish properly

and no sashimi, none at all

there are a few other things
but
i don't wanna sound like i'm bashing em
because i'm not

i got the spicy tuna roll
which contained no cream cheese
and is my core go to roll anyway

they brought out basically two rolls for $8.95
which left me pleasantly surprised
and they were good

they brought out a little dish of soy sauce
chock full of serrano peppers
which i ate with my overcooked stir fry vegetables
and the resultant serrano soy sauce is a happy find
much better with the spicy tuna roll
than the wasabi i usually mix into the soy sauce
which makes it double the same kind of hot
instead of layering

the restaurant was beautiful
it had the look of:

i went away to college in a real city
and discovered this whole sushi thing
and i'm determined to get eagle pass up to speed


so
serrano soy sauce
be thinking about it

not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, i made lemonade

i went to the mall

now
the anchor stores at this mall
are stores
in which i have not shopped
since i was in my early twenties
ok
maybe, maybe mid-twenties
beal's
penny's
and i don't even think i've ever been inside
burlington coat factory

but
whatev

i went in ross first
i do sometimes go to ross
but this was a really really sad ross
but
it is right after tax-free weekend
so maybe they just sold everything good

did you know they have sephora inside penny's now
because i did not, sweet
but
i found a huge score at some little clothes store
[i'll have to get you the name later]
i found
and i've only been looking for these forever
some pants almost exactly like those wide leg pants i have
the black palazzo pants
[you've seen em several times i'm sure
because they are my favorite pants]

on sale

$10
i got two pairs
one's a little big
but, yay anyway

more later
i gotta go pick my mom up from work

eagle pass is maybe the end of the world

but
just from driving around
looking for a place to eat
i can tell you
that everything's a dollar

family dollar
dollar general
dollar tree
and
i swear i saw another one
that i can't remember

it's sort of a sad place, i think

i love you

http://www.facade.com/tarot/personal/?UID=305029&Date=8%2F20%2F2012&Name=Anonymous&Query=&Deck=voodoo&Reading=single

love you bunches

i love you

i was getting synchronistic indications
that maybe something was wrong
so i asked
how is he doing:

http://www.facade.com/tarot/personal/?UID=43929&Date=8%2F19%2F2012&Name=Anonymous&Query=&Deck=voodoo&Reading=single

and
what's going on in his world:

http://www.facade.com/tarot/personal/?UID=410108&Date=8%2F19%2F2012&Name=Anonymous&Query=&Deck=voodoo&Reading=single

i leave for my trip tomorrow
please
take good care of yourself
i want to tell you lots of stuff
i hope everything is ok

mach 3 energy bars

1 1/2 cups oat flour
1 cup steel cut oats [coarse chopped in coffee grinder]
1 cup hulled hemp seeds
1/3 cup maca
3/4t baking powder
2t baking soda
1t cardamon
2t madagascar vanilla
1 bag shredded unsweetened coconut [7.5 oz]
1 bag dried cranberry pomegranate [6oz] {it's a blend}
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup honey [i used cucuzza blossom honey]
1/3 cup oil, half coconut and half grapeseed
1/3 cup ground chia

oh yeah and i forgot the liquid
because that would be a pretty dry bar

1 bottle lager [i used buddha beer]

they came out, not bad
not too sweet this time
but a little what might be called gritty
although that makes them sound bad
and they taste pretty good
definitely more energy bars than bran muffin
which was how they were leaning before

it's out again and i'm at a hotspot now, hopefully back up tomorrow

don't forget, i love you cholula

while i couldn't talk to you, i invented a new recipe

so
it has been happy happy blood time
and i needed chocolate
so i decided to make brownies

now
i'm not sure i've ever made them from scratch
i sort think i used box mix
and i've probably made em like three times
and i couldn't look up any recipes

so, of course i decided to make em vegan too
they came out great
not super rich
i mean they were kinda healthy
but i really liked em

i used a pretty fair amount of coconut oil
and light smart balance
melted in a pot
then i mixed in sugar and cocoa powder
and madagascar vanilla
then i mixed in most of a deschuttes black butte porter
and reduced a little
added 2T ground coffee
then i put in a bunch of raisins
after the raisins had had a chance to get warm and absorb-y
i took it off the heat and let it cool a little

i put about 1 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cup hulled hemp seed
3/4t baking powder
2t baking soda
and a healthy dollop of apple cider vinegar [1/3 cup maybe]

i put the chocolate raisin mixture in the food processor
with 3T ground chia
and processed until smooth
then i folded it into the flour mixture

spooned it into the baking squares pan
and baked for 35 min at 350

chocolate brownies are often too rich for me
there's a lot of food that's too rich for me
so i don't know if these would be delicious for you
especially in like a side by side taster test
but they were deep and moist and chocolate-y and sweet

and i had no real expectations that they would be edible

five girls

the broadband going out
may have been
supposed to teach me something

but
more on that later

so

did everyone's shoes
get soaked in the flood

the cards today
brought up
four
references
so
i'm thinking
if no shoe soaking yesterday
then maybe today

i know
i started feeling bad
yesterday at about 6pm
and i still have a splitting headache
lo these many hours later

maybe that means something
maybe it doesn't

so, while i haven't been able to get on the internet AT ALL i've been writing you a story

Something about the Postcards

She opened the bright green envelope. It had her name scrawled in enormous child-like writing, clearly it was meant for her. Oh. It was from Ed. OK, she was expecting Ed to leave her something; but how was it possible that a forty year old man could write like an eight year old girl? The man was a complete enigma. “I'm kind of a judge-y person, huh,” she thought as she opened the envelope.

It was full of postcards. She had mentioned to Ed, who collected postcards, that she really really liked a particular postcard of Paris, would like to have it and any others that were duplicates for him from a portfolio a coworker had brought back from holiday. She thought back, “it would be great to have that one and maybe one or two more so I could frame them, make a little grouping on the wall” that's what she had said. Her fatal flaw had been taking the absolutely beautiful Prague postcard when it was offered. That had opened the floodgate to this, here, now. There were several of Paris, there were. But there was also a thick wooden postcard from Luckenback, TX. and five or six others that she wanted to just throw away. “I hope,” the note read “that this inspires you to start collecting yourself.”

She continued thumbing through them. Then she saw it and stopped. It was faded. She pictured the small bodega and the spinner rack too damn close to the window. It was an aerial shot, like they do, of Los Angeles lake and palm trees front and center. Oasis in the desert.

The broadband was down.

She was booking the rental car on the computer at work. She had somehow volunteered herself to drive her mother to Eagle Pass to teach a workshop. She wasn't really sure how. Partly it was some sort of driving bravado. Partly she needed a road trip. Partly she had talked her mother into a side trip to Marfa. And, maybe, she had been feeling warmly toward her mother at that particular moment. For a hot minute it looked like the Marfa thing was going to go away. They wanted her to teach another workshop in San Antonio. They might have to substitute a wineries tour. “Marfa is not an interchangeable piece of this puzzle” she had wanted to wail, “Marfa is the entire reason for this adventure.” She missed Marfa.

There were places she liked. Places where she felt good. Places where the very energy of the place seemed to reach out and join with her. Marfa was one of those places. It had been too long.

Los Angeles was not one of those places. She looked at the postcard again. It was kind of a beautiful place if you looked at it just right. Part of the reason that she couldn't look at it just right was that she was from a big city. All the things that she hated about the city she was from seemed amplified out of all proportion in Los Angeles. When she looked at the postcard rather than an oasis she saw a mirage. Still, that one had a draw on her.

The Los Angeles downtown skyline at night.

The small lake in the foreground is Echo Park,

just north of downtown.

She looked through them again picking out three more. One reminded her of Haruki Murakami, although she was pretty sure it was actually China; it was a pagoda roofed ghost town with a huge field of yellow wild flowers filling most of the picture – World Heritage Patrimonio Mundial it stated on the back. The second was the original Paris scene that started it all: the Eiffel Tower in an aerial panoramic view – La Tour Eiffel et le Champ de Mars it stated, along with her first initial written in black marker so that Ed could remember that this was the one she wanted. The letter jarred her. It somehow marred the blank card, and it seemed like completely different handwriting than the envelope. The third took her a little longer to choose. Really, she picked it out quickly, but then looked for something better. It was dark and somewhat brooding which appealed to her but it was also slightly out of focus. A white banner across the top proclaimed this Lord Howe Island. Turning it over revealed this to be a UNESCO World Heritage site in Australia. “Why oh why is the broadband down? I had no idea that there were was a Heathclif meets Lost island in Australia.” She liked the idea of an Australian post card in the bunch, but she didn't really like that image for Australia. So she had inspected the other Australian cards but she kept coming back to Howe Island, maybe when she was able to look it up there would be some amazing connection but for now it was Heart of Darkness, Lost, Antarctica or wherever from Frankenstein.

These would go with her on her trip. All trips for her were trips of adventure, mostly internal, and with her mother along and Eagle Pass having very little to recommend it, she expected to need more.

whoo hoo i have broadband again!!!!!!!!!!!

i love you sweetheart

i wonder
will i know when it happens

the puppyfish has been so quiet
i'm getting a little nervous

but
i'm feeling you
strongly
from a distance

and that diminished last time

maybe i'll know
maybe i won't
but
my thoughts are with you
and, sometimes
i can stop thinking about me and you
long enough to remember
[ie you actually made me forget
with the whole vibrating thing
good job, by the way]

i'm going to bed now
hopefully
i'll see you in my dreams

good morning, angel

i stayed up late
because i had to bake them in two batches
because i got a fancy new pan
so they'd be little squares
instead of big hand cut chunks
but they still took like 40 minutes
the loaf only took a little over an hour
and i baked three
ate them all week at work

so i stayed up late
and
between checking on the bars
i watched this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Py6ELLa1e2o&feature=related

and thought about you
and wondered if you'd like it
if you'd like to watch stuff like that
because i do
and
there's something extra about it being a spanish film
i should watch more spanish film

and
after that
hell, during that
i totally wanted to fuck you

and
here's something that i'm dying to ask you
because maybe it ties into the whole ginger and mary ann thing
the russian
in her cute little dress
ingenue with the legs that go on for days
that's what i'm imaginarily hitting
but
i'd never really want that, you know
i mean ongoing
but, really, even like a one time thing
does she seem like she'd be much fun

the spanish chick
she seems like a real person
but she's the one i'm identifying with
so
i'm not objectifying her, see

yeah yeah, i know, too much film analysis can change the way
you watch, anything

does this stuff make you uncomfortable
intrigue you
or
is it just
neutral information, meh

the bars came out good
i put so much stuff in em
and i wanted an herbal note, so i put rosemary
and rosemary is pretty much all i specifically taste
not in a bad way
but i'm surprised

and
i woke up with a superbad headache

well, you've been thinking something [dear god, it was all i could do not to visibly vibrate in front of customers]

and i didn't tell you about my dream
or my adventures
in energy bars
[making them]

i'm making some now
in fact

so i'll tell you about the dream later


i love you puppy

i woke up with a very strange image in my head, a double ended spoon

i don't really know what this is about yet, just wanted to talk [uh oh, i don't think you're gonna like this, sorry]

i worry
not
like
hard core worry
but, like, well i'm considering a bunch of stuff
and
oh my god will i make him fat
because i really really want to make you this:

you would not believe the intensity with which i want, right now to bake for you
but
maybe next week
i'll think you really need a special juice regime
but
i'm susceptible to positive reinforcement
so
cakes, all round

it's all cart before the horse, though

maybe
maybe what we have is better
than anything

i worry about that

maybe what you have, the whole combination
is better than it would be
in some other combination

maybe
maybe i love you more intensely, now
i mean, i think there's a lot of stuff i want
that i'm not getting
so
i can't really say this is my best case scenario
but, then i start picturing other types of scenarios
and i get
to be honest
kinda confused

what i want is

rather than pretending
that you were really in bed with me last night
arm wrapped around me
nuzzling my neck
and kinda rubbing against me

and
sometimes i worry that i'm too sexual
that i reduce things too much and so you think
this is just only ever going to be some sort of fling

i mean
i can tell myself how completely irrational that is
but still, maybe you think that's all i want, just steal your seed
and run off to the desert to raise a feral child
and
i don't think i'd be very good at that, anyway

what i want is

to get to do all the stuff i been wanting to do
to get to real-ly play with you
without losing the pretend play

what i want is to be play-mates, seriously
not for pretend
for real
play

and i want to make you so happy that you cannot believe it
and i want you to think that, though i sometimes irritate you
maybe to the point where you want to scream
that. even then, there is something challenging about it
that you would miss it, probably
and, anyway
you'd miss
me

and
your story doesn't make a lot of sense to me, right now
and i don't see the future
but
i do see something
some sort of horrendous cause and effect wheel
and it never quite equals us together
not together together

and maybe
maybe i shouldn't tell you that
maybe you'll change, in a bad way
because i said that
or maybe i've said that a thousand times before, i'm never sure

does it get better
or is this really already the best

what could you be getting from me that would be worth
all the trauma
to your world
it would take you to get it

were you scared that you were going to lose me back in february

how would that have changed your life

i'm not being a bitch
i really wonder

i cannot imagine
will not imagine my life without you

but
i have no clue what i'm doing

[and it's really bothering me
because i'm premenstrual, which heightens things
but, it's not just because i'm premenstrual]
understand

don't freak out
but
do
think
ok

i love you babka

i've had all these dreams
but they're just scenes really
nothing that makes much sense

in one i found this [i'm gonna say] wand
and i was showing that i could use it
but one of the things i did
was
zapped my teeth white

so maybe i have sensitivities to that that i never realized
i know debbie heather has preternaturally white teeth
and it looks good on her
[though i haven't seen her in a while
so could be out of date info]
but
personally
i've never wanted flashing white teeth
and
because of my coloring or whatever
they are naturally kinda translucent

i used to use, like forever,  http://lifegoggles.com/files/Jason-toothpaste.jpg

but then i tried rembrandt, and the health food brand was yucky
and i've been using rembrant for like four years now
but i'm trying http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ss-KQGnJ0Vw/T5IJKAYF7NI/AAAAAAAAAmo/YjySNByRItc/s1600/optic-white-colgate-toothpaste.jpg
which makes my mouth feel really clean
but i feel like it's uber unnatural

so mabe that's why the zapping
also
i really think
the jason was the most whitening of the bunch

this is why
i haven't been writing them down
it's not gonna do much for you

hang tight
it's gotta be soon

recipe -- yankee calavance

phase 1

2 bottles dark rain [black ipa]
2 cups chickpeas [soaked]
2t rosemary
2t cumin seed
1t fennel seed
2 large onions [chopped large]
2T smoked paprika
2t curry powder
2t konriko brand chipotle seasoning
2 2x3 piece of kombu
1/4 cup wakame
1 bag sundried tomatoes [about 10 oz] chopped
3 medium dried peppers [NM, ancho, or similar]
2T black truffle oil
2T better than bouillon [vegetable]
1 cup biotta beet juice

add enough water to cover cook in crock pot o high for 8 - 10 hours


phase 2

2t celery salt
1t spike seasoning
2T worcester sauce
2T black pepper
1T black truffle oil
2 - 4 dried shitake mushrooms

it is at this point that i would add carrots and turnips and potatoes [or whatever you want] and fill to the top with water.  turn down to low and cook another 6 - 8 hours.


i haven't finished this yet.  i'm at the turn it down and cook another blah blah, but i'm not adding the other veggies because i'm planning to eat it with rice and maybe blend it up and serve it over noodles as a stroganoff.  which is why i added all the veggie flavor without the veggies.

but even though it's not done, it's pretty darn meaty [maybe a little salty].  i think we're gonna have a winner.  no wine in this one.  just beer.

breakfast with mom

who pissed me off yesterday
pretty badly
plus cousin i haven't seen in 25 years

wish me luck

no whammies, by which i mean homicide

i can't remember

i know i had a bunch of dreams
but
what i was dreaming when i woke up
i guess
pushed everything else away

and
it doesn't make any sense
it's got to be symbolic

there was this girl
and i had somehow restrained her
so she was sort of planked out from a wall
she was naked
or, mostly naked
and tallish and thinish and blonde
not like beauty queen blonde
like oklahoma blonde
and not perfectly proportioned goddess
just a normal girl with smallish breasts
wider hips

and
she was pregnant
early pregnant
and i was feeling the lines of her
the way her body filled the space
lovingly
but not with prurient interest

at first she fought to get away
but then
she just relaxed
and let me

i love you

try to meet me in our dreams tonight
let's meet in a coffee shop
in an unusual location

i dreamed a bunch of stuff i mostly can't remember

i'm gonna try to just get down bits, for now

conversation with you
i told you a riddle
you answered correctly:
bruce springsteen
we were trying not to kiss
but we did


now you were a girl
and you were kinda
well, not ditzy
but
quirky and kawaii
and
i hung on your every word
listened to all your theories
silly theories
because you were just that adorable

those were from when i went to sleep on the sofa
last night, pretty early

the ones i just had
had something to do with wine, i think
but with us and wine
they are slipping away
and i have to go to work

i love you pickle

i love you

that's just what i feel
understand me