Category: Oh shit Joe!

when you desperately publish something

Curtain Down

Red mug and little bowl with chocolate.

The tea was black and flavored with milk and sugar. It was so dark that, even with the milk, it could visually pass for coffee. But it didn’t smell like coffee. More of the orange pekoe type.

The little bowl would be more honestly named bowle. It was just that cute. In that twee bowl were some little rectangle bites of chocolates. These bits were not filled with the richness of a creamy filling, nor were they solid chocolate.

Instead, each bite was a crunchy, flaky cookie bathed by milk chocolate. They could be popped into one’s mouth whole or dispatched in two bites.

You could do both.

And it was good.

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Hobby on the Edge

A super yummy sushi dinner.

The Spouse has a new hobby. It’s not as much a hobby as a skill building process. You could even say he’s honing a new expertise.

He approaches his lessons with surgical precision. He’s carved out time to sharpen his approach. He steels himself against what seems like a stone wall. He’s not quite shaving time from his efforts, but that’s not the point. Getting better means getting sharper, not quicker.

He whets his implements across the strop. He uses water to give himself that extra edge. He polishes and finishes to bring out the best of his tools.

Okay, let me cut to the chase. He’s assembling a collection of the gadget and gizmos utensils and devices to bring the fineness to the blades of knives. He has spent hours sliding the steels agains the stones and then finishing with a leather barber’s strap.

It’s an odd accoutrement, but the craft means that our knives are sharp. Then he shows off by skillfully chopping and slicing food. Like the beautiful tuna, and the paper thin cucumbers. And he provided me with an extended bad pun for today.

Sorry.

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A Dish of Tomatoes

Yellow and red+green heirloom tomatoes.

They were special tomatoes. Heirloom, as if they were passed down in the family. But it is actually an excellent ploy to extract more dollars per pound for tomatoes that look much less than perfect–in color, shape and demeanor. They are supposed to taste extra good, but in that way they are just like other tomatoes. Sometimes they taste good. Sometimes, not so much.

These were nicely ripe. They were heavy and felt fluid-filled. The tomato would give to pressure from a finger, but return to shape almost immediately. Holding it, it was heavy. Bringing it to the nose, it smelled of itself.

It put up some resistance when I put my knife to it’s skin. It swelled slightly under my hand and then ceded with almost a sigh. Gently sawing the surface, it soon gave way beneath the flesh to a wet, almost gelatin middle, flecked with seeds. After cutting in half, I removed the top of the core then went to work, sliding the knife again and again, making irregular cuts for the salad. The cutting board was filling with juice that I tried to capture by scooping the pieces onto the knife and dropping into the bowl.

There was a big yellow tomato and a red tomato with green. I topped them with swirls of extra virgin olive oil, a scant tablespoon of sherry vinegar, a few turns from the pepper mill and coarse salt. I stirred and let it sit on the table to let the juices ooze out. The better to dip the crusty bread in and get every last drop.

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Post #214

a guy and a dog walking along a dock in Ocracoke.

I walked the length of our beach road at 7 a.m. Sweat was dripping from the tip of my nose and from the bottom of my chin. Literally dripping. I was walking slowly. This was before coffee.

I finished the milk one day too soon. I thought about going half-rations in my coffee this morning, then I threw all caution to the wind. Black coffee tomorrow morning.

I was lulled to sleep by the ocean and was shocked awake by a silent wave rushing over my legs and quick chilling my torso. Like the wine chilling vat at Whole Foods. But more quicker. This was not an issue. I fell back asleep.

I watched fluffy clouds chug across the sky. One looked like a cartoon alligator splayed on his back, laughing at an unheard joke. Another looked like a train with three cars, white cloud smoke puffing out of its stack.

I heard someone say that there are bumper stickers with a picture of okra and a coke bottle. I wish someone had told me that before I embarrassed myself by mispronouncing Ocracoke. I convoluted those letters every which way. Many times. Never again. A picture in my head is worth a thousand words.

I decided that there were too many male voices on the streaming “radio” stations. So I sought out Icona Pop with Charli XCX. I don’t care. I love it!

I stood in front of the refrigerated aisle at the Food Lion contemplating the choices for the trip’s final six-pack. I went in thinking of the known crisp and slightly fruity Stella and walked out with an unknown Slow Ride session IPA.

I learned that the unknown could be a very good choice.

I found out that monkfish is on the list of the thirteen most ugly animals. First, the list has thirteen? Not ten? Not fifteen? Did somebody get bored? Second, we are having it for dinner.

I was right to try a news diet. I knew I was right when I broke the diet and saw some of today’s news.

I spoke to both boyz today. One is 33o miles away and one is 1,901 miles away. They both needed something. That oddly made me happy. Not redundant, yet.

When I spoke on the phone with the Big Guy, I covered my mouth. I had just eaten some garlicky gazpacho. I apologized for the smell. He laughed. He said he couldn’t smell it. I laughed. I said it was because he had a cold. He said, “no, it’s actually pneumonia.” Uhm, the good news? He stopped smoking. For now. And promised to drink plenty of liquids.

I have a sunburn on my legs. It is the accumulated tan of six gloriously sunny days. I should have been more generous with the leg sunscreen, but there was such a good base. It is the glowing coal type of sunburn–it doesn’t really hurt, but it is hot. I bet it’s just old people skin by morning. I’ll drink plenty of liquids, too. Can’t hurt.

I decided against trying to string this together any better. See it as you will. And, thanks, as always, Loyal Reader, for your indulgence.

 

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Composition

Did you know that this was a picture of trees with the sun breaking through before it was stylized into a b+w picture of trees with a source of light?

I’m taking a little break tonite. Not from thinking, but from composing the thinking.

My day was full of thoughts. Some were validating, but, and more interesting, some were apple cart tossing.

The challenging thoughts were mostly in my favor. That is, when I proved myself wrong, I was questioning myself when I was on my own side of the argument. Not that this did me well. Thinking, again, I guess it did. The tough thinking was aligned more with my values versus the logically correct bare logic. In my mind, pure logic needs to be evaluated against results. No matter what they are.

Like, earlier today The Spouse and I went back and forth about a judicial nominee. The nominee was exactly right in his logical application of the law that the tabloid was calling Mr. Potential Judge out on. And the Mr. Potential Judge was exactly wrong on the human impact. Logically, and intellectually, sound–but wrong.

Sometimes equal is not fair. And that was the issue with the judicial analysis.

I want to write about the dozen, or maybe only half-dozen, dilemmas I had today. But instead I will write about the unabashed joy of deliberation, of contemplation and of equivocation. Because sometimes we need to think more.

After all, I’m the Doctor of Thinkology.

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Room Temperatures

A very hot dog takes advantage of the box fan.

The house is unnaturally cool. Blankets get pulled up around chins. The hot coffee feels good going down. There is always a hoodie nearby for the overzealous chill. You could even imagine baking–if that was what you did. If it was a blueberry pie, that would be good.

Opening the door on a 97°F day isn’t a shock. Walking through the threshold, the wet heavy air forms a drape, a drape that is transparent to the eye but has the heft of thick velvet curtains. You need to almost push the air away, except it doesn’t resist.

The humidity is supra-tropical and the air is moving around. For skin cooled by the AC, it really isn’t as bad as expected. Stepping off of the shady porch and into the sunlight is a bigger contrast. The sun squinches eyes, even those behind sunglasses. It doesn’t caress the cool skin as much as press on it. But it doesn’t press hard.

The heat is forgotten for the first five blocks, until the the last of the chill, that last chill left on your forearms, gets dispersed into the air. The cool becomes hot, too.

The heat begins to press harder on skin. It closes up your nostrils, making it harder to breathe. It squeezes out beads of water along the hairline, at the waistband. Water begins to drip from under arms and beneath chins from throat to chest.

The heat seems to make gravity more grave. It pushes down on thighs as they work to bring the feet up to propel to the next block. It would be easy to slow down, but that would mean staying in the heat. No slowing down, but no speeding up, either. Additional exertion would be too punishing.

The last turn to the final block is a mental relief but a physical trial. Cheeks are flushed and radiate fire. The dull throbbing from your head that started two blocks earlier becomes all consuming.

The key turns in the lock. The door opens and the arctic blast starts your revival. The moisture on all skin surfaces begins to evaporate in the dark, cool house. The pounding in your head gets worse as you slump onto the couch. You stand up to switch the fan to “high” and flop back on the couch, facing the fan with your eyes closed, wiping your face with your shirt.

Your head hurts, but as you watch the swelling of your feet subside and feel the ring twirl around freely where it had been stuck on your sausage finger a few minutes ago, you lay your still pulsing head on the pillow, and reach for that hoodie.

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A Week In Rosé

A bottle of rosé wine. Prone.

It’s the end of the week. I am tired. It may have something to do with that rosé.

This week, before the rosé, was the shopping and chopping and sautéing and grilling of those beautiful scallops, the saffron and tomato brothed cod cheeks and tonite’s panzenella. The Spouse cooked the other nights. Except that night I had a hot dog. It wasn’t an effort, but it was good.

Before the rosé was a week’s worth of work and three month’s worth of politics in that one week.

Before the rosé was a week full of coding data, or analyzing data and wishing there was better data. There was also a missed opportunity and a home run. This work stuff is hitting all emotions if not firing on all cylinders. You know how the engine goes, “POP!”? Maybe you don’t. Lots of people don’t.

Before the rosé was a beautiful craft cocktail on a different night. The drink had a very stupid name, but the measuring and stirring of the cocktail was nothing short of epic. As were the concentrated home-brewed at the bar cherries. They were for the Manhattans but we begged the mixologist for one and she obliged.

Before the rosé I stepped many steps in the heavy heat. I took walks almost every noon-break and passed the close by stop to the station further away. I was steamed and dripped a little on some days. But there were some moments of breeziness that made me happy to be blown around outside.

Before the rosé I leveled up to 16 and caught 53 different monsters. I got stronger tools, better skills and settled on a strategy. The only downside was the irrelevance of this effort. I think I’ll be fully over it in about a week.

Before the rosé was a bunch of television that I didn’t see live and some that I simply time shifted. The time shifted was a dystopian fantasy, the live was a dystopian reality.

Before the rosé I totally had a moment with The First Lady as she purportedly drove around the circle inside the gates of the White House sitting shotgun and singing karaoke in a car. I had the moment with her because she isn’t a great vocalist but can really bust a move. I do that.

Today was my father’s birthday, and even before the rosé, I missed him. Eight years later, and way before the rosé, I still miss him. But mostly, more than missing him, I think about him every day. I think that this past week may have bred an argument, if he were still alive. I hope that I wouldn’t have hung up on him. I hope he would’ve helped me think things through. Actually, he did. He’s always with me.

Before the rosé I spent many hours contemplating what happens next. There is an imminent trip to the beach that needs some plotting and a future set of unknowns that needed some thinking. Resolutions still pending.

And then there was the rosé, split with The Spouse over dinner. The rosé that made me too tired to finish the other post that I started. The rosé that finished me off. It was cool and minerally and tasting of cherries and steel. The rosé that was the bookend to this week.

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Post #198

A break in the trees at the National Arboretum. Stylized.

Oh, jeez. I suffered by writing most of today. And I am going to take a pause as well as some credit for a post today.

I wrote today using incomplete sentences. I wrote using stupidly long words. I wrote in a stiff and stifled fashion. I wrote because I had to, but not like it was me writing. Like some person who seemed like me was writing. So. I am writing a few words so late today, just a few words, that are authentically my own.

I am including a nice picture in lieu of a decent post. This picture was snapped on a day we took a walk in the National Arboretum. If you haven’t been there, I recommend it. On another day, I will write about an occurrence there with the Big Guy.

So this might not be an interesting post, but I bet I got you interested in a future post.

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Air Valve

A pile of sugar in a spoon. It might be a teaspoon, but it's hard to be exact.

Dear lord. It started with a misplaced sip of water. The bubble started from my throat, or maybe it’s my gut. Either way it builds to a very tight wad of air until it bursts a few inches below my chin.

Damn. Did I just get the hiccups? I wait to see.

You don’t really know if it’s the hiccups until the second one. I mean, you can feel that it might be, but, until you get the rhythmic spasms, you hold hope that it isn’t going to stick.

My chest almost tightens and the air explodes. Some of the air shoots out of my nose in a very uncomfortable fashion. It’s almost effervescent, but not nicely so. Effervescent in that citric acidy way that burns your nostrils. A subset of the air from my tight chest, almost concurrently with the nose release, reverses back down and erupts in my esophagus just above my stomach. This is also not pleasant.

There’s a burst of belchy air that escapes from my mouth. This is the part I really hate. The air doesn’t as much escape as expel through my lips at a disturbingly high speed. This happens via some unknown muscle in the back of my throat. This muscle curls onto itself. It creates a very tight spring, and when it lets go it shakes the top half of my body. I am not exaggerating. I visibly convulse a bit.

The air rushes through my voicebox on the way to my mouth to create a squeaky “hic” sound. A sound that seems so silly and gentle. But that sound belies the violence of the air jetting out.

It doesn’t hurt. Not at first.

Even though I am alone, my hand rushes to my mouth to excuse myself. It’s just polite to avoid spreading air spewing from your gut across the room.

I wait.

Yes, there. Damn. Although the hiccups are rhythmic, it’s a syncopated beat. A beat without rhyme or reason. Hiccups are erratic and random–except that they will repeat. For too long. Sometimes they’re fast and furious, but more often they tease you into thinking that they are over. Until they are not over but instead causing pain in your chest and your throat.

Mind races to the list of cures. A teaspoon of sugar. Or of vinegar. Or hot sauce or honey. Covering your mouth with a paper bag and slowly inhaling and exhaling into that bag. Drinking a glass of water through a paper towel or with a spoon hanging underneath your tongue. Then there’s fright–but you know it’s coming so it rarely works.

Or writing a post about it. Seriously. They are gone. I love this blog!

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Pieced Apart

She-Hulk all freaking out because she did her transforming. Outside of the cartoon are some guys freaking out worse.

Dammit. When did that happen?

She had just run her hand along the back of her leg and was halted by a hole.

Seriously? My pants got ripped?

She used the passive voice because she had no knowledge of a trauma, or any activity for that matter, that would have created the tear.

It’s not like I’m wearing them out. I only wear them May to September.

When she looked in the mirror this morning, she wasn’t happy. These pants didn’t have the most flattering cut. They made her look like a very heavy bottomed pear. She swapped out three different tops before she settled on one that made her look more balanced.

Did I catch myself on something? All I did today was sit. Is it this stupid chair?

She couldn’t stop herself from fingering the hole. She wondered if she could sew it together. If it wasn’t frayed she might. It was too high up to convert the pants to shorts.

Like I’d actually really pull out a needle and thread. I use safety pins to hold up the hem on those khakis.

As she walked out of the office, she half-waited for someone to tell her she had a hole in her pants. Someone who got a peep of her fleshy white leg against the black of the cotton. Then she thought about ripping the pants up. She could think of nothing else.

I’m not going to do anything with these other than put them in a pile where they will accumulate dust. And guilt.

She climbed up the stairs and put her key in the door. She walked into her apartment and tossed her bag on the table next to the door. Next to a pile of unopened mail and unread catalogs. She started unzipping her pants as she approached the couch. She let them fall to her ankles and sat down.

These pants are stupid.

She picked the pants off the floor and put her fingers in the hole. She pulled her fingers apart. She watched as the hole got bigger and the fabric frayed. It made a sound of motion as she rent the leg from the seat. It was a crackling along a path like the gunpowder trail to the powder kegs that gets lit in a movie before the big explosion. She took the leg and found more fabric weakness. She pulled strip after strip apart. She wanted to do the same to the other leg but didn’t have a way in.

Where are those fcuking scissors? All bitches have scissors. Shit. Here’s a knife.

She stabbed a hole at the back of the other leg and continued the dismemberment of the trousers. She didn’t know if it was the sound or the feeling of resistance as she broke through, but it was something. She looked at the tatters strewn on the floor and threads and scraps scattered on the couch. She was breathing heavily.

Done! Damn that was good.

She walked to the kitchen and took a glass from the cupboard. She wiped away the sweat that beaded above her lip. She took a bottle out of the fridge, and, in one motion, she unscrewed the top and filled the glass. She walked back to sit among her handiwork. Drinking wine–in her panties.

Belch. 

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