Dinner

Parsnip salad with diced celery. Dressing: blue cheese, horseradish, and rice vinegar.

Baked haddock with mushrooms and capers. Seasoned with toasted coriander and paprika. Topped with crackers. Baked on a cooling tray to keep it dry.

Served with the wheat bread.

One of my best.

The Romp

Very pleased with the wheat bread. My best so far. I let this one rise three times -- normally I do twice.

I took the loaf and wanted to take a few pics -- add a little color to the old blog. The cats, drawn by my attention, wouldn't leave me or the bread alone and kept trying to lick the results of the day's baking. As soon as I convinced Bubbs to us be, Big D moved in to investigate, only relenting when he spotted the camera lens which he leapt on and hockeypucked under the entertainment center.

Finally, Slappy jumped off the couch and joined in the fray. I tried to get a picture of all three romping it up, but the macro lens, fading daylight, and constant motion made it impossible. You'll simply have to take my word for it.

The Crumb and the Crust

Unlike Wednesday's bread, the yeast seemed to be doing me a favor and rose artfully.

About two weeks ago I took a basic bread recipe and started baking it nearly every weekday. I have slowly started to experiment with it. I'm pleased that I haven't turned out a bad loaf yet. For today, I added toasted fresh cumin, molasses, sesame seeds, warm buttermilk, and butter. I'm using mostly wheat flour, although the first half cup into the mix was unbleached white. As an additional experiment, I left the dough in the Kitchen-Aid about five minutes longer than normal. That machine runs like a horse and is practically self-cleaning. We understand each other.

When the house smells good and the baking hasn't begun yet, I take that as a good sign.

Eel at the Fishmongers

When I requested an eel at the fishmongers, the monger went into the back and came out a minute later with my "animal."

Two of her co-workers looked at her and laughed.

She held up the eel. "What the fuck are people laughing at?!? And I had to go past the guys when I came back from the freezer. Sexual harassment at the market? Nevah."

Slippery

One-thirty. Haven't worked on a word of the novel.

Got my oil changed, hit the fish mongers, ordered a pair of cheap glasses online, and reheated some of the lentil soup for a good lunch.

*

I broke in my marble spice mortar and pestle last night. I had a wooden one, but it didn't work well, and an old metal one I borrowed from my mother that was rusty. I suspect it was merely decorative as well, since it didn't grind the spices so much as scatter them around the bottom of the device.

The marble, however, is a thing of beauty. The spices seem to burst. I toasted some cumin and then ground some coriander as well for the soup. There simply is no comparison in smell or taste to the preground versions.

I also made wheat bread for the first time yesterday, adding cumin and substituting buttermilk for milk. I struggled getting the yeast to rise, but ended up producing my best loaf to date. Wasn't much to look at, but the taste was rich and mildly spiced.

Jess has to work late tonight. I asked the Dufflebag what he wanted to dinner, and he asked for salmon. This seems to be his favorite dish I make, and we're finding that seafood works well for us as it satisfies three distinct palates.

I'm going to make up a homemade blackening mix -- not that it's that hard -- but it will be for the first time.

*

I picked up frozen eel and alligator at the fishmongers. I originally was going to make an alligator chili, but the Dufflebag doesn't like beans. I could make chili without beans, but I don't think there's enough meat to round out the dish. So now I'm leaning to chowder. Charlie reminds me that I need to slow cook the gator -- maybe I'll spice the hell out of it, seal it up in tin foil, and serve it on rice.

The eel I'm frying.

Now, there's a big pile of dishes in the kitchen just waiting for me. Doesn't look like another productive day for your aspiring novelist.

Murnau, Nooteboom, Billy Joel, Lentils, Grimm.

Since I am, at least in terms of how I spend my hours, living for the first time as a full-time writer, I'm left to wonder how work gets done. Admittedly, my output is substantially greater than when I was driving the truck, but labors of various sorts come to us like magnets.

Take today, for example.

I'm done ripping the collection. I was woken up before six by a combination of splitting back pain and tender-hearted animals. I edited a few pages, flipped through Cees Nooteboom. Wrote a little. Then, I got up and made the Dufflebag a cheese and eggs scramble for breakfast. I drove him to school, came back, put the dishes from yesterday away, and worked for two solid hours.

I broke to go to the grocery store, where I picked up lentils and other ingredients for tonight's dinner. When I got home, one of the cats had smashed our new cactus. It seemed to have exploded, and I found soil and pottery shards all the way on the other side of the room. I did the dishes, cleaned the floors, lit the fireplace, and struggled to get the dough to rise on a stubborn wheat bread.

Big D, one of the cats, threw up a foamy liquid vomit. Back to the floors.

Time to pick up the Dufflebag, give him his snack, and send him upstairs while I mopped the kitchen with a cranky, resistant device. It didn't work well, so I took an old tee-shirt and started using that.

Soon, it will be time to start the lentil soup.

So, in ten hour's time, I did about two and a half hours of work. I was happy with what I did, but it seems a meager justification. I read about five pages of a short story. In that time, I had a time for a quick lunch of sour cream and herring, but not enough time to shower. That comes after dinner.

This isn't a complain, but an article of wonderment. When you work at home, how do you work on the work rather than the home?

I'm finding my way.

*

All that having been said, I've added about thirty pages to the MS over the past week, just in minor edits. It's exciting to watch it continue to take shape. It is as they say: at a certain point, the book writes itself because certain things need to go in certain places. In others, have I have to step back and figure out the transitions in my head.

*

Ha! I have my ipod on shuffle. There are so many songs there are some I will no doubt never hear. But I wonder at how many big songs make it through. "Piano Man."

In the context of whatever went before or after, it sounds damn good to me. I don't care if you've heard it too often and it's now annoying. To me, it remains evocative. The sun is setting. The song ends. Hank Williams plays, "Ramblin' Man." We continue.

*

Jess and I rewatched the last half hour of Murnau's excellent Sunrise last night. I wrote before about an element in the film that seemed magical, and I tried to suggest that this came from the backgrounds, the setting. I considered this. It is one thing to be in love, and another to be in love in the Alps, or in Paris, or in a cave, or on the moon. Since it is a silent film, the environments do best when they lend an air of rich suggestiveness. Murnau takes this to such a peak, I can only describe it as analagous to Grimm's fairy tales painted on layered glass plates. The constricted, cramped quality only adds to the visual, multidimensional power, be it waves or woods that the characters move among.

I would like to talk about the ending, but to know it beforehand truly would rob you of the pleasure of experiencing it for yourself. And I wouldn't do that to you. Not this time.

As I Heard the Riotous Rigmarole of the Last Post-Ironist

The morning was frustrating, as far as writing. Like cycling uphill, as I put it to Jess. I managed to get some momentum going before I had to break to pick up the Dufflebag. After that, it was dishes and cat shit. Fifteen minutes of Steinbeck.

Off to teach at the academy.

I returned home, put on Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations, and started to work again. Five-thousand additional words added to the draft, all while marveling at Bourdain's take on the fading holdover restaurants of the New York before I was born. A good night. But one which left me hungry.

Maybe tomorrow should be a breadmaking day.

Yep. That's it. Baking bread changes everything.

Peking Spring

When people walk the Appalachian Trail, they get to the end and often experience the desire to turn around and start back in the other direction. When you're holding so hard to the path, and your mind is so focused on amassing the footfalls, it is hard to let that go. I'm told some can't, and start off on the return voyage, going a few days or weeks before getting the sense that they've achieved their objectives.

I thought of those people today when I ripped the final cd of my collection. I wanted to start looking around for more cds, for more to rip.

I had to restrain myself. I can't listen to all the music in the world, and, if I could, it wouldn't give me pleasure. The necessary sense of completion wasn't there. A hollow remained. Good thing, too. Work to be done.

*

The last disc to go was Mission of Burma's "Peking Spring." Don't know how I passed that one over earlier.

For Walking

I have joined the masses. I'm ready to start complaining about the cold now. I need a long walk through the woods like I need a cold drink on a hot summer day. Maybe it really has passed into the realm of a need.

*

I found another set of cd's, so I'm almost done for real now. I have a few gaps in the collection: Smog, Pavement, Slint, Half Man Half Biscuit. I have a few odd places of glut: why did I need four Mills Brothers records? The fiddling can turn endless. Better let it go.

*

Writing work started rough. I edited what was clearly the worst part of the novel. Eventually, I just highlighted and hit delete. Curiously enough, the section following worked well. I'm still going over the material I wrote when I was working full-time. You expect a certain unevenness, but it was clearly worse when I was finally sitting down to write at nine p.m.

*

I'm going to take a break from the novel and work on a few pictures I took this weekend. I still get excited about photography. Someday, when I grew up, I'm going to get a good camera again and have a go at photojournalism. I had ambitions to work both mediums, but the crabbed time constraints of driving the truck made this vision vague at best. I blinked my eyes too often. Someday, though.

Nestled Beasts

Slow go on the novel today, but at least I'm working on it. Restless, nearly sleepless night.

Twice in the past two days I've stood up to check my shuffling ipod, hearing an unfamiliar but interesting song. Both times it turned out to be Blonde Redhead. I've had "Misery is a Butterfly" since it came out, but never got around to listening to it. I will now.

*

Watched Murnau's Sunrise with Jess last night. Stunning cinenaphotography that made me think in terms of magic lanterns and childhood fantasy -- it worked on the level of a good Viewmaster set. Bet you don't remember how fun those were, do you?

Throw some light on a wall. Carnivals, lovers, boats. Late night. Right at the time when you're half asleep anyway. Little bit of last minute wonder before broken dreams.

Erections Never Lie

I installed the pandora widget. Pandora is a website that creates a radio station for you, based on your musical preferences. It is eerily accurate, as you might expect these days.

You begin by entering a musician or song. I started, tonight, with Woody Guthrie, and this lead to the Carter Family, John Hurt, the Carter Family, Furry Lewis, and Frank Stokes. Good music for Saturday night.

The site references the Music Genome Project.

I clicked on the link and it spelled out my predilections, some obvious: major keys, dynamic male voices, folk music, guitar.

*

I was hired for a one off photo gig today. It made me miss working the lens.

Still, I'm where I am. I read this week's New Yorker with pieces on Donald Barthelme and Ian McEwan. Time to work, was how I read them.

*

Following Charlie's advice, I looked for unglazed ceramic tile at Home Depot. I wanted an extra stone to cook pizza on. We had company tonight, and there was a need for a plain cheese pizza. Jess and I got mushrooms, good olives, and capers. My pizza skills are getting better. I'm learning from my mistakes.

*

This blog becomes more spare as I intensify my work on the book. Please keep reading. There will likely be mundane entries in the the near future. But this remains a critical enterprise for me. There is new territory ahead.

Touch and Gone

The folks at Pitchfork note that Touch and Go announced they are no longer releasing new music, and put up this video to signal the event.

Jesus Lizard were one of the great live bands. If you never saw them in person, this vid gives you a sense of what you missed.

Clusterfuck Manifesto

World BBC news commemorated the 100th anniversary of the Futurist manifesto with a segment on all that followed.

Of course, the publication of a manifesto is now seen as impotent at worst, and I was surprised to hear of at least one that I found exciting despite myself. Of course, in film, the Dogme manifesto felt necessary at the time and I love the films it produced. But the one that got into my daily thoughts enough to make me google it eight hours later is Stuckism. One of the principle engineers is British musician, novelist, and artist Billy Childish, whom I know mostly from his records: unadorned, spirited punk rock.

As someone who believes it is inherently healthy to have diverse means -- in other words, for there to be alternatives -- it's funny to read the manifesto making such propositions as painters should know how to fucking paint. Those are my words. If you don't see why this position is radical, and not at all reactionary, you aren't even familiar with SNL parodies of the art world, never mind the art itself.

This is not an ad for the know-nothingism of SNL, either. At least what I've seen of it.

*

What made the BBC piece linger with me is the current context. I dislike the word meme in this context, but I was thinking of the 25 things facebook note I wrote about in an earlier entry. It's being called a meme. I'll just call it a note.

The notes that most intrigued me -- Devin's, Anton's, and Bonnie's -- used apparently random autobiographical details to create a sort of soft manifesto -- a statement of beliefs, an invitation to understand why they like what they like and why they do what they do on something more than a superficial level. These notes are unlike a manifesto, in that their "do not's" tended to be concealed. To suggest why we pursue a course is also to suggest why we refused to take another.

(I note here that I didn't read everyone's notes -- if I happened to see it pass through my daily updates, I clicked, and, if you're my friend and not on this list, it's because it's either a given that you're in the above company, or that I can't remember it, or that your list has nothing to do with the topic at hand. Or that I never noticed you posted it in the first place. Despite appearances, my facebook usage is cursory. I'm sure it was great stuff.)

In fact, we might anticipate facebook precipitating a return to the manifesto: one can hardly read Charlie's page, for example, without coming away with the notion that he is making a case for certain decisions to be made about how we live our lives and what we put into our bodies. The febrile see this as arrogance, and perhaps would suggest that we ought never to take positions and believe in them unless they are so in line with the mainstream that they appear invisible. Work hard! Be good to yourselves!

It is a disruption of a bland middle class numbness to say, sorry kids, certain things are healthy. And certain things are not. And it's not about your subjective opinion on these matters. We can stake our claim in relative terms, but still do it with conviction.

Minor Notes

Got a lot of work done on the novel. Added two-thousand words and deleted 500.

*

I'm nearing the end of the ripping. I was surprised that the iTunes Gracenote both knew and was able to tag the Dylan five volume basment tapes. It is perhaps the most famous bootleg in rock history, but was never released in its raw form. There must be Dylan fans over at Apple.

*

The dog now appears to enjoy eating wood pellets. Gotta hide those pellets.

*

Jess is giving me a hard time because I've been so intent on working on the novel that I stopped showering. I love showering, but I've really been so focused on working that I let it slide.

So I made a solemn promise that I will shower by month's end.

I know. That poor woman.

*

I'm taking a break and cooking lunch: chicken livers and mushrooms. You can buy a huge container of chicken livers for under two dollars. They taste wonderful, if you enjoy strong tastes. I know that they are often served with onions: an ugly, bland dish, even tainted as a kind of pre-1980's version of health food. Seasoned correctly, they are less fatty but almost as luxurious as bacon. Grind some up, cook it crisp, and put it on some good toast and you're looking at one of humankind's simplest, tastiest lunches.

Hot Springs and Tenderloins

I defrosted some pork tenderloin and made cajun spiced medallions with an orange juice and jelly pepper reduction. That might sound odd, but the family were using my fresh baked bread to wipe their plates clean. The Dufflebag went for seconds. The bread came out better than expected, and was light and sweet.

I served it with some skillet cooked onions and spinach, topped with a balsamic and garlic reduction.

*

It was nice to have something to focus on other than the novel. If anything, now that I'm seeing it in its totality, it's a more daunting task. Is there a hot spring around here? I'd like to visit a hot spring. That might help. And no, a simple warm shower won't do. If monkeys can't grow ice beards while bathing in its waters, I'm not interested.

First Loaves

My first pass through the draft is more of a quick edit than a serious second draft. I've added some words. I deleted a long section that I could tell, instantly, didn't work. In moment of doubt, I just think of John Fante. I'm using his ghost as my spiritual guide through the process. I haven't read him much lately, but he was one of the main and vital inspirations. Plus, he wrote from doubt, it seems to me, and kept going.

The Dufflebag had a second half-day in a row. He's up in his room now, do doubt praying for snow. I'm not praying for the storm to pass. Pleading? The children need math! Hear me, oh gods of snow and sleet.

My cd ripping is closer to complete. Right now I'm going through the Ray Charles boxed set. And then, it's on to the Tom Waits discs that Mikey didn't have prepped already: Black Rider (a personal favorite), Big Time, the excellent recent discs (Alice) and the not-so-excellent (Real Gone).

*

Aside from my first draft, today marks the first time I've baked a loaf of bread in the house. I've been meaning to do this for months, and see breadbaking as a productive hobby.

I went for a simple white bread, made out of unbleached flour. Going against my normal way of proceding, I'm going to try to remake the same recipe over and over, with minor modifications, until I feel as though I've mastered it. Then, I'll move on to nutbreads, oatmeal, wheat breads, cranberry breads. Banana. Jalapeno. Spiced. Once I feel have some depth of understanding and my technique has been honed, then I'll start thinking of sourdoughs and more complicated fare.

*

Listening to the ipod on shuffle. I've come to hate the term "roided up" since it's applied to anything of any size whatsoever. But it certainly feels almost excessively overflowing now. Even on shuffle, the hits far outweigh the misses. I only had to jump up and hit skip once (it was a Ween song), and was tempted to replay one half-forgotten song again to savor it (Warren Zevon's "Mutineer.")

My eyes are being opened to the minor works of David Bowie. And I'm not convinced more than ever that if Rancid didn't have such a stupid name they'd be the Billy Joel of the mohawk set. That's a compliment. Really.

Vast Sucking

I had to get up early to drive the Dufflebag to work. I was deep in sleep and had to claw my way out.

The writing must have depleted seratonin levels in my brain, because I had a rare moment of teenage-girl, every suckitude. My cooking sucks, I thought. I can't even make eggs. My writing sucks. My brain is slow. My car sucks. I quickly noted the pattern and rightly, I think, attributed this to some exhaustion of the mind from the night before.

I made eggs and was humbled. They really were only so-so. When it comes to food, I remain an enthusiastic beginner.

*

To help finish the novel, I cracked open one of the growlers of the bad beer. It was pointless: there was likely more alcohol in cherry cordials. But I wanted something of that theatrical warmth to bring me to the end. This was good, as the only thing preventing me from finishing the novel with a completely clear mind was the strain of working so many hours and so late into the night.

*

I feel better now.

I have rarely looked back at what I've been writing, so I read my own introduction for the first time today. I was scared major gutting would be required, but all I did was tighten the prose and shift a few lines around. I'm satisfied. I can write better than I can sling hash.

Back to work.

The Novel is Done

I've been writing all night, initially fueled by a massive injection of music courtesy of Mikey's library.

I got to the point in the narrative where the novel was supposed to end, and I kept going. There it was. The ending, pure and simple. I knew my head was slightly mushy from writing for so long. But I was certain that it was done.

I knew the final lines long ago, so I wrote them down. The first draft is done. The big milestone.

Now I have to begin the process of revision. But not tonight. Although I'm tempted.

I can't just slink off to bed and celebrate with sleep. The damn trash has to go out. I put it off earlier, and am now paying for it. I'm sitting here in my underwear, and not only have to do the trash, but locate pants and boots.

It's nearly three a.m. I'm listening to Gram Parsons. It isn't quite what I wanted to hear, but I was so weary I randomly picked out a cd and put it in the stereo without thinking about what it was. The ipod is upstairs with Jess, so I've been thrown back on old-school tech.

The cats are both curled up and sleeping soundlessly next to me. There isn't an ounce of poetry left in the old inkwell. Not in my writing, that is. Maybe in the life. But the words are exhausted, and I'm looking forward to bed.

Music Store Geek

I'm finally ripping my cd collection to an external harddrive, and it's allowed me to rediscover a great deal of music that used to give me pleasure.

I turned to the screen at the exact moment when I hit 10,000 songs. Magical.

What's odd is, that with a seeming years worth of playing time, I still recognize just about every song I hear on shuffle. How much of my life was spent listening?

Nearly all my Roky Erickson. Ten different RL Burnsides. Buck Owens. Bob Wills. Jimmie Rodgers. Howlin' Wolf. Yves Montand. The Modern Lovers. Link Wray. The Monroe Brothers. Vic Chesnutt. Lefty Frizzell. I'm working through the back of the wallet which became the depository for cds bought in New York City, maybe around 97-99. That was what I listened to then. And it's good to hear the old music once more.

I have one wallet left to go, and I've already worked on a chunk from that. But what remains is monumental: nearly the entire Dylan back catalogue. All the Velvet Underground. Every song Hank Williams ever recorded. Every Tom Waits cd except for two that are now in the hands of ex-girlfriends. The Harry Smith Anthology -- including the rare forth volume. The Band. Gram Parsons. The Byrds. Whaling ballads. I'll end, dreaming of the great white whale.

*

Should I say it was great to hear the old music, both old in terms of my own past and the past of much going before my own like eyeblink existence. The Dufflebag put the tv on. He's watching a show about seacreatures that scream at each other. One of them is a sponge. The old tunes sounded all the better and even more necessary, but I had to turn them off. They can't defeat screaming starfish. Two ships collide, one dies.

I can still check on the beans. They are still a little hard, but the taste would be perfect if they softened to just where I want them. I've been listening to Bill and Charlie Monroe. It is, after all, a baked beans kind of night.

The Youth of Townsend Demand Arepas

Another two half days in a row, so I've had to be fleet in the writing. I took a full three days off for Valentine's Day and the long weekend, so I sat, blocked, facing the screen this morning at 9:15.

Oh well, might as well write, I thought. Two-thousand words later I was up to a the crucial chapter, where it all comes together, and on a roll. But the alarm sounded and I had to pick up the Dufflebag from school. Half days!

So I picked him up and we went to the library to get him a poetry book for a school project. I asked the librarians to recommend a book, and they did, and that helped us greatly. The Dufflebag is at the age where he isn't quite sure what a poem is, and he had previously offered a book on fossils and a comic book as his texts of choice for the project. This might sound strange to you, but I once met a presumably literate adult who thought poetry and prose were the same thing, only that prose was poetry done well. As in, written by the pros.

We got home and I hopped back on the computer. The Dufflebag followed me into the room and started reading poems out loud to me.

"Does it help to read them out loud?" I asked, through gritted teeth.

"It does, come to think of it!" he said.

"Great. That's just great."

I shut the laptop. I've retired for the day.

*

After working on the project, he went upstairs and I started working on lunch. I had some ground beef, and was originally going to bake bread with him, but there was a scheduling conflict with a pot of slow cooking baked beans. So I searched around in the books for a bread I could make on the oventop. I found one for arepas. I didn't have all the ingredients and was forced to substitute blue cheese dressing for actual blue cheese, which meant this threw off the proportion of the masa, but I think I got it close enough. I also added cumin and diced jalapenos. Otherwise, I went by the specs.

I'm not sure how traditional they tasted. They were like a cross between a pancake, fried dough, a biscuit, and a custard. The Dufflebag loved them and wanted more. You can never tell with him, but the list of go-to dishes is growing rather than diminishing. Plus, he inexplicable claimed to like Joanna Newsom when she played randomly on my ipod. I'm sure Jess isn't happy to hear this as she hates all female singers.

Just kidding, Jess. She made clear after a previous post that this isn't the case, and she only hates ninety-nine percent of them. Just kidding, baby. I'll be good. I promise.

Food

Jess and I went to share our Valentine's Day with her friend. It was also Missy's 30th birthday, so we selflessly sacrificed our own V-day celebrations and it turned out to be a wise decision. The food at Redline, in Cambridge, surpassed expectations. I started out with the calamari, served with cherry peppers and chipotle aioli and Jess went for the grilled portabello with spinach, mozerrella, and tomato. Both were excellent: both simple and tastefully prepared.

For the entree, I went for the surf and turf: beef tenderloin with grilled scallops. Once again, the dish was perfectly cooked. The accompanying sauce -- I forgot to find out what it was but it seemed a parsley vinagrette -- was striking and, I ultimately decided too strong, if you can imagine me thinking that. Jess had the more perfect dish: grilled salmon.

*

For lunch today, Jess took me to Bangkok Hill, the same restaurant that gave me lime leaves back when I was trying to prepare a tom yum soup. Once again, Jess lucked out: she went for a tom khan and a chicken massaman curry, both excellent. I went for the tom yum noodle soup, which wasn't particularly good or bad and I can suggest with all humility was not as good as my own. The service erred on the side of attentive and we will no doubt go back.

*

We tried watching Safe Men, a film Charlie recommended to cap off a discussion of "small films" that somehow captivate us. Mine was the unfortunately named Shattered Glass, which I can't watch five minutes of without going all the way through to the end. Safe Men didn't have the effect on us that it did on Charlie, and we turned it off at the forty-five minute mark, not having laughed once. I appreciated the dialogue, but it was a nodding appreciation only.

Since Charlie has been spot on with recent recommendations, both culinary, musical, and cinematic, I'll chock this up to a slight but significant difference in comic tastes, and note that this in no way diminishes my respect for his opinions.

*

And finally, I was left with slim pickins in the cupboard for dinner. I cooked up my last remaining strip of bacon and then sliced some cayennes and cooked them in the fat. I then added canned baked beans, mustard, and my homemade barbeque sauce. The results was worth the few minutes of extra effort. I only wish I'd made the beans myself, to avoid the overly salty suggestion of industrial food.

Bacon Coffee Pink Moon Warm Island Jitters

I've gone through three French presses of coffee this morning, and my fingers are so jittery it's hard to type. The house is cold. That adds to the general shakiness no doubt.

3,500 words before noon. I had to force myself to stop. It's best not to exhaust yourself and have nothing to say.

Jess came down to talk to me. I find it so hard to talk to people after I've been writing. All I can do is say hmm and yep but don't expect much more than that.

I found two cd's I'd been looking for yesterday, so that's a good sign as well. Not knowing where they were would probably, shamefully, get to the point where I'd lose sleep over it. But they were found and now there are only a small handful of beloved cd's I haven't been able to find and rip to my collection, the most notable being Pink Moon. I don't have any heavy need to hear that now, so I'm off the hook. Plus, it gives me time to listen to the Nick Drake material I never had much time for, some of it awful, but some of it making me wonder why I didn't pay much attention to it on the first or second listen.

I have my ipod plugged in to the speakers on top of the refrigerator. The sound is tinny and distant, but that's good for now.

Jess is off delivering the Dufflebag to his father. She'll be home soon. We have a long day ahead. You know what I want to do? I want to escape with her to a warm desert island. If that is out of the question, I'll settle for the plans previously made. But I'm hoping that once the novel is done a warm desert island is in the plans. I'm reaching a point with the novel where I feel threadbare and a little drained. It's been the focus of my thoughts since October, or thereabouts, and I've been living with it since before the winter came. In fact, I've been taking notes for over a year, and even began an early draft last spring that I ultimately abandoned. This is a long time to spent whittling away with the imagination. It has its effects.

I've been working since dawn, but am finally feeling hungry. I think there are a few strips of bacon left over, and maybe some bread. A humble repast! Monkish delights!

I shall investigate.

Old Joy

I rented Kelly Reichardt's Old Joy (2006)after hearing an interview with her on NPR this week. It is a short, quiet film, which is good enough, but the film is suggestive in ways that you hardly ever find in film in this country. For reference points, you need to turn to masters of giving weight to quotidian concerns such as Rohmer and Olmi.

Will Oldham and Daniel London play two old friends who go for a hike in the Cascade mountains, looking for a lost hot spring. That's the plot. The film's dramatic moments are lyrical; the characters struggle with the minor but significant concern of ferreting out emotional stability during a transformative period in their lives.

Oldham's Kurt remains committed to a countercultural lifestyle while London's Mark is leaving that world behind: he has moved on to concerns about family, property, and career and not in any cartoonish way.

In the opening scenes, we find Mark asking his wife permission to go on the search, and we sense both his unwillingness to put aside the responsibilities of the house, but also his diminishing reluctance to permanently sever the bonds of deep friendship. When Kurt later that evening, stoned and drunk, finally admits that he senses this distance, and that it saddens him, Mark is once again confronted with a seemingly impossible choice: we cannot hold to contractory ideals about freedom and commitment. When Kurt rambles on with a bizarre theory about physics, you see Mark is ready to move on. He is annoyed at the stoner talk, and that he is aware of the intellectual weakness and immaturity of his old friend. However, Reichardt and co-author Jonathan Raymond, are too insightful to let this stand. The hot spring lies ahead.

The tension between the two is subtly handled, and London is masterful at getting you to sense his confusion from a nearly expressionless face.

Reichardt's new film, Wendy and Lucy, received excellent reviews and is not playing anywhere. Oldham's new album, Beware, is not out yet.

World of Whorecraft

Two days ago, a nameless miscreant sent me a link to a porno movie based on the World of Warcraft game. I have never played this game, and my entire familiarity of it comes from the South Park episode in which it's featured.

It was my duty as an intellectual and a lover of truth to investigate.

I took my laptop into the bathroom, as I'd just gotten home, and placed it on the sink, turning the volume high. No one was home and I wanted to savor the dialogue.

Not many porno films feature battles with ogres, let me tell you.

I concluded my business and had gotten the joke, so far as the movie was concerned, so I shut the laptop.

And then, there it was, a woman's voice. Clear as day.

Holy crap.

The voice was close. It was very close. It was right out my window!

Sure enough, my eldery neighbor was smack dab next to the window and was calling for her cat. What was the little fucker doing hanging out in our bushes? (For the record, the cat actually lived at our house years ago).

My neighbor seemed to be calling for the feline in an extra loud voice, as if to drown out the sound of, I don't know, elves fucking perhaps?

I immediately went outside and made a great show about putting away the garbage, hoping to balance off my image as a pervert with one of diligence and cleanliness. The neighbor was nowhere to be seen.

Perhaps she'd found her cat.

Big Words

Passed the 54,000 word mark. Big writing done. Knocking down the critical episodes. Feeling good.

I didn't listen to the itunes on shuffle, but went through whole albums: Best of the Replacements, Abattoir Blues and Lyre of Orpheus by Nick Cave, Transcendental Blues by Steve Earle, Alice by Tom Waits.

*

Haven't been getting enough reading done lately. I couldn't sleep the other night and read half of Tortilla Flat. No tv. No music. I lit the pellet stove and lay on the couch with the cats. I have to force myself to do this, even though it makes me happy. I suppose Socrates would have suggested that electronics work like magnets on the brain. See Plato's "Ion." And here I am, contributing to the general unwelfare.

Oh well. It's more complicated than that.

*

I have to piss. Not like a racehorse. But as a human. With dignity. In the W, we only pissed as racehorses do, which I suppose meant in hot blasts. Better not to talk about it. On with the day!

The Noise and the Light

The other night, I mentioned to Jess that Nick Cave was a Christian, and she was surprised to hear this, given his persona. I repeated a simplification I've heard in interviews: that his early recordings were Old Testament, and the more recent, New Testament.

I searched the net for articles on this topic and found a fantastic article on him, reprinted from salon. Even if you're unfamiliar with his music, or uninterested in religious matters, it is a striking piece and worth ten minutes of your attention.

Whipping the Beast

The Dufflebag asked about the Ernie Kovacs dvd collection Charlie lent me. So, after a breakfast of steel cut oatmeal with chocolate chips, we watched a few scenes. He seemed fascinated and even laughed. This proves something to me, but I'm not sure what.

*

My bank account was thoroughly depleted this week. The unemployment check hasn't come yet. I'm almost out of gas. If it wasn't for Jess helping me out and supporting me in my attempt to get my writing and teaching career back on track, this would no doubt be a bleak time.

*

We watched the Wrestler yesterday. I liked it very much, and am glad Aronofsky is learning the value of restraint. He's getting better. I suspected that, during the filming of Requiem for a Dream, he was as amped up on meth as his characters. There is a difference between trying to portray human sorrow and simply dredging the audience through it. The scene that rang least true for me was when the Ram, in a fit of anger, thrust his own thumb into a meat slicer. That was the old, bathetic Aronofsky to me. "You want cheese? Get your own fucking cheese!" Good line. But the movie has so much to recommend it, I don't want to come across as petty. A sincere attempt to cultivate human sympathy and understanding? I'll take it. We need more of that.

*

For dinner, I defrosted the second half of the giant salmon fillet and blackened it, heating the skillet to a whitish color before dropping in the spitting, snarling cuts. I've been only semi-successful in my previous blackening attempts, but his time I made sure the skillet was hot and I sliced the servings in half to make them appropriately thin. I marinated them in lime juice before dipping them in melted garlic butter that would help the spices stick.

Every last hidden bit of garlic was eaten up, and the family moved over to the skillet when the meal was over to look for stray nuggets of fishflesh. Goo Goo, working his magic.

*

And now I'm turning to the novel. I had to leave off in the middle of a scene yesterday to go to the orientation but it's time to finish that section and keep whipping this beast closer to the home stretch.

The Heart of the Celeriac

I finally made the baked celeriac and eggs dish from the Ferguson cookbook for lunch. I used one-quarter of the butter he suggests and it was still a little much. I'm not used to foods rich on that scale. I also replaced the celery leaves with baby spinach.

If I did it again, I would bake it for seven, not five minutes. Needless to stay, it was an unqualified success. Simple, peppery and delicious.

You skin and cut the celeriac into chunks and boil the pieces in well-salted water for twenty-five minutes until they can be mashed with a fork. Then you mash the pieces with four tablespoons of butter in a saute pan, seasoning to taste with salt and pepper, and mixing in the celery leaves -- spinach in my case.

You put the mashed celeriac into a preheated dish and press four holes into the surface. Ferguson makes eight and uses eight eggs. I was using a smaller root and went for four and four, breaking them and dropping them into the holes, where they fit nicely and looked striking when I took them out of the oven.

You bake the dish for seven minutes (Fergie says five) at 425 degrees. He suggests cooking the eggs so that they remain a little runny. They will, obviously, continue to cook after removing them from the oven, but I still found them a touch too runny, even though I'll admit it was unexpectedly delicious this way. I'm just not used to runny eggs.

I added additional ground pepper at this point. Serve immediately.

*

I spent the afternoon at an orientation at the Leominster career center. It wasn't daunting or galvanizing, and the whole situation has been overshadowed by non-unemployment related stress. Still, it was nice to learn about the services and to get my bearings.

*

Despite the busy day, I got up early enough to write almost 2,000 words. I think, with a week of full time writing, I could finish this draft. I would hardly say I'm writing full time, but it's a huge relief to have this much time and to see the results.

*

The cat is attacking my toes, and then sitting on my chest, and then attacking my toes again. I have to turn the mattress, do the dishes, and get ready to help the Dufflebag with his homework. The week is almost over.

*

Sorry for the boring entry. Try the recipe -- the food is good even if the writing is bad.

Caffeine Cowboy

By this point in the day, the harsh light comes from the Sbux window and I can barely see the screen. I have to keep rotating for the angle. Since taking up shop early this morning, I've been through full albums by Lily Allen, Spoon, Grinderman, Robert Pollard, and Springsteen. 3,500 words in one day. About as much as I ever produce in one sitting. I'm a slow cooker.

The words are, of course, not to be judged by their number. But it's still a nice little mark of the state of things. I tend to write more when I'm enjoying it more, so three-thousand plus words means there must be music in there, somewhere. In terms of the narrative, I'm getting closer to the part where it all comes together. The finish line is, of course, not the final word, but this coming together. Hmm. This sounds overly cryptic. Not meant to be, lads and lassies.

Orson Welles, when offered a role in The Third Man, asked only that his character not appear until the 2/3rds mark. Because he knew that was when the shit hits the fan.

And we see that mark ahead.

*

Jess and I watched God is in the House last night, a Nick Cave concert film shot during the tour supporting No More Shall We Part. In terms of pace, energy, and sound quality, it was as good a tour film as I've seen. The brief documentary included on the disc was likely worth more attention than I paid to it, since whenever I did care to notice, it seemed to provide a mini-lesson in songcraft and song recording.

*

My work day as a writer is over. I'm going to go pick up the Dufflebag, see if I can read a little Steinbeck, and see what the day holds.

Webbing It

I want to get to work on the novel right away, so I'm taking the morning off and will share a few links.

Chawla! sent me this link to a webpage that gives you daily updates on sales on mp3s and online music. Amazon occasionally has one day sales where albums drop to a dollar, and this site will let you know about it. While I haven't made quite as nice a find as Chawla, who picked up the Undertones and Black Flag this way, I still find myself looking, just in case.

Devin sent me this link to an exclusive preview of the new M. Ward album over on npr.

George turned me on to one of the most interesting critics working today, Benjamin "Yahtzee" Croshaw. He reviews video games and you can and will enjoy his insights, humor, and rants even if you don't play video games and could care less about them.

*

Someday I will take advantage of the free Sbux wi-fi to write while listening to Duck Soup on Netflix. I don't know why I find this so amazing. It's not like I couldn't do it before from the safety of my couch. But amazing I find it. Worktime!

The Native Origins of a Classic American Treat

I am here to report success with the alchemical wonders of peanuts, candied in the skillet. From sugar water syrup to salty dryness to golden coat, it was lead into gold. They are now cooling on top of the refrigerator, but we had to at least try a few hot. Did I mention the sea salt and cinammon?

The Dufflebag wanted to make homemade "grape soda." We bought some seltzer and concord grape juice. When we got home, he asked if would taste the same as the type you get on Thanksgiving.

"Can't really answer for sure on that one," I said. "We'll have to see."

Is homemade grape soda really a Thanksgiving tradition? If so, thanks to the natives. I look forward to your delicious and refreshing treat.

Sometimes I Change My Style All Around and Make It New. In Bed.

Sorry if I don't always respond to comments. With my current browser, I have to fight blogger to post, and I've had one too many longass replies eaten by the great Nothing.

Dunc, I loved that quote. Thanks.

*

The Dufflebag and I are going to make candied peanuts this afternoon. I bought some raw nuts at the Asian grocery in Littleton and we're going to cook them up with a simple mix of sugar, water, and cinammon.

After that, I lethimchoose a Netflix movie and he decided to go for the Tim Burton Batman. Fine for me. I think cartoon characters and superheroes should be cartoony, and feel insulted when the audience is asked to see monkeymen and ratmen and lightingmen and superdupermen through the lens of psychological realism. It's for the same reason that I don't want to see Hulk Hogan beaten to death in the ring. Actual death. Maybe in real life. But not in a wrestling match.

One of my problems with the Dark Knight is that even a swell acting job couldn't let me get past the fact that only in cartoons would a criminal dress as a clown. Let it be broad and colorful, and let the punches go pow! and not crack bone and cause internal bleeding and I'll make the popcorn.

I Ate Raw Bacon

I got home late last night after competition class. Jess was up waiting, so, although I hadn't eaten dinner, I tried to find something to quickly fill my belly.

Finding nothing, I downed two strips of raw bacon. There's a character in the novel I finished reading earlier in the day who did that, so that's where I got the idea. It was part pleasant, part un-. It also seemed to do the trick.

We also nibbled at my anniversary treat: I coated some pears, orange slices, and pretzels with chocolate. The Dufflebag helped me do it -- he seems to enjoy working in the kitchen. I lucked out with the navel oranges. They tasted particularly tart, sweet, and fresh.

*

This morning, I thought about making a celeriac dish from the Henderson cookbook for breakfast, but didn't want to waste any time that could be spent writing. It's a half-day of school for the Dufflebag, so I only have two hours to shower, eat breakfast, and work on the novel.

I went instead for a bacon sandwhich, finishing the last of my Blood Farm rashers. I'm getting my technique down: low heat and constant turning. Today's was perfect, and I ate them with good supermarket bread, mustard, and baby spinach.

Once the fat cools, I strain it through cheese cloth to use later for cooking. I've gotten much better about conserving fats from cooking -- recycling, saving money, and adding robust tastes to the meals. I'm still saving the pork fat from the pull last weekend for a special occasion.

*

That's it. Paltry fare on the blog front. But I've got to get to work. Check back later for updates.

Safety and Morality

I finished Gringos. I haven't worked on the novel yet, today, but I've done that.

After reading the ending, knowing how sly old Portis can be, I had to track down the original lyrics to "My Darling Clementine." To tell why would give away the ending, but to say I did this gives away nothing.

Google revealed a webpage with the lyrics rewritten to point out the song's "moral" -- that we should learn artificial respiration and general water safety precautions. The lyrics are preempted with a brief paragraph on the value of learning CPR, and are worth reading if you're the type who finds training films funny.

I suppose the "moral" of Titanic was learn to use a life preserver and that the moral of Star Wars is not to wear open toed shoes in the workplace, no?

Against the Pathologizers

The term attention whore is unusual in that it is a moronic corruption of ideas filtered down from both Christianity and Freud. Not since the days when sportscasters started "deconstructing" strategies have terms been played with so loosely, and so readily taken as a given.

Case in point.

Even Time and other major press organs have published articles attempting to deflate the 25 Things note from facebook. For the sake of future generations, it was simply this: you listed 25 facts about yourself and asked 25 of your friends to do the same.

What dark impulses lay behind this seemingly casual exercise? A curiousity about our friends? An enjoyment of wit and word play? An attempt to briefly justify ourselves, in brief, to a wide scope of people in a short time. Was it creativity? Self-expression? An attempt to make human connections?

Oh no. Not to the pundits. This little exercise wasn't guided by basic, sound, decent human impulses to communicate and exchange, but at best a fascination with the trivial and at worst, an attempt to raise the very Babylon of Attention Whoredom. Reading these writers (Suddath is the prime offender, although I've been sent others), one could come away conceiving of any damn public activity as an exercise in attention seeking. Melville likely wrote Moby-Dick because he wanted attention. Townes Van Zandt likely wrote "Pancho and Lefty" because he wanted attention. Any non-saint who doesn't meticulously disguise his or her deeds or ideas must be clowning themselves for the sake of a little notice.

Never mind the note only politely invites attention -- those interested must click. Like Moby-Dick unfortunately, the notes are easily ignored.

If the the pragmatic result of all this attention seeking is that we somehow understand each other slightly more, marking the changes and developments and idiosyncracies of each other, all the while being entertained by a small, filtered glimpse into the private life of sometimes half-remembered acquaintances, or perhaps even having a close friend finally spell out their positions and ambitions, then, of course, Derrida's half-wit children will see this as cretinous Peeping Tomism, worse than the dreaded reality tv. They will mark it in terms of pathology, as they do nearly every human impulse.

This is our payback for a cheapened public discourse. When you find it hard to claim to be entertained by a tv show, and must always be "obsessed," when you speak of necessary acts like shopping for food as a compulsion, and when you call a movie that has both tender and dark moments schizophrenic, then you unconsciously feed into a worldview where the chief judge and accountant is Pop Psychology. As one who still enjoys judicious use of American hyperbole, what a nightmare, indeed.

Years Pass on to Years

Jess and I started dating one year ago today.

We met at a rock show in Lowell where I was doing photography the summer before. As I did back when I was trying to start a photography business, I myspaced everyone I met.

In January, I happened to notice her cryptic status update. I went to her page and noticed she was single. And that was that.

Our first date was in Newton, on a snowy night. Snowy enough to make my car skid on the way there and on the way back.

*

Since then, we have been through more than a year's worth of struggle and change in our personal lives, offset by more than a year's worth of love and passion and joy. Suffice to say, I am an extremely lucky person. What's more: whatever difficulties we have faced have brought us closer, so that being in love feels as exciting to me today, right now, as it did in those heady early days of springtime romance. I still hate to see her leave in the morning, and feel as excited as a Golden Retriever when I hear her car pull in at night.

And all this, even when she deliberately tries to get the cat to put its butt on my face. Imagine that.

*

So, of course, today is a special occasion for us, another milestone, and one that we'll mark humbly but sincerely. Hey, Jess. I love you.

Oysters, Inactivity, and the Coraline mini-review

Today, we went to S.S.Lobster and picked up two pounds of steamer clams, a huge salmon fillet, and three oysters for seventeen dollars. I pried the oysters open as soon as I got home and downed them plain, without horseradish, hotsauce, or even a pinch of salt. Perfect, cold, and clean. One of the world's most perfect foods. And three of them for about the cost of a bag of chips.

*

Much done this weekend, nothing literary: jiu-jitsu seminar, cooking, shopping, watching the fights. I'm savoring the last few pages of the Portis novel but will probably finish it before dinner.

*

And here's my brief review of Coraline.

SPOILER ALERT.

There is much to recommend the film. Once I put my prescription glasses on underneath the 3D'ers, the effect was striking. The young, female protagonist is likeable, the puppetry headscratchingingly creative, and the themes strange and unsettling, as are the themes of children's entertainment in anything but a debased and sterilized culture.

The problem comes as the film begins to confuse the symbolic undertones of the story with the story itself. Why does Coraline turn away from her alter-universe Mother? The one who offers the best food and lively, child-tailored spectacles with mice and unexpected transformations? The house garden becomes a botanical Wonka's Chocolate Factory, filled with glowing, growing things and cuteness and enough menace to keep it interesting. Ah, life in the permanent unexpected!

Well, she turns away because she'd have to sew buttons over her eyes: and the tools are thrust at her menacingly. She hasn't come to any understanding: she isn't turning away from her consumer dreams: she doesn't want to take a long, nasty looking needle and scoop her eyes out with it. And I doubt any child would make the trade. The only way to make sense of this is: 1. to read on a merely symbolic level or 2. to imagine that the creators were more concerned with the visual than narrative coherence. Eventually, the narrative takes head-scratchingly bad turns. A game with the Mother is solved not with wit or insight but with help from ghosts and magic stones and magic cats and Mother's resentful puppets. All Coraline has to do is make the appropriate leaps and grabs, video game platform style. So, aside from being lucky and slightly unusual -- in a year or two she will no doubt start listening to Death Cab for Cutie -- we are left to wonder what makes her heroic. We are supposed to see her as brave, but she does what the rest of us would have done under the same circumstances. So how is this commendable? Is it brave to run away from giant spiders? Is the notion of bravery so cheapened? At what point does she actually make a hard decision?

Peter Keogh, over at the Phoenix, makes the point this way: "Perhaps Gaimon and Selick [the author and director -- Goo Goo] are trying to warn children against this movie and others like it . . . ." And that hits at something. Warn the tykes against the seduction of spectacle in a 3-D, effects heavy movie and you're incoherent at the outset.

Compare this film and those it draws from, from Starewicz to Svankmajer, and it seems particularly insipid. At the same time, I couldn't help but to like the film, despite its limitations. Even if it doesn't work, it's heart is in the right place: it's hard not to sense good, even great, intentions. And if it mangles its own morality, at least it tries to address it without sentiment or wishful thinking.

At the Knob Level

What seem the most ephemeral aspects of underground music apparently last forever, and I can hear the same crappy, C-level hardcore bands on my local college station that I could when I was in high school. Not the same type. The same bands! The same songs! The same forced sense of humor and forced anger! And you know what? It still sounds so damn good sometimes.

As embarassed as I was about listening so purely to a musical style, so limited in scope, so paltry in its grammar, for so many intense years, it was a regret I hardly earned. If I earned it, it was only by surviving. I've met enough of my childhood heroes and thought, 'Wow, this guy is a fucking loser.' Which begs the question of what I am if not that. A question best left unanswered. I only record, with honesty, my initial reaction, the following feeling to often be: well, so what? He's seems just like a dingbat you know from high school. So what? Were you expecting Bat Man?

On the way back from Chelmsford, I listened to the UMass Lowell radio station. This is what got me thinking.

I noted with pleasure that the dj would suddenly turn the pot down and switch to another song, as if bored. Enough of that one! The magnificent part being the songs are generally under two minutes. Who gets bored during a two minute hardcore song? What sort of music so dilutes your attention span that anything longer than 2:32 seems labored and lumbering? I suppose even having a clown show up at your house and punch you dead in the face would lose its novelty after a certain point.

The dj also interspersed with set with Wesley Willis songs. Willis was a Chicago-based schizophrenic who made hundreds of recordings. For those of you who haven't heard them, the good stuff, the stuff remembered, involved him playing variations of the same chords on a casio keyboard. The tempo was, apparently, manually varied at the knob level. The songs were quick, confessional, and ended with the refrain: "Rock over London, rock on Chicago," followed by a line from a commercial. Pontiac, we build excitement. That sort of thing. Over and over again. Through it all, Willis recorded the details of his life in absolutely literal terms. In fact, the literalness of it gave it it's character: the exact number of attendees at a Tool show he attended, the name of his psychiatrist, how many Big Macs he'd eaten that day. At the time, he was also lumped into a group of marginal, mentally ill musicians, nearly all of whom were exceptional songwriters: Daniel Johnston and Roky Erickson most notably. It would almost be cruel to judge his music, since it simply doesn't operate by any standard to which conventional judgments might be made.

Willis died in 2003.

I put a song up on my facebook page if you'd like to get a sense of what I'm writing about.

Rock on London, Rock on Chicago! Wheaties! Breakfast of Champions!

The Pulse and the Chain

Make that 2,200. I'm trying to simply write and not think about it. The work is usually better that way, and moves on its own internal scheme. I'm excited. I honestly am. I'm on to something. When something is fun to write, it at least gives me hope it will be fun to read. It's something I'm proud of. I'd put this in anyone's hands, without shame.

*

But, as with anything, it's good to leave off with more to say and not having exhausted the chamber. So I'm done for now. Little Hold Steady to out-white other white noises and it's Portis and on with the day.

No Money No Beer

1,200 words today, so far. We're moving.

I had to take a break momentarily. I can't read or write when people are eating around me. A woman sat across from me and leisurely ate a bag of those purple and red potato chips. She sure did take her time, savoring each one, and even tipped the bag upside down and thrust her face into the bag to ensure the discovery of every precious gram of salt. I'm sure those chips were tasty. No doubt!

I tried not to stare.

When she was finished, she picked up her cell phone. I'm screwed, I thought. No more writing for Goo Goo. But no, manners! She collected her bags and belongings and headed outside.

My noise cancelling headphones have run out of battery power. But I was safe now.

*

After Charlie's mention, I started the day off with Keren Ann, but that was horribly inappropriate writing music. When you're in a relationship, the partner's tastes make discernable yet slight changes to your own. Or, more specific, they reinforce tendencies, and redirect others. Since Jess doesn't like female singers (except Chan Marshall and Ella Fitzgerald), it has since become nearly impossible for me to listen to Kate Bush or Joni Mitchell or, today, Keren Ann, even when she's not around. I like the music. It just doesn't feel right. I'm sure this works in reverse. Funny that: how you develop a collective aesthetic sense. It doesn't just happen in romantic relationships, but in social circles of all sorts. And this is too obvious to state. But it's interesting to note it when it happens and when you can specify how it manifests itself.

So, in honor of Lux Interior, I put on Gravest Hits. Raucous rock is usually good writing music. It accords well with the rhythm of the keys. It is spirited, youthful, unapologetic! Good fuel, that, with the coffee. Thanks, Lux. I owe you another thousand words.

Cramps just ended, as I wrote that. Moving on to The Black Keys The Big Come Up. Haven't listened to this one much. Sounds good so far.

Dozen or so pages left of Gringos. If anyone wants to borrow it, let me know.

*

Billy and I talked like we hadn't seen each other in months.

"You look good. Shit, you lost weight."

"No money, no beer."

He finds the slightest anti-beer sentiment hard to stomach. "You know a soldier needs a frosty one!" he said, his face turning red.

Song of Andy Millman

Whenever I visit a Starbucks, I go for the plush chairs. They are better, in terms of comfort. But you can also run your hand along the edges and find lost items. I've never found anything great, but it's not uncommon to find a Starbucks card or a dollar or two. Today I found both. I checked the card to see how much it had left on it and it wasn't even registered. Someone had grabbed it at the register.

I also found a brown Sharpie today. Forgot about that one. I'll give it a pass.

I didn't get a word written yesterday and didn't even shave, although I cooked shrimp and pasta for dinner, filed my taxes, watched Robert Bresson's Pickpocket (two times -- once with the commentary track), and trained for 90 minutes for the first time in months. My knee felt slightly sore after class, but it isn't troubling me today. A good sign.

I stopped by the W and picked up my final check. A measly 150. Billy told me he finally signed up to facebook and was stunned with an ex-girlfriend tried to "friend" him. I got on the Boss's computer and posted a profile pic on his page.

*

There is a dollar-store type discount store in Billerica that has a surprisingly good cooking section. I stopped by today and had to scan the aisle five times before I found what I was looking for: a rolling pin. The pin was had at a bargain. Marble. Now that we have the mixer back, breadbaking will likely take over beer as my food hobby.

*

I got teary-eyed watching the finale of Extras with Jess. And, to further put myself out there, I got teary eyed waking up this morning and thinking about the finale, today. So there.

It has been a troubling day. Some of you know why. I'm finding solace in little things.

Failing to find lime leaves at any local Asian market, I stopped at Bankok Hill in Lunenburg, where the cook kindly offered me some. I tried to pay him but he refused. I had never been there before, but it seemed tidy and smelled nice, and it goes without saying that they were extremely kind to me. I'll go for dinner there when the budget permits and report back on the results.

I now have the ingredients to make my soup according to the traditional recipe. I didn't have to compromise in any way.

I also finally got to visit S. S. Lobster in Fitchburg, a market Charlie recommended to me. There, I bought two pounds of fresh, raw shrimp. Beautiful little buggers. And they were exactly half the cost of lesser critters sold at the supermarkets, which is why I went for the extra. I'll be able to get a second meal out of them: maybe a noodle stir-fry. Or maybe I'll wrap them in dough and make dumplings tomorrow night.

Dragonflies Appear

I hit the 40,000 word mark. It's a rough half-way point in the narrative. Good enough.

I did manage 1,000 before bed, and 3,000 today, making what seemed like an off period into one of heightened creativity. Plus, I worked through a major section of the novel, one I've been ready and preparing to write for over a month. A critical point. So there we go, mark the milestone and keep walking, pilgrim.

I turned to two records that generally inspire me: the first Arcade Fire and Devendra Banhart's Cripple Crow. Don't know what it is about the latter hippy surreal folkie rocking that I find so soothing. It sets me at peace. There's a minor song on that record, "Dragonflies," only a minute long, that always makes me smile. On my final day in the W, I listened to that same record on my ipod. Something about it makes me want to travel the world by boat. It's a summer song, no matter the season. I suspect an idiosyncrasy on my part. But I'm standing by it.

So I'm off to the fish market to pick up shrimp for the soup. This morning, the Dufflebag rejected my bacon omelette because of the "black flecks." Pepper! But there's pepper in everything, I told him!

He wasn't buying it.

I'll have to pick up white pepper when I get the chance now. Mentoring, like much else it seems, relies on necessary illusions.

Cuts

In the light of the laptop, there is a gigantic eyeball. It belongs to a chihuahua.

The laptop is the only light in the room. The dog is trying to get my attention. She looks pitiful. The cats are wrestling. I'm not sure where they are. But I hear them and hope they don't break anything.

I started, watched, and finished Two-Lane Blacktop. Such are the days when I need to make this clear. The colors and the dialogue fit in nicely with the world of Gringos. I hope some people reading this will track the film down. It's a fantastic movie.

Jess visited a friend after work and got snowed in, so I've had the place to myself, or at least I did after the Dufflebag went to bed. No writing, yet, but why not? Sure, I'll do it. Give me a minute.

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I turned off the t.v., but I'm listening to the Allison Anders/Monte Hellman commentary track.

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I couldn't find the safety unit for my mandoline. I julienned daikon radish and cut myself three times. The last one cut into my thumb. After the radish, I moved on to hot peppers, and some of the membrane must have gotten stuck between the wound and the remaining fingernail, because it has yet to stop stinging.

*

Ok. Iron rule. Got to write each day. Half an hour until midnight. Let's see what we can do.

Smashing Mittens

I ended up running around all day, and couldn't find a drop of inspiration. I'm just sitting down after dinner and homework with the Dufflebag. (Dinner: boiled then lightly grilled sweet Italian sausages on wheat bread; homework: an incorrectly started math sheet that ended up taking two hours to finish, although we managed to end less frustrated and more optimistic than we began. Thanks, Internet tutoring support forums!)

I suppose I could have foregone the pickling and saved some time, but it is easy to pickle and mind the house, and practically impossible to write and do so.

This time around, pickling has a new problem. The place where I previously sun fermented them is now the resting spot of an otherwise wonderful cat who, without pausing, bats anything in his way to the ground. And there's no place in the house, other than the attic, safe from his mittens. So I'm hiding them now and will indeed bring the jars up into the attic and hope I can rig something up to get them to the window. Not that there's enough sunlight to matter.

Either that or I can put them back on the front window and stand sentry all day. I know this sounds far fetched. But it may be the easiest way to get decent results.

Otherwise, I didn't see Two-Lane Blacktop and I didn't even find a place to buy lime leaves. My only real errand tomorrow involves going to the fish market. I will then try to make up for lost time.

The lesson of the day: write first, get inspired later.

Pickled Chiles

This recipe is a variation on the one in Alford and Duguid's big, fat, wonderful book Beyond the Great Wall.

Theirs called for very ripe, red, cayennes. I went for the greens, because that's all I could find, so mine isn't as sweet, but it suits my palate fine.

1/4 pound cayenne chilis or something similar (about 8 6" peppers)
1 cup rice vinegar
1 tablespoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon Sichuan peppercorns (I have some extra if you don't have any and would like to try this)
1 star anise (once again, let me know and I'll bring one in for you)

Wash the chilis and cut the stems. Cut peppers into 1/2" slices.

Heat the vinegar. Add salt and stir until it dissolves. Add peppercorns and star anise. Bring to a boil, then lower and simmer for 30 seconds. Remove from the heat and cool to lukewarm.

Sterilize a one cup canning jar with lid and ring.

Stuff the chili pieces into the jar, pressing them down to compact them. Pour the vinegar and spices into the jar, filling it to the top. Slap the lid on and tighten it up.

Set the jar in a sunny spot for two days, then refridgerate. The recipe says that the pickles will be ready in two weeks, but taste better if you wait longer. I waited. They keep up to three months.

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Side note: I think it was Charlie who mentioned the Latin American taste here -- maybe it was George. I thought this was interesting because later, Ana, who is from Columbia, seemed to find them a familiar taste and put the pickles on top of the pork instead of eating them whole, as the rest of us were doing.

Tom Yum Blacktop Bacon Pepperpickles

So I did manage to get in a few rounds last night. Nothing strenuous. I'm a little sore, but my knees are fine. I'm hoping this is a sign that they healed up completely.

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I'm going to make another, larger batch of the pepper pickles, since people at the party seemed to enjoy them and I certainly did as well. I'll post the recipe, above.

I'm also going to pick up ingredients for a tom yum goong soup that I'll make with the pork stock.

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Big on the agenda today, aside from the normal filing and searching and writing, is to watch Monte Hellman's Two-Lane Blacktop, a film I've heard about for years but never got a chance to see, until now, thanks to Netflix.

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While at Blood Farm in West Groton, I picked up two packages of their bacon, said by some to be among the best bacon sold in the United States, and you can only buy it there.

I'm going to serve myself two rashers for breakfast, and finish up the pork while I'm at it, and probably take on a serving of the fruit salad (oranges, coconut, walnuts) that Tracey left behind after the party on Saturday. Breakfast! It's the most important meal of the day.

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Other than that, I'm going to fiddle around with books and thoughts until I'm ready to work on the novel. I'm not quite there yet. It doesn't take much, but you need a little ember to begin with, and I don't have that yet. So I'm going to boil water for coffee and see what the day holds.

At Home with Beasts

2,100 words today, effortlessly written. And I knew it was a good sign because I thought of stuff I wanted to add back in. Meaning, instead of being merely a slapping down of clay onto a spinner, it's starting to develop a narrative coherence. Don't wonder why I never show people early drafts.

Quick shower, off to the library to pick up some Steinbeck and Sinclair for research purposes, and then I'm going to grab the Dufflebag at school. Fix the clothes rack, eight minute abs, dishes, stock, bring the Dufflebag to class, have Jess pick him up there, get home late. The week begins. Bring it on.

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I signed up for orientation at the local career center. The woman was surprised I got laid off just last week and was already making an appointment. Perhaps they expect a whisky and beard period.

"You're getting ahead of yourself," she said.

I laughed. What do I say to that? Sign me up! Rock me and roll me, career center orientation sign up gal. This boy needs to feed his fitful engine!

And here we are, ready, go

The cats are lunging at all open containers. Fresh coffee, be damned. You got to keep on eye on the fuckers.

There is only a trace of pork fat on my laptop screen. I baked pork bones from Saturday's pull this morning, and right now I'm making stock with added black and sichuan peppercorns, star anise, cloves, onions, cilantro, and coriander.

The cats rev up when I cook, and calm down when I write. By switching from skimming the stock to working on the novel, I'll keep them nice and balanced.

I ate my breakfast while watching the first section of the Ernie Kovacs dvd collection Charlie lent me. But now I have coffee, and coffee and reading are brother and sister to me.

So, I'm going to sip and head deeper into Gringos before turning to the novel.

Plans today? Setting up my career center orientation, finishing the stock, finding some way to exercise (I'm still a wreck -- thought of training tonight but I think I have a new rule: if it hurts to climb the stairs, you're still too deconditioned to train), and, after watching Auto-Focus for the third time last night, doing a wiki on Bob Crane.

The coffee has cooled to the appropriate point. I'm off!

You have arrived!

Switching blog addresses occasionally keeps things fresh.

I'm working on the novel now so you'll have to check back later for more.