Monday Night Poetry

I like to listen to their song Adeline, it reminds me of all the hearts I’ve broken, and been broken by. It’s funny because I went to listen to some Jazz poets, the “Bone Jazz People,” I was excited to hear some poetry read hauntingly and with daggers tempered from turns of phrase. Entering the room three-quarters of an hour early, I chose my seat and read a book.

The poets are dressed in country clothes, with a bass, guitar and ukulele setup on stage. Props for the jazz poetry I guess. Weird style of jazz, I guess. I notice the blonde bassist strumming and tuning, black hat, black skirt, brown boots and brown vest, not very coordinated in my eye, but maybe she’s never lived in the country. “Is my harmony on river blues annoying you guys?” The mike is hot, but she is behind the speakers, and the monitor is probably not on very loud. I scramble in my bag for a notepad to catch some of the candid words, missing many as I search. “..what other songs…” The brunette who appears the lead asks the blue clad guitarist, who looks urban cowboy intelligentsia. He wears clothes too worn not to be new, too clean to be authentic. The blonde is pretty and keeps drawing my eye, she reminds me of someone or perhaps her beauty reminds me of my desire. The desire that everyone else calls their “soul mate,” but not me. My desire is ultimately God, and no woman could ever fill it perfectly, though hopefully one will show me fulfillment in ways I can’t imagine.

Maybe she’s not pretty. The angles of her face become more prominent with each glance, and the more I know the less my imagination can fill in, and the quicker reality sets in. The music strums and twangs fastly to the lead’s voice hidden by an artificial twang. I guess this isn’t Jazz poetry. The schedule confirms it, that’s tomorrow.

He leads the next song with a strain reaching to be authentic but to much not his own. It’s pleasing but hard to understand with the added arched tongue filling his mouth and forcing mumbles. River Blues comes up, and the blonde’s voice is scantly heard in harmony… what was she worrying about? She plays a worn mahogany bass, new boots and new threads… the bass is much more beautiful. I like things with stories, things old, things others would reject. I like them, because they’ve lived and stimulate dreams.

“When people ask me how to write a song I tell them to go back to a rich memory.” Mike, the guitarist who finally introduced himself, talks about the next song being a compilation of memories from his teenage years. Surprisingly Amy, the lead, starts. It’s simple yet vivid and honest. A young girl getting ready for a dance, with a young boy cutting into the song paralleling her anticipation of the night. Back and forth in an emotional dance, fantasies play out in their hearts. In the end they both get snubbed and are torn to pieces, “I’ll be fine…, but I wonder if I’ll ever love again” they sing in harmony. The song’s about Adeline, the girl’s sister, and the boy’s desire. Perhaps that’s my problem, I look for Adeline.

“Oregon” is next, “leaving old friends, worries, overdue bills” describes the young man escaping Iowa heading out west. I’m heading east. “Searching for things he can’t find in Iowa. Going to find his lover, goin to find a home, going to find his brothers, sisters wherever they roam.” Yeah. That’s why I’m leaving. I have nothing left here, my heart’s been broke by the reason I came, and no others have shown up. I’m picky, but I want a wife, so I must leave. I want brothers and sisters, and I have no friends here that I could call family, so I must leave. I must leave, or I fear I’ll die. I’m leaving. I really am. It’s time.

The ukulele is a mandolin. Who’d’ve guessed that it would make a great complement to bluegrass? I think I have a fever.

The day.

Early morning

We wake before dawn, beating even the newspapers to the front steps. Before I realized I was out of my bed, I had already showered, and was stepping out into the cold Indiana Air. I like Indiana, it’s more urban than some of the places I’ve been, where two cars on a road constitutes severe congestion and a traffic jam. But I’m not happy here.

The chill air is nothing new, but touching my hair I realize it’s frozen. A cold brittleness that seems apt.

Morning

Kansas?

Late Morning

We didn’t have a retreat today. Instead we got to do spring cleaning on the church… a cavernous affair with stained glass streaming light upon the color treated cement floor. We divided into groups, cleaning pews, windows, confessionals, floors and various accoutrements. I decided to work the ladders cleaning the windows, as everyone else was scared of climbing them. I hate ladders. They wobble and I’m sure I’ll die falling off one; I’ve always had dreams of that. Javy and I would move the ladder around he’d clean the bottom of the windows, I’d clean the top, 2 to three stories higher than the slick cement below. The walls braced the ladder well, and I wasn’t too scared after the first few.

We were done, and I looked at the Crucifix hanging mid air above the altar, it was dusty, and I asked the overseer if we could clean it. She agreed, and we moved the tall ladder precariously through the aisle, a few times almost toppling over.

The corpus was a beautiful bronze casting, 2 times the size of a normal body, perhaps more, majestic, silent, beautiful. I almost cried as I cleaned it. I took care of the hands, as a medic would, I daubed the feet, with soft cotton, embracing them in my hands, and kissing the memorial wounds. I cleaned down one side and then up the other. I cleaned His chest, wondering what it would have felt like in real life, strong, proud, to the very end or clammy and suffocating, fragile as a real human. I cleaned the broken arch of His back, ripped by whips into swatches of hanging flesh. I cleaned his crown, getting pricked and stabbed by the intermeshed five inch thorns sharpened to conical points. My thin hands couldn’t even fit through to clean his hair, the thorns so dense, so painful.

I wish I was alone. I wish I could pour torrents from my eyes. Be overcome by the sorrow and joy. I wish the bronze was the clammy flesh.

Noon

Lunch was what I’ve heard will be standard fare on the road; lasagna. I guess it could be worse. At least I’ll be fed.

It’s been raining outside the past few days, but now it’s a vibrant sky and low 80’s. A few of the friends I’ve made at training have decided to renew our after lunch ultimate Frisbee game. So I clip my flip flops to the back of my belt with a red caribiner that I keep for such opportunities and walk barefoot across the squishy-pine coned camp to the lower fields. The lower fields are lush green, a foot or two higher and surrounded by a horseshoe lake that turns a glance into full trance and meditation on the beauty of God. Only to be awakened by the call “Game-on!”

The field is flooded two inches or more, but we play on. Slides from catches distract us and the game becomes about gnarly grabs and sweet slides, we forget score. Body surfing now dominates, as does mud caked wetly on our skin. Bystanders are pulled in and a mud war erupts. Cool, sticky brown orange mud beneath a light and warm atmosphere. I could lie here forever.

The call for showers rings out. I don’t want to leave. But I must.

Afternoon

My shower is quick and thankfully warm. And now I’m rushing out the door. Most days are crazy, I feel like I’m being pulled from one spot to the next. Dragged like an anchor by my own will and compelled by my leader’s whip. I knew this would happen. I knew it back in Indiana. But today my asthma is acting up, and so is my rash, so I’m heading to a doctor for more meds.

The doctor’s office is a block from the beach in lovely San Diego, California. This guy’s office already seems like that of a quack… obscure location, and by a beach, great, maybe he’ll listen to me and give me the drugs I need to not die. Forms are filled, and a bit later I’m called in. It seems a small operation, with only a few narrow clinical rooms. Moments later a twenty something beach bum with a lab coat enters. Great. I tell him as plainly as I can that my asthma is acting up, so I need something for that, and my rash is acting up, so if he could hit me with a steroid shot, it’d get better.

His short brown hair keeps its light bounce despite his client’s self diagnosis and prescriptions that are subtle innuendos about his lack of qualification. He takes a moment and asks an obscure question. “When does your asthma act up, you seem fine now?” I stumble with mutterings, which eventually evolve into coherence about maybe being around my coworkers. After a few more obscurities, he asks something almost personal. “When was the last time you were happy?”

I left the office dazed. I have eczema? Is that what this year and a half old rash has been? The other diagnosis? Yeah, he’s a quack and I don’t believe him, but I’m not telling anyone about it, just in case he’s right. What would it change anyway? They’d think I was trying to get out of work or trying to hide from the ever and all important TEAM. Individuals don’t matter, unless they’ve been assimilated. And how true is a concern based on a new description? Am I to be more pitied and cared for because of a diagnosis, and not because I’ve been in pain the whole time? You don’t care about me. Stay the hell out of my life.

I pop the first pill after I’ve escaped on a brief “walk.” I’m going to keep this quiet. No one will know. It won’t matter anyhow.

Late Afternoon

The van arrives to pick us up and we pile in. I get in quickly to grab my favorite seat, the back left corner, away from the team leaders in the front. Texas is so nice this time of year, before the first frost. It distracts me too much to answer their questions quickly. Yeah, I’m excited, sure, I can’t wait. Real home-cooked Mexican food, wow. Nope never had it, never cooked it for myself, or had to eat only beans, rice and tortillas for half a month because I was so poor, nope. Never.

White people amaze me. Thank God I’m back in Texas. Yet for some reason, when she talks I’m now listening. Just two weeks ago, I despised her. Absolutely annoyed by any words from her mouth, but now instead of being as sarcastic as I realize I could be, and really crave to be, I smile genuinely. And tell her about all the food and spices that we eat, and try to tantalize her taste buds and attention. She’s pretty. I noticed that before, but now she’s really pretty, no longer “pretty but annoying as hell.”

YG prayer mtg.

Evening

Dinner

Night

I’ve been struggling with my team leaders. Though really its only one that leads and she astonishes me. Last week we were in St. Louis on our way here and she yelled “My authority comes from God.” Hoping to cow me into submission. I don’t cow. Earlier that night she approached a dialogue with me by these words “Lets talk about this [problem] so I can hear your concerns.” What she really meant became evident in her next breath. “We’ve already decided your punishment.” She didn’t want to hear my concerns, I knew that. She didn’t care. The authority structure on Net is defective. Pretenses about caring. They listen and have already decided. No one cares. They just like to feel as if they did.

Late Night

I head to the Eucharistic Chapel to pray.

It’s cold outside in Gary, Indiana and I’m finishing off my day.

It’s 2am and we wake in 3 hours.

Orange County Crucifix

230

We didn’t have a retreat today. Instead we got to do spring cleaning on the church… a cavernous affair with stained glass streaming light upon the color treated cement floor. We divided into groups, cleaning pews, windows, confessionals, floors and various accoutrements. I decided to work the ladders cleaning the windows, as everyone else was scared of climbing them. I hate ladders. They wobble and I’m sure I’ll die falling off one; I’ve always had dreams of that. Javy and I would move the ladder around he’d clean the bottom of the windows, I’d clean the top, 2 to three stories higher than the slick cement below. The walls braced the ladder well, and I wasn’t too scared after the first few.

We were done, and I looked at the Crucifix hanging mid air above the altar, it was dusty, and I asked the overseer if we could clean it. She agreed, and we moved the tall ladder precariously through the aisle, a few times almost toppling over.

The corpus was a beautiful bronze casting, 2 times the size of a normal body, perhaps more, majestic, silent, beautiful. I almost cried as I cleaned it. I took care of the hands, as a medic would, I daubed the feet, with soft cotton, embracing them in my hands, and kissing the memorial wounds. I cleaned down one side and then up the other. I cleaned His chest, wondering what it would have felt like in real life, strong, proud, to the very end or clammy and suffocating, fragile as a real human. I cleaned his crown, getting pricked and stabbed by the intermeshed five inch thorns sharpened to conical points. My thin hands couldn’t even fit through to clean his hair, the thorns so dense, so painful.

I wish I would have been alone. I wish I could have poured torrents from my eyes. Been overcome by the sorrow and joy. I wish the bronze of my memory was in front of me now.

247am

Girls

143am 2.21.2006
There’s something in “can’t have” that makes me want it. “It” doesn’t matter just that I can’t have “it”. Usually it’s a her, a she, a dame, gal, chick, cutie, sweetie, honey, darlin.


Heather
Swimming girl
Anne
8th grade girl
Kimberly Bates
Jennifer Bourqin
Amy Tally
Cathy nordfeldt
Jessica
Kimberly Bates
Freshman girl Lauren.
Genie
Kimberly Bates
Business girl
Kat


152
What am I running from… its always something, always something.

It’s been a girl the last two times.

Perhaps it’s a bit odd, but that’s what I do. A country song in gushing simplicity.

I convince a woman to fall in love with me, she falls out of love with me, I still love her, she doesn’t tell me, we drag it on, it ends and my heart is broke, all possibilities that seemed bright exhausted, I leave. Searching for something unfindable.
201am

Beginnings of a day

We wake before dawn, beating even the newspapers to the front steps. Before I realized I was out of my bed, I had already showered, and was stepping out into the cold Indiana Air. I like Indiana, it’s more urban than some of the places I’ve been, where two cars on a road constitutes severe congestion and a traffic jam. But I’m not happy here… in fact, unbeknownst to me, I’m about to make a decision that will affect the rest of my life.

The frozen air is nothing new, but touching my hair I realize it’s frozen. A cold brittleness that seems apt. I’ve been struggling with my team leaders. Though really its only one that leads and she astonishes me. Last week we were in St. Louis on our way here and she yelled “My authority comes from God.” Hoping to cow me into submission. I don’t cow. Earlier that night she approached a dialogue with me by these words “Lets talk about this [problem] so I can hear your concerns.” What she really meant became evident in her next breath. “We’ve already decided your punishment.” She didn’t want to hear my concerns, I knew that. She didn’t care. The authority structure on Net is defective. Pretenses about caring. They listen and have already decided. No one cares. They just like to feel as if they did.

My expectations that night were met. It was a sermon about why I was wrong. There was no concern for the list of problems I wrote down, nor for her failings in leadership that offended and hurt me. When they realized I had a list, annoyed, they asked me to read it off, then dismissed it entirely. They asked “why won’t you obey” I responded, you have not the authority. I would not cease my dissent from towing the line of a perverse leadership. I had rights and one is to be respected. “My authority comes from God” rang out. Shocked, the whole room went silent as aghast I didn’t know whether to laugh or perform an exorcism. Did she really just say that? Is that the substance of her argument? Is that it? A bloated egoism that could not fail? Yes she was serious, her face distorted by the elongated shadows hiding the ends of her lips and eyes. She was serious. My reasoning based upon Catholic tradition, based upon the catechism and Aquinas, the Popes and the Fathers, was met by a delirious fanatic that worshiped herself.

Myths and Vampires

2.18.2006

Tell me your myth. I used to ask people that I had just met “tell me your story.” It was always interesting to see how they responded to such an open question, but I wonder how they would respond to this one. “Tell me your myth.” I don’t expect they’d really understand, instead they’d probably go off into some fantasy world they made up on the spot, or simply refuse to tell me their “myth.” And all I’m really asking is “tell me your story”, with the acknowledgement that our stories aren’t always true. They tend to center upon us, heroizing those we like and demonizing those we disagree with.

She says she doesn’t love me anymore, and never really did. She was taking pity on me, she “felt sorry for me”.

We wake before dawn, beating even the newspapers to the front steps. Before I realized I was out of my bed, I had already showered, and was stepping out into the cold Indiana Air. I like Indiana, it’s more urban than some of the places I’ve been, where two cars on a road constitutes severe congestion and a traffic jam. But I’m not happy here… in fact, unbeknownst to me, I’m about to make a decision that will affect the rest of my life.

330pm

Beginnings

Beginnings

2.16.6 after lit… circa 3:25pm

Sometimes in life you get pulled into places you’d never expect. You either sink or swim, but you almost always survive

I don’t recall how it all started perhaps the images are stored in the words of a blue journal now packed away, nestled in some closet at my mothers place. Perhaps.

I was ready to leave. The girl had cheated on me. Not once, not twice but multiple times in the weeks between the forgiveness I’d give. I loved her and I didn’t know that I could love someone else as much. Perhaps you’d be incredulous to know that I forgave her every other week for eight or nine months. I don’t care. I forgave her because I cared for her, I forgave her because I believe in redemption and sacrifice. But that’s was months before I realized my soul was restless and done here, the first place I lived. I, the individual with a fate separate from any other. I was leaving comfort and familiarity, but I was leaving.

“I’m going to Ireland” I’d respond cheerfully. “To work for Apple as a computer consultant in Cork.” That sounds good. “Computer Consultant in Cork.” I liked it. It sounds prestigious, sounds fantastic…

Ideas and Starts

Ideas and Starts

Meditation on a word

Latino vs Hispanic

2.14.6

Galleria experience w/Liz

Reuben

Fayetteville

“My God.” Automatically means we have different Gods and My god is better, but for the sake of a perverse sense of diversity I refuse to tell you how ignorant you are.

This “Matters” so my mouth is mute my words chosen, my patience displayed…

Galleria

Compton –Real

-They live in a diff world…

-I guarantee.

Name -Remember

-But now I can’t

Spirit Broken ->Net

Kat

St. Louis

Starts

Starts

2.6.6 (I think this is the wrong date)

Ask yourself this about everything you own, do and are. “If I lost it how would I change?” If you can answer in the depths of your heart that you wouldn’t, then you are not being controlled. And for many this is the goal. But if you lost God, your world Should end. When God is the only thing that would end your world, then you area on the path that I and every man desires.

Ideas

Ideas

2-7-6 1230amish

The philosophical waning of a lacking man

Friends

What do you consider a friend?

What types are there? Family friends, esp…

2.7.6 class after 2pm

Ky fireflies

“ walking in Dark @ Halloween?

CA Haunted Forest

“ Swings in Courtyard

Preschool

Assignment 3 autobiographical essay ideas 1

203am 2.7.6

Sometimes I wonder what makes me different. What is it? Every time I look I find that I’m the same as someone standing right next to me. My desire for uniqueness seems desperate and mundane. I do nothing well… I fail and I fail… but isn’t that identical to everyone, even in my failure I’m the same. But something tells me I’m different… and it’s not just those voices I hear acclaiming my work or saying that they care for me, voices I frankly drown out with the white noise. Everyone gets acclaim. Everyone is cared for.

My life began humbly and has remained so.

Young men always think they’re the greatest. I’m no different. I’m the greatest example of a stubborn sinner. I know the Truth in a way few others have ever known, and yet I fail at embracing it with every part of my body soul and spirit.

Can my feet really mean something more than the things that carry me from place to place, could they be a metaphor for my life? The archless things that cause pain to other parts of the body? Is there a metaphor for my cowardice causing pain to my family, friends and loves?

I feel old. I’m 25, a quarter century, a third the way to death, well over two decades old, halfway to fifty, closing in on a midlife crisis, and a net worth less than my age. I feel like the stories people tell me I’ve heard, like the new people I meet are but permutations of the people I’ve already met, like the knowledge I learn as useless and ignorant as a cubic centimeter of space. I feel like life has left me casually standing and as if I’ve missed the taxi cab because I waited for it in the first place. The taxi cab is a myth, no one has one, not even those rare shooting stars that seem to streak through life with no worries… Nope, no taxi cab. It’s a unicorn, instead. Well, maybe you have a phoenix, or a sphinx… but I have a unicorn. And its actually quite fantastic!

When I was growing up, I dreamed of being famous, the first Hispanic-Irish-Catholic President… or the inventor of some new theory that made Einstein seem like a dim star… In fact, in middle school I created an algorithm for creating a magic square of any size (so long as the length of side was the square of another number). I was encouraged to get it published in math journals, and I considered it until I looked into it a bit more to find that other algorithms already existed, or at least seemed to.

234am

"Ad Satisfactionem Omni Poscenti Vos " 1 Pt 3:15: Wine. (English 305 Paper #2 -- Last Minute Draft for Class)

Drafts for:"Ad Satisfactionem Omni Poscenti Vos " 1 Pt 3:15: Wine. (English 305 Paper #2 -- Last Minute Draft for Class)

ideas/draft 1

We’d roll balls of dough, ever so slightly sticky, dab them in flour, then placing them in the middle of a wooden cutting board we’d roll them out. Each time trying to make a circle… each time failing.

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About the Author

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ideas/draft 2

Keys. Door. Open. Keys. Desk. Door. Close. Automatic.
It’s the small things that you wonder how they happened, when you get up off the floor.
My knees are all I remember… the thud upon the thin carpet bought by her mom… the rocking back and forth on them as on all fours I was overcome, breathing tears. The lack of pain in them… these knees; sometimes it feels like that’s where I belong, on my knees.

As a baby, I was amazing, I never cried, and was the sweetest and kindest toddler. I loved people and I loved my family. I would crawl on my knees like a little puppy following the family. I was adorable in my brown corduroy overalls that matched my sister’s brown corduroy dress.



When was the last time I was truly joyous… was it really before her? So long ago? What happened to that unencumbered love of life?

My coat is zipped up, its cold. The occasional sips and slurps from my mouth echo into the cavernous church. It’s dark and amidst the shadows I sit as my mouth coordinates the dance of the mint lifesaver. My mind wanders onto thoughts of her, thoughts of how could you God?

There’s no reply, only occasional footsteps from the side of the church.

As I lay on the window sill of the fraternity house looking out onto Welch… I wonder where I’d be without friends. Just a few hours earlier I was in tears on a floor. And depressedly walked to the Church for dinner. Unexcited to go to Jessie’s party. Somberly entering into the middle of a marshmallow fight… duct taping her up, carrying her up and down stairs, and then duct taping her to a mattress… tossing it down some stairs as she rode. Then the rest of us joined… riding a mattress down and then placing mattresses down on the stairs and sliding down a mattress slide. Eventually riding others backs (my finale was riding dolphin style)… then making a padded room where we bounced and wrassled… and a movie… then the uncomfortable and pleasant sleep of a window sill.

ideas/draft 3

Whether there is a God?
Objection 1.
Objection 2.
On the contrary,
I answer that, I was an Atheist. I once met a few girls, they were cute and Catholic, one was a beautiful sassy blonde, tall enough to fit just right in a hug, the other was this spunky brunette who’s personality made you feel alive and as if you actually deserved the adulation of 10,000 more women. They were Catholic with a capital C, and well, I was at least born Catholic… so I started my posturing trying to impress them finding out what really drove them crazy. And the thing is, I couldn’t.
Every few nights I’d notice they’d disappear with a few other friends and come back an hour and a half later. A few times one of their friends asked me to come along, I asked where to, receiving this unintelligible word back… one of those words you really know but in the midst of conversation the person you’re speaking with all of a sudden changes the meaning, dumbfounding and insulting you all at the same moment. The word was “Adoration”. How can you possibly go to Adoration? It’s something you have for someone else; it’s not something you can go to. Moron. As I repressed the dirty look that was fighting to form on my face, I politely turned him down and let him on his way.

was trying to impress some girls.
Reply to Objection 1.
Reply to Objection 2.

ideas/draft 3.5

My feet carry me
I move
About something
Searching for God
Peace
Adoration

About God?
Who He is
How I found Him

Athens
Austin
Ames

Science
Thomas

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Obj. 1
She was my first… Maybe to some ears that implies more than what I mean…
I met her at camp…

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He was my Father

JpII, I never met the man, but he fathered me.

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ideas/draft 4

¬The great thing about wine is that it tastes better the more you drink. Sinatra and Dean alternatively croon through my speakers, as I sip a terrible Beaujolais Nouveau. It has too much bite, and a quite a bit of oxygen… so much that it fizzes slightly in my mouth. When I lived in Austin, this would be unacceptable… I’d complain to my coworkers in the wine department and they’d find me a nice bottle and ask why I was stupid enough to try Primeur… they wouldn’t even carry it at my store… and if they did… none of the wine guys would recommend it… they always had a knack for knowing just the right wine.
A good wine is one that is so good, you worry about drinking more, wondering if you’d fall out of the fantasy and awaken to a bitter biter that obfuscates itself with alcohol content. Its one that you remember hauntingly at dinnertime, when you find its perfect compliment, and realize you drank the last of it the night before as you chatted with friends.
The perfect wine is your wine… no one else’s… its choosing Chianti with a white fish or a Riesling with steak… it fits your personality to a T and it makes your food soo much better. It transforms your food from a meal to an escape.
Americans eat food too fast, without much thought. Perhaps it has something to do with the grade school cafeterias we’re all accustomed to. To living life as if the details don’t matter… We’re always running from one meeting to the next, never having time to breath, and only occasionally having time to shower. My Tuesdays are like that… busy busy busy… from the time I wake until the time I escape I’m doing something… and dinner is one of the things I fit in… one of the after thoughts… one of the moments I have to take to make sure I don’t pass out in my next meeting.
Have you ever lived in time? Let it be your servant, not your punisher?
The gourmet grocery store I worked at has become part of my unicorn… People worked there not because they had to, but because they lived. The life of a foodie is different than the life of everyone else… it’s mystical. We walk differently and talk differently, as if our wildest dreams can come true… and with the sly grin that suggests they have… We walk into a kitchen with expectations of a great meal to come… we scrounge the cupboards and fridge for those forgotten pieces of manna hidden in the plains-clothes of a cucumber or chicken breast. We walk in and taste things never tasted, cook things not yet cooked and dream things never dreamed. We walk with hope.
We even take a bad Beaujolais Nouveau and dream a perfect citrus marinade for a delicious chicken served over angel hair pasta spiked with strawberries and orange slices in a delicate and slight red wine sauce hinted with basil, rosemary and parsley…

Life is never good. It always seems one of those stories people tell with this regret or that, this pain or that… it gets boring and you want to slap the speaker sometimes for even thinking about telling you this all, this all too common story that you’ve heard one thousand times or more from every living being. Its one of those things you wish you could say, yeah I know, I’ve lived, wake up you freakin moron…

I was an Atheist. I once met a few girls, they were cute and Catholic, one was a beautiful sassy blonde, tall enough to fit just right in a hug, the other was this spunky brunette who’s personality made you feel alive and as if you actually deserved the adulation of 10,000 more. They were Catholic with a capital C, and well, I was at least born Catholic…
I started my posturing trying to impress them finding out what really drove them crazy. And the thing is I couldn’t. Every few nights I’d notice they’d spontaneously disappear to this “Adoration”. They invited me, but I made great effort at plausible excuses and convince them that next time I’d go. At one point I risked ruining my credibility; so I excitedly asked when they were going next, thus prompted they said they hadn’t thought about it but would be willing to go tonight. I thus arranged for a ride, and got a group to go.
“Adoration” is this place that Catholics offer reparation to Christ for the Garden of Gethsemane, they pray for an hour to God with Christ present in the Eucharist and they come out different. People have gone in with great burdens and tears, only to come out and rejoice so much that the only thing they wanted to do was to roll down hills. Atheists have gone in, and returned Catholic with that strange capital ‘C’.
I once thought the Eucharist would taste great with a nice raspberry jam and a touch of Nutella, but to much my dismay two cute girls led me to something I didn’t expect.

ideas/draft 5

The great thing about wine is that it tastes better the more you drink. Sinatra and Dean alternatively croon through my speakers, as I sip a terrible Beaujolais Nouveau. It has too much bite, and a quite a bit of oxygen… so much that it fizzes slightly in my mouth. When I lived in Austin, this would be unacceptable… I’d complain to my coworkers in the wine department and they’d find me a nice bottle and ask why I was stupid enough to try Primeur… they wouldn’t even carry it at my store… and if they did… none of the wine guys would recommend it… they always had a knack for knowing just the right wine.
A good wine is one that is so good, you worry about drinking more, wondering if you’d fall out of the fantasy and awaken to a bitter biter that obfuscates itself with alcohol content. Its one that you remember hauntingly at dinnertime, when you find its perfect compliment, and realize you drank the last of it the night before as you chatted with friends.
The perfect wine is your wine… no one else’s… its choosing Chianti with a white fish or a Riesling with steak… it fits your personality to a T and it makes your food soo much better. It transforms your food from a meal to an escape.
Americans eat food too fast, without much thought. Perhaps it has something to do with the grade school cafeterias we’re all accustomed to. To living life as if the details don’t matter… We’re always running from one meeting to the next, never having time to breath, and only occasionally having time to shower. My Tuesdays are like that… busy busy busy… from the time I wake until the time I escape I’m doing something… and dinner is one of the things I fit in… one of the after thoughts… one of the moments I have to take to make sure I don’t pass out in my next meeting.
Have you ever lived in time? Let it be your servant, not your punisher?
The gourmet grocery store I worked at has become part of my unicorn… People worked there not because they had to, but because they lived. The life of a foodie is different than the life of everyone else… it’s mystical. We walk differently and talk differently, as if our wildest dreams can come true… and with the sly grin that suggests they have… We walk into a kitchen with expectations of a great meal to come… we scrounge the cupboards and fridge for those forgotten pieces of manna hidden in the plains-clothes of a cucumber or chicken breast. We walk in and taste things never tasted, cook things not yet cooked and dream things never dreamed. We walk with hope.
We even take a bad Beaujolais Nouveau and dream a perfect citrus marinade for a delicious chicken served over angel hair pasta spiked with strawberries and orange slices in a delicate and slight red wine sauce hinted with basil, rosemary and parsley…

I was an Atheist. I once met a few girls, they were cute and Catholic, one was a beautiful sassy blonde, tall enough to fit just right in a hug, the other was this spunky brunette who’s personality made you feel alive and as if you actually deserved the adulation of 10,000 more. They were Catholic with a capital C, and well, I was at least born Catholic…
I started my posturing trying to impress them, listening and observing closely to find out what really drove them crazy. And the thing is I couldn’t find anything. Every few nights I’d notice they’d spontaneously disappear to this “Adoration”. They’d invite me, but I made great effort at plausible excuses to convince them that next time I’d go. At one point I risked ruining my credibility; so I excitedly asked when they were going next, thus prompted they said they hadn’t thought about it but would be willing to go tonight. I thus arranged for a ride, and got a group to go.
“Adoration” is this place that Catholics offer reparation in silence to Christ for the Garden of Gethsemane, they pray for an hour to God with Christ present in the Eucharist and they come out different. People have gone in with great burdens and tears, only to come out and rejoice so much that the only thing they wanted to do was to roll down hills. Atheists have gone in, and returned Catholic with that strange capital ‘C’.
I once thought the Eucharist would taste great with a nice raspberry jam and a touch of Nutella, but much to my dismay two cute girls led me to something I didn’t expect.
At first it was an addiction, like a great wine that makes you want a new bottle every night… and eventually twice or thrice a day… it was like a costly addiction that promised the hope of the perfect filet mignon or a dreamy champagne sauce for chicken, only this time free. No strings attached, if you didn’t count the gradual chipping away at a cold heart that refused to yield to any warmth.