where a hard hat

What better place than NYC to begin to deconstruct ones identity?  It’s fast, it’s hard, it makes you sweat when it’s 40 degrees and rainy.  I learned that I am not fast, or hard.  I’m a nice person, really nice.  I smile at everyone, open doors for others, say hello.  This type of guerrilla friendliness is tolerated where tourist abound but is painfully out of place in a neighborhood.  It proved to be the perfect opportunity to remove myself from society, culture, economy, history, and see what is left in the mirror.  So far I’ve discovered, 

1. I am not tough, mean, hard, or street smart.
2. I am not an intellectual.
3. I am funny.

coffee at 11

My living room is vibrating. Four cups of coffee to the wind and I am more intensely seated than I thought possible. Images of sit ups, push ups, pull ups, crunches, presses of all manner bounce around my skull yet I am furiously sitting.

WRITE A NOVEL!

BUILD A BOAT!
CRAFT A SONG!

MAKE AN ART!

Nope. Sitting and shaking.

next time we eat democracy

all those kids on the food channel really aren’t kidding when they say to be careful with a ghost chili.  one of those sons of bitches wakes up a pot of chilli. it’s funny how you can be playing with food and everything is fun and the worst thing that can happen is a little to much salt.  then one day you’re playing with food and you pick up a ghost chili and before you know it one of your friends is blind in his left eye forever.  can’t ever drive a car at night again, or enjoy a 3-d movie or anything else 3-d again.

in a similar way it’s also funny how we can be playing around with something like politics; personal freedom, fiscal conservatism, a little bit less regulated market, a little bit tighter reign on “entitlement programs” and suddenly single mothers can’t get enough groceries for there kids.  i wonder, what are the long term ramifications of malnutrition on an entire generation?  that coupled with a little more outsourcing from our corporations, which are apparently people?!

i don’t know, maybe we should pump the brakes?  maybe we should give a damn about someone besides ourselves.  or maybe we should stop believing the wolves when they say they we don’t need to spend so much money protecting the chickens.

shit

did you ever start a blog and think “I’m gonna write every day cause I’ve got stuff to say and meh meh meh meh meh…”

weeks feel like being repeatedly kicked in the ribs

it’s interesting what a human being can tolerate when they know exactly how long they have to suffer. not quite as interesting is how weak we are without this knowledge. enlightenment comes with the ability to achieve peace through the knowledge that we will not live forever. i am young and impatient. i am walking to enlightenment, and looking at my watch.

culinary farts pt. 1

contrary to popular belief, the best part about summer is…

GREEN STUFF!!!!!!!

so you take a butt-load-of-rainbow chard, two kinds of mint, basil, oregano, one lemon, one lime, one apple, and one pear, shove them in a masticating juicer, and…

LIQUID HAPPINESS!!!

now no matter how much your dog shits on the floor, or how many hours it took to find your juicer, or how much you panic because everything in your life finally makes sense and you don’t know how to handle it because you’ve lived for the last ten years in chaos and despair and disappointment, you can totally zen out for like the whole rest of the day.

if computers can’t kill me i will

ok so i tried to down load music and got a virus.  i guess i deserved that,  in my defense i don’t think the pogues care if i get their music for free at this point.  shane mcgowan did so many drugs in the 80’s i really wonder if he even remembers recording “red roses for me”.  whatever. much love to aaron sachs for de-virusing my shit.

i’m making hot sauce this week.  this cool vender at the farmer’s market gave me the basic recipe for his salt brine fermented tabasco.  it takes twelve weeks but oh my god is it worth it.  you can try it at the night owl cafe in the old city.  i bought a variety of chilies, thai, cayenne, some yellow kind, habanero, and two ghost chilies.  this will hopefully have enough heat to satiate the need for pain i’ve developed while watching the ‘man vs food’ guy kill himself one pepper at a time.  if i can’t fill my arteries with beefy trans fats i can at least burn a hole in my stomach right?

shave and a sunburn

my god.  i knew it would be hard to give up meat.  i knew also the difficulty in giving up booze.  but i had no clue how the issues would compound one another.  though cheeseburger-laced picnics required an amount of self control i could always buffer my sacrifice with two or five tallboys.  somehow i didn’t recognize one entitled pleasure had been snugly filling in for the other.

the beach is hard.  all this sunshine and no limes sloshing around in my skunky sauce.  grilling with a diet coke in my hand feels like driving a  convertible with the top up, and there is something sickeningly wrong about tofu n’ grits.  not so wrong that i couldn’t ignore it with three gin n’ tonics, but like i said, i don’t have three gin n’ tonics.  i have a twelve pack of diet coke.  just like a forty eight year old baptist pastor’s wife.  (but then again, she’d be eating shrimp.)

all self-pity aside, i could live on the ocean forever.
things i do not need to survive are:  cell phones, laptops (irony noted), personal growth requirements, a sense of “home”, winter, or dry land.

required: spontaneity, adventure, a sense of “history”, sunshine, and really short shorts.

best 1/3 of a song i’ve ever writen

daniel aysenbrie he can read in the dark

on the porch in the rain

he loves the whole world the same

he loves the whole world the same

he loves the whole world the same

he’s got an average beard

and he’s never feared

no he’s never feared

anything

he loves the whole world the same

he loves the whole world the same

he loves the whole world the same

my hipocracy knows no bounds

my favorite lesson of the universe has to be irony. watching documentaries about ridiculous newyorkers paying forty grand a year for their two-year old’s preschool or some real housewife of wherever makes me so grateful to be a house renting, home schooling, bike riding, potato eater.
the dynamic may be obvious to most seems to surprise me every time is see it in action. the spoiled kids are always the least happy. when a child experiences instant gratification on a regular basis they are unable to develop anything resembling gratitude. now don’t get me wrong. I realize that I’m writing this seemingly self congratulatory post on my iPod, use my wifi, while watching Netflix. the author is, as always, the best example of the injustice they protest. and now that I think of it, this is a perfect irony. that with all my stuff and privilege I can look at a select few who have more and be filled with this disgusting self-righteousness. furthermore I teach English to Iraqi refugees. that is to say I know dozens of families living without basic needs. they are without a doubt more grateful than I but they are also at times more miserable than I could even fathom. jeez this got out of hand fast. anyway I’m glad that I have what I have and I don’t really need anything else.