A tall glass of raw milk and a mongo cookie.



Raw milk- forbidden in 15 states but more legal than same sex marriages- is a pleasure any Californian can enjoy. Undeniable the taste of udder.

Habitude

Spent an afternoon pruning the front rosemary bush. Underneath this fragrant creeper were hiding a few snails. This made me very sad to think of it. I use to get all excited when I found a snail- I usually peel away the shell and feed the poor exposed snail to Meatball. Now that I find a bounty of three sleeping snails and no turtle, my heart is hollow in bits.

Tito Schipa keeps me company while I wonder why certain repeated actions in tiny tiny motions bend and shape the heart, while others repeated thousands of times can leave almost no imprint. But now I've swallowed too much nostalgia and have become useless for anything else.

Yesterday I finally setup wi-fi in C's studio. C was so happy he gave me a big smooch. Even nerds get a little action now and then.

C is slaving away to prepare for his trip to L.A. on Sunday. I think of various devious activities whilst the cat is away. I'm going to hop on my speedy orange bike and terrorize Berkeley and demand bacon sandwhiches everywhere I go. Maybe I'll just return my overdue library books. I could go visit friends but a much more secretive plan is in order.



But my plan is foiled! C is not leaving until Monday so my super secret plan must sleep.

Theme and Variation



Meatball appears to be gone for good. I found him hiding under the passion flower vines the first time he escaped. I put him back in his pen and bribed him with a fat juicy snail. Wild creatures- they only have contempt for their captors regardless of the fine treatment they receive. And so he is gone again. J says if a dog bites his head and he bleeds to death, that is his fate and I shouldn't artificially deny him such an end. She is right of course.



Is life a switchback between 3 phases?

1. You don't know what you want, hence fill your time with interim activities.

2. You know what you want, and are in pursuit.

3. You know what you want, but can't get it, and hence must make do.



Like Hugo, I love triumvirates, triangles, threesomes, trios, and the curve of 3s. But it continues-



4 is the disappointingly extended 2. You thought you knew what you wanted, but it's not it at all so you are back to 1.

5. A weak fifth, variation on 3 - you think you know what you want but since you can't get it, you really can't know- could you.

6. The perversion of 2 & 3- because you can't have what you want, you convince yourself that you really want what you can have



Now for completion of the 3 cubed, I must drum up 3 more-

7. You know you only want the wanting of something hence purposely deny yourself the fulfillment of the want

8. Negation state. Advanced stages of 3 and 6, you reject the very thing you want because you know you can't have it or attempting it is dangerous.

9. Confusion state. You want it, you don't want it, you don't know any more.



Despite variation, 2 is ever the desired state- like being in love. Too much Erich Fromm is not good for you.

computer face- that's when your face gets all greasy from looking at a monitor all day. I've got one.



You know your life is on the decline when you have to eat a bag of stale cheese crunchies for dinner. As consolation, dessert is cheesecake with vanilla brandy. Last year was my year of making vanilla extract; C and I rowed all the way to Tahaa to pick out 100 beans from a vanilla plantation. The beans apparently receive a hand massage daily for months to induce the desired sweaty state. Back in my pantry, I soused the beans in 2 bottles of vodka, and some in brandy. This is the time I scratched my head and got very confused over VSOP and EVSOP. For months on end, I shook bottles in the morning, shook 'em extra vigorously before going to bed. I sniffed them every other week. It's nice having something waiting for you like that because life should be filled with just such private pleasures.



Tahitian vanilla is the fruitiest of all the vanillas- there is great debate over it's merit. The price is always jacked up due to low supply, many gourmands swear by it- others claim hype. Who ever has a whole pod of either Bourbon or Tahitian is lucky methinks. Just to have something so beautifully fragrant in your posession. I forced one too many vanilla pods on my friends so I fear some of them are languishing in pantries. One extravant use is to split a whole pod, put each on half a papaya, pour some coconut milk on the duo- then bake.



2003 is my year of the preserved lemon. I've come into ownership along with the house, an unwieldy and sickly lemon tree. C and I wrestled with it all Satruday- pruning it, propping it up, twisting it. All the while I thought of lemon drops and lemon seed cake and shivering teeth and Max the Dog and yellow martians and a way overdue book of Lorca poems from the library that had a painting of a big blue bowl of lemons in the front. I never got past the cover. The bowl of lemons was enough to think about.



C complained this entry is too boring. That's what happens when you cut up porn cards for a collage all day long.

Fugitive

Meatball is escaped. C thinks a cat must have gotten him. I know better. He looked a little wild eyed last. If you see him poking along, trying to buy cigarettes, please turn him in.

Rock Fishing Outing



Predicted tide conditions on Saturday call for nothing other than a fishing party. I dial up my friend Sof. C calls up his manfriend and diving partner G who knows a super secret rock fishing spot. Everything seems perfect except C is not confident of one critical matter- the tall task of getting 2 Korean girls up and out so early in the morning. G, expert in such and many other matters, said that was no problem. The night of, you can just put the girls in the back of the Honda. Just throw a blanket over 'em and they'll chat until they fall asleep. Indeed.



Morning comes, and my foggy head imagines that C is frying up tater tots so I eagerly hop out of bed. Fool I was; crackling sizzling sounds were just a coffeee thermos being washed. We didn''t have any ketchup in the house anyhow. After much futzing, we finally make it out of the house to pickup G at 8:15am. Disastrously pig blood sausages and fish cake rolls had been left behind in a forgotten corner and hence we drove back home- Sof and I were adamant we could not have a picnic without them.



How to explain reaching the perilous patch of rock on the shore we barely found. The sheer rigor of climbing down the cliffs, fair amoung of bushwhacking- Sof and I were utterly unprepared; the poor gal had Tevas without socks for a path creeping with poison oak bramble, blackberries, thistle and other thorny beasts. She would murmur repeatedly- "Oh adventure so adventure." Originally we imagined we would leisurely stroll along munching our biscuits, but one needs both hands for such terrain. We eat the scent of sage brushes and wild dill- although we cannot taste the sea on our tongues.



Once landed on the rocks, we lay down the picnic blanket. G and C get busy casting, unsnagging, casting. I didn't bother with my rod as I am strictly here to do nothing on my R&R program. Still I am tasked with guarding our catch against a sea lion scoping us out. Our booty is a few greenlings, the weird ass monkey face fish, and surf perch- all strung on a nylon string spinning on the surface of the water.



Sof is the world's most laid back Korean- also wanjun sweetie pie and total teenager. She is obsessed with boys, romance and sex. Now that she will start reading these pages, I am obligated to put more Nerve content on here. After a chat, she casually asks me if I have any fantasies. She is so sincere and JOJ that one cannot be offended. But I tell her they are only for my lover. She is seriously chomping down on a big bag of chrysalis. Because it is illegal in America to sell bugs for eating, Koreans have labeled the snack as "Fish Feed" to bypass import restrictions. The bag has a happy cartoon family- mom, dad, and son all snacking away enthusiastically. Everyonelse, including me, has politely declined to join her. She insists that these grubs are chewy on the outside and burst of juices in the inside. Despite the testimonial, we all look at our shoes.



I sidle up to my man who has been busy catching 3 creatures fit for dinner consumption. There is nothing sexier than your man catching your meal. I tell him Sof's earlier query and answer for him "Being served a BLT with tater tots(deep fried of course), plenty ketchup, for breakfast in bed." One always wishes for what one cannot have.

Job woes



Ever since my friend S said my blog was the literary highlight of the week(better than her Updike audio tape), my head has ballooned too big to write anything interesting. From the subway to my work, I have to pass by 4 modern concrete columns. At passing of the first column, a strange force field made me more sluggish on approach. At the third column, it was true. I could not continue any further. So I started kicking the base of the column, left foot kick, right foot kick, left foot kick. Who cares about stubbed toes. And then, I noticed that the new guy at work, one of 3 new guys with accent sideburns(side burns are the new pony-tails of this decade), watching me. So I had to give it up and march straight into work.



That was last week. This morning I walked out a few sidewalk steps out from my house and my feet would not carry me further. I had to return home and request escort from C. Just to make sure I make it to work instead of walking straight into an icecream shop somewhere forgetting that I need to go to work "cause we need the moneys". I suppose I should be grateful I'm not some sex slave being pimped by the Albanian mafia.

Figuig Redux

Most days I knowingly and willingly reenact the myth of Sisyphus. Some days and this week I simply do not want to partake- these are the times when I have to walk down back the hill and restart the pushing.

2 years back, I became ill with Figuig fever- a desire to go somewhere I would never go. While I would compile my code- or between any two delayed clicks of a mouse , a sigh followed by "Figuig" would escape my lips. I would be washing the dishes and I'd find myself mouthing "Figuig, Figuig". Any activity with a pause was filled by chants of "Figuig". Before long I was a useless Figuig zombie. For awhile, before falling sleep, I would drink plenty of water and a few almonds in case I ended up in Figuig.

Figuig is a scrappy border town between the Algerian-Moroccan border. Old postcards show the typical oasis village with few date trees, crumbling buildings, but mostly sand. Immediately after the WTC attacks, the luxury of remote possibility downgraded to never. (I sincerely apologize for leading the reader on a 9/11 story.) This never was because I wouldn't go without C and C would be nothing more than kidnap bait. Because of this never I demanded that C procure for me a worthy Moroccan rug to directly transport me. Due to a weak Anthrax scare- spores could be carried on wool items such as imported rugs- C did not indulge me with a carpet. The Anthrax scare was probably pretext. Who wants to see their wife chanting Figuig Figuig nonstop on a rowdy rug.

My sister J and I share geographic fixations because we both sprung from a man who loves maps. I think it was she that dislodged Figuig with a simple solution. We would take turns finding the most remote locations on the atlas. She would call me at night as she lives three thousand miles away, and we would agree to meet at a fixed location. So before falling asleep, I would repeat "Tuvalu, Tuvalu" over and over again to make sure I wouldn't forget to meet her. But then I became very busy and forgot to call her; in this absence I developed another terrible fever. I don't know if she was still looking for me in the last place in the Pacific islands we met, but I was secretly paddling up the Irawaddi. Why such a muddy stretch of water would become a place of imagination I finally knew. Say out loud Irawaddi enough times and you taste the tranquility.

Too many uneaten plums in Berkeley



One cannot munch on a plum without thinking of William Carlos Williams. On route on my walk to Bart, the last path under a too full plum tree is too full of rotten smooshed plums. How sad that something which could give pleasure- a really good plum is a private pleasure- has become a sticky nuisance.



I wonder if my garden grew such a tree, do I know enough people to fill their baskets. Yes I know plenty, surely a surfeit, of people who might need the prunes.

The General's Visit accompanied by the Philosopher King

My parents visit every 14 months or so, and each visit has unmistakably the same flavors. Within a packed span of less than 40 hours, there is mounds of sea creatures consumed preferably live if not raw as well as the gluttony of figs, blueberries, peaches and the like. EJ(my birth mother) will wake up at 4 in the morning making herself useful scrubbing and cleaning the kitchen. Planned activities in Berkeley which I thought would consume the whole day would take no more than 2 hours(going to the marina ends up as 15 minute excursion), and hence there is a lot of hanging out in pajamas rehashing the stories of old. At any point, Hugo can spring the requisite political philosophy lecture, thankfully only one per visit.

Only a month ago when I visited my parents, Hugo was heavily into German philosophers. At the breakfast table, he singsongs in his most casual tone, "H, do you know Kant?" To which J tartly replied "You mean personally?". We all giggled. Who wants to be harassed with the categorical imperative so early in the morning.

So this time I thought I was on the alert. While we were all lazing about all too pleasantly, he snuck in a "Do you know this Bandam?" To which the right reply would have been "Yes, I don't think Kick Boxer II was as good as Kick Boxer I." But too late as he gave me, C and the walls a full lecture on Jeremy Bentham and the rise of utilitarianism. There's something special about a man who thinks people want to hear a speech on Bentham with no pretext or context. You can get the flavor in his very words below (I'm not making this up. He actually e-mailed this yesterday.)

Dear C and H:

It was one of happiest trips. EJ and I enjoyed very much, and we were glad to see you have a happy home. Happiness lies in satisfaction. There are three ways to obtain satisfaction in economic sense: (a) to reduce demand or desire, (b) to increase income or productivity, and (c) to maximize utility subject to limited budget.

Obviously my dad's advice comes to late for Mick Jagger. As the duo is my genetic template, I'm ever on the alert for my biologic destiny.

Tale of 2 Chickens

Our ladies are plumping up nicely. Patrice is top of the pecking order, an distinguished Araucana. Charlene is a feather footed fancy- silver laced Cochin- a runty thing which looks more like a bald patched turkey vulture. C suspects our friend picked these particular breeds with purpose- one for C is a solid red head and one for me is a a skinny black feathered thing.

Who knew there could be such a wide degree of variation in chicken intelligence. Charlene I think must be a retarded chicken. I know this because her partner Patrice is brilliant- for a chicken that is. Always on the alert, always trying to hop on the highest solid platform to see what's going on- keeps an eye to the sky watching for falcons. Patrice chases cats out of the yard. One only has to look into those beady birdy eyes to know something is definitely going on behind Patrice's tiny bird brain.

Charlene-of a species bred only for the furriness of the feet- probably would have never survived without human intervention. She always tries to sit on an incline, and falls over. She has such tiny vestigial wings that when she tries to hop on anything, she always overshoots and falls over. And as expected, she is no production egg-layer. I'm dubious myself that she will produce at all. Charlene probably only has a minor neural cluster maybe just in the foot or something.