Sweetness from Duane and Gretchen

Sweetness from Duane and Gretchen

Last Day!

Last Day!

the hunt for red velvet:

I get into these food moods where I basically want to eat something and in the vain search for that precise flavor, I will hunt and be disappointed, I will resist the temptation (which only increases the determination) and I will finally satisfy it or move on to something else.

Last week it was the sabinas frijoles from Nuevo Leon. It is the world's best bean dip. It begins with a layer of refried beans, melted chihuhua cheese, and diced tomatoes, covered by chunky strands of onions. As if this wasn't enough, the entire plate is then placed in the oven for optimum flavor mingling. This appetizer dish is so wonderful that I am often tempted not to eat anything else.

The red velvet cupcake is my current obsession. A visit to Eatzi's started it, but their cupcake was drier than a towel left in the sun. A couple days later, at Bittersweet, I reluctantly chose a chocolate cupcake with buttercream frosting and spied a red velvet just sitting on the counter! Not presented as an option, I was torn between eating the chocolate sitting in front of me or asking for the red velvet. Another disappointment ensued.

My last day at Siena is Wednesday and my only request of my coworker (who is also a fantastic baker) was red velvet cupcakes. In order to make my quest even more ridiculous, I asked that they be mini cupcakes.

I know that they will be moist and delicious and that my coworker will not disappoint me and I only have to wait a few more days to have that taste that my brain cannot forget...

=What does it matter? I am already dead anyway.=

The first time I met him, we were at the same fast food joint nearby school. He was tall, so I noticed him. Back then, he seemed younger, in the same way that I seemed younger, kind of unformed, still with loose edges. We made small talk. There was something in his eyes I recognized, something like a gleam that I knew. It turned out we were both fiction writing majors. Both at the same level in the curriculum. Both a little older than the average student (though still young enough to pass for their age).

We talked about our class work and how similar it was, gogol, the nose, writing. We talked about him, computers, burning man, a life well lived. We talked about me, shy, learning how to live, my love of food, coffee, stories.

I saw him every so often for a year or so in which we exchanged weighted hellos. I wondered if I wasn't with Eric might something have happened. Nothing did.

I befriended a young woman who knew him and though she never fully divulged, she gave me enough of a composite to understand that though he seemed different and unusual, his proclivities for some things were beyond my taste.

As she and I grew closer, I saw him more and more. By this time he'd finished his bachelor's and was working on his master's as well as teaching computer applications on campus; he was heavily involved in the fiction department. I took some time away from the department to do my general studies and loathed the department from afar with it's weird cliques (of which, of course, he took part).

I remember once we spent some time in his office, the three of us, and it was slightly awkward. He showed me the first video I ever saw on the internet and I remember being astounded at such a feat. The previous night Jon Stewart appeared on some talking head show on CNN and got into a shouting match, the next day we watched it in his office. The books on his shelves were part books I'd read (sci-fi, fantasy, some classics) and a lot I hadn't.

When things soured between my friend and he, he began to ignore me somewhat, which was okay, I supposed, since I seemed guilty from knowing so many things about someone I had only really spoken to once. He also seemed harder now, his edges cooked by drugs and alcohol and misplaced trust. The innocence he had was gone. That gleam was shielded.

Maybe I had grown harder too.

I heard his name bandied about. I clicked on his myspace profile. I saw him around campus.

Story goes: he was up late writing and had an accident. Died around 1:15 a.m. Trying to finish a novel. His thesis. He was 34. His name was Frank.

I can't believe I get paid to do this either...!

the constant

The cafe. Counting the years seems astounding. It has become the plateau that my life has stretched from. Lovers, Jobs, friends, my stories; essentially my whole current life has evolved from my stint at the cafe.

When I started working there, I was twenty. It was memorial day weekend. I didn't think I would get the job because when I applied, I realized with horror that green painted nails might be scary. Vinny told me they were hiring. His friend worked across the street. She liked me from first glance, my boss, and I was the first person she hired.

That place has run the gamut from home to jail and evoked every emotion of the human condition: anger, frustration, love, awe, sadness and joy; all in varying nuances.

I have changed a lot since I started working there. Of course, much of that change was just that I grew up. Part of the growing up happened when I left the first time to begin working at Starbucks (which is a brief yet horrific chapter in my life) and realized that the things I hated so much were so insignificant compared to the "real world" of working where I was written up (on a permanent record kinda thing) for being three (that's right 1-2-3, just three!) minutes late to work, where the chain of command dictated I tuck in my shirt, and the strange odd world of in your face co-workers became a frightening prospect.

Coming back to the cafe was like going back to my grade school when I was a high school freshman. Everything was slathered in the dewy glow of nostalgia and it all seemed shrunken somehow, like I had become a giant and everything was smaller suddenly.

Part of coming back was temporary (what was supposed to be a month ended up being nearly a year and a half) but the truth is, when I began working there again, it was because everything else around me was crumbling and I think I sensed that and sought out that familiar place. I was graduating college--a huge accomplishment that took up a lot of my energy--and at the same time my relationship reached a boiling point and my home life ceased to exist, it was the one thing I could depend on, the one place I could go and feel at home. Think of it this way, I've lived in ten apartments since I began working there and only two of them really felt like home (you know, you can walk around naked and not feel weird).

Next Wednesday morning will be my final shift at the coffee shop. Part of me wonders if I came back just to have that last day I didn't get when I left for Starbucks because Kim just got upset and let me go when I gave her my last two weeks.

One thing that the cafe has taught me is that you can't be too extreme in this world, because the second you rail against something, a real person shows up to counter your beliefs. I have seen the good, the bad and the ugly, along with the crazy and it was a good ride.

it's the sound of the toilet flushing

So, you think you can change the rules of our "friendship" and get mad at me for not getting it right? And what, do you expect me to come running back to you? You came to me every time, every interaction, but now I have to call you, is that it?

I wouldn't care except I never got the chance to tell you what a jerk you were, how you thought everything I did was weird, so I slowly just stifled myself and quieted my voice until there was nothing but you and you still weren't satisfied. And of course, now you're blaming it on me, cause it's never your fault.

That you have the gall to be pissed is unbelievable. It always was.

You approached me many years ago when I was still gullible enough to think that people were good and kind and decent and that even though every fiber of my being was screaming about how awful you were, I still thought you deserved my friendship because you wanted it. You wanted me.

You told a person you barely knew that she was your best friend in Chicago. And then you proceeded to demand everything you could with a twist of the head, with a critical tongue, with such extreme entitlement that I was afraid to say no.

I helped you move, I babysat for your child (for free [!]), I talked you down from so many ledges, I listened to all of your bullshit and ate it up. I even let the father of your child stay in my home for a week and all you had to say about it was some smart ass comment about you and I not talking in two months. You couldn't just be gracious and appreciative, you had to be a jerk. And I knew it all along but I felt stuck in being wanted and being nice and then I just stayed stuck.

Even though you may not be book smart, you do pay attention and recently, you'd realized that I have new friends who I am myself around, friends that I have exchanges with, friends who I look forward to seeing, friends that I enjoy spending time with. They are not critical and full of "helpful" suggestions. They let me make my mistakes, they may have opinions but they don't kill me with them, and they would help me out no matter what if I needed help.

That you wouldn't help me when I needed you, when I asked you for help, that I had to beg you and you complied and then you turned your smiling face around and made fun of me, after all I've done for you, well that was the last thing I could take. After that, I made no secret about my dislike, I would not agree to hang out with you and I will never spend time with you again.

Standing around pointing out the small and large mistakes (which are usually just your brand of "common sense") committed by everyone else may provide you a temporary respite from your own fuck-ups, but it also brands you as someone to avoid. Good luck with that.

Pilsen love part two:

Pilsen love part two:

plantar fasciitis [heel pain]

the irony is, sitting down and keeping my feet up makes it feel worse. wearing flip flops was probably the cause, but exacerbated by the job on my feet, the extra forty pounds, my achingly lovely high arches.

at first it was a sharp pain through my right heel, then it felt like I'd bruised it somehow, so I wore real shoes again, then I wore inserts and suddenly both feet were affected, then I began to walk funny from the inserts sliding about. the ache became a throb, which became a phantom amputation.

the list of remedies is short, but sometimes amusing (I was instructed to roll a tennis ball under my arches every morning, only to have the tennis ball lost under the cavern of my bed...) but mostly I am struck by the horror that my body is slowly deteriorating and I have nothing to show for it, other than I don't really look my age (but fuck, I feel it).

yeah.

Meet Ralph:

The first day I got Ralph, I planned on taking him home right away. It had been a long week and Ralph was my reward. I coddled him like a child and was generally very excited about his arrival into my life.

I was so thrilled by Ralph that I called my friend walter to meet us for a drink at Raven's (on the patio, so Ralph could continue to enjoy "fresh air") and walter happily obliged. We then decided to go to Ranalli's for "one" martini since tracie was working and it had been a while since I'd seen her (my relentless days of boozing seem to be waning!).

Well...one martini is never enough! So of course, I stayed at the bar all night until it closed and poor Ralph was subjected to second hand smoke, lecherous stares, confused questions and other bar offenses. It was proven: given the opportunity to care for another life, I will force that oxygen loving thing into the darkness and smoke.

Ralph was shuffled from one place to another until he finally reached the warmth of his home. And there he just looked like he belonged. Our plan is to get him a bigger pot and watch him grow through winter...

What quitting cures:

What quitting cures:

Do you know what pink is for?

Do you know what pink is for?

finding that satisfaction

he uses clever words.

he practices.

I do this.

it is a small thing usually, but it is a brief connection to something and someone beyond that endless day of boredom and grief.

and when asked if I am doing well, feeling happy, all that comes to the surface is gibberish and the feeling that I am drowning/

fish tacos

The meal of a lifetime, the sort you never forget, the painstaking attempts to getting everything right, and we are wanting to each contribute to this, despite ourselves and our past.

Ralph is home here. Ralph is a conifer, a japanese cypress, petite, green, cheer-bringing, and he looks fuller already, having let his branches fall in relaxation.

I feel at home here.

And yet,

On the bus, a dozen black kids stoked a fear in me that has been dormant since high school: a creeping panic that nearly had me fainting. I was so disoriented that I don't even know for sure what happened, just that I was scrutinized by so many judgmental eyes, which is one of my least favorite things.

His visit was the buoy of my day; and my smile gave me away.

The things that threaten to sabotage my life with him and I don't feel strong enough to resist.

left to flower/gone to seed

A walk through the park revealed a european garden that reminded me of the most beautiful place I've ever been (madrid, spain), but that I was there with him and there was sadness between us; another memory spoiled and tainted.

in the peach colored gravel lay a broken bud, a beautiful magenta flower made up of hundreds of small petals that converged on its center. it looked like the flowers that happen when chives are left unharvested, but this was smaller, more tight, petals so severe that they resisted opening from my fingernail. It was there waiting to be discovered, longing to communicate something, wanting to live on past its stalk and roots and I reached down and plucked it from the ground and held it in my fingers while we tried to make sense of us.

in the lagoon, I tossed that tiny bud, and it created a ripple so large that it seemed impossible. I threw it out of frustration, thinking to myself that I wanted nothing to remember that walk or today. it stayed beautiful despite me.

too bad there is no gardener for my memories.

small gestures keep us together while we pretend not to notice everything else...