my little brother isn't little

in fact he's a hell of a lot taller than me, and he's 18 now!!!

in celebration of his old age, i made him these chocolate-chip cupcakes with cookie dough frosting.

mos def - ms fat booty

some rap is this good:

neck brace

the maroon around the left ear
holding the curious tilt
of a tea drinker in conversation

the milk matches the cream wool
woven with even hands
and brings out the white in her enamel

the bull of the beautiful

for Ana-Maria Bell

there are beautiful people
singing beautiful songs
amidst the din of students between classes

papers rustling and a conversation
on the ethics of bull fighting
versus the cultural value

one singer stops because
she has an opinion
she is strongly opposed

and in her argument
she rides the pathos
of baby cows in spanish dress

this isn't any old scarf...

a few little links

wicked alice -thank you jenni

and white winter hymnal -thank you kilgannon

broccoli cheddar soup

he held me like a child
as i wept just like one

over pennies we've saved
and the soup burning on the stove top

letting the world be my torture
i wish to fall asleep

so that when i wake
it will all be all better again

but fairies are not real
and the soup is still burning

pink bullets by the shins

how i got this wish coin

the eagle caught me off guard
when he asked me my nationality

i told him, American
but he persisted and asked again

what is your nationality?
so i told him, again, I am American

angry with my answer
he flew away

and as he ascended
he dropped a coin

and i heard him yell out,
make a wish or i won't come back

i still have it, i keep it in my pocket
but the eagle hasn't come back yet

"Because someone has made up the word "wave," do I have to distinguish it from water?"

i want this

instead of dedicating 100% of my focus and attention on what i really ought to be doing, i decided to discover something. so i discovered Kabir. i want to study Kabir the poet and understand him and be able to quote him. why? because anything is better than working on this.

hannah

i've had this song stuck in my head all day...

new settings

new student settings
including new cutlery

and a change of curtain color
over the claw footed bath

all together forgetting
the drama that resided here

not weeks ago yet

dream in

we float
in a boat on a sea
of sweet leaves

stuck on plywood stems
with carpenter's glue

you lean forward
to stretch your back
and feed in on

the rudder of my affections
flattering the scent

of your wisdom
at 7am on a sunday.

honey bees

erin has a whimsical dad

Erin spread the black current jam on the toast evenly from side to side and all the way to the edges. She hated to get a bite of toast without jam on, but she was far too economical to ditch the crusts. She’d heard on the radio once that women in Haiti ate cookies made of mud and grass. Just the thought made her queasy. She couldn’t save the world on her own, especially because her allowance was only enough to buy new stationary—on recycled paper of course—to write to her newest friend Janet, but at least she could be economical. 

“DAAAAAAAAAAAADDY!” she hollered up the stair case to her dad, as the kettle started to whistle. She’d gotten really really good at making breakfast for her and her dad since her mom had left them a few months back. Erin had to be the strong one, she decided, because he dad was so busy with his research at the University in the city. She got really good at breakfast, except for pouring the boiling water—the steam was too hot—so she still needed her dad for something. She liked to think that her needing her dad a little bit for breakfast made him feel special. She always felt special when he asked her to help with his work, or with the laundry. They were a team.

Dr. Patel, Erin’s dad, rushed down the stairs to pour the water for the tea. His tie was loose around his neck and he’d only found one shoe so far. Erin had handled the divorce so well, it astounded him. He’d handled it pretty well too, he thought. Work helped. Erin helped. 

“Toast again, sweety?” he asked gently, patting Erin on the head as he poured two cups of extra-hot tea. “You’re off to your friend’s tonight, is that right?”

“Yes. And you are going to pick me up at the Smith’s tomorrow at lunch time. Right?” She was always having to remind him about the little things, but she thought it was sort of charming. She hoped that the Smith’s wouldn’t mind her dad’s absent minded way because he was such a good scientist. 

Turns out, the Smith’s didn’t mind at all. They didn’t mind having to wait while Erin called her dad at the University to ask him to fax a note to her school saying that she was allowed to go home with the Smith’s instead of going home with her after-school nanny because he’d forgotten to sign the note in her bag. They didn’t mind him calling twice late at night, once to ask Erin where the remote control to the telle was and the second time to wish her goodnight… at 11:30pm. They didn’t even mind that he’d locked his keys in his car and wouldn’t be able to pick her up before the Smith’s lunch engagements—they just dropped her off on their way.

Janet told Erin that she thought her dad was whimsical. Erin thought whimsical was a great word. She also thought that whimsical wasn’t the best thing for a single dad of a 6 year old girl to be. 

“Daddy…”

“Yes, sweety? What’s wrong?” Dr. Patel turned The Iron Chef off and turned to his little daughter.

“I was thinking about what makes a family.” She waited to see how he’d react. She knew she’d need to stop if he looked too upset. “You know, not that we’re not a great family, because daddy we’re really great.” 

He took her hand and waited for her to go on. He was so proud that his little girl was so mature, despite the terribly immature way he and his ex-wife had acted around her since she was born.

“Well, the Smith’s are a family too. They’re a really great family too. I am not saying that one family is better than the other, okay?”

“Of course.”

“Just… Daddy, I think because there are only two people in our family, and there are four in theirs, and all those animals, well, I think they don’t have to work as hard to be a great family.”

“But we do have to work hard, don’t we?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry sweety. I think you work really hard to make us a great family. Maybe I could work harder too.”

“No Daddy, you’re a really hard worker. I don’t think you can work any harder.”

“So… what do you think we can do? Think we could use a holiday?” he smiled, he would love to go on holiday!

Erin smiled back at her dad, he was so whimsical some times. “No, daddy! You’re so funny!” Erin giggled.

“So what do you think would make us a better family?”

Erin paused for dramatic effect, she just new her dad was going to love this idea… “A DOG!”

happy valentine's day 2

i had a really great valentine's day. first of all, i got to sleep in until noon (or was it later than that?). when i finally got up, ryan offered to fix me a cup of tea--which he never does, but it's valentine's day so he was being extra sweet. 

i had some breakfast and had been in the kitchen about half an hour before i realized all the dishes were done. the stove was even cleaned!! ryan got up early and cleaned everything; a whole week's worth of dishes!! this made me happy. i am actually still happy because of this. ^_^

then ryan, matt, erin and i went to Two Brother's (where i work) for lunch/dinner (i brought everyone mini cupcakes, as i'd promised). then we went bowling, which was a lot of fun, and detoured into the candy store on the way home. 

now everyone's over, and we're going to watch 300. a lovely ending ^_^

happy valentine's day

i am the ant

i am the ant
that which nature made me

an army of strength
i carry you with me

the heavy, the light,
the dark and the forgiving

lists of stuff - and i'm in them

at http://www.shadowofiris.com/, Matt's compiling lists of "worthy" poetics/poetry/creative wonderment, and by golly, he's included me. twice.

got the shivers?

check this out: The Year that Europe Froze

from newscientist.com

taste testing

our friend Jared came home from boot camp for the week, so i decided to take the opportunity of having people over to experiment.

i made whole wheat buttermilk lemon pancakes:



the Pancakes were pretty good, but not as good as my regular buttermilk pancakes. also, i used 3 cups of buttermilk, instead of 2 and a half cups.

blueberry syrup:



the Syrup is really really nice... if you really like blueberries. next time (and there will be a next time), i plan on cooking the berries longer so it doesn't come out quiet so runny.

and spicy chocolate chunk cookies:



the cookies are awesome. i am going to try another batch with no cinnamon, just cayenne. we'll see how that comes out.

Bleddyn Gway

and again with the prose...

Bleddyn dropped his bags on the top step and looked up at the gutted factory building in front of him. Red Welsh brick, built by Welsh working hands. The stench of the bay swept passed him in gusts, reminding him how much he utterly despised the sea. How much he despised brick. And clocks.

The building had been remodeled to accommodate a collage of colorful low-income renters—single mothers, students, his brother. Since the textiles industry faded from prominence, more and more people started living in places never meant for living. No parking, cold metal railings everywhere, ornamental clocks that don’t keep the time and far too close to the stinking sea.

He pulled down the plastic case covering the bells and pushed the button labeled “Gway”. Number 14.

No answer. Figures.

Bleddyn sat next to his bags and reminded himself of all the other stuff he hated. He hated women, he hated coffee drinkers, he hated email, phones, people with phones, buttons, zips, anything practical, anything impractical. Shit. He hated everything. Fortunately, he was able to focus all of that hate on his queer little brother who, unfortunately, wasn’t even home for him to hate directly. Bleddyn just sat there, thinking hateful thoughts towards the ginger bastard.

And then the door opened. And what he saw was unlikely, repulsive and sort of beautiful. A young woman in a dress opened the door, unprompted, and looked down at him—the displeased lump of human being squatting on the front step of her building. What repulsed Bleddyn wasn’t the woman herself, but the dress. Why the fuck was she dressed in an Elizabethan gown? If she’d just been dressed in jeans and a top he’d have been able to hate her, like he hated everything else. But she wasn’t dressed normally, she was in a gown. He wanted to hate her so much for it, for denying him easy-to-dismiss hatred that he’d been growing accustomed to, but he couldn’t hate her the same way he hated old clocks. She was beautiful and probably mentally unhinged.

“Um, hi.”

“Do you want to come in? Do you know someone who lives here?”

“Why are you wearing that dress?” He didn’t move from his slumped position. He couldn’t. He was paralyzed with disgust and wonder.

She smiled. Goddamn it she smiled at him. Goddamn her, she’s pretty. He was hopeless.

He sort of smiled back. He hated women. He hated her, and her breasts. Goddamn women and gowns. “It’s, um, nice. Sparkly.” She smiled at him again. “A bit… unusual though?”

She stepped out onto the step beside him and sat close enough that he could smell her. She smelled like a woman, like a woman who used nice shower products. He hated women, and showers. It occurred to him that he hadn’t bathed in about four days and probably smelt worse than the sea. He shuffled away from her. He hated himself.

“Um, are you okay?”

“yeah.” He wasn’t okay. Where the hell was is brother and why the hell was she wearing that terrible gown? “where’d you get it?”

“hun?”

“Your dress… where’d you get it? You an actress or something?”

“Oh, no, I’m not an actress.” She smiled again and he cringed despite himself. “Are you sure you’re alright? You want to come in? Tea?”

“Why are you wearing it?”

She stood up and unlocked the front door. “Come on.”

He hated her, he hated himself, and most of all he hated his brother.

And though he hated everything and everyone, he followed this girl into her apartment and let her heal him. Let him forget why he’d come to see his brother and forget about the clocks and the phones and the sea. Let him undress her, though he still had no idea why she’d worn the gown in the first place. He convinced himself that she’d just lost a bet or some utterly mundane and normal thing. He let himself think she was something sort of normal, and that it was entirely normal to follow a stranger in an Elizabethan gown into her apartment and stay there for two years.

the smiths

how about some fiction for a change? it happens oh so very very rarely. enjoy!

***

Mr. and Mrs. Smith grew up together. She was the Mary Jane to his Peter Parker all through secondary school. They shared a secret life together, even as very young children. When it was uncool, at the age of 7, to play with girls, Mr. Smith still went over to Mrs. Smith’s to color and make up stories with her. It was around that age—the distinctly uncool age to be with the opposite sex—that Mr. and Mrs. Smith promised to marry each other, and shared their very first kiss.

There were rough patches in their relationship, as in any. For example, Mrs. Smith went through a particularly academic phase while away at a big, snobby (in Mr. Smith’s opinion anyway) university where her dreams were filled with philosophical musings. Meanwhile, Mr. Smith apprenticed at a mechanical engineering firm which specialized in motion-sensor soap dispensers while attending night classes at a small, local college. At this time, they both saw other people.

They saw each other at the holidays, when Mrs. Smith came home. They humored each other with pleasantries, but learned how distinctly incompatible they really were. Though sweethearts, and terribly fond of one another, Mr. and Mrs. Smith expected different things from life. Mr. Smith wanted to invest in property while the market was good. Mrs. Smith wanted to travel obscure corners of the globe. Mr. Smith had a steady job, a car, drank coffee he made at home each morning, and enjoyed Douglass Adams novels. Mrs. Smith had two degrees in the humanities, a friend with a cottage in Greece, drank matte yerba after a long night of political discussion with visiting scholars and spent a lot of money on odd looking shoes.

Both lovely in their own respects. Both secretly admiring the strength and fearlessness of the other.

There was one whimsical summer romance between Mr. and Mrs. Smith. But as the leaves changed color and the cold set in, Mrs. Smith grew restless and Mr. Smith grew tired of her fancies. They split again.

They had, at once, given up on each other and dismissed their promise to one another of marriage in a heated battle of words and one unfortunate platter which, at the time, was covered in an array of sticky cheeses which, try as they might have, could not keep the platter from shattering into a significantly large number of small pieces. The carpet also suffered from the incident.

After many years of dissonance, Mr. and Mrs. Smith came upon each other in an office of all places.

This little office belonged to a coroner. This coroner, whose office was set adjacent to the hospital where both Mr. and Mrs. Smith had been seen into this world, had asked both Mr. and Mrs. Smith into his office to confirm the identify a body.

In the weeks previously, Mr. and Mrs. Smith had both reported a missing person; a close friend each had, very separately, kept in touch with over the years. This friend was called Janet. Mr. Smith walked Janet’s odd collection of dogs several times each week in exchange for the use of her garage where he kept the parts he was collecting to build his dream super car. Mrs. Smith had read the travel journals Janet wrote as a young woman and they spoke extensively over the phone after every one of Mrs. Smith’s adventures abroad.

Mr. Smith noticed Janet wasn’t home one Thursday afternoon and that her dogs hadn’t been fed. Needless to say, Mr. Smith took care of the animals, and as a second day passed and Janet had not been seen, Mr. Smith reported the woman missing.

Although she was miles away, Mrs. Smith had also noticed Janet’s absence. The two had arranged to speak the day after Mrs. Smith’s return from Botswana. Janet never missed an opportunity to speak with Mrs. Smith about her adventures. After several days of no answer to her phone calls, Mrs. Smith phoned the local authorities, asking if they would check in on the woman to see she was alright.

As surprised as Mr. and Mrs. Smith were to see each other after so many years of silence, they were equally surprised to see that the woman under the white sheet on the coroner’s table was indeed their mutual friend Janet.

They never found out what happened to Janet.

But they did some catching up, adopted Janet’s odd collection of dogs together, and invited Janet’s sisters to their wedding reception which took place a mere three months after Janet’s mysterious death.

They honeymooned in Greece and Mr. Smith got his super car running just three days prior to the birth of their first child.

***

king cake stressed fassion

this morning, walking down the hall
of this dilapidated university

the toes of my shoes wet from slush
with my coat swung upon

a vision of academia, two magazines
littered to the brim with day dreams

fantasy low-residency MFA programs
daring to hang from the fingers of one hand

and in the other, a cup of earl gray
too hot to drink, or to hold tight

anxiety ridden over words i care not to write
but more for the words i need to write

the ones that no one pays much attention to,
but to call myself a poet...

food porn - teehee

food porn

for best results by jess

for best results, click here

baked eggs

i don't claim the statues of "foodie", though i use it on a whim to describe my husbee. he does, after all, refer to his copy of "Hamburger America" as "the bible". as in "Katy, do you know where my bible is?".

instead, i am something else in relation to food... an eater? an emotional, out of control, gimme more eater. i was a fat kid, my mom is/was a yo-yo dieter at an opra level of wow she's big, wow she's thin.

growing up, i lived on comfort foods. fatty, sugary, wonderful food. because of that born-into habit with food (we could also call it lots of little bad habits), i had a love-hate relationship with food. i know so many people can relate to this.

so i'm out for a change. well, i have been out for a change for a little while now as a matter of fact. it's not easy though, working at an ice cream shop in the summer and a pizza place all year round (yum), but it's so worth it.

i've been trying new recipes. wait. no. i've been trying recipes, full stop. and i don't just mean baking. i mean, actually cooking stuff.


i'm still honing my roasted vegetable skills (what spices and herbs to use, for example), and my crock-pot still only makes two things: minestrone, and meatballs.

to research new ideas, i've been grazing the pages of foodgawker. though i drool a lot over the tasty goodies, i've learned that there's no limit to food.

take eggs for example. the incredible, edible egg. there are just as many ways to prepare eggs as there are blogs about food. e.i. everyone with a food blog has had a go at eggs.

i decided, then, that i would try something different with eggs today.



these, are baked eggs.

i don't know if i'll jump at the next chance to make them, but they were tasty and easy and really filling. kind of like an omelette in a ramekin.

i combined a couple of different recipes i found online (on blogs via foodgawker). essentially though, there's a slice of de-crusted, buttered whole wheat bread around the edge of the ramekin, which was then loaded with turkey bacon (a slice each), chopped tomato (i used the little ones, 'cause they taste better), some chopped sweet onion, an egg (i broke my yolk, 'cause i don't like it gooey, but left ryan's because he does like it gooey), and some shredded mozzarella cheese to finish it off. then i baked them for about 15 minutes at 375. Ta-Da!



there's also a recipe i want to try without the bread, which is using ham in a muffin tin, filled with egg. like a little... ham and egg cupcake. odd, but interesting.