Showing posts with label musings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label musings. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Are you there god, or do you just suck at your job?
I have a theory. No, not even a theory. A passing thought, just an interesting tidbit...I think (passingly, you understand) that we have disproved the existence of God. Or, at least, that we've proved the god that most "major" religions worship has not been hanging around our universe lately. According to these various peoples there is a kind, forgiving, rather grandfatherly god who just loves to watch out for us, right? However, most people don't realize that they basically believe in the same things, so they continually fight over whose god is better. Okay, so, here's what I don't quite understand: how does god feel about all this? Cause, see, if I was god, and I was as awesome as we seem to think he is, I don't believe I'd want anyone fighting in my name. I'd like to know what kind of god allows (him/her/it)self to be used as an excuse for so much violence. Just, you know, a thought...
Saturday, February 21, 2009
peanuts/sweet potato fries/guys
on peanuts and lifelong hatred
It seems that I've been a little behind the times for the last nineteen years. Have you ever figured something out, only to find that 3,567,224 people know about it already? Well, I have just made a fascinating discovery: peanut butter is really good! I've spent my entire life being repulsed by the smell, taste, even thought, of peanuts and their butter. If, when I was little, my mother had given me a choice between "green things" (which must be said with a proper six year old sneer) and a PB&J for lunch, I would have eaten the vegetables. Maybe if she had done that I wouldn't have hidden my veggies under my booster seat. I hated peanut butter that much.
I remember working at a smoothie shop, gagging every time I made a peanut butter smoothie. On Halloween I would trade all of my Reese's Cups for candy the other kids didn't want. I could never pin down what it was about peanut butter that was so repulsive. Macadamia butter, almond butter, cashew butter, hell- even vegan butter, were all okay with me. But peanut butter?
Then, a few days ago, for absolutely no reason at all, I ate a spoonful of crunchy peanut butter. And I loved it.
on sweet potatoes
Take a sweet potato and peel off the earthy skin. Cut it into thick slices, then to matchsticks. Drizzle them with olive oil, dust with salt and pepper, toss them with your hands. Food is more honest when you touch it. When you don't prepare it with care you feed only half the body's hunger. Bake the sticks on a sheet pan in a 400 degree oven, turning them often so they brown evenly. Take them out when they are done, not before, and certainly not after. Be mindful when you eat them; expect to melt. They're good.
on the subject of men
I think that dating guys may be one of the stupidest things I've ever tried.
It seems that I've been a little behind the times for the last nineteen years. Have you ever figured something out, only to find that 3,567,224 people know about it already? Well, I have just made a fascinating discovery: peanut butter is really good! I've spent my entire life being repulsed by the smell, taste, even thought, of peanuts and their butter. If, when I was little, my mother had given me a choice between "green things" (which must be said with a proper six year old sneer) and a PB&J for lunch, I would have eaten the vegetables. Maybe if she had done that I wouldn't have hidden my veggies under my booster seat. I hated peanut butter that much.
I remember working at a smoothie shop, gagging every time I made a peanut butter smoothie. On Halloween I would trade all of my Reese's Cups for candy the other kids didn't want. I could never pin down what it was about peanut butter that was so repulsive. Macadamia butter, almond butter, cashew butter, hell- even vegan butter, were all okay with me. But peanut butter?
Then, a few days ago, for absolutely no reason at all, I ate a spoonful of crunchy peanut butter. And I loved it.
on sweet potatoes
Take a sweet potato and peel off the earthy skin. Cut it into thick slices, then to matchsticks. Drizzle them with olive oil, dust with salt and pepper, toss them with your hands. Food is more honest when you touch it. When you don't prepare it with care you feed only half the body's hunger. Bake the sticks on a sheet pan in a 400 degree oven, turning them often so they brown evenly. Take them out when they are done, not before, and certainly not after. Be mindful when you eat them; expect to melt. They're good.
on the subject of men
I think that dating guys may be one of the stupidest things I've ever tried.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
There is such a thing as too much.
Finally, I stood up and taking off my earrings, stumbled into bed. Curling into a ball, I burrowed into the striped, colorful mess of blankets. The room throbbed. Some giant hand was massaging it like a failing heart. My own heart raced and thumped with it, beating wildly, erratically. I breathed slowly, carefully trying to calm the frantic heartbeats. But I was distracted by my arms. They were freezing. As the cold intensified into shocking pain, I realized that blankets wouldn't help. The cold was not coming from the air. It was inside, diffusing from my blood into my hands, my fingertips; a burning, cutting pain that felt like being rubbed down with menthol and then walking naked into the rain. I huddled into the pillows, completely fascinated by the threads of agony spreading through my ribs, into my neck and all the way to my toes.
Sometime later, I remembered my panicked heart, and raced to reassure it. But I arrived to find it thumping calmly, perfectly cool and collected.
Sometime later, I remembered my panicked heart, and raced to reassure it. But I arrived to find it thumping calmly, perfectly cool and collected.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Color #6D7B8D/Light Slate Grey
It's half a hundred degrees out, and cold threads of air pry their way into the car. We drive in silence, last night's tequila still gurgling in our heads; the questions we won't ask or answer settling into the cracks between our lips, filling our ears. There's the tenseness of excitement: the promise of an adventure. Hands twined, we stare out of our separate windows at the leaping, whirling gulls. Together we watch the waves rearing towards the highway.
You grin as I shrug into your brown coat, silently saying how cute I look in it. With hands deep in our pockets we peruse the paths, rubbing elbows. Awkwardly, shyly hesitant, until our explorations took the edge off. Once, we paused in the sunlight, and I kissed your neck. The moment rocked, warm and twisting deep in our stomachs. And on the ride home I rested my head in your lap and slept, your fingers in my hair. Through the layers of unconscious, I could feel them twining, smoothing the strands.
Later, your fingers traced the dusty blue bite marks on my shoulder, whispering of fascination. Tonight, my own fingers travel the same lines, asking why I left.
You grin as I shrug into your brown coat, silently saying how cute I look in it. With hands deep in our pockets we peruse the paths, rubbing elbows. Awkwardly, shyly hesitant, until our explorations took the edge off. Once, we paused in the sunlight, and I kissed your neck. The moment rocked, warm and twisting deep in our stomachs. And on the ride home I rested my head in your lap and slept, your fingers in my hair. Through the layers of unconscious, I could feel them twining, smoothing the strands.
Later, your fingers traced the dusty blue bite marks on my shoulder, whispering of fascination. Tonight, my own fingers travel the same lines, asking why I left.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Thoughts on Gender
Accounts of prison rape, for example, provide independent confirmation of...assertions about gender, power [and], rape...One of the most descriptive of these accounts appears in Haywood Patterson's autobiographical Scottsboro Boy..."I learned that men were having men," Patterson wrote shortly after he arrived at Atmore prison. "Old guys, they called them wolves." Patterson's description of the process that defined and distinguished who was a "wolf" and who was not dramatically reveals our underlying assumptions of gender.
"Soon after I got [to Atmore] I saw how a wolf would trick a young boy. They all worked the same way. First the wolf, he gave the new guy some money and bought him what he wanted from the commissary. He told him that he was a friend. He would protect him from the tough guys. He would fight for him. He didn't tell him right off what he was leading to. After he spent
four or five dollars on the boy, he propositioned him."
four or five dollars on the boy, he propositioned him."
In the end, however, this courtship inevitably failed to win the young prisoner over, and matters were resolved violently: "The old wolf beat him up unmerciful," initiating the boy into a new identity. "The other prisoners just looked on," writes Patterson. "They knew a young girl was being born."
-- From Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked: Sex, Morality and the Evolution of a Fairy Tale,
by Catherine Orenstein.
...most of the dominant mainstreams of our world will only admit to one construction on gender-an inseparable conflation of "penis=male=masculine" and breasts/vagina=female=feminine." Those mainstreams insist that you like "woman (feminine)" or "male (masculine)." A few of them allow for the possibility of liking both, though they cast it as a suspect state of affairs best avoided or outgrown.
--From Genderquerulous, by Nalo Hopkinson
So I'm...involved, lets say, with a transsexual. At first, I did it for the novelty factor. I mean, come on! How many times have I wished I could sleep with a hermaphrodite? I'm attracted to gender-queer. Get over it.
Anyhow, since he is a genuinely sweet, cheerful, kind person who loves animals, nature, cooking, gardening, and is totally willing to sneak me into bars, I actually really like the guy. Which I wasn't exactly counting on. So the scene I'm building up to looks like this: the two of us are in the smoking room of a bar in the Castro. And I've gotta say, he dresses up well (cool leather shoes, nice pants, crisp shirt). But then, so do I (button down shirt that matches my teal glasses, straight jeans, strappy heels). We're waiting for his friend to bring us our drinks (whiskey sour/gin and tonic), chatting, lounging, smoking. We're talking about my height (he's short and I'm in heels), his upcoming trip to LA, where his friend was with the drinks, my friends in Miami, and suddenly "what do you see me as?" And I froze. "I see what you show me," I managed to spit out. Oh how diplomatic you idiot, I shrieked in my head. But how can I see anything else? How can I say anything else? And how could I? That's such an odd question. The energy, the person that I talk with, enjoy the company of, that presence is male. But the body? It's now neither male nor female. How can I say that I see a man, when that's what I feel, not see? But I don't see a woman either. It begs the question of why we have such rigid gender roles. Why do we have to be one or the other? Why is it only one or the other? Why aren't there three, four, five genders? And why is genitalia synonymous with gender?
It's that last question that interests me the most these days. Fourteen hours after we met, as we settled into a warm, happy, tipsy, awkward, post-sex cuddle, that question occurred to me. Resting my head on his chest, I traced his mastectomy scars (now isn't that an odd sentence!). "You seem so, I dunno, calm," I muttered. "How? I mean, why?" He made a quizzical face. "I mean," I continued, "I think I'd be angry, you know? I guess I have no idea how I'd feel, really. I just get the impression that I'd be a lot angrier about being all jumbled up. You know?" He kind of laughed and then tried to explain that the body's genitalia shouldn't determine gender. And I'm lying there going "Whaaaat? Come again?" I didn't understand that night, or even the next few. All I could think was that I was talking to a guy, and sleeping with a girl. But the more time we spend together, the more I've begun to understand. We do tend to define gender by genitalia. It's easy to do. Can you define what a woman is, or what a man is without those markers? It's so very hard to describe what makes a man a man, or a woman a woman. But its becoming increasingly obvious that it shouldn't be based on what body you live in. It just so happens that most men have a pair of testes and a penis. Just as most women have breasts, vaginae and birth babies. Getting to know this boy I've had to realize that he is a boy. Not a boi, not simply butch, but Male.
-- From Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked: Sex, Morality and the Evolution of a Fairy Tale,
by Catherine Orenstein.
...most of the dominant mainstreams of our world will only admit to one construction on gender-an inseparable conflation of "penis=male=masculine" and breasts/vagina=female=feminine." Those mainstreams insist that you like "woman (feminine)" or "male (masculine)." A few of them allow for the possibility of liking both, though they cast it as a suspect state of affairs best avoided or outgrown.
--From Genderquerulous, by Nalo Hopkinson
So I'm...involved, lets say, with a transsexual. At first, I did it for the novelty factor. I mean, come on! How many times have I wished I could sleep with a hermaphrodite? I'm attracted to gender-queer. Get over it.
Anyhow, since he is a genuinely sweet, cheerful, kind person who loves animals, nature, cooking, gardening, and is totally willing to sneak me into bars, I actually really like the guy. Which I wasn't exactly counting on. So the scene I'm building up to looks like this: the two of us are in the smoking room of a bar in the Castro. And I've gotta say, he dresses up well (cool leather shoes, nice pants, crisp shirt). But then, so do I (button down shirt that matches my teal glasses, straight jeans, strappy heels). We're waiting for his friend to bring us our drinks (whiskey sour/gin and tonic), chatting, lounging, smoking. We're talking about my height (he's short and I'm in heels), his upcoming trip to LA, where his friend was with the drinks, my friends in Miami, and suddenly "what do you see me as?" And I froze. "I see what you show me," I managed to spit out. Oh how diplomatic you idiot, I shrieked in my head. But how can I see anything else? How can I say anything else? And how could I? That's such an odd question. The energy, the person that I talk with, enjoy the company of, that presence is male. But the body? It's now neither male nor female. How can I say that I see a man, when that's what I feel, not see? But I don't see a woman either. It begs the question of why we have such rigid gender roles. Why do we have to be one or the other? Why is it only one or the other? Why aren't there three, four, five genders? And why is genitalia synonymous with gender?
It's that last question that interests me the most these days. Fourteen hours after we met, as we settled into a warm, happy, tipsy, awkward, post-sex cuddle, that question occurred to me. Resting my head on his chest, I traced his mastectomy scars (now isn't that an odd sentence!). "You seem so, I dunno, calm," I muttered. "How? I mean, why?" He made a quizzical face. "I mean," I continued, "I think I'd be angry, you know? I guess I have no idea how I'd feel, really. I just get the impression that I'd be a lot angrier about being all jumbled up. You know?" He kind of laughed and then tried to explain that the body's genitalia shouldn't determine gender. And I'm lying there going "Whaaaat? Come again?" I didn't understand that night, or even the next few. All I could think was that I was talking to a guy, and sleeping with a girl. But the more time we spend together, the more I've begun to understand. We do tend to define gender by genitalia. It's easy to do. Can you define what a woman is, or what a man is without those markers? It's so very hard to describe what makes a man a man, or a woman a woman. But its becoming increasingly obvious that it shouldn't be based on what body you live in. It just so happens that most men have a pair of testes and a penis. Just as most women have breasts, vaginae and birth babies. Getting to know this boy I've had to realize that he is a boy. Not a boi, not simply butch, but Male.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Fresh baked bread and an argument for selfishness.
My dad wasn't around much when I was little, but when he was he liked to make breakfast. I remember standing on a chair in front of the stove watching him make fried apples. That was what he taught me, fried apples and tomato sauce.
I learned how to cook intuitively from my mother. She taught me that if things smell good together they probably taste good together, that lemon is a good substitute for salt, and that baking soda and yogurt make for a really good pancake batter. But I still consider most of what I know about cooking to be self taught, through exploration, trial and error. What my mother really taught me was how to bake. She helped with cookies, cakes, muffins and quick breads. And when I was ready she walked me through making my first yeasted (is that even a word?) bread. I don't remember how old I was, probably somewhere around twelve. She taught me to poke the dough before I punched it down, not to just assume that it was done rising; showed me how to roll the edges of the dough under so that the top of the loaf would be seamless. She taught me that a thoroughly baked loaf will sound hollow when you tap it. I'm nineteen now, and not much has changed. When I decided that I wanted to try making sourdough breads I called her up. She described to me the process of making a starter, and how to maintain it. And, of course, when I pulled my first loaf of sourdough out of the oven I called her immediately. That was just a few weeks ago. I made a large loaf of sourdough rye with dill, thyme, and fresh cracked pepper in it. The bread was very sour, like any good sourdough. But I didn't care for the consistency. It was dense and didn't toast very well. It was most defiantly a beginner's loaf. So yesterday I decided to try again.
I mixed up a good sponge with whole wheat flour this time, and let it rise for almost nineteen hours (sourdough needs a longer first rising time). By the morning it was beautifully puffy and bubbly, with little wheat germ ringed holes where air bubbles had burst. After mixing in more flour, olive oil, eggs, oats, sunflower seeds and millet I realized that while I had enough dough for two loaves I only possess one loaf pan. Here were two perfectly (well, almost perfectly) formed, crunchy, multi grain loaves, and I only had one pan to put them in. All I had were muffin tins. No house needs as many muffin tins as my house has. So I ended up sliding one loaf pan and one tray of roll filled muffin tins into the oven.
And I just pulled them out. This batch of sourdough is much better than the last. Not as sour as I would have liked, but both the bread and the rolls have a good, thick, crunchy crust and they're all light and fluffy inside. And, it would seem, the Jewish mama gene is going pretty strong. As soon as the rolls were done I started calling people over to eat them. This has always been a goal of mine: cooking and giving. I don't care who eats it, only that someone does and that their day is a little brighter for it. I love feeding people good food. And knowing that it's good because I made it and there's nothing in it that I don't know about. This high I get from nourishing people, that's why I've been so careful with my money; so that I can do it forever some day. It's so beautiful, giving people comfort and happiness and nourishment from something so small. And it's so little for me to do, you know? To do something I love and that makes me happy. But that it also makes the people I touch happy? That's amazing. It is amazing that all I have to do, all anyone has to do, to make myself and other people happy is to do these things I love. Which sounds almost trite and silly. But imagine a small warm coffee shop in a rainy college town. It has all sorts of cast off, miss matched coffee tables. Some are low to the ground and have cushions around them, and others are higher up with colorful assortments of chairs. There are bookshelves along one wall, and the corners have old easy chairs. There are photos on another wall of places and people, and drawings from some of the kids who drop by. The whole place is in reds, browns, oranges and yellows. It smells like fresh bread and coffee. How happy would I be, to be making that bread and coffee? And how happy would you be, to stumble upon it one day? Maybe it's just a normal day, or maybe it's raining and you're just a little down. Maybe it's the worst day you've had in a while. In any of those cases, can you tell me that the warmth you'd find wouldn't leave you just a little happier?
I learned how to cook intuitively from my mother. She taught me that if things smell good together they probably taste good together, that lemon is a good substitute for salt, and that baking soda and yogurt make for a really good pancake batter. But I still consider most of what I know about cooking to be self taught, through exploration, trial and error. What my mother really taught me was how to bake. She helped with cookies, cakes, muffins and quick breads. And when I was ready she walked me through making my first yeasted (is that even a word?) bread. I don't remember how old I was, probably somewhere around twelve. She taught me to poke the dough before I punched it down, not to just assume that it was done rising; showed me how to roll the edges of the dough under so that the top of the loaf would be seamless. She taught me that a thoroughly baked loaf will sound hollow when you tap it. I'm nineteen now, and not much has changed. When I decided that I wanted to try making sourdough breads I called her up. She described to me the process of making a starter, and how to maintain it. And, of course, when I pulled my first loaf of sourdough out of the oven I called her immediately. That was just a few weeks ago. I made a large loaf of sourdough rye with dill, thyme, and fresh cracked pepper in it. The bread was very sour, like any good sourdough. But I didn't care for the consistency. It was dense and didn't toast very well. It was most defiantly a beginner's loaf. So yesterday I decided to try again.
I mixed up a good sponge with whole wheat flour this time, and let it rise for almost nineteen hours (sourdough needs a longer first rising time). By the morning it was beautifully puffy and bubbly, with little wheat germ ringed holes where air bubbles had burst. After mixing in more flour, olive oil, eggs, oats, sunflower seeds and millet I realized that while I had enough dough for two loaves I only possess one loaf pan. Here were two perfectly (well, almost perfectly) formed, crunchy, multi grain loaves, and I only had one pan to put them in. All I had were muffin tins. No house needs as many muffin tins as my house has. So I ended up sliding one loaf pan and one tray of roll filled muffin tins into the oven.
And I just pulled them out. This batch of sourdough is much better than the last. Not as sour as I would have liked, but both the bread and the rolls have a good, thick, crunchy crust and they're all light and fluffy inside. And, it would seem, the Jewish mama gene is going pretty strong. As soon as the rolls were done I started calling people over to eat them. This has always been a goal of mine: cooking and giving. I don't care who eats it, only that someone does and that their day is a little brighter for it. I love feeding people good food. And knowing that it's good because I made it and there's nothing in it that I don't know about. This high I get from nourishing people, that's why I've been so careful with my money; so that I can do it forever some day. It's so beautiful, giving people comfort and happiness and nourishment from something so small. And it's so little for me to do, you know? To do something I love and that makes me happy. But that it also makes the people I touch happy? That's amazing. It is amazing that all I have to do, all anyone has to do, to make myself and other people happy is to do these things I love. Which sounds almost trite and silly. But imagine a small warm coffee shop in a rainy college town. It has all sorts of cast off, miss matched coffee tables. Some are low to the ground and have cushions around them, and others are higher up with colorful assortments of chairs. There are bookshelves along one wall, and the corners have old easy chairs. There are photos on another wall of places and people, and drawings from some of the kids who drop by. The whole place is in reds, browns, oranges and yellows. It smells like fresh bread and coffee. How happy would I be, to be making that bread and coffee? And how happy would you be, to stumble upon it one day? Maybe it's just a normal day, or maybe it's raining and you're just a little down. Maybe it's the worst day you've had in a while. In any of those cases, can you tell me that the warmth you'd find wouldn't leave you just a little happier?
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
I broke my glasses, and when I fixed them the world looked different.
Every person is God in disguise. Or whatever you want to call him/her/it. God, Goddess, Adonai, the Force, V.A.L.I.S., Dee, whatever. Those are a lot of words for the same thing. The point is that we all carry it within ourselves, always. I am God, you are God, every person I serve coffee to at work is God. Serving coffee becomes sacred because it is being done by God, for God. What you do is holy, because it is being done. Here. Now.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Space Cakes and Time Travel
About two hours after ingesting the butter (by way of toast), I found myself downstairs in my room. I wasn't sure exactly when I had left the living room, but it didn't really matter. What mattered then was that I was sitting, cross legged, in the center of my room. The lights were off and something really trippy was playing in the background. The more I fell back into myself the more details became clear to me. I realized that I had been sitting there for about twenty minutes, which seemed like a very long time. I sat for a few minutes more, absorbing the sounds, the feeling of my muscles as a began to move them around. Then I got up, put on a coat and went out to the back porch. I sat down in the rocking chair and light a cigarette, my fingers all trembly from the cold. I rocked and smoked for about five minutes until I had to put out the cigarette. I couldn't stand to hold it any longer. As I continued to rock I realized that not only was the chair creaking, I was anticipating the creaks. Very softly I explained to myself that I needed to stop waiting, and just let those creaks happen. "Stop anticipating," I said. "Just be here, now." And I rocked. And each moment in the rocking chair turned into the first time I had experienced motion. Each moment was brand new. It was the first time I had heard wood creak, the first time I had rocked back and teetered on the edge between falling and rocking forward. I sat in that chair for eternity and experienced everything for the first time, over and over, at every moment.
That paragraph is from the first time I infused THC into butter and ate it. It wasn't unpleasant, as some people say it can be. It was very, very intense. Time and reality started doing back flips and contortionist stuff that belong only in Cirque du Soleil. It was interesting, but I wasn't sure that I'd ever try it again. Well, Saturday night my neighbor came over bearing a large plastic shopping bag. It was full of trimmings: stems, leaves, everything but bud. He gave it to us, saying that he had no use for it. We didn't really think that we'd get anything good out of the bag. Smoked it wouldn't have done anything at all. But butter....So yesterday I went to the store and bought a half pound of butter. Since we figured we were working with half-assed stuff we changed the proportions. Normally, it seems, you use an ounce of cannabis per pound of butter. So we used an ounce per half pound. After three hours of simmering water, butter and weed, the entire house smelled like pot. But we had a lovely bowl of bright green liquid. So I cooled it, skimmed the butter off the top and proceeded to make some really yummy cookies. And once again, time stopped.
Mmm, Cookies!
Basically, take your standard chocolate chip cookie recipe. Mix up your green butter, sugar and eggs. Add flour, vanilla, baking soda, whatever it calls for. But use really good chocolate chips, and add dried fruit (I used raisins and cranberries) and a lot of nuts (pecans, almonds and walnuts went into mine). Your batter will be a very light shade of green. And it might taste a bit like grass. But once baked all the other goodies in your cookies will overpower that taste. Enjoy.
But please, be careful. Eat two or three and wait a bit. You will want to munch on something, but make sure it isn't laced with THC as well. Eating too much will totally mess you up. Make sure that you really need another cookie before you eat one. I had a lot, probably around seven. I think five would have been sufficient for a good trip. So, yeah...just keep that in mind.
That paragraph is from the first time I infused THC into butter and ate it. It wasn't unpleasant, as some people say it can be. It was very, very intense. Time and reality started doing back flips and contortionist stuff that belong only in Cirque du Soleil. It was interesting, but I wasn't sure that I'd ever try it again. Well, Saturday night my neighbor came over bearing a large plastic shopping bag. It was full of trimmings: stems, leaves, everything but bud. He gave it to us, saying that he had no use for it. We didn't really think that we'd get anything good out of the bag. Smoked it wouldn't have done anything at all. But butter....So yesterday I went to the store and bought a half pound of butter. Since we figured we were working with half-assed stuff we changed the proportions. Normally, it seems, you use an ounce of cannabis per pound of butter. So we used an ounce per half pound. After three hours of simmering water, butter and weed, the entire house smelled like pot. But we had a lovely bowl of bright green liquid. So I cooled it, skimmed the butter off the top and proceeded to make some really yummy cookies. And once again, time stopped.
Mmm, Cookies!
Basically, take your standard chocolate chip cookie recipe. Mix up your green butter, sugar and eggs. Add flour, vanilla, baking soda, whatever it calls for. But use really good chocolate chips, and add dried fruit (I used raisins and cranberries) and a lot of nuts (pecans, almonds and walnuts went into mine). Your batter will be a very light shade of green. And it might taste a bit like grass. But once baked all the other goodies in your cookies will overpower that taste. Enjoy.
But please, be careful. Eat two or three and wait a bit. You will want to munch on something, but make sure it isn't laced with THC as well. Eating too much will totally mess you up. Make sure that you really need another cookie before you eat one. I had a lot, probably around seven. I think five would have been sufficient for a good trip. So, yeah...just keep that in mind.
Friday, October 17, 2008
The Other Hallucinogen
I just found this in one of my old notebooks. I think I wrote it in March ('08). Anyhow, its what I wrote during my last acid trip.
The color yellow. I don't really have a follow up to that sentence. Just yellow. Its such a forgiving color. When the sun shines and hits the yellow just right...its like hearing bells, or feeling a smile: a warm glow spreading everywhere. Yellow is such a happy color. It's like a reward. A reward for living. Every time I noticed something pretty today the sun came out and made the yellow a bit brighter for me. Although it did get carried away with itself sometimes. But, oh well! It's the sun, right? I guess it's allowed.
I felt so bad about walking on the poor earth earlier. I could feel it springing back and breathing under my feet. I walked on so much ground today. Is it all resigned to it's job, or does it aspire to be more than the dirt under our feet? It does feel good to dig your toes into the grass. Especially when the grass is that pretty yellow-green color that the sun gives it sometimes.
Today was only for the cuckoo birds. I had to scare the others away. I wasn't very good at it. I mostly just yelled at them in my head.
I hope that everything is okay...
I don't remember why I stopped writing at that point, and I have no clue what that last sentence means. I wasn't seeing things at the time that I wrote this, but I was nowhere near sober. I had spent the day walking around Miami talking to the sun. Yep, talking to it. It was my personal friend that day. I remember that I was scolding (probably out loud) it for getting carried away with itself. But I kept talkin to it because it was doing beautiful things to all the yellow objects around me.
I've noticed that when I do LSD I develop a fixation with the color yellow. Every time I trip I become completely obsessed with it. Example (mom, you may remember this!): my mother's kitchen used to be a beautiful sunflower yellow. Sometime in the last few years she painted it a brickish shade of red. I was tripping at her house one day (I believe I was still living there) and happened to walk into the kitchen. Looking around I realized that although I knew the walls were red, I could see the yellow paint underneath. I sat on the floor and stared at the yellow/red walls until my mother came in and rightly asked me what the hell I was doing. "Well mom," I answered, "it's always Christmas in your kitchen." It made sense to me, since my altered mind thinks of the color yellow as a gift or "reward for living" as I put it in the above passage. She just shook her head and walked off. Point is, even the memory of yellow is enough to enthrall me when I'm tripping.
As for the cuckoo birds...I don't know. The next page in my notebook says "What does a cuckoo bird look like?" The page facing that claims that "It has big eyes! And it loves to put its toes in the grass." The sketch that goes along with it is of a man with a bird's head, sporting a blue mohawk. Make of that what you will.
The color yellow. I don't really have a follow up to that sentence. Just yellow. Its such a forgiving color. When the sun shines and hits the yellow just right...its like hearing bells, or feeling a smile: a warm glow spreading everywhere. Yellow is such a happy color. It's like a reward. A reward for living. Every time I noticed something pretty today the sun came out and made the yellow a bit brighter for me. Although it did get carried away with itself sometimes. But, oh well! It's the sun, right? I guess it's allowed.
I felt so bad about walking on the poor earth earlier. I could feel it springing back and breathing under my feet. I walked on so much ground today. Is it all resigned to it's job, or does it aspire to be more than the dirt under our feet? It does feel good to dig your toes into the grass. Especially when the grass is that pretty yellow-green color that the sun gives it sometimes.
Today was only for the cuckoo birds. I had to scare the others away. I wasn't very good at it. I mostly just yelled at them in my head.
I hope that everything is okay...
I don't remember why I stopped writing at that point, and I have no clue what that last sentence means. I wasn't seeing things at the time that I wrote this, but I was nowhere near sober. I had spent the day walking around Miami talking to the sun. Yep, talking to it. It was my personal friend that day. I remember that I was scolding (probably out loud) it for getting carried away with itself. But I kept talkin to it because it was doing beautiful things to all the yellow objects around me.
I've noticed that when I do LSD I develop a fixation with the color yellow. Every time I trip I become completely obsessed with it. Example (mom, you may remember this!): my mother's kitchen used to be a beautiful sunflower yellow. Sometime in the last few years she painted it a brickish shade of red. I was tripping at her house one day (I believe I was still living there) and happened to walk into the kitchen. Looking around I realized that although I knew the walls were red, I could see the yellow paint underneath. I sat on the floor and stared at the yellow/red walls until my mother came in and rightly asked me what the hell I was doing. "Well mom," I answered, "it's always Christmas in your kitchen." It made sense to me, since my altered mind thinks of the color yellow as a gift or "reward for living" as I put it in the above passage. She just shook her head and walked off. Point is, even the memory of yellow is enough to enthrall me when I'm tripping.
As for the cuckoo birds...I don't know. The next page in my notebook says "What does a cuckoo bird look like?" The page facing that claims that "It has big eyes! And it loves to put its toes in the grass." The sketch that goes along with it is of a man with a bird's head, sporting a blue mohawk. Make of that what you will.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
The Setting
It's a little too early for the light to be coming through the window exactly the way I wish it would. The sun is still too high in the sky. Come 3 o'clock it will look perfect. I want the sun to shine through the window this way because of the scarves hanging next to it. The scarves are arranged on three hooks. One hook holds all of the red, brown and orange scarves. The next holds all of those that are predominantly green. From the last hang the scarves that are grey, blue and white. The streaming, late-afternoon type of light makes that corner glow as it plays off all of the colors around it. But that moment is still three hours off. This bright, glowing, high noon type light is perfect to illuminate the window itself. The wall it's in is painted white, as is the deep sill. A drooping rose sits on the sill, in a bottle whose label matches its pink petals exactly. A devil-esque mask rests beside the bottle, tounge lolling, staring up at the Tibetan Prayer flags that hang above it. The bright light makes this little scene look like a photo you would find in one of those magazines that showcase cottage interiors.
The bedside table and bed look like they belong in a college dorm room. The bed is a rumpled mess of blues, greens, pinks and browns, polka dots and stripes, stylized flowers, and emroidered hearts. The table is littered with crumpled wrappers, paper and pens. There are stacks of books and a dirty bowl. A large paper bag on the floor collects trash. Only two elements ruin this setting: a photograph over the bed, and two bowls under the bedside table. The photograph is from my stepfather, and is of mailboxes all in a row. The bowls are Moroccan; painted with intricate designs and filled with many balls of yarn.
I am sitting at another small table at the foot of the bed. It is a low table, so I am sitting on the floor, surrounded by cushions. The two walls that make this corner boast a line of objects: masks, a small mirror, necklaces that are art on or off the body, a handwoven basket, a very old purse. These are all the things I've picked up along the way. I like looking at these three walls. The fourth is not quite as pleasing. It has all my practical items like clothes, toiletries and books arranged along it. There is a folded stack of cloth on the floor that I keep meaning to put away.
The light has shifted slightly, and no longer shines through the yellow flag. The scene at the window is not interesting without that shock of yellow in the corner. I think this is my cue to walk down to the lake. I can draw there until 3 o'clock, when the light in the window will be just where I want it.
The bedside table and bed look like they belong in a college dorm room. The bed is a rumpled mess of blues, greens, pinks and browns, polka dots and stripes, stylized flowers, and emroidered hearts. The table is littered with crumpled wrappers, paper and pens. There are stacks of books and a dirty bowl. A large paper bag on the floor collects trash. Only two elements ruin this setting: a photograph over the bed, and two bowls under the bedside table. The photograph is from my stepfather, and is of mailboxes all in a row. The bowls are Moroccan; painted with intricate designs and filled with many balls of yarn.
I am sitting at another small table at the foot of the bed. It is a low table, so I am sitting on the floor, surrounded by cushions. The two walls that make this corner boast a line of objects: masks, a small mirror, necklaces that are art on or off the body, a handwoven basket, a very old purse. These are all the things I've picked up along the way. I like looking at these three walls. The fourth is not quite as pleasing. It has all my practical items like clothes, toiletries and books arranged along it. There is a folded stack of cloth on the floor that I keep meaning to put away.
The light has shifted slightly, and no longer shines through the yellow flag. The scene at the window is not interesting without that shock of yellow in the corner. I think this is my cue to walk down to the lake. I can draw there until 3 o'clock, when the light in the window will be just where I want it.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
You Had Not Always Been...You First Had To Grow To Be.
“Your figures are not what men are, but what men could be—and should be. You have gone beyond the probable and made us see what is possible, but possible only through you. Because your figures are more devoid of contempt for humanity than any work I’ve ever seen. Because you have a magnificent respect for the human being. Because your figures are the heroic in man."
-Howard Roark speaking to Steven Mallory in The Fountainhead
I've started to speak more about my work in the last few days, trying to verbalize to those around me. I've always known what it was about on a gut level. You know how you can understand something, and know all the nuances of it, but never have to actually think about it or explain it to yourself? Well, its been like that. What I keep coming back to is the above quote about Mallory's work. Its not that I feel like my figures are the heroic in man, or that I want them to express that. But if I was given the chance to create mankind in my own image of what is ideal I would create them as I draw them. My work captures the two most beautiful forms that I've found in the world around me. I form the essential, sacred elements of both into something that is, in my view, perfect. To have a human form, rooted into the ground, in perfect synergy with everything around it, melting and becoming part of the earth...no, its not heroic, but it is my ideal.
Last night I was looking through my sketchbook and I found a drawing that I did while I was tripping. I compared it to the sketch I'm working on now and realized that there is no difference. If anything, the work I do sober is more trippy than any work I do high. Max proceeded to ask what the difference really was. "What is the difference between tripping and not tripping?" he wanted to know. In terms of my art I have discovered that there isn't really a line. The experiences I have while on acid have influenced my work more than anything. The connection that I feel to the earth around me; the melding and mixing of my consciousness with the soul of the world; these are the experiences that I pull on when I draw. Plants have always fascinated me, so I tend to spend a lot of time communicating with them. I connect with them and become them, especially grass. When I come down I miss being a plant, and I feel that this contributes a lot to my morphing of the human figure into plants.
I feel like my work is evolving to a different level, as art is prone to do at times. It has become very illustrative. I'm not sure how I feel about it yet, but it seems to be working. People around me are beginning to get the point very fast. So maybe this is the tangent I need to continue upon: illustrating a perfect world for those around me.
Oh, and the title is from one of the pages of my sketchbook, which is actually a very old 'how you were made' book for little kids.
-Howard Roark speaking to Steven Mallory in The Fountainhead
I've started to speak more about my work in the last few days, trying to verbalize to those around me. I've always known what it was about on a gut level. You know how you can understand something, and know all the nuances of it, but never have to actually think about it or explain it to yourself? Well, its been like that. What I keep coming back to is the above quote about Mallory's work. Its not that I feel like my figures are the heroic in man, or that I want them to express that. But if I was given the chance to create mankind in my own image of what is ideal I would create them as I draw them. My work captures the two most beautiful forms that I've found in the world around me. I form the essential, sacred elements of both into something that is, in my view, perfect. To have a human form, rooted into the ground, in perfect synergy with everything around it, melting and becoming part of the earth...no, its not heroic, but it is my ideal.
Last night I was looking through my sketchbook and I found a drawing that I did while I was tripping. I compared it to the sketch I'm working on now and realized that there is no difference. If anything, the work I do sober is more trippy than any work I do high. Max proceeded to ask what the difference really was. "What is the difference between tripping and not tripping?" he wanted to know. In terms of my art I have discovered that there isn't really a line. The experiences I have while on acid have influenced my work more than anything. The connection that I feel to the earth around me; the melding and mixing of my consciousness with the soul of the world; these are the experiences that I pull on when I draw. Plants have always fascinated me, so I tend to spend a lot of time communicating with them. I connect with them and become them, especially grass. When I come down I miss being a plant, and I feel that this contributes a lot to my morphing of the human figure into plants.
I feel like my work is evolving to a different level, as art is prone to do at times. It has become very illustrative. I'm not sure how I feel about it yet, but it seems to be working. People around me are beginning to get the point very fast. So maybe this is the tangent I need to continue upon: illustrating a perfect world for those around me.
Oh, and the title is from one of the pages of my sketchbook, which is actually a very old 'how you were made' book for little kids.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
They Said That There Would Be A Meteor Shower Last Night, So We Went To The Beach...
So here's how it is (was):
It's sometime in the early hours of the morning and I am half crouching, half floating in the ocean. It is so beautifully dark that I can't quite tell where the ocean ends and the sky begins until the lightning in the distance illuminates everything for me. The lightning is behind a huge cloudbank and when it flashes the light diffuses through the clouds and shines out in rays across the sky. The play of light and dark draws me in, almost to the exclusion of everything else. I can feel the water lapping around me and I allow it to sway me where it will. The sound that it makes as it moves against the beach is overpowering, but fades too quickly from my mind. Eventually I am able to pin down the sound and concentrate on it. At this point it seems that all of these sensations merge and become one. My mind bends and suddenly I am tripping.*
Looking down into the water I see that some tiny green creatures have come to join me, and I make them dance by moving my hands through the water. They follow my fingers, making beautiful patterns on the dark waves. I call Laura over so she can see them, but they seem to be invisible to everyone else. Eventually they dissapear, only to resurface in the sky. Throwing my head back to wach them I realize that I have become the ocean. I ebb and flow around the curve of the world, trying to reach the sky. The sky, at this moment, seems like the most inviting blanket one could hope for, and I take a moment to thank it for its continued presence above me.
Slowly I begin to condense into the form of a crab. The ocean suddenly seems very large around me, and I scuttle sideways towards the shore, where it is less open. Ahead of me is a tall, well light building. Next to the building is nothing but blackness. That is when I begin to understand that I have found the edge of the world. Looking to the right I see that everything becomes progressivly darker. I know that behind me is a void, and as much as I want to look at it I am terrified to see what that expanse of blank space really looks like. The thought of so much emptiness there makes me tremble, and I scuttle faster to the beach.
I am saved from the nothing-ness by someone's desire to leave. Every step I take off the beach is a struggle between me and it. "I'm sorry," I say over and over as I drag myself over its surface. The beach finally releases me and we get in the car.
Speeding down the highway I stick my head out of the window and find that I can feel the universe vibrating. "This," I whisper, "is what the creation of the universe sounded like." I begin to vibrate along with it. I am simultaniously sitting in Andrew's car and standing in front of the universe. It continues to pulse and throws itself at me. I stand there and breathe it in, mixing its particles with mine, helping it to create the world. The whipping winds become more violent. I begin to speak to the energy of the universe, explaining that it cannot harm me just as I cannot harm it, because we are of each other. I continue on this tangent until we have finished creating the world and the winds have died down. I open my eyes and watch the new world fly by. Even with all of its imperfections it seems utterly perfect.
*I did not, for the record, take any sort of hallucinogen last night. This was totally random.
It's sometime in the early hours of the morning and I am half crouching, half floating in the ocean. It is so beautifully dark that I can't quite tell where the ocean ends and the sky begins until the lightning in the distance illuminates everything for me. The lightning is behind a huge cloudbank and when it flashes the light diffuses through the clouds and shines out in rays across the sky. The play of light and dark draws me in, almost to the exclusion of everything else. I can feel the water lapping around me and I allow it to sway me where it will. The sound that it makes as it moves against the beach is overpowering, but fades too quickly from my mind. Eventually I am able to pin down the sound and concentrate on it. At this point it seems that all of these sensations merge and become one. My mind bends and suddenly I am tripping.*
Looking down into the water I see that some tiny green creatures have come to join me, and I make them dance by moving my hands through the water. They follow my fingers, making beautiful patterns on the dark waves. I call Laura over so she can see them, but they seem to be invisible to everyone else. Eventually they dissapear, only to resurface in the sky. Throwing my head back to wach them I realize that I have become the ocean. I ebb and flow around the curve of the world, trying to reach the sky. The sky, at this moment, seems like the most inviting blanket one could hope for, and I take a moment to thank it for its continued presence above me.
Slowly I begin to condense into the form of a crab. The ocean suddenly seems very large around me, and I scuttle sideways towards the shore, where it is less open. Ahead of me is a tall, well light building. Next to the building is nothing but blackness. That is when I begin to understand that I have found the edge of the world. Looking to the right I see that everything becomes progressivly darker. I know that behind me is a void, and as much as I want to look at it I am terrified to see what that expanse of blank space really looks like. The thought of so much emptiness there makes me tremble, and I scuttle faster to the beach.
I am saved from the nothing-ness by someone's desire to leave. Every step I take off the beach is a struggle between me and it. "I'm sorry," I say over and over as I drag myself over its surface. The beach finally releases me and we get in the car.
Speeding down the highway I stick my head out of the window and find that I can feel the universe vibrating. "This," I whisper, "is what the creation of the universe sounded like." I begin to vibrate along with it. I am simultaniously sitting in Andrew's car and standing in front of the universe. It continues to pulse and throws itself at me. I stand there and breathe it in, mixing its particles with mine, helping it to create the world. The whipping winds become more violent. I begin to speak to the energy of the universe, explaining that it cannot harm me just as I cannot harm it, because we are of each other. I continue on this tangent until we have finished creating the world and the winds have died down. I open my eyes and watch the new world fly by. Even with all of its imperfections it seems utterly perfect.
*I did not, for the record, take any sort of hallucinogen last night. This was totally random.
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Musing at Such Great Heights
I got drunk last night. I went out with some girls that I work with, said that I would not get trashed, and then promptly proceeded to. We shared our horror stories, and laughed over the stupid things we've pulled recently. We skinned our elbows on icky bar tables, and sang bad songs really loudly.
What is it about alcohol that makes us want to pour our hearts and souls out onto some beer soaked table? We talk about things that are normally kept quiet, we allow ourselves to examine thoughts that are normally kept buried. We finally are able to confess things to ourselves that we would never, ever dream of during "normal" hours. And then in the morning we hate ourselves for thinking, feeling, saying the things that we did. Why not just own up to being a human, with all the thoughts, desires, drama and pain that comes with it? Why does it seem to take the influence of some substance or other to make us fully human, even as it is making us slightly less so?
Maybe when I'm thinking straight I'll have all the answers. Stay tuned. I may decide to share them.
What is it about alcohol that makes us want to pour our hearts and souls out onto some beer soaked table? We talk about things that are normally kept quiet, we allow ourselves to examine thoughts that are normally kept buried. We finally are able to confess things to ourselves that we would never, ever dream of during "normal" hours. And then in the morning we hate ourselves for thinking, feeling, saying the things that we did. Why not just own up to being a human, with all the thoughts, desires, drama and pain that comes with it? Why does it seem to take the influence of some substance or other to make us fully human, even as it is making us slightly less so?
Maybe when I'm thinking straight I'll have all the answers. Stay tuned. I may decide to share them.
Sunday, August 3, 2008
ART
I love making art. In theory. In reality it makes me angry. I spend a lot of time thinking about the things I want to sculpt/draw/paint/knit/sew. I plan, make patterns, gather materials...and then I sit down to actually work on the piece. That's when it all goes to hell. I spend the rest of the time in a frusturated funk, yelling at my work and throwing objects that offend me. I'm angry at the work for presenting problems; at myself for thinking I can make art; at the fact that I would be even angrier if I wasn't creating at that moment.
But that's all just part of the way I make art. When I really think about it I realize that I can't be calm while I'm making art, seeing as it is frustration that drives me to be creative in the first place. There is a quote from The Fountainhead that sums everything up for me. It is part of a scene where Howard Roark is asked when he decided to be an architect. He says, "...when I was ten years old...I didn't know it then but it's because I never believed in God...I don't like the shape of things on this earth so I want to change them." (Forgive me if that isn't totally correct. I'm quoting from memory here.) I don't like the shapes of things I see around me. So I change them. Most of my work now involves the two most beautiful forms I see around me: the human figure and trees. By selectivly merging these figures I can create the things I want to see in my world. I like when people see me working and ask to look at my sketches. When I hand them over the reaction I enjoy the most is the fearful one. "If you can't understand something than it's best to be afraid," (Bright Eyes). I've had parents scoop up their children and rush off, afraid that the child will be traumatized by the sight of a human rooted to the earth. I hope to never become famous, because if I do my work will cease to become controversial (for the most part), and that is part of what I enjoy about the way I wish to recreate my world.
hraphael.deviantart.com
But that's all just part of the way I make art. When I really think about it I realize that I can't be calm while I'm making art, seeing as it is frustration that drives me to be creative in the first place. There is a quote from The Fountainhead that sums everything up for me. It is part of a scene where Howard Roark is asked when he decided to be an architect. He says, "...when I was ten years old...I didn't know it then but it's because I never believed in God...I don't like the shape of things on this earth so I want to change them." (Forgive me if that isn't totally correct. I'm quoting from memory here.) I don't like the shapes of things I see around me. So I change them. Most of my work now involves the two most beautiful forms I see around me: the human figure and trees. By selectivly merging these figures I can create the things I want to see in my world. I like when people see me working and ask to look at my sketches. When I hand them over the reaction I enjoy the most is the fearful one. "If you can't understand something than it's best to be afraid," (Bright Eyes). I've had parents scoop up their children and rush off, afraid that the child will be traumatized by the sight of a human rooted to the earth. I hope to never become famous, because if I do my work will cease to become controversial (for the most part), and that is part of what I enjoy about the way I wish to recreate my world.
hraphael.deviantart.com
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