whirled world o' words

The other month while reviewing my entropic collection of foreign stamps (saved for collages, I'll have you know), I found myself thinking about the word philatelist. And resolved to someday write a poem or short story entitiled The Fellating Philatelist. Or The Philistine Philatelist. No, perhaps I'll call it Phil Come Philately.

Anyway, there you have a glimpse of what my mind does while parked in idle. So when I read this entry by one of my recently-found and delightful blogging-pals, Menchuvian Candidate, I squealed in delight (a metaphoric squeal...I am a grown woman, after all) at the following link:

The Museum of [Artificial & Natural] Ephemerata

Because among other things, I am a fan of museums traditional and bizarre. Case in point, the National Museum of Funeral History here in Houston. I can't even tell you how delighted that strange showcase makes me.

Another reason is that this off-beat museum is in Austin! A mere 2-3 hours aways. I WILL make my way there.

But the initial appeal was much more egocentric. It goes so well with my blog handle (10.4, good cyberbuddy). Yes. Much of what I write could be called epiphenita ephemerata.

[ephemeral is defined as
1. lasting a very short time; short-lived; transitory: the ephemeral joys of childhood.
2. lasting but one day: an ephemeral flower.]

More epiphenita ephemerata (yes!) coming your way.

P.S. Thanks also, MC, for the link to this Sarah Silverman schtick.

backlog 31

Bipolar chaos
On my desktop I have three folders. [The neatness of my computer's desktop is in stark contrast to the room in which it resides. I hate having icons splattered all over my virtual workspace but sitting in a room piled high with office and project detritus (you were right, my daughter! It's pronounced di-TRY-tuss) doesn't seem to irritate me enough into organizational fits.]

• stuff to do: pretty self-explanatory, my to-do lists, worry lists, project lists. I say organize your anxiety, people. Put it in labeled folder. You won't be less neurotic but you'll be a compartmentalized neurotic.
• shit that won't delete: bit more of a mystery. Swear to god some of those files have been there for five years and I have done everything I could think of to dump them but they cling to the hard drive like a lifeline. I've stopped giving a shit. They can stay as long as they're quiet and remain in their folders.
• blag: all the Athena stuff–ideas springing full grown from my cranium–that my day-to-day life prevents me from sitting down and spewing at sharing with you, my dear cadre of readers.

From the blag bag, then
About a year ago, I got some annual health inspection physical blood work back from my doctor. For a big girl, I have been relatively free from the dire consequences of my largess predicted by all the fat-haters masquerading as we're-only-thinking-about-your-health advisors. This time, for the first time, my cholesterol was high and coincided with an uncharacteristic spike in my blood pressure.

Why, oh, why?
I knew exactly why this had happened: I stopped cooking. My kids were out of the house and my inner child screamed "Fuck it, I'm no domestic slave. I quit. Let them/us eat [box] cake. Or mac & cheese or order Chinese or go get some burgers." This unfortunate liberation dovetailed with an exquisitely painful bout of plantar fasciitis and a tilted patella that felt more like a tilt-a-wheel kneecap that was threatening secession. So processed foods joined immobility on their crusade to clog up the works.

Screwged
Anyway. Almost two years of this neglect and the blood-lipids fairy went all Carol Kane on me, smacking me hard with the cholesterol toaster oven.
My doctor, bless her pharmaceutical-loving heart, wanted to start me on medication to lower the ugly number of 257. I wasn't having any of it. I was already sick of taking too many pills (that, for another post) and pretty damn certain that this was nothing less than self-induced stupidity. (Let me make it clear that I enjoyed every freakin' moment of my junk sabbatical. Just didn't want to die from it.)

Onward Cursing Soldeirs
So I dusted off the kitchen utensils and started meal-planning again. Not dieting, for the love of all that is holy.

A note about dieting.
I began my body hate-fest early, at the ripe old age of 10. Many people today are not disturbed by this, especially now as we witness the rise in childhood obesity. As if all 10-year olds should be so concerned about their bodies that dieting books are lined up alongside Roald Dahl, Charlotte's Web and Harry Potter on their brightly painted shelves.

And I say that is bullshit. Absolute bullshit.

A ten-year old should be more concerned about streamers on her bike handles than munching celery sticks to erase love handles. A ten-year old should be outside playing or making a pillow fort or giggling with her friends. We feed our children shit and park them in front of the TV or CRT. Of course we have an obesity problem. Self-hate will not solve this problem.

And let me say again (and I'm not done with this) that the motivation for "good health" is not the fire under the ample ass that fuels the diet cult in America. It is the worship of a narrow-hipped, colt-like-leggy, über-skinny prepubescent ideal. This, combined with the predictable tendency of most adult women to be curvy (dare I say fecund? dare! dare!) in form, leads us to hate our body shapes for that which they are so beautifully designed.

This self-hatred, coupled with lousy, lazy food choices and a sedentary workforce, is murder. And an evil, lucrative business.

Grrr.

ANYWAY, last May we returned to healthy eating.

I didn't walk until I was 15-months old and other thoughts on a lifetime love affair with staying put
In June, I began a clandestine movement. What I mean is: an effort to leave the cube and try locomotion, that I kept to myself.

At some point, I realized that I was giving Corporate America my daily eight hours plus an extra hour working through lunch. Corporate America does not love me unconditionally. Corporate America does not even love me conditionally. My family, on the other hand does. Barbara, specifically, would love to have me around for a healthy lifespan.

Visualizing clear arteries
Thinking creatively, methought, should help solve this problem. But, I remained stymied and unmoved. If I couldn't do it for myself, like a smart feminist, then, goddammit, I could do it to avoid leaving my loving family prematurely. Barbara was my inspiration. You know, imagining her dealing with all my stuff postmortem. Leaving 10 or 15 years too early. Not getting to grow old older and cranky crankier with the person I love, etc., etc.

The Convenience, Proximity and Simplicity Trifecta
I started walking. Houston has a downtown tunnel system. Full of restaurants and mediocre card shops and the like. It's not pretty but you don't have to stop at stoplights. You are not subjected to the "how can it be this humid on the surface of the sun”weather. Also, the tunnel starts under my building, which means I don't have to do more than go down the stairs to start.

Mythically whiny
Over the course of 6 months, with no significant exterior change, I sometimes despaired. I am Sisyphus, pushing this cholesterol boulder up the slope with no hope of getting over the peak. I am Prometheus, serving up daily paté to an eagle without hopes of sating the ravenous raptor. I am Tantalus, reaching for water and fruits always receding from my grasp. I am Pathos, feeling like this almost 40-year battle is waa, waa, waa my unfair cross to bear. I HATE when I get like this.

Holding my breath
Finally, I go to the doctor for my annual physical. I've lost weight (an amount which, and I say this self-love, at my size is not earthshaking) and my doctor is all congratulatory. I stop her and say, my weight numbers can not be my focus, else I fail. Weight is too connected to self-hate, I rhyme. She nods and understands (but doesn't). I tell her my main focus is blood pressure numbers and cholesterol numbers. My pressure is fine. Normal. My blood is drawn for tests and I wait. A week later the nurse calls with my results.

The payoff
226. Two hundred, twenty-six. That would be a 31-point drop in cholesterol.
THIRTY-ONE motherfucking points, people.
I am thrilled. Vindicated. Talking-to-strangers-exhuberant. I know the next 26+ plus will be slower but this is one healthy shot in the arm.

And the boulder rolls over the first peak, the gluttonous eagle explodes and Tantalus crams a fistful of grapes in his mouth.

...and emmett, blinko, ronald & bobo make fifteen fourteen*

In homage to Catholic and Mormon reproductive systems worldwide.
(via Dave from Dulamae's fickr page)

Just when I think Dave has posted one too many drunken, flip-off photos of me and I would like to slather superglue all over his mouse, he sends this beauty. Instant forgiveness and state of grace, epiphenita-style (which is to say, peeing your pants while laughing your way to hell). Thank you, Dave. I can't seem to wear the humor out of this one.

*Shit. I miscounted the spawn menagerie. Got lost in a sea of navy blazers, blue prairie print dresses and matching hair forms. (Epiphenita, you mean they don't have fifteen kids? Only fourteen? What a bunch of procreating failures.) Is the urge to toss a bucket of blood vat of cherry jello on this righteous pile of homogeneity SO wrong? I mean, just to bring some warm tones into the photo? I think not.

tidbits & half-wits

More Adventures on Metro
On last week's train ride, I am sitting across the aisle from a young man, probably in his teens. He's wearing a new hoodie that has a cream colored background with a pattern that looks like, on first glance, orange tickets or paper money. As he gets up to leave the train, I see that rectangles are food stamps. A food stamps hoodie. That's just badass.

Domestic Irritation
I spent last weekend sewing a sun dress, bloomers & matching hat for a baby shower we attended yesterday. Yes. I know. Tough, queer feminist making dainty stitches. Was tempted to hide my crafts light under a gigantic hand-woven bushel but brought the outfit to work to show a few trusted friends. [Underscoring the point that it's not just lavender closet doors I'm committed to ripping off the hinges.] I really enjoy the technical process of sewing. I'm a perfectionist and finish every damn seam. My daughter warned me against domestic hubris by innocently asking me "Who was Arachne again, Mom?" Athena be damned, I did a fab job.

Anyway, in the process of my quiet workplace coming out, an uninvited, socially-inept coworker minced over to examine the outfit and blurted out, "It took you all weekend to make that?" Speechless. I was momentarily speechless. "I can't believe you said that..." was all I managed to eke out. While my Inner Rosie Perez was planting her flashy Latina hand on her sassy Latina hip shouting, "Oh, NO, you DI-ent!"

Funeral, Wedding and Baby Shower
Those were our event options yesterday. Circle of Life, Circle of Life. Kind of wish we could have been invited to a confirmation or bris to round out the rites checklist. Didn't make the funeral because, as much as I really like the guy whose father passed away, we weren't close enough for me to attend this extremely sad service. The wedding was fine. I mean for being in a church and all. The preacher guy was likable. He obviously knew and liked the young bride and groom. My biggest beef with this and many church weddings was the insinuation that marriages must be Christian in order to succeed.

The baby shower for which the aforementioned sun dress was hand-cobbled together was lovely. Happy and promising. I look forward to watching the transition of two wonderful men with busy work/volunteer/social calendars to two wonderful dads with all that and playdates.

The Return of Prodigious Daughter
Our youngest will be coming home to live for the first time in five years...I think that is how long it's been since she lived at home. She'll be spending about three months regrouping here in Houston before returning to Brooklyn for the next leg of her journey...wherever that finally takes her. While there is a bit of trepidation about living with a grown child (and surely for her: living with her mothers as an adult) the overwhelming emotion is elation. For a few months our lives overlap and I get to spend some time with this incredible person.

Aside: No pressure on you, son. Really, just because your return would make your mothers' happiness [sniff] complete...

A Shining Moment for Cultural Diversity

Black lady: Listen, you camel jockey, I don't care what you say, you was wrong to do that!
Middle Eastern man: Oh, shut up, you stupid nigga! I'm tired of hearing your shit! Go fuck yourself!
Black woman passerby: Oh my god, who the hell are you to be talking to my beautiful black sister like that?! You ain't got no right to talk to anybody black like that!
Black lady: Bitch, who the shit are you? Don't be talkin' to my husband like that!

--W 4th St station

via oiny

I'll have to leave you with that, dear readers.

are we on the same page?

oxymoron: urging people to think outside of the box by using a hackneyed cliché.

political polyamory

Some of you know about my ambivalence towards monogamy. Don't think it's natural but I do admit that, at times, it's damn practical. Here is my torch song for the upcoming Texas Primary:

There are times when a woman has to say what's on her mind
Even though she knows how much it's gonna hurt
Before I say another word let me tell you I love you
Let me hold you close and say these words as gently as I can

There's been another man that I've needed and I've loved
But that doesn't mean I love you less
And he knows you can't possess me and he knows he never will
There's just this empty place inside of me that only he can fill

Torn between two lovers, feelin' like a fool
Lovin' both of you is breakin' all the rules
Torn between two lovers, feelin' like a fool
Lovin' you both is breakin' all the rules

Words and Music by Peter Yarrow (of Peter, Paul , and Mary) and Phil Jarrel

Don't you love the bisexual subtext in all that?

And all of you Hillary Haters can bite me. Even though, Q, that HC video response to Barack's "Yes I Can" video was, indeed, more evidence that god IS dead.

my used gift to you

Some overheardinnewyork.com snarkery for your nothing-about-valentine's-day pleasure:

Conductor: No train Hokey Pokey! Either you're in or you're out!

--7 train, Grand Central

Mom to seven-year-old crossing street: Be careful, dear. You don't want to get run over or we can't have sushi.

--78th & Amsterdam

Father to son running towards intersection: Remember! A foot in the street means a foot in your ass!

--57th & 4th, Bay Ridge, Brooklyn

Mother to small daughter outside St. Patrick's: Stop crying -- I know it looks more like a haunted house than a church.

--St. Patrick's Cathedral, 5th Ave

Ahh, isn't that better than finding change on the streets?

sex toys for vd

It's official! The Texas ban on selling sex toys has been, well, banned. (This happy news via Scout Finch at dailykos.com) That's right kids, just in time for Valentine's Day, this silly wooden-dildo-up-their-asses law has been overturned.

One more quick note: You know how folks get all sputtery-umtarded when a nursing mother uses her breast in the evolutionary manner for which it's been so beautifully designed? In public? But they have no problem watching toddlers walk around with a bottle or pacifier happily clenched in their drooly little mouths, right?

bottle nipple/pacifier:breast = dildo:penis.

Does anyone else find this arbitrary sexualization moronic?

Would love to go on but I've got to run out and buy some vibrating dental dammed vinyl concocktion (I kill myself) before the little woman gets home...

i unheart romance

Some people get all dreamy-eyed and misty over shit like this and call it romantic:

[from today's postsecret.com]

• I call it clinging to an illusion you've created that bears no relationship to reality and most likely helped trash both your marriages.
• I call it obnoxious fantasizing about someone you never knew but imagine you did. Which is creepy.
  
• I call it puling and pining for the perfect woman/man/relationship that makes the everyday joys and difficulties of really working together with someone the boat you missed.
• I call it the concocted fantasy of the disconnected and sucking at the teat of regret that keeps you from growing up.
• I call it pathetic.

Guess I'm a shitty romantic.

social democrats/fiscal conservatives take note

I've heard people talk about being a Democrat on social issues but more Republican on fiscal policy. I've even wondered how much I agree with some Democratic economic approaches. But you'd have to be lobotomized not to notice that the Republicans have been serving us a big ol' economic shit sandwich* for the past 7 years.

It's hard even to remember -- now that the price of a barrel of crude oil has hit the $100 mark and still hovers around $91 -- that, in the week after September 11, 2001, oil was still under $20 a barrel.
(from tomdispatch.com via 2millionthweblog)

In 1998, when the bubble was taking shape, crude oil cost about $11 a barrel and the United States produced half of the petroleum it consumed; but that was the last year in which the fundamentals were so positive. American reliance on imported petroleum crossed the 50% threshold that very year and has been rising ever since, while the cost of imported oil hit the $100 per barrel mark this January 2 for the first time, an all-time record...
(Michael Klare via tomdispatch.com)

In just seven years crude oil prices have quintupled. But your salary? Not so much. Have you checked out the profits of W's O&G friends lately?

*godbless you jk.

someone needs to undo the baby

Sometimes you see something and it strikes you as funny but you wonder if your need for humor is clouding your objectivity. So you go back later and damn, if it doesn't still make you laugh:

crappy over processed slogan

So I'm taking metro light rail to the dentist the other day, inwardly amused at my public transportation smuggery. You know, riding with the regular folk and all, and doing a smidgen (which is half a pinch or 1/32 tsp, for anyone who gives a shit) to reduce auto emissions. Not to mention that riding a train in an urban area on a rainy day is chock full of anecdote potential. And this one didn't disappoint.

Seated across from me is a large...person. A Pat on first and second glance, wearing a C.O.P.S. baseball cap. Normally, anyone sporting marketing fodder from one of those craptacular FOX shows wouldn't rate a second look but Pat's cap seems, I don't know, out of place on his/her androgynoggin. So I look a little closer and lo and behold, Pat's not humming "Bad boys, bad boys" after all.

This C.O.P.S. stands for Christians Obediently Preaching Salvation. How's that for a forced acronym? (I almost pulled an ocular muscle avoiding eye contact; no point bringing up the dead end, albeit joyful, subject of my personal damnation.) And yet, the marriage of the seemingly divergent ideas of Preaching and Policing is as natural in our twisted reality as a Crucifix on a Klansman. They should create a spin-off where clergy tackle criminals and force them to declare Jesus Christ as their personal savior on national television. The show will look EXACTLY the same except they'll read them a sermon instead of their rights. Hey, I'm copyrighting this idea, you scumbags at FOX, and I've got at least 8 witnesses here.

dentists, deductible, hate

Four hours in the chair. Dentist drilled out molar 19 as if trailblazing new route to China. Head hurts. Face hurts. Wallet is screaming for morphine.

Honda overheated. Must have a leak. Can't locate it. Just the thing to calm me down.

Am having a two-day hate fest. Stealth period? Or is it just that people are more irritating today than they were last week? Implausible as it seems I'm picking option b.

On the other hand, tough virago that I am, I've found myself on that damp, brittle edge of tears too many times this week to not take a hard look at option a. Fuck. It makes no difference the cause. Get out of my goddamn way, I'm going to bed.

floorplans and fiction

There are few things as comforting as a pile of good books waiting for me. Better than a stocked pantry.

I've been reading a copy of McSweeney's that my daughter gave me. Just finished Have You Ever Been to Portland, Maine? by Mary Gallagher. It's a story told in floorplans. Floorplans. Jesus, it's delightful. Reminds me that everything hasn't been done and that there are fresh ways of expressing yourself if you'd just stop whining that everything has been done. Of course, by you I mean me.

back with a vengeance

It's either all or nothing with me. That's just the way I roll, my peeps. [Don't I sound like a middle-aged beige woman trying out her hipster-speak? I kill myself.]

A picture of my happy place* for the day:

godorsomebodybless marriedtothesea.com

Dear Eight Pound, Six Ounce, Newborn Baby Jesus that is too goddamned funny.

Okay, I've met my New Year's Blasphemy Quota and I'm really ready for 2008 now.

*Hey! I saw some of you screw-up your faces in fear and (don't deny it, shitheads) disgust. Did you actually think I was going to flash a pic of MY "happy place"? Pearls before swine. I'd never do that...unless, of course, I had this on my [oops. not work safe-->] happy face place. That's right. Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase vagina dentata. I never tire of this image. Never. It's a classic.

v, as in viscerate

Contest
For those of you who are not Violent Acres...um, fans seems like the wrong word...part of the VA coven is dark but too gendered and icky wicca. Perhaps: Members of the Violent Acres Legion of the Damned. That has a nice ring to it. Anyhow, if you don't think V is funny and offensive and completely wrong and totally right, then just skip this post.

VA has an ongoing catchphrase contest.* Here are two entries for my first go 'round. Shit. I used my first submission as the title of this post.

Violent Acres
V, as in Viscerate.

That only leaves me with this one:

Violent Acres
Celebrating the burr up her ass.

Wait. Another inspiration:

Violent Acres
Not to be confused with Violin Takers.

Okay, that's lame. No matter how much I enjoyed it. One more for the road and it's not original enough, so don't use it or those geniuses from marriedtothesea will block me from ever reading their site again:

Violent Acres
She'll fuck up your bowl of gruel, son.

Last VA comment today
A few posts ago, V toyed with her Mormon coworker. Led him to believe there was a hope of conversion (Queers get toasters for converts...I bet Mormons get crockpots...and Pampers) and then dashed his earnest hopes by saying that she had a revelation that she would be the next Mormon Prophet. Having survived Mormonism myself, I had a big laugh over that one. However, the funniest follow-up to her patriarchal blasphemy was that google ads seems to have latched on to the keyword "mormon" and her site is chock full of LDS-inspired ads. Sort of like these: mormonbridesforsale.com, funkymormonunderwear.com, meetamormonandmakebabies.com

That is perfect cybermarketing irony.

*I'm above-average tech savvy but there are cosmic holes in my cybershit. I'm supposed to link back to Violent Acres (I keep typing Virulent Acres for some strange reason) and I hope this link will suffice.

way to prate in '08

The Rude Pundit ran a little impromptu (?) haiku contest summing up 2007. I am tickled to have had two of my bastardized japanese poetry concoctions chosen. Nay, heading the list. Rude Pundit, I am honored.

If you're linkaphobic, here they are:

the year of living less freely
didja see those guys
gang-bang the constitution?
motherfuckers all.

election year sports
we brown folk and queers-
neocons' fav boogeymen-
sick of being used.

[I can't wait for the limerick contest.]

And cheers to more happy word abuse:

Remember the Washington Post's sometime word competition (add/change a letter in an established word and make a new one)? Well, here's an overheard in new york beauty:

JAP #1: Is he a Juddhist?
JAP #2: A what?
JAP #1: You know, a Jew Buddhist.
JAP #2: Oh, yeah, totally.

--7 train

and a golden one from my son about his internet-unsavvy friends:

They're so nonline.
[Used without permission. Sorry son, it was just too good and I couldn't wait. I'll will you the gigantic frying pan. Don't tell your sister.]

Happy 2008 people. Resist the urge this year to constantly rhyme '08 with some lame ass saying like It's Not Too Late in Aught Two Double-Oh Eight. Shit.

pfft

Usually it's a bad idea to b.u.i. (blog under the influence). Like drunk dialing there's danger of verbal droolage. HOWEVER, it's a rare and glorious opportunity to test your spelling skills and spew skewed truth. Happy Holidays, people. I'm having a great time. I made some fucking awesome food. And pies. Strawberry-raspberry LATTICED pie. A thing of fussy beauty.

Really. I'm having an exceptional holiday. A few days off. There were enormous cast-iron cooking implements under the tree for me. They fill me with the joy of oversized sturdiness. I am basking in the renewed wonder of having truly kick-ass offspring. I am stupid happy to be spending a few days off with Barbara. While I don't love everyone, I'm dangerously close to that. Which is why I'm staying home tonight. Lest I become to publicly effusive. There's nothing worse than being hungover and hating everything and remembering how you were drunk and loving everything the night before. Too much contrast. It gives you a headache.

Feliz Navidad mortals. Happy mythical infant deity celebration. I must go lie down now. Or is it lay down? I can never remember.

P.S. Unlike the string of fuckups that were my Thanksgiving experience, the past four or five days of intensive cooking produced almost universally positive results. Dishes behaved like they should have and came out out of the oven like Rockettes--kicking in perfect unison. Desserts bloomed in flaky, creamy beauty. The eggplant parmigiana was a personal best. But I am fucking exhausted and refuse to cook for at least a week.

P.P.S. So much more to tell you but, alas, the alcohol has breached my brain's sleep center, forced its way in and is in the midst of a full out mutiny. I am folding like a deck of cards...

really pathetic stuff

Did you know there was a World Rock-Paper-Scissors Society? With competitions? In which people devise strategies to win?

What could be more lame than this? Let's see. Button-Sewing Olympics? A Light-Bulb-Changing Race? The Keyboard-Cleaning Relay?

I'm concerned. Are any of you out there in RPS training? Are you flexing your digits right now and peering into your opponent's eyes for hints of paper?

but the humble pie tastes perfect

I pull out all the stops for the holidays. It's a cooking marathon and I'd like to think that I regularly cross the finish line with the upper ten percent of contestants. Perhaps hubris was my undoing.

Or maybe it's just because sometimes things go wrong. And take a bunch of other things with them.

Over the past five days I have planned, shopped and scheduled. I have mise en placed with the best of them. This meal seemed destined for the record book. But no. And I'm not going to give that pansy-assed little whimper, "this has never happened before!" Of course it has. But not with cooking impotence this...potent. And never while sober. Whining is a slappable offense but one's limp culinary ego demands at least a bit of over-analyzing:

• equipment issues - 1. When it calls for a full-sized food processor, the junior size won't do. My first double pie crust batch was processed into cookie dough crammed as it was into that small container. 2. When a stand-alone mixer is the tool specified, you might as well cede the fight. Kneading the dinner roll dough by hand was like coaxing cooked oatmeal into a diorama of Native Americans flipping off a party of Pilgrims.
• ingredient issues - Weak yeast looks remarkably like virile yeast from the package; and no, it didn't need to be "proofed" because it was "instant" yeast, just like Cooks Illustrated requested. And I checked the date–it was fine. Hockey pucks instead of dinner rolls. Crimes against bread are worthy of kitchen exile. And the butter was so ready! What am I going to tell the butter? Tears swimming in its little yellow eyes...
• recipe problems - My first America's Test Kitchen disappointment: you can NOT pre-bake a pie shell without pie weights! Try it like they suggest and you'll end up with crust sliding down the pie pan sides into an unappetizing pancake-y dough puddle. Swimming in melted butter (a quality incredibly appealing in most dishes and random encounters but never in pastry).
• user error - I took my eye off the prize for five minutes and my "Pie Off" entry* got singed! It was the perfect double-crust apple pie. Crust rolled out beautifully (unlike the other one**) Tart and sweet apples coupling in a buttery, spiced, lemon-zested mound. Top crust evenly and ornamentally pierced, adorned with a wee cunning apple appliqué all egg-white-shiny and sugar-sprinkled. Edges charmingly well-fluted. Ten inches in diameter and practically hemorrhaging fruit goodness–it was magnificent. Didn't hear the timer. Didn't hear the fucking timer. Edges scorched. Appley-qué singed. I tripped over my feet with the finish line in sight. I brought my A Game and choked, people. CHOKED.

It's not that there weren't promising moments of ecstasy. The rice pudding is positively fuckable. The bread stuffing is outstanding and the mashed potatoes are so creamy rich it looks like you're wearing lip gloss when you're done eating them. The pumpkin pie holds great promise (I snort haughtily at your pumpkin pie derision, Mr. Damon). But mind-blowing, screaming culinary orgasm it ain't. Okay, so the finish line isn't the only thing, pleasure should be measured along the way...however, a meal like this should leave one's taste buds hankering for a cigarette. A whole pack even. Sigh.

I have high hopes for the second turkey. Yes, we got two. Brined and buttered as the first one was, I completely killed it. Completely. Twenty years of cooking good-to-great turkeys and I decimated my first turkey this year. This time I'll pay closer attention. It's 425°F for the first hour and 375°F for the second. Not the other way around, you dyslexic, flour-dusted moron.

Still, in spite of setbacks, I've managed to have fun. Real laughing fun. A tribute, without question, to Barbara's twenty-one years of influence. She's the real deal. Optimistic in the face of all things burnt and runny. Everything will taste great. The ingredients say so. And we'll be with friends and that's the reason Thanksgiving is a great holiday. There will be eating and drinking and making merry.

*My friend Eric is having a Pie Off. First ever. And I talked all sorts of sports-laced smack about taking down his soy-boy, weak-assed apple pie with my behemoth crusher pie. Stuff this in your pie-hole, and so on and on. Folks, I'll be going down in flames with an entry that looks like it has third-degree burns. Not fatal, mind you. Just disfigured. Stop staring.

**The "cookie dough" pie crust had to be patched together like modeling clay. Then tediously smoothed to lose the craggy look. Of course, the pie that came strutting like top model down the pastry runway was the one that I didn't give a shit about. Leftover ingredients thrown into a small rectangular (pie are rounded) pyrex dish. I brought no love to this pie. Pierced the word FUCK into its overworked top crust. And it is perfect.

Thanksgiving Postscript: So, of course, everything tasted great. The second turkey revived my poultry-maven reputation. Our guests didn't care that half the pecan pie crust had slipped down under the filling like an annoying old stretched-out sock works its way under the arch of your foot. The dinner rolls never rose anywhere near what the recipe indicated but in a what-the-fuck-do-I-have-to-lose kind of way, I threw them in the oven and the cold little lumps blossomed into completely edible rolls. Methinks 'twas a Thanksgiving miracle. Oh, and Mike? the pumpkin pie was ALL that. Company was great, food was quite good (in spite of aforementioned setbacks) and all and all I fell asleep with a smile on my face.