sabato, maggio 13, 2006

Cookies

Yesterday I made "work-grade' reefer cookies in a bid to find the right blend that will let me smile my way through the wicked 7.5 hours. Half my mind was on the inevitable day (which I estimate to be five years away in Canada, but I'm an optimist) when it's legalized and I can sit around baking cookies for a living. Imagine.

Oh hell, I got no business plan, I just want to combine my twin loves of reefer and cookies RIGHT NOW. Anyways, the molasses is getting a little too pervasive in the recipes. That having been said, last night's batch left me smiling - maybe a mite too tight for work - and with that desperately creative "oh my god I have soooo much to tell the world and I have to write it down before I forget it" rush one gets for the first couple of years one smokes reefer - like Paul McCartney scribbling down "everything is a circle" or something and giving it to that cabbie - ah, Cali, ask Mr. S what is was, my memory is shot.

venerdì, maggio 12, 2006

I'm not very special.

Yesterday two separate boyyyyyyyys- neither of them Figaro, he's too old for such shit (please?) at the ripe age of 32 - aired with me exactly the same manner of complaint I'd spent the evening before hashing out with my analyst. Synchronic? I'm doubting it - I think we're just going through a FRESH NEW BATCH OF GENERATIONAL ANGST. OH, JESUS PRESERVE US. At least we're not spotty this time. I'm going to write it down on the off chance there's anybody else of a similar generational angst reading. About me, evidently, wouldn't be apropos to write about the boys, though their angst was rather more interesting.

Having a horrible time imagining writing for an industry magazine for a living for much longer, let alone more than much longer. It doesn’t pay enough and it feels parasitically propagandist. Propaganda has its place, but if God swept everybody in this industry off the face of the Earth it might well be an immediate overall improvement in our race’s quality of life - so its place isn't here. Feeling non-parasitic was one of the good points of teaching and I think it’s a good third of the attraction I feel to analysis as a profession. Thing is, analyst school is expensive and I'd want to not work for the first two years of it, I really only want to work a three day week right now so I can write more, and I combine these factors with an equally lazy lover (and I don’t want him to change), a biological nudge to pass on my spectacular genes to things I can afford to cosset and put through university, and the twin but conflicting needs of wanting to see everything in the world but wanting a settled life with my loved ones around me.

My analyst told me to deal with my present feelings of relative uselessness, parasitism, and worrying that I'm letting my life be organized around another person by setting marker days - a day a realistic amount of time away - not a necessarily a deadline, but a do-things-day. It helps to have a day. To know, for example, when you're going to leave your propaganda-ass job. It also helps to have a plan C - most of us have plan A and B at best. Yesterday I spent some cookie-time thinking all the way up to plan E, which is Mongolia. Wow. Mongolia.

giovedì, maggio 11, 2006

Don't cry for me, Argentina

But hay fever has taken me and broken me. I’m home sick today, which means working on actual fun writing projects, but first. . . oatmeal reefer cookies!!!!!! Yaaaaaay!!! I was in the mood for something heavy and low-fat, so here’s what I came up with:

½ cup bourbon
2 tablespoons strong reefer butter
3 tablespoons maple syrup

Heated to liquid, no more, together, und dahn . . .

¾ cup oats
¼ milled flax seeds

mixed in along with enough flour to make it a slightly crumbly paste, und dahn quickly mixed in

1 beaten egg
1 tablespoon fresh chopped ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon

before the egg set in the warmish paste.

Then I rolled it into 7 cookie balls and roasted it at 350 degrees farenheit for 10 minutes.

The verdict - I don't know what I was thinking with the bourbon, even after they cool you can still inhale it off them, which makes them a tad formaldehyde-y. I reccommend adjusting the recipe to put 1/3 cup milk and some vanilla exract in instead, and have a shot of bourbon on the side to warm up your tummy. Otherwise the taste is good – for those who are sweeter of tooth I recommend a powdering of icing sugar. These cookies would taste good chocolate chipped, too, although in that case you’d have to dice up the ginger finer than I’m prepared to. They’d also be good with chopped bananas mixed into the batter. In terms of height, I’m sailing lightly and buzzing nice and warm through my hay fever after two, but that might be because I’m not at work.

***Update***

Three cookies, 2.5 hours in, and I am fucking giggly. Might not feel good as the flapjacks, but it's funnier. This, for example (despite the fact that I'm much more of a pig than most of the men I know - yes, I am, believe me) made me choke with laughter.

***End Update***

Time for pretty:

“Sometimes my works look very childish, or childlike, schizophrenic or stupid, you know. But that was the good thing for me. Because, for me, the material is the paint itself. The paint expresses itself. In the mass of paint, I find my imagination and go on to paint it.”

I love when painters talk in a way that isn’t up their bums. And I love Karel Appel, who died on the third. He was in an art movement called Cobra, how fucking cute is that? It was a sort of half-assed cool-assed acronym of Copenhagen . . . uhm . . . Brussels? . . . and Amsterdam - I think - that the people in it came from. You can see some of his paintings here, and here are some to pretty up this page:




mercoledì, maggio 10, 2006

The pimp and the gimp and the guy with the limp says babe, I'm on fire

Dear Hot Mathematician:

You, who leave the country Friday, called me and didn't leave a message. I know it was you because I 411ed the number from my call log and it's your parents. So there you are. It's good that you didn't leave a message because if you're jumpy enough to not leave a message you've probably thought dirty about me, and I'm not thinking dirty about you. I'm soooo not. Anyways, it's also good you didn't leave a message because I'm pissed off you didn't leave a message, which means even if I haven't thought dirty about you I'm still dirty inside.

Yours,

Mistress La Spliffe

Moving along . . . yesterday the National Post published a hilarious opinion peice about how Hollywood is demonizing the free market by releasing films like Syriana, Alien, and - uhm - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. No wonder this rag has to advertise itself as 'the newest national newspaper' in Canada - all the other superlatives that apply wouldn't look so appealing.

Films like Syriana, Alien and - uhm - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory are the free market at work, Hollywood's economics are hardly a shining example of commie financial selflessness, and maybe the reason capitalism works as well as it does in countries like mine is the ability to share critical points of view, giving Adam Smith's magical 'free hand' a little more information to work with. All of that is obvious, super obvious, uber obvious, but - have you noticed? The Western right wing is getting so fractured these days that nobody knows what a really right-wing populist stance is anymore. So the National Post digs up the bones of the Hollywood Commie card, Bill O'Reilly has to conduct polls on aspects of subtle, divisive problems like immigration and big business to know which way to rant to maintain the largest possible market share, and Liberal-baiters struggle to straddle both sides of the U.S. port security question.

I'm not gloating or anything - more complaining - Western left-wing media is equally divided, messy, and twirling in circles trying to find the most popular line, and I'm really tired of it. In my head, populism is for second-string politicians, not the press; I want the press to lead us, to suggest things to us, just possibly educate us, not regurgitate our own prejudices and spoon-feed them to us.

Pardon my bitchery, but I have to read several newspapers and magazines a day at work and they're almost all rubbish, which makes my day a little longer. On the bright side, reading the Economist has become like drinking a good G&T after five or six nasty aspartame-laced sodas. They have some sort of central premise about a universally informed, universally free market being a good thing, and whether or not one agrees one can at least appreciate the thrust of thier nice snarky broad reporting from there.

martedì, maggio 09, 2006

The most beautiful man in the world

Just now I’ve caught myself writing some very descriptive prose about romance which is so personal it doesn’t even interest me. Time for me to roll with it a little more; love is love and it’s fucking funny, basta. Funny. I blame the Victorians; before them we could laugh our asses off about love, I bet. I’m going to laugh at it now. But before I do, let me tell you about something nicer than the gap between morality, emotion, and my snatch; about something Lady reminded me of last night when we were explaining to each other why we needed to move to Brazil. About an old student of mine, from the first year in Paris. About Reinaldo de Souza, the most beautiful man in the world.

Reinaldo was angelic - the adjective is used advisedly. Not even the men in our mutual acquaintance could deny this, though they did laugh at the way the women’s mouths hit the floor when they realized what they were looking at. I can’t imagine how a man would feel if his girlf or wife left him for Reinaldo de Souza – horrible as anything, I suppose, but at least they would understand. Because let me put it like this – if a man ever dumps me for Monica Bellucci, I’ll understand. But Reinaldo de Souza made Monica Bellucci look like a perfume counter lady. Reinaldo de Souza was GOLD. Looking at him made you feel like your eyeballs were being gently massaged and fed Fazer milk chocolate. He made you feel the voice of a Farinelli or the violin of a Paganini had somehow been translated into flesh, into the form of this bewildering cabaret dancer.

What can I say about Reinaldo de Souza’s body, except that I remember every bit my eyes were lucky enough to be seared by in vivid detail. It was, I think, the prettiest flower in God’s garden. Except his face may have been even more beautiful; it was this perfect Brazilian cocktail of everything most lovely from every continent man has settled. I could have surfed the planes of that face for years, and even as one admired the blameless slopes under the gentle bloom of youth one knew that in 50 or 60 years that would still be a face only a psychopath could ever say no to. The whole thing was topped with darling dredlocks, quite fine, this touch of long scruffy cuteness on top of a divine corporeal package; a tacit message: “not only am I physically perfect, I’ll smoke reefer with you too!”

At this point I should have been drifting away into some fantastical, rather filthy dreamworld every time I saw him, but I couldn’t. I have never drifted into a filthy, fantastical dreamworld thinking of Reinaldo de Souza, because Reinaldo de Souza’s eyes, even in memory, bind one hard and taut to the moment. They were like – similes, where are you? Like two liquid pools of jade, like deep polished liquorice, like the warm hand of a saint, like the benediction of a loving God, like a little prayer, I’m down on my knees, you know you take me there . . . Okay. I know I sound a little silly. The thing is he really was that beautiful. It’s not as though his memory is idealized with emotion; I didn’t even have a crush on him, properly speaking. Having a crush requires greater self-consciousness than I could maintain in Reinaldo de Souza's presence – all I could do was bask mindlessly in the sheer summery beauty of his aspect.

The organization of the school where I was working meant the students were taught by multiple teachers in a month; I remember other teachers actually changed thier scheduals to give me thier classes with him because they couldn’t concentrate on the lessons when he was there, staring up with those indescribable eyes, a baffled little grin playing across that matchless face . . . I taught fine while he was there. I taught fine because the left and right globes of my brain would look up, see him standing there, and go their separate ways; my left brain would start spewing out the standard doggerel about the pretorate and my right brain would go gawwwwwww. He wasn’t a bad student though he usually showed up late and his attendance was notoriously bad – he did show up for every class we were scheduled to have together. I’m sure it’s because I was the only teacher in the school who could manage to string together coherent sentences while he stared anxiously up, a splendid little furrow in those splendid leonine brows as he struggled to understand . . . He was a complete beginner but he tried pretty hard, I think. God, when his darling, dear eyes would light up when he answered a question right – yeah, it was a problem to not just keel into those paradisiacal arms and curl up helplessly against him. But . . . yeah. . . I probably should have, in retrospect. Hindsight’s 20/20, yes? Anyways . . .

His French was also weak, I don’t think he’d been in Paris for too long. So I have no idea if Reinaldo de Souza was a nice man or not, because he was so fricking fucking frigging beautiful that you understood why the adjective shared a root word with ‘beatified’. He seemed really nice. He seemed like the sort of God-sent flawless man any woman in the world would marry and stay with for 60 years in a heartbeat. One felt this was the doting and rock-like man you wanted crying at your side as you lay on your deathbed, surrounded by the loving faces of the ten or eleven children you’d made together, and surrounded again by legions of perfect, biologically unstoppable grandchildren and great grandchildren. Oh Reinaldo . . . he was . . . just . . . Reinaldo.

Gentle readers, as you go through your day and annoyances rear their ugly heads, call up a memory of some event, person or thing of a beauty that can transcend any banality. For some, it’s the sun setting over Venice; for others, music that lifts them beyond themselves; for me, it’s Reinaldo de Souza’s smile. Oh Reinaldo de Souza. It’s been almost as long as I’ve loved men that I’ve realized Love isn’t blind so much as She has a sense of humour that likes to throw you for a loop sometimes, and that conventional beauty isn’t even a quarter of real attraction. And I’ve loved other men far, far more with my head, heart, and snatch - but you, Reinaldo; I loved you right from my ovaie.

lunedì, maggio 08, 2006

I'm afraid of Virginia Woolf

Dear Couples:

I've been told that bickering is an inevitable symptom of an established, comfortable relationship; just one of those degenerations that come with time like a flabby midriff or nostalgia for pop music that was already shitty the first time around. And that's fine. Maybe if I had bickered with my men more, our communication would have been better and the relationships wouldn't have ended in the somehow anticlimactic freakshows they did. So good. Good for you for communicating. That's well done.

Sadly, when you bicker in front of me, and I am a captive audience who can't get away from your established, comfortable communication, I'm not thinking what a healthy relationship you have, I'm thinking of what a massive dick you sound. I'm thinking, "My god, how can he/she be such a bitch that he/she is willing to belittle his/her lover in public like this?" Or "holy FUCK, is he/she still talking about THAT? How is it possible to be that fucking petty?" Or "sweet Jesus, is he/she trying to make him/her angry and jealous on purpose? What the hell?"

What I'm trying to say is that when you bicker publicly, you're turning your absolute worst face to the world; your arrogant, insecure, vicious, angry, nasty face. Now, I can see that perhaps you'd want to avoid hypocrisy, and think perhaps that if you bicker privately it's only reasonable to bicker publicly as well. So good. Good for you for avoiding hypocrisy. That's well done. But as you bicker in front of me, I'd like you to bear three things in mind:

1. I'm finding out uncomfortable things about your personality that I'm not going to forget as soon as you stop bickering.

2. I'm blow-my-own-head-off bored and wishing to Jeebus there was someone, anyone else in the captive situation to talk to. Anyone. I'd fucking take Bill O'Fucking Reilly.

3. And finally, just - fucking - once a week or something, get a little outside of yourself while you bicker and ask yourself if these are things you'd say or ways you'd act towards your worst fucking enemy. I don't know if that would stop you from bickering but it might help you appreciate your lover a little more.

Yours,

Mistress La Spliffe

domenica, maggio 07, 2006

You went to school to learn what you never never knew before

I've realized my last text post could appear slighting to mathematicians, which wasn't what I wanted to be. Almost any group suffers in comparison to a dorm full of Italian sophomore engineering boys when you're Mistress La Spliffe. Mathematicians are just great. They're fascinating bastards who absorb and regurgitate information in a way I really appreciate. The males stare at my tits as helplessly as 13 year olds . . . but then, so do dorms full of Italian sophomore engineering boys.

I met one lovely mathematician who I certainly would have tried to pants if pantsing non-Figaros was my current idiom. I could have listened to his little stories about stealing fruit in Berkeley and cocaine-saturated logic rogues for hours, and the distribution of the hair on the back of his arms was eerily hypnotic - that kind of hot. He could also make me understand things about math, which is good because I can't count to seven ordinarily. Anyways, I'm having dinner with him later this week so if anyone is still interested in scoring a mathematician I'll try to shorten the degrees of seperation.

Not much else to tell you. I wanted to stay longer in Montréal, hadn't been back there - that I remember, anyways - since the Swiss left, which SO isn't fair to Montréal, especially when I consider how much better I liked Paris sans his company. The city is cute in its Olde Worlde Ghettoe sort of way, and people are better looking there. The food was great, the wedding was gorgeous, and seeing my high school clique again, mostly in a good space, was lovely. Now I must fix that problem I've been having with not being stoned. Ciao!