Found Scrawled on the Bathroom Wall

I wipe
my ass
on
the political dictatership
of this fucking country.
the political statements
in the fucking bathroom.

Gooble Gobble.

After watching the parade on television, and then some of the American Kennel Club--the toy poodle, Vicki, won Best in Show I later learned--Kip and I moseyed on up to Queens, amid the rain and the wind and the other New Yorkers carrying covered dishes balanced on their laps. Thanksgiving would be at John & Edith's house in Jackson Heights, in their apartment that I have made them promise to turn over to me should they ever leave.

There was no turkey, but even better, there was fried chicken. There was a truffle Mac-N-Cheese, collard greens, tomato pie, Edith's homemade cheese rolls, and a sweet potato casserole which sort of exploded in the oven--but which still tasted glorious. Then there was pumpkin pie, pecan pie and an apple bundt. We started with dark-n-stormies, which is rum and ginger beer, then moved on to wine and more wine and more wine. Pictures from the evening can be seen here, and the even drunker ones here. It's not a very good picture of Kip, for the record. He's much more adorable in person. And somehow three of us ended up in plaid.

We went around the table, everyone saying what they were thankful for. I wasn't able to fully articulate the subtlety of what I was (am) thankful for. I tried to talk about how this entire year has been an experiment for me--new work, new writing, new boyfriend--all of it in ways I've never had before. I said that I was thankful for all the shit that you have to go through to learn life lessons. Not thankful for the shit, but the knowledge of yourself that--if you're fortunate--you can come away with when you're given the opportunity to learn stuff like that. I don't think over dinner I made myself very clear. (Have I here?) I should have just said, "this food, my family, etc."

On Friday we saw the new Christopher Guest film, For Your Consideration. It was, and I'm being kind here, rather bad. Dead on the screen, even awkward. As if the actors weren't exactly sure what they were doing, or how they fit into the bigger picture, or even if what they were doing was funny. Everyone's confidence was missing. Jane Lynch got the biggest laughs, as the Mary Hart-esque evening entertainment show host with the bizarrely calculated body language.

My brother and his wife are pregnant again, due in May. My nephew, the amazing, inimitable, inestimable, unfathomable Pryce Houck, has--I learned today--just been upgraded to a "big boy bed." I talked to him for a bit on the phone Thursday. He didn't say much, but he was really listening. He's a good listener.

New for 2007!

Cedar Point recently announced their plans for the 2007 season, and it's all about Maverick, the world-renown park's 17th coaster. Debuting in May, Maverick will feature one of the steepest drops in coaster history--95 degrees--and a one-of-a-kind original element, the twisted horseshoe roll.

Designed by Intaride, LLC, the American division of the Swiss company Intamin AG, Maverick utilizes several of their signature elements, including tiered seating for better sight lines, the linear synchronous motor launching system, and a magnetic braking system. At 4,450 feet long, with more than eight airtime hills, tight low to the ground design and a second 70mph launch, Maverick will give riders about two and a half minutes of pure, unadulterated joy.

There are a selection of videos on their website, including an on-ride POV, which you can see here. You can also watch a series of interviews with park people and designers here.

For James

Having read Baldwin today for the first time,
I know how the Pilgrims must have felt--
or was it the Dutch, or the Spanish, or the Vikings--
storming up onto the edge of what had already existed
in the world long before your sudden,
and perhaps tardy, arrival.
That there could be so much beauty
hidden from you for so long.
With the Native Americans--the longtime fans of
James--staring at you from the forest edge, saying:
"Yeah, pretty fuckin' brilliant, huh?"

Which only multiplies the distance between Ahab
and myself. I can't understand how you can
live in the shadow of something so huge,
someone so great, and only to want to kill it.

Instead, I will devour each paragraph, digesting until
it becomes part of me, feeding me,
growing in my belly like lichen on the walls
of a tomb, which Baldwin cracked open so the sun could
light the insides.

It is the same thing if you look close enough.
The killing, the eating: transformation.
The kind of words which dissolve
a man like me into poetry.

Notes from the Syrup Monger

It's pancake season. Which means that my days at the Greenmarket are busier than ever. The weekend before Thanksgiving, which is this coming weekend, is one of the busiest of the year, and already people are walking up to the table and buying six or eight quarts at a time. "Do you have a box?" they ask. I always do.

It's actually the last maple syrup at the market before Thanksgiving -- Kip said we should put up a sign, like gas stations in the West. "No Syrup for 7 days" kind of thing. I'm thinking about it.

I have seen people pick up the half-pint bottles back in the summer, and actually decide not to buy it because of the humidity in August. They want the syrup, but the idea of a hot griddle in the morning makes them queasy. And people don't understand that syrup is not just for breakfast. It's for coffee, tea, yogurt, ice cream, roasted meats, roasted fish, cedar plank salmon, salad dressing, stir-fry, lemonade, etc. I do this spiel a lot.

People will tell you everything you need to know about them in about five seconds. Some people are chatty, some are grumpy, and some just don't want to talk. I'm pretty good at figuring out who's who really fast. The most ridiculous are the people who don't want to be happy. They hem and haw about the price, they want to taste the syrup--sometimes we have a bottle open, sometimes we don't, and if you give one taste, and other people see you, then you'll spend the next 10 minutes doing that. These people who don't want to be happy--they need a lot of attention. "How do I know if I'll like it?" they ask. "Is it really sweet?" If you are asking these questions, maybe you don't want syrup. Some people are so risk-adverse. And it's not like I'm asking them to BASE Jump off of the Chrysler Building.

I think if the Market has a Christmas party--it won't because we're all so freakin' wrecked after standing in the cold all day dealing with idiots--we should play charades and all the answers are certain customers. Since the regulars tend to make scheduled appearances at everyone's stand on whichever day. The Bent Lady. The Guy Who's Mom is in the Hospital. The Old Punk Lady. Law & Order Family.

I do love my regular customers, though. The nice ones. I know only bits and pieces about them. They'll toss something into the conversation every so often: "My son actually likes this candy," or "I used to live on the West side," things like that.

A Phone Call from the Ferry

"I want to figure out what my work is about,"
someone said to me today, calling from the
Staten Island Ferry.
"This is your problem," I tell her, meaning
the boat, which is the joke that any New Yorker
would have made.
I forget to tell her that
the work will tell you what it is about.

But
there are times when
the books I collect begin to
glare at me from the shelves.
They jam their fonty fingers accusingly
into my sides, and complain.

And I turn to them, shouting:
"What more do you want?" and
"You did this to me!"
This is when they are their quietest.

Eyes or ears or nose or palm of hand,
sometimes you don't taste the fuel
as you swallow it.
I say: keep the flame low,
and hide it from the wind.

Preparing for the Holidaze

I have begun work on this year's holiday card. It's sometimes a year-long process, actually. I have been known to create and write the whole thing back in July and then wait to assemble it the first week of December. It's exciting, this one. Although I'm finding some challenges in the construction. No hints. Except that it's text-heavy. Hooray!

Kip and I are already choosing a date for his annual Tree-Trimming party, which, he tells me, is always of historic proportions. I do a card, he does a tree. So we're claiming a Sunday like 5 weeks from now. You have to. Someone claimed another Saturday two week ago. It's a very busy time. Sometimes when November 1 hits, I just want to fast-forward to New Year's. A friend of mine once moved her Christmas party to the third week of January, just so people could attend.

No gifts this year, either. Only some homemade goodies, I think.

I put too much pressure on myself.

Another Smattering, Which is How Things Are Lately

--I keep trying to listen to the new Indigo Girls record, "Despite Our Differences," as a whole, but I'm always skipping the Emily songs to get to the Amy songs. Those of you out there who are Indigo fans will immediately understand what I'm talking about. You're either one or the other, it seems--Amy or Emily. And you appreciate how the IGs as a unit make the songs stronger. Well, sort of. I still think Amy's two solo records are better than anything they've recorded together since "Shaming of the Sun," or maybe even "Swamp Ophelia." The last two Amy Ray-penned songs on the new record are perhaps the most powerful she's written in the last five years: "Dirt Roads and Dead Ends," and "They Won't Have Me." I've heard her talk about her struggles with the South as an entity, as a myth, and, obviously, as a reality. After all, she still lives there, in the backwoods of Georgia. She's talked a lot about the disdain she has--maybe that's a strong word that she wouldn't use, I don't know--for liberals who've left the South. Because if we all leave, like I have, then there's no one left to make the kind of change it's going to take. She sings: "Who's going to do the planting, and who's going to pray for rain?"

--I tried to watch the Halloween Parade on television, looking for Andrea, who was leading the parade as a stilting angel, but I felt so dumb for not being in it that I had to turn it off. I've done it with various socio-political contingents, as well as joined the Bread & Puppet Brigade, and Laura and I went as crying mourners, with thirty other mourners, the year that Matthew Shepard was killed.

--It's getting cold at the market. It's like a game: see how long you can go without breaking out the hot pads, see how long you can keep your fingers working.

--The new novel is back on the tarmac, waiting for clearance from the tower. You can get things done there, however. I'm reworking my notes, which is so important, as Joan Didion has said, "the ability to make a note is the difference between writing and not writing." Or something like that....I don't feel like getting the book down off the shelf to look for the exact quote. It's from The Year of Magical Thinking, if you want to look yourself.

--I have a lovely boyfriend. We watched "Stick It" last night, via Netflix. It was fun. Although it's one of those movies that has a really short arc, but takes a long time to get there.

--I liked "The Prestige" at the movies. Maybe we'll see "Volver" today, or possibly "Borat," but I doubt it. More likely the Almodovar.