3 Things
8 a.m. rain with the sun out: The act of being outside in your sweats with a hot cup of coffee on the kind of morning that will disappear forever—as all mornings do—should always be occasioned by an ominous purple cloud, a freak shaft of sun, and a resplendent shimmering rainbow off in the nearby distance. Right???
Cooking along with old-timey music on the radio: Soundtrack-wise, I'm gonna argue here that the sound of sizzling onions and a half-glass-of-wine buzz click in naturally with something warm and crackly, say Django Reinhardt or, like, Sam Cooke?
Charley Countryman: Currently streaming on Netflix. A fairytale, if such a thing can exist amidst the hardcore Romanian mafia. Which, hey why not?
Favorites 9.7.16
The forest a long time after a fire. It's my new favorite color palette. Instead of a verdant shading canopy, there's just the bleached bones of trees, the sky, and plenty of sunlight to make the wildflowers go all crazy.
A wagging dog tail. Simple, contagious joy. Don't take it for granted, as we aren't guaranteed shit.
Not 4X4ing in a VW Jetta. When faced with a rugged bumpy expanse that's more rock than road, it's quite lovely to drive up it with a proper 4X4 vehicle. Maybe a truck? Something with ample clearance and suspension. Anything but a VW Jetta with a predisposition for tire problems.
The place where fall and summer meet. A liminal time, full of potential energy. One coolish morning, one shaft of sunlight, one gust of wind can completely change the day's seasonal identity. Is it summer? No wait it's fall. Now summer again.
3 Things
Stranger Things: A new throwback sci-fi for all you E.T. & X Files fans out there. It gets me scared, but it also makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside just like all really great 80s movies do to all humans who grew up wearing velour sweatpants and drinking Tang in the 80s.
Yerba mate: A mild cocaine of sorts for work-day doldrums. I can get lit on a mug of this, plug in Explosions In The Sky, and crush 3 hours of product copy. Magically, I will still be able to sleep later. It's cool.
New roommate: After what amounts to years of living alone, the struggle to not become curmudgeonly was real. But turns out, having someone at the house when you get home is quite lovely, because then that someone is around to open stuck jars of jam, and there's someone to drink wine with as the light falls, and there's someone for Lefty to run and find in hopes of protection from being given a bath—which he won't get because, little does Lefty know, that someone is a double agent who works for me. Hah!
Favorites 6.29.16
Leek scapes: Not landscapes, as my computer keeps correcting me to—leek scapes. They're the stems and flowers of the leek plant. You can roast them in oil until the stalks snap like asparagus and the blooms are crispy like something deep fried and delicious. What then? You pick them up with your hands and eat them.
East Glisan Pizza Lounge: I live in a strange, vacuous neighborhood of nothing but grocery stores, so I hold any half-way decent restaurant near my house in high regard. This new pizza spot on Glisan holds up, though. It's a humble place full of beautiful pizza. They're friendly there, an important box to check in my book. And, oh, hey, they hand-make their vegan fennel sausage (!!!).
Moby Grape, "I Am Not Willing": I don't know anything about this band. Do you? What happened was, this song came on Jesse's stereo last Tuesday while a few of us skated the mini ramp. Time slowed down. Everyone relaxed. Nostalgia blew in on the breeze. It was like we were in a scene from a movie, the really good scene—the one where the music kicks in and you know that everything's gonna be alright.
Favorites 5.17.16
The Witch: This movie's been on my mind. What was it even really about? When I think on the pilgrims—the way they were living alone out there in the savage wilderness of a savage land with nothing to warm them but a healthy fear of hellfire—well that's enough to be a real-life horror story right there. Anyway, hats off to the spookiest soundtrack ever, in my opinion.
Skylights in your bedroom: While in Tofino, I stayed in a cabin with two big skylights over the bed. During the day, 'twas the coziest sunny roost for reading and naps. And at night? The room became the dominion of starlight.
A possible love interest for Brienne Of Tarth in Game Of Thrones: Long have I loved Brienne—her bad-ass manner, and the way she's always regally professing her loyalty-unto-death to people. It's a good personality trait, no? But in the latest episode, did you catch that spark between her and the wildling chief? Girl deserves to get some action.
Beat pesto: Red wine vinegar and beats roasted into oblivion. Almonds and olive oil. Plenty of garlic. Through a process of alchemy, this stuff becomes so much more than the sum of its parts. Sweet, tangy and über rich. A song in your mouth—and shit, I'm not even a lover of beats. Happily, the job of making it paints your hands the brightest pink.
