Sunday, December 18, 2022
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Valhalla Awaits! Pass the Salt!
Got up early to prep the pork butt, rubbing it with a spice mix (cumin, chili powder, black pepper, sea salt, paprika) and an oil mix (olive and sesame). I heat the oven to 500 then drop it to 225 as soon as the cuts go in. I'm anticipating a decent crowd, so I bought two big butts.
Later on today, I'm going to make the sauce with onions, garlic, ketchup, tomato sauce, molasses, and white vinegar.
When I sent out an invite, I specified if now the law then the spirit of the event: stuff you make yourself, stuff made with love, be it craft beer or rabbit terrine or Beijing dumplings or venison or fresh baked bread or any of the other dishes I hear people are bringing. I love it when people buy into the spirit of the day. This gives you hope for something that feels exceptional, particularly when it's the result of a group of people all pulling in the same direction.
No matter what happens, I know we're all eating well.
Until I get a new job, I've written down a list of iron rules that I will live by until the job comes along. I keep these to myself, but I committed to them absolutely and they mostly involve my writing, reading, exercise, and eating. It's a list designed, as such limitations go, to liberate me from the inessentials and to maximize my opportunities.
Speaking of which, point well taken, Matty. Jess thanks you and says the same thing. It is sometimes hard in the moment to remember.
Here's to Schrimnir and Heidrum! Tonight we feast!
From Bullfinch's Mythology:
Valhalla is the great hall of Odin, wherein he feasts with his chosen heroes, all those who have fallen bravely in battle, for all who die a peaceful death are excluded. The flesh of the boar Schrimnir is served up to them, and is abundant for all. For although this boar is cooked every morning, be becomes whole again every night. For drink the heroes are supplied abundantly with mead from the she-goat Heidrum. When the heroes are not feasting they amuse themselves with fighting. Every day they ride out into the court or field and fight until they cut each other in pieces. This is their pastime; but when meal time comes they recover from their wounds and return to feast in Valhalla.
Later on today, I'm going to make the sauce with onions, garlic, ketchup, tomato sauce, molasses, and white vinegar.
When I sent out an invite, I specified if now the law then the spirit of the event: stuff you make yourself, stuff made with love, be it craft beer or rabbit terrine or Beijing dumplings or venison or fresh baked bread or any of the other dishes I hear people are bringing. I love it when people buy into the spirit of the day. This gives you hope for something that feels exceptional, particularly when it's the result of a group of people all pulling in the same direction.
No matter what happens, I know we're all eating well.
Until I get a new job, I've written down a list of iron rules that I will live by until the job comes along. I keep these to myself, but I committed to them absolutely and they mostly involve my writing, reading, exercise, and eating. It's a list designed, as such limitations go, to liberate me from the inessentials and to maximize my opportunities.
Speaking of which, point well taken, Matty. Jess thanks you and says the same thing. It is sometimes hard in the moment to remember.
Here's to Schrimnir and Heidrum! Tonight we feast!
From Bullfinch's Mythology:
Valhalla is the great hall of Odin, wherein he feasts with his chosen heroes, all those who have fallen bravely in battle, for all who die a peaceful death are excluded. The flesh of the boar Schrimnir is served up to them, and is abundant for all. For although this boar is cooked every morning, be becomes whole again every night. For drink the heroes are supplied abundantly with mead from the she-goat Heidrum. When the heroes are not feasting they amuse themselves with fighting. Every day they ride out into the court or field and fight until they cut each other in pieces. This is their pastime; but when meal time comes they recover from their wounds and return to feast in Valhalla.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Day One
Day one on the dole.
I purposefully avoided the whole falling apart and growing a beard route last night and drank a mug of camomile tea over the half-pint of bourbon I really wanted. The technique worked. I got up early, applied for unemployment, set up direct deposit on the payments, and changed my official residence with the DMV. I have chore-work left: laundry and all that, but I wanted to make sure I wrote while my mind was fresh. I've been trying to write late in the night, after my mind has already been taxed by the day.
And this worked, too. I got out 2,000 effortless words all on one cup of coffee.
It turns out that they might pay for my teaching certification. I'm going to an orientation next week. It really does feel as though this was lucky for me. If I hadn't been forced out, who knows how long I would have pushed the broom.
*
I also wrote down a secret list my "iron rules" -- a list of positive commands that I will abide by during my job search. Nothing too extreme, but there's a power in writing such things down. It allows you to really sense your own limits. I only put down those that I knew for certain I could follow. The commands might not guarantee a job overnight, but they'll keep me from the gutter. That's for sure.
I purposefully avoided the whole falling apart and growing a beard route last night and drank a mug of camomile tea over the half-pint of bourbon I really wanted. The technique worked. I got up early, applied for unemployment, set up direct deposit on the payments, and changed my official residence with the DMV. I have chore-work left: laundry and all that, but I wanted to make sure I wrote while my mind was fresh. I've been trying to write late in the night, after my mind has already been taxed by the day.
And this worked, too. I got out 2,000 effortless words all on one cup of coffee.
It turns out that they might pay for my teaching certification. I'm going to an orientation next week. It really does feel as though this was lucky for me. If I hadn't been forced out, who knows how long I would have pushed the broom.
*
I also wrote down a secret list my "iron rules" -- a list of positive commands that I will abide by during my job search. Nothing too extreme, but there's a power in writing such things down. It allows you to really sense your own limits. I only put down those that I knew for certain I could follow. The commands might not guarantee a job overnight, but they'll keep me from the gutter. That's for sure.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Goo Goo Gets the Axe
Billy was outside, shoveling the stairs. I had just gotten the official word.
"Another soldier down, Bubbs. They shitcaned me."
He laughed at first, but then looked at my face, and knew I wasn't joking.
He threw the snow shovel against the stairs. "What the fuck!" he yelled.
Then he took me in his bear arms and we wept as brothers.
*
Throughout the day, the bad news trickled in. There were additional layoffs in Portsmouth, Manchester, and the other branches. People who'd been with the company for years were given the axe. Many had their hours dropped to part-time, including Eddy. He's in his fifties and now has to live off of working thirty-two hours a week. Same time last year he was easily hitting sixty per.
*
The Boss called me in. "I've never really done this before, and don't know what the fuck to do. So, I don't know, if you have any questions, call Donna."
"And that's it?"
The phone rang and he answered after giving me last week's paycheck. I punched out and drove home.
And that's it. The story of the W comes to a close.
*
Here's why I'm nervous. Obviously, I'm a position of uncertainty. I want to put my heart into the novel and into the job search and into the upkeep of the house, all without feeling like a burden to Jess. It's an awkward position. I'm glad I went through it, simply because the process is somewhat different than I imagined, and it's certainly different at this moment in my life. I underestimated the emotional reaction, which, when made official, almost had a physical impact, like a slap or a kick to the shins.
Five years ago? I would have probably been very excited to sit around reading all day and still get the government check. Now, there is the additional pressure of a home and a family. Now, I hear about other layoffs, and the fact that I'm not the only one is a cause for concern. I wish I was alone in all this. I wish I wasn't heading out there with hundreds of other hungry, ambitious, responsible, thoughtful people, all angling for car payments and mortgages and rice and pork tenderloin.
You know how it goes. If I write a book and it gets published and I end up teaching creative writing at a working class state school in middle Massachusetts, then I'll sit there in my hush puppies and think: thank goodness. This was all worth it. Thank goodness I went through it, so I could understand. Thank goodness for all those difficult events that shaped me and helped me realize at least a larger swath of the the human condition than might otherwise have been my lot.
But.
If I'm sitting down by the river, trying to fish for trout with a shoestring wrapped around my bunioned old toe, then maybe it will seem the beginning of the end.
And you think: well, that's not likely. And it isn't. But it's possible. And even if the chances are slim, they still have to be accounted for.
It's not as though new jobs are springing up. It's not as though FDR is chomping on his cigarette holder and smiling as the national intrafructure blossoms like a morning glory.
Angling for spins, positive and negative, is a sort of rude game we have to play under such circumstances.
What I'm most thankful for is this: it happens and I still have the fight in me. That never went away. I could write ten-thousand pages before the bells on the chuch strike midnight. I could wrestle the themes like Jaco and the Angel, all with the cat trying, inexplicably, to stick his asshole in my face. I could call on Muse or Machine and rest assured that at least one will answer. I have enough slight control over my own fate to state that, now and forever.
"Another soldier down, Bubbs. They shitcaned me."
He laughed at first, but then looked at my face, and knew I wasn't joking.
He threw the snow shovel against the stairs. "What the fuck!" he yelled.
Then he took me in his bear arms and we wept as brothers.
*
Throughout the day, the bad news trickled in. There were additional layoffs in Portsmouth, Manchester, and the other branches. People who'd been with the company for years were given the axe. Many had their hours dropped to part-time, including Eddy. He's in his fifties and now has to live off of working thirty-two hours a week. Same time last year he was easily hitting sixty per.
*
The Boss called me in. "I've never really done this before, and don't know what the fuck to do. So, I don't know, if you have any questions, call Donna."
"And that's it?"
The phone rang and he answered after giving me last week's paycheck. I punched out and drove home.
And that's it. The story of the W comes to a close.
*
Here's why I'm nervous. Obviously, I'm a position of uncertainty. I want to put my heart into the novel and into the job search and into the upkeep of the house, all without feeling like a burden to Jess. It's an awkward position. I'm glad I went through it, simply because the process is somewhat different than I imagined, and it's certainly different at this moment in my life. I underestimated the emotional reaction, which, when made official, almost had a physical impact, like a slap or a kick to the shins.
Five years ago? I would have probably been very excited to sit around reading all day and still get the government check. Now, there is the additional pressure of a home and a family. Now, I hear about other layoffs, and the fact that I'm not the only one is a cause for concern. I wish I was alone in all this. I wish I wasn't heading out there with hundreds of other hungry, ambitious, responsible, thoughtful people, all angling for car payments and mortgages and rice and pork tenderloin.
You know how it goes. If I write a book and it gets published and I end up teaching creative writing at a working class state school in middle Massachusetts, then I'll sit there in my hush puppies and think: thank goodness. This was all worth it. Thank goodness I went through it, so I could understand. Thank goodness for all those difficult events that shaped me and helped me realize at least a larger swath of the the human condition than might otherwise have been my lot.
But.
If I'm sitting down by the river, trying to fish for trout with a shoestring wrapped around my bunioned old toe, then maybe it will seem the beginning of the end.
And you think: well, that's not likely. And it isn't. But it's possible. And even if the chances are slim, they still have to be accounted for.
It's not as though new jobs are springing up. It's not as though FDR is chomping on his cigarette holder and smiling as the national intrafructure blossoms like a morning glory.
Angling for spins, positive and negative, is a sort of rude game we have to play under such circumstances.
What I'm most thankful for is this: it happens and I still have the fight in me. That never went away. I could write ten-thousand pages before the bells on the chuch strike midnight. I could wrestle the themes like Jaco and the Angel, all with the cat trying, inexplicably, to stick his asshole in my face. I could call on Muse or Machine and rest assured that at least one will answer. I have enough slight control over my own fate to state that, now and forever.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Band Members . . .
used to drop out to become Buddhist monks and I'm pleased that they still do so.
Although.
It troubles me, somewhat, still.
Although.
It troubles me, somewhat, still.
Big D, One of the Cats
I know people ascribe all sorts of strange qualities to their cats. And ours have theirs easily ascribed.
Big D, one of the cats, the male, sits on the windowsill as I shovel and rubs against me with great glee when I come back in the house. I went out back to clear the porch, and he climbed into the speaker columns to watch. I humanize him and get the clear impression he wants to help. I can"t read it otherwise.
Big D, one of the cats, the male, sits on the windowsill as I shovel and rubs against me with great glee when I come back in the house. I went out back to clear the porch, and he climbed into the speaker columns to watch. I humanize him and get the clear impression he wants to help. I can"t read it otherwise.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
