Losing Leaves

Up half the night reading this dense new book of Skip Fox. Bk 3 of a projected 9. I hold manuscripts. Great writing maintains. Heavy, funny, sexy. Get it. "For To". I was in it all day, wading, rereading, laughing. The man makes me proud of Hunan beans. Huge breakfast at brunch and a bottle of beer. Zipped to town to check on Pegi and The Brit, everything fine, opening went well, Pegi said the show is wonderful. Home, I resume reading, then fix a package of chorizo and eat them as hot dogs, with various toppings. Yum, I say to you. I actually make a better chorizo, but it messes up the kitchen something awful, and this is pretty good. Need to mention to B's brother that I need some lard, and, next pig they kill, some fatback. Tomorrow I'm going to grill a boneless chop I cut off the curing loin. Wash off the cure and soak in papaya nectar. Mesquite wood. I'd love to share this meal with my huge friend in Missip, from whom I learned so much about curing meat, and life in general. I was his first white friend and we were very close, he was my best friend in Missip, bar none, Big Roy. After 10 years in Missip, it was 10 years in western Colorado, and I'd like to show Roy what all those western peppers do to a cure, he'd be on it. I got to get my Roy stories in a folder, I can scan them from copy, I think, maybe dump them in here too, for safe keeping. Odd feeling, reading along in the Fox book and there's a quote from me, from a text/manuscript that was stolen in the one robbery of my life so far, remembered me to that project, three years and 1500 pages of raw text. Skip once related the tale, he gets up early, tokes with his coffee, writes in the morning, often before the sun rises, we exchange work, and I'd sent him a chunk of the text "Text Toward Building A House", and first thing whatever morning, he picked up my manuscript and started working on it as if it was his own work. I see this as high praise. In that survey? He's number 1, in the: white, living, male, category. I had wondered what the hell I was going to do with a whole cured loin, I could slice it and freeze some, probably will, but I can spread it around, too. Little baggies with instructions and a can of papaya nectar. I had the thought, I may have mentioned before, sometimes I find myself with too much of something, I live alone after all. If I make a pate, the smallest I can make is 3 pounds, that's my terminal shut-off point, it doesn't taste right less than that, so I suddenly have a lot of pate, and I give it away, there's a list. They either eat it or throw it away, feed it to a raccoon, I don't know. What I'm going to do is check out next day shipping, find a supply of dry-ice, and send something to one you, once in a while, there are only 39 of you, it's better than the lottery, you stand a chance. Haven't decided how to make the cut. I have enough stones from a GO game to carve initials with a dremel tool, I have a basket, I think I can do this; he doesn't need me (swimmingly, I'm almost absolutely necessary), hey, I been reading Skip all day, what the hell you expect? Myself, the reader, is slipping away, and every time, Skip shocks me, motherfucker hits me up the side of the head with a wet sock or something, and I'm reeling; that someone could do that to me, I generally try to stay on top, you know, so I can watch the horizon. Fall is too soon and nothing done.

Tom

What I think he's saying is that he doesn't have enough firewood. I'll get back to you later, I don't trust myself, I'm the weak link, wait, that glow, the setting sun, makes it, the dappled light, yes, a cartoon, our character, a dead woodchuck, arising from the roadbed, Lazarus in the Chip-And Seal. I saw him, he was there, my agent advised to not comment on what I had thought I had seen. Fucking agents.