My Readers

I was having a conversation with someone, and something was said I wanted to use later, when I was writing. I cull the day, really, the way I stay sane, or at least operational. I notice there's generally a time-line. That about does for me in terms of any kind of criticism. I watch tadpoles, I watch crows, my closest relationship is with a fox, I might not be the person you could use in a study of anything. If you write, somewhere in that dynamic is the concept of being read, and the reader is critical. It's a dialogue. The Brain Trust was spread along the bar at lunch today. You couldn't keep up with the conversation. High and wild. I didn't say anything because nothing needed to be said, I've read enough noir I know what needs to be said, I understand understanding. I know a couple of minor things. Shit flows downhill, that kind of thing, I profess to nothing, merely what I've heard. Catch 22. Watch it with the zipper. Had lost touch with the Wittgenstein Plumber, Joel, a package from him today, he's still, or back in Atlanta, the box barely fit the mailbox and heavy. I'm walking in, to assure I make it to the museum tomorrow, prep for the hospital xmas party, so I rearrange my backpack to carry it. Home, I start a fire, get an armload of wood, wash my face, then open the package. Excellent larder for the pantry: a couple of pounds of good southern cornmeal, and a couple of pounds of grits. I start a pot of grits as soon as the stove is hot enough, enough to have a meal, in a bowl, grits, salt and pepper, butter, and a couple of eggs over easy. The left-over grits I'll stuff into a soup can, slice, tomorrow or the next day, and fry in bacon fat as polenta. First thing, with the corn meal, is a pot of pintos, with cornbread sticks, this weekend for sure. I have four cast iron pans for making cornbread sticks, seven to a pan. It's a rotation thing, two pans in the oven, pre-heating (you have to get them smoking, a scant teaspoon of bacon fat in each slot, or they stick like a bastard) in a hot oven, maybe 450 degrees, then ladle them half-full, back in the oven, prep the other set, ten or twelve minutes, out of the oven and the other set of pans goes in to pre-heat, while you fork the first batch out of their pan. Repeat as needed. Everyone gets a big pat of butter on their plate, and butters every bite. At the end of the meal we usually have a couple more with molasses. You can hurt yourself with cornbread sticks, buttons are popped, belts are released a notch. I was feeding this meal to some very sophisticated people on Cape Cod, Hollywood writers and CIA agents, and at the apparent end of the meal, one of the CIA agents ask if I couldn't possibly mix up another batch, because he was sure he would never eat such a thing again. Grown men weep. Because I know I will be using these corn products soon, half of them anyway, the other half I'll save for deep winter, I immediately opened a bag of each, tasted the product on a dampened (archival) finger and the corn exploded. The taste was amazing. CORN. What the hell have I been eating? Oh, right, acorn. I added a letter and was left with no taste. When I go out for the girls' various graduations, I'll make a pilgrimage over to Dove Creek, a place I duly love. Bean Country, still in Colorado, but only a mile or two from Utah. I spent a week there once, a dozen years ago, Michael was building a house somewhere, I was helping, and I needed a place to stay. The only time I ever spent living a week in a motel. I rented a trailer on the Navaho Reservation after that, with bullet holes in the walls. It was considerably better. Fuck not profiling: Navaho women, from the age of 15 to 30 are beautiful, then they all turn into loaves of bread. I think it's the blackness of their hair. When they're young, it glistens in ways you've never seen before. Some enzyme or secretion that you cease making when you're beyond child-bearing age. I'll be going after beans, when I revisit Dove Creek, to get some 10 pound bags of burlaped beans. I'm a sucker for burlap bags, I'd buy bison chips, trail mix, whatever. But the Bean Cooperative has a retail outlet in Dove Creek, and I gravitate toward the local. I need some beans. I know where I can get them. A force not to be reconnected with.