On an expanding audience.

Huh. So apparently, more people are reading this thing than I thought. My brother and sister-in-law have been keeping up with me for a while, and now I've got coworkers newly friended on the Bookface perusing the annals.

I don't really know what I expected, to be honest. Maybe I've been laboring under the delusion that no one in my real life would be reading this stupid thing except you jagweeds up in New York and Pavel and Harriet down the street. And the coterie of interweb friends I've acquired by riding on Lauren's coattails.

I actually have to think about the material I put up now. I can't just liberally talk shit about my cohorts at work (not that I have, except you, Layney), I probably shouldn't be detailing the true extent of my devious past in front of my niece's parents. I guess all bloggers get to this point at one time or another, but it's still a little jarring.

Then again, in the four months this thing's been active, I'm already hot on the heels of I Hate This Cat in terms of pageviews. So there's that.

So, uh, hi, everybody. This is, uh... my blog. Nice to see you. Hope you enjoy yourselves.

(Layney, if you want some reading to do, I suggest the stretch I did for the Scintilla Project back in March. That's as good as my writing gets; everything before and after is pretty much garbage.)

On the service industry regimen.

I wouldn't say I'm fit.

Still, considering how much I eat and how little I work out in the traditional sense, there's seriously no reason I should have the body I have. Not that it's a particularly good specimen, mind you, but I should be much heavier and significantly weaker than I actually am.

And I imagine a good chunk of that is good genes; if my brothers are any indication, we come from fairly good stock. But I believe the fact that I've been in the service industry pretty much my entire adult life plays a fairly major role in this, too. I've worked primarily jobs where I sit from 0-5% of the time that I'm on shift. Instead of the treadmill, I'm moving almost constantly from one place to another. I don't lift weights, but I pick shit up and move it, using my entire body, every single day. Nowadays it's sacks of flour and boxes of coffee; I miss the days when it was cases of pork and brisket, or a dozen half-kegs of beer and thirty cases of bottles.

Isn't this how people got fit in the days before gyms? Didn't people just do physical labor and naturally burned calories and built muscle and developed a natural consciousness of their bodies? We, as a whole, seem to have gotten away from that. I can't help but look at the rising gym memberships like when we stopped filtering our tap water and started marketing bottles.

We are the service industry. The floor, the kitchen is our gym. Forgetting to eat on shift is our diet. We know what it means to really wash our hands, and we are genuinely tired at the end of our days.

Those of y'all who own a Bowflex can suck it.

On skinny jeans.

You know what? I'm gonna outright say it. Don't like 'em. Don't understand the appeal, don't enjoy how they make any shoe larger than a ballet flat look like a clown shoe. And they look as difficult to remove as a rip-resistant DVD cover.

On visiting family and the service industry.

Hands down, the worst part about being in the service industry is never having two weekend days to rub together to visit friends and family that aren't in the field.

Thank fuck I managed to weasel out of work today to catch my aunt's choral concert and to duck up to CT to see my brother, my sister-in-law, and my adorable, rapidly-growing niece. Even after the epic shit-ton of driving I've had to do in the last two days (thanks, Ku, for picking up the trip from NJ to CT), it's been worth it just to hear the new weird noises Anya makes.

And with that, I'm going to relax away my last hour or two before I have to hit the hay for the shitstorm that is the Sunday morning rush and leave you with a poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes. Because I recently had it sung to me by a women's choir, and I remembered how much I love it. Ripped from Legal Language Services.

The Chambered Nautilus

Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894)

This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,
Sails the unshadowed main,–
The venturous bark that flings
On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings
In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings,
And coral reefs lie bare,
Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;
Wrecked is the ship of pearl!
And every chambered cell,
Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,
Before thee lies revealed,–
Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!

Year after year beheld the silent toil
That spread his lustrous coil;
Still, as the spiral grew,
He left the past year’s dwelling for the new,
Stole with soft step its shining archway through,
Built up its idle door,
Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,
Child of the wandering sea,
Cast from her lap, forlorn!
From thy dead lips a clearer note is born
Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn;
While on mine ear it rings,
Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:–

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea!

On what love is (an opinion).

So one of the questions Peter and Lauren covered on their podcast was "What is love?" And after the requisite "Don't hurt me, don't hurt me no more"s, Laur was quick to state that she believed that love was a biological imperative, something I've always believed - that the concept of love and marriage arose from the necessity of both parents being present to protect and raise a child to adulthood.

Of course, as civilization obviated that need and separated the two (see: single parents and childless couples), the need for love has dissolved. Nevertheless, it remains in all its messy, heartrending glory to be written about in legend and song and to be exploited by capitalism.

Nowadays, I've come to believe that romantic love is composed of two distinct, but equally important parts: to be in love, and to love. There's an important distinction here: according to the rules of grammar, the former is a passive verb and the latter is active. To be in love is a compulsion, something that's usually out of one's control. This is the passion, the neverending daydreaming and fantasizing, the infatuation and oftentimes lust. It burns hot, and it burns quick. This is what the poets speak of, this is what movie plots and subplots are based on. This is what sells lingerie and candles and OKC A-List accounts.

To love, however, is a choice. To love is to understand someone, to assess their assets and faults, and to make the decision to care about them as you would yourself. To me, this is the far more poignant half of romance - to love someone is to know that they can and likely will hurt you, to know that things they do will annoy the shit out of you, to know that their shortcomings are yours to compensate for, and you fucking do it anyway. To be in love makes for a great story, but to love is what makes the happily ever after.

Some might say that this takes the romance out of love, that applying logic and reasoning to the concept of love drains it of its mysterious magic. I couldn't disagree more. To me, to make a choice that guarantees you pain on the chance that the joy it will bring you will make it worth it is as brave, stupid, and beautiful a decision as you ever can make. To fall in love? Shit, that just happens to you. To love, you have to suck it up and do something.

On slipping.

So three times in the last two weeks, I outright blanked on my Blog Every Day initiative. I've been wondering if this exercise is actually helping my writing or stifling it by forcing output each day, and I've debated dropping down to a less rigorous schedule. There's a shit ton of shit going on in my life, and time always feels like it's in short supply. Hell, I'm pre-dating this one for continuity's sake. I've got one in the chamber today based on todays's Petecast that I'll try to rattle off between the many hours of driving I have ahead of me.

Then again, Ms. the Animal says it's still improving my writing, and I tend to trust her opinion over my own. So what say ye, readers? Do I keep on keeping on, or drop a gear? Lemme know.

On clothes shopping.

This is how I know I'm failing as an adult.

I need new pants, since I've lost two in the last year or so to rippage, and I need a swimsuit for BiSC. And my knee-jerk reaction, because I've been a broke-ass motherfucker for all of my adult life, is to go to Old Navy.

Seriously. I have no other ideas as to where to shop for these things. Maybe Target, since the one near me has a Chipotle close to it and I've been jonesing for some carnitas. If I needed dress shirts, I'd be boned. As it is, I buy t-shirts off of the interwebs, and ask for socks for my birthday and Christmas.

How did I get to this point? How am I a thirty-something who dresses like he's still in college? How do all of my non-jeans pant solutions have extra pockets at the sides of the knee? How do I crave Bioware shirts because for some reason, they're soft like a hug from an aunt?

Fuck this adulting shit. I want my money back.

On Talk Like Shakespeare Day.

Happy Talk Like Shakespeare Day! I wrote y'all a sonnet.

Midnight held me quiet in her clasp,
A gentle moment, soft as almost-death
That spares us nightly. Silent as the gasp
We plead with, by ourselves, with every breath
In solitude, in emptiness and dark.
These hours of shadow, void of shining light
Or blackness absolute - they bear no mark
Of days well-spent or warmly worn-out nights.
I, the silent tongue, the absent hand,
I, the lonely whore, the empty heart,
Have stared into the night as I can stand,
Always never knowing where to start.
And worn of gazing at the barren sea,
I clenched my eyes and tried to dream of thee.

Cheers, y'all. Fare thee well until the morrow.

On the things I've learned from video games, part 2.

Today, I'll be continuing on from an earlier post on things I've learned from playing video games. Because that's the kind of mood I'm in.

Be aware of your attributes.

Everyone rolls different at the start of the game. Are you strong? Are you charismatic? Are you intelligent or wise? Some people go their entire lives without taking the time to really look at themselves, to see what they're naturally good at, and more importantly, what they have no knack for. My generation's whole theme was "You can do anything you want!" And to an extent, that's true. But is it worth it? If you're shoveling hours, weeks, years of your life trying to be something you're just not cut out for, is that really what you want to be doing? Find your niche and own it. If you're a natural born mage, don't try to tank. Play to your strengths and master how to circumvent your weaknesses. Trust me, you'll get a lot more done.

Events happen.

There will be things in your life that are unavoidable, no matter how you've played up until that point. And you can either reload your last save in your head on repeat, trying to figure out what you could have done differently to change the outcome, or you can recognize it as out of your control, adapt, and move forward. Choose wisely.

Status effects don't just go away.

One day, you will find yourself petrified, unable to act. Or poisoned and constantly taking damage. And you might think that if you do nothing, you can wait it out and you'll get back to normal. But turn after turn goes by, and you're still paralyzed or bleeding. Sometimes things don't get better if you just sit and wait. Sometimes you need to seek out the antidote if you want this thing that's happened to you to go away.

No, I'm not done beating this dead horse. Cheers, guys; I'll see you tomorrow.

On food.

So today, I went to a farm and dug up some green onions. Washed and peeled them at the wash station, put them in a cardboard box, and drove home.

I washed them again, cut them up, and used them in my chili, and ate them.

And I realized that this is what I want my food knowledge to encompass. From dirt to mouth.

I'd better start reading, huh?

On a rare sociopolitical stance.

I don't talk politics very often. Those who know me know that at heart, I'm a moderate liberal; I just think political discussions are a lot like juice cleanses - people swear it makes a difference, but really, nothing changes except everyone's really irritable afterwards.

But today seems like a better day than most to bring up my stance on marijuana. And again, those who know me know my opinion on the matter, but my reasons for supporting legalization go beyond the obvious - when it comes down to it, it becomes more of a fiscal reason than anything else. We're blowing a shit ton of government money on the prosecution and incarceration of offenders, clogging our already-strained courts and jam-packed jails with them, tying up valuable police resources hunting down offenders.

Add to that the fact that legalization would lead to regulation, giving the economy a little jolt by creating jobs on the state, federal, and private levels. The tax revenue (assuming the government taxes the shit out of it, which I would imagine would be the case) alone would put some well-appreciated breathing room in the budget.

But what about the culture it would bring to the fore? Well, booze has been legal forfreakin'ever, and for every responsible couple sharing a bottle of wine with dinner, you have fourteen drunken shitbirds howling on the sidewalk at 2am. Take a look at any major metropolitan area on St. Patrick's Day and tell me we can do worse than that. Fact is, any time you have a controlled substance that induces an altered state, you're going to have to take the good with the bad.

And, of course, there's the slippery slope argument. That weed is a gateway drug that leads to harder substances. Honestly, I've seen more cokeheads develop out of alcoholics than stoners. On the whole, the only direction I've seen smokers go is towards hallucinogens, which is its own bag of worms, but it's still better than Bath Salts. Clearly trying to prevent its use isn't really working; we may as well put it above the table and start making money off of it.

Anyway. For those of you who were curious, that's where I stand on the matter. I'm not exactly passionate about the topic; I've just put a little thought into it, and from a pragmatic standpoint, once you get past the stigma and the fear, it just makes sense. To me, at any rate.

Cheers, y'all. Happy 4/20. Be safe, be responsible.

On missing a day.

Whoops. How'd that happen?

On looking back.

I went back to my old restaurant today. I could see the weariness in the manager's eyes, the 'fuck it all' in his voice as he told me he'd been working every single day since Easter.

The back smelled funny. The dishes were piled high in all kinds of places, the walk-in was nothing short of a wreck. Out front was a shadow of what the shop once was, the shiny new paint and wood paneling smudged and smeared with neglect. Understaffed, underpaid. No surprises there.

But what hurt most was the food. I remember when I first tasted the chicken recipe I, the owner, and another cook worked on. The chopped chicken was moist, rich in achiote flavor, with a hint of bite from the vinegar. It was a deep red, the sauce coating it thick enough to cling to the meat when lifted from the hot table. Our guac was made fresh every day, our salsa bright and tangy.

I tasted none of that in the tacos I had today. Sometime after I left the cooking and processes to the minions, we lost what made our food special. The chicken is dry and forgettable, the beans little more than an afterthought. The beef was chunky and bland, the sauces may as well have been storebought.

My company might be coming to an end soon, likely this year. But it died a long time ago.

On upcoming projects.

I've got a couple of things on my plate these days, but I can't help but appreciate the little breaks I catch to step back and recharge. Seems I need them more and more often these days; I can't imagine what life would be like if I couldn't take a day or two here and there to fuck around in the kitchen.

I get ideas, and like most people, I get itchy until I get the chance to implement them.  Right now, here's what I'm planning on messing around with:

1) Roasted potatoes in a stainless steel bowl.  As long as you have a big enough bowl, I should be able to just toss the potatoes with oil and seasonings, then prop them up on the sides and drop them in the oven rather than dumping them out on a sheet tray.  That way, instead of fucking around with a spatula trying to turn them, I can just pull the bowl, toss 'em, and put them back in for even browning.  Of course, I'll have to test the idea to see if there are any detrimental effects to them being at different heights, but if it works, it'll free up valuable horizontal real estate at the cost of vertical. Something that might come in handy during the holidays.

2) Zucchini fritters. I made a batch last week (two weeks ago?), and they were good, but pillowy and doughish rather than crisp and crusty. Plus the squash flavor got a little lost. I'm going to play it again using only egg white and mixing in some cornstarch with the flour, see if I can't let the zucchini itself shine through while still getting that crunch I'm after.

3) Swiss chard. I've been sauteeing it with pork products lately, and while that's delicious, it's time to play with something new. Late harvest stock is coming in, which means the leaves are less like spinach and more like young collards. Time to play with new preparations; I've been postulating that driving out the moisture might lead to drier results and applications - possibly a baked pasta, or a spring panzanella with asparagus. Shitballs, do I love panzanella.

It's springtime, folks. The winter slumber is over; it's time to get out there and start delving back into the things that make you happy.

On not eating.

I'm not sure when I picked the habit up. Probably while I was tending bar, because between the availability of booze and the never-ending stream of activity, it was pretty easy to forget. But at some point in time, I got it into my head that eating at work was a waste of time.

This is an extremely unhealthy habit, I know. Once, while bartending, I forgot to eat for three days straight - my roommate had to point out that I looked like shit before I realized I was running on nothing but alcohol and adrenaline.

But for some goddamned reason, I have difficulty bringing myself to stop and chew on something when there's dishes to do, shit to restock, tables to wipe, and things to prep. I keep telling myself 'one more task, and I'll stop and eat'. Then another, and another.

Suffice to say I'm in a shitty mood by the end of my shift. Just another thing I should probably work on, huh?

On the Boston Marathon.

Are terrible things happening with increasing frequency now, or are we just more acutely aware of it because of the alacrity of social media when it comes to the dissemination of information?  I don't remember the aughts having this many horrific events with this level of density.

My thoughts and prayers are with all those there.

On resisting change.

How do you refuse a promotion?

I've been training up on my barista skills (really, the entire menu is permutations on two ingredients with various garnishes; it's relatively brainless), mostly against my will. Don't get me wrong, I like learning new things. But the whole reason I got into this job is to take a break from responsibility.

If I did want to expand my skills here, it'd be towards the back of the house. My knife hand's getting twitchy; I haven't done prep in long enough to worry that I'm getting rusty. But I've spent enough time taking rapid-fire drink orders to know I don't really want to be in that position again.

Ah, well. I suppose I'll talk to my manager tomorrow, see what the score is. As it is, I'm going to need to dial down my hours to accommodate this upcoming new project, especially if I want to keep my writing schedule on board.

Thank the stars I don't have a social life, huh?

On a thought regarding steak sandwiches.

Preface: I'm drunk.

This is just a thought.

Maybe, just maybe, you could sear a cold, perhaps even frozen steak to get a good, flavorful crust.  Then you could drop it back in the cold to firm it back up.

Then, again, maybe, you could slice the steak in razor thin slices.  And stash those slices in a vacuum sealer and sous vide them at 132 degrees to get a perfect medium rare.

And maybe you could coil them into a crusty baguette with, I don't know, horseradish mayo, slices of summer tomato, and brie.

I'm just throwing that out there.

Just a thought.

On the things I've learned from video games, part 1.

I've been told that I look at life like a video game. And while that assumption is largely true, it seems to carry a connotation with it, an idea that I don't take life seriously. Really? Tell me, what is the primary objective of almost every single video game out there?

Don't fucking die.

What's more serious than that? And add to that the next most important objective, which is win at the end, and does looking at life like a game start seeming a little more reasonable?

Me, I've picked up a couple of tricks from spending so much time in front of a console, and I'll be unloading them bit by bit as I think of them. So cheers, guys. Here's to video games.

Level up your skills.
Any time you spend doing something, you are either learning something new or learning how to do something better. Use your time building up your skillset; you'd be surprised how easy some things are if you just give them a whirl. Cook something. Build a bookshelf. Practice bouncing quarters off of tabletops.

Learn when and where to farm.
The world operates on a barter system. In order to acquire things, you need something to trade for them. You start with time, spend it working on your skills. You have skills, trade them for money. And lo and behold, you have a job. And like any kind of farming, it's on you to polish your skills, find the places that will maximize your return on them, and mine them until you have the level of resources you need to accomplish your objectives.

Focus on the minigames.
I don't care if you're rescuing a baby from a burning building or just driving to the grocery store, sometimes you have to put the rest of the game on the back burner and concentrate on the task at hand. Recognize when these situations arise and give them your full attention. You can get back to pondering the meaning of existence after you're done not killing anyone with your car.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go shoot guys in the face with my compatriot down the street. More to come!

On finding time to write.

Does anyone else have a problem with this, or am I just that disjointed?

When I followed the lovely Miss Kitty's lead in the BED2013 project, I was unemployed and generally directionless, with my only hobbies being online writing and video games. Writing a blog every day, especially if I could phone it in now and again, seemed like a fairly doable thing.

But there's something about getting up and at 'em that's been throwing me off lately when it comes to blogging. I need to settle into a groove to get my thoughts out coherently, and that's tough to do after grocery shopping and getting a haircut and planting arugula and discussing short-term goals for the company.

I guess it's not that big a deal. I wouldn't be so antsy about it if I didn't have a solid idea for a blog in the chamber and I just can't get the wherewithal to pull it off for the second day in a row now. The thing is, I'm 103 days in now; I've made a commitment.

And like all commitments, sometimes the going gets rough. But you keep your head down and you power through.

Or, you know, you quit. But quitting's for chumps.

On thunderstorms.

I fucking love them.

Best part about tri-state summers.  Seriously.

On ambition.

My business partner dropped by today to snag the files from my old company. It was great to see him again; he's a funny guy, always on the up and up about high-end booze and the best restaurants and food markets in town. We caught up on what we've been up to since I left, knocked back a couple of shots, and he was off again.

We're very different people, he and I. He's a born leader, able to inspire confidence with his words, constantly coming up with ideas, ready with a steady hand at the wheel on the higher level. Me, I'm a natural second. I've always been a better lieutenant than a general, better as mortar than a brick. Leadership makes me uneasy, responsibility strains my nerves. I guide better than I direct. I fill gaps.

I've always felt that I let my father down in that respect. I'd been raised since childhood to believe that happiness lay in hard work and fiscal success, that I should assert myself and forge my way in the world, take the reins like a man and enforce my will. But if everyone was like that, where would we be? We can't all be leaders, we can't all smash our opposition and make our own way.

So if this is my lot in life, so be it. If it's my job to help others succeed and realize their goals, I'm more than happy to. And if, at the end of the day, all I can really call my own is a gin gimlet and a lawn chair in my backyard on a balmy spring day, I think I'm okay with that.

(Note: I recognize there's a line between having low ambition and outright sloth, and that I've skirted that line quite heavily in the recent and not-so-recent past. But there's got to be a happy medium, and damn it, I'll find it or die trying.)

On fairness.

Fairness is an illusion we create to make ourselves feel better about the onslaught of crap we face every day. It's a construct we use to make sense of things, a crutch we use to function as a society. Fairness isn't really a thing.

The fact is, life isn't fair. It simply is.

And the sooner you realize it, the sooner you stop comparing yourself to your high school classmates and your neighbors. The less you sit around feeling like you got the short straw.

You still got a fucking straw. Now get out there and make the most of it, huh?

On Sunday gravy.

I've been thinking about Sunday gravy lately.  If you don't know what I'm talking about, Google it - it's a dish with roots in Italian-American Brooklyn, rich with history and tradition.

It's also rich with meaty, tomatoey flavor.  I made my first run at gravy several years ago with my extremely Italian roommate on hand for authenticity policing.  As I am wont to do, I searched for recipes, reading through them until I could patchwork a recipe of my own, a Frankenstein of tastiness based on what ingredients I could acquire.  The result was a success, a powerhouse of rounded-out tomato flavor, its natural acidity balanced by the breakdown of sugars only time could achieve.  Meatiness from oxtails and pork ribs simmered until the meat fairly dissolved into the sauce.  Sausages cooked so low and slow they snapped apart like pillowy hot dogs, meatballs that fell apart at the touch of a fork.

Years would pass, and I would learn things.  Enough things to understand what I was doing with this dish, able to look at it through the lens of an outsider, someone who didn't have generations of traditions steering my hand.  And it occurred to me, the longer I stared at the various recipes, that this was no longer a tomato sauce, or even a tomatoey stew.

Of course, tomato is going to be the primary flavor.  Sunday gravy is traditionally thin, something that pours freely from a plate at fifteen degrees.  And yet it has an intense depth of flavor as opposed to the singular bright acidity of faster sauces, like marinara.  Tomato paste plays a part in every recipe I've seen for a very good reason - paste is derived from tomatoes that have been dehydrated, usually through roasting.  This step, this product, means that the typical flavor of the tomato is enhanced by the caramelizaton the roasting process induces, leading to a natural sweetness that can't be imitated.

But that's only half the story.  The fact is, when you're talking about Sunday gravy, you're talking about stock.  That hefty meatiness that balances out the tomatoey goodness, that silky mouth feel that sets the gravy apart from common sauce comes from gelatin.  And you get gelatin from bones.  Oxtails, short ribs, the butcher cuts and scrap meats of the day come together to create a tangible richness despite the gravy's thinness.  Of course, it goes without saying that these cuts should be browned before use.  The Maillard reaction is a vital element in any long-cooked application; the snowball principle will always apply.  Build flavors along the way, and your final result will benefit exponentially.

When you think about it, there's a reason Sunday gravy is such a standby.  Why it's revered, why it comforts and brings people together.  Scrap cuts abounded in the working-class households the dish was born in.  Tomato sauce was thinned to extend the volume and feeding power of the meal, but without sacrificing flavor.  The volume it would have to be made in to properly extract the gelatin from those bones demanded a gigantic family meal.  The abundance of glutamates in tomatoes were a natural match for the beef and pork within.  The bulk was augmented with meatballs and sausage, classic applications and extensions of ground meat.

Sunday gravy is a truly magnificent dish, one worth learning, studying, and keeping on file for a rainy day.  Even if you've got nothing to link you to it from a traditional standpoint, I highly recommend taking the time to give it a shot.  After all, traditions have to start somewhere, yeah?

(Don't worry, after all this talk of gravy, I'll be making a batch soon.  I'll toss up a 'recipe' when it's time.)

On smoking.

I started out of boredom.  I was 19, working at a liquor store, and once the shelves were stocked and the surplus stashed away in the basement, there wasn't much else to do.  The old-timers taught me Zippo and matchbook tricks.

In my early 20s, I smoked for pleasure.  Switched over to menthols to match my rolling/tripping habits.  If you have to ask why, I probably shouldn't be getting into it on the internet.  Suffice to say it worked.

When I started bartending, I smoked out of necessity.  Once the smoking ban went into effect, it was the only way to guarantee a break every hour or so.  And believe you me, when you're working FoH that hard in a shitty dive, you need to get away every now again to regain your center.

I was 28 or 29 when I finally quit.  Can't remember exactly when; it was the last January I was living in TriBeCa.  Prices were going through the roof, and, aided by a particularly nasty case of the flu, I dropped the habit cold turkey.

Only to pick it up again in full last year.  It started with a drag stolen from my employees now and again, a little something to take the edge off the crushing stress of running two locations by myself.  Drags became cigarettes, cigarettes became packs.  And before I knew it, I was back in it.

I've heard it said that you never really become an ex-smoker.  You're just a smoker who hasn't had one in a while.  See, addiction's a tricky thing.  It sneaks up on you.  You keep telling yourself you're in control, you can stop at any time, and one day you wake up and realize things aren't that simple.  It's not just your body that craves the nicotine, it's your head needing the habit, the ritual, the calm the repetitive motion, the inhaling and exhaling it entails.  You start the motions before you realize what's happening.  You make excuses for yourself.  You rationalize your behavior.  You reassure yourself you'll stop when the time is right.

You can tell me it'll kill me all you like.  I know.  I've seen it firsthand.  I know I need to stop, that this habit will stop my heart and riddle my lungs with cancer.  But it's never that easy, is it?  You know you should recycle, but sometimes you drop that plastic juice container right in the garbage.  You know you should hit the gym, but you hit the snooze button those extra three times.  And me, I take that first cup of coffee out on the porch and light up because that's how my day starts.  That's how my eyes open, how the day's timer clicks on and starts running.

So I guess I'm playing chicken with my own mortality now.  Keep your fingers crossed I bail before it's too late.

On nothing.

Seriously, guys, I've got nothing today.  I'm on day one of a six day stretch at work.  I'm in the final stages of my BiSC preparations, I'm thinking hard on a pretty serious project in the making.

I've got a character in the FFRPG I'm running trying to find a way out of the realm between the dead and the living.  I'm playing through Borderlands 2 on Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode with my faithful compatriot.  I just started watching Game of Thrones.  I'm thinking about losing weight and quitting smoking without serious steps towards either.

I'm lonely, but comfortable in the knowledge that I'm still too walled-off to be of any use to anyone else.  I'm antsy about advancing at my job because the thought of responsibility still turns my stomach.  I'm lucky as hell that I'm in the position I'm in, given the amount of effort I've put into my life.  I need to get out of the house, but it's so much easier to stay in.

I sleep too much.  I'm always tired, even though I don't really do anything.  I should floss more.  I need to start thinking about getting a new car, even if the idea of it breaks my heart.  I just spent almost $200 on a pocketwatch.  I still wish I played pool more.  I'm probably going to crumble an Oreo into vanilla ice cream later.

I'm kind of just drifting.  I have been for a while now.

On topics.

As I neared my 100th post, I was beginning to worry.  After the Scintilla Project, I was feeling pretty drained, kind of out of topics to blog about.  And yet I'd committed to blogging every day this year.

I refuse to believe that anyone has less than 365 things to talk about.  And you know what?  I'm right.  Just because things don't come immediately to mind doesn't mean you don't have something worthwhile to say.  So next time you think you're boring, you don't have anything to contribute to the conversation, take a second.  Is that really true?

Me, I've got miles to go before I sleep.

See you tomorrow, kids.

On fantasy world titles.

I've always loved when characters in fantasy settings get titles appended to their names.  You know, Strongor the Doombringer, or Dickbucket the Assfaced.  Sometimes I wonder what our lives would be like if we wore our characteristics in our names.  Pavel the Sensespeaker, Pericles the Plansmith.  Ness of the Floopage.  Laurenica the Maelstrom.  T-Bag the Balldipper.

I wonder what title I'd wind up with.  Foodwrangler?  Snarkspitter?  Couchlord?  Therein lies the trickiness.  It's not a matter of how I see myself, it's how others see me.  And that's a surprisingly difficult thing to find out.  Which again, would bring value to this whole system.

What about you?  What do you think your defining characteristics are?  And more importantly, how would you turn it into a shmancy fantasy title?

On friends and moments.

Envision a moment, if you will.

Stepping out from the chaos of a well-lit house with friends and television and cats to an empty yard, lit only with a battered laptop, a cigarette, and the barking of a neighbor's dog.

Reading the words of a treasured friend.  Separated by a hundred and some-odd miles and a couple of hours, your heart breaking with hers as you read.  Writing as you breathe in her story, knowing that you know it, reading it like it's the first time.  Was it last year?  Or the one before?

The barking falls away.  The cigarette burns out, there is nothing left but you and the empty black of the sky and the words of your friend.  And you write as you read, connected to her across space and time, sharing a moment that technically doesn't exist.

And as you stand in this impossible moment, know a peace that defies description.  Know that to attempt to share this moment means turning away from the beautiful void, means returning to the ordinary chaos of life, coloring that primal sensation with the structures we impose to make sense of it, to relate it to the rest of the world.

But the peace is enough.  That you felt it is enough.

On personal duality.

What is it about work that brings out another person?

Seriously, at work, I'm crazy about working clean.  I get annoyed at my coworkers for not scrubbing the plates before they go in the rack.  I get mad when I see a thing of chocolate sauce go into the dishwasher without a thorough rinsing because now the sanitizing liquid is all chocolatey and that's not fucking sanitary anymore is it?  How can you call the sinks clean if you're going to spend the next three hours doing dishes in it?  How are you going to just mop over that raisin some kid squished into the floor and pretend it's not there?

In the meantime, my house is a fucking wreck.  Stove's all greasy, counters are all scuddy, the floor's got cat hair and coffee grounds all over the place.  Why can't I bring that sense of order and functionality home with me?

It's like I'm two different people.  Pain in my balls, it is.