ornaments.

neighbors,
my indoor branches are getting more and more expert.
that's real.
huh?
oh.
well, years ago,
we started putting the makings of a tree inside the house.
a big sliced-off maple trunk,
and big branches everywhere an' that.
that was way back in the olden early days,
when the Folk Life & Liberty Fortress was first becoming a thing.
now, as time has elapsed and overlapped and passed on,
i've started hanging things on 'em.
why?
because interesting things happen on sticks.
right?
yeah.
anyway,
there are two new additions on the latest branch i've added.
check the teleport:

yes.
triceratops!
or is it tree-ceratops?
oh, c'mon.
it's my favorite kind of dinosaur,
mostly because it is the best one.
and a marsh wren,
mostly because beautiful brown birds are always rad.
the blanks are getting filled-in,
and more spaces are added for extra bits and pieces.
this woodsly castle i'm dwelling in gets more activated
with each and every large and small new addition,
and every secret nook that gets a treat nestled into it
improves the overall feeling of belonging that this place exudes.
little things aren't just things.
they are cogs and cams and pistons and pumps
in a great big giant machine that powers and produces
this reclusive elusive tiny elite mountain life.
it takes a whole lot of juice to make Folk Life tick and tock, kids.
and that's no joke.
i am grateful for all the parts that operate all of it,
even when they clutter and clog up all the places and spaces.
it's not easy,
and it's not for everybody,
but it's mine all mine all mine,
and that's saying something;
never quiet, never soft.....

rabbit rabbit?

happy chinese new year of the wood horse!
yeah.
horses are weak sauce,
but what can we do about it?
nothin'.
awwwwww.
but,
what do we do when we doo-doo
that freaky-diki new year-style jauns over here?
hmmmm.....
should we rep red and gold stuff all day?
okay!
and make elite expert overstuffed dumplings?
okay!
and fire up wish lanterns and bonfires tonight?
sure thing!
that all sounds pretty good, huh?
yeah.
there's no reason that the frozen wastes
and the wee small hours left of the first phase of 2014.
y'know?
i know you do.
the thing of it is-
i still said the new yearly words words words first thing.
i'm not taking any chances, kids.
i said 'em in english-
rabbit rabbit.
and i said 'em in chinese too-
tuzi tuzi.
if there's good fortunes hiding out in the ether,
waiting to be called down with wordsworthy warrior poetics,
i'm definitely not gonna be the waterbaby who wimps out
on speaking the summons that starts it all off.
real talk.
so,
i'm gonna celebrate,
because i love reasons for doing extra sh!t.
just-because is the reason for always overdoing it,
but because-because is the right answer for taking it to eleven.
so,
in the interests of making today mean something to me,
despite my calendar reading western times and dates,
should i break out some marky-markers,
and hole-punch a pattern into some paper bags masquerading
as makeshift lanterns right now?
jeez.
probably.
i guess y'all should check the teleport:

yeah!
i'll make the most of nothing,
and make the worst out of everything else.
*
i do what i do,
because rules are rules,
and decrees are the only way i opine.
for realsies...
and my peoples know all about it.
check my latest greatest mailbox treat arrival,
a la the my-friends-are-better-type teleport:

a horn gavel???
yuuuuuup.
the cucch knows how to give a gift.
that's no joke.
site-specific and situationally-appropriate jauns
are the way the cultivated coincidence makes itself known.
nice.
i enact new rules and rules and rules;
i issue edicts;
and  i expect that my way is the only way.
i rep a hard hard hard style,
but i do it with absolute sovereign authority.
why?
because i'm a bully and a brute and a bastard,
but i'm also right most of the time.
(i'm not bragging about it, i'm complaining)
*
neighbors,
it's the end of january,
which really couldn't have come soon enough for me.
thirty one days of doo-doo butter,
and the final nail in an epoch of epic ambivalence and defeat.
today is a day for beginnings and endings all at once.
cutting ties and burning bridges,
letting loose and pulling together,
forming new and improved bonds
and altering the application of infinite nature as per court orders.
wow.
all of that,
and all of it happening all damned day long.
today is unfolding at a full gallop,
loud, fresh, and hard;
never quiet, never soft.....

who will help me bake this bread?

neighbors.....
check the super-crusty-hippie,
super-crusty-bread-type teleport:

yeah.
middlesex, vermont.
the red hen baking company.
cyrus pringle bread.
expert.

vermonters get a green-mountain boner explosion over local sh!t.
even when it's long dead botanists.
even when it's cost-ineffective local vermont-grown wheat.
even when it's negative forty degrees.
jeez.
that's some really-real all-abouterism right there.
but,
i guess all that feel-goodery is worth it,
because their tribute to our buddy cyrus is flippin' excellent.
yeah.
Tea'N'Toast is what i love the most,
so it was worth a roadtrip to the middle of nothingsville
to activate some of that loafy new hottness
from the olden days of yesteryear and all that.
***********
eating too much,
and spanning time so hard,
and eating a little bit more.
that's the gist of what i do when i travel.
no boku big drinkies,
unless it's coffee or club soda and cranberry juice,
no tapas at the bistro.
no nancy-pants playacting as a sophisticate, at all.
i keep it hungry,
and i stay low key.
food.
in my face, all over the place, the whole time.
that's what i want.
i can't say for certain i'm doing it right,
but my belly was full to bursting,
and my guts were hating me right back,
so i think i'm on the correct path to a shark-gluttonous
appreciative self-destructive warrior-spirited diet plan.
if it doesn't hurt,
it isn't working, kids.
*
also,
i love car rides.
hard.
and i love having company in the passenger seat.
i guess i'm feeling kinda super-duper grateful right now.
we're creepin' up on the year of the horse,
and that's definitely dumb.
but it's also a doo-doo do-over for rabbit rabbit action,
and maybe a new perspective for good luck and great times
is just what i need?
we'll find out tomorrow.
january ends.
horseplay begins.
and all of it really happens
regardless of whether we're ready or not;
never quiet, never soft.....

brown and beige.

neighbors,
i'm headed west for a minute.
yeah.
i figure the blinding, eye-freezing,
nose-reddening, bone-chilling wind blowing so hard
on this side of new england isn't bad enough,
so we're vermont-bound for inclement-weather
of a whole other 'nother lake-effected variety entirely.
that's real.
hippies and handouts and vagrants and dirty-dirts
are all on the prospective itinerary for today,
as a collateral damage interaction in the big gay
socially-conscious diaperbabyism semi-sh!tty city today.
but,
that's what you get when you go somewhere special
for vegan food and fancy bread and 'cultural' enrichment....
you can't have the sweet without the bitter, baby....
womp womp.
i s'pose we'll see about activating some expert big fun.
the weather may have other plans, however.
*
so,
that's happening later,
but right now?
yeah.
i'm eating treats for breakfast.
when the wind is bleating a brutal beat off of the clapboards,
and it's blasting the opposite of a furnace at your face,
to the tune of minus thirty farenheit degrees?
you HAVE to have something good to look forward to.
in that spirit,
i'm fast-forwarding to chocolate and peanut butter
and bakery-fresh hottness in my mutha-flippin' mouth.
check the fudgy-cakey-sexy-type teleport:

yuuuuup!
i'll confess to not really knowing what i was doing
when i got busy freakin' it off with that peanut butter jauns.
i mean,
i just put a bunch of beige bits in a pot,
and then poured in some sifted flour and salt and sh!t.
the good news?
uh-huh.
with the miniature chocolate-chips on top,
and the fluffy peanut blops,
and the fudge-style cake brownie brown beauty underneath,
today started off with amazing sugary breakfast goodness.
this is it.
too much is the right amount,
and triceratops are the best dinosaurs.
figured i'd explain a little bit as to why
that triplehorned battle-beast was riding dirty on top.
the color scheme,
the flavor combination,
the hottness.
all of it,
right now;
never quiet, never soft.....

cheap art lives on.

what?
uh-huh.
cheap art markers are the best ones.
they bleed,
they wear out fast,
the tips fray,
they're perfect.
and stickers are always dope.
always.
what i'm sayin' is-
i GOT they.
both of 'em, even,
as gifts.
check the treats-for-no-reason-type teleport:

awwwwwww.
lucky me,
i'm thought well of, in absentia, anyway.
i'm serious.
no,
really, i am.
i know, right?
i don't get it either,
but i DO get the treats anyway.
expert.
this means i suppose i'll be sticking and marking sh!t again,
for a little while longer at least...
*
snow,
wind,
arctic air,
frigid doomsday gelid hellscapes with no escapes,
and all kinds of hard styles?
uh-huh.
it's ALL really-real, and it's all happening these days.
2014 has been a real batch of pignuts so far.
maybe the year of the horse will activate some kind of
newly-minted asian superflu of catastrophic new hottness?
c'mon.
it's the year of the horse.
what are you?
an A*-hole.
horse people make cat people seem normal,
and everybody knows cats are the worst.
duh.
the outlook is grim,
and the north is bleak,
and the sauce is weak,
but a better embattled embedded bitterness is still superior
to a worsening of will and a withering of warrior spirit.
i'll take an unhealthy heaping helping of hot fire to the spithole
before i accept that sh!t-salad is the only sandwich on the menu.
it's unfolding outward, and upwards...
it's just that these doo-doo buttery detours take you down,
and around,
on long route short-cuts that only seem terrible,
until you're done with the work and see the results.
and that's no joke.
this year has been a real b!tch-ass thing to do.
but it keeps going on and on and on and on anyway.
we're grinding and trekking and slogging and making our moves,
aren't we?
yeah.
this is it.
that's comforting, kinda,
in an old man with an old dog doing old tricks kind of way;
never quiet, never soft.....

business.

how's business?
it's not busy, and it isn't big,
that's for sure.
in fact,
it's super uneventful,
and wholly disappointing most days,
and that's when there IS work to do.
yikes.
neighbors,
instead of getting discouraged,
i get a little sketchy, instead.
seriously.
more cheap-sh!t small art happens
when nothing else seems like it's gonna.
teleport:

uh-huh.
a big-footed bird,
and more flowers,
and a killed-up head.
i like what i like,
and i make sure to make some of it
when i have to make the best of a bad situation.
slow days,
cold weather,
hard styles,
blah blah blabbity blah-bla-blah.
there's always something happening,
and that's that;
never quiet, never soft.....

more makes it better.

so,
a few days a go,
i had those melty-lookin' wilty tarts.yeah.
the frosting, while totally delicious,
was just too soft and creamy, and it wouldn't hold a peak.
i felt a little bit lame about that.
no joke.
i F*ing hate it when whatever it is i'm activating
doesn't work out perfectly expert right away.
hmmm?
oh, yeah,
i'm SO kind of like that.
i was a little disappointed, friends.
right up until i stopped pouting and remembered the golden rule-
too much is the right amount.
y'know?
so,
i broke out the bag with the frosting in it.
....it'd been cooling off in the fridge,
and thickening up while it was at it.
i put it to it like i
check the upgrade-type-teleport:

c'mon, right?
neighbors,
the object was more.
i should've known all along.
silly me,
thinking that the problem was the consistency of the topping,
and not the quantity.
the whole dang problem was just that they needed overdoing.
lucky for my mouth, and yours,
i recognized the missing piece.
doubling the sweetness made it happen.
what's the lesson to be learned here?
oh, well, you know...
sure, planning is fine, preparing is useful, getting ready is great-
but flippin' out and going over the top works better.
every time.
berserker barbarians are a whole lot happier with amok havoc
and warrior poets make war on the commonplace at all times.
jeez.
this bitter bastardly dastardly cold weather has perhaps had me
feeling too old and stiff and busted and befrosted
to get my raging stormswept gypsy bits going i guess.
is it too abominably permafrosted and glacial to explode?
i dunno.
maybe.
but, definitely, in practice, today, and everyday, it's supposed to be
too much, too often, in excess as the standard level of participation.
more frosting,
more fire,
more volume,
more volume,
more volume,
more.
it has to happen because it has to.
and don't you forget it;
never quiet, never soft.....

no use pretending...

yeah,
neighbors,
i guess it's just what 's up now.
i'm a baker and a maker and a hard-lookin' cook,
but i'm barely even pretending to be an artist.
y'know?
i'm sayin'....
i go to work, i do tattoos,
and then i leave and promptly forget all about it.
no,
i don't take pictures of what i do anymore.
why not?
because,
if you've seen one cross on a dude,
or sideboob words on a girl,
or an infinity symbol with words, birds, anchors, and despair....
well,
then we're pretty much all caught up on that angle.
sure,
i draw when i'm there and all that sh!t,
but really?
i'm just filling blanks in with a hard-styled grind....
-
whatever happened to that guy who used to do the stuff?
ugh.
i think he traded in his non-latex gloves for oven mitts.
real talk.
but,
don't misunderstand me, kids-
i may hate the day-in/day-out doo-doo butter of working
in an uninformed, unspohisticated, loosely-populated,
petty and impoverished place.
but i hate it less than i despise the idea of packing up and leaving
the idyllic dopeness of the woodsly goodsly hottness
of my personal monument to expertism,
the  Folk Life & Liberty Fortress.
word!
and besides,
the remainder of my time is my own to do with as i please.
which mostly consists of feeding the fires in the woodstove.
when the furnace kicks on whilst the flames are a-ragin',
you KNOW it's too damned cold.
and when the indoor thermometer in my kitchen
reads forty eight degrees farenheit?
ugh.
it's just so sh!tty.
it's not easy, at all, and i suspect that it never will be.
for all the foibles of being a barbarian in the north;
and all the pitfalls and pratfalls of warrior poetry in motion;
and all the difficulties of being dissimilar to everyone else around here-
home is where the house is;
and the house has a hold on my hardened heart.
the stone foundations and the cold stone in my chest are connected.
this is where it all really happens,
the subtle shifts in focus have become a serious redirection.
i may have finally found my true due north.
*********** 
and also,
i'm still pretty flippin' excited about my mouthface/bellyhole connection.
that's no joke.
mexican miercoles, my friends.
that's burrito time,
for all y'all amigos who don't know what's good.
check the teleport:

mmmhmmmmm.
salsa fresca?
yeah!
homefried corn tortilla chips?
hell yeah!
pineapple and lime for extra squeezy juicy goodness,
and two types of other sauce on top of a broiled tomato-basil
lavash-type burrito wrap?
F*ing right, kids,
we get busy over here.
the dirty diaperload of brown bombs is better than most things,
despite looking pretty rough on the inside.
you gotta lay down the daiya(rrhea) chee' down first,
and then a healthy layer of spinach and arugala.
it coats the top in a burst-proof shell on the inside.
smart.
roman beans with triple peppers are in full effect over here.
so is ground and seasoned tempeh crumble blops,
with fire roasted chiles and salsa and nootch and cilantro......
did you just ask what's up with rice?
oh MAN!
i got the expert super-deluxe rice,
with weird black ones, and red ones, and brown ones,
and basmati, and all that sort of fancy action-
and i upgraded it with scallions and spices,
like turmeric and smoked paprika and chipotle ho' sauce,
because i know about the really real goodness of overdoing it.
ultimo-mexico shark gluttony is how i cope with terrible temperatures
and failing spirits.
i fill holes, friends.
one way or another;
never quiet, never soft.....

technical difficulties.

cream chee' is a helluva thing.
i mean it.
i don't know if it is even close to real cream cheese.
i'm just sayin',
that sh!t seemed gross to me way back when,
before i was vegan an' all that.
however,
when it's IN something,
like chee'cake or scones, or whatever,
it's undetectably delicious.
does that make sense?
hmmmm.
the thing of it is,
cream chee' puff pastry is flippin' expert.
that's no joke.
and when it's in those little cups of rich, salty, sweet magic-
with the baked-in goodness of all the fatty-fat-fats,
which is equivalent to extra-flavor for the flour?
uh-huh.
too good.
i use my little secret wooden-barbell-type tart squisher-
the one that presses 'em perfect every time-
and i make 'em up extra special.
this time,
i even used cream chee' in the filling.
duders,
check the teleport:

yeah!!
three huge scoops of jam,
blueberry, strawberry, and rasberry,
and a heap of confectioners sugar,
a splash of soymilk, vanilla, lemon extract,
tapioca powder, and cornstarch,
plus the pectin-producing power
of a patch of powdered freeze-dried cranberries,
all in one place,
heated until melted and thickened all over again.
that's the sort of stuff you scoople into something good.
neighbors,
it was going great until i made a mess of the lemon frosting.
ugh.
too much buttery pats, and too much wetness,
and all the sugar i added just made more of the less-rad stuff.
that's why it's all slumpy-lookin'.
i've got a whole pastry bag of it left over too.
dumb.
it doesn't ALWAYS work out more beautifully,
even if it does taste that way.
so, yeah,
i F*ed it up, visually.
i doo-doo that doo-doo buttery sloppiness.
especially when i'm flippin' freezin' and wasting a whole day.
guys,
no jokes,
i took a shower, finally, last night, around seven,
and put the same pajama jammie-jam sleepy layers
that i'd been wearing all dang day right back on.
what?
oh, well, i guess so-
that IS sort of like what a bum does.
i guess i was a kind of hobo-baker-man yesterday.
i made one of the ugliest dinners i've ever cooked, too.
huh?
no. there's no photos of it.
ugh.
after the disappointing frosting situation,
i skipped the pictures of my brown heap of tasty hideousness.
stay ugly, stay dope isn't supposed to refer to food,
but when it applies,
i guess we've got to go with what's really happening.
shark-gluttony and frozen body parts and woodstove-hovering...
all damn day long, and well into the night, too.
***********
i'm staying as warm as i can,
with tingling toes,
and red ears,
and a drippy cold-weather nose,
and i haven't even stepped foot outside in twenty four hours.
it's a hard style,
and a long winter,
and a cold Fortress,
and a bitter wind blowing through this woodsly goodness.
it's better than being dead, probably,
but it's a whole lot chillier than being alive,
that's for sure;
never quiet, never soft.....

cuspcakes.

oh, man!
we're finally out of the sh!ttiest period in western astrology.
uh-huh.
crap-ricorn goatfish skies are no dang good.
ill omens and hard styles and long spans of deepest darkness;
it's no fun waiting for that to run it's course every year...
but,
now we're in the age of aquarius, instead.
all water, all at once, for a few weeks, at least.
or ice, really;
up here, anyway, in this cold mountain valley,
it's frozen solid everywhere.
all of it, all the time, until at least next month.
that's great,
because januray isn't rad,
and it can't end soon enough.
is not capricorn supposed to be a tropic?
i thought so?
that must be latitude, and that doesn't apply up here.
ugh.
anyway,
we're on the cusp of some sort of new hottness,
as such,
i figured i'd flip-flop some treats for the occasion.
oranges are about the only bright orange glowing goodness
that january has on offer for our faces.
i figured i'd make use of what was poppin' off.
y'know?
yup.
check the sweethearted sweet-and-tart-type-teleport:

yum.
y'see,
i needed the oven going,
and the saucepans simmering,
because negative twenty degrees farenheit
is an A*hole temperature.
it makes for numb pink fingers and bluish lips,
even when i'm indoors.
hot ovens and fresh treats help a whole bunch towards fixin' that.
anyway,
right up there?
yeah.
those are orange cupcakes,
and they are expert.
they've got the zest and the pure extract and the juice in 'em,
and that's the way it has to be.
hmmm?
yes.
pastry-creme filling prevails in all instances,
including this one.
pulverized freeze-dried cranberries are basically bitter air-balls,
but when they're added to o.j.
and soymilk and vanilla,
and the zest, and all the secret thickening agents,
you get a pretty magenta pudding for the insides of those cakes.
it's good, and it's sweet, and it's tart,
and that's a perfect balancing point for the crumb of cups.
smart.
orange frosting,
with even more zest, and oils, and a hint of lemon,
and so much sugar and butterificness is good,
for sure,
but adding in some more powdered berry bits is better.
neighbors,
that swirled bi-color two-tone double-flavor frosting?
c'mon.
it goes to eleven all day long.
i got a special double-bag split top activator just for that purpose,
and i broke it a little first try.
i didn't let that stop me much,
and figured it all out fairly fast.
(too big a pastry bag, too little frosting)
that's real.
i mean,
what i lack in initial knowledge,
i usually amend with voracious information assimilation.
my learning curve looks more like a ninety degree angle-
skyrocketing straight up.
hahahaha.
stop it.
but seriously,
a swirled cusp combination segue in sugar?
i doo-doo that cosmic-mysteries-of-the-secret-universe-type sh!t.
and cranberry-orange is flippin' delicious, too.
mmmmmmmhmmmmmmm.
wait......what?
well,
obviously those are color-coordinated sprankles.
jeez.
don't be willfully obtuse-
you CAN see 'em, can'tcha?
***********
yes, friends.
i still keep making treats on my days off.
it's part of what's really happening.
i also document it here,
because that's part of it, too.
but,
blogging, though, y'all.
writing records of really-real-life?
who reads anymore?
i mean, really?
i'm writing for nobody, i think.
i guess it beats telling a boring story,
but only just barely.
i repeat myself when i'm awake,
and i dream about the same things when i'm not.
over and over and over until it's all over.
and there's no end in sight.
i guess maybe there's just a blindspot,
and a sigh,
and then it just eventually dims and disappears,
and eventually someday somebody notices that it's gone.
that's my favorite least favorite thing.
looking back and seeing what's gone.
it always ends the same way,
with the same statement-
whatever happened to that thing that used to happen?
it's a fair question:
what happened?
nobody leaves with the title,
and memories are made for being forgotten;
never quiet, never soft.....

s-s-s-s-sucio!

spanish sunday?
is that real?
i dunno.
sucio sunday, though.
y'noiw,
like, dirty domingo?
yeah.
that dirty-dirty sunday fun is definitely a thing.
while most weak-sauce sorcerers were watchin' sports,
and enjoying day two of a three day weekend,
i had a dream, duders.
yes.
i did.
i dreamed a little dream of dirty brown blops in my bellyhole.
and i made it come true like a no-jokin' kitchen expert.
yes, i did.
i get ideas, and i make moves.
and when i'm movin', i'm shakin',
and when i'm movin' and shakin',
i'm also stirrin'.
huh?
i rep a lot of pots and pans on all the burners and broilers at once.
jeez.
if it doesn't go to eleven,
it doesn't go where i'm headed, now does it?
nope.
so we keep it turned up, neighbors.
i won't allow for waterbabied doo-doo butter on my plate.
and that means i've got to get all of it going,
and harder and faster and louder and fresher, at that.
word up.
check the sucio-sunday-type teleport:

yeah.
white corn grits got gelled up into a pure pancake of polenta.
and that is delicious,
especially when pan-fried with a pat of butterific vegany spreadability.
mmmmmmmm.
there's secret red sauce,
but the secret is- it's just a jar of wet spicy sh!t.
womp womp.
however,
the super-sweety baby bell peppers and seitan was elite.
chewy wheat-meat chunks, simmered in three kinds of onions,
plus g.p.o.p. and green leafy sprankles?
....smart.
and, of course,
there were beans.
because beans are good for you.
y'ever had pinto beans that go to eleven?
yum4tum, kids,
they're called roman beans, and they're bigger and burlier,
and they came, they sauteed, and they conquered.
oh, c'mon.
with arugala and spinach and hot peppers, and spicy spices,
and nootch, for those superlative tastiness jauns.
yeah.
i'm on that cooking sh!t like it's my private obsession an' that.
hmmmm?
oh, yeah,
the salad.
black olives, kalamata olives, cucumbers,
sungold yellow grape-tomatoes, finely diced white onions,
cilantro, parsley, and red wine vinegar?
uh-huh.
anyone can have a generic sunday.
it doesn't even take any imagination at all.
i can't hang out with any of that, though.
i've got time at home that cries out for active participation,
and polenta pancakes,
and broiled muthaflippin' endive to ingest.
(that's that white pointy thing on the far right side, dummy)
wu-TANG!
i'm ON it, y'all.
making the minutes i've been given matter more by imposing
magic on the mundane.
it's not just dinner if you don't allow it to be.
this is the time i've got for doing things,
and this is what i'm doing with that time;
never quiet, never soft.....

refreezing.

neighbors,
it's cold all over again.
i mean,
yeah, sure-
obviously it's winter in the north,
so it's cold ALL the time...
but,
it's really cold all over again.
a blowhard bellow of frosty air has exhaled out
past the blue strip of ma natures pursed and scolding lips,
and settled back in this valley to freeze us solid once more.
awwwwwwwww, man.
that means that standing just four feet away from the red-hot
and orange-hot, and yellow-hot types of flame in my woodstove,
it's still cold in here.
ugh.
there are moments, though,
that activate the true inner hottness.
more often than not,
those moments use the collateral heat of my oven
to take away the incipient insipid chill of the january airstream.
uh-huh.
hot beverages and hot treats are the way we thaw our achy bones.
check the teleport:

yeah!
friends,
i candied some slivered almonds.
i really did.
toasted up and buttered down,
a splash of vanilla, a splash of almond extract,
and a punch of pow-powdered sugar make 'em so expert.
that's a thing.
and i added bluets, as well.
antioxidant fruit is good for you, obvi.
there's a little bit of coconut,
and a blop of vegan creamchee',
and soy yogurt,
because nobody likes a sahara-dry scone.
that's gross.
MY scones are moist, mother-'uckers
for realsies,
just because i'm a vegan weirdie doesn't mean i hate my face.
oh.
um,
just because i hate my face doesn't mean i'm mad at my mouth...
ugh.
okay,
i resent my big mouth a bit, too-
but,
i want to get warmed up with a fancy hand-thrown mug of warm
freshly-brewed and/or steeped brown hottness,
and i want a toasty oven-fresh expert somethings in my bellyhole,
via the tragic travesty of a senses-globe on my neck.
that's my F*-ed up head, kids.
y'know?
c'mon.
i make 'em rad, so i can taste the radness.
real talk.
i want rewards for my efforts.
i expect nothing less for my excellent execution of these endeavors.
ka-BOOM.
*
it took three weeks,
but tattbombing at the zip-zap studio is finally starting to seem
like it's the busy business it's supposed to be.
yikes.
no work is weak sauce,
and empty pockets,
and hard styles,
and bad moods,
and rough times,
and raw nerves.
working balls-out isn't any better, really.
hahaha, that's no joke;
but,
movie checks are movie checks, kids,
and those grands don't come for free.
i'm on that grind.
and i'm getting smoother the coarser i behave.
that's science.
grit-grimy and abrasive nature wears everything down eventually.
and it's all really happening;
never quiet, never soft.....

weather- whether or not.

more snow.
that's a situationally site-specific hazard
that comes with altitude and longitude and all that sort
of regionally dependent location stuff.
the white mountains are cold, neighbors.
a whole lot of the time.
and the woodsly goodness is nestled in the cradle of
a couple of northeastern new englandy peaks.
it's like a little divot that collects weather.
uh-huh.
and that's exactly what's happening.
more snow.
the thing of it is, kids-
half the time it's been brutally barbarically histrionically frigid,
and the other half has been rain turned to sleet turned to ice,
and the critical cataclysm of that combination,
all cryogenics and condensation,
has made the northern forest valley into a frosted-over F*-hole.
ugh.
and now there's more coming.
hmmm?
oh,
well,
actually,
i kinda like complaining about the weather.
i don't hate the extremes of up-hereness enough
to relocate to somewhere weaker in the sauce department,
but more pleasant in climate or whatever.
i mean,
c'mon.
that's what waterbabyish nancies do,
and we already know they're not invited.
so, instead,
i'm griping, and groaning, and stacking logs, y'all.
yeah.
wood is what's up these days.
stacks on stacks on stacks on stacks of it.
i'm just not trying to be cold still,
when i get all up inside the Folk Life & Liberty Fortress,
and that means i'm tending the glaring gaol of glowing coals
in the hot hard heart of my cast iron firebox.
and that's no joke.
i've got it turned up to eleven so hard
in that freestanding fireplace furnace...
it's working out,
kinda.
***********
garbage canning!
that's what it's called when you mix up all the stuff
you've left around in your refrigerator into one thing...
for example-
i had some beige protein bits,
and some sprouts,
and weird celery,
and a half a red pepper,
a small strange pinkish onion,
and a whole bunch of leftover cilantro and yellow curry sauce,
and a whole huge double-thick blop of bread dough.....
i had to put it all together.
i just had to.
and that's why this happened:

ugh.
seriously,
that's like two pounds of sandwich.
i stuffed every last morsel right into my face.
the double thick bread was kinda expert though.
i may need to start doing more of that.
obviously.
more is usually better,
even when it's rotten weather.
damn.
rules are a hard style to follow.
but,
that's just What Is;
never quiet, never soft.....

werewolf.

i know what time it is.
y'know?
yeah.
for sure.
hmmm?
do YOU know what time it is?
don't be dumb....
it's mutha-'ucking werewolf time.
you mean you can't feel it?
c'mon.
then just look at the nighttime sky, guys.
jeez.
it's blue and silver and bright as heck,
and there are certainly gonna be stark-naked stark-raving
stormswept skinshifting shapechangers raging out there.
no?
really?
but,
these werewolfen jauns are in full-moon full effect.
and that's no joke.
i'm on that bestial berserker barbarian battle-blastin'
brutality for the cosmic lunar savagery,
and also sleeplessness.
awwwwww.
it's just such a luminous circle,
and it's shooting down all those insane raybeams,
and they're all reflected off of all of the icy snowish bits.
uh-huh.
i've got it coursing in my blood, b!tchbags.
a hard-pounding pulse of animal magnetic mayhem.
is it the call of the wild?
is it the lure of black iron pulling due true north?
jeez.
i dunno.
but you know what IS certain?
yeah.
treats.
hahahaha.
i get fresh with the super-fancy unnecessary stuff.
and also with the extra-sweet expert tarts.
really.
check the linzer-type teleport:

ka-BOOOOOM!
c'mon, neighbors.
cookie-cutout almond shortbread freestyle freestanding action?
so dope.
raspberry citrus sugar filling is what's up.
and of, course,
because real-deal old-timey linzertorte has rules,
and y'all know how i do so love the rules-
there are big raw sugar crystal sprankles on top.
mmmmmmmmm.
slats and straps,
pressed-up fluted sides,
hearts and stars and leaves,
and all of it extra rich and buttery and nutty and fruity and rad.
it's music to my mouth, for sure,
but soothing savage beasts it ain't.
i mean,
it's basically a sugar rush and rush and attack,
but it's also so freakin' amazing in my long-fanged manic maw
that i couldn't care any less about how hard and fast
that i've been devouring it.
too much is the right amount, always,
and full-moons are the most you can get.
circles and circles and circles and circles,
overlapping,
emanating,
ricocheting,
echoing,
and all of them spiraling out from the center.
it's ley lines and longitudes and latitudes,
and all of it all the time is expanding and imploding,
concentric consensual concentric cause-and-affect effects.
werewolf.
wild in the streets and/or dirt roads of this woodsly goodness.
that's what's unfolding in front of us tonight.
.....and also blood-red raspberries.
feasting on flaky pastry instead of biting and tearing at the
fringes of infinite nature.
i do what i do, i s'pose;
never quiet, never soft.....

keeping those sandwiches turned up.

black pepper,
hot italian green pepper,
crushed red pepper,
rainbow baby bell peppers...
yeah.
my pepper game is going hard these days.
and when you saute a hot fresh batch of peppers
all in one well-olive-oiled pan,
with circles of sweet red onions,
you've got the makings of one fine sandwich, for sure.
and if we were to add fra diavlo tomato sauce,
with a healthy punchy fistful of added nootch, maybe?
indeed.
that's that spicy business, my friends.
i'm just sayin',
i love a hot sandwich with added kinds of heat and hottness.
uh-huh.
neighbors,
i had to have a little special somethin'.
i mean, eating alone is no fun at all,
so it may as well at the very least be
exxxtra expert in the taste department.
therefore,
in the spirit of treating myself sorta nicely,
i took the time to temper some tempeh
with all sorts of sausagey spices an' sh!t.
fennel, and black peps, and g.p.o.p.,
and rosemary, and sage, and thyme,
and smoked paprika, and mustard,
in a white-wine-vinegary and tamari marinade,
with liquid smoke droplets, and agave syrup stirred in.
yeah.
and spread over some breath-scrubbing parsely parcels,
on another one of my custom flatbreads?
the new sausagey peppers and onions italian gutbuster
is ready for an all-out onslaught of tastebud activation.
yeah.
check the teleport:

word up.
i deserve the finer things, right?
right.
and i'm the only one who is gonna make sure
i get exactly what i have coming to me.
otherwise,
if i leave it up to another other somebody,
i'm probably gonna get what they think is fair-
and that's usually a short-shrifted shifty sh!t-salad smearface.
y'know?
yuck.
NOT invited.
instead,
i'm kneading, and stewing,
and all that sort of stuff.....
it's probably good for me?
hmmm.
well,
it's all really happening, regardless.
***********
portland, maine.
the artsy northeast coastal pretty city.
that's where i take my trips to.
uh-huh.
it's got what i need:
vegan food,
vegan groceries,
irish breakfast tea by the boxful,
and chocolate bars for the ride home.
friends,
sometimes i crave ingredients that aren't available up here.
that's true.
douchey urban do-gooders serve one special purpose-
they make it so that the grocery stores where THEY live
carry all kinds of expert secret treats and components.
fairly-traded organic loom-woven sun-bleached gaytardation
they can keep to themselves and their recycled produce sacks, too.
i'm reppin' weird marshmallows,
and fancy flour,
and freeze-dried loose berries,
and all sorts of other other jauns.
and chocolate bars for the ride home,
like i said.
i got what needed getting,
and snacked up on some bellyachin' candy bars, as well,
all so i can get busy getting even busier going further and farther
in my bakery-activated evolution as a kitchen conjurer.
so while i'm not super-psyched on the weak-sauce that comes
with living full-time in the easily-accessible vegan haven of
population-density-enhanced 'culture',
i concede that the woodsly goodness gives no F*s about me.
that's why i like it so much.
if it was easy,
nobody would give a crap.
the wrench, kids.
it's everywhere, and we always get a choice.
i choose the harder way,
and the extra hour and a half each way for goodies,
and the chocolate truffle squares on the drive home;
never quiet, never soft.....

rich.

awwwwwwwww.
hearts on hearts on hearts.
what do you guys know about sugar stencils?
oh.
well,
it's not exactly the next big thing,
but sometimes,
it just happens to really happen.
and it's kinda cute, if it's heart shaped.
awwwwwwwww
(see?)
check the cookie-cuttin'-pattern-type teleport:

c'mon!
don't even try to hate on that business.
i know you like it.
i doo-doo that literally-sweet-nothings sh!t.
seriously.
i just washed it all off after i took the picture.
hahaha.
i had to dust up the tops, though.
that's no joke.
y'all ever been to linz, austria?
me neither.
but i know those cakey nutty baker-philosophers
wrote the first cake recipe in recorded history.
no foolin'.
the linzertorte is a venerated and celebrated nutty and buttery
sugary explosion of old-timey hottness.
and the tops of the little tartlets get ka-pow-powdered, kids.
teleport:

you'd better recognize that i'm not messing around over here.
almond flour?
i GOT they.
little tiny shapes for poppin' out the middles?
i got THEY, too.
expert recognize expert, right?
so if you know what's up,
you know what's up.
(get it?)
*
but, neighbors-
how many sticks of butter-style yellow rectangle jauns
is too many?
depends.
hahaha.
you weren't expecting that, huh?
i mean,
sure,
too much is better than not enough.
but sometimes,
when you're scanning a recipe for rough quantities,
before veganizing and deviating, and activating.
there's a little hesitant breath where you wonder-
first,
am i an A*-hole for looking at this recipe?
second,
how much more expert would this be
with so much more of all the bad-for you bits?
uh huh.
no jokes.
a little variation on the sugar,
and increase in the butterishness,
a splash of vanilla no mater what.....
all the little things that make sure that the weak sauce
of a written list of itemized ingredients
and quantified cups and spoonfuls can't accommodate.
y'know?
you get a general idea of oven temperature, maybe;
or a feeling of how a classic treat is supposed to be, perhaps;
or how many dozens you'll be playin' snaps on.....
and then Folk Life ingenuity takes it all up to eleven.
yeah.
anyway,
blueberry is not the traditional fruity jammie-jam for jamming
in between the two layers of buttercookied sugarnut delight.
but i like blueberry,
so that's the way it had to happen.
finished product shot?
okay.
check the pun-type teletorte:

yuuuuuuuuuup.
lemon zest and juice and oil an' that,
and cinnamon,
and brown sugar as well as white,
and so much extra not-exactly-butters.
holy flippin' crap, kids-
they're good.
you knew they would be and you were right.
that probably feels pretty good, huh?
well,
being right is not as good as that plate of baked greats tastes.
that's a thing.
oh, sure, you can have some...
...but i still don't make deliveries.
the Folk Life & Liberty Fortress is awaiting your arrival,
and there will always be treats when you get here.
rules is rules, and there's no gettin' away from it.
it's all really happening,
and it's all happening in here;
never quiet, never soft.....

cheap markers.

neighbors,
it's so slooooooooow.
at work, i mean.
time itself is racing by,
days turn to weeks turn to years,
and it's been happening faster and faster every moment.
but,
at the tattoo studio,
time all but stops.
if it wasn't for motormouthing my constant consonants
and indefatigable syllables an' that,
i think i'd become trapped forever and ever and ever
between rocks and hard-styled places,
immovable and immutable and immemorial.
ugh.
instead, though, duders,
i'm making coarse pictures,
with ratty-tipped blunted marky-markers.
it's true.
it helps to make something not THAT busted
out of all the castoffs and throwaways laying around.
i'm not saying it's a bunch of masterful magnum magic,
but it doesn't exactly suck either.
check the doing-what-i-do-type teleport:

uh-huh.
more of all of it.
more often than i'd like to have time for.
one shot freehandy formulaic flora,
and skulls...
because skull are expert.
that's real.
this is the way i'm spanning time,
on that hard grind,
day in, day out,
hour after hour.
i take ten minutes to catch my breath,
and sketch a little something,
before i plunge back into conversational calamity.
i'm not an orator,
i just talk a lot.
i'm not a artist,
i just draw when there's nothing else to do.
if there was an oven at work,
i'd be baking, instead.
believe it;
never quiet, never soft.....

barbarian burgers.

black bean remix?
sure.
duders,
it's just that i loooove eating food.
like,
so much.
like,
i'm definitely possessed by spirit and infinite nature
of a great big sloppy disgusting fat person.
no question.
i just want to fit all of the treats into my bellyhole,
every second of every minute of every hour of every day.
forever.
so,
when it's dinnertime,
it's also time to get busy making sure i gorge myself.
i'll eat a lot all by my lonely,
but,
when i have company over to span time and break bread?
yeah!
then,
it's also time to activate the fancy business.
i want to be impressive a little teeny tiny giant amount all the time.
that's a thing.
good news, though, neighbors-
after my last couple of days of sandwiches,
i had some dough hanging out in the refrigerator.
it was just waiting to get pan-fried into a couple of flatbreads.
i'm reppin' that puffy pancake jauns pretty hard lately.
why?
because they're F*ing expert.
jeez.
what are you?
an A*-hole.
don't be dumb.
anyway....
herbs and spices,
like parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme?
all simon says to get all garfunkle with it.
and marjoram?
and yellow onion,
and a nootch crust.
ok.
okay, okay.
actually,
the nootch crust came about because my dinner companion
reminded me how necessary nootch is,
and i had actually forgotten it when i was mixing up all my bits.
ugh.
it happens, kids.
i'm not perfect by any means.
but my mistake became our delight,
at her suggestion.
check the teleport:

yuuuuuuuuup.
green and leafy chopped and braised kale,
a slippery slap of yellow onions,
sprouts,
and custom activated smoky paprika and chipotle ho' sauce dressing!
yeah.
i love the idea of one fat folded fresh sandwich,
but with two circles of protein-rich bean magic all up in it.
i mean,
it's like fitting in double the regular amount,
but AS the regular amount.
smart.
***********
also,
sometimes,
you don't have time to wait for natural orderly progression.
y'know?
yeah.
i know you do.
the thing of it is-
i already know that nature is always gonna win.
i mean, rules is rules.
so,
if it follows that there will be victory for all of the
secret universal infinity and all that.....
how do i get it to help me win, too?
c'mon.
that's easy.
just embrace the worst and make it the best.
expert.
for instance,
these icy terrible slush heaps everywhere?
they're slippery, and grainy, and just full of arctic temperature sh!t.
...and that's good news.
hmmm?
no, really-
i mean it.
just check the teleport:

that's it!
friends,
i pressed and packed it around a pot of
piping, steaming, scalding hot hot hot raspberry compote.
a whole mess of outdoorsy wintertime crappiness
becomes heat-dissipation-activated quick-cooling happiness.
thanks, terrible weather,
for speeding up the fruit filling feature of my latest tuesday tarts.
-
when life hands me lemons,
i zest 'em up, and squeeze 'em out,
and drizzle all that citrus into my red razzes.
it helps;
never quiet, never soft.....

that sandwich game.

pesto.
yeah.
that's right.
raw cashews, and olive oil.
garlic, and onion powder, and nootch,
salt, pepper, parsley,
and a bucket of basil.
uh-huh.
it's dope.
huh?
well, yes,
it IS ugly- but it's also dope.
and when it's used correctly,
as a pasty accent glue for a fresh sandwich?
yeah.
it's not just dope, it's expert, too.
believe it.
there's a trick to rehydrating
and simultaneously fry-drating slabs of tempeh.
you gotta lay it down in some oil first, kids.
then,
once its hot hot hot,
you flood the pan with your sauce.
and it's never weak sauce.
ever.
not even once on accident.
that's right.
bragg's tamari, agave, molasses,
spices and spices and spices,
and liquid smoke,
and white wine vinegar,
and black pepper, always.....
that's the juice.
it absorbs into the sliced squares of expertism,
and it caramelizes the outsides, too,
once the wet bits are locked inside.
smart.
speaking of caramelizing-
without onions all slippery and sweet,
you ain't doin' much that's all that rad, neighbors.
sorry.
rules is rules.
anyway,
add some sauteed mushrooms,
and some slices of fresh-ish winter tomatoes,
and you've got yourself some kind of good stuff.
that's real.
check the pesto-is-the-best-o-type teleport:

butterish-fried herbed flatbreads,
from scratch?
yeah.
i F*s with that sandwich-type jauns like that.
it's not that i consciously try to big-time
and/or showboat
and/or grandstand.
it's just that expert is as expert does, friends,
and i've got to be true to my infinite nature.
therefore,
if we had these treats one night,
it was clearly time to one-up the ante the next.
check the more-is-still-better-type-teleport:

yeah!
c'mon, now.
coconut crusted sesame tofu,
caramelized red onions,
cilantro,
sprouts,
crunchy-A* cukes,
and a fattie-boombattie sauce-slap from the future?
uh-huh.
yellow coconut curry,
in F*ing full effect, folks.
i doo-doo that active dinnertime participation-type sh!t, too.
curry on both sides,
curry on top,
all saturated from a starchy slurry to thicken the pot!
expert.
the homemade semolina and gluten enriched custom dough
i knead up to flatten out and fry in a big ol' pan
 is very likely the key to taking all of this supper business
to eleven.
y'know?
without the foldable freshness of those flatties,
it's all just a bunch of tasty stuff in a pile.
lame.
there needs to be a round disc of designated delicious
delightfulness to hold it all snugly in a floury embrace
for easy epic shark-gluttonous big-bite munching up.
the circle, kids, is the key.
as usual, it ties it all up in a unified form.
a delicious, warm, filling, unified soft-taco of unparalleled hottness.
that's it.
we all need to eat,
i just want to do it better than everybody else.
warrior poetry isn't just about fighting for your life,
it's about food fighting too;
never quiet, never soft.....

going bananas.

so,
if you like yogurt,
and also happen to be vegan,
you may have noticed that last year saw a mysterious
disappearance of soy-based active yogurt.
i mean,
if you were paying attention, anyway.
no joke, no kidding, no sh!t.
yeah.
well,
the stuff is back, somehow,
after that unannounced and unwelcomed
yet prolonged disappearance...
i can have it, again!
you know what that means.
uh-huh.
it means i'm terrorizing SO many of those invisible tiny
bitter gross little germs that are pooping in soymilk until it's thick,
and i'm doo-dooing that freaky microorganismis sh!t
all over the mjutha-F*ing place.
word up.
i must be self-regulating my digestive pH or somethin'.....
i dunno.
hahaha.
hippie holistics are for waterbabies,
but,
now it's everywhere all over again...
(maybe it was gone to drive up demand?
i sure do buy a lot all at once now, just in case)
anyway,
i am using it in all kinds of stuff.
and seriously, neighbors?
for really real?
i never eat all my bananas fast enough.
i guess i forget about them,
or maybe i just am not always in the mood.....
waitaminit, though, yo.
yogurt. bananas. breakfast.
it's all really happening.
yuuuuuuuuup.
check the teleport:

c'mon.
with oatflour, and ground coconut flakes,
and brown sugar, and miniature-sized chocolaty chips,
all together all at once just because?
yeah.
i'm pretty flippin' expert when i want to be.
a whole bunch of mashed bananas,
and twelve ounces of says-it-on-the-label-even vegan yogurt,
obvi-
but also?
i hit it up with two heavy-handed fistfuls of chopped walnuts, too-
yes.
i guess i like thinking that there's mostly good stuff in my sugary bread.
sure,
we all know it's all 'good' stuff;
it tastes incredible and edible and intense and elite and all that-
but i'm talking about those eagles' eggs nutrients, kids.
like,
good for my face, not just good in my face.
i want to get all kinds of activated energy and vitality-enhancing vitamins
and chocolate and coconut and whatever else.
really, though, i'm gonna just eat it and eat it until it's all gone regardless.
y'know why?
because too much of a good thing isn't anywhere near enough.
the object is more.
forever.
*
duders!
besides the yogurt situation,
this year so far is such an A*-hole.
it's still early, yeah,
so i'll give it until groundhog day to really wow me.
i'm sayin',
i refuse to believe that the best i'm gonna get
is a bunch of little single-celled bugs getting stuffed down my throat.
then again,
that'd still be better than the last few years.
ugh.
but,
real talkin' on the ones for y'all?
it's gonna take a whole lot more than banana bread, friends.
a whole unholy helluva lot more,
to take 'fourteen to eleven.
let's cross our fingers and toes,
and rely on the relay between rabbit rabbit magic
and the rest of these days,
to get it together to sync up and send out
the summons for some new hottness.
two weeks into some weak sauce,
and i'm prepared for the big action.
let's have a little more of that, please;
never quiet, never soft.....

eleven.

ice storm?
F*ing right.
right on schedule.
and just in time.
everything looks sort of amazing,
and all of it feels completely flippin' awful.
it's liquid terror out there y'all.
the roads are pure sh!t,
the rain is pouring down in gory gouts of skyfall,
and all those gallons and gallons are going nowhere,
and all of it is freezing on contact.
what's that?
oh, yes, indeed,
the hill i live up on never gets sanded or plowed before noon...
and yes,
that means i took another 'nother breakneck spinout
out-of-control momentum building express slide
into a snow bank all over again!
c'mon.
of course it did.
nature seems intent on breaking my new hottness.
it's not enough that it always wins,
it has to be a poor sport and really run up the score.
nice.
***********
and in the midst of this slippery slidey-ness?
yeah.
check the date, neighbors-
eleven.
that's today.
so,
in order to give propers to the doctor,
i repped my sonic screwdriven sexy bits hard today.
yeah.
check the re-TARDIS-type teleport:

who?
indeed...
oh' c'mon,
you like it.
but what's up then?
i mean,
formal attire just to sit at job and not work all day?
expert.
hard styles keep piling up, kids.
it's all really happening,
elements and implements reducing me to a future in tenements;
never quiet, never soft..... 

tricking my tastebuds.

it's so cold!!!!
believe me when i not that i actually like cold weather.
that's no joke.
i look better in layers,
but i hate sweating, so cold is where it's at.
however,
i don't like when it's so F*ing cold that there
are no places with any warm spots, though.
y'know?
i mean,
very few things feel better on numb toes and chapped fingertips
than the tingles of returning circulation and recalibration from the
emanations of a hot hot hot woodsly fire in a cast-iron stove,
with radiating rays on the burly bricks of an elite hearth,
after doing some kind of expert manly winter activation outside.
that's real.
but,
when you're still freezing, standing next to a metal box
chock full of glowing coals and roaring flames?
that's pure A*-hole.
no kidding.
the thing is, neighbors-
i need a little reminder of what non-yeti conditions were like.
i mean it.
so,
i got out some strawberry jam,
and some freeze-dried strawberries, (c'mon)
and some frozen strawberries (ugh),
and i sliced and scooped and pulverized all of 'em,
in varying degrees of preparation,
in a big pot on the stovetop,
just so i could cover a treat with some semi-summery summoning.
yeah.
check the pink-and-red-type teleport:

word!
vegan strawberry chee'cake,
for my cold, chapped, cracked sad lips.
expert!
i'll have you notice that in this photograph,
there's very nearly a quarter of it gone already.
that's right, friends.
shark gluttonous first-slice privileges were indulged.
i'm that big-big-bigger bite business, y'heard?
yeah.
i doo-doo that gimme-more-treats-for-my-face-type sh!t.
barbarians don't take shorts, and they hate thing slices.
trust me.
it looks good though, doesn't it?
it IS good, mutha-lickers.
recognize.
huh?
yes.
i put strawberries in the chee'cake, too.
those pectin-rich powdered pieces i make in my spice grinder
make like magic potion jauns for the creamy inside bits...
and the jammie-jam adds a secret something, too.
make sure you add a goobieblop or a scoople whenever you can.
that's a little tip from the Folk Life test kitchens just for y'all.
a little lemon juice for tartening the tastes,
a little lemon extract to enhance the berry flavors,
and a lot of white stuff to make the middle more interesting.
flour and blops and blarps and bricks of white in white on white.
mmmmmmmmmmm.
-
anyway,
the graham crackers and the oat flour
and the brown sugar and the coconut flour
and the butterishness and the soymilk and the vanilla
all together in one place, in the oven, even,
helped make the crust a great big success.
but,
who is surprised by that?
nobody?
good.
cooking up fruits or berries,
adding maple syrup,
using my new berfday blender to make a smoothie-style batter,
taking steps and following formulas,
and disregarding written recipes-
kids,
it's what gets me by.
relaxation through treats creation.
and for a few bites, at least,
there's something tangible to show for my effort.
until eventually it turns to sh!t.
awwww, man.
digestion is a real jerk.
-
the chee'cake helped.
i knew it would.
of course,
as i'm typing this, my fingers are turning black.
is that bad?
i don't think more creamy fruity pie can fix that.
it's cold everywhere.
and that's just the way it is;
never quiet, never soft.....

frozen solid.

hey, neighbors-
it's still cold.
yeah.
i'm sure you're well aware of it,
at least, if you live on the top half of the right side
of these united states.
the thing is,
it's so cold that everywhere isn't warming up.
at all.
like,
not even INside;
under the covers and sheets and blankets and quilts;
with the heat on high, hot, and heavy;
and the woodstove going....

damn.
that's a hard style.
hard,for serious, like ice.
hard,
like the clogged pipes that are all stopped up.
hmmm?
yeah.
stoking the fires on high,
just to keep my breath less-visible indoors is one thing....
but un-chilling the crawlspaces underneath
the Folk Life & Liberty Fortress?
that's a whole other other 'nother thing, entirely.
friends,
the pipes are frozen.
and that means that water sleeps,
and sleeping water is untouchable,
until it's good and ready to go where it wants.
guess where it wanted to go?
yeah!
up out of the secret seams and seals in the plumbing,
and all over the floors of the Fortress.
uh-huh.
do i want an ice rink in my super-sexy downstairs bathroom?
sure.
or, at any rate,
did i want sopping socks and slippery super-chilled liquid
and a whole lot of heated fluids and plungers and profanity?
i definitely wanted all of that,
because all of that is what actually happened.
i keep it expert,
even when every day is the worst one.
what?
right?
i know.
apparently the secret universal plan felt i needed reminding.
ugh.
***********
the good news?
hahahahaha.
nope.
c'mon.
what's that, now?
oh, sure, i forgot-
it's gonna get warm again tomorrow,
and it's gonna rain again, too.
and that's sort of positive, right?
don't be dumb.
y'know what's happens when it rains after a brutal arctic blast?
all that uninvited water, instead of the insulating activation of snow?
snow has that R-value, duders.
water that isn't already frozen before it hits the ground,
is just gonna freeze on these barbaric tundra glaciers
that's been supercooling on every inch of already-iced-over wetness....
and when more ice is stacked on top of acres of ice already frozen in place?
all the balls of ever are gonna get sucked by the environment.
word up.
the ground temperature is so cold that the warmer air temperatures
would only be great if there wasn't precipitation involved.
because in that case, it's actually a terrible idea.
that's a thing.
the earth is just too dang full of stored-up frigidity.
rain freezes on direct contact.
.....yeah.
i'll bet that should be big fun for everybody.
i know i'm looking forward to another trip down the hill over here.
the spinout demolition derby is scheduled for eleven.
y'know?
nature wins, every time,
but she is just such a dirty b!tch.
the nights seem longer,
the styles feel harder,
the days take forever,
and it's all so flippin' numbingly frostbitingly abominably cold.
-
so am i getting excited about the impending warmth?
not even one little tiny bit.
ouch.
every wild animal knows that bright spots usually end with collisions.
ouch.
don't go getting all kinds of excited
about what looks like a light at the end of the darkness-
it's just oncoming traffic in one form or another
stay cold, kids;
never quiet, never soft.....

wish.

neighbors,
berfday cupcakes, tho.
y'know?
yeah.
it's real.
check the making-wishes-type teleport:

i huffed,
and i puffed,
and i big bad wolf'd;
and then...
... i blew it.
that's a good thing, too.
i sent my secret wish into the cold winter sky,
on smoky wafts of arctic wind and hot air and dragon's breath.
that's right.
i wished on that lonely little candle's firelight,
because that's just what you do, duders.
now....
is it going to come true?
c'mon,
what are you?
an A*-hole?
it's pretty unlikely.
magic wishful treats never show up when you want 'em...
but,
berfday cupcakes are pretty easily activated.
so,
i'll maybe miss out on my wish,
but i'll still terrorize some of these dreamy baked delights.
that's something, at least.
***********
i ate too many cupcakes,
i ate too much indian-type blops at lunch,
and then,
when i couldn't possibly fit in any more?
yeah.
i made some pretty expert dinner, too.
food is good,
good food is great,
and great food is what i want.
check the teleport:

wooooord.
black bean burgers,
from scratch?
with herbs and spices and caramelized shallots,
and two kinds of legume flour,
and other other things,
like olive oil and oatmeal.
and i topped it off with hummus,
sauteed kale, and sriracha!
totally activated?
you know it....
happy berfday to me after all.
and are those itsy-bitsy belgians?
no, dummy,
but they are brussels sprouts!
and there're even portobello buttons in there, too.
i guess i wanted to make sure i had a stomach ache today.
(and if that was the secret plan, it worked out perfectly)
i fixed up a pretzel-bread sandwich and i ate it up,
and it kicked/blew my A* right off.
that's it.
 *
oh,
and i got presents, too.

treats on treats on treats?
that's always rad.
it's never all bad, friends.
there are bright spots and material gains hidden all over the place.
really.
i had a day,
and then today,
i had another.
it's all really happening;
never quiet, never soft.....

dramatic lighting.

ugh.
getting older isn't exactly expert.
you get weird knees,
or missing pieces,
or mystery weather-dependent aches and pains.....
sh!t falls apart when you use it a lot.
and it changes color and shape and texture, too.
it's a hard style,
all this slowly transforming into something worse.
but it's not all bad, though, either-
i mean,
sure,
it's nice that age, experience, and information
all combine to create a great big impressive catalog of wisdom.
y'heard?
wisdom.
like,
if you're trying hard, and paying attention, and knowing stuff?
yup.
all of a sudden it swirls around and around,
and then it all gels into some pretty rad concentric concentrations
of overlapping spirit and memory,
creating interconnected orbits of intellect-activated insight,
foresight, and site-specific warrior poetry.
yeah.
that's real.
and there's the trade-off, neighbors.
you get more and more busted up
and broken down as time travels into the future,
but if you're doing what you are supposed to,
all that past tense tension transforms into vast back-catalogs
of historical reference and deference and inference,
the then the whole inside of your head goes to eleven.
the only problem is-
the outside of your head pays the price for it.
luckily for us,
black and white photo documentation saves the day.
huh?
oh, it's true.
monotone portraits make most uglies look more interesting.
and that's good news.
all the gray and white sprouting and spurting inside my skull
has been leaking into my few remaining follicles.
real talk.
and that's why i'm putting filters on my F*ing face, friends.
yeah!
stay ugly, stay dope?
uh-huh......i'm on it.
check the grayscale-type teleport:

mmmhmmm.
helping barbarians look better since before color showed up.
don't believe me?
here's the original:

ugh.
see?
grizzled wizard salts and peppers,
and a forehead that will eventually touch the crop circle in the back.
staying dope is compulsory,
since the rest isn't just staying ugly,
it's reaching untold heights in the all-time-low department.
hahaha.
wisdom.
that means knowing that the worse it gets the better i am,
because that's what garrulous gandalfy go-getters do.
there's always more,
and too much is the right amount.
i'm reppin' that careworn and distinguished anguish-type flavor.
older and wiser after all this time,
and looking it.
it's all really happening,
and i'm grateful for every long night, cold winter, and tough call
that led up to all of this-
it's real life documentarianism,
and that's the whole point;
never quiet, never soft.....