newly minted.

gluten-free.
uh-huh.
that's what happens when your diaper-babyish bellyhole can't handle the truth.
i mean,
c'mon, neighbors-
bread and flour and dough are all expert,
and wheat is what is on my mind most of the time.
i'm sort of about that all-purpose jauns.
i'm sayin',
i love hard red winter, soft red winter, straight-up durable durum,
hard spring, hard white, AND that soft white.
i never met a wheat i wouldn't eat.
however,
sometimes you meet a worthy warrior who has dietary restrictions,
and maybe you don't be a total d!ckturd about 'em.
(like, for example, being a lightning-striking viking vegan, perhaps)
anyway,
i've got a buddy that i've gotten to know and respect and admire over the last year,
and if everything works out the way it's supposed to-
today is the day.
yup.
the last day.
we'll wrap up his sleeve,
he'll wrap up his stay in new hampshire,
and i won't see him around anymore.
which is great news....for him.
ha.
y'know what is even better news?
i made up some mother'ucking magical gluten-free treats
for a fresh-to-death fond farewell for his wheatless face.
yuuuuuuup.
i'm NOT actually an A*-hole.
i appreciate his commitment to getting tattooed,
and he travels a ways within this remote mountain state to doo-doo that freaky sh!t,
and he's been an all-around top-five client since the first sitting,
so, honestly, if i didn't try to make a little magic happen,
it would almost be disrespectful to both of us.
therefore,
treats are a required addition to our final hours in the studio,
and they are surely in full effect right this very minute.
yeah!
what kind of glutenlessness have i prepared?
minty ones.
why?
because mint tastes really F*ing FRESH, kids.
obvi.
that sensation of chilled out tingling tundra sorcery is what we need, i think.
he's headed to sunny new mexico,
which i think is always as swelteringly hot as sunny old mexico,
so maybe one last early winter-style cold snap,
in soft, spongy, minty brown & white rice tapioca oatmeal briquettes is in order.
i hope so.
check the wreckable-rectangle-type teleport:

kaBOOMfire!!
mint chocolate chip blondie bites,
with mint chocolate mint ganache,
and shaved chocolate curl sprankles.
y'feelin' it?
word.
for really real,
if it isn't expert,
it isn't what i'm interested in.
*
this is it.
today is the day, again.
a sense of completion,
another 'nother ending.
every time the time we've been given reaches it's final countdown,
the other person in the exchange is the one who leaves,
and moreover inevitable goes on to bigger and better things...
meanwhile,
in the woodsly goodness,
sequestered in the shadow of a forest,
shuttered up in the Folk Life & Liberty Fortress,
squirreled away in the roots  of a mountain,
i'm still right here.
that's probably the hardest style there is.
nothing bigger,
nothing better,
but always MORE of it.
i'm always right here,
at the event horizon of a black hole,
watching time slow down, and pressure pull me in place.
it's heavy, this temporal tempest,
and it isn't temporary.
in fact,
it seems somewhat inescapable.
i guess that makes a lot of sense when you really add it all up-
the gravity of a lifetime of getting it wrong,
imploding in one focused location,
but only the location is fixed,
and everything else stays pretty broken,
just in precisely the same spot.
ugh.
try that on for a while and see how it suits YOU.
despite the deepening divide between the infinite purgatorial plunge of my
daily happenings,
i still wish for success for myself and my peoples,
and i'm glad that whatever X-rays escape from the portal
of this plummeting anomaly that seems analogous to my everyday life
have reached those i care enough about to spend energy thinking about.
maybe the problem is that X-rays aren't enough to cultivate coincidence
in the dense dolorous doldrums of my deep dark chasm.
in fact, i'm sure that if any new mode of thinking is going to elevate
and alleviate and allocate some new expert excellence into the abyss of
the secret universal ether,
it's certainly not going to settle for X.
what i need is some XI-rays,
and as soon as they answer my call,
bigger and better are bound to follow.
.....
i'll just be in the kitchen in the interim,
baking up a little extra something for the road;
never quiet, never soft.....