PIZZA!

it's always pizza.
i mean it.
if i'm run down, beat up, worn away,
and generally eroded in body and soul,
i'm picking pizza to pick me up.
and i'm attenuated rather than attuned to the secret universal plan these days,
so i'll bet i'll need a LOT of pizza to even scratch the surface of my discontent.
it starts with one, though.
and the other night, i did the thing-

WORD!
i do make one good lookin' homemade pizza, man.
that deep crispy crust?
once again,
it's diastatic malt powder, from barley.
111% worth getting if you really love pizza.
a scoop of it goes a loooong way.
that's 2 cups of king arthur bread flour;
2 tsp sea salt;
2 T olive oil;
1 pkg active yeast;
1 tsp fast-actin' yeast;
1 cup warm water;
1 T malt powder.
kneaded in a manly mixer with that strongarm hook throwing it all around,
for 11 minutes, and refrigerated for 12-36 hours.
it doesn't matter if you go long, but you'll want a solid dozen as the starting point.
anything less is not enough.
the oven should be at least 480℉ man.
hottness is essential.
and i recommend a minimum of two pizza stones, but go wild, bro.
it's your oven after all.
...and yeah, it's a veggie pizza. obvi.
with cashew chee' and daiya mozzarella and crushed tomatoes,
and baby grape tomatoes and sweet mini pepper rings and spinach,
and caramelized onions and fried garlic sprankles
because rules is rules,
and fresh basil to make it exxxxtra fresh and tasty.
it worked.
it usually does.
pizza is where i shine.
it's everything else that comes up lacking....
*
so, here's the thing:
this blog has existed for a very long time.
from fractured stories about Folk Life with my old family down by the river
in the further reaches of the woodsly goodness,
all the way through a couple of relocations,
a set of overlapping garbage dumpster relationships,
the emergence into adulthood of my older kids,
and the appearance of a whole new family,
at breakneck speed and in record time.
somewhere in there, i added tattoos and foods, and then more food,
and there was a whole period (of, like, a YEAR)
where i wrote about the unfairness and injustice of failure and dissolution
as it relates to interpersonal relationships....
and so on and on.
this thing with my name on it has covered it all,
without a mission statement beyond: true stories told truly.
after a while,
i started writing down recipes for posterity so i could access them here.
and then it seemed like a sort of impropriety to still talk about my personal life.
and then, well,
i got older than i am by breaking apart ,more than the whole  somewhere in the mix, and the readership dropped off....
after all, how often can you hear about homemade pizza?
and how often are there cool tattoos happening that are worth documenting?
and just when am i s'posed to make MORE art to show off?
i'm just sayin',
even the one bright spot i used to anticipate all year was at best a 50/50 split...
for real, man.
hallowe'en tried to kill me with an acute attack of stress-induced system failure
and asleep-at-the-wheel night driving,
after the guilt of indulging in my most favorite costume-building activity instead of
doing all the other things that i'm regularly reminded of
that are expected and demanded of me by circumstance and situation.
so, like, What. The. F*.?!
yikes.
i think i keep writing only because i'm just not ready to lose one more thing.
i'm documenting the days less frequently.
i'm NOT making majestic meals and detailed drawings with regularity.
heck, yesterday i used stencils all day at work
and used one pot to make some very beige dinner in the deep dark of night.
that's not sexxxy at all.
so what's the right answer?
is blogging even a tool that is relevant anymore?
i doubt it.
however many years ago, maybe it was something cool,
but now i've got the same number of hours in every day,
but they go by faster with less inside of them.
if i'm not working i'm sleeping,
and that's a new one for me.
if i'm not a work, i'm driving to get a dose of family.
if i'm with family, i'm neglecting family.
if i'm at work, it's never busy enough.
maybe that's my issue.
i won't be satisfied.
ever.
with anything.
partly because the people and places and things i care about are as separate
as continents,
and partly because i'm totally unfocused most moments.
it's a blurry kaleidoscope of problems using half-empty glass lenses
to see the downside in everything.
and that's with a heavy duty dose of daily P.M.A.
ugh.
i'm serious.
i wake up and get ready to attack every day like i'm going to war with it.
kamikaze? not quite.
but berserker juggernaut, for sure.
so how much inertia does a day have to generate to stop and reverse a running start
every single time?
a lot, i'm guessing.
it feels heavy. i'll say that.

whatever, buddy.
i made a pizza and it was good.
i did a bunch of tattoos and that was better than not doing that.
i got my dog some drugs and he's feeling better, which is good for him,
and a weight lifted off my chest, with a larger and totally different weight
replaced onto my shoulders.
more dog sh!t.
more house sh!t.
more work sh!t.
and that's just the lonely burdens.
family on family on family weighs heavier and heavier and heavier on my whole head
and in my dreams
and on my mood and my mind and my days and nights....
the mission statement here has always been true stories told truly,
but mostly i've been wary of the readers personalizing MY discontent.
so i usually just describe a cake or whatever,
despite that barely being what's really going on...
it's still the truth, but it's only a small chapter in a day in the life;
never quiet, never soft.....