twenty three hours of cucch.

besties!
that's what's good.
it gets so rough in cold cold weather,
with hard hard styles,
and stress rashes and poorly scheduled tattoos,
and not enough movie checks,
and too many distractions and not enough time....
yeah.
but also,
best buds, tho?
that's what it takes to make it better.
word.
check the teleport:

see?
one weird duder can make it all seem not so bad.
expert.
he was only here for a little tiny bit,
but an infusion of super-elite active participation
made it all a lot more tolerable.
jeez,
i miss living with that guy, neighbors.
non-stop gettin' it is so much better than gettin' bent
on the regular.
awwwww, man.
alas,
he's gone.
just like that.
a blitzkrieg berserking pop-in-and-pop-out,
and the cucch is back to doo-dooing what he does,
and i'm still sh!t-salad scratchin' through the itchiest winter of my life.
it never gets easier,
and i apparently never get any better,
but all of it is really happening,
and i sure am grateful for this life and these times,
as sour and sore and bitter and broken as they are,
and for the worthy peoples spanning all the small spots that don't suck.
yea, kids.
there are glimpses,
and there are indications,
and all of it, always, will keep going the way it's supposed to;
never quiet, never soft.....

bananas.

somehow,
every single day,
i'm running behind schedule.
time seems to bend around me,
speeding up on either side of right now,
wherever i happen to be and whatever i happen to be doing.
i look up, and i'm late.
that's a thing.
i thought time was only supposed to fly when i was having fun?
turns out,
time gets impatient waiting around for me to have any fun,
and speeds up anyway while i'm trying to do what needs doing.
i feel like i'm moving at half the rate of everywhere else.
and if it's a true statement about derailed routines at home?
ugh.
then it's doubly true while i'm at work.
i'm coming home late as often as not,
but i'm never doing any extra.
that's just dumb, neighbors.
if i'm working longer, it should be because i'm getting more of all of it.
bigger pieces, more money, additional clients, the works.
instead,
the days are getting longer despite me charging full-steam ahead
through each and every hour.
the minutes just aren't amounting to an equivalence of effects.
y'know?
i'm supposed to have pastimes an' that,
not get passed by and surpassed by time.
bummer.
i guess i'll choke down a ton of treats and get fat instead.
hahahaha.
check the march-madness-type teleport:

banana bread!
whenever my daughters are around we get all kinds of fruit,
and then,
when they've been gone for a little minute,
there're always bananas hanging out for a while.
personally,
i don't ever crave a banana...
but once the skins get all bruised and doo-doo brown?
i loooove making a loaf of large-and-in-charge hottness out of 'em.
yes.
i get it poppin' with toasted pecans and coconut meal,
ground oat flour, brown sugar, vanilla,
soy yogurt, and vegan sour cream!
yes indeed, duders.
i like it extra moist and extra sweet,
and totally laden with other other extras.
oh, yeah,
and i added two kinds of chocolate chips, too,
since too much is always the right amount.
maybe i'm making an event horizon out of deliciousness?
y'know?
time bends inward at the heaviest gravitational surface.
i'm on that high-density maximum mass in the minimum volume,
while operating at full steam, full-strength, and full-decibels.
loud, fresh, hard,
and so fast it's actually slowing down the seconds and minutes
on firsthand second helpings of heaps of hot foodstuffs?
holy crap.
that makes sense.
it's all really happening,
but it weighs tons and tons...
it's picking up speed like a juggernaut,
so maybe i'll try being grateful for the initial snail's pace
before the rush and attack takes over totally;
never quiet, never soft.....

RaBBitRaBBit...

kung fu movies,
and other assorted imperial-era semi-historical chinese epics.
that's what's up, neighbors.
i mean it.
why?
because they're so flippin' expert, obviously.
c'mon.
anybody in 'em, emperor or chancellor or soldier or commoner,
who might be even just a little teeny tiny baby bit in love?
ugh.
they either get killed, kill themselves,
or kill the object of their affections.
asian cinema reps a hard style, y'all,
and that's no joke.
plus there's a LOT of yelling,
a whole bunch of axe chopping and sword smashing,
usually a flute of some sort of off-key lute or whatever,
and a ton of arrows.
and also face punches and head kicks an' that.
in essence,
everything dope in one two+ hour saga.
i've watched a dozen or so this last week.
and almost all of them were rad.
the thing is,
that's the way february closed down,
right until the actual stroke of midnight,
as times and calendars and talens all got recharged and reactivated,
perfectly timed to the end credits of the latest installment
of 'everybody dies at the end' movie night.
y'know what goes perfectly with shivering and scratching
and feeling deflated and defeated by another 'nother other awful
evening of loosely translated subtitles of chinese colloquialisms?
yuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuup!!
spitting out that coincidence cultivating hot fire, kids.
you all already recognize the need to say it out loud first and foremost.
i did it, because i do it,
and it happened hard and fast,
and then again when i woke up to stoke up the fires inside.
huh?
c'mon.
what are you?
an A*-hole?
i'm speaking on the summoning spellcast syllables, again.
every first minute, every first morning, every time,
because rules is rules:
RABBIT RABBIT!!!!!
i always say it,
because that's what you do if you doo-doo that freaky sh!t.
yeah.
it's also marchentine's day.
y'know what that is?
it's like a low-budget valentine's day,
except it happens two weeks later.
eh.
i dunno.
i made it up last year,
to cancel out a year of sh!t-salad celibacy.
now, three hundred and sixty five later,
i'm all about this one, kids-
it's more about sharing experiences,
and being sorta cute.
for realsies.
check the matching-treats-type teleport:

mmmhmmmm.
st. patrick's day commemorative luxury racing-green
sandblast-finished peterson of dublin briar pipes,
in his-and-hers pairing?
awwwwwwww.
yeah.
i'm kinda like that,
and i think you like that i'm like that, too.
expert.
that's it.
huh?
oh.
yes,
i will make up fake holidays.
any reason to commemorate the passage of time,
and the progress we'remaking towards the future.
it will all end eventually,
probably like a chinese war epic,
so we need to make the most of the times before
the cliff-plunging sword-stabbing flute-accompanied bitter end.
get with it.
***********
also,
i did these yesterday:

ouch.
some people take their lumps better than others.
no foolin'.
other people accept the fact that it's all really hapening,
but make a whole lot of extra-ouchy faces.
she was the latter.
for serious.
i've rarely felt worse about brutalizing someone,
especially when trying to go easy, and quickly, at the same time.
i guess it all costs somethin';
never quiet, never soft.....

two down.

february goes so slowly for it being such a short one.
february also usually gets a little better,
with the promise of all good things,
all in good time,
all turning up eventually.
however,
THIS february has been a real muthaF*er.
composed mainly of harder styles and colder temperatures;
with rougher patches and even rougher skin;
and higher banks of snow and lower balances in the bank;
and drier air than arid lands, surrounded by water that isn't wet.
ugh.
yeah.
it's over, though, at any rate-
and at least this year february goes out like this:

vegan blueberry chee'cake, b!tches.
because i want to taste something that doesn't
remind me of how snowblind and frostbitten
and shivering and sallow and hollow this month was.
seriously, neighbors,
i'm reppin' antioxidant hottness to warm up my spirits,
because i won't chug up on spirits to warm up my body.
hot tea and summertime flavors are just about all i've got going on.
the tea is extra-hot, and scalding my mouth'
the 'cake is chilled-up and cool to the touch,
but it has the benefit of the spirit and memories
of summer swirled around in it,
and those're good for summoning sommergeists for sure.
yes, indeed, duders,
i've been reduced to playing tricks on myself.
snippets of what was good when almost everything everywhere,
and very nearly everybody else, too,
all wasn't so sh!tty all the time.
bite by bite, sip by sip,
optimistic morsels are being smuggled through my tongue and teeth
to my heart and mind.
and of course,
it's my curse to be saltily, saliently self-aware of what i'm doing...
...so it's not really working.
it never can when you KNOW you're trying too hard to feel
something that reality refutes.
nobody stays here by faking reality in any manner whatever.
that's the rules.
gross.
it's just so cold, and dry and bleak,
even as the light increases-
it sorta serves only to illumiate the complete lack of color and life
in the sleeping moutains and rivers trees.
nature always wins,
but sometimes she's such a heartless dastardly bastard about it.
i GET it.
we either toughen up or give up.
and quitting isn't any kind of option for warrior poets of the first order.
y'know?
so,
although the brunt of this year thus far has been blunt and bludgeoning...
i'm still baking;
and i'm still loving;
and i'm still fighting;
and i'm still standing, albeit maybe on my last leg;
and sure,
maybe i'm kicking and screaming on that hobbled stalk,
balancing between keeling over and hopping higher;
making mean noises instead of smalltalk,
and blowing more smoke than spitting hot fire,
but all of it is all really happening,
and i guess that really, that's kind of the whole point.
there will still be more of all of it, regardless;
never quiet, never soft.....
(this makes 2300 posts, so i'm definitely  telling the truth)

bannocks?

bannocks?
what the F* are bannocks?
they're scottish oat cakes.
salty, dry, savory oatmeal flatties for your face.
got it?
they're bannocks
and they're expert, definitely.
now,
i've got a real-deal werewolfen sweet tooth, for certain.
i mean it,
i'm so much more likely to terrorize some sugary somethin'
than any herbed-up salt-shakered stuffs.
and that's no joke.
but,
when it's as weak-sauce as this winter weather is,
working itself into every drafty crease and crack inside
the Folk Life & Liberty Fortress?
sometimes you've gotta get activated on those hearty hardy jauns.
y'know?
yep.
so i got a little fast and loose with the traditions,
and i added vegan sour cream,
and a bit more butterishness,
and a scoople of brown sugar,
and dried cherries,
and chopped pecans,
and raw demerara sugary sprankles,
in addition to the wholemeal magic and intact rolled oats.
wordimus prime, neighbors-
check the at-home-scone-activational-type teleport:

stacks of 'em, for your F*ing frozen faces!!
they're salty, sure,
with precisely enough sweet on top to hit your palette just right,
and dissolve on your tongue,
and make your whole big fat shark-gluttonous self
freak right out with delight.
huh?
yeah.
delight.
that's right.
they're damned good, duders.
delightful, even.
in the scottish kitchen,
scones are bannocks and bannocks are scones,
but over here, in the woodsly goodness?
these jammie-jams are scones that borrow from bannocks heavily.
i'm not from scotland, after all.
that's all really a whole lot of whatever, wherever, whenever.
right now, in my house,
they do go down so smooth with a hot fresh cuppa, tho.
mmmmmmmm.
breakfast gets it IN over here.
we doo-doo that oaty fruity nutty sweet and salty all-at-once-type sh!t.
why?
because expert recognize expert, dummy.
duh.
this is how i stay warm.
stick-to-my-ribs biz,
in copious quantities,
all morning long.
that's it;
never quiet, never soft.....

barbarian irons.

hey neighbors.
y'know how sometimes when you're relaying information,
you can't really tell if anybody is listening?
yeah.
that's a hard style, for sure.
i mean,
you'd like to think that everything you're saying is important-
even the itty-bitty anecdotals and incidentals and footnotes....
but in really real life?
c'mon,
nearly none of it is actually any kind of noteworthy exchange.
and it's even worse for motormouthed non-stop jawbonin'
worthy warrior wordsmiths.
no jokes.
i talk a LOT,
so i can't ever honestly expect anybody to give too much of a sh!t
therefore,
when i went to the pocho to pick up my mail,
(pocho is post office in expert-speak, kids)
imagine the delight at getting a paid-attention-to treat!
ummmmmmm.
i'm kind of all about that.
yeah.
check the heavy-metal-type teleport:

barbarian culinary fireside activation is on the schedule, y'all.
getting what you want,
without ever asking for it?
expert.
getting it just because somebody listened when you mentioned it?
double-expert.
experiencing gestures of gratitude and generosity
and professional appreciation and active participation,
and also cast-flippin' iron?
that takes being expert to eleven, kids.
no jokes.
a cauldron of dutch-oveny hottness,
and a steel tripod to hang it over the outdoor firepit?
c'mon.
if you aren't even just a little bit jealous,
it'd better be because you already have one,
or else you're definitely an A*-hole.
real talk.
savage stormswept gypsy fireside soup making,
and viking victuals over hot coals and raging flames are what's up.
i count myself as one of the lucky ones.
i mean,
sure most moments are a swirling storm of doo-doo buttery sh!t salad,
but there are some calm seas amid the maelstrom, too.
the bright spots that pop up within the deepest darks
are the focus of a better, more advantageous vintage vantage
on virtue and activation.
i'm just sayin',
if somebody can glean that i NEED cold iron for hot fiery hottness
from out of the millions of mile-a-minute meandering musings
that my loose-yet-thin-lipped mouth makes happen
throughout the days and nights and weeks and months?
there are moments that matter,
there are words that are heard,
and there are times being spanned the way they are supposed to be.
those are all good things, aren't they?
mmhmmm.
i had a feeling that it couldn't be ALL bad all the time.
so that's that.
it's bitter cold all over again.
-15 fahrenheit is pure arctic awfulness.
it's brutal,
it's beastly,
it's taxing,
and strength-sapping,
and frost-biting,
but i'll bet it makes a boiled bucket of broth taste better
when it's roiling over a raging berserker bonfire.
i s'pose we'll find out soon enough.
hottness is the only defense against a winter this pleasant.
believe it.
i'm hoarding it when i find it,
and i'm sharp-eyed and hungry for it, always;
never quiet, never soft.....

do YOU like waffles?

yes.
we like waffles.
breakfast is the most important meal of the day,
right?
right!
so,
why not make it a mess of overindulgence?
seriously.
taking it too far is all i wanna do these days.
harder, faster, louder, and fatter than ever before.
that means that now this is happening.....
check the morning-glorious-type teleport:

c'mon!
neighbors,
oatmeal, cornmeal, brown sugar, toasted pecan pieces,
and just a tiny hint of powdered coconut,
all at once, in each of those iron-pressed toasty circles.
yuuuuuup.
they're so expert, all on their own......
but togetherness is meant to be taken too far,
so there's also real maple syrup,
and dried cranberries,
and chocolate chips,
and cinnamon-vanilla candied pecans on top.
why?
because experts know how to get it poppin' in the kitchen.
obvi.
what?
oh,
yes, indeed, duders-
that IS a seasonally-appropriate winter-tree tea-time mug,
with a strong hot cuppa irish breakfast steeping in it.
huh?
oh yes.
that IS a virgin mixed-citrus mimosa, too.
i mean,
c'mon,
what am i?
an A*-hole?
.....clearly not.
cranberry juice, orange juice, sweetened key lime juice,
and cranberry ginger ale,
all sparkling and delightfully magical in my mason jar.
i doo-doo what i do,
and that's all i can do.
actually,
it's so much easier when i'm not just doing it for my lonesome self.
that's the truth.
getting shark gluttonous and bellyaching in tandem
is so much more rewarding than hurting yourself without witnesses.
this is real life-
too many beverages,
too many bites,
too much is always the right amount.
i'm filling in the empty parts with sweetness.
that counteracts the bitter battery acid vitriol
of my otherwise caustic cardiovascular muscles.
yeah.
it'll take twice as much sugar to cancel out the hard styles
and hurt feelings and hate-type hurricanes
prevailing upon my heart these days.
so,
i guess that means it's time to get busy baking more treats, then.
balance is a helluva thing to achieve;
never quiet, never soft.....

clarity.

yes,
friends.
a little perseverance,
and dedicated time,
and a bunch of obsessive, shape-specific
sorting of innies and outties and scoops,
and before you know it,
the missing parts become clear,
and the big picture is revealed.
turns out,
it's mostly purple circles.
i love puzzles.
i really do.
the little details are the key to sorting out the bits
and putting together the pieces,
and making sure that there's teeny tiny secret hints
as to what there's supposed to be interlocking and connecting
one part to all the others.
...that's my favorite.
anyway,
it's all done now....
teleport:

uh-huh.
i just need to finish things.
i hate endings,
but i love completion, y'know?
yeah.
***********
neighbors,
you can't love if you can't hate.
really.
i mean it-
because without the bitter,
the sweet just ain't ever as sweet,
and that's no joke.
i'm reppin' both to eleven,
because too much is the right amount
every single solitary time;
never quiet, never soft.....

she can cook.

hey guys.
it's been one helluva week,
and my version of the weekend is finally here...
my skin is crawling,
no jokes.
like,
the whole outer surface of my body is falling off.
uh-huh.
neighbors,
anxiety is a F* of a thing.
turns out,
woodstoves create drier than dry air,
with nary a hint of moisture in it.
and,
bitter cold outdoorsiness is devilishly low in humidity as well.
and,
when both of those b!tches get together at once?
i get itchy,
and then i get stressed,
and then my stress makes me itchier,
and the itchier i get the madder i get,
and the madder i get,
the worse all of it continues to become.
a force multiplier of epic epidermal eczema or somethin'?
yeah. it seems like it.
anyway,
i'm sloughing and scratchin' and hatin' and hurtin'
and all of it keeps getting worse and worse and worse....
it seems like worsening is the only thing that's reliable anymore.
so,
you can just imagine the relief i felt at coming home to this:

yessiree.
amber can cook, kids.
and that's so expert.
mushroom wellington?
yeah!
i dunno what it is,
but i know that it has pureed veggies and a whole portobello
in between flaky golden puff pastried hottness,
and that the date sauce took hours to stir and simmer,
and the carrots and the squash and the asparagus on the sides
were all perfectly prepared,
and timed just right for me to come home to warm dinner,
and a well-stoked fire,
and candles,
and all sorts of homey goodness.
on the real,
after an awful day of doo-doo buttery people and places,
that home-cooked homecoming made a whole lot of road trippin',
and hard stylin',
and hard feelin' all wash away into a warm bellyful of good things.
i am grateful for the time i've been given,
with the people who really know how to take care.
i couldn't do it without 'em;
never quiet, never soft.....

the hardest part.

friends,
vacation is over.
uh-huh.
february school vacation,
and it's constituent heroic family togetherness,
is all done now.
we spent as much time in the snow digging tunnels as we did
weathering the even-lamer environments of the tattoo studio.
yeah.
i guess we had to make the best of some tough spots,
and let our endurance carry the three of us through the boring parts.
not much use in lamenting overmuch now tho, y'all-
nope.
it's all done with.
the (soy)milk is spilt,
and there will be no cats lapping it up.
that's the sort of realistic outlook we rep in the woodsly goodness.
seriously.
there's messes and accidents and cleaning up afterwards.
that's it.
at any rate,
harvest and maple are back at home,
and back in school in the watery doo-doo diaperism
of connecticut's weak sauce well-wishing and wimpy unworthiness;
it sucks when they're there and not here,
and it sucks there regardless....
speaking of sucking-
i'm back to being by myself in the colder and emptier
spaces and places inside the Folk Life & Liberty Fortress.
it's a hard style,
but it's just the way it has to happen these days.
i mean it, neighbors.
we worked on a puzzle for a while during their stay.
and, as usual,
they were very into the easy bits,
all those recognizable words and pictures to put together...
and then their attention waned as the degree of difficulty increased.
(they must've learned that from their ma, obviously)
anyway,
it seems i'm left with the odious and laborious chore
of finishing what i started,
and revealing a picture i've already seen on the box cover.
awwwww, man.
check the teleport:

plum valley.
purple trees for days, duders,
and all so i can safely say i do what needs doing.
ugh.
huh?
the picture isn't in focus?
yeah?
so?
it's not put together yet, either, so maybe take it easy...
this is it.
fitting it all in to make more sense of what i already know;
once the fun has passed, and the going gets slower and sh!ttier.
it's all really happening;
never quiet, never soft.....

nature wins.

yeah.
duders,
i think i may have been born a real idiot.
i mean it.
like,
in my DNA code,
there's an override script that can't be flipped.
for realsies-
i've been a billion different people so far,
and not because of any sort of reincarnation...
it's more like a doctor who regeneration,
or a lobster, or jellyfish, even....
i shed an old skin,
and start fresh with all the information from before,
inside an even older, more busted body.
uh-huh.
it's been really happening for a really long time, neighbors.
no jokes.
sixteen years ago,
this happened:

and six months on either side of that big-toothed horse-faced mess,
these happened, too:

ugh.
expert recognize expert, for sure,
and those are official identification documents,
so everybody can appreciate the expertism...
the thing is,
those guys barely look related,
and the other thing of it is,
they barely are.
i guess what i'm sayin' is-
i stay ugly, i stay dope,
and i remain a F*ing sh!t-hot clownshoe mess regardless.
the more things change,
the more they don't, kids.
the winds are blowing,
the ice is damming,
the whole of the woodsly goodness is in transition,
and i s'pose that's just nature winning in her roundabout way.
the styles stay hard,
the nights get longer though the days are lightening,
and all of it,
all the time,
is unfolding along the creases and kinks of the secret universal plan.
none of it makes sense until it's over.
i guess we've got that to look forward to.
shhhh.
is that the wind howling or the fat lady singing?
the caterwauls and catcalls all sort of sound the same these days;
never quiet, never soft.....