biscoff

have you ever even had biscoff cookies?
no?!
c'mon, neighbors.
they're on that next-level upgrade white people sh!t.
no doubt.
the kind of belgian hottness on par with van damme.
word up.
anyway,
they're expert,
and moreover,
they turned their signature cookies into a signature spread.
duders,
it's cookie butter, and it's dope.
you all know how i get busy already, probably-
but , just for the benefit of anybody who might be new here:
too much is the right amount.
...that's the truth.
and MORE is better, every time.
so,
without any more preamble,
check the biscoff-type teleport:

WU-TANG!!
peanut butter oatmeal squares.
yup.
brownie style, with melty creamy dreamy luscious peanutty butts all up in 'em.
mmmhmmm.
they're crumbly, because oats and peanut butter are wont to doo-doo that sh!t,
and they're rich, for the same reason.
but,
they've got alllll the calories,
and all the hottness,
and they are full activated with a triple threat of biscoff big busy business.
really.
biscoff buttery frosting, whipped into airy soft cookie sugar fluff,
filling up the insides.
biscoff spread splashed across the tops, too.
that's a lot of decadence in one bite.
why add the straight-up spread?
to hold on the crushed biscoff cookie sprankles, OBviously!!
c'mon.
cookies, and butter, and frosting, on those already elite right-angled rectangles?
expert.
my whole tongue turned off, and i was left speechless from the first bite to the last.
yup.
no talking for ten seconds, in a row.
can you believe it?
well,
i ate the second one much faster,
just to prevent a repeat performance.
ha.
***********
i've been doing a lot of banking.
hmmmm?
no.
not because i have too many stacks of movie checks.
in fact,
just the opposite.
it seems that true responsible adulthood includes a lot of paperwork,
and finances are about the least interesting part of all of that.
the thing of it is-
i'm about to be FORTY.
i'd like to erase the past decade, or at least,
the alarmingly lingering vestiges of my greatest misses,
(and not-so-greatest mrs.  ha!)
and strike them from the records as inadmissably irrelevant
to the present state of affairs in the Folk Life & Liberty Fortress.
that means tying up all the loose ends,
and whilst tying the knots hasn't ever been what i needed,
untangling the snarls and snags sure does seem to be my forte'.
so,
what i mean is-
i'd like to call my thirties a wash.
i sort of won some,
i definitely lost some,
and now, the season is over.
i'm looking ahead, to another 'nother balder, grayer, older, more busted decade
of well-honed wordsmithing and warrior poetry in motion.
damn.
that includes a bunch of bank stuff.
it's no fun, and everybody is always in a hurry to get the forms.
the forms/.
guys,
forms, formality, fomorians.....
it's all trying to keep me up at night,
and F* up my days,
and distract and detract from this mutha-effing elevenmas, too.
yikes.
there's so much that goes into these paperworks,
and somehow, albeit by no means any surprise,
MY paperworkings are the circuitous, overcomplicated, longhanded long ways
away from the smooth electronic jauns of today and tomorrow.
no foolin'.
every step has been a battle for secret documentation,
and verified, signed, notarized disclaimers of veracity and verisimilitude.
when it's all said and done,
each and every article of itemized legally-binding proof of my life
will have been distilled to just the barest boiled-down burly berserker
barbarian battle-beastly blood essence,
and the future will unfold along a single timeline, straight as an arrow,
falling straight down.
i don't even understand half of it,
but i assure you,
it's ALL really happening,
and i've been told that's for the best;
never quiet, never soft.....

that's AMORE.

wednesday is notoriously a pasta day.
y'know?
i'm pretty sure it's a rule where i'm from.
anyway,
yesterday, i decided to get in the spirit,
and fire up some delicious mackin' 'ronis for my face.
to be fair,
ampy-d had a craving, and i acquiesced to it.
but,
i'm glad i did,
because i brought down the odinson thunder on that plate of pasta, kids.
no jokes.
check the tuttorosso-type teleport:

MAMA MIA!!
that's some savage magical never-the-same-way-twice marinara, neighbors.
i mean it.
slow cooked onions and garlic, olive oiled until almost dissolving,
deglazed with red wine vinegar,
and covered with crushed tomatoes.
you know i put the seasonings to it,
and a punch of nootch,
and a pinch of sugar,
because papa knows how to put the hottness to those jauns.
real talk, right there.
it's in my blood.
anyway,
simmering a pot of sauce is good for the soul,
especially if you've got good bread for dippin' in it.
try it if you're doubtful.
you'll see.
linguini is expert.
thicker than spaghetti,
but not so flat that it flaps around like fettucini.
deliicious, al dente, and dope.
word up.
y'ever heard what they say about it in the old country?
'you don't like 'guini, you ain't sh!t.'
that's no joke.
the real superstar, however,
was that homemade 'meat'ball.
it's-a so a-spicy!
crushed red pepper and black pepper make it pop,
but slooooooooow cooked tempeh, onions, garlic, and diced tomatoes
in brothy barbarian big action, twice-hydrated,
all make it so thick and rich and hearty;
and while that's got the burliness,
it's wheat gluten, garbanzo flour, tapioca, nootch,
and a buttload of italian herbs that make it float across your face
like leaves in the trevi fountain....
ha.
guys,
the meatballs are bangin' off the meter, though, for serious.
seitan-tempeh triumph, olive oiled, rolled out, and covered in crushed 'matoes,
and just chilled for a few.
yep.
they set up, firm up,
and prepare themselves for the ovenly lovin' of my enchanted hotbox.
yuuuuuuuuup.
so, we got our 'guini.
we got our sauce.
we got our spicy meatless ball,
and then we got ourselves some parsley garnish sprankles.
yum.
so what else is going on over there?
oh.
well, there's a bed of garlic'd kale,
wilted down all italiano-style,
and then, just to urn it up a little more,
and take it to the outer limits of level eleven,
there's cloche-roasted garlic-topped, oil-spread, toasted garlic bread.
kaBOOOOOOOOOOOOM.
dopeness has been activated.
*
a word up wednesday in honor of both my folks.
they used to get busy as F* making 'ronis and that,
and i had them on my brain all day yesterday.
there's plenty i don't discuss in these single-serving diatribes,
but believe me,
it's ALL still really happening,
and just like chuck-D's uzi,
it weighs a mother-F*ing TON.
i've got that heavy duty,
and many other duties besides;
never quiet, never soft.....

too much is the right amount?

all-the-way-dad status achieved.
yup.
why would that be a thing?
i'm glad you asked-
for the SECOND time this year,
i get to spend a big ol' pile of money on fixing the doo-doo buttery
doo-doo watery doo-doo pipes in the Folk Life & Liberty Fortress.
uh-huh.
a giant man, with a giant vacuum,
and a flexible giant pipe cleaner
spent most of the late morning drilling, emptying,
and filling in some of the plumbing.
why?
because i guess my family takes the rules to heart.
which is nice,
except when that means ignoring decrees put in place
to protect the infrastructure of my homely haunted house in the hills
y'know?
no?
well, i'm just sayin'-
too much is the right amount doesn't apply to toilet paper.
ugh.
the guy pulled out so much girlie grossness,
and that on top of enough toilet paper to deforest the amazon.
jeez.
not only is that confusing,
but it's also such a dad thing to get mad about.
except,
when everything is plugged up,
and yesterdays meals are awakening as today's draugar,
then,
that's a very dadlike thing to actually justifiably BE mad about.
of course,
NO one did it,
but,
somehow, despite the absence of culprits,
it's all really happening,
and i'm the one covering the cost of the damage i didn't do.
.......that sure sounds pretty parental to me.
-
also,
he found a secret pipe.
yup.
that's real.
secret pipes hide in the walls, and be old as heck.
how old?
lead, and caulk, and makeshift-rigging old.
and that's old.
now,
there's been a sink that leads to the secrets in the bathroom for years,
but it turns out that the waterfalls flow slowly through this little weiridie,
and provide a bacterial breeding ground that rivals the first days of creation.
now,
i'll give you a guess as to what lived in the wet, worrisome,
weak-sauce of this derelict section of underground diluvial disgustingness.
huh?
ewww.
no,
it wasn't an animal.
i doubt one could've survived the scene.
as a matter of fact,
i think it was the trapped last breath halitosis of every corpse in the whole universe.
....that's what it smelled like, anyway.
holy sh!t.
or,
unholy sh!t, maybe.
everything is cleared out, now.
including my wallet.
awwwwwww.
i'm glad it's all better.
but the real question i'm asking myself is-
at XI-mastime,
will unnamed nobodies somehow manage to mysteriously mangle
all of it all over again, for a trifecta of terrible terror in the tubes?
damn.
i hope not.
*
raining on my days and nights;
pipes and plumbs and plumpy puppies;
bank notes and bank statements that don't make sense;
there's no time for everything.
there's barely even any time for just some things,
because there's always something there to distract and deflect effective use
of the seconds,
so that sloppy secondhand success is the best i can glean from the corners
of each overlong and overfull day.
damn.
hard styles and lead linings, neighbors.
that's not silver, it's poison, or maybe quicksilver,
moving super-slowly, and seeping into the loose lengths of wet wood
in between the floorboards.
yikes.
every day, there's something.
or several somethings.
never nothing, and never ever nothing to do,
even when there's nothing to be done about it.
real life is a clogged drain;
never quiet, never soft.....

slow news

i do this:

yep.
and then i do it some more:

and more:

and because too much is the right amount,
i do it again:

ha.
c'mon neighbors-
i doubt that those few who remember the last time that
i was all about that custom portrait life recall just how expert
making yourself look foolish is.
but,
it IS.
that's a thing.
*
i think it's reasonable to believe there is a unifying force in the world,
and that it is composed of echoing energy reflecting and refracting
a full-spectrum prismatic rainbow of intention, attention,
and resonating vibrations of overlapping orbits of spirit and memory.
huh?
yes,
that's for sure some radical secret universal game theory jauns,
but, i mean,
it isn't all automatically bullsh!t just because it sounds like metaphysical superstition.
i'm just sayin'-
let's assume temporarily that i'm reverberating at the same frequency as the invisible
world that limns that ley lines latticing the longitude and latitudes
absorbing and emanating within our wider waking one.
no.
hold on.
i mean it.
opposites attract.
and magnets repel each other when they have the same polarity.
now,
tell me that i don't get close to completion,
and then somehow watch it all always fall apart
each and every time from some unforeseen but simple undoing
that defeats the success of each endeavor.
guys,
it's magnetic werewolf full-moon gravitational doom,
and it's the metal in my mettle that'll test and challenge happiness
one hundred percent of the time.
damn.
that sounds like some severe next-level blood-curse crazy person stuff, huh?
ok.
but,
what if it's provable?
time seems to support my hypothesis,
so i s'pose we'll continue on apace,
and see what shakes loose-
it's ALL really happening,
and there's no chaos to complicate the outcome-
its predictable.
rules is rules,
even if you don't know 'em.
ignorance of the laws of nature does't negate them,
and nature wins.
forever;
never quiet, never soft.....

kamikaze

pearl harbor day is today,
and it's my dad's berfday, too.
he's two-thirds of the beast, today, friends.
yep.
66.
that's something.
and as much as i'd love to surprise attack a declaration of open war
on my progenitor in a strike-first-and-talk-sh!t-later kind of hard style,
i'll instead wish that surly, burly, bald barbarian a happy happy one,
and let the lion in winter rest his weary head as comfortably as he can.
besides,
his mane is lookin' hella shystie these days,
so why stress the last few silver strands into a fight-or-flight scenario?
hahaha.
i've inherited a version of his sucky scalp,
so i feel entitled to talk a little noise about the original recipe.
y'know?
yeah.
that's a thing.
old and busted is what i've become,
but older and busteder is what he's been forever.
oh, c'mon.
he's got style, and personality, and both of those count for a lot.
quite literally, i learned it by watching him.
so, at sixty-six looooooooooooong-toothed years,
he's got a system that has directly influenced the focus and intensity of warrior poetry
for decades before it even had a name,
and i'm grateful to have an old man who instilled
a severe and serious set of values in me,
by and large through insane situational examples
and accidental doses of lightning-striking viking jauns.
i'll carry the curse of our werewolfen berserker bloodline as proudly as i can.
word up.
..........
oh, yeah,
and also,
unrelated,
but still very important-
i F*ing LOOOOOVE pizza.
ha.
yep.
that's no joke.
pizza is expert, and more pizza is more expert.
really.
last night was a homemade party, with all the toppings,
and a cracked oven stone with all the supernatural hottness of narsil, son.
believe it.
we crushed a triple-threat of pizza pie,
and every one of them was a mutha-flippin' explosion of excellence.
special thanks to ampy-d for the prep game that went to eleven.
yeah!
neighbors,
check the pee-eye-zee-zee-ayy-type teleport:

you know there's underchee'.
there has to be-
that's my signature visionary activation,
and it takes each dough up to eleven.
uh-huh.
mushrooms and not-dogs? delicious.
daiya(rrhea)?
they changed the recipe.
that's a thing.
and it's more daiya(rrhea)y than ever before.
good news for people who love cheese,
but a little tough to swallow for those of us who like it less poop-ish.
awwwwwwww.
anyway,
we muscled through it, and fired up another:

mmmmmm.
asparagus, and artichoke hearts, and tempeh bacon bits!\
so dope.
the fat, and the acid, and the salt, and the italiano delciousness,
all at once was like angels dropping cupid arrows down our throats.
yum.
and we closed out the evening with the trademark jauns that we love the most.
check the finale-type teleport:

brussels, baconish, and onions.
classic Folk Life flavor in full effect for our faces.
that's that mandatory boomfire from the power-hour pantry
we raid for ingredients when the mise en place gets poppin'.
friends,
i love to make pizza almost as much as i love eating pizza.
but,
i'll still eat pizza even if somebody else makes it.
in fact, maybe tonight is a go-out-for-pizza kind of night?
who knows?
it's berfday time, it's surprise attack time,
it's party time,
and it's ALL really happening all the time.
this is it, and that's satisfying;
never quiet, never soft.....

timelines and slipstreams

walking, and jogging, and hiking, and trekking, and tracking,
and climbing, and sliding, and striding,
and striving to tire out this little terrible terrier terror
is taking up the majority of my mornings,
and making me loosen my moorings on self-control and restful slumber.
...hey neighbors-
i don't know if i've mentioned,
but i've been spending a whole lot more time outdoors.
ha.
i've found the secret trails and sidestreet streams and backyard brooks
that punctuate my neighborhood.
there's a whole lot of wetness hiding just off the roadsides, guys.
and together, crabtree and i have uncovered molto molto miles
of meandering mud, moss, frost-rimed fields, and still-green ferns.
we've been all over and through the woods out back,
and the goodness of our travels has helped the both of us
to get to know each other a whole heck of a lot better.
and also, for the neighborhood to be finally introduced to warrior poetry
after six years of incubating alone in the Folk Life & Liberty Fortress.
the tour we take has been successful,
beyond what i would've imagined.
and every day, we find a new spot to explore, or a new road to turn down,
and there's always somebody who wants to touch my dog.
i mean it.
i wouldn't say i'm making any new friends, per se,
but crabby surely is.
and really after all,
i'd rather he be well-received, and well-socialized, and people-friendly,
because a dog that only likes his owner is great,
but a dog that knows that he's a source of happiness to everybody is greater.
and since he has no experience being a reviled brutal berserker barbarian battle beast,
i'll doo-doo that sh!t:
and he can soak up all the snugs from all the fine morning people
who populate the rte.16a alternate exchange warren
on the eastern slopes of hurricane mountain and thorn hill.
damn that sounds cool.
plus,
when we get home,
he's ready to get comfy, and be obstinately oblivious to all the dumb stuff
he knows i'm going to do to him.
that's real.
check the cuteness-overload-type teleport:

awwwwwww, C'MON!!
he's a dear sweet boy,
and my little happy chappie and i have another 'nother long morning adventure ahead of us.
it's all really happening,
and it's time-consuming as F*,
but it's equally rewarding in it's own right.
we go where the road leads, and when we get tired of that,
we go wherever the F* we want.
......except work.
he's still not welcome there for extended periods.
laaaaaaaaaame;
never quiet, never soft.....

shoes.

i've got worn-out soles and blown-out sides, neighbors.
i've got pinched toes and scuffed heels.
i've got chewed insteps and gnawed tongues.
ugh.
it's the XI-mas season, and presents ARE the reason for it.
y'all can keep your warm and fuzzies for X-mas,
but we take our holiday a level higher,
one louder,
a whole lot fresher,
and with a style so hard that warm and fuzzy applies only to slippers-
and by that i mean brand new ones,
wrapped up with ribbon and bows, in with a tall pile of good-A* gifts.
y'know?
my little piggies are pork-pounded-out by the pitter-patter of my stride,
and i've got nary a pair of boots specifically made for walking.
and what's more,
because it's XI-mas,
i'm picking up pair after pair of footwear,
while my own feet continue to go on being unloved and downtrodden.
...and when i say downtrodden,
they're nipped at and stepped on and growled about,
whilst archlessly flapping their way through the roadways and trails
of this neck of the woodsly goodness.
yep.
it's safe to say i'm getting to intimately know the nooks, crannies, caves, rocks, trees,
and dead-ended side streets of my neighborhood.
i wonder if my actual neighbors have noticed crabtree and i
cavorting through the causeways and leaves and lawns of our small corner of the world.
or, that i frequently alternate between proud lauding of his behavior,
and cajoling him to stop being such an A*-hole...
ha.
that's no joke.
i have to though.
or at least, i want to.
he spends a long stretch of each day in his crate, alone.
yes.
it's terrible.
i have to tire him out in the tracts and tracks before i go and earn our kibble,
so he'll fall fast asleep, and won't feel the anxiety i'm swallowing
every second of every afternoon when we're apart.
yuck.
oh,
it's not separation anxiety-
it's time-management stress,
and movie check stress,
and good-dog training stress,
and ugly overlapping ruined routines that snag and catch and trip me up.
that's real.
i leave work in the midday now,
and go home to let him out.
i do, so can doo-doo his doings,
and then i speed back to work,
close out the day, usually without tattooing,
because how hard is it to schedule tattoos on an unpredictable schedule?
work and home and back and forth,
in as timely a manner as possible in a traffic-filled
vacation holiday-shopping destination makes for loose guidelines and not firm timelines.
i F*ing HATE that the most.
but, once the day is done,
i speed even faster back to the Folk Life & Liberty Fortress at the end of the day.
i'm sayin',
he's a growing lad, and my little guy has got to eat big to get big,
huh?
yes.
that IS a lot of back and forth.
hmmm?
yes.
it's infinitely aggravating,
and time consuming in a way that hinders, hampers,
and effectively hamstrings my productivity.
what?
oh, yes, indeed-
that's an interesting question you've brought up-
although every other excellent income-generating edifice in this entire town
has mandatory, contractual pet-friendliness,
i seem to have garnered a gross overabundance of very-specific
pet-owner unfriendliness from my own job,
and he can't come to our party anymore.
it's not him, it's me, i'm sure,
but the outcome is the same,
and we both suffer for it.
awwwwwwwwwww.
*
i'm overtired.
i am.
really.
the thing of it is-
i know my dog, duders,
and i know how he behaves when specific cues are being given.
but then again, i would know all about that, wouldn't i?
after all,
i spend every single spare minute interacting with him.
that means that i know when he needs something,
even if it seems like he's acting exactly the same to a less informed observer.
i know better.
and really,
NObody pays as much attention as i do, ever.
so,
i know what it means when he stares off the edge of the bed,
and when he whines near your neck,
or where we're at if he is only snorting and snoring,
everything is worth knowing,
and data collection is the better part of learning, predicting, determining,
and generally being smart.
as a direct result of memorizing the subtleties of non-verbal canine communication,
i'm up and at 'em at all times,
whenever his little stupid butthole beckons.
i don't get mornings off.
there is no sleeping in.
there's no rest in between either,.
...and that's the trouble
when i'm up, i'm up,
and there's plenty to do, anyway.
crabtree, however, is not concerned, at ALL.

ha.
little sleepy F*er.
i guess it's hard to be up all night?
no sh!t.
and all he has to do is not poop in my house,
get larger and more hansdsome,
and maybe get that ear back up....
with that as his only plan for the day,
he can always just crash back out and get some more zzz's after his pre-dawn jaunt.
it must be nice,
but honestly, i have no personal point of reference on those actions,
other than that he seems observably content.
so,
we'll be walking and working,
and working on our walking,
and then it's social times in the village,
and back home again, jiggety-jig,
so i can crate him up, and race back across town to the tattoo shop.
yep.
and what about when i get home from work?
oh, c'mon.
you know there's nothing but dog times ahead of me each evening.
there are no nights of fun with human friends.
no time off,
and no time at all,
and timing is everything,
so everything is nothing,
and that's more philosophical than i'd like to evaluate.
thinking is all i have time for anymore,
and thinking is NOT the same as doing something.
there's me, and there's him, and that's it.
of course,
i don't have friends,
and i kind of hate fun,
so i s'pose there's only the reality i've willed into being that i can reside within
and cultivate coincidences and conjure these communiques from.
damn.
i have a rad dog,
and he has me.
instead of every-or-anything else,
i have a singular focus,
and a four-legged homeboy who monopolizes every moment
of the small snatches of time i've got on hand.
it's all really happening,
by which i mean,
dogging and driving and driving and dogging and getting presents
and being present as i move choppily through fluid timestreams
and don't ever seem to get any on me.
-
what?
yes.
i prefer to talk about cake, too.
sometimes, though,
there's no frosting, just crumbiness;
never quiet, never soft.....

tea cake.

baking cakes makes me feel better.
eating cakes takes those good feelings a whole lot farther.
happily,
i've got ALL the cakes,
so i'm medicating my own miserable maw with meted-out treats,
and my whole mood is improving steadily.
ha.
black tea is dope.
that's no joke.
a hot cuppa always makes the day a little brighter.
and when i can tea-leaf read the fortunes of a future's worth of days
in the remains of a fermented and rehydrated dose of ceylon and assam,
i'm present and prescient for all the unfolding events in the hours and hours
that roll forth from the warm cup in front of me.
wooooooooooord.
now,
imagine that loud, fresh, hard-styled hottness,
but IN a crumbly lemon ring cake.
yeah.
that's right.
with lemon on lemon, and more lemon, all throughout,
and simmered black tea-infused soymilk,
and the leaves scattered like shrapnel of an untold, and therefore averted,
misfortune,
fallen, fallow, forlorn and from the mutha-b!tchin' future.
yikes.
really, it looks sexy,
and it tastes very adult,
and there's no prognosticating allowed beyond the palate.
but, leaves, and steeped drinkies, and lemons forever, and butterisness,
and yogurt, and vanilla, and more lemons.
damn.
all that in a cake?
i got you, guys, because i doo-doo that freaky sh!t.
check the teleport:

c'mon.
lemon drizzle, AND zest sprankles?
expert.
and that shape neighbors.
that's fancy.
and fancy is good.
but,
if there's lemon everywhere,
and there's tea everywhere,
and all together it's altogether an elite decadence
for your whole hungry, eagerly salivating anticipatorily tongue-tied mouth-
why are there ALSO citrus shortbread cookies?
duh.
don't be so mundane and suburban, b!tchlords-
there's MORE treats because too much is the right amount.
that's real.
just cake is fine if you're just an A*-hole.
worthy warrior poets of active participation and overactive imagination
and overreactive temperaments can;t leave well enough alone at good.
y'know?
good enough is NOT enough.
at least, not if you care about really honestly and truly being the best example
of taking it to eleven.
i even used more than one kind of orange, and lemon,
and they're crispy and they're sweet,
and they sure do tie the whole damned thing together don't they?
i know.
and sure,
it's a pretty cake,
but that picture doesn't lie, kids-
with cookies, it's even better, and that's what i'm all about.
truth tellers can never stop,
and fortune tellers can only predict that boldness
is the only path by which all of fortunes favored sons will succeed.
....and a slice of cake to improve the attitude and outcome of today.
it's ALL really happening, and while it isn't ever exactly easy,
it looks like it could be,
and style points are always awarded for presentation;
never quiet, never soft.....

pie-eyed

oranges.
chocolate.
chocolate oranges.
yeah!
chocolate oranges!
that's a december thing, right?
i seem to remember spheres of brown-colored citrus-flavored
foil-wrapped candy popping up around now every year.
maybe i'm remembering that wrong?
i s'pose that's not even relevant,
because memory is truth's editor.
that's an ugly and unfortunate factor in the creating of traditions,
and in the accurate really-real-life documentation of unfolding events
in the post-script postproduction of recall.
damn.
i think chocolate orange is for now.
...and so, it IS.
however,
coconut, neighbors, is what i really want.
y'know what that means?
yup.
too much is the right amount,
and i'm gonna have to have all the flavors, all at once, in my fat F*ing face.
check the overdoing-it-as-always-type teleport:

kaBOOMfire!!
chocolateorangecoconutcremepie.
for you eye!!!
yep.
for you eye. (to be read in a super mario accent)
shredded unsweetened w.p.c.,
and coconut oil, and silken tofu, and vanilla,
and orange extract and juice, and melted chocolate chips,
whipped together, on a cocoa coconut butter cookie crumb crust.
guys,
the other day, i ruined a whole batch of cookies.
...i did, and i told you i did.
teleport:

see?
yucky lookin'.
but,
i didn't waste them, just because they were ugly.
you know the rules, friends-
that's right.
you've gotta stay ugly, stay dope.
so,
i repurposed their disfiugured crumbly corpses into this expert base,
built beneath the smooooooth criminally decadent deliciousness of that pie.
word up.
-
then i toasted the sh!t out of some of that coconut,
and hit it up on top, with a few nonchalant nonpareils,
colored in sugary seasonal shades, and placed alongside the upermost crust
as site-specific sprankles.
and then,
i also added some orange frosting all around the rim,
because, like i done already told y'all-
too much is the right amount,
and that doesn't change because there's already a lot going on.
and finally,
just to ensure level-eleven hottness,
i zest-blasted it with the bright citrus savoir faire of a clementine.
oh. my. darlin'.
so expert.
treats are the truth,
and they taste better than memories by a wide-A* margin.
i'll take the sweetness of pie right now over the rewritten saccharine legacy of yesterday.
damn.
i rock a hard style,
but that's because my memory is loooooong,
and it doesn't accept post-dated check-ups.
it's all really happening,
and the record of it is right here.
the truth sounds like the truth,
and everything else sounds a whole lot like the back of dirk's mom's jaguar;
never quiet, never soft.....

too much, too often, too soon, too late.

damn, neighbors-
too much is the right amount,
that's the rules.
but it's a real rat-bastard when that means that every single day off,
for two months straight,
is a gross wet rainy one....
that's too much,
and \rules is rules,
so i'm on track, but i'm NOT happy about it-
...especially when there's only one day a week to get all that needs doing
accomplished in an efficient, effective, and fully-activated manner.
what a bummer.
so,
with the clouds crying overhead,
and the knifing cold that slices and bleeds into and out of my bones
in this damp doo-doo buttery perpetual grey lightlessness-
yard working hasn't really been on the schedule.
and snow is a looming, leering, laughing, mocking mess of
impending impediments to any future late fall landscaping progress.
hard styles,
and deadlines that feel more like dead-in-the-still-watery-depths
are all that remain as the pittery pats of drops after droplet drum out a death knell
on the cold corrugated metal rooftops of this Folk Life & Liberty Fortress.
i know it's a thing that has to happen,
but rain is an A*-hole.
thanks nature.
you win, again.
and i won't be slogging through the leafy soup on the lawn,
nor will i be mowing/mulching/making a mess of the piles and heaps of sodden suckiness
that you've doused and drenched in weak sauce.
however,
that doesn't mean it leisure time in the woodsly goodness.
heck no.
i've been running around like a lightning-striking blitzkrieg barbarian-
a beast-handling bull terrier trainer;
and an XI-mas deal-making super-shopper;
and an amateur plumber-(thanks, kids);
and a go-gettin' grocery-gettin' get-busy baker;
and that's in-between dog walks,
and wet, bedraggled and taciturn tours
through the nights and mornings with crabtree,
while he sh!ts through the drizzles, and i get dripped on.
yuck.
at least ampy-d knows how to warm a fella up.
check the teleport:

mmmmmmmm.
soup is good for you,
and it tastes better when it's served hot, wet, and ready,
by a lady.
that's no joke.
i'll take what i can get in the help department, duders.
and i'll eat it by the bowful if there's a spoon handy.
**********
i baked treats in the morning,
i bought gifts in the afternoon,
and i took the gang for a drippy low-visibility after-dark car ride through
the backroads and byways of our mountain vale.
my little puppy-man is growing faster than his body can keep up with,
and yet again, his F*ing ears are drooping.
i wish i could articulate more accurately the angst and anxiety this gives me.
suffice to say, he hasn't noticed, and i can't sop staring.
it's just another 'nother small inconvenience that multiplies the degree of
dread, dreariness, and drudgery that weigh down on my alwayses.
yeah.
like all my always, always, all the time, day in and out, time after time.
tell you what-
that's depressing,
but this cake, just in passing, as a preview, looks like a robot butthole.
teleport:

right?
i know.
and you're welcome.
it's all really happening,
and i s'pose it'll get better,
or worse,
or both,
or neither;
never quiet, never soft..... 

RABBIT!!...RABBIT!!!

a dose of decent december dopeness.
that's what i want.
a whole hot handful of glovely warmth and mittenly magic,
with sweaters and scarves and tinsel and cinnamon-scented
spicy nicey-niceties like fir boughs an' sh!t.
yeah.
except,
maybe not the tinsel, though.
y'know?
yeah.
i'm pretty sure that that's what poor people do.
but all the rest of it is invited a.s.a.p. to come on over and hang out,
and get totally fresh to death in the woodsly goodsly northern new hampshire mountains,
while also evoking and invoking the ungentle art of being expert.
activating some holiday hottness with me and my peoples is the brightest tree-top
shining star that december has on offer.
and it's all starting today, neighbors.
because it's today that's THE DAY .
like every day, but also in a special way.
it's the very first day,
of the very last month,
of this very looooooong and also very short year.
damn.
it's almost over, and also, it's just begun.
today.
what do we do when it's day one, duders?
that's riii-iiiight.
we say the summoning spell that cultivates coincidences deep within the
overlapping circles of spirit and memory that spiral outwards
from the echoing epicenters of the unfolding secret universal sheet music that
formulates arpeggiated scales of  chords, dischord, ripcords,
and rip-roaring raging storswept savage gypsy barbarian berserkerism,
through a bass-boosted brass section in the back section.
and do y'know what that is?
yup.
that's a F*ing TUBA.
ha.
anyway,
when that's the time and date,
and the place is the space between asleep and awake,
where silence is golden,
but loud, fresh, hardness is platinum;
which is to say, it's the ranking officer in the chain of command-
there's something to be said for the first moment of the first day.
you know what it is from the moment you crack one sleepy eye,
waaaaaaay before the breaka-breaka dawn jauns get underway-
the magic mutha-'ucking words.
say it, spray it, play it forwards and back it up again,
there's only one thing for it:
rabbit! rabbit!
that's the truth.
i said it, i meant it, i'm documenting it,
and there's only one direction we're heading from here on out-
uphill.
it's twice the work, and ten times as tiring,
but the view from the top is reportedly worth dying for.
let's hope it doesn't come to that,
but rules is rules,
and i'll take the consequences.
i'll also take a treat to go, yo.
guys,
you can't start the month off bitter,
you've got to make it sweet.
check the teleport:

awwwwwwwwwwww.
kyooooot!
little bunnies, because site-specific is something the snipes gripe about in absentia,
and vanilla almond baby bears for a sugar-cookie-ish just-right goldielockdown
for maximum mastery over the kitchen and it's constituent compartments.
what?
i put cookies on my cake, kids.
i'm like that.
and what's good is those big-bottomed bottom-b!tch cakes, too.
mmhmmm.
let's not forget about them.
coconut-almond brownie cups,
exxxtra-thick,
and super heavy with full-bodied full-frontal coconut creme,
taken to eleven with coconut cream-chee' streuseliscious chawnkiness on top.
expert!
a dollop of frostin',
just to affix a little hyperborean hibernator from the future on top,
and we've got a big-day baked delight to devour before dark falls back on top of us.
word.
*
hopefully,
all this rabbity rabbiting means we're flirting with good fortune.
i'd hate to repeat myself month after month for nothin'.
that's real.
i was up at 4:30.
that's not fortunate.
i even ruined some cookies,
right before i fired up those blocks of burly cocoa-coconut success.
i'm skeptical, of course, as to the efficacy of conjured luck,
but i', convinced it can't hurt to try it.
it costs very little, beyond a temporal awareness that requires proper diction,
inflection, and interjection, at just the right moment.
timing is everything, after all.
and 4:30 is absolutely the wrong time.
it's all really happening anyway.
a fast-paced hike with crabtree,
a batch of bad cookies,
a pan of baked greats-
today is the day,
and it'd better get better than this from here on out,
or else the worsening is going to be passed on down the line to everyone else, too.
misery LOVES company,
so let's cross our fingers that there's naught but beneficence on the schedule...
otherwise,
i'm coming over,
and NOBODY wants that;
never quiet, never soft.....