Mañana Blues

The problem it seems may be one of self-priming. Without priming, the well will not flow free. Without free flow, the energy goes to waste or is never expended at all. Energy without expenditure is simply potential. Potential and a few dollars will buy a large cup of coffee.

All of the above explains the paucity of posts on this blog. It explains the dearth of worthwhile photography over the recent months. It is a condition of my creative existence that I have momentum, that I actualize the latent forces within my brain. Momentum breeds momentum. Once I get going, I find it very hard to stop. Witness the time not so long ago where on this very blog I posted and entry a day for over one year.

That is a lot of posting. While some of it was fluff and fill, much of it was inspired and heartening to me. I wonder if I ever again can achieve a similar feat.

The reason this matters is because as of late the tasks of writing and photography have acquired a difficulty I struggle mightily to overcome. The energy to get started rarely manifests for long, and I wrestle with bouts of angst triggered by comparison to my past efforts. It is the feeling of "I should be writing!" that gets me all wound up.

It is a mystery to me why creatively speaking things should be so difficult. I know the conventional wisdom is that one should write/draw/photograph/paint etc every day even when you do not feel like it, to keep the discipline up and the energy flowing. I do recall that feeling of engagement and satisfaction I get when I do get going, when the ball is rolling, when the mojo is workin'.

That feeling is wonderful. Now to overcome the lassitude between me and it.

It is no good thing to think of yourself as lazy, unambitious or lacking in imagination, but that is precisely what troubles me during these short fall days. The notion that I am waiting for something to come along and knock me out of my complacency seems all too real. "Carpe diem!" shouts my conscience, and I would, if only I could get myself off the couch.

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do When You Are Hungry

August 24th, 2012, 10:00 PM. Pondering a unwise decision, made for the sake of expediency.

I told myself not to do it again. Don't rekindle that relationship. It was a conspiracy, I tell you. Laziness, familiarity and inertia trumped my better judgement. Pride keeps me from shedding any tears. There, so close, so easy...all I had to do was open the door and remove the wrapper. Even now I cannot get the taste out of my mouth.

Seriously. It's been almost four hours, and the aftertaste won't leave my tongue. What exactly was in that "merlot" sauce sticking to the "beef" in the bowl? I don't know for certain, but it is most persistent. This has induced in me a vague shame and mild exasperation, because I know better than to do what I did. Rather, my belly knows better.

See, here's the deal: tonight I found myself alone, all bachelored-up until Sunday afternoon. the house nearly empty, the fridge in the same sad state, while I frittered away a perfectly good afternoon playing a game on the computer. My game playing activities impinged upon getting a jump on dinner, so I found myself in the dilemma of quickly scrounging at home or going out to eat. As I was alone and somewhat short on cash (and feeling incredibly lazy) I scotched the idea of eating out. I was left with the fridge, which wasn't being particularly helpful.

Did I mention I was feeling lazy? So lazy I couldn't bother myself to boil water for pasta, for cripes' sake. Jeez. That is lazy. Without that, my options were even more limited. I continued to poke around in the fridge and freezer, hoping against hope that a fine Bolognese sauce might appear, or maybe some cumin-dusted green beans and potatoes.

No such luck. That's when I saw it, sitting on the top shelf of the freezer. A frozen dinner, fresh-looking green package all aglow in the light. It was a standard meat and potato dish, small portion size and Only 220 Calories! It proclaimed itself to be Healthy! even. I stood there for a few moments, blinking dumbly at the box. I knew full well my culinary fate was sealed. I took the box out of the freezer and padded over to the microwave. BeepBoopBeep and four minutes later, voila! Melancholy makes its own sauce!

I told myself, this time it would be different. This time, the taste would match the promise. I would eat my way to the bottom of the plastic tray and lean back in satisfaction. All the while thinking "Hey, it's okay, it's all right. Not world-class cuisine, yeah, but fine."

Yet again, I was wrong. The evidence is in the back of my throat. To be fair, it was certainly edible. It did have some nutritive content. It would pass muster as wholesome, I am sure.  But the evidence doesn't lie. I can't get the vague chemical aftertaste out of my mouth. It is there, this 'presence' that wants to be fine food but ends up being more 'food' than food itself.

Until tonight I had not eaten a frozen dinner of the gourmet plastique variety in months, if not a year, maybe longer. That is because each time I did, I always regretted letting convenience get in the way of goodness. Maybe it is just my own quirky palate, but I had long noticed a sameness to most of the frozen dinners I had ever eaten, a sameness that made me think of test kitchens and assembly lines, and tanks of chemicals labeled Italian Homestyle Flavor and Beef Facsimile and Real Roast Chicken Substitute. It seemed especially acute to me in anything that had a tomato sauce. No matter what the maker called it, they all smelled like the same thing: sauces that market research and focus groups had determined were Real Italian Spices in Italian Tomato Sauce Just Like Mamma Used To Make. And every single one of them left me holding my nose and wondering why they couldn't just use real oregano instead of something that made me think of persistent chemical agents. Plus, with an aftertaste like Banquo's ghost.

So I sat here feeling slightly ashamed, wondering when the "beef and merlot sauce with vegetables" would decide to leave me alone. I think I knew in my head that it just wasn't going to work out, but I let my guard down. Bad pennies and mediocre meals, they just keep showing up...and I keep picking them up because they are shiny and easy. 

Next time, I promise, I'll boil that water. My sauce may not be as easy, but it will taste better and have the good manners to not accompany me to bed.

Tidbits From The Gumbo Pot, Edition the Second

Wow.  The first edition of 'Tidbits from the Gumbo Pot' came out in February 2009. That was two years ago.  Holy shite.

Well, here goes.  A glimpse behind the curtain of Gumbo.  Herewith, I give you some screen shots that caught my attention, in Go.og.les sidebar.  Things usually get weird in the "More About" sections...

How I got from bird watching to swearing and Scrabble,  I'll never know.

Nothing says fun like a spraying, constipated cat!

So that's my take on a little randomness for your Tuesday.  If you have any insights as to why stuff like this shows up in my sidebar (psychological, not algorithmic) please let me know.  Gumbo can be made from a whole lot of things, but these? I don't know...

Hot Soup! MMMM, MMMM, blechhh, cough OW!

That pot o' goodness, above, was a big batch of soup.* It was my dinner.

I'll call it Tired 'N' Lazy Soup. Because I was real tired when I got home...and feeling lazy. So it was some broth and noodles from the pantry, some fresh carrot, and (alas) canned peas and corn. Ordinarily those ingredients, left all alone, would have filled the belly but bored the tastebuds. I have a big jar of bay leaves on top of my Chinese Medicine Cabinet, and they always add some oomph to basic broth. A nice leaf in the pot, I say, along with a few white peppercorns. Nosing around in the fridge, I spied a serrano chili pepper lounging in the vegetable bin. Yeah, man, just the thing. So I minced up the pepper and put that in the broth.

Looks innocent, yes?

Now, I wasn't expecting this to be a culinary masterpiece, and that was the case. It did what it was supposed to do, which was feed me without a lot of fuss.

But remember that bay leaf?

I finished the soup, and was ladling it up, when I snagged the bay leaf to get it out of the pot. Bay leaves (as many of you already know) are meant to flavor food, not be the food. This I know, but somewhere between the stove and the sink I forgot...without thinking I stuck the leaf in my mouth and for who knows why I bit down on it. 

Oh good lawd...talk about bitter. My mouth twisted up like it had just discovered the King of the Lemons. Blechhh, erk...I quickly spit it out. I was licking my lips and scraping my tongue like a golden retriever with a mouthful of Jif. Fortunately, the soup and a glass of beer removed the taste of alimony from my mouth.

So dinner was over, I'm cleaning up. Full belly and time to relax! I went to the bathroom to wash up. On the way there, something ended up in the corner of my eye. I reached up with a fingertip to try and dislodge it.

Remember that serrano pepper?

I hadn't washed my hands after cutting up the pepper. The capsaicin was still on my fingers. It quickly made its way into my eye.

Ow. OW. OW! Jay-zus, that hurt! I looked like Popeye as I staggered into the bathroom.

After my eye stopped burning, I made a beeline for the couch, staying far away from the leftover soup. It sat there on the counter, staring at me...I think it even laughed...

*Really? Gee, thanks, Captain Obvious, for illuminating that for us!

Can I Be a Part of the Rebel Alliance Without Being a Traitor?

At the age of 44, I have crossed the lines and become a rebel. I have been growing a beard.

While this does not make me a bomb-throwing Bolshevik, in the matrix in which I am embedded some may view it at best as slightly odd, at worst somewhat suspect. I hadn't set out to grow a beard, it just crept up on me. During this recent spate of snowverkill weather I was so busy during the Blizzard of '10, trying to keep my daughter entertained, my sanity intact and my car from being completely buried under snow and ice. Between all those activities I was "plumb wrung out" as we used to say back in the 'hood.

Typically I would have shaved Sunday night to crop a weekend worth of stubble. I was tired, see. So tired I could barely keep my eyes open if I stopped to sit still for any length of time. By bedtime my arms and back were so sore that I felt no desire to lift them. So no shaving for me.

Then I had my daughter for an extra day (which was nice) which wore me out even further (which was not so nice). So again, no to the shaving. Subsequent to that...there was more snow. I was shoveling again and the office was closed for two days. With only me in the apartment and no agenda, no one to look pretty for, what was the point of shaving? Nyet to the razor, says me! Then the next weekend rolled around, and I typically don't shave anyway, so there was zero reason and incentive to get to it.

Which led me to thinking: was there ever really a reason for me to be shaving every single flippin' day since I graduated from college? Even in college I rarely went more than one or two days* without the razor routine. Truth be known, when I first started growing whiskers way back when...it didn't look good. At all. With a little bit of stubble, I always had this faint feeling I looked like a well-heeled derelict. Plus it seemed some sort of unspoken requirement that I be clean shaven, especially after I joined the working world. So I did it dutifully, day after day, month after month, year after year...

Until now. Now I wonder why I did it all that time. With or without a five o'clock shadow, a soul patch, goatee or full-blown crazy-hermit-down-to-the-waist style beard, whatever...I am the same person. The same person, that is, without the resentment that springs from doing something sort of useful but sort of pointless at the same time, just because other people think you should do it. 

Why is this significant? I hear you muttering to yourselves. And I wonder that as well. Perhaps because, at the age of 44, for the first time in my life ever, the beard grows from purpose and not exists due to laziness. That is correct, ladies and gentlemen: I have never grown a Beard. Seems odd for a male my age to have not do so before now.

Now I'm letting it go from curiosity. Honestly, it does not look so bad. Kinda 'friendly roguish', I think. Well, maybe it looks more like those old school G.I. 'Action Figures' like I used to have as a boy, the ones with the perpetual 'fiver' on those chiseled plastic cheeks. Be that as it may, I'll probably let it go through the weekend, see what happens.

I'm a rebel that way. Viva la Beard-olucion!

*There was a 22-day stretch one summer, while home from school, that I let the whiskers grow. But that wasn't from vanity or a feeble attempt at seeming more masculine. I was just a lazy sod with a summer job painting windows and cutting grass.

A New Pair of Shorts

I had the realization recently that I find it difficult to write a short post. So here goes. Enjoy!

Woot! Woot! Set The Alarm Folks, Don't Want To Miss This!

A most interesting cross section of comments on the 'Lemons' post, dear readers, and thank you all for dropping by, current readers and new. I was a bit rusty on that one, but it sure felt good to shake off some of it. (And Kat, I just might put some vodka in my lemonade...or maybe some scotch, mmm....).

Don't forget, though, there is some real talent coming up! Captain Dumbass is my guest tomorrow, so please come on by. I had to promise him some liquor and some favors that shall remain undisclosed at this time (well, forever, anyway)(sheesh, can't a boy keep some secrets?) so make it worth my while...to borrow a phrase from Lady Braja, "the things I do for you people!"

Peace,

IG

The Creepin' Guest Postin' Blues

Well, friends and neighbors, boys and girls, dudes and dudettes and ambisexuals, it is that time again. As so often happens when the weather turns, finally tipping over from winter into spring like a slow putt dropping into the cup, ideas like crocuses begin popping up all over. Yours truly was lucky enough to have an idea that 1) I remembered long enough to write it down in my Idea Notebook and B) I actually found some time to write the post for it! Woot!

However, tonight is not that post. Tomorrow I will post it. This is just a teaser. See, I had this other brilliant idea (read: smacked my head into a door frame by accident) and that was to beg, plead, entreat* some of my bloggy buds to please please please for the love of all that is holy please write a guest post for me ImdesperateImdyinoverheah...

Be careful what you wish for. These guys said yes. Yes. Dear readers, I am pleased and honored and just plain tickled that I will have three guest posters this week, the creme de la scum, er, creme of the blogosphere, to dazzle and entertain us all.

For our edification and delight, Captain Dumbass of Us and Them, Idiot Boy at Idiot's Stew, and cIII at The Goat and Tater, have lain upon me some quality wordsmithing, which I will post over this week. The Captain is batting first, on Wednesday, April 8th. IB will follow on Thursday, April 9th. And cIII (provided I can get hold of him, where did that boy get to?) should be rounding out the week on Friday, April 10th.

My big idea, a mental aperitif, if you will, is slated for tomorrow. So please, get a drink from the big bar on the patio and come join me for some early spring hijinks here at Irish Gumbo!

Slainte!

*My bar tab is going to be sooooo big...these guys can drink like fish, and, well, I may have inadvertently said something about buying the first round...

Tidbits From The Gumbo Pot

Another day of rest, supposedly, so I thought I’d take the opportunity to ease off the pedal and partake of some randomization. About time, I suppose. There seems to be a rash of that on this marvelous Interwebs of ours. So, let’s randomize, shall we?

ASIAN CHEESE
I have oftened wondered why, given the vast size of Asia and the existence of so many different types of cattle there, that cheese never gained the prominence in Asian cuisines that it has in European (and by extension, American) cuisines. I know that fermented bean curd could be seen as an ‘analog’ of cheese, but I have to believe that someone somewhere in say, China, must have noticed the phenomenon of curdled milk on its way to becoming cheese. Somehow the “meme” for cheese-making never took off in Asia the same way it did elsewhere. I have heard cheese described as “milk so rotten it turned solid”, which could explain it.

SOME FLUTTER IS GOOD
Through the wise and all-seeing direction of Vodka Mom, I had my wandering attention span directed to the blog of the lovely Flutter. She has some very interesting things on her mind, and some amazing photographs that you should see. As an added bonus, she recently posted a video for the song ‘Typical’ that reminded me to purchase the new album from one of my new favorite bands, Mutemath*. The song works on a number of different levels, the simplest of which is, it is a damn good tune. So herewith, for you audio/visual pleasure, MUTEMATH:

IN MY MIND, I’M A FREAKIN’ DECATHLETE!
Exercise. I know I should be getting it. But I just don’t. There is an elliptical trainer in my basement, which I used to use every single day during the week, and walking for exercise on the weekends, but something happened and I fell out of the habit. The weather here has been cold, windy and gray a lot, which doesn’t help with the outdoor activity. I likes my walks around the lake and the fresh air. The trainer is good, but boring. Maybe if I tied some wolves to the back of it that would give more incentive to work fast. Great cardio, I suspect. For now, I’ll content myself with exercise in the form watching my daughter run around in circles in the house. That’s a full time job in itself. Quite vigorous, too. My eyeballs are BUFF!

TAGGED: IT AIN”T JUST GRAFFITI ANYMORE
Well, it finally happened. I got tagged. The luscious Teri at Cold Lemonade (and a tall drink she is, mmm...) ambushed me with the “25 Random Things About Me” meme. Ordinarily, I have been avoiding tagging because I don’t want to make a busy schedule even busier for me or someone else, but in this case I made an exception.**

25 Things Floating In The Gumbo Pot:
1) My first name, Kevin, is derived from a Celtic language, and supposedly means “the beautiful offspring” or “pleasant, comely” or “noble, kind and friendly man”.
2) I love music, can’t carry a tune in a bucket.
3) At various times in my life, I have wanted to be a rock star, a monk and a research chemist with a concentration in brewing/fermentation.
4) A good song can make me cry from joy, sorrow or nostalgia.
5) The first dog I can remember having was a beagle named ‘Lucy’.
6) Somedays, all I want out of life is a bologna sandwich and a beer.
7) Speaking of sandwiches, my Mom makes the best grilled peanut butter sandwich in the Universe. I still miss those sandwiches. All hail the Moms!
8) I began blogging on October 5th, 2008, and have been fortunate to have not missed a single day of posting.
9) I used to have, and wear, a pair of black denim pants festooned with zippers all over, including the knees. I bought them in England.
10) I do not recommend sliding across the dance floor while wearing pants with zippers on the knees. It hurts. A lot.
11) I used to have a blond streak in my hair, on the right. I did it on purpose.
12) I once pierced my own ear with a short pin. After I finished bleeding and screaming, I installed a small gold cross earring.
13) Three weeks later, I had to take the cross out because league rules forbid playing soccer while wearing piercings or certain kinds of jewelry. That sucked.
14) Clip on ties used to be a part of my wardrobe. I am shamed.
15) My favorite malt beverage of the beer type is Guinness Stout draft, no contest.
16) Some days my eyes look blue, some days they greenish or grayish. I have not verified if that corresponds to moods.
17) Most people who know me would say I am moody.
18) The ‘Moody Blues’ would not show up on my list of favorite bands.
19) If I could form my own band, it would probably play some kind of Celtic funk-rock. Bagpipes would be involved, and possibly tubas.
20) I find tubas to be funny. Trumpets, not so much.
21) I used to be able to play the opening chords to Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water” on guitar AND harmonica.
22) I wanted to be an architect starting in 7th grade, because I wanted to draw houses for a living. I was very naive.
23) Writing is what I really want to do, I just didn’t know until now.
24) The amount of things I know is miniscule compared to the amount of things I don’t know. This vexes me greatly.
25) Soccer (“footie”) is my favorite sport, hands down. I am still an American.

So there you have it, 25 random things about the mystery that is me. I’ll forgo the tagging of others. Just for shits and giggles, though, scroll through my blog roll and randomly pick some to visit, drop some comment love.

I think that about does it. Happy Sunday morning to all, I’m going to watch some cartoons with my Wee Lass, and see if I can rustle up a bologna sandwich.

*And a special thanks to my friend Wesley S. for layin’ the band on me in the first place. Dude, that dvd RAWKS!

**I admit that in this case, it did give me the opportunity to add to my post, ‘cause I’m tired and feeling a bit shagged out. But also, Teri is a force of nature, in a good way. And don’t mess with Mother Nature! I am terrible at following rules, though.