Sisyphus Stoned

The microwave loops back to 00:18 over and over eternally while reheating Stouffer’s mac and cheese. It’s like falling asleep and dreaming of stepping off the curb then waking hard but in reverse. I jerk back awake, or think so, but it happens and it happens and it happens, and here I am again still staring at Stouffer’s through a square tinted window. Eighteen seconds isn’t long enough. Or rather, or rather, or rather I think, stacking one thought on top of the other in this eighteen second instant and then it’s back again to 00:18 again and again for some reason and no rhyme. Sometimes I can access my NotesApp in real time and jot down thoughts before they zap away. How writing always feels like this, beyond the grasp of the second hand. But this is the digital age and there’s no analog for being caught up and drowned in the microwave looping back to 00:18 time after time while trying to revive these frozen noodles and dairy. How many times have I done this exact thing? How many instances of staring at my own face in the dirty reflection of the microwave door, waiting? The interval is just long enough to realize I’m not dreaming. Long enough to recall the fleeting impulse to shake my fists at this mobius strip of a universe that is forever nuking my sustenance. And then it starts again. I try to stop it, raise my hand to push the STOP button or pull the plug, but it’s never enough. The still frozen Stouffer’s stares back at me, hungry. It begins again at 00:18 seconds…

Only Hot Sauce Can Save Us Now!

It’s a global food fight and we’re running out of things to throw, so can we convene some place common? Let’s begin with capsaicin - a shared territory, or at least a shared adventure. The heat, the sweat, a little sex, a little death. The pepper pod’s sultriness, its cellulose skin protecting the seeds- those flecks of life closest to the sprout of experience that zing the hottest. This is approaching the Goddess. Stick out your tongue to receive the gift: a reminder that blessing comes from blood, a little pain may blossom bliss. Try to remember this.

Social Anaphylaxis

I was, in a former life, a chef and even though I am allergic to lobster, and somewhat to shrimp, I could cook items that I can’t taste myself, to good effect (or so I’m told), I can never truly know. I suppose people could have been blowing smoke. That’s why I’ve learned to distrust people I can trick into liking me by just being nice. I’m being honest. I am not being just but I do try to try everything once more than once. That’s twice as much as I usually tell anyone, I swear. The useful thing to be aware about allergies: the histamine reactions need exposure to develop a response. You don’t feel it all at once; but soon enough a resistance to people builds up, by the spoonful.