not where i should sleep.

i am back.

Spring.

Baseball season is upon us, and I have a daughter. A year ago I would have not even believed I was writing the latter half of that sentence, and, if I could have come to terms with the fact of offspring, I would have prioritized the two changes in precisely that order. Today, I have a daughter and I’m listening to an early Sox game, more in disbelief that Tavarez is pitching a good game than I am that I have a daughter. I’m cool with the daughter thing, and she is actually good for my writing. I’ve learned to type more efficiently as my eyes lock on hers rather than the keyboard.

I am fortunate to work a schedule that allows me to spend time with her. The way it works out I have her most mornings on my own, and two times a week all day. Until she learns to do more than ape the phrase “I love you” and wet three diapers an hour, I sit on my couch with her on my chest or on a pillow, and try to commit the past thirty years of my life to text. I’m looking forward to our first red wagon, feeding her produce bought from friends who work land that I’ve walked, teaching her how numbers talk to each other and how the world, on a good day, is a beautiful thing to smell. Until then my life is memory and finding the vocabulary to describe the present, a present I have no points of reference to describe. It’s like drawing a circle on Mars.

Wow. Nothing to say. That's what blogging is all about right? Saying something when you have nothing. I had a long day. I am drinking a pint of celebration and winding down from work.

Current Projects:
-A piece on appellation systems in the coffee world.
-A piece on "minerality" in coffee taste descriptors.
-Continuing with Notes to the Bryo
-Planning Thanksgiving in the dark recesses of my mind.
-Baby, though Standing is doing most of that work.

Today's High-Points
-Coming home at 7:30 in the morning after waking up at 5:30, remembering I forgot to call in today's bean order. (I am such a freaking loser. I lose sleep over things like this. I get out of bed for things like this. Coming home was good though.)
-Pretending I didn't hear two people I respect raving about my palate.
-Poaching a perfect egg and putting it on a piece of Reggiano-Butter slathered baguette. Then eating it.
-Feeling an unborn human breakdance in my partners stomach.

This blog might be a lot like this for the next few months, but I promise not to just hit cut and past.

Last Brunch.

This is the spread from the baby shower a few weeks ago. My incoherent ramblings have confused friends and family so I will just list the lineup of food. [rummaging in bag] I guess I won't list the precise lineup of food since I seem to have misplaced my menu notebook, but a month out, this is my memory. Screw that. Menu to come when I get home. That is still Heidi though, and we are still not married, that either of us can remember.

Everything Bagel.

I always thought my next tattoo would be an orchid, but something has me considering a poppy. I am rather fond of this image, any feedback? It would wrap around my left arm, starting two inches above my wrist. That, or I dye my hair.

Durian foie gras please.

It’s a beautiful day in Portland, Oregon and I am sitting in the bar that makes me comfortable when it is raining. I have hiked four miles and sat down for a beer in the dreary confines of an old-school bar with smoke edged lines. There are people talking about Cagney films, there is slop out the window around the tallest building in the city. The winter is coming and I am here, listening to the sad talk of old-timers while deliberate fog makes its way over the hills from the ocean, teasing us lowlanders that we might have rain soon.

There is what I grew up with, not from my parents, but from my family. Here is never here. There is talking about the lump on so and so’s neck. There is the five deaths in the past year of people you have never even known. She is doing better. She does look great since that niece of hers finally stopped by. Not to say it was her fault, of course. Who could be blamed?

Here is a slow amble to a market, purchased tomatoes eaten out of hand. Here is a sun that fucks up my understanding of fall: no soccer, no basketballs. Here I am writing on a day off. I could be spinning any struggle to beat any opponent. Instead, my biggest obstacle to a successful day is snot riding high in my sinuses.

I walked by an eviscerated Durian fruit sitting in the gutter today. Durian smells like its reputation. I will now assure you.

School is starting up and I have to ask myself often whether this is right for me. This being my life. This being students at newly acclaimed institutions buying coffee from their predecessor. This being stress fractures in my ribs when I think about the people that have helped me. This being hard to put in words unless you can put it in words. Then, why am I here? I am here because I made decisions. I stand behind them, I stand in front of them when the bullet comes.

World: Here I am, rock me like a hurricane. Or sunny September day.

Duck, Duck, Girl.