by strangedayonplanetearth
journal: 7.24.13
Wake. Record dreams. Make oatmeal. Research motherwort. Steam nettle. Sew neck wrap. Water garden. Pasta sauce: 1.5 pounds sausage, brown. With tomatoes: paste, diced, crushed, sauce. Large onions diced, five cloves garlic, translucent and mouthwatering. Add one cup red wine till thickens. Slow cooker: 11 hours. Lift lid, face steams, salivate.
Dishes. Sterilize cans. Sage. Sort. 50 percent alcohol.
Boil corn. Shave from husk.
Dishes. Discover old lemons in refrigerator. Boil with water, honey. Pick fresh rosemary. Steep. Sweating profusely again. Shower again. Hair: dry, straighten. Event tonight. Look up directions. Shake out sheets. Emails. Sweep floors. Slice garlic for windowsill to stem the few persistent small ants.
Skim fat from beef bone broth in refrigerator. Label, freeze. Research sediment on both.
Dishes. Scrub bathroom. Package a box for return. Check temperature tomorrow: plan laundry day. Remove two bags compost from freezer and bury in garden. Rinse bags. Recycling. Scrub bottoms of shoes.
Spray self with rosemary hydrosol. Heels, no flats. No, heels. Find package outside door. Drag package to bedroom. Discover package is for apartment 2R: drag to hallway.
Walk to M train. Street harassers. Platform. Visualizations to scrub self of street harasser energies.
Following the event, we adjourn to a small bar with a large crowd. I am standing with three people who don’t know me and don’t pretend they might like to. I’m sure they are nice but small talk is a black hole: the more people are trying to be interesting, the less interested I am. There is a lack of oxygen in the room which makes it difficult to speak; I feel my face freezing and sincerely wish I could dissolve like a sugar cube into the nearest cocktail.
When I leave the air is cool and dry, where there has only been humid heat; the trees are whispering and the bangles of my necklace offer a refrain.
I suppose I’ve always thought one day I would get it: Say the right things, drink the right drinks, stand beside the right person. But there is no one I can “be” at a party to make that considered impression, that I would want to be.
When who I am, home now, finds the pasta sauce in the slow cooker is bubbling with a black sheen on top. Boil noodles quietly, quietly, must not wake the housemate.
Spicy sausage, tomatoes, heat: You need nothing more for this alchemy. I pick some greens from the yard, add a smattering of oil and vinegar, and sit on the patio reading by glow of a tealight, tomato sauce dripping down my chin.
All is well with the world.
Image 1: from page 232 of History of Washtenaw County,1881, via British Library on flickr
