I’m spending the morning in the Creature Coffee, writing a bit, sipping a bit, lolling a bit, waiting for Bridgette to get out of the greenhouse and come get me. There are a slew of late-teen boys playing Halo and sharing their knowledge of the inner workings of the universe.

“Dude, girls are easy to deal with. You just control what they think, and they’ll do anything you want.”

“Oh, yeah? [considers] Yeah, sure, that’s right.”

“You just control the ball of energy where they are, and they’ll think whatever you want them to.”

“Dude, that’s not –”

“No, really. It’s like…you control your emotions, and you control yourself. Girls are slaves to their emotions. You always hear them saying they did something because they felt bitchy or whatever. Slaves, dude.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“So you just control what they think, and that changes what they feel. Anything you want.”

[nodding all around, satisfied and pleased they are outies, not innies]

I did not laugh. I did not grin, even. I did not suggest that emotions that are locked down are emotions that are controlling you without your being aware of it. I, especially, did not put in a challenge for any of them to go a week without wanking.

“Slaves to emotion.” Hah! Boys are more basic than that. Slaves to hydraulics. Wake, up outies, your seminal vesicles are calling you. I was sorry that no nubile maids came through. The conversation would have been:

“…control your emotions, and you control…[door opens, slim girl walks in]…oooh, pretty….”

I was thinking of my dream the other night. Coyote looked very like Skinner in the X-Files; fit, kind eyes (even when serious), and shaven bald. He was dressed in dark slacks and a white dress shirt, short sleeved or rolled up sleeves. Daddy was bald in the last years of his life. Something clicked, there. (more…)

I reminisce, apropos nothing in particular, on works of art that have disappeared from my life.

When the world was much larger, the public school system set me (and, I suppose, my classmates, although I don’t recall anything about that, self-centered little bastard that I was/am) to work with my father, to spend a day seeing what he did and how he did it. Daddy was the manager of a restaurant, and the day I went with him there were Employee Meetings and Management Meetings and all sorts of tedious, mind-numbing claptrap. Dumb luck. Throughout the back-to-back meetings Daddy was attentive, watching each speaker intensely, asking questions to draw information out, nodding understanding as points were made. And, as he actively listened, making each speaker feel attended to, considered, valued — just being Daddy — he kept jotting things on a pad in his lap. Obviously, this was some fairly important stuff, if I was to judge by his note-taking. I tried to grasp the important points, but couldn’t find a one. It all sounded like a bunch of people talking far more than the points they were making called for.

Later, I had a chance to peek over Daddy’s shoulder at his pad. There were some scratched figures on the front page, nothing revealing. The second page was where all the jotting had taken place. On the second page was rendered, in elegant detail, an ancient outhouse fallen into disrepair. The boards were splitting at the ends, one wall was pulling away from the roof, which lacked several shingles and wore a bent stovepipe at a jaunty cock. The front door was overgrown with weeds, hung askew by a single bent hinge, and had the traditional crescent moon cut-out. Every knot hole had lovingly been shaded, every bent nail textured with rust. It was beautiful.

I wanted to cry out in awe at the sketch, and maybe to ask to keep it, but he was talking to the general manager, smiling, his brow knit as he clung to each word spoken, wringing out the meaning and savoring it…and jotting refining lines on his masterpiece. It didn’t seem a good time to interrupt, certainly not for mentioning artworks kept sacred from profane eyes.

The day picked up after the meetings, and I forgot to seek out the out house and ownership of it. Chances missed, and all that.

---

When I was 15 or so, I was left as Benevolent Dictator of the house while my mother went out. This, in theory, included charge of my little brother. Airhead was an engergetic creature of pure chaos; to attend him as exhausting and exasperating, to ignore him courted peril. One evening, I was fiddling with a pad and some art pencils while we watched TV. He was trying to talk to me, which was simply unbearable (I mean, he was my little brother. *rolls eyes*), and getting antsy, which usually meant he was about to either disrupt the stately grace of my evening or find something to blow up, tear down, or otherwise disrupt. Inspiration struck.

I looked at him intently for a bit. I held up my pad and looked at the paper and Airhead, side by side. I considered deeply, chewing my lip, nodding to myself. I held my hand out at arm’s length, thumb extended as I peered past it at him in the time-honored pose of Great Artists everywhere.

Then I began to draw.

Airhead became extraordinarily still once he noticed what I was doing. Over and over, I regarded him past my extended digit, and would return to my pad with renewed intensity. We spent about an hour (two TV shows, in the measure of that time) in those positions. He was amazingly easy to manage for that hour. Finally, I had had as much fussy detail-work as I could handle, and, regarding my work with satisfaction, got up to make myself a bowl of ice cream. I left my pad on the couch, ignoring Airhead’s questions about what I’d done. I heard him scramble behind me as I left the room. Then I heard him howl.

As he found the amazingly detailed study of my thumb.

I have no idea where that portrait has gone. It graced my wall for years, but has gone on to wherever it is that Great Art goes when it is not properly attended. I like to think that it’s hanging on some collector’s wall next to a archetypal out house.

I was telling Ma about the thumb drawing the other day, and she claimed that I was a chip off the ol’ block, but I don’t see it. I can’t draw a decent out house to save my life.

I am not, in general, given to dreams of spritual depth and profundity, but I woke two days ago with a disturbing, ah, experience still with me. Neither the the experience nor the deep unsettle have gone away. Hopefully, writing will either expand or exorcise my awareness. Anyway.

Old Man Coyote is a 50ish urban professional, (more…)

http://kevan.org/johari?name=mnarra

Ramen is the staple of single life. It’s cheap, it’s easy to buy a case of it for less than $10, and it takes less than 5 minutes to cook, so planning is not something that has to go into a Ramen meal. There are some drawbacks to Ramen; there’s nothing there. When you’ve eaten Ramen, you’ve eaten a bowl of noodles and salt water. If you’ve offered to make your honey a late snack and come back with Ramen, you’re likely to get a grunt of thanks rather than a look and a snack-fueled erotic assault on your person.

But we still buy the stuff. I mean, Ramen, right?

There are, however, ways to create something out of nothing. Ramen is one of the best bases for a good meal that you can come up with, for all the reasons that single people live on the stuff. Cheap, easy, fast, no planning necessary.

Some Rameny things to do
• Spicy cheese-n-Ramen
• Elegant Ramen and Vegetables Orient
• Chicken Salad with Ramen Crunch
• Ramen Alfredo

Spicy Cheese-n-Ramen

No, this isn’t a mac-and-cheese variant. This is dorm cooking brought to gourmet levels, which is where I learned it. When I lived in a dorm, there was a huge, I mean enormous man in the room next to mine. We didn’t speak much, that was fine, he was there to drink and carouse and find loose women to drink with and carouse with him. One night when he had worn out the women he was playing with, I found out he had a key to my room. I found this out by waking up and seeing him lit by the eerie light from my mini-fridge.

“‘S’up, Shanks? I need me somethin’ to eat, man. Tchu ain’t got much in here, you know?”

This guy, I may have mentioned, was big, and drunk, so it seemed in my best interest to just sort of let things flow. I kept quiet, and a watchful eye on Goodman, and discovered one of the simplest, most satisfying recipes of my life.

G-man (he insisted we call him G-man) rummaged around and found that I had a single slice of American cheese food (guaranteed to have been in contact with some part of a cow in its past), a pack of Ramen, and one of those little packages of crushed red pepper that comes with pizza. He seemed to feel he had all that an enormous drunk needed when breaking and entering, so he stole my bowl and spoon and departed for the common room. I was curious — and wanted to keep track of my only bowl — so I got dressed and followed him out.

This is what I saw him create.

Ingredients & Equipment:
• Ramen, any flavor
• (1) slice cheese food — fake cheese, the faker the better
• (1) packet or 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper
• Water
• Bowl
• Fork

Break the Ramen into the bowl. Sprinkle the seasoning packet over the noodles, add a pinch of the red pepper. Add water enough to cover about half the Ramen.

Pop it into the microwave and nuke it about a minute. The noodles that were covered with water are now kind of soft, so stir things around until the crunchy ones are under water. Nuke it another minute. Repeat until the noodles are all soft. Most of the water will be absorbed.

Sprinkle the rest of the red pepper over the noodles. Cover with a single slice of Cheese Food. Note: real cheese is not the same thing. Cheese food melts faster, doesn’t burn as easily, and is much, much cheaper.

The steam from the noodles will already be softening the cheese. If this is working all right, just let it sit. If it isn’t melting the cheese quickly enough, nuke it for 10-15 seconds.

Eat and enjoy. Go easy on the crushed peppers; the oil in the cheese food will dissolve the capasin, and too much red pepper will make this far more spicy than you can eat.