Category: culture

Grand Central Station Style

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Seriously why do so many emails even exist?  It’s not ok, not possible… why?  It’s so much worse than junk mail.  Worse than all those endless bills and reminders of bills that have now gone paperless.  Worse than the stacks of bed, bath, and beyond coupons.  Worse than flyers filled with pages of information about nothing.

Even with spam filter, my inbox is out of control like my curls on a humid day.  Why do I have over 1000 emails? Its ridiculous.  Stop. Sending. Them. It. Is. Not. Working.  Not you, real people, I am talking to auto emails.  Just stop.  Nobody is reading them.  Not today, not ever.

Try Mr. Postman again if you want to get a real message.  The press and send button is not cutting any diamonds my friends.

-Marigold.

Alarm Clock

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Get up, go to work, iron out the day.  It is hard to start the rolling motion, but once you find a small hill of inspiration, it’s clear sailing, smooth somersaults.  Once you get over the lull of the nighttime dream, once you break the sandman’s spell, the daylight is not so harsh.

This is why I don’t understand those people out there who don’t drink coffee.  What’s the buzz to your alarm clock?  Where is the wind in your espresso flight?  What is the deep roasted root to your bitterness?

Shake shake shake off the chains of the heavy dreams, and lighten your daylight with a fresh cup.

Basic Instincts

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Basically I am trying hard to not think too far ahead.  It’s not that I don’t have a plan, well it’s more like a scheme.  A loose draft, if you will.  But the details, the accents, the exact colors, I am not sure.

Basically I am making the rest up as I trod along my flowered path.  I plant a seed and watch it grow up.  Sometimes is it an orchid, sometimes it is crabgrass.

You make your own choices.  You draw the outlines, document the blueprints.  The coloring comes with the wind, the fluidity travels in the motion of today.

Blind Discovery

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Our intrepid traveler is combing the dark path with wide-spread fingers.  Eager palms are curiously searching for a grasp.  The outstretched hands are jazz with excitement, electric with hope of discovery.

Our nervous explorer boldly rips the sheer fabric of the laced cobweb, exposing the bright twinkle of the warm stars.  The sticky cobwebs are sewn in between the animated fingers, down around the wrist. This burdensome situation does not affect the opal view of the silky milky way, and the blinking binary blanket above.

Eating in America Suck #2

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Americans have an unhealthy obsession with plastic and it has to stop.  I do not understand why so much disposable plastic is produced and wasted by everyone all the time.  EVERYONE ALL THE TIME!

Why does everything have to be wrapped in plastic?  People feel a weird sense of security when their food comes all bundled up like a chirstmas package.  Please do not let the outside world touch my food!  This food has been grown in a labaratory and has never been exposed to human hands, or pollution, or chemicals, or dirt of any kind.

A few examples:

Please be sure that you do not place any naturally wrapped food (which will peeled prior to cooking or consumption) directly on that dirty, god forsaken conveyor belt at the supermarket.  That thing is made out of rubber, and you know what they say about rubber.  Rubber really gets around.  Its nothing like pristine plastic.  Plastic is super clean.  Godly clean.  Pastic wrap is pretty much the closest thing to god that we have.  Nothing like that devil rubber conveyor belt that has touched literally everyone else’s food.  Gross.

For bulk buying, or food service demands, that thin membrane of the grocery store plastic bag isn’t strong enough to support the contents in the bag.  So please put fragile contents in a cardboard box.  But you know what they say about cardboard boxes, they are unreliable.  So mind as well wrap that cardboard box in plastic.  Godly plastic saves the day again!

I am not joking or exaggerating.  Plastic bags placed in boxes that are wrapped in plastic.  This is like normal.  Every day.

Oh, it continues, this PLASTIC rant.

Be sure to save the uncooked/unconsumed/ unused product in plastic.  As for your leftover dinner, be sure to also cover that in plastic.  That way, when you go to reheat it in the microwave, all you have to do is press a button.  Or course it is perfectly safe to eat things out of plastic.  Plastic is godly, and definitely does not cause cancer.

Clean up is a breeze when everthing is wrapped in plastic.  You don’t have ANY dishes to do whatsoever.  Simply take the plastic, and put it in the plastic garbage can that is lined conveniently with a plastic bag.  Dont worry, the plastic will disapear completely with no threat of getting into our food supply.  It’s magic, it’s godly.

So much plastic you can’t even imagine, I know.  It is sick.  We have a plastic problem.

Every Day is a Parade

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I am just a silly girl trying to keep a smile painted on my face.

I am a clown trying to dance on stilts.

The puppeteer pulls my strings without hesitation,

My relaxed spirit replies to the jolted jazz.

I follow the joyful beat through the street,

I follow the fantastical floats and the stories they promote.

Ice cream colored confetti highlights the hurricane of excitement,

The stream of music sways us in uniform.

Keep up with charade, its fun to play along.

Keep up with the drum major’s tempo,

Its best to stay in the step where you belong.

The Oracle

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All things considered, the internet is a modern day god.  It is omnipresent, omniscience, an infallible calculator, a diagnostic genius, a translator for all languages, and an expert keeper of records.  The internet is not opinionated, or susceptible to flattery.  It has pretty much eliminated human error.

I call the internet the Oracle.  The Oracle is wise beyond any singular human, the Oracle’s sovereignty is uncontested.  It should be scary but google is so user friendly.

What to do? For any situation, literally anything (you can google amateur surgery), consult the Oracle.

How to do something?  Step by step instructions for literally anything (you can YouTube how to build a house), consult the Oracle.

When your internet is out?  WWWWWWWTTTTTTFFFFFFFF? It is pandemonium.  How do you work? Nobody writes with a pen anymore.  Pay for anything? Nobody uses checks anymore unless.  Go anywhere?  You need the Oracle for yelp reviews, for directions, to personalized maps with a current location pin, to contact your personal chauffer for the short trip across town (uber).  Having no internet access even for a few hours can be crippling.

How the did our parents live? Remember when you couldn’t even image life without a cell phone? Now try to imagine life without the internet.  What was life like before tiny portable electronics?  Maybe I ask consult the Oracle…

Eating in America Sucks #1

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Reason number 1: Grocery Shopping.

I am well versed in the art, efficiency, #foodlife, #cheflife, convenience of grocery shopping.  I am basically an all around bad-ass when it comes to grocery shopping, saving money, feeding everyone, being amazing in my personal eating life.  Extracurricular duties consist of bagging and personal transport of product to the house, non-conditional of stairs involved or personal weight limit. I am fortunate to live in a neighborhood where I have an extensive access to ethic and individually owned stores.  But, alas, jewel exists and you do frequent it.  And when you do, you remember…

Food here sucks.  This is one of my many installments “Eating in America Sucks.”

Today’s lesson: Potato, The Lost Staple

Seriously the only options for starchy veg at the Jewel-Osco is the potato.  This classification is further limited to seriously 4 varieties under the exquisite umbrella of potato.  Idaho, Grade B Red, Sweet Potato, Mixed Medley Of Very Small Potato Resembling Thing.

That classic baking potato, the Idaho.  The quintessential Midwestern mashed, the Irish Racism Potato, Idaho no You Da Hoe.  But like honestly, it is the most boring kind of potato ever.  Do no get me wrong, I love, love this potato, but this is number one boring.  More bland than a potato.  Get it?

Moving on to grade B potato.  This is like that golf ball sized red potato, that small red apple resembling thing,  that tastes subtly sweet with a delicately creamy texture.  The grade B red potato is like that, but a step down.  It is larger and it’s silky taste has been genetically modified into the semblance of the hoe from Idaho.

Sweet potato is great but that is the old stand by.  I had sweet potato yesterday.  I came to the store hungry and wanting something slightly different that the same thing I eat everyday.  Been there, done that sweet thing.

Alright are you bored yet? Drink some coffee because this dissertation on the cooking grade potato found at the chain, corporate grocery store in not yet over. Rounding up our potato misadventure is that small, almost rotten bag of medley potatoes that are you last choice, your life saver, the possible one!  First of all, the potatoes are so small that there is no way the potato had time to develop any flavor.  It looks like it would taste like a green strawberry.  Secondly, this potato is too tiny to have any flesh beneath the circumference of the skin’s orbit.  The skin makes up the just about the entirety of the miniature potato.  I am not entirely certain, but I do not think that the peel is commonly preferred as the favorite part of the potato.  In fact, I think that it is common practice in the USA to peel the potato and throw the outermost layer away.  Garbage.  Since most potatoes are peeled, and most peels are garbage, the fate of our skin potato is, how shall we say? Compromised? Delicate? Uncertain? Not me of course, I like the skin, but I still do not want a potato consisting mostly of skin.

Yeah that’s it.  Those are the only potatoes offered, sorry for the lack luster list.  Out of the 5,oo0 cultivated variety of potatoes agriculturally grown, our most influential food retailer offers up a humbling 4. (Seriously 5,000, ask Wikipedia). OMG boring.  But really more than uninspiring it is insulting.  Dear lord I am not paying $3 a pound for a shitty baking potato.  The Tiny Skin Potato Medley of Sorrows is a dismaying $4 a bag.  Are you out of your mind??

Anyway, no other options for a starch element to add tonight’s dinner.  There were no parsnips, turnips, plantains, god forbid a celery root, or rutabaga.  What the hell do you do with that?   I dunno, ask the damn Oracle and use it in place of the uniformly bland white guy.

I must imagine how foreigners and visitors and immigrants and travelers must feel.  Do they feel bad for us?  I mean if they do I understand.  I am an American and have lived exclusively in the Midwest and I still feel like I am missing out.  Missing out on variety. Missing out on freshness.  Missing out on spontaneity.

Diamond Eyes and the Expressive Hands

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They say that the eyes are the window to the soul.  A diamond lens, eyes are each beautiful, mysterious, captivating, and lustrous. The world around is perceived and filtered through this kaleidoscope pattern, giving each person a unique point of view, interpretation of the situation, a foundation on which to form theories.

I, however, leave the sentimentality of the ascetic of the eye at a gesture.  The lens of the eye acts as a concept, it filters the world, it’s a perception.  It’s a very romantic implication, a poetic deduction of the individuality and beauty of that aperture to one’s mind.  The beauty of the eye is too abstract to be the window to the soul.  Soul is found in physical expression and how we impact our surrounding reality.  Its more tangible then that special sparkle in one’s eye.

I think that the hands are the window to the soul.  Everything that I think, all my ideas, intentions, inspirations, and influences are expressed through my hands.  The eyes can only look.  They are merely a lens.  Hands, however, turn the abstract into the physical, they turn thoughts into creations, they turn ideas into a usable product.  My hand create food, my hands create writing, my hands create art, my hands create love.

Your hands can change the world, and your diamond eyes can inspire it.

The Importance of Names

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It took me a long time to decide what to rename my bike.  I finally got my dream bike, so it was a lot of pressure to find a name that I like and that is appropriate to the spirit of the bike.  I tend to keep things for a long time, so I know that this name will stay with me for years to come.  Not only is this the bike that I have always wanted and desired to be mine, I dreamt about the bike moments before it came into my life.  I dreamt that I found the bike in a thrift store for $35 dollars, and upon awakening I was very sad when I realized that the fortunate bike was just a mental muse. Not that I expected to get my dream machine for a price that was super fortunate, it was, after all, a dream.

The very next day, my coworker informs me that he has a bike, a split frame mixte Peugeot (no big deal, just the most coveted old school bike style in all of Chicagoaland), that he does not want (too small for him) and that I can have for my very own!  Imagine my excitement.  My dream came true, exactly true, beautifully true.  My dream bike is finally mine to have and to ride and to possess for decades to come.  A new and best companion to share my road time adventures, to be the reason for my trips, to fulfill the need of transportation and exercise.

The bike came with the name Reptar, which is a mighty fine name, but it is not the name that I would choose for my fabulous contraption of a bike.  I spend a lot of time on my bike, so the machine needs a name that embodies the spirit and energy we create together.  I spent a long time thinking about names.  Fillip, Sebastian, Cruella, Pierre, Cosmos, Galactica, Constellation, Alfredo (after my dad), Moonlight, Jupiter, Jack (after my grandpa), Parsnip, Fernet… the list was long.

I finally decided on a name the same day I decided that I was going to pursue a new career opportunity.  After having landed on a name for the bike, I felt confident that I could make a descision about my future.  I needed some sense of permanence, a constant theme, to help me commit to a new environment. I needed to feel secure in a choice, albeit not as important as a job, to feel a personal sense of security.  I felt more clear in the brain.  It gave me a sense of peace, closure, and serenity.

Turnip.  That’s the name.  Turnip Greenz.  The bike is old and the paint job does not have the clean sharp white that it must have worn 45 years ago when it was created.  It has a black seat post, black handle bar post, and black tape wrapped around the handle bars.  Together, this reminds me of a turnip pulled fresh from the ground, covered in thick, life giving dirt.

Turnip is also named after the constant companion in Howl’s Moving Castle.  Turnip is a scarecrow that skips on a stick, following the protagonist around, providing help, company, and joy.  Turnip does not speak, can only bounce to get around, but is my favorite character in the story.  He follows the character around wherever she may go, without asking, without hesitation or invitation, but is the hero of the story.  Turnip Greenz is my jolly, my bouncing and energetic companion, my constant for adventure, who does not speak but provides an irreplaceable role.  Turnip is the unspoken hero to the story. Turnip is the unspoken means to my end.