Ode to Grand Central Bakery

Tags

bakery, baking, bread, Seattle

 

It was going to be one of those lonely lunches
consisting of me, myself and a salad
staring up at me
from within its cardboard cage.
I shuffled down 1st Avenue,
salad in hand, when I remembered
that I hadn’t yet checked
the Twitter feed of the bakery
in my building. Huzzah!
“Get a free loaf of bread
if you mention this tweet.”
Carbohydrate fortune had
never smiled so fondly
upon me. I was agog.
Normally, it was a cookie
or a muffin, but today,
today:
A WHOLE LOAF OF BREAD.
I wasn’t greedy–
I chose a petite semolina baguette.
I caressed the wand of bread,
marveling at how fresh it smelled
even through the bag in which it was held.
I set the toaster oven at a low temperature
and gently tore off a third of the loaf.
The crunch of crust against crust
rang triumphantly throughout the empty office.
I ate the salad quickly, in anticipation
of the buttery, crunchy, yet chewy golden goodness
yet to come.
And suddenly, I was glad I was eating alone.
Only alone can you truly savor
eating freshly baked bread
with butter.

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Shoes out of Limbo

 

At King Street station,
two black sneakers
sit perpendicular
on the tracks to Tacoma.
Without an owner
they belong to
the steel on steel
waiting to be
decimated
by the next train.
Or maybe
they belong to a ghost
who’s standing in them
arms akimbo anticipating
the blow
that will propel her
out of limbo.

Canine Cop’s Log, 1/15/2013

Tags

dogs

 

Ok, so my job, as a drug-sniffing dog, is to make sure cars in the ferry line don’t have drugs or things that might explode.  So I shuffle around eagerly with my handler, sniffing bumpers.  Honestly, most of the bumpers smell like piss and salt, but it’s a pretty good gig.  I mean, I get to be outside, sometimes there are dogs in the other cars, and, if I’m really lucky, I get a fricking hot dog and a round of fetch when it’s all over.  Sure, I could be living the high-life on a farm somewhere, chasing chickens or some crap like that.  But I am proud to be a public servant.  My mom and dad were award-winning birders.  But I’ve never been super fast, and I don’t like carrying around a dead bird in my mouth.  That’s gross, right?!  I’d rather stick to bumpers and hot dogs.  Plus, have you ever stuck your head out of a cop car while it’s whizzing down the road with the sirens blaring.  That is the coolest thing ever.  Seriously.  Sometimes I think about what it would be like to settle down and have some puppies, but–married life, who needs it, am I right?!  It’s a good gig, sniffing bumpers.  I’m happy.

Checkmarks

 

The painted faces call to me
asking for their stories to be told.
“I can’t,” I answer, “I’m taking names
behind this registration desk.
Soon, soon there will be dozens
of writers, riveted and ready
to write you with their fingertips
and keyboards.”
This is an answer that placates.
I long for the time when I am once again a student,
creating brilliant persona poems
and intoxicating snippets of dialogue,
pieces of prose that makes you wish
that you had never taken AP English class,
(so you wouldn’t have the tools to appreciate
the prose, it’s THAT good.)
Today, instead, I will smile
and dutifully place check marks
in corresponding militaristic lines.
Chaos and order.
Creativity and administration.
Maybe, perhaps, one day,
I will be the teacher of such a class
and it will be such a glorious class
that the students will stand on top
of the tables and cheer.
Our life’s work has cycles,
just like fashion:
the trend of this season is checkmarks.
I am making inroads
for subsequent staples
of poems,
plays,
and novels.
Checkmarks can be catapults into greatness.

Bacon: Impossible

Tags

bacon, humor, Whidbey

There are many ways to cure a hangover, but shame seems to be the most effective.

Waking up at 11:50 in the morning, I slowly sat up in bed and tried to make a plan for the day.

“You know what sounds great,” I thought to myself, “A bacon breakfast sandwich and some gatorade.”

Now, this was not a higher level defcom of hangovers. This was a mild, slightly dehydrated and craving greasy food kind of hangover.

The gas station is one mile from my apartment. I weighed my wardrobe options. If there were, indeed, still breakfast sandwiches at the gas station, the likelihood of running into someone I knew was relatively low, so staying in my pajamas and throwing a jacket over was a viable option. However, if they were out of breakfast sandwiches, I would have to traverse the parking lot and go into the grocery store in search of sustenance. The likelihood of running into someone I knew would exponentially increase and wearing pajamas might not be the best choice.

I decided to risk it.

Clad in my khaki and creme striped pajamas, I drove to the gas station. I was about to get out of my car when I saw one of my bosses fueling up his Prius. I ducked down in my car for a couple of minutes until I was sure he had left, then proceeded to enter the convenience store. I grabbed my gatorade and stared woefully into the sandwich case which held a lone cheeseburger.

“I was kind of hoping to get a breakfast sandwich.”

“Yeah, well, we usually don’t have those in the afternoon.”

Touché.

I shuffled over to the grocery store, where I immediately ran into two people I knew.

“What are you shopping for?”

“Um, a breakfast sandwich.”

“It’s kind of late for that, isn’t it?”

“Yep, yep it is. I was just over at the gas station–I thought I could get one there. But they didn’t have any, so, yeah, I’m over here. In my pajamas. Heh.”

“Well, sorry you’re having a hard time finding your breakfast sandwich.”

“I’m sorry you had to see me in my pajamas.”

The deli had breakfast burritos, but not breakfast sandwiches. So I trekked over to the frozen food section. There I found frozen breakfast sandwiches: in either croissant or biscuit form, filled with either sausage or ham. But I wanted bacon. I momentarily toyed with the idea of buying bacon and deconstructing a frozen breakfast sandwich and adding the freshly cooked bacon. But this was a hangover remedy. It was supposed to be effortless.

I brought the spoils of my quest home and consumed them.

Next time, I thought, I will have bacon. I will have bacon.

Emily/Jack

 

Sunday afternoons are profane in their laziness.
Often, I sleep until noon, contemplating how
to best spend the day.
Sometimes hungover
always wistful
I trace the perimeter
of another body in my bed,
willing him to appear.
When my alchemy
proves unsuccessful,
I move on to more trivial things:
how high can I stack the dishes in the sink,
can I go another day without showering,
to what mass can the pile of
clothes in the walk-in closet
accumulate before I take action?
The answers are usually higher,
one more day and forever.
I take back the former
tracing in my bed of a
non-existent partner.
If one actually appeared,
I might have to wash the dishes,
or even make more room in the closet.
Bachelorhood suits me.
Listen: if Emily Dickinson
and Jack Black somehow
bent the laws of space,
time and decorum and had
a child, odds are,
the kid would turn out something like me.
There are few worthy/up to the challenge
of being matched with a
recluse, poetic, dramatic exhibitionist.
But I’m sure there’s someone out there
who will soon acquire the taste.