edible sentiment

I don't dislike Paul Newman's take on marital fidelity as much as I want to steal it while carefully avoiding the woman-as-meat metaphor. It is simple in it's purpose, to illustrate the great secret that is, I assume after fifty years with his wife, a great marriage. He said, "why go out for burgers when you have steak at home?" Truly.

It is so much easier to go on about people that don't mean anything to you. I am speaking of stories I have taken down with great amusement as if I were taking a dictation from Georges Sand. Oh the too-clever musings of a will-never-be. The problem is, or rather, the "opportunity" is that when I sit to do this now, my thoughts are remarkably clean. You. And thus everything seems filthy. The words that were born in the mash of erotic potatoes that seem to surround a relationship early on - the bulbous and attention-getting and looking vaguely like the indiscretions of past presidents, and for the most part somewhat uninventive and tasteless – those starchy dear ones are not there any more. The common burgers, the philandering fries. So I must move on from idle reporting, and the silly pursuit of ordinary hot potatoes. I simply cannot bear the lowly roots when I am faced with the possibility of poetry.

I'm looking into a tea of temperance, the lines on your face, and your unique take on godlessness. And cucumber water. I was indulgent, but limited. And now I'm rare wordless filet mignon in some ludicrous herbed sauce. I am a pound of butter and a gallon of fresh juice. I am culinary and clean, but decadent nonetheless - the finish of a fine pinot and your relentless check mate. You've made my love wholesome, and as I gag on that word, I will say as well that it is goodness on a wide spectrum, played out in a come to dinner bell of multi-tonal loveliness across the field of this new life – including the craggy cat's meow and red kettle air raid on a crisp October morning. That smoke tendril I hate and love. Remorselessly wearing aprons and giving myself over to your steady and kind rule over the kitchen. That bread knife fiasco. Being the baker – I'm an early riser anyway. Well just for old time's sake, here's a curse on you for making me happy and ruining my idle nonsense. For making me lose my apetite for fast food. But not for dining on dreams and if necessary to put dinner on the table, with second rate knives. And not for caring enough for me that I may dine on love and occassionally grilled cheese and tomato soup, which you will somehow make into a gourmet meal. I am fearfully but hopefully tasked now with writing a real love story.

unfreedom

My dear brilliant daughter I hope that you are hiding your intelligence, your creativity, your natural ability with numbers and your sense of direction. I hope that you are saving them under a clever veil of government sanction ditziness so that they not be culled by a society that has no place for their vessel, lovely you. You are not a Regular. You are not an Elite. You are my Magnolia. Never mind if you've been renamed Long Mauve Truck, and are the assistant to the vice chancellor of knitting beer coozies - you are the shining flower of my genes and your father's genes (I will explain the difference between God and Biology in subsequent letters), Hopefully you are, by the age of 12 or so when you find this, capable of hiding your talents so that you are not imprisoned, or altered, and understand that you are not defined by being "one or the other." Act Regular. Be extraordinary.

and reuse this as something. It was a tree.

your mother