I have a close friend. Perhaps my best friend, who is an astoundingly bad judge of character. She seems unable to judge people's true motivations in a majority of cases.

The reason I find this worth mentioning and fairly interesting, is that she is a mental health counselor. Time after time, she has made declarations about situations and people that in the end, turn out to be patently, well, jacked up, for lack of a better descriptive. Always the details and issues on which she focuses, which she assumes are important qualities of said situations or people, I immediately reject as implausible or naive. This has happened in work situations and in personal situations because after all she is my girl and often we give each other advice on various issues in our lives, be they personal or professional.

What I've always found perplexing is that she is always wrong about outcomes and motivations (and by the way, I am usually right). It seems that a counselor, an individual charged with helping others find their way would have a keen sense of these sorts of things.

Upon recent reflexion, however--I have lots of time on my hands lately, what can I say?--what I've determined is that as a counselor, her job is not to determine motivations but rather to help her patient figure them out for themselves. So, being somewhat unattuned to human behavior would be less of an issue.

It still doesn't make sense to me but maybe?

Yes. I have too much time on my hands...

God.  It's been an eternity since I've stopped through.  The struggles never end in these parts.

I have been writing, thinking, all the rest and it soothes my soul, but goddamnit, it's not enough to pay the bills.  The creatin', the formulatin' is not enough to make it all happen for real, for real. So...so...so I have decided to seek a full time job in order to make things so.

I'm OK with that.  Now I just have to make that ish happen.  I want something in writing or food, which most likely means entry-level, but that's cool.  I'm a hustla, sometimes a reluctant one, but a hustla nonetheless.

In other news, I am in the mix yet again.  Feels funny to have so much after K.  I thought there would be nothing, could be nothing, no one, after K.  But then there was Hurricane Ike and now this one.  I don't know what to say about it.  It feels like nothing but just when it's nothing, it starts to feel like something, not quite everything, but something.  Something that has the capacity to be everything if I would let it.  I don't know if I will let it.  

I'm poor.

I find myself back in a position where I don't want to be. But truthfully I'm not sure if that's where I am. Makes no sense, I know.

I've changed lots in the past few years, I broke out of these patterns that saw me receiving the very minimum from those around me and strangely wanting more and more rather than stopping surveying the various situations and moving on or forcing change in them. Change of myself, that is, I always stayed put and always got nothing. My needs were never met, I was never satisfied, I was never...

Now I fear that I could get myself back into the same situation if I'm not careful. So tonight I am stuck. I hate feeling stuck. I'm here because of my own mistakes, granted, but that doesn't make it any easier. Maybe I'll go to bed with a book, rest, cry, rest, then awaken refreshed (with any luck) and ready to move on.

I had dreams Saturday and Sunday about... I hate that. I don't want to say that out loud, which is why I'm writing it. I felt like I had to let it out of me. Is that weird, like it's a secret or something...

Stupid.

I don't feel like the door is closed but I'm not sure it's open either. Does that make sense?

It feels like the experience is hanging out there open-ended in the universe, where perhaps it will float into infinity or not. I hate that. I liked it before, just before everything. My mind was free, clear, unfettered by thoughts of...for the first time, maybe ever. I want that back, goddammit.

I've gotten to a point in my life where I really like the feel of certainty. Clean breaks. Cut and dry-ness, if you know what I mean.

But I keep seeing snow falling from my window sitting with...watching and waiting.

I don't like that.

Clean breaks.

Endings...happy or sad...just done.

In the past two weeks I just had something that I think I wanted slip through my fingers. Mostly because of me. I wasn't ready for it, I think. I say I think because I am uncertain about a few things. In any case, here I am where I started and for the first time ever, I am okay with that. It's damn hard, but I am not devastated. I do not feel like I have to reconstruct myself or my life in a different way and start over completely.

That is a very good thing.

I wish I had gotten what I wanted. I'm a little annoyed that I have to keep pushing now, because I thought it could have been pretty good in the grand scheme of things. It was challenging. For the first time, a challenge that kept me interested, engaged, on my toes. It was fun and definitely a learning experience.

So I am happy I had the experience but ready to try out the next thing that has come up for me. It should be good. We'll see where it goes.

So much has changed in my life since last Wednesday. I think it has changed anyway.

I am left here wondering how life moves the way it does and how we get pushed along the way we do. How we forget, remember, or fail to realize who we are, where we are, what we are, or even what we need to do sometimes.

One thing is certain about life. You never know what will happen. I certainly didn't.

The past week has been a nightmare. Personally and professionally, I have been smacked around like a ball in a pinball machine. Lots of what has happened is my fault and I know that I have to get it together. I am on that path now and I have made a promise to myself to stay on it.

Can't say much else at this point.

I have to make some time though for baking. I have a Daring Bakers assignment and really baking just helps keep me balanced. We'll see what I can whip up.

Let the stroll-walking commence...

the arthritic toe

i have been sidelined the past two days thanks to an arthritic toe. it hit me out of no where. and while i don't exercise nearly enough (read: at all) i have an almost uncontrollable urge to jog. of course, right now I am sitting soaking my foot in a pot (don't have a basin) of hot water heavily spiked with apple cider vinegar. pathetic.

i am feeling my age today. mostly because i think this toe may have a touch of "the gout," as the old folks would say. i think this is mostly due to a surgery i had years ago and an injury to the ankle of the same foot two years ago. anyway, here i am with a swollen foot soaking in a pot of smelly hot water thinking "oh my god, i think i have gout." sigh. i am limited today, my mobility is limited and the possibility of having what may be the beginnings of an incurable (sometimes degenerative) disease are both very sobering concepts with which to grapple.

i'm choosing now to embrace this poor toe...rather than allowing it to depress me i have decided to use it as a catalyst to be healthier. that really means exercising and less sugar for me.

...i have been witness to the declining health of those that i love for too long now, and while i am not disgustingly unhealthy or even remotely abusive to my body. i don't want to follow down that path. i need to treat it better.

i know i am not old, but today i feel limited and with the death in recent days of the incomparable bernie mac followed by isaac hayes, i am keenly aware of my mortality and the fragility of life and good health.

it's time now, toe.

What is happening?

I'm so upset right now; I am emotional but...

I can't cry, I only sigh...and SIGH. The tears just won't come. WHERE ARE MY TEARS?!?

I am hungry but...

I can't cook and I can't eat; there is a taste in my mouth and I can't identify it.

I am so stuck right now but...

I can't unstick. What will it take? I just don't know.

I'm so alone right now but...

I'm not. But I am.

I have so much to say but...

I don't know how.

I have so much to do but...

I don't know where to start.



Maybe I will take a nap.

I am working on edits for an article about a local neighborhood here in the Chi that I have always loved.  I've wanted to write about food, in Humboldt Park since I moved back, because Puerto Rican food is the shit.  While my editor is providing neither adequate direction nor time in which to get things done, I still relish the assignment.  

So, I am hard at work this evening, after she told me on Friday to include three more restaurants in my piece that would boost my word count from the 900 she originally told me to use as a cap up to probably 1500.  

I spent the afternoon going from place to place and met the owner of a really great place called La Bruquena.  I didn't include it originally, but I'm glad I went, because now, after a long conversation about Caribbean food, food of the African Diaspora, and gentrification, excitement about a project (actually an idea that's been floating in my head for ages) has been renewed. I've wanted to write something about food of the Diaspora and I have notes and research like crazy that I have not compiled or organized.  I am fascinated at the ways in which Africa has manifested itself in cuisine outside the continent.  I have been working at a Brazilian place and researching (and of course, eating) Puerto Rican and Dominican food lately, all of which has served to heighten my interest and reflection on the subject.  Dominican food, by the way, is surprisingly refined with diverse elements one would not expect.  At least I didn't expect it--I suppose I lumped it in with Puerto Rican food.  I never thought before about how its proximity to Haiti with its French and African influences might be reflected in the DR and vice versa with the Spanish.

Anyway, all of this, coupled with my knowledge of and experience cooking African American food (I still can't quite get down with the term soul food, although African American bothers me too, and southern doesn't quite do what I need it to either) whipped me into a frenzy today while talking to the owner of the restaurant who agreed to meet and talk about food and perhaps show me a few things in the kitchen. 

I love it when this happens.  It's like being on a diet and finally seeing those first few pounds fall off.  That's what keeps you motivated to press on. (I haven't had that happen.  Ever.  So, I am only imagining this.)  I have been working so much, laboring under the stress of poverty, rejection, and general fatigue only to find out that my efforts are paying off in the most unexpected of ways.

There's so much to do.