Lusciousity

Boca got a Chipotle this year, and my first trip there was a disaster. The line was long and the food was too spicy to eat. Yes, for the second time in my life I left almost an entire meal untouched due to gratuitous pepper content. Against my better judgment, I went back tonight. After a scary first couple of bites, my steak burrito calmed down and allowed me to finish my Chipotle meal, so I can now say with authority, eh. The meat was somehow both pink in the middle and too chewy to eat, the rice was flavorless, and although the fresh salsa was tasty there wasn’t nearly enough of it to offset the dryness of the rice. Also, the Manolo likes to knock the Crocs for being proof of a dystopian future, but I say the pared down Chipotle aesthetic is even better proof. Everything was either brown, olive, or chrome. The menu only has like three things on it. And on top of paying six bucks for your fast food burrito, not just the guac but the chips are extra. So Chipotle, eh to you. You sell a t-shirt (what? you think I want to shell out actual dollars to commemorate my visit to the mid-market wing of McDonald’s?) that says “Addicted” on it, but you are a long way from addicting me. I’ll take my chances with any shack called Paco’s, Pedro’s, or even cheesy Moe’s before I give you some more of my bucks. (Sorry to be harsh. I’m just feeling the need to have an opinion. I am fully aware this is not a particularly original one– I just can’t believe I went there twice!)

In honor of Bartleby, the scrivener, I am going to prefer not to do much of an update tonight and get back to this (dialectially stimulating, gut wrenchingly non-referential, unabashedly lyrical yet completely crazy ass, ask me tomorrow if I think it means) John Wilkinson poetry.

Pop music and feminism, what a tasty combination. Check this out. Kick-ass writing, by a woman and about a woman, but for all of us to enjoy. As noted yesterday, I’ve got the creative nonfiction on my mind (this piece is of the more journalistic ilk, and appropriately so) and this essay on Janis Joplin by the late, great Ellen Willis was republished by Salon today. I’m going to check out more stuff this woman wrote, and I think I’m going to have to expand my Janis universe beyond the hit singles.

So I just wrote this essay for creative nonfiction class about corn mazes, or, more accurately, how I’ve never been to a real one but have recently latched onto the idea that they symbolize all that is untransplantable and unimportable from the northern world of my youth. Is this true? In my head, and that’s all it takes for some creative nonfiction. But a better question, is there such a thing as a cool corn maze? I’ll have to get back to you, but you just have to heart this Vermont corn maze website.

The answers to yesterday’s burning question of lusciousity: anything to do with take-out pizza, Toll House chocolate chip cookie dough, and strategic Blockbuster rentals. Swooping into our 700 square foot pit of gloom, Daniel proposed a radical change of agenda for the evening hours and facilitated an honest to goodness group brainstorming session that led to a little something for everyone and a lot of junk food to boot. First stop was coming the New Releases section of Blockbuster to find something that everyone could agree on and no one had seen. Victory came in the form of Inside Man, which turned out to be a tightly plotted bank heist/ hostage drama. I’ll say no more. We also managed to swing a few votes into the Casanova camp, which we had from Netflix. Next stop, Publix for the post-nutritional processed food orgy of our dreams: pre-made cookie dough, root beer, kettle corn, ice cream, and just for kicks a little Florida OJ to go with the balanced breakfast we would surely need to fight our sugar hangovers. Final stop, Cannoli Kitchen, Boca’s finest in New York style takeout pizza pie. Yum and yum, and lusciousity, done and done.

We’re babysitting this weekend, or should I say teen-sitting. The question arises, what is luscious about spending your Friday off from school cooped up in your sister-in-law’s one bedroom apartment while she desperately tries to keep her head about the rising tide of homework? The Internet is out. HBO is a memory. Thus, answers so far: anything on MTV, anything on the Disney Channel (yes, we have a Suite Life of Zack and Cody fan in da house), anything to do with a cellphone before its batteries died, and the occasional episode of the X-Files. Suffice it to say, we’re all feeling a little lusciousity challenged today. Hmmm. This is going to take some doing.

George Orwell told us that all writing was a political act, and in this 2005 Guardian editorial George Saunders spells it out for us a little more. It is titled “The Battle for Precision” and is a good reminder even to the non-journalistically inclined among us that we ought to say what we mean, as soon as possible.

I was pumping the U2 this morning, for it is indeed a beautiful day. Democracy is luscious, even if it’s been awhile since I felt that way. Tomorrow is full of nasty cranky problems and a set of unbelievable challenges to face, but today the map is felling blue blue and blue all over. America, today you are beautiful, and you make me think we can work it out and get back together already.

I hate waiting. That’s all I can say. Ishmael hit the nail on the head–today has been one of those days that has taken a strong moral principle to keep me from knocking the hats off people’s heads. But forget the hat, what I really want to do is take of Ken Mehlman’s whole head. Now that would be luscious.

My Moby Dick paper is a mere 24 hours from due, so I’m going to give you the lusciousness straight up Melville style:

(This is from the first chapter, “Loomings”)

Call me Ishmael. Some years ago–never mind how long precisely–having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen, and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul,; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off–then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.

See? Doesn’t that just say it all? Let’s to sea, ASAP. Or, as soon as this paper is FINISHED.