Turkey Day

After four months of no-looking-back vegetarianism, I am looking down the barrel of a chicken's carcass. It has been the easiest thing I've ever done not eating meat. After all, who wants to eat something that brings up images of animal torture and bacterial cesspool processing plants? I have literally had nightmares about having to eat meat in the past four months, which is probably a typical over-reaction on the part of my imagination. Still, the fact remains. So the (perfectly reasonable) question is: why eat meat ever again?

Enter my little brother (in-law). He's recently found his passion as a chef and is in his first year of culinary school. This being his first Thanksgiving as a burgeoning expert on The Feast, he has decided to cook us this meal and this meal is to be mostly held down by chicken. Perhaps it is easy enough to see my quandary. Certainly I have gotten enough grief at restaurants when I order an array of sides (and all too often find the pieces of bacon in green beans, corn, okra, spinach...why so much bacon I ask you Southern Cooking?!) and call into question the meat-centered choices of the rest of the table. Even saying nothing (which is an innocence I can't always claim), it is still a judgement being made. And judgement is the last thing I want to offer to my brother in poor thanks of his creative offering today.

It is no mystery that Thanksgiving played a large part in the discussions of the book that led me to all this: Eating Animals (Jonathan Safran Foer). It is the holiday that, almost even more than Christmas, emphasizes the community that is one's family. The coincidence of this and the centerpiecing of large animals to be consumed is unfortunate but ingrained. What is Thanksgiving without the smells of roasting turkey or game? While it is true that I am among a growing percent of our population that would find the celebration a lot more enjoyable without the consumption of flesh, I have no illusions as to where the majority of people still are on the issue. Foer compiled his book from three years intensive research and philosophical exploration and made the case against how we raise and eat flesh in the most compelling of terms, and yet even he still came up with the problem of Thanksgiving. The problem is that there is a vast difference between the casual holocaust of McDonald's McNuggets and the loving offerings of meat that are so central to most family's celebration of this holiday. Surely there must be a consideration for the exercise of community that this meal is in its highest form.

The author came to the conclusion that the conversation of not eating meat even on Thanksgiving could provide a benefit in itself to one's family. And I agree that it has been a good conversation between me and mine. However, the conversation has been had and yet we are still to find a chicken at the center (and almost the sum total) of our little brother's debut meal. While I have plenty of ethical ground to stand on in refusing this meal, I find little in the form of showing my gratitude for his gift. So I have made the personally difficult decision to share every part of this meal with him and this family. And I do look forward to the magic that my brother will work, and the memories we are about to share as we eat together. It may not be an objective conclusion, but it is an expression of the compromise that is central to any love. So I am grateful for this holiday that has the potential for such a real incarnation of love and hope that we can all find the large and small ways to foster each precious bond we have. Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Tradey Track

I have witnessed the erosion of my remembered landscape with every trip back home from my journeys here and there across the country. My old bedroom is occupied by paying tenants now and the sacred trees that enveloped our home have been removed by one ambition followed by another. First it was the Southern lot that our backdoor neighbors wanted clear for RV parking and a fence obstructing what was once one of the main thoroughfares of my childhood. I cried watching the slaughter of trees and memories that these strangers had no knowledge of or regard for. Would they have ceased if they had known the magnificent tricycle races that had sped down that tree lined lane? Or maybe if they had experienced the miracle of climbing the impossibly thin branches to the heights of the lone Holly Tree. Did they even notice its beauty as it fell in graceful death to their blades?

The final vestige was lost by the time I came home to call it home again. The Eastern trail – our beloved Tradey Track – was lost to the brambles of neglect some time ago, but the forest remained until this year when a neighbor who should have known better decided to clear the place for his second house (across the street from his perfectly good first house). My first memories were formed running this trail with my two best friends as we transformed from frolicking squirrels to flying unicorns and saw mythical monsters and beasts in the fantasy world that was our woods. As we grew, the place retained its magic, even as all else suffered from the disillusionment of age. Playing pretend was lost to us, but the amber light filtering through the leaves held us all the same.

There was an ancient tower of a tree in the exact center of this world. Its heart was rotting but the outer wood clung with vicious tenacity to the strength of its youth. It wrought its mutilation into beauty as it provided shelter in its cavernous trunk to the small creatures of the woods and an escalier of winding scarred bark steps to reach its hammock of barren branches. How many afternoons did I spend dreaming in the cradle of its arms listening to the creak of its rheumatic sighing in the wind. Somehow, I never feared this friend collapsing with me on its branches and somehow it never did. I believed in forever those golden afternoons in the trees even as I slipped into the isolation that became my adolescence.

I wonder if this man will be haunted as I am by the forgotten voices of children held in the soil and roots of the land he has taken for his own. Or are those memories lost in the charred remains of the forest that sheltered and cherished the wonderment of children who still knew how to recognize mystery?

Stranger...

It says something that I have lost track of exactly how many months I have neglected this blog...you know, the one I was promising to update three times every week. So now I come skulking back, feeling entirely too contrite in what is meant to be my space. So what else is new?

I have been working for the last three or four months in the blaze of East Texas summer and the constant drenching sweat of manual labor under the sun. In the course of this work, I have met people virtually every day that I wanted to write about and then every night I have hunkered into sleep promising that tomorrow I will give all these characters their words. So many moments lost, but let us call this tomorrow shall we?

This week, we have been doing finish work on a monstrosity of a house for a retired couple. No grandkids that I know of and just the one surviving son. Which brings me to my story. Several weeks ago, we were working on the remodel of this couple's former home before they sell it, and I (being the nosy electrician that I am) was perusing the family photos still on their walls and was taken by the surprise of recognizing their daughter. In fact, I had danced with their daughter for nearly a decade, but had never known her last name and therefore had made no connection to these people who only had last names as far as I was concerned. But there she was. Pictures of her in every ballet costume I remembered and suddenly I could smell the leather of ballet slippers and hear the canned music that was, to me, so beautiful to dance to. For an hour, as I passed the pictures on each fetching trip for the master electricians, I struggled to remember her name and failed. It was a color? Something like a flower? Maybe Heather? It was all wrong. Finally a friend of her family arrived and my mother asked her in the course of conversation about this known, unknown daughter. The first thing we discovered was that her name was Brooke. The second thing we were told was that she was dead. Almost a decade ago. In a car crash. The finality of it brought an inwash of details -- the girl's easy smile, her heartbreaking grace on the dance floor -- that I had forgotten in trying to remember the obvious detail of her name. Seeking only to place her in a small part of my history, I had just learned to mourn her. Making this an even more awkward sensation was the fact that her death was so far in the past that even mentioning condolences could be offensive. But how sorry I was to find such tragedy in my half-remembered childhood memories.

Now, I could tell you many things about Brooke's parents, having made it a sort of study this last week as we have been working for them. I could tell you that they are of the particular brand of wealth that despises finality because they can afford to make options a way of life. I could tell you that they consider this 10,000 square foot "home" a rural cottage ("It's the garage that makes it look big"...and yes, that is a quote). I could spend an entire post telling you about the full day we spent digging a 500 foot ditch and pulling as many feet of beligerently heavy wire just so that they could turn a light on and off on the barn from the house. But I think more telling than any of this is the fact that I spent the majority of my childhood with their daughter and yet I must wonder if they even know who I am. It would be different if my appearance had changed significantly over the years (and I often wish that it had as going to Wal-Mart in this small town is a constant minefield of ancient acquaintances and family friends). It would also be excusable if ballet had not been such an intensive activity for those of us in Ms. Gobel's advanced class, but, as it was, it was a dominant feature of all of our lives. So, I labor on their shell of a house each day simply wondering if my face reminds them of something they should know and if they have any inkling of the freshly sad memories I have of their dead daughter.

It is a symptom of an overiding theme I have found in this town, but never seen so well put. In essence, it is the reality that there are people of consequence and then there are all the others that maintain those people of consequence.

I danced with a passion far outstripping my potential and calling the attention of the fiery Ms. Gobel in the best of ways. My frame was too large to ever break into the upper echelon of the dancing world, but in the microcosm of Nacogdoches, I became better than I was meant to be under the angry French woman's tutelage. Ms. Gobel began to point to me in class demonstrations as how things should be done, and I remember feeling such anticipation for the greater recognition she was preparing me for. But every recital, I would find myself once again in the unflattering background as I watched less dedicated and less talented girls dance the leads. It wasn't until my last year that I finally had acquired enough disillusionment to see the inexorable connection between the wealth of the parents and the role awarded to the girls. It was of little importance to any of them I'm sure, but the thinking probably went along the lines of: "Well, if I must sit through two hours of watching all this prancing around, then I want my daughter to be in front. Here's a donation Ms. Gobel." And every year, I was simply devastated to watch from the wings as the gangly daughters of doctors and lawyers destroyed roles that they could care less about. There was no suspense in their desires because to want, for them, was to have.

And I return nearly ten years later to find the same place that I left. My degrees and experience do nothing to open the locks that only wealth has the key for here. My smile is interpreted as fawning and my speech is seen as artifice ("Oh my, what big words!"). Certainly this is not an inviolable rule, but it is so pervasive as to warrant damnation. It is also so common as to encourage my current role of subversive in their midst. You see, while they are blinded by the status that is so easy for them to ignore, I am free to observe and record and amass my own wealth of characters and stories. It may be a distant and unlikely revenge, but oh how sweet to imagine any one of them picking up a novel and finding the unflattering portrayal of themselves within. Of course, I would be too idealistic if I allowed myself the daydream without admitting that I am sure they would be as blind to themselves in a story as they are to themselves in reality. It is not so easy for perception to change.

Riding into the sunset

I am becoming disturbingly aware of a Southern writer coming to life in my head. It took me long enough to consider myself heading towards authorship in the first place, but to consider the Southerness of it all...? How appalling to find myself looking at the backward designs of my past and seeing there a burnished array of stunning characters and beautiful backdrops.

As a child, I practiced the leaving of the South in every way. I carefully eradicated the Texan accent and vocabulary, patterning my own on a hodgepodge of indie British and American (Northern of course) films and books. Still, I was left with the supremely embarrassing "i" sound instead of "eh" in words like "pen" versus "pin" (there being no distinction in most of the South by the way), and the-A-tur instead of theatre (spelled in the British way so you may hear it with the proper British pronunciation in your head). Until college, I was blithely unaware of these important and elusive details. Two of the first friends I made at this Midwestern university introduced themselves as Jenny and Jenny. There followed a discussion in the group that was, at the time, completely befuddling. Another girl asked one of the two if she was Jenny or Jenny, to which the girl replied (as if the question was not completely absurd), "I'm Jenny." The other girl threw in what I thought must be either redundant or a joke, "Well, I'm Jenny." At this point in the conversation, I thought my then sleep-deprived mind might be causing me to hallucinate, since no one seemed to think there was anything amiss at hand. Finally, I had to risk the embarrassment of playing my usual role of gullible punchline to ask what they were all talking about. After some discussion, they finally ascertained the root of my confusion and spent the next month training this verbal Texas dangler out of my system. You will be happy to know that Jenny and Ginnie soon became distinguished as the two separately named beings that they were.

I tried to find spatial distance as soon as possible as well. At the age of eleven, I was already spending weeks at a time away from home, going to summer camp in Colorado. When I was fourteen, I went to a music camp in Pensecola, Florida (a story that I have yet to find adequate words for...if you know anything about the underground system of ultra-conservative educational systems, you may guess why) where I learned about Interlochen in Michigan. Of course, I simply had to go there and did the following year. Hands down, the summer spent in Northern Michigan with musicians and artists my age spouting such non-Southern refinement and class was by far the most formative and home-distancing experience of my life. I was certain after the intense molding of those weeks that I would never settle for Texas again.

And, with brief retreats from the North here and there, I didn't for over a decade.

Now, I certainly do not regret any of the experiences I have had away from my childhood stomping grounds (with the glaring exception of three miserable years in the bumhole of Oklahoma). I have truly loved each place I have experienced and miss each one as a home to some piece of me. As such, it is more than surprising to find myself so grateful to return here. This homecoming has found me receptive to the iconic lifestyle and characters of Deep East Texas in a way I did not believe myself capable of. The distance and time I so intentionally put between myself and this place has brought me back here with the sparkling eyes of a stranger. Where I used to see simpleminded misogyny in the cowboy caricatures so prevalent here, I have begun to see a certain charming naivety. The symbols they use (holding the door for the "ladies" for example) are generally well-meant and kind. They hold back no respect as I have worked toe-to-toe with them in the arena of manual labor. Still, at the end of the sweat-drenching, back-breaking day, that door is going to be held open for me and I am slowly learning to accept it with the same grace with which it is offered.

Likewise, I am finding the vernacular comforting and comfortable on my tongue and pleasant to listen to. It is remarkable to me that such a thing as an accent can exist in our globalized society, and it is reassuring in its distinctiveness. I love that I can feel the slow gathering of half-finished syllables as opposed to the nasal blend of the Midwest. Neither is superior, but it is a great relief to abandon my childhood dogma that said otherwise.

There may still be all the things I loved to hate about this place when I was younger, but for the first time I can see the loveliness and say without embarrassment that it is good to be home.

Bipartisan

This house - my former and current home - is a social experiment of sorts that is rarely if ever invested in. Perhaps I am too open-minded to state my case as a liberal, but in the context I would almost certainly be considered a die hard. The context being, Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh devotees. Of course, they too are open-minded and rational beings that make the idea of us all being polar opposites somewhat untrue. That said, it is probably as close to true as you're going to find under one undemolished roof. Breakfast talk can literally go along lines of the reasons for impeaching Obama and instituting martial law on one end to the sanctity of eco-systems and the argument for human restraint on the other.

Here is the fantastic, unbelievable thing: the truth as each of us sees it is voiced and heard by the various parties day after day. Because we love each other unconditionally, there is suddenly an atmosphere that allows honesty and acceptance where there is only ridicule and scorn in the public debate. Since the two political parties not only do not accept each other's stances but are not re-elected if they even appear to consider each other's ideas, there is no possibility for open debate. The reigns of power are held by extremists by necessity and thoughtful conversation is replaced by fear-mongering and empty platitudes. The macroscopic venue for change is, in my opinion, hopeless.

Yet, in the microcosm of our unlikely home and family, I see a small seed. I see the respect of listening and the freedom of love to express and refine opinions with and against each other. I see apparently divergent theories and ideas melding in conversations that shouldn't be possible in today's framing. There is certainly plenty of blustering and cacophony as these ideas meet and clash, but there is a commitment to each other that allows us to weather the storm and come to some peace on the other side. Though we are molded by all our inputs of media and political guidance to be extremists, we find the secret moderates within as we let our mutual love and respect seep into the conversations handed to us bereft of anything so lofty.

Perpetual Motion

Bills to pay. Miles to drive. Tools to move, remove, place, replace. Phone ringing. Customers customing. Sleep when you can or can't help it. Wondering about tomorrow. Too busy with today.

Interruption.

A rain storm and sheltering under a tree. Warm scent of baked and cooling pine simmering with the fog of rain on Texas pavement. A moment insisting respite. Mother and daughter resting weary backs, sharing time removed.

Sabbath

I woke up in the middle of last night in the throes of pure animal pain, the muscles in my calf tangling and choking themselves. There is nothing you can do except ride the waves of pain in a crumpled, whimpering heap. While I have spent this morning milking every bit of the limping sadness left to me still, I will never forget the morning after morning stretching to months that I would leap from my top bunk to the cold concrete floor after the nightly double cramps that would rack me every night of basic training. I can remember the electric shock of impact as I landed to muscles that told me nightly that they needed to be tended to and cared for. I learned to shuffle (instead of the required running) to the bathroom then back to my bunk to begin the morning ritual of cleaning that would never be quite good enough to spare us from the paired morning ritual of doing push-ups in our own sweat for punishment. All this with the muscles in my legs cleaving to themselves and the bone as if they had forgotten the natural assembly of relax and contract. Somehow, I would find myself on the PT field a half hour later, pushing or running or flutter-kicking, and I would discover that my legs had released me of their reasonable demands. I eventually learned to hold my consciousness somewhere just below wakefulness as the pain screamed at me every night and then let the scant dreams enfold me back on the ebb. Somehow, it became a sacrament of sorts, blessing my body and mind with the remembrance that I was human and not the mindless, heartless machine they would have me be. The weakness and terror of those moments was precious to me as the never-flinching shield of my days melted in the small whimpers of my night.

The work that brought me to this memory is wholesome and good, and I am glad for the chance of comparison that such a small but insistent part of my body can give me. And the comparison is kind. To now be surrounded by people that consider even this smallest and most habitual of pains something worth commiserating over and tending to. To find nourishment in both my labors and rest. This is what all of us are really searching for, is it not?

Old story; New beginnings

It is the day for writing, but can my newly adjusting, bone-tired, sun-weary mind and body come up with anything more interesting to write about than the divinities of cleansing showers and my soft, soft bed? Forgive me if the result is negative, but I will try anyway.

I took the train from St. Louis, Tom and I having battled a storm that came with a ferocity I haven't seen since the Oklahoma plains to get to the station. The anxiety of leaving was mercifully abated slightly as I encountered the almost antiquated joys of rail travel. Whereas I was unceremoniously booted from the last flight I tried to take and given virtually no recompense, checking in at the train station took all of five minutes. When I asked whether or not I needed to check my duffel bag (a point which was critical in the flight fiasco by the way), I was met with the response that I could if I wanted, but could really do whatever I chose. The attendant was even teasing me about my trusty travel lion/pillow instead of exhibiting the absurd ennui of overwhelming stress that I had seen in the attendants at the airport. At the depot, we all, workers and travelers alike, were relaxed and serene even.

Well, all except for the young kid who was apparently approaching an ecstasy of grief as the time got nearer for he and his mother to get on the train without his dad. When the somewhat late (but at least more on schedule than is generally true in aviation these days) train arrived, we all calmly lined up to give our tickets to the conductor and watched the miniature (but fundamental) drama of the small boy saying goodbye. He latched on to his father's neck as they all finally came to the spot where non-travelers had to stop and exploded in a litanous stream of "I love you, I'll miss you, I love you...". Even the conductor was moved and muttered to me as I handed him my own ticket, "Well, that was nice now." Never mind that the child was at that peculiar stage of life that delivered him from his grief only minutes later as excitement of the coming adventure overtook him.

It was amazing to find myself with a similar experience to the young one as I found myself a little relieved so quickly from the anxieties of making the decision to work and live so far away for a time. As I situated myself in the oh, so spacious seat of the upper level in my designated car, I looked out my window at the setting sun and found the realization that we were going to be alright. Whatever was coming, whatever was past...we would find the way. One day at a time.

Second Wind

It is an unfortunate and difficult thing, but not uncommon: we are being forced by a Spring of upsets and false starts to take a few steps back before we can continue. I can't decide between the two of us who is going to have the harder job since poker is quite literally the most difficult thing I have ever done and I am quite looking forward to the "respite" of manual labor that I am heading to in working with my parents. Tom stays here in the poor, abandoned Poker House with Greta-meister and continues to fight the beast of cards and behaviors that has trampled us so hard. I will be living relatively stress-free at least in the manageability of definable tasks and physical exertion while leaving for a time the necessarily all-consuming and never-ending tasks of mental and personal evaluation in playing a profitable game online. It is not really a matter of having lost money to poker, but simply having existed for too long on the statistical back slopes and having to shell out the cost of living in the meantime. So we will be trying to retake the hill from a different angle.

You will probably find me a more mopey author for some time, but know that I will continue writing and that I am content even with the difficulties of the situation. I have the opportunity to help us rebuild without having to give another day to the meaningless redundancies of most of the workforce. I get to work with and for my family. I am a grateful if momentarily sad writer/electrical apprentice/former and soon-to-be-again professional card player.

Homage

I have long been meaning to write a tribute of sorts to a dear friend of mine who would be totally appalled by such an idea. She is far too modest and grounded to accept such praise as "hero" or "role-model", so I will share these terms with you and hope that she doesn't get too angry with me.

I met her almost seven years ago as I took charge of my first piano class. My supervisor had taken me aside prior to the semester to ask me if I would be okay teaching a blind student. Her demeanor when asking the question sobered me and stilled my immediate response of "why would I mind?". She told me that it was going to be challenging for the entire music staff to have a new music student with such needs and special requirements and that she didn't want to overburden me. We could move the student to a different class with a more experienced teacher perhaps. Thank God for my stubbornness kicking in and allowing me to say that there would be no such need. How much my life would have suffered without this person I was so cautiously introduced to. I can, without reservation, say that she was also the best piano student I ever had. I often told her that I wished that all my students would forget they could see for the hour in my class and feel the keys like she did. What a gift. And here's the truly remarkable thing about her: she would absolutely agree with me that it is a gift. She has used every obstacle (and there have been heartbreakingly many) to climb to new heights of self actualization and was already one of the most wise and independent souls I had ever met when I came to know her in her freshman year.

While at the state school where I met her, she was the victim of countless acts of ignorance and malice due only to misconceptions. No one could look at her performance with a rational eye and find anything lacking, but she was constantly treated as a liability. I never once saw her behave as if she had a handicap, yet her own successful efforts were drowned in a sea of conflicting assumptions as to her capabilities. Her teachers refused to help her obtain braille music, yet insisted that she not learn from recordings. Her seeing eye dog (my dog soul mate, Abby) was once taken off the stage in the middle of her performance, with her professor whispering in her ear, "If you stop singing, I will fail you." And she was also once accused of ruining a pianist's Master's recital because Abby did not like Hindemith and kept jiggling in her collar. A note on that: as a graduate of the same program with the same degree as the pianist in question, and as a good friend of said pianist, I would say the fault lies entirely in the performer that cannot maintain her concentration and poise. Perhaps I'm biased, but ask any performer and they will tell you the same. Finally, my friend began losing her love of music and changed her major; immediately being met with a professionalism and respect of the success that she so constantly demonstrated. Not all Southern professors are ignorant, and thankfully she found some that appreciated an excellent student when they met one. The girl even pulled off a major in literature if that tells you anything about her determination and abilities.

As deeply as I respect her for how she put so much ignorance to shame in her education, it is her response to grief that constantly moves me. Her grace breaks my heart as she faces tragedies that most of us will never even conceive of. After knowing me for some time, she told me of the first great grief of her young life, which was not the blindness in itself as one might assume. No, she had been told by a specialist when she was sixteen that with one more operation, she would be able to see well enough to drive, and then the specialist had botched the operation and she had woken up to darkness and no ready explanation. The doctor had simply sent her home after accidentally cutting a tiny but essential vein in her eye with a scant apology. Not only had she lost the hope of more vision, but she had been robbed of the precious little she had had in that eye. When I met her, she had a glass eye covering the shriveled remains of what had been her best eye before the surgery. It is telling of her character that she made good use of pulling the glass eye off to the utter delight and horror of her classmates and friends. I found her one day at the center of a group of my students all squealing as she theatrically pulled away the prosthetic to reveal the shriveled organ below. It wasn't until later in our friendship that she revealed the pain it still caused her. Pain was not something she allowed herself to indulge in often as she considered her life to be too occupied with living to do so.

Recently, she was struck with yet another twist of malignant fate: her mother, sister-in-law, and thirteen year old sister were killed by a drunk driver with the two young children in the car just barely surviving. My friend was the first to the hospital of all the family, since her father and brother were working in Iraq. She took the responsibilities of arrangements for the young ones and for the deceased as her family members began to arrive, some with a lack of appropriate response that was tragic in itself. I will spare the details for sake of discretion, but will say this: there is a seed of selfishness that grows so large in some of us as to obstruct any sense of love or proportion. That my friend faced this in the midst of an overwhelming grief and was able to tell me the story only a few months later instead of retreating into a catatonic shell is almost unbelievable to me. She told me of her lost loved ones with tears tracing down her cheeks but in a clear, strong voice. There is certainly no justice in one such as her having to face loss after loss that would cripple most of us. There is only a wonderment to see her soul resurrecting beauty from the ashes.

So to my dear friend, I say this: may your strength be verified as tested, and may you find happiness to the depth of your pain. May we all be better in ourselves simply knowing that someone like you exists and be grateful for the good fortune that allows us to know you and love you.

Lone Star

Today was very unkind on the poker scene, and I feel inclined not to discuss it. So, I won't. Instead, I will lay some ground rules; mostly for myself, but also as a courtesy to those who might want to follow the blog. First of all, my intention is to update every Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday. For those anal enough to be checking my time stamp, you will see that I am writing this already behind schedule. My defense is that it is still Sunday a few miles West of here, and also that it is still Sunday where most of my loved ones currently are. So stop being so technical about it. But it does bring up a good point which is that our days and nights are somewhat mishmashed, so many of the blogs will be apprearing late at night on the proscribed "days".

The second matter is that I will most certainly not be spending all of my time discussing poker. I have quite enough of that in my moment to moment, so you will excuse me if I often digress. For example, right now, all I really want to talk about is this kill-me-now-I'm-so-happy chili con queso that we just made. It is moments like these that force me to the admission that I am a Texas girl and my heart will always return there. Just tasting the sublimity of melty cheesiness studded with hot peppers, cilantro and fresh tomatoes transports me to the state of my birth where the cultures of the Wild West and Mexico collide and create something so unique...and tasty. I was appalled and devastated when I asked a few college friends when going to school in the Midwest if there were any good Mexican joints around and was met with the response, "Well, yeah, there's Taco Bell just around the corner." I hope you can imagine my horror being met with a whole section of the country that was obviously uninitiated in the divinities of Salsa and Fajitas. I think that was when I really came to the conclusion that I needed to get serious about cooking so that I might give myself access to the delectables that, in my opinion, no one should go without. So, without further ado, I will return to my happy midnight munching and indulge in the soft memories of a place like no other.

P.s. If you would like to experience a piece for yourself, here's the recipe that started it. I just added a pound of ground turkey, chili spiced.

http://homesicktexan.blogspot.com/2008/04/more-natural-chile-con-queso.html

D O J

People needing constant validation of justice should avoid poker. In a way, I wish that someone could have accurately described to me before I started playing just how difficult and random the variance would be. But, having a good idea of the math, I don't think I would have believed how easy it is to begin adopting superstitions based on cycles that cluster up in favor of one random scenario after another. There are players who have been in the game for years - some of the "best" (you've seen them on TV if you've ever watched poker) - who have favorite hands that mathematically have little to no actual value. They're just hands that delivered more than they should in the player's memory and are therefore elevated above reason. For example, the ten-deuce played so well for Doyle Brunson that the two cards are simply known as "the Doyle Brunson". To be fair, he would still say that ace-ace is his favorite hand, but I guarantee his eighty-year old pulse quickens just a bit every time he's dealt his namesake just for the good memories. It is obviously stupid and unprofitable, but I can assure you that our brains more easily accept vivid experience and reward (or punishment) rather than cold, hard reason. Tom and I have just been through a stretch where he received near constant punishment for four straight months. Imagine going to work and finding that you will be required to pay your boss for the privilege of sitting there for your allotted time, and simply because someone (in our case, those referred to as the poker gods) has decided this would be so. Thankfully, the cycle has begun to roll over and we are most certainly stronger players for trudging through the gale... but I still would prefer that things were as predictable as they should be just for the sake of mental health. Well, maybe it would be more accurate to say mental comfort. It is becoming more and more necessary to attend to the solid health of our psyches and so, in a way, we are finding this an opportunity for strength that neither one of us have found before.

All that said, there are still rules in poker and the violation of these rules, though rare, is still responded to with justice:

Last night, I was involved in a hand that I was almost certainly winning, and I was winning big. It was one of those hands that pretty much defines a particular session, depending on which way it falls. In this case, I was looking at a session I was going to leave smiling. As the fourth card came down, I had only one opponent left in the pot as the other (better) player had folded when the first three cards came out. Just as the player remaining hit "call" to my bet on the turn, the player no longer in the pot typed into the chat window the two cards he had folded on the previous street. Man, my blood started boiling again just remembering the moment. Let me explain: the entire game of poker is based on statistics and human behavior and deciphering that behavior to determine what cards your opponents might be holding. This information is required to be gained simply through betting behaviors (or mannerisms if you're lucky enough to be making it as a live player). "Table talk" - basically, anything said by anyone not in the hand or anyone in the hand speaking about anything other than their own behavior or hand - is strictly (STRICTLY) forbidden. In my particular example, the better player detailing in the middle of my domination what he had been so smart to fold let the less competent player know that he would be stupid to call on the last card with anything less. And, by the way, anything less was all he could have. Also by the way, he calls with that something less almost one-hundred percent of the time unless advised otherwise. Well, I watched in dismay as this player, who generally wasn't pausing for thought longer than a couple seconds, began to really think about how the hand had gone down. Finally, he realized what he was not capable of realizing on his own: "I'm beat." And he folded. Well, I don't think I've ever been so angry at the poker table. I immediately began berating the player who had ruined my prospects and was only getting more enraged by his benign rejections of my wrath. Of course, I was at this point so focused on venting my full indignation on this guy that I was ignoring all my other tables. After a few very poorly played hands due to this, I was officially on what I would like to call "murder tilt". Thankfully, Tom was in the room and was able to help me extract myself so that I could take a break and attempt to regain some perspective. When I told him what had happened though, he nearly went on murder tilt just to hear it. It really is that bad of an infraction, let me tell you. So, I finally remembered my recourse and e-mailed the situation to the poker site's moderators. The response I received is still singing in my heart. They congratulated me for being vigilant to the integrity of the game and said that the player in question had been reminded of the rules in case he was not aware of them. Any future violations could result in a site ban. Perhaps it is the rarity of it that makes it so very sweet, but I will still savor the title of "vigilance", seeking justice in the midst of chaos.

A Meditation

Growing up, my dad often took my brother and I fishing; not an unusual experience for a young girl in East Texas mind you. My dad would set up my line for me and thread some worm on the hook and even cast it for me, until I got old enough to realize that casting was at least ninety percent of the fun and I wanted to do it myself. I still let him take care of the worms and hooks though; no need to be too logical about independence. The pond was so small, you could almost throw your line from one bank to the other but had to be quick about reeling your hook across as there were only shallow lanes that were stump-free. We learned the map of that glorified puddle quickly, but still spent hours at a time in the hypnotic rhythm of cast and reel. Most days, we would catch just enough for my dad to clean and for my mom to fry up, and some days there just wouldn't be any bites at all. Whenever this happened, I had a tendency to believe that if I just kept moving around, I would find where the fish were hiding. It also sticks in my memory, just so, that every time I would move to a different bank, my brother or my dad would catch a fish in the exact spot I had just left. I'm guessing that my memory is slightly myopic on this point, but there's no arguing rationally with the certainty of injustice. There was one day in particular that is gilded in the light of perfection, however. It seemed like the surface of the pond was boiling with all the fish bouncing around the surface. Who knows what suicidal bent had taken over the poor fish, but I got to the point that I simply hovered my hook over the surface of the water right at the bank and let them catch themselves. It was almost like they were in a tidy line underwater, taking their turns jumping up to catch hold of the glittering god of their mass delusion. Of course, crazy fish still make good eating.

Poker players out there will roll their eyes as I make the obvious analogies to be had in these few images, but please allow them anyway. It is terribly relevant to compare the rhythms of poker and the strategies of hooking the big ones to fishing. I'm certainly not novel in my application of the metaphor as it is common to call bad players "fish"; horrific players being referred to as "whales" just by the way. What I'm guessing is one of the unspoken strengths of the metaphor, however, is the strength of meditation. Having experienced it myself and also having enjoyed the company of great amateur fishermen, I know this to be one of the silent appeals of the sport. Hours of quiet and nerve untying rhythms. Pulling up a piece of shade and letting the peaks of excitement when catching one take you and then bring you right back to the quiet waiting. It is essential to being a successful poker player to have this quiet within you and to return to it after every ebb and flow. It is simply too easy to get carried along with the disappointments or strokes of good luck and to lose sight of the fact that poker is best played as an act of patience. Waiting for the perfect moment to sink the hook.

Sugar and spice

To shortcut the stress of writing a first post, I will direct your attention to hammeredquads.blogspot.com. There you may find the history of my current position and the context launching this blog. I'll give you a couple minutes to go ahead and do that...


...

Dusting of hands and let us begin.

I have made quite a deal of playing poker as a female, and should probably offer some illustration of such a possibly questionable presumption. After all, we are basking in the relative glory of the post-feminist liberation movement, so it might come as a shock to some of the more sheltered among us that such things might still be an issue. So, I will specify that there is in fact relatively little issue online since most of the players assume that they are playing all males anyway (although, it strikes me as completely absurd that I am constantly addressed as sir or man when my screen name includes the French delicacy, "fleur"...). On the rare occasion that sex is acknowledged and becomes an issue, it is in the context of over the top flirting peculiar to the anonymity of online chat spaces. Of course, I find this just as irritating as what occurs when I step into a live poker room, perhaps even more so since I can't exploit any real profit from the online flaw whereas profit abounds in live games. Case in point:

After a handful of ventures into casinos, I had already become used to the "gentlemen" to either side of me showing me their cards and "educating" the little miss at the table. All of which was lovely since the only bad thing about poker is having to guess what someone has. What I had not truly experienced was what I would call the "Big Slick" kinda guy. The one that sees a young woman sit down and imagines that all of her assets are as good as his. This piece of my education in the live poker world was provided at a casino in Oklahoma City. As soon as I sat down, I looked across from me and found the greasiest, shiniest specimen of male chauvinism I have ever had the misfortune to share such a close space with...and I spent four years among officers and enlisted alike trying to attain such heights. Anyway, he immediately let me know his assessment of me by announcing to the table that "they didn't want to mess with this one," delivered with a wink of his fat eyelids in my direction. Let me translate: around a poker table, this loosely means "fresh meat; have at 'er boys." To which, I gave my customary smile that speaks all sincerity but hides lethality in the corners. About half an hour later, he was no longer winking and his sheen was enhanced by a thin layer of sweat. He was beginning to see through the sweet facade as his chips slowly accrued on my side of the table. We got involved in a hand together, which was not a rarity, but which held the import of a line being drawn in the sand. I could sense in every line of his tensing posture that this was the hand he was going to make his stand with. Which was fine by me, because I had just flopped a monster and I was planning to eat this slimy chump for dessert. I didn't even have to say please and the lout threw his last chip in; me gleefully adding my own to the pile. He paled noticeably seeing my confidence and knowing at this point that I was no innocent to the game and would know when I had him where I wanted him. His eyes were glued to the table when the next card came down, and I saw the relaxing of his shoulders that meant he had found his miracle. Throwing over his two cards, he showed a hand that had found one of two cards in the deck that could beat my own. As he drew the massive pile of chips towards him, he gave me a look that couldn't have said more clearly, "That's why you don't play with the big boys, sweetie." His recently rewarded foolishness was shaken visibly, however, as this little sweetie pulled two more large bills from my pocket and asked the dealer for a refresh. Unfortunately, luck is not much of a lady or at least not one with a sense of loyalty to her own, and he got away with his sense of superiority in tact. Then again, it is to my benefit that he and all his kind are allowed to exist in such large numbers in this profession. So here's to all the cretins out there and may you have the luck of avoiding me and my kind.