Don't be a bacon bragger.

We need to sort some things out, internet. You know what I'm talking about: bacon fanboys. Now, there are a lot of reasons, it seems, that bacon as a meme has really taken off. But the number one, in my mind, is that it allows people to experience a degree of "safe danger." Everybody knows bacon is bad for you! Isn't it crazy that I added it to my cupcakes?! I'M WACKY, GOD DAMMIT!

With regard to bacon, I find myself in the same place that I did with the band Radiohead in college. The music was pretty good, sometimes excellent. The fans, however, were often completely unbearable. There was this legion of black-glasses-and-grey-wool-coat wearing fanboys, who rallied to the cry of "I'm a tortured intellectual, nobody understands me but Thom Yorke!" Eventually, almost everybody grows out of this phase, but it's a real pain in the ass when you have to deal with it every day.

Likewise, it's impossible to have a[n internet] discussion with my fellow mouth-breathing, socially retarded recluses without someone freaking out over how much they love bacon. Pal, McDonalds puts bacon to shame where health risks are concerned. Putting a couple strips of sugardale over your meatloaf is no excuse to go stomping around acting all hard. Adding an ingredient that is easily purchased at most major American grocery stores is not the same as running from the cops with a pound of heroin-filled condoms waiting to blow up in your gut. Yet, all too often, that is how people portray it. Bacon is tasty. We get it.

I also blame America's unreasonable standards of what is considered TRULY wacky for the continued survival of this meme, but that's a post for another time. Suffice it to say: Your sense of humor sucks in general, America.

As I stated, though, bacon tastes good. It's salty and crunchy and is full of delicious fat. Much like keeping a loaded gun in every room of the house, using bacon outside of breakfast is a great idea. (See also: Only drinking whiskey at night) The surprise you get when either one shows up unexpectedly is just as important as what they bring to your home, or your plate, as well.

Take, for example, the case of German-style potato salad. It has always been my opinion that nobody actively likes potato salad, and that it's just there so people can be polite and take some. So, you dutifully shovel some on to your plate, ready to consume what years of reinforcement have taught you is about as bland a dish as can exist. Forking some in to your mouth, you...wait a second, here. This is...tangy! And...savoury! And served warm! No, it can't be...Is there bacon in this? There is! Oh, my god! That's the last thing I expected to find here! This is delicious!

So, when I lay down this recipe, I'm trusting you to use it responsibly. Don't be a bacon bragger. Keep that shotgun hidden, until Ronnie's sure he's got you outsmarted. The look on their faces will always be worth it.

This recipe is stupid simple. I don't often make desserts, because I don't really like sweet things. But this time of year, people always be in your face about bringing something to the party, and cookies are apparently "More acceptable in a work setting" than "A 30 rack of busch camo cans." So, without further delay:

TROJAN PIGGIES
(Chocolate chip cookies with a secret dose of crunchy, salty bacon)

INGREDIENTS:

6 Strips bacon - No need to get fancy here. The regular store kind is fine. For other applications, I insist on thick-cut butcher-only bacon, but that would be wasted here.

1 Cup flour

1/2 Teaspoon baking soda

1/2 Teaspoon salt

1 stick of butter, allowed to come up to room temperature. (Like, an hour and some.)

1/2 Cup brown sugar, all packed down in to that cup and levelled off.

1/3 Cup regular-ass sugar

1 Egg

1 Teaspoon vanilla extract (Get the real kind, the fake shit sucks)

2/3 Cups chocolate chips (I might cut it down just a little, but I don't really like chocolate too much?)

PROCEDURE:

This dish works best if you have an electric mixer. Not saying you need a cast-iron Kitchen Aid or anything, but unless you got arms like my gramma, whipping the butter and sugar together is going to be a serious pain in the ass.

Cook the bacon. The easiest way to do this is on a plate with paper towels in the microwave. Should take somewhere in the neighbourhood of six minutes, probably a bit more. Cook it until it's crispy. Just check on it often, and you can't miss. Crumble it all up once it has cooled.

You want to get a bowl and mix together the flour, salt, and baking soda. Combining them when dry will make for more even distribution later on. A whisk (or fork) works well here.

Next, put your butter and sugar in the mixing bowl, and cream them together. What does that mean? Exactly what it sounds like. Mix them together until they look creamy instead of lumpy. Shouldn't take that long. Add the vanilla and the egg, mix a little more, and slowly add the flour mix, then the chocolate chips and the bacon.

Much like a mixer, parchment paper is pretty key here. Non-stick pans get scratched, becoming stick pans rather quickly. Just get a roll of parchment paper from the grocery store, and your cookies will come right off. Take some dough, roughly a tablespoon, and drop it on the paper on your cookie sheet. Keep your proto-cookies 2-3" apart, and they shouldn't run in to each other as they cook.

Stuff them bitches in a 350-degree oven for 10-16 minutes (ovens are different) and cool them on a rack when they're done. "10-16 minutes is a pretty wide range," you may say. "How will I know they're done?!" The answer is "When they look like cookies." You want a little brown around the edges. (Golden brown, yo. Like a cookie is supposed to look.)

There you have it! Stick them bitches out at whatever holiday shit you're forced to leave the house for, and you're guaranteed to either delight, or never be invited back. It's a real win-win.

LIKE EINSTEIN'S BRAIN

We all got problems, people. Some dog is always barkin’ it’s damn head off next door, and you ain’t sure you got enough gas to get to the gas station. Duane owes you twenny bucks, but Nikki’s in town and so you know he’s spendin’ all his spare scratch on newports and busch light. Plus you got all these cucumbers, and you gotta constantly be tricking people in to thinking you ain’t a total shit of a dude.

Well, my friend, I can’t tell Duane that Nikki’s only with him on account of his bitchin’ firebird and general gullibility, but I can tell you what to do with those cucumbers and the people one step away from finding out that it’s you that broke the toilet handle at your friend’s mom’s 40th birthday party.

As with almost everything I infrequently post on this webzone, the recipe I’m about to lay down is dirt simple. If you got some basic kitchen equipment and some jars, you good to go. As with my recipe for Girlfriend Chicken, you might have to buy some spices. Good! You’re gonna need them shits when you start coming up with your own ideas. At least you can leave them when you move out so the next person who moves in’s girlfriend can throw them away with a wrinkled-up nose. (She has a ponytail and a pink purse)

WHAT ARE WE MAKING ALREADY? The answer is Refrigerator Pickles. These suckers take basically zero time, and they stay good for A WHOLE YEAR. If you’re like me, the jar will sit in the fridge with one pickle in it for eight months until you get really hungry, so this is a plus. Also, much like Girlfriend Chicken, it seems like you really worked your ass off, while in reality the bulk of the work was done during Law and Order commercial breaks. ALSO, these suckers are super rad to give away as gifts, because, once again, it seems like you really went out of your way to give someone something thoughtful and handmade. Spring these bitches on unsuspecting domestics, and they’re all “Woah, I have a dog and the netflix, but I ain’t THIS good at homemaking!” Say you made a bunch and will never eat them all, in a way that implies that last week you didn’t leave your house because making these pickles took every second of your time. Don’t tell them you didn’t leave the house because you found a bunch of frozen pizzas at the back of the freezer and consequently had no need to venture outside. Giving people who live in a subdivision these pickles will make them think you’re a crazy food wizard, instead of just a regular wizard that’s mostly lazy.

ALSO, if you’re making these for you, (Why would you do that! You know you are a terrible person! Don’t kid yourself, scumbag) then you can just recycle such as old salsa or mustard jars, instead of springing for fancy ball jars and raffia for bows and pinking shears to cut out jaggity-edged tags that you calligraphy “Fresh Pickles” on.

So, get yourself some cucumbers from whoever planted too many this year. If you can, get the smaller, younger, wart-ier ones. They stay crunchy better. Cut them so they fit in whatever jar you have. I like to quarter them, because they look cool and have such a nice crunch. The brine I’m about to lay down should cover two regular grocery-store cukes, and like three or four of the nice warty ones. Brine is simple and cheap, so if you need more, just make it.

Get yourself a cup of water and a cup and a quarter of white vinegar. Put it in a saucepan, and add a quarter cup of sugar. Add a tablespoon of salt, a pinch of celery seed, a teaspoon of dry mustard, and a couple shakes of turmeric. Bring the whole thing to a boil, and then let it simmer for about five minutes, to get the flavours rockin’ in concert.

Next, you put your cut up cucumbers in a jar, along with maybe some sliced onion and a clove or two of fresh garlic, all smashed flat with a knife to really get the juice flowin’. Shove in a sprig of dill, too. Wait until the brine cools off, and cover the stuff in the jar. Make sure all your cucumber parts got access to the brine. Screw on the lid and stick them suckers in the fridge for about a week, and blammo, you’ve got your own damn pickles. They come out nicely tart and a little sweet, but I was thinkin’ a nice touch would be maybe some pepper flakes or like half of a regular ol’ hot pepper, just to give it a little kick. If you do that, I bet you gotta wait a little longer. I don’t know, man. I haven’t tried it.

Like I said, now you can stop over at people’s houses and be like “Hey bitches, you want some food I preserved myself that you ain’t got a clue how they make it? Too bad, stick this shit in your ‘fridge and make all your sandwiches better forever.” I guarantee they freak the fuck out over how awesome your pickles are, like seconds after you leave. Maybe the wife will mess around with you in the back of your car.

Check it out, Dogg: You just wrecked a marriage, and it cost less than a Spicy Italian footlong from Subway. Who’s the artist now, Michelle?

GIRLFRIEND CHICKEN

Preface: This recipe is being written by a guy who is, at present, eating cold chinese food right out of the box. I'd probably be using my hands if there wasn't a fork already on the counter. If you're anything like me, this is kind of your ground state. Put on a little L&O, take off your shirt, debate getting a beer, decide you're too lazy, etc. But there's a problem with this rock and roll lifestyle - the ladies despise it more than anything else in the world. If you get a lady that is okay with this kind of thing, she is either totally crazy or basically perfect. But that is a "blog" "post" for a different day.

SO, if we ever want a girlfriend ever, we've gotta prove that we're not fat lazy sacks of shit. Now, there are all kinds of ways a dude can go about wooing a lady. I don't know any of them. Mostly I just wait around at parties waiting for someone else to be the first one to lower their standards. But I do know that when a girl thinks you're a fat lazy sack of shit, pulling out a five-star complicated-sounding recipe, and cooking the hell out of it, serves to cross the wires just long enough that you might be able to mumble a few appropriate phrases and seal the deal. (I don't know what that means)

Another good thing about this recipe is that the flavours are strong enough that you can drink almost any wine with it and not have it be terrible. (I lived with a girl who was a wine snob once, and this would probably make her roll over in her grave. If so, friggin' awesome: I'm glad she's dead, and happier still that even in the afterlife she can find no peace)

Now, how do we get such flavours from a humble chicken that a glass of beaujolais on the table wouldn't be more out of place than a hipster riding a harley? Two words, man: Skin and Bones. You wanna get some chicken thighs, with the bone in them and the skin on them. Skinless, boneless breasts are the worst thing you can eat. It's like being invited to a church dinner in Iowa where they serve you hunks of burned styrofoam. There's no excitement, save for wondering why the lady in the back had enough styrofoam to feed 40 people. Skin and bones bring flavour to the party, like if some dude showed up and got the whole church convinced to buy musical instruments, or alternatively, mentioned that he was gay. Both situations would end in excitement of some variety.

Chicken thighs also have the added benefit of being cheap as hell, so you can afford to hide the box and pretend that you drink wine out of bottles all the time. I've heard that this goes a long way. If you're standing at the ATM with less than $20 in checking, just steal a fancy-looking wine bottle from the recycling bin in an upscale subdivision, and fill it from the box. When she comes over and the wine is already open, say you're letting it breathe. This makes it seem like you are the kind of guy who regularly wears underwear, and uses "hair product."

Alright already, what's in this magical chicken marinade? Well, it's stupid simple. All you need is:

2 tbsp. balsamic vinegar

2 tbsp. dijon mustard

1/2 cup olive oil

2 crushed up cloves of garlic,

and a teaspoon each of rosemary, thyme, and oregano.

I also add a dash of salt and pepper.

These are basic ingredients. Even if you are a fat lazy sack of shit, you probably at least love to eat. I'd eat all day if I could. On the off chance that you don't have them in the house, pick them up at the wal-mart supercenter when you go to buy the condoms you'll never use. The whole list is still cheaper than a movie for one and eight boilermakers, and once you have the spices in your cabinet you'll feel their pull every time you sit there wishing subway delivered. You'll probably use them again! Spend the fifteen bucks, you cheap bastard!

So, mix all of the things I said together in a big bowl with a whisk. You gotta whisk the shit outta this stuff, so the olive oil gets all combined with everything else. The best thing is to make the marinade at like 11 a.m., and let the flavours combine for a while before you put your chicken parts in. You don't have a job anyway, so just do it whenever you wake up.

I gotta give credit where credit is due here, and thank my aunt for turning me on to this delicious marinade. I remembered basically what was in it, and it seems to work. Originally, this recipe was intended for lamb chops, but if you're at the lamb chop stage with a girl, just get them at a restaurant and let some poor ecuadorian guy handle the dishes. You'll need all your faculties later, when you two go out for drinks and you try to appear sane and stable for just one more night, sweet jesus, please don't let her find out about my collection of owl figurines, she is so pretty and I am so alone.

Anyway toss the chicken parts in to the bowl of brown stuff and mix them all around with your hands. Make sure the marinade gets in all the nooks and crannies and secret places. Let them sit in the bowl of marinade for a couple hours. Like, two. Or more. Whatever. If you don't have a bowl, you can use a small trashcan, if you wash it out real good.

After a couple hours, start the charcoal. If you have a propane grill, hang yourself. Propane is terrible. Assuming you use a charcoal chimney, you only wanna fill that sucker about 3/4 of the way. Low and slow with the heat is the name of the game here.

You want to have your briquettes covering about half of the bottom of the grill. Assuming you're doing like four to six thighs, you wanna park them little guys right near where the charcoal ends. Cover the grill, and let them cook for a good stretch. If you have a girl over, turn on the TV so she has something to do while you cook. I like to have a beer and an old National Geographic handy. The only way I know how to describe the timing on these little dudes is in terms of number of pictures looked at, so unless you got the April 1984 issue handy you're gonna have to play it by ear. If I had to guess, I'd say that five minutes should be good, for the first side.

You gotta be careful here, because when you grill chicken with skin on it, you're dealing with a bunch of delicious fat. It will start to render and drip off the meat, and can start fires in the bottom of the grill. This will give you gross burned chicken. If you get a bottom of the grill fire, just put the lid on and close the little vent for a while. It'll choke itself out.

After five to seven minutes, most of the loose fat will have probably dripped off. Take the top off the grill, flip over your chicken bits, and position them directly over the coals. Let 'em brown up a little, just don't let 'em burn. Crispy is good, crunchy is bad. Move 'em back off the coals, cover the grill, and get back to your Geographic. Basically you want to kind of dick with them every few minutes. Most of the meat cooking is going on when they're covered, but you ain't gonna get that crispy awesomeness without them spending some time right over the coals. After a couple more flip sessions, leave them over the coals to make sure you got a restaurant-lookin' exterior, check the biggest, thickest one for doneness (if the meat is pink and it bleeds, they aren't done) and serve them bitches up. Make sure you say that it's "A balsamic and mustard marinade, with rosemary, thyme and oregano." You'll sound like the kind of guy who will ask about her day. Make sure you say it in a down-to-earth manner, too, so it's clear you prepare this kind of meal all the time.

Serve it with some vegetables or some shit, and your box-to-bottle wine.

I've always thought that cooking is something you kind of have to figure out for yourself, no matter how many glossy-ass cookbooks you read. This recipe is no different from any other in that respect. Thighs are cheap, so if you fuck it up a couple times, so what? Cut the meat off the bones and feed it to the hounds. The hardest part to figure out is the grilling, because the first time you cook chicken with skin on, you realize it's a whole new ballgame. Never forget that horrifically burned skin is just thirty seconds away.

Oh, shit! I know what you should do! Once the chicken is cooked, move it all the way off the heat and grill up some pineapple slices. They taste good with this, and they make you look just all experienced as hell. It's a side dish that says "I'm such a badass, I grill fruit." I bet girls love that shit.

Deep fat: an introduction.

Okay so I don’t know what y’alls grandmas were like, but mine were/are pretty hard. My mom’s mom used to chop ice out of a pond with an axe, wearing socks for gloves, and shoot deer in the head with a .22 rifle. She used to, and still does to some degree, make some truly unhealthy dishes. My dad’s mom taught me to make wine when I was six. Her parents were moonshiners. She as well had some dishes that could make a man’s heart explode.

One thing that both ladies’ cooking has in common is something that’s fallen out of favor in the home, recently: deep fat frying. Unless your grandparents were WWII-age or older, you probably weren’t exposed to much of it as a kid. Let me say right now: That’s a damn shame. So a kid has a few doughnuts fried in lard, you kick him out to play in the woods for six hours. he ain’t gettin’ fat. Unless he’s the fat kid in the group already.

Food fried in fat ain’t exactly awesome for your body. But, if you only eat it once in a while, and keep up a reasonable level activity, your heart probably isn’t going to give out at 30 or whatever. Just walk around a little extra. Or be a farmer.

Some people dig on molecular gastronomy, with all kind of foams and fogs and shit and man, if that makes you happy, fire up your immersion blender and go to town. I prefer the philosophical opposite, though: cooking simple, delicious food the way old people did. It’s rewarding! And it tastes good, usually. Also you only need like four ingredients and a cast-iron pan.

Today we’re gonna cook one of my favourite treats from when I was a kid: Rabbit Ear cookies. I remember getting a brown paper bag of them from my grandmother on easter when I was maybe seven or eight. The bottom half of the bag was almost translucent from the grease, and good lord, were they delicious. I’m assuming that most of you have never deep-fried anything, so don’t get insulted if you know all about deep-frying and I’m like “Okay be careful about the hot oil, because basically even the smallest mistake will end in a pretty horrible disaster.”

So let me say right now: Be careful about the hot oil, because basically even the smallest mistake will end in a pretty horrible disaster.

Deep-frying is messy, so the best solution is to think outside the house and do this shit in the yard. I use a propane-fueled camp stove, because it can crank out the BTUs, and it’s pretty easy to hold at a constant temperature. Don’t bother if you have some kind of whisper-lyte gnomette 1000 backpacking stove, because we need a shitload of heat. Constant heat is the key to frying. You gotta hold your oil at around 350 degrees for quite some time, and a stove the size of a snuff can is gonna have a hard time with a cast-iron skillet and a pound and a half of melted crisco.

Now a cast-iron skillet isn’t necessary, but it really helps keep your oil at a consistent temperature. If you don’t have a cast-Iron skillet, then what the hell man, go get a Lodge 12” at the hardware store. They’re like $25 and made in the USA, and they come basically pre-seasoned. Or look around in a thrift store. Today I used a heavy-bottomed stainless steel pan that I bought at goodwill for two bucks. It has a little higher sides than my skillet, and it holds heat okay. What I am saying here is that you gotta have a hefty pan. If you want your fried stuff to be light and crispy, you gotta cook it hard and fast, and that means you gotta keep your oil HOT AS HELL.

To make sure you got your stuff at a good temperature, you should have a candy thermometer. It will tell you when your oil is ready to rock. They ain’t expensive and will really help you get a feel for when you got your stuff hot enough, without tipping over in to OH GOD WHY IS THERE SO MUCH SMOKE territory.

Cooking outside has the added advantage of not making your house reek of delicious grease, and lessens the possibility of dying in flames. Both good things.

So what the hell IS a rabbit ear? Well, it’s a chunk of fried dough, twisted around some to form a crude V-shape, fried, and rolled in powdered sugar. Think of a cross between a cruller and a funnel cake, with just a little more body and crunch. The best part is, it only has like eight ingredients that you probably already have. The things you will need, are:

3 1/2 cups flour
2 teaspoons salt
1 egg
between a quarter and a half-teaspoon of baking POWDER. baking soda will not work.
1 tablespoon clarified butter (melt some butter. wait for the white shit to drop to the bottom. use the clear yellow stuff.)
3/4 cup milk (you might need like a tablespoon more if your dough is too crumbly.)
A big tub of crisco or whatever vegetable shortening is cheapest. (not butter flavoured, it should be waxy and white. You can also use lard if you are so inclined)
powdered sugar

Get all the dry things. Mix all the dry things together really well. Add the wet things. Knead the resulting dough until there are no dry bits and the texture is pretty uniform. Like I said, you might need to add juuuuuust a touch more milk and/or clarified butter. I did both. Warm up the milk before you pour it in so it doesn’t mess with the butter. Form the dough in to a ball and let it sit for an hour, then roll it out on a floured surface until it is a little thinner than pie crust, like 1/16-1/8”, or about 2-3mm. I found that it was easier to roll if you split the dough in to halves and rolled each one out separately. It should be thinner than your average pie crust, but not so thin it’s all coming apart.

Now get at that dough with a knife, and cut it in to strips between 3/4 and 1” wide and 4-6” long. Pinch the middle of the dough together about the long axis, and then fold the two halves together to make a crude bunny-ears shape. You ain’t got to do this, but it makes them easy to flip, and just frying ripped pieces of dough makes it look like you didn’t even try. WHAT WILL THE CHILDREN THINK???????

Get your crisco up to 350F. You want a good two inches of liquid in the pan, enough to cover the pieces you drop in by a good margin. Save some scraps of dough, and drop one in when the oil gets close. If it at first sinks and pretty quickly then rises to the surface to fry, your oil should be good. This is a way to test if you ain’t got a thermometer.

Toss some of those suckers in to the oil, baby! And by that I mean gently drop them in. You only want to fry like five or six at a time, so you don’t cool your oil off too much. Let them go until the edges turn golden brown and the color starts to move towards the middle, then flip them. It should only take like 30 seconds or so, and less on the second side. The only way to get good at this is to practice, and develop a feel for what’s perfectly crispy, what’s undercooked, and what’s just hideously burned. Remove the ears from the oil with a slotted METAL spoon, and lay them on a plate with a couple paper towels on it to soak up some of the grease. Let the oil heat back up some before you toss in your next batch.

Once everything is all fried and delicious, and your ears have cooled off a bit, put some powdered sugar in a ziplock bag or tupperware or whatever with you got on hand. Put in a few ears and shake them like a baby that JUST WON’T SHUT UP FOR ONE SECOND WHILE DADDY TALKS TO THE BANK. Repeat until all the ears are done. You can add cinnamon or some shit if you want.

So there you have it! Deep-fried desserts 101. Next time you go to the fair and some dude wants to charge you like six bucks for a funnel cake, just be all “HELL no!” and make some golden-fried treats at home.

The best thing about this dish, besides everything about the way it tastes, is how simple and cheap it is. You can afford to mess this one up a couple times without breaking the bank. If shit goes south halfway through, toss the whole mess, crack a beer, and start again. My grandma would be proud.

Here are some pictures.

This is what it looks like when you melt a half-tub of crisco.

ACK MONDAY ACK

Okay there internet, this is as close to a real blog post that I have yet made. Everyone knows that I sleep from about three to eleven. That is the way my body works. I get the most work done from nine or ten at night to two or so. Today, though, horror of horrors! My eyes snapped open to a total BrightMare world, where people got on their way to work and were awake when you are supposed to be awake. This has caused all types of trouble.

First off, how in the hell am I supposed to justify eating three tuna sandwiches for breakfast if I am doing it at regular breakfast time? That's ridiculous! I don't want to be some guy who eats fish sandwiches for breakfast. From there it is one step to finding the socks I had on yesterday and thinking "Why not? They aren't that dirty or stretched out." Before you know it I am eating raw bacon right out of the package and laughing at Fran Drescher. I don't want that to be me, internet.

Secondly, I interface better with people when I get up at my usual time. When I am well-rested and starting my day, everyone else is going in to the lunch-time slide, where their every thought and action is dulled by a vicious combo of hunger and the onset of severe boredom. If I should be, say, shopping for building materials at a local home-improvement warehouse, most employees I approach will simply take me to the 3/4" wall brackets, without inquiring about what my project is or why I need galvanized parts. Sometimes I do not feel like mentioning these things. Then again, if I am feeling jovial, I can drop charisma all over the joint. As long as you aren't too crazy about it, a little humor can make that last hour before someone's break just totally fly by. When they are eating a meal at home, they might think of me and the joke I made about PVC glue. These are important reasons to wake up four hours later than almost everyone else.

There is also the feeling which crops up around three PM that your head is filled with greasy rags and that your eyelids have hair on the inside of them but I think everyone gets this at some point during the day.

I thought that me and sleep had an uneasy truce worked out, but apparently that slick bastard is one step ahead of me, yet again. People from both sides of my family are able to just drop off when they so choose. I am jealous of this fact. My body is not built for sleep. This 3-11 scheme usually works, but today it let me down. What the hell, body. What in the hell.

I think my body knows that my brain is dealing with some stupid bullshit right now, and is pulling the oldest trick in the book - the one where I don't sleep for a week and then go in to a fugue state and do all kinds of nutty actions which bring my deals to a head, for better or for worse. Then I fall asleep until my brain gets me in trouble once more.

I swear to heck, brain and body, you better get your contact information straightened out and stop yelling about things that are outside of your control, or I will pull this car over right now and give you both such a licking that you will suffer post-traumatic stress disorder every time you see someone with an ice-cream cone (or bar).




Oh also I am growing my mustache back for a little while.

Double-post Sunday night

Hello again, internet. I almost forgot to mention a crisis. Since the point of the internet is to mention crises, I feel like I have made a serious error. I am sorry, internet.

As is my custom on Friday nights, I left my home for a pint at the Nelson House, a quiet, clean establishment located just a couple blocks away. It is the kind of place where you can read a newspaper at the bar, and nobody calls you a "college-boy faggot." You can talk to an older lady or gent about tomato plants, or healthcare, or any number of topics.

But you cannot do this when the bar is closed for two weeks.

I will expand more on this theme at a later date.

Some people were talking about Oktoberfest

Today was a chilly day, internet. I knew this when I stepped from my bed. It is a true fact that I am a huge fan of robes, and so today, when it came time to pick one, my hand passed over my thin summer cover, and instead went with a thicker, terrycloth option. Knee-length wool socks were added.

It was the kind of morning that fires up a part of your brain, if you were born and/or raised in or near the country. Long-dormant instincts kick in, and you start noticing things. When was the last time I put mink oil on my boots? Has that wood been drying long enough?

The part of my brain that lights up the most, though, is the part that knows about shotguns. During the spring and summer, there is little use for a shotgun. Groundhogs are taken with a rifle that spends most of the day slung across your back. When walking along the edge of an alfalfa field, the thought of lugging around a fourt-foot-long over/under in the July sun is just an awful proposition. But now, on a cool morning like this, it seems to make a lot of sense.

So you take it down off the wall and give it a looking-over. The extra-thick layer of oil you put on it last winter is still there. You push the lever to open it up, and peer down the barrels. Shiny and bright. Of course, you'd expect nothing less of yourself, but there is always the fear that a spot of rust might have formed where an errant finger laid months ago. There are all kinds of shotguns, but cool weather always makes you think of your favourite.

As you look your gear over, you don't really think about squirrels and rabbits and pheasants. Sure, you know they play a part, but more than anything else, you think about the time in late December, when you were walking through a pine bottom, and a snow squall blew in. The way that to this day, you've never seen or felt anything so quiet. The snow fell so thickly that you couldn't hear your footsteps, or even your breath. Or you think about walking across a field of corn stubble, the ground thawing slightly with the morning sun, footsteps becoming softer as you near the treeline, on a day where even your lungs remind you how bright and clear it is every time you take a breath. That shotgun, that pair of boots, that vest were all there with you.

So you snap the gun closed and put it back up on the wall, make some coffee, and put the mink oil on your boots. It isn't time, yet, but you know it isn't far off, either. The short days and cold wind make us all, in this part of the country, turn inward a little. But it isn't always a terrible thing. A pot of squirrel stew wouldn't taste the same if you'd been out carousing with your friends at the lake all day. Winter will be long, but at least you know it's coming. And you know where you'll be.