Phood phlog: finding my huckleberry

i sometimes wonder whether i made the right choice. sure, the path seemed clear enough during the journey, so much so that i followed it blindly with the devotion of a religious extremist. any other outcome was unfathomable. and, truth be told, i like what i do. i think i can be relatively secure in saying that i'm even somewhat competent at it. plus, there is the added perk of perpetual job security, particularly in the current economic climate. after all, there will always be a need for janitors.

and yet, and yet ... i find i don't have quite the same zealotry for the job that i see in my colleagues. i sleep well at night (mostly), even after a bad day. i rarely call or check in after a shift to see how the floor mopping went or if the cleaning should have gone differently. i certainly spend little time perfecting my craft outside of the workplace. in fact, once i'm off, i almost never discuss the day's events at home or with friends outside of the janitorial profession. to do so would be, as so eloquently phrased by george, worlds colliding. and, let's not kid ourselves, few people truly find the intricacies of my chosen profession all that exciting.

can i still see myself doing this fifteen, twenty years from now? i don't know. probably. it's still difficult to envision myself doing anything else. but when i close my eyes, what i see is myself driving down wilshire blvd towards santa monica with a my beautiful eating companion at my side. the top is down, and the early morning sun provides the perfect counterpoint to the cool pacific breeze. we turn in at the corner of 11th and wilshire, and step into a young eatery where the breads and pastries dance on the tip of your tongues and settle into a comfortable glow in your stomach as only good comfort food can. where breakfast is not quite traditional, but not so far-fetched as to leave you wanting for something else. we turn into huckleberry, as we did last week.

green eggs and ham

brisket hash

Writer's block

growing up, i never wrote much for the sake of writing. sure, there were a few blurbs here and there penned into the top margin of my class notes during the droning cs lectures in college, but that was usually because i was deathly bored, forgot to pick up a copy of the daily rag (crossword puzzle), and can't draw drawrings. but nothing else was written that didn't have an assigned specification and deadline attached to it. no works of fiction, no poems, no philosophical ponderings, no telenovellas.

maybe it's because my first formal english class was esl. maybe it's because i was passed over for english ap (i contend to this day that my writing acumen at the time still trumped at least half the class combined ... not that i'm bitter about it). maybe it's because the verbal section always weighed down my scores on national standardized exams. maybe it's because i was compelled to take the toefl just to have the privilege of applying for my last job. or maybe i just sucked at it. more likely one of the former reasons though.

so i find it ironic that i should be in possession of an electronic wooden soapbox to randomly spew my verbal excrements across cyberspace, even if no one's necessarily listening. perhaps more ironic, i still remain amused enough by it to continue emesising. irony indeed.

random thoughts

* i realize it's hard for someone who hasn't tuned in before the final season to truly grasp and understand, well, anything happening in the series finale, but wow, what a way for bsg to go out. the last bit with its planet earth-like scenery was quite contrary to the overall dark tone of the series, yet the series goal from the beginning was always about finding a way out of the darkness. of course, the cautionary last word served as a warning of the inevitable descent back into darkness, even if all that happened before may not happen exactly the same way again.

* it's going to be difficult to find a drama as dark and well-written as bsg. and make no mistake, the strength of the series was in its consistently stellar writing and acting, not its futuristic (? pre-historic) setting. even munkee grrl, who notoriously hates all things sci-fi, was hooked. difficult, but not impossible, not with mad men, breaking bad, and sons of anarchy still on the air.

* last tv thought for the entry. good to see a series go out on top of its game. it's infinitely sadder to watch something that was once great slowly limp along into oblivion and irrelevance (see the x-files, er, the simpsons, christian laettner).

* learned a new word, courtesy of my labmates. that dark brown spot on the end of the banana when you peel it that looks and tastes nasty that no one eats? a bananus.

* went to get a haircut after spending the entire morning alternating between looking through a microscope and slicing a frozen banana, err, brain with my hands stuck in a -20 degrees celsius chamber ... after having worked through the night before. and as i was parking the car in the garage, the song that came on was the postal service's sleeping in. coinkydink? i think not.

* found a new favorite hole in the wall in lalaland. a little french bakery appropriately named le pain du jour. there, my eating companion and i found various croissants and breads that we haven't tasted since, well, paris. and after one initial visit a week ago, the nice lady behind the counter remembered us the next week and the bread that we had wanted to try from the week before. that's nearly unheard of in this wasteland of anonymity, vanity, and general self-absorbance. she even made a suggestion for next week. you bet i'm taking her up on it. a phood phlog will be difficult to post on this place ... the goods tend to be devoured rather quickly after purchase.

* for whatever odd whimsical reason, i started looking into a crystal ball during a dinner conversation. it's about 30-40 years in the future, a weekly ritual on a weekend morning around brunchish time. at the table sit myself, a munkee, 2 gay men (one straighter than the other), a ball of neuroses, and yossarian. there are others, some younger, some older, and a recurring cameo by yossarian's younger brother every few weeks or so. there's a pretty waitress who knows our faces and tolerates our incongruously adolescent behavior and frequent petty arguments. heaven, hell, or purgatory? if true, horrifying as it sounds, consider it written here first.

L.A. story

i love meat. wait, no, that doesn't quite accurately convey the sentiment i was going for. i *heart* meat. there, much better. thus i found myself with my valentine sitting at the local bistro post-hallmark day, salivating over all things protein on the menu. kurobuta pork belly as an appetizer preceding steak frites? you betcha. it's in the bloody dna. nothing quite like ingesting large quantities of meat to fend off the loony p.e.t.a. vampires, i say. or, as the old adage goes (in my head, anyway), a cow a day keeps the doctor away.

unfortunately, local bistros in lalaland seem to attract riff-raff. as has been the case the past couple of visits, there i was contentedly savoring my meat (in context, the last phrase makes perfect sense and is not at all dirty, perverts) when the staff (again, not dirty) seats a young couple next to us. which is fine, i mean, that's part of the dining experience, common human condition, or something like that. and then they opened their mouths.

was it only last month that i resolved to be less cynical? in retrospect, i must have been wicked toasted. i mean, seriously, me? less cynical? exactly how many bowls did i smoke? cynicism is as embedded into my genetic code as, well, *hearting* meat. me not cynical is as comical as my hallmark date resolving to be nicer.

so these two yutzes started carrying on a conversation about a foot or two away from me, and what do they start talking about? work. worse, work at the same institution that currently employs me. oh sure, there were a couple brief tangents here and there about celebrities sharing their birthdays and how they didn't like the salad. but work. buzzkills. worse, riff-raffs. snooty ones too. they really ought to screen who they let in more carefully.

other than that, the meat was *slurp*.

Notions

where did december go? last i checked, it was 2008. heck, i'm still writing 2008 whenever i date something. now it's shorts and t-shirt weather in mid-january. there was a semi-conscious effort to blog at least once a month, but that seems to have lapsed with, well, the lapse of december. although, to be quite honest, the entire 2008 deserves a right good riddance.

so, it's a new post, the first of a new year. given that i've just spent half the day finishing a journal club presentation that i should rightly have finished last month, i thought i'd give my right brain a little free rein for the night. and maybe, at least for now, we'll try not to let cynicism be the overriding tone. perhaps we'll leave it at just an undercurrent, or just a taste, to quote yossarian. not that there's anything wrong with cynicism. keeps you from getting disappointed. and it puts hair on your chest, so i always say. but at least for tonight, the focus will be on the stuff that excites rather than the drek that depresses and infuriates.

speaking of chest hair, wow, what an opener for the final season of battlestar galactica. even the title, sometimes a great notion, is something to gnaw on and savor. still the most underrated show out there, it managed to live up to expectations and then some. not hard to imagine, considering how it has already managed to transcend genres as a sci-fi series (a genre that has managed to turn off the mainstream by painfully trying to sell 99% schlock and gimmicks). great acting, sublime writing, and timeless themes with minimal reliance on gimmicks will do that for a series (hear that, jj abrams?). the endgame is clearly in play, and like all great shows going out with a bang, nothing is expected. after the rush of the shield's final season, looks like bsg is going to pick up the slack as the new dramatic adrenaline delivery boy.

in a short time, i've also become addicted to mario kart. i realize i'm a late comer, but with the number of people still playing online, it's a testament to the game's staying appeal. the graphics are beautiful, especially given that it's designed for the wii. and with its incorporation of motion control and mii avatars, nothing about it suggests that any of its fun factor would translate to any other platform anyways. combine cute cartoon characters with serious battle racing gameplay and a decently comprehensive online component (still hate friend codes), and you've got one wicked crack bowl of gaming fun.

almost finally, watching the lakers-cavaliers game and kobe's doubled over in pain after dislocating his ring finger guarding lebron in the first few minutes. cleveland proceeds to launch what seems like 10 shots while playing 5 on 4 while kobe's out of the play. i can't help but think of soccer, where the opposing team would just kick the ball out of bounds to allow the injured player to get treatment, and in a return of sportsmanship, the injured player's team would then cede possession back after the injury's been treated. is this a statement on basketball, or on our nation as a whole? perhaps i'm just overthinking it, but i'm leaning towards us being a nation of douchebags. ok, maybe a tad more than just a taste.

and last, but definitely tastiest, cd purchases in december (courtesy rasputins and streetlight records), in no particular order:

robert plant and alison krauss - raising sand
arcade fire - neon bible
the postal service - give up
rilo kiley - more adventurous
diana krall - christmas songs
various artists - maybe this christmas tree
lcd soundsystem - sound of silver
susan tedeschi - back to the river

Vision

the days are shortening. i find myself waking and walking to work in that surreal hour when the day has yet to establish its dominance and the night is slowly losing its struggle to retain its grasp on the world. it's the hour when the things that go bump in the night are receding back to the dark recesses from which they emerged, when things not yet as they seem begin to take the form of what might be.

as i rub the eye crusties out, the nightmares from the previous night's restless sleep quickly fade. the sun has nearly broken the horizon, and with the impending light comes hope for a new day, for a better day. anything can happen. and as i walk down the avenue with others newly awakened, i catch myself thinking, yes we can, yes we can.