Prop 8

"It's no longer about tolerance. Acceptance of gay marriage is now mandatory." So stated one Prop 8 advertisement, referring to the court's overruling of Prop. 22 in 2004.

It seems twisted to me that we must truncate the rights of a minority to preserve intolerance. The statement seems to want to profess some amount of tolerance, but what it's really saying is "We will continue to be tolerant of things we don't like for as long as they are not allowed." Tolerating shit is not the same as tolerance.

It's strange how allowing gay marriage has become some kind of mandate on the straight conservative demographic. By extending rights to one group, we must force the opposing group to grit their teeth and bear it. Is this a circumvention of the latter group's right? Right to what? To not have gays marry?

In 1776 only white men with property were allowed to vote. Nearly 100 years later the 14th amendment acknowledged African Americans as citizens of the U.S., and a few years later, the 15th amendment granted them the right to vote. Almost 100 years after that, MLK Jr. gave his famous "I Have a Dream" speech, still fighting for rights that he Constitutionally already had. I'm sure that the racists who made up the lynch mobs believed that allowing blacks to vote was a serious transgression against the "true Americans," the majority. Consider this:

"It's no longer about tolerance. Acceptance of African-American voting rights is now mandatory."
What about:
"It's no longer about tolerance. Acceptance of womens' sufferage is now mandatory."

If California, the liberal hub of this hateful country, can approve yet another means of discrimination, then I will shed my own illusions about the purpose of this country, and start pushing for measures of my own.

Next, we need to ban fat marriage. Fat people should not marry other fat people, as it's just asking for trouble, genetically. Plus, it's really disturbing for me to see fat couples holding hands, right out in public for God and children to see. And sometimes they kiss. Fat couples, listen, I'm sorry, but you're going to have to go ahead and be fat and married in another state. And if you somehow manage to slip your plus-sized marriage in under the wire before I get this measure passed, you're still fucked because it won't count anymore when I'm through. That's right, you didn't call no take-backs on that shit.

Where Sky Touches Ground, Part 1--An Overview

I arrived in the flatlands on the 10^th of September nearly three weeks ago, flying from Kalispell, MT to Salt Lake City, UT where I connected with a flight to Long Beach, CA. I voluntarily took a later flight, changing my initial departure time of 6:45am to a considerably less groggy 12:30 pm flight, landing in California five hours later.

My time in Glacier National Park was a neap tide of spiritual ecstasy and bone clutching misery. With nine crew members running Sperry Chalet, which operates in the 11 week window when the mountain isn’t sheeted in snow, I worked nearly 70 hours a week. The small size of the live-in staff required that every crew member work every day, and every week someone would mutter “TGIF” and we would all try to recall what sleeping in was like.

As a waiter, my day began at 5:50, long before the sun. I used a book light to find my clothes, pull on my boots, hoodie, and flashlight. I slipped out quietly, partly because I shared the room with David and Chris, whose responsibilities did not call them from bed so early, and partly because the walls of the two story, 26 room hotel do little to control sound…Or temperature. During the beginning and end of the season, I could see my breathe indoors.

The hotel sits uphill from the dining room by about 150 yards, with the outhouse between the two. Our altitude was about 6500 feet, and on cloudy mornings we would be swept into the mist; visibility literally became “inches from eyeballs” without a flashlight. I only forgot a light once, found my night-vision lacking, and spent ten minutes tentatively feeling my way down a path I’d walked hundreds of times.

I was due in the dining room at 6:00am, after the usually desperate rush to the toilet. I postulate that the lower air pressure of the high altitude makes it more difficult to retain fluids, because there were more than a few madman sprints out of the hotel, shoes half on.

Once in the dining room, the other waiter (Rachel, until she broke her toe hiking in sandals, at which point Renee took over) and I prepared for breakfast by mixing orange juice concentrate, boiling water for coffee, wiping down tables with bleach water, filling baskets with tea bags, creamer, and sugar, placing said baskets out on tables, setting a napkin, knife, fork, spoon, coffee cup with saucer, water glass, and glass of orange juice, order slip, and golf pencil at each place (having counted how many guests would be joining us), along with a pitcher of water, “maple” syrup, and butter pats for each table. Additionally, we prepared small cups of raisins and brown sugar to go with the oatmeal for those that cared for such fare. We were also responsible for putting sandwiches made the day before in the sack lunches provided to our guests, as well as updating the weather board.

I almost always forgot something, and have probably missed a step in writing this. We opened the doors and served breakfast at 7:00, though early risers would frequently show up to get in my way and generally piss me off. I’m not a morning person. Breakfast goes to 8:30, during which time I pour several gallons of Taster’s Choice while delivering order slips to Teri and Cora, the cook and assistant, who cook eggs and hotcakes/toast (respectively) to order. After breakfast, the wait staff clears and wipes down the tables, refills the syrup pitchers (a crowd of 50 can go through a half gallon of the stuff), refills the tea, sugar, and creamer baskets, washes the hand washing sink and drinking fountain, and helps the dishwasher rinse and put away dishes. On a fast morning, we can be finished by 10:00 am.

Three out of nine days, we also worked the lunch shift, called the A La Carte shift. We sold soup, sandwiches, and drinks. I generally worked as cook during these shifts because I spent so much time on the floor or in the dish station as it was. The lunch shift went from 11:00-5:00, and included making meat sandwiches for sack lunches the next day, baking cookies, and checking in guests as they arrive. We sold lunch to hikers and guests.

Dinner prep started at 5:00pm, so A La Carte days were basically miserable. Dinner prep involves either making name cards for each party so as to prevent a dining room cluster-fuck, or preparing an appetizer for 40-50 people. The appetizer was some sort of salad.

We let the crowd in at 6:00pm, smile and welcome them to dinner, and remind them that parties are assigned to a table. I would then go around and introduce myself.

“How’s everyone doing this evening? Excellent. My name is Ryan, and I’ll be your waiter tonight. Tonight for dinner we’ll begin with black bean/split pea/lentil/turkey noodle/beef barley soup served with onion/Italian parmesan/buttermilk bread. The main course will be (1) roast beef, served with mashed potatoes, gravy, and corn (2) turkey served with mashed potatoes, gravy, home made stuffing, and green beans (3)cranberry chicken served with wild rice and peas with pearled onions. Dessert tonight will be cake (boysenberry, pumpkin pie, yellow with berry sauce, apple sauce, apple spice). If there’s anything I can bring you, please feel free to let me know.”

I became fairly dexterous with a tray, able to move six dinner plates or eight soup plates (with platters and bread bowl) at a time. I served and bussed as we went, as required by the multiple courses. After dinner dishes were cleared (around 6:50) and desserts were served, all nine of the crew members lined up where the dining room joins the kitchen and Karen, the manager, rang a bell and said,

“I’d like to interrupt your dinners for just a second to introduce the crew. My name is Karen Reeves and I’m the manager. I come from Whitefish when I’m not on top of the world, and .”

We would go down the line. Albert from Foresyth Montana, Teri from Katskill New York, Cora from Sheridan Wyoming, Kaitlin who couldn’t decide if she wanted to be from Montana or New York where she goes to boarding school, Rachel who specified that she was born in Lawrence Kansas, but doesn’t really have a home town, David from Kalispell Montana, Chris from Morro Bay California, and me from Davis.

We also had reminders regarding breakfast, check out, the necessity of flashlights, quiet hours, coffee hour, gear-eating wildlife, mules on the trail, trail lunches, and the pack-in pack-out policy. We switched it up every night, so it became a game I played to keep myself from screaming and running out of the building flailing my arms.

We then went around the room and let each party introduce themselves. Some nights, each person would introduce themselves, and I would have to fight to keep from ripping my own eyeballs out. They told who they were, and where they were from, and that they saw goats and marmots. I smiled and tried to funnel tips from them with my mind.

After introductions, we ate food before it gets put away. Most of the crew was vegetarian, including me, so sometimes we cooked for ourselves, and sometimes I just ate the chemical mashed potatoes and corn. Then we bussed the tables, which guests were generally reluctant to leave, chatting and guarding their dishes while we cleaned around them. The earliest we ever finished cleaning up after dinner was 8:30. I nearly always stayed and helped wash dishes.

One in nine nights, I had to work coffee hour from 9-10, putting out hot and cold drinks for guests to take. One in nine nights, I had to mop the kitchen and pantry. The tasks themselves were not difficult, but the following mornings were. I generally went to bed at 10:00pm, though often read or quilted by booklamp.

On days without A La Carte, I had the day free between breakfast clean up and dinner prep—a solid seven hours to play in the mountains. I had an amazing time, lost ten pounds, and added some serious definition to my legs. I summitted several mountains, and found more beauty than my long gazes could drink. I miss my time as part of Sperry crew for the moments when I was able to escape the work, though in the end it was all worth it.

Snapshot

Hey Everyone! Check this out!

http://www.sperrychalet.com/whatsnew.php

Take a good long look, it's Ryan and all his new friends. He informs me there may be a picture of him selling tee-shirts, but I have yet to find it. Treasure hunt, anyone?

On Top Of The World

Hello, again, everyone. I'm afraid I haven't received any blog entries to transcribe, as of yet, but I do have a few updates. First, Ryan has made it safely up the mountain where there is snow and splendour as far as the eye can see. He's taking pictures, writing, and enjoying his surroundings thoroughly. As I understand it, tourist season is starting to pick up, so he's got plenty of work but he's settling in beautifully. He is finally receiving mail, so thank you to those of you out there making sure he has a steady supply. Let's make his co-workers jealous, shall we? No pictures as of yet, but I will be sure to make them available to everyone as they come to me, which should be soon. Thanks, everybody!

Greetings From The Mountain (Post by Proxy)

Hello, all. I'm afraid the entity currently inhabiting this blog is not, in fact, Ryan. No, sad to say, he is in breathtaking Montana at the foot of the mountain, preparing for his trek up on Saturday and the uninhibited, relentless eleven-week slog that is to follow. He is in all of our thoughts and prayers, may the force be with him.

He has instructed me to tell you all that he is enchanted by the beauty surrounding him, and from the nouns I have been catching in his summations (ex: lake, hills, mountains, trails) I can only imagine what a time he must be having. Quite anxious to "get up the mountain," he is looking forward to this wonderful experience, and hopes to come back to us all with a focus that will uproot telephone poles for miles.

He has asked that any of you who wish to receive mail from him please make first contact. His current address is:

Ryan
C/O Sperry Chalet
P.O. Box 189
West Glacier, MT
59936

As for me, I am acting as his devoted secretary and shall dutifully post any entries, pictures, or other miscellaneous media he may send my way. Should any of you not want to pay postage all the way to Montana, let me assure you it will be the joy of my life to print out anything you care to write and send it along with my own torrential postal outpour. Kinda like carpooling, isn't it? Simply write what you wish as a response to any post, let me know you want it sent his way, and I'll take over from there.

I think my usefulness has run it's course for this session, so with that, I bid you all a fond farewell until the next post. Abientot!

Adventures in Academia

The day began yesterday, when I started earnest work on a ten page research paper that was due earlier today. The slog through the night was relatively uneventful. One hundred miles away, sitting in front of a web cam, Zoe scoured the school databases for relevant articles while I crashed myself through cognitive psychology and animal behavior.

I was flipping through The Cognitive Bases of Human Learning, awkwardly avoiding eye contact with the four other psychology texts and hoping they wouldn’t notice that there were only 11 hours left to work, when suddenly it hit me. Right in the eye. It was a moth. I glared across at Learning: Animal Behavior and Human Cognition, who pointed at the youngest one in our group: About Learning and Memory. This whippersnapper was only 21 years old. Compared to the other saggy spined bastards, the Indian publication was sprightly, if slightly discolored and oddly odoriferous.

“Just for that, I’m going to make some ridiculous shit up and claim you said it,” I grumbled, wondering if I was bluffing to flush out the moth-casting culprit. That would have been clever.

The night passed uneventfully after that. Musty pages dutifully yielded up their relevant quotes, many of which stopped being true after the invention of magnetic resonance imaging. My oil lamp flickered and a white fuzz-heavy moth tapped out a message in morse code:

“You know you don’t know Morse code,” it tapped, “and that you don’t have an oil lamp either. You know I’m not real…”

There was a hatching pause, and I knew deep thoughts were being thunk. Or that a moth was lost three inches from its light source.

“But I think I’m real. Descartes validates my existence.”

The moth was obviously very good at Morse code.

“No,” I said, sagging slightly, “you believe you’re real. You can’t think.” I tapped the book. “Thinking is the use of retained information in problem solving to determine the appropriate response to a given stimulus. You can’t do that. You can’t even remember what I just said.”

“…”

“…”

“..What?”

“Huh?”

I glanced down. Somehow, a copy of An Introduction to Educational Psychology that was older than my father had hijacked my hands. It had nothing to say, and it said it in the worst way possible. I creased a brutal dog ear into the page that had so gravely disappointed me.

“Let that be a lesson to you. Next time, do better.”

At this point, I feel compelled to point out that I study English, and I’m writing to fulfill my University Writing Program requirement. I’m failing this writing class for a variety of reasons, many of which I would like to discuss. I won’t, but I really would like to.

I faded in and out of carelessness, and every hour was really really unproductive. When I awoke, I was Ryan the Title. I’d been sent back. My task wasn’t finished.

Well, it very nearly was, actually, though I’m not rightly sure how it happened. A little careful page editing put me near enough to the page requirement that that horrible woman could dock me an entire letter grade anyway, and with that, I was ready to begin my grand adventure.

At 10am, I celebrated my 24^th consecutive conscious hour before uploading my finished paper and several online articles, to be printed at the office. My place of work is great for free printing, lifting boxes and counting shit all day, should the fancy strike you. I was actually scheduled to do the latter two, but instead, I showed up to use office supplies.

But wait. I’m getting ahead of myself. That’s what happens whenever I write about the internet. It destroys my unity of place and the chronology of my plot. Anyway, after uploading the files, I stacked the books together and gathered them under one arm. I grabbed my keys and looked around for the pants I’d worn yesterday. I needed my wallet for my ID card so I could ride the bus, which would be pulling up at the stop around the corner within minutes. No pants. Well, lots of pants, but not yesterday’s. No big deal. I dumped a changeful of pocket into my hand and left, locking my bedroom door.

Wait. Books. Need the books.

Unlocked my door, collected my books, kicked around paper and pants once more for good measure, and left, locking my bedroom door. At the bus stop, I got to stand and stare down the street, counting seconds to myself, probably out loud.

Shit, wait. I forgot my drafts, and my topic proposal. I need those too. If I run, maybe I can…

The bus pulled around the bend and I walked away. You’ll have to ask someone else if I was cursing loudly and kicking the air in front of me.

Went back inside. Gathered the papers, stuck them in a folder.

Books. Folder. Wallet. No wallet. Keys. 30 minutes to deadline. 25 minute ETA for my bus. My bike is still on campus, no good to me here. Car! I have a car. I’ll pay for parking, print my shit, zoom over to the other side of campus.

And then I noticed that my car was lopsided, the front tire was completely flat. At that point, I recall heading back out toward the bus again before realizing that I didn’t have a full hand of pocket in my change, and twitched back toward home. I called Zoe to explain my situation, though my explanation went something like this:

“WHERE THE FUCK DID MY PANTS GO?”

Of course I was still walking up and down my block. Of course there were people around. Of course I was loud.

I drove my car an incredibly long half-block to the gas station. I was sure I’d shred my tire. I started to smell rubber. The groan was heart-rending.

I filled up the tire, which held air, and sped to work. I left my car without paying for parking because there were no meters, and I had no wallet. When I’d finished printing, Xeroxing, and collating, it was 2 minutes until deadline. My bike was at work, ready for use, but my bike key was no longer in these hippy-made pockets. I tried cutting my lock—we have monster bolt cutters in the storehouse—but it didn’t work.

So I ran across campus. It’s ¾ miles, and I opted for bare feet over slower flip flops. I flew like a barefooted guy who hadn’t run in three months or slept in 24 hours who had a term paper due for his last class before graduation.

Arriving at Voorhies, I lept up the stairs to the third floor and jogged to her office, where the door was soundly shut. I shrugged, dropped the folder on the floor, and gave it a smooth, well practiced kick under the door. Almost. The folder was too thick and needed a good toe-stuffing to get in.

“She’s still in there,” a girl across from me said, appalled by my assault on the door.

“Too late now,” I said.

I ran back to my car.

On my way home, I found my bike lock, which I’d left in a cup holder. Once in my room, I immediately discovered my wallet sitting right where I always leave it. And then I realized that I forgot to include my process log in the project folder. She’ll probably dock me half a grade for that.

And then I wrote this, and then I went and bought a sandwich and a six pack and played GTA IV until sleep took me.

On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness

I got this game yesterday in lieu of pretty much everything else I’d intended to accomplish. In fact, I suspect that the only reason I hopped over to PlayGreenhouse.com was to avoid the close analysis of a particularly unpleasant performance of Don Giovanni. With this in mind, one could feasibly conclude my first game review is little more than an exercise in procrastination.

As career game critics of the non-pandering variety, codenames Gabe and Tycho have doubtless earned a frowny face on many a shitlist. I envision offended parties who, having written their nastiest zingers long before the game’s premier, waited more anxiously than any fan for the release date so they might unleash the fury of their bloggy vengeance. Thus far, On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness shows mixed reviews.

The game opens with a palpable sense of self-consciousness, which is entirely understandable; the creators must prove much. The opening atmosphere is an apt harmony of Gabe’s unique cartooning and Tycho’s mellifluous dramatics. I may have oohed, or ahhed, and possibly even smiled to my self in anticipation.

When the actual play commenced, I was slightly disappointed. It was an M rated version of Disney's Toontown, without the benefit of online play. Fruit Fuckers abound, along with hobos, clowns, mimes, and barbershop quartets, all of whom need a good dose of murdering. You actually get to eat the dead hobos to gain a stat bonus.

The combat system is simple but enjoyable, requiring the player to actually pay attention to the battles. Well timed button pushes will block incoming attacks, and performing stronger attacks require small feats of dexterity corresponding with the nature of the strike. Gabe's fisticuffs, for example, call for rapid pounding on the space bar along with a single element of timing finess, whereas Tycho's tommy-gunning requires fast and accurate input on the WASD keyset.

The storyline is enjoyable, but ultimately unsatisfying--Having Tycho as my game-master was the pinnacle of the game experience. The story, however, fails to connect the initial conflict with the Final Boss, and after about five hours and a brief sense of triumph, I had to wonder if my victory was relevant at all. I imagine this disjointedness was designed to aid the sales of Episode 2, but I'm not curious enough to shell out another $20.

I'm afraid I cannot recommend this game. I can get PA humor for free from their website, and with zero replayability, On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness is a poor investment for anyone who can't run around trading cash for quick giggles. Buy a DVD instead. Or eat something besides Ramen. I fucking hate Ramen.

My Verdant Coccoon

I've been slacking, and I've probably lost whatever minuscule audience I had. Anyway, I'm going to leave this post up in hopes of snagging whatever passerby may passer-by.

I am leaving for Glacier National Park in Montana on June 24th, where I will be living and working for 11 weeks. There will be no coming down the mountain, and there will be no electricity. I'll be working 60 hour weeks, and in whatever spare time I have, I will be exploring the back country.

I will also be writing and taking pictures. This is where you come in.

I will be sending letters home to my girlfriend, Zoe, who will be posting journal entries and choice photographs here. You may want to read them.

I consider this an opportunity to find inspiration, and to dedicate myself to my writing. I know that I won't have much time or energy, but I will be putting forth every effort to write something significant. If ever there was a potential impetus, this is it.

I dream an authory dream. Come and watch, and see if I can make it real.

930 Years

This was transcribed from my moleskine before my car was burgled. It is not complete.
~~~

“Where are we?”

Her voice shook, and she wrapped her arm around my waist and pulled herself hard against my side. I sighed heavily into her hair, and I saw tears standing on her cheeks. She did not know why, the way I did not know why my heart was steeled, or what grief I held at bay. We walked away from that spot, the shadeless ground hard and cracked, crumbling beneath our feet.

“Not where we aught to be,” I answered. My tongue felt too large for my mouth.

On we continued in dazed silence, the setting sun breaking across our backs. We forsook it: we could not bring ourselves to look back even once.

The first night we did not stop, but stumbled on beneath the barren moon. Our stomachs voiced a misery that our throats could not, and we shivered in the cloudless cold. The sun rose, slanting in our squinted eyes, and we did not look back, and when the sun stood high and sweat salted my brow, we stopped.

“Do you know why we are walking?” I looked over at the woman. “We have walked a full day and night, and I have been too afraid to ask such things, too afraid even to think them. I cannot wander another step while choked and blinded by fear of truth and memory.”

She returned my desperate gaze, and told me with a soft quiver that she did not know. I believed her, though her eyes shined with buried sadness, for I did not know either, and could not remember anything before this wasteland.

“How did we get here?” I asked.

“Where are we going?” she replied.

And why must I choke back this sadness? I wanted to wail, to rip my hair and pour tears into the hard dirt, but I did not. It was then that I noticed the packs on our backs, and our clothes. I must have been numb indeed to have ignored the onerous sack strapped to my shoulders. I saw a similar surprise on the woman’s face as I slung the burden to the ground, where it landed with a solid tumbling thud that cast dust into the air. Hers landed softly beside mine, and we sighed and stretched the foreign soreness from our bones.

“What do you carry?” she asked. “I hope there is food, though I’d find a river first, for I thirst desperately.”

I turned my bulky sack empty on the ground, and dry, shriveled fruit thumped and rolled free across the dirt. An assortment of familiar hand tools clattered. The skin of a goat sloshed heavily. Dried flesh and nuts tumbled. Seeds of many sizes scattered, hard and dry.

“I carry food and water enough for many days, though we should eat lightly, for it will not last, and we do not know if more is to be found. This place is so empty.”

She was polishing the wrinkled skin of an apple, gazing into its lost luster. I passed the large water skin to her and she drank, deep and frantic. Precious drops escaped, glittering and beading on her clothes like shining gems that slid slowly to the dust.

“There are also seeds for planting, though I am not sure what plants will spring from them, and tools for working the crops. Their uses are obvious enough.”

I sensed an old memory surfacing, for I knew the purpose of the digging stick and the scythe, the shears and the hammer, and I realized where more food would be found.

“We are to plant the seeds, to tend the crop, and of that we may eat. We are not meant to starve.”

She handed me the water, making a face, and took a bite of the apple before gently pulling free the contents of her bag.

“I carry linens and furs. There are sheets woven from the fleece of sheep, though I know not how it was so woven. Nor do I know which animals lost their coats. We need not be cold another night, for these things are fine and warm. There is also rope. We could build a home with these things, and I am very glad, for I do not wish to sleep beneath the naked sky.”

I took a bite of her unfinished fruit before returning it to my pack. The meat was chewy, though still sweet. I drank from the skin, and she began gathering the many scattered seeds. The water was from a sweet river, clean and pure and refreshing, but had taken the taste of the goat skin. I made a face and sealed the water away.

“Nothing can grow here,” she said. “The ground is sand and clay, and will not hold seed or water, if ever water comes. No fruit can be had of this land.”

I nodded. “We must find water first, or our bones will be as the soil. Do we have anything more?”

She pulled herself into my side again and held so tightly she surely bruised a rib. I smiled and nodded. I understood and kissed her, whispering, “Then we have enough.”

We walked on.

On the third day, the sun leapt over the horizon and dazzled our eyes, and I knew that something was different. The woman was sniffing the air, and I found myself doing the same.

“My love,” she said to me, and my heart fluttered. “There is hope, for the air is moist. There is water here, and life nearby.”

She pointed toward the horizon, where white wisps lingered against the empty blue, and then stooped and dragged her fingers across the ground, and the dirt clung to her fingers. She showed me, smiling.

As we continued toward the clouds, sparse, leafless shrubs speckled the previously barren landscape. At noon, I spotted them: trees breaking free of the flat, endless horizon. Our arrival some hours later proved them to be short, sad things, thin trunked, with far too little foliage on the spindly branches.

But they were trees. I’d forgotten trees.

There were tears in my eyes when I turned to her. She was weeping also.

We slept beneath branches that night, with a great fur beneath us, to the thin song of a trickling stream and dry clatter of thirsty leaves. Wisps of clouds broke the starry landscape, and the woman slept soundly in my arms.

A single bird roused us in the morning. I shivered against the early chill, and she pulled me closer and enveloped our bodies in the silky fur.

“We can stay here,” she whispered to me, pressing my cold hands against her warm body. “This can be our home.”

I could hear the sadness in her voice, even through the hope and love she so strongly exuded.

“No,” I said, “this is not home, my love. We will stay here a while,yes, and plant grains so we will not starve while we search. But this is not home. Home will be beautiful and green. Water will fall from the sky and everything living will flourish. I will grow a garden for you; it will rise tall and thick, and we will only ever see the sky if we so desire. Lush moss will cushion your feet, and heavy fruit will droop to your outstretched fingers. It will be yours, my love. Every leaf and stem will crown you.”

She smiled a smile that stole my breath, her cheeks reddening as a swelling apple reddens.

“And I for you, my love?” She slung her arms around my neck. “How can I deserve your toil, this paradise?”

I pressed my lips to hers, and she tasted of forgotten sweetness. I breathed her breath and tasted her lips so that I pulled her tight against me, and tears wet my dry cheeks. She could not be close enough to me.

“Only smile,” I replied, “and stay with me.”

She pressed herself against my side and answered, “Always.”

We lay ourselves upon the fur, though it was still early in the day, and we sought to see each other’s souls through glittering eyes until the weariness of our long walk sent us to dream.

The wife awoke with a heavy sigh, and worry scrunched her forehead. The husband was still in his work clothes, sitting at the small desk, squinting in the dim lamplight as he raked through the cluttered pill of Autumn bills. The wife glanced at the dim face of the alarm clock and slid softly from the sheets. It was nearly three, and the husband had work in three hours. She padded up behind him and whispered her love into his ear, so the hair on his bent neck rose.

“Are we okay?” asked the wife.

“It’s close this month,” the husband answered, sighing and glancing toward the brace on his knee. “The hospital trip wiped us out.” He cursed quietly and kicked with his good leg. “We can cover the credit cards, and the insurance co-pay. We can keep lights, heat, water. We have enough to eat.”

“But…” She waited.

“But we’ll be short on the rent again, until payday.”

“I’ll talk to the landlord.”

“No,” the husband said, shaking his head. “I’ll do it.”

He hung his head back and released the tension, the sigh hissing like steam. The husband smiled up at his wife, and the wife’s smile was worried and veiled. Her stomach leapt in a confused mixture of joyful excitement and fear as she remembered, and she touched her flat belly fondly.

“We’ll be okay,” he said, “as long as I can stay out of the hospital.”

“Come to bed,” she said. She would tell him another day.

The Macallan

Single Malt Scotch Whiskey, 12 year

It is a beautiful gold that, from some angles, looks as though it wishes it could be red. It swirls slowly and there is a viscous cling in the glass.

The first sniff is like nectar, a light sweetness with a lingering woodiness. It is smooth, mild, and warm like mountain sunshine on dry pine needles.
The second sniff has a richer, heavier scent of the light sweetness with a dark, slightly bitter smoke. There are many other tastes and smells here that I cannot identify, but the summer woodland imagery persists in my mind's eye. I catch a hint of berry, or some kind of fruit.
The last sniff is sharp and tart, and the alcohol vapors are thick. I want to say there is a hint of apple somewhere in there.

The first sip is sweet, and the alcohol makes it sharp on my tongue. As I roll it around on my tongue, saliva dilutes the liquor and smooths the edge off the alcoholic burn. I'm still not sure what the fruit is, but as I breathe in, still rolling the Scotch around, I can taste the smokiness. I wasn't sure what it was before, but I was reminded of camping, and the taste of sap-heavy wood smoke crawled from my memory. The aftertaste wafts bitter ashes and sunlit honey suckles.

This glass is going to take a while to finish, and the bottle is going to be a close friend by the time it is empty. Hopefully, I will have discerned the secrets and subtleties long before that time. These are my first impressions as I begin my first attempts at sharpening my palate, and appreciating fine liquor.

To Pluck a Rose

When I, grasped by
or pricked with
lip licking hunger
or tines of Spring deep beauty,
like dew tipped blades
or blushing swell of womb,
which held my eyes
like crimson tipped fingers
or a smile in silence
or a wave in the crowd,
as though caught in
a cloud wet wind,
and jerked free pearling tears,
round, warm, sitting softly,
sorrow's sap, or soul's blood,
grasped that thorny stem
and plucked a rose.