Weekend

Food with my honey. Walking and running. Mission: to be svelte for Austin. Ha.

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Chicken and asparagus burritos. I know this sounds weird, but L. came over with half an organic chicken and some meaty out of season green spears of deliciousness. I whipped up a tomatillo-chipotle salsa, boiled and shredded the chicken (saved the broth for soup), and threw everything together in a saute pan with a little onion. In the red saucepan, black beans with chorizo. Store-bought flour tortillas. One of these days, I'm gonna have to ask the abuelita to show me the way. I know they aren't that difficult to make.


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Yesterday, long trek to west Eugene, passing many churches and schools on the way. Walk back on bike path, culminating in al pastor tacos, a milanesa torta, and a carnitas plate. If we expended 1000 calories on our tennish mile walk, I'm sure we more than replenished it with Mexican eats. I was really tempted to order the chicharrones platter--what's better on Super Bowl Sunday that a mess of pork-skin tacos? But I didn't. I was good. Ish.

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Jeff Tweedy on Saturday at the McDonald, following a rousing game of Scrabble at the Bier Stein, with M&J and J&R. (We won.)

A brief Kevin M. sighting. Hi Kevin!

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At the McDonald, my beers caught up with me. I spent most of the show sitting on the floor a good distance from the stage. I haven't been keeping up with my usual fierce rate of beer drinking these past couple of weeks, and I mistakenly thought I could drink the usual half-dozen plus pints before the show. I ended up groggy and more than a little disoriented. So that was a big bummer. On the upside, I met Charles Thompson, aka Frank Black aka Black Francis. I said hello and shook his hand. He introduced me to his wife, Violet. And then, drunk fanboy me quickly scurried away, embarrassed.

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Nothing new poetically in these parts. I'm hoping that Austin will revive the spark, but I fear that it will do even more to extinguish it. I'm supposed to be reading but I don't know the venue or even who's organizing the event (I've seen two distinctly different emails with conflicting info). Futhermore, my publisher and co-poet (I'm reading from the collab) are not attending, so I'll be quite alone. I'm thinking of roping Joe Massey into the reading--having him do the Andy parts, maybe.

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My iTunes keeps playing Face to Face. I'm not sure that I'm okay with that.

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Now playing: Leonard Cohen, "Joan of Arc."