despite the mess of us

a poem, a recipe, and some masks

Dec 27, 2024

I brought my binoculars to my intersection a couple weeks ago. Here’s the view looking towards Ray’s Seafood Market.

Greetings, earthlings.

I like to brag that I never get sick, but I’ve been down for the count this month. It’s been one thing after another and my newsletter has been a casualty.

I’m crawling out of my bummer self-pity couch cocoon to get this missive out.

I hope your holiday season has been healthier and happier than mine! If not, I hope there’s a little twinge of joy for you somewhere in these recs:

1. A poem my friend texted me: Instructions on Not Giving Up, by Ada Limón

More than the fuchsia funnels breaking out
of the crabapple tree, more than the neighbor’s
almost obscene display of cherry limbs shoving
their cotton candy-colored blossoms to the slate
sky of Spring rains, it’s the greening of the trees
that really gets to me. When all the shock of white
and taffy, the world’s baubles and trinkets, leave
the pavement strewn with the confetti of aftermath,
the leaves come. Patient, plodding, a green skin
growing over whatever winter did to us, a return
to the strange idea of continuous living despite
the mess of us, the hurt, the empty. Fine then,
I’ll take it, the tree seems to say, a new slick leaf
unfurling like a fist to an open palm, I’ll take it all.

2. A recipe I made twice in two months: this curried vegetable pot pie recipe

This is a vegan recipe, but I never make it vegan. I use all the dairy and make it with Martha Stewart’s cheddar pie crust.

I made this for friends last month and it got rave reviews, so I made it again this month for many of the same friends. They praised me and then called me on the repeat pie, and I was like… look, I fucking love compliments! You tell me you like this pie, I’m gonna make you more of this pie!!! I need you to LOVE ME!!!!!!

3. Project research that has me dreaming and scheming: These masks

Some friends asked me to help produce a music video this spring. I started putting together a mood board for the project and I couldn’t help but load it up with paper mache masks in hopes that this is my opportunity to make loads of weird paper mache shit: