A Horrible Habit

A horrible habit I developed in the late spring is this rollercoaster relationship with sleep and work. Around 4pm each day my boss and administration fire off projects to be completed. This is a witching hour where the mound of paperwork I need to take home feels olympic in scope. I've spent hours in the dusty building doing all the stuff I can't jam from home. Painting. Chasing this spiderweb. Counting cash and feeding the maw of payables.

4pm is also my bluesiest part of the day where its not that the day is over but we are hours away from starting another one just like it.  That's when it get something done. "Is this too hard to do?" I appreciate the sympathy but the answer is to make it work. The ends justifies the means.

By 8:30pm or 9pm I do unwind because I find 15 minutes to sleep in my children's beds while they watch video. I will often bring a book to read while they cruise Youtube before bed time stories but i rarely crack it. "I am just going to close my eyes for a bit"

Then in the living room is swoop into a nadir where the coach swallows me until I wake back at 11:30pm or midnight and shuffle PDFs to a from their digital homes. My wife has already gone to bed and these nights they smell of coffee and the wet smoke smell of a snuffed candle. I want to constantly pee and twitch my legs. And bat back emails to people. Can I text them now? Aren't you up? Where is that payroll form. I need it. You won't get paid. Why don't you want to be paid!? Are you secretly rich?

Its the summer. The kids can sleep in, but my daughter taps on my feet at 6am and says "Good Morning."

Movies I Should Have Seen Already: Uncut Gems

I too waited to see Uncut Gems until it came on Netflix because I am at the point in life where going to the movies requires the logistics of D Day. 

Do we have a sitter?

Are the kids in good enough moods? Should we give them their meds?

Is it worth it? Oh, shit! Do we have cash for the sitter!?

Is there anything you want to see? I'll see anything but up to you...

But when the movie began trending on Twitter it was a call to go watch it and be ever late to the party. This is how I win.

And the movie is good!  I'm a sucker for these 2 to 3 day odyssey type films but it is funny, paranoid, and tense. Its very anxious as layers upon layers are stacked onto the mutated get rich quick scheme run by Adam Saddlers Howard Ratner. And, yeah Sandler is amazing in the role making Howard someone who is slimy and selfish yet quite charming. He is Walter White without any of the cruelty and the actual hero of this tale.

Note this movie is a lot. It has mobsters, jewelers, basketball stars, fish, and enough low level street grifters to fill out the first few missions of any GTA game. It has Idina Menzel (the Frozen lady) in it for like 5 minutes and she is amazing in it. Kevin Garnett plays himself nearly 10 years in the past and it makes all the sense. I bet in a few years people will day this movie was based on real events. How this rock influence the NBA.

Movie steeps in the NYC culture of the Diamon District and I get the feeling many bit roles were played by non-actors just asked to play themselves. "Wanna make a few bucks? Here just say this to Adam, here. You know Adam, right?"

Also...I had no clue who Julia Fox was before this but JESUS FUCKING CHRIST  have you seen Julia Fox!? I am not one to swoon over celebrities (More of a girl next door or at the copier type person) since I realize they have teams of makeup artists, hair stylists, chefs, trainers, wardrobe fokks, etc to make them look all shiny and new but my goodness sometimes you need to ignore all that and buy the hype. And she, like Sandler, does well balancing the grift and charm of her character.

One thing I did not like was the score which is this angry Casio synth piece. Imagine a rolling boil and Moog synthesizer fucked and you get the score. And, look, I love ectronic music but considering the score is often lounder than the spoken words that sucks. I get this is part of the anxiety ( Reminds me of a horror movie soundtrack) but could they have dialed it down a bit. 

Go see it. Its on Netflix so no excuses!

Yelling

"Would you mind closing your windows? We can hear you screaming all the way down the street?"

This bolts a tiny catalyst of petty deep in my brain. "Oh sorry about that but no." Its 90 degrees out and being laid off trying to save money on utilities. 

"Well, it interrupts my day. Your poor kids. All you do is yell."

I have avoided neighbors. They are tiresome little things that all act as feudal lords of their tiny plot of land. Always mulching and having a mower. Then a trimmer and an edger.

"Well sorry Karen but THIS IS MY NORMAL LEVEL OF VOLUME. YOU CLOSE YOUR WINDOWS!"

I slam the door and my children they look up from tablets and coloring booms. "WOW! DADDY! WHAT HAPPENED?"

"NOTHING!"

"ITS

Moody Poem 1

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Tiki Bar

I have been reading much more fiction lately so here is a try at fiction. I write these while stuck on conference or Zoom calls.

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The local tiki bar opens at 3pm on Fridays to cater to an early crowd of suburban boomers and retirees. What had begun as small space set in a former paint store (splatters on the brick walls testament to this) had now become a beyond hip place that you need to take your grandma to and also first dates. The owner, trying to capitalize on the popularity, briefly indulged his original dream of an Italian restaurant and ordered his cook to prepare little bowls of meatballs. When fans pointed out the disconnect he made on glaze pork balls with minced garlic in a pineapple teriyaki glaze. But, that flopped so it returned to bar snacks and drinks. 

Jonas was the youngest person there at 3:15pm and felt impressive when he ordered something not on the menu. "The original daiquiri please. With the Appleton, please," and the bartender smiled and a couple two stools down shrugged and nodded before glancing back to their menus. This was as far as his expertise went on rum. And he had heard it from another customer. Its a trick he learned years ago, in the weird unfulfilled times after college and he overheard someone order a "Bud Light and Crown Royal shot."

"In order to be an expert all you need to know is more than the person you are talking to." That is what he learned from a coding guy in the basement of their shared office building.

"Is that how you solve all the tech stuff?"

To which the tech replied, Jonas never learned his name, "Well, I don't do that kind of stuff. But yeah."

His drink arrived in a fluted glass with slivers of lime pulp still floating on the top. The bartender has spiral cut a bit of lime rind and hung it off the rim. He sips on it and then pretends to be very busy on his phone. He checks the time and it is 3:27pm. He has already peaked in this indulgence with the off menu drink. Now it is just a matter of time to get until 4pm when he has to leave and be back in the office. 

The door opened to the patio outside and someone else from the office entered. This drained the already ebbing confidence from his body until it sunk into the  floorboards. 

It was Maria a sales person in line to be lead once Robert retired. She put away her phone into a baggy corduroy purse and then noticed him. They worked across offices but it wasn't a big company and nether a big space. 

"Hi. Tina tells me that you take your lunch late and now it makes sense." She didn't ask and took the seat next to him. "What is that?" she asked pointing at his drink.

"Oh, its a Daiquiri."

"Like at Senor Frogs?"

This is where having no confidence helped as he had no snobbery, "No, ha! Good one. No, its lime and sugar and rum. White rum. All in the right proportions and shaken with tons of ice."

"Its not on the menu," she said thumbing a copy of the dog eared bar guide.

"No, but they can make it. Just ask."

"Obviously. Is it good?"
And he slide the drink over and said, "Sure. want to try"

And, was that appropriate. Would she think he was weird. Trying to poison her? Drug her? What about germs? 

She did, take a tiny swig. Tipping her head forward to the bar from the far end where condensation was still unbroken. 

"Oh, that's good. I will have one also."

Jonas had a penchant for falling in love with any person who paid any attention. He was not attracted to men but they were someone he wanted to be best buddies with. He heard other men his age had the same problem but it felt, at 32 and alone, this was isolated to just him. But, he was now in love with Maria and imagining a wholesome life together AND a primal fantasy. All because of this drink. That was it.

Cosas Que Mami Dice

Here is a list of Mami sayings to celeberate Mother's Day. These sound better in Spanish

"Blacker than an wolf's mouth" aka soemthing very dark

"Faster than a crow peels a peanut" aka very fast, lickety split.

"Little town, big bell" aka someone who is s gossip. Or someone who thinks they are a bigger deal then they are. The office snitch is little town, big bell

"That is a pretty cage for such an ugly bird." aka a fancy house or car for a bad person. Or someone flexing beyond their means.. Mami usually said that as she saw old men pulling up in convertibles.

"Everyting has a solution except death." aka we can figures this out. I find myself saying this ALL THE TIME as I get older and especially in the nightmare confluence of Corona and public education.

"Peaches and cream" or "shit eaters" aka both which mean rich snobs

"At night all cats are black" aka same difference or everything's the same or a wash. Also, why my mother insisted to always have black cars.

"It's guilty!" aka its filthy. Took me years to realize this was Mami trying to say filthy in her boozy thick accent.

"Shit like a tied up duck" If you got the runs and Mami is around then you are like a tird up duck. I think its a pate reference? I never asked about these. Just went with them.

That's Fine

I routinely check my blog metrics and notice the same bead of two lonely readers viewing each post. That is fine because I don't think I have anything particularly interesting to say. I often talk to myself because I consider it my form of prayer. Hash out the situation in my head. Say what I would say if I had all the money in the world. All the courage. All the time and insight. This blog is a digital version of that. Talk to myself. Making a note to remember something that fired enough synapses into my brain to merit recording for all to see.

I've mentioned this before but sometimes I worry that people will find this blog. Folks from work. Old contacts from high school. A friend of mine started a podcast and she had my on it. I didn't mention the blog but we mentioned my Twitter handle (@garikapc) on which there is a link to my blog.

Would someone find this blog and be aghast? Or laugh at its foolishness? I would be flooded with readers! But, still just two. Which is fine as this is all just prayer. Personal but in an open air way where hopes and fears go alfot. With mine they nestle into a tiny corner of an undulating digital scene filled with stories and information. People don't have much time for the grains and that's fine. 

Making Bread

Baking bread reminds me of Nelson Rafael Perez Perez. Thats my father. His mother and father were no relation but it is horrible branding. However, he embraced it. Had the name embossed on the knick knacks of 70s and 80s middle management. His padfolio with the leather and brass label etched with it. A marble based pens holder that lost its pens. 

When I bake bread I see these tchtotkes. The logos of all the banks he worked for. Santander faux torch. The Aguadilla Farm Credit unions 4 leaf stripped angular clover. I also see him. Sitting shirtless and in slacks on a Sunday afternoon listening to music in the stark black furniture of the living room. The hair on his chest is thick and curly and he wears charcoal grey slacks. This is lounging outfit with a Schiltz beer, soemthing quite exotic in Puerto Rico. My father would have loved Ikea. The mod-wod designs to further his 70s lifestyle magazine aesthetic.

The bread machine? That was a novelty. Bought at the first Sam's Club on the island in the labyrinth traffic jams of Bayamon. It had a cylinder shape the size of a five gallon paint pocket a clear done head. I thought it a bread microwave and asked him to make the braided croissants and pretzels from the insert cook book. But I just had to watch as it stirred with a whimpy paddle stirrer and then the pre programmed rises. "It will be ready overnight."

"Overnight?!" I reacted. The most exciting part was the hot glow of the electric coils that baked it. The finished loaf was the same domes shape and obtuse for slicing. The croissants? Mami just bought those at the same Sams Club.

After my father passed the bread machine collected dust. "Died of laughter," as mami would say. It sounds better in Spanish. My singing uncle then took it. Which was fine beacuse later, when my dog had puppies, they took one for a few months and then I decided to just take the dog back one day. Now I had the second generation. From what I know, over a decade since I've been to PR, he still makes the funky loads. Dog eared bread machine books bought lifetimes ago from the old Borders in Plaza. 

When I bake I think of my father and the cookery knick knacks left behind. His electric wok. The liquor cabinet with an already ancient and much depleted bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue. I know let my bread rise 3 or 4 times. To kill time. To give the kids soemthing to smack. "Hey, son? You bored. Here smash this." 

It gives the bread a mealy airy bite that is different from the dense shell of his bread machine better. Ill say mine is better if only because of the process.