The Omnivorous Fish

…you live in a town with this sign over part of a newsstand:

You guessed it: there’s another section called “Women’s Interest.”

I’m back in NYC, that is to say, civilization. No offense, Nashville, but I’m glad to be back decidedly north of the Mason Dixon line. I think it’s really funny when urban gay men like to wax nostalgic at their southern upbringing, and then- after a few drinks- their formerly imperceptible drawl suddenly rings true like the Bells of St Mary’s, y’all. Then I ask the obvious question: if it was so great, what the hell are you doing here with all us yankees? The answer stammers back anywhere from the predictable white lie “work” to the truthful though usually incomplete “I was gang raped with a broom daily by the entire football team because I was in show choir.” Exactly.

And that’s why I’m glad to be back in NYC. That, and I went to Prune last night!! OK, so what I wrote in the last Prune post was somewhat overstated, although it was true at the time that “everything I have ever eaten there has made me emote audibly.” I admit to having had a couple of eh things there subsequent to that writing, but not last night. Last night I had a vaguely spicy but good old-fashioned hot and brown octopus zuppetta with potatoes. It is SUCH a thing my great grandmother would have made: Broth flavored by the cooking octopus and- in my imaginary version- the leftover bones from a guazzetto, with potatoes cooked right in the same broth. That was followed by a lamb blade chop (my favorite part of the animal both for roasts and chops) simply grilled with a squeeze of lemon and a branch of oregano. We then had two desserts, a boozy, icy milk punch (ok) with two remarkable caraway cookies. Very much like a caraway flavored oldschool spice wafer, I was swept off my feet. A pineapple upside down cake was textbook and delicious, though less engaging to me than the cookies. Nothing really remarkable to drink with it, I had a kir and then an iced tea, which was flavored with vanilla or that other vanilla-like pod that I can’t recall the name of, which really pisses me off because when I order an iced tea, I want a freaking iced tea, not a vanilla iced tea. If I want a vanilla iced tea, I’ll ask for it, damn it.

Speaking of, we went to a restaurant in my new hood a couple of weeks ago and when they brought us water it was “flavored with cucumber and mint,” to which I responded, “great, now how about some water?” I mean jesus, people. Can’t we merely have a really excellent iced tea? In fact, the last time I was at the Ferry Plaza farmer’s market I ducked into the Mafia Hollow* store and wanted to buy a bottle of water, and sure enough my choices were cucumber or mint. I asked if they had water-flavored water, which was met with a disapproving “no” and a look that said everything the clerk thought of the unwashed redneck I was.

Speaking of being a redneck, I just finished working on the 41st Annual Country Music Association Awards, which was actually a lot of fun and a great show. It also inserted country music back into my life, which had sort of wandered out for a lot of reasons not relevant to this incredibly focused and nuanced monologue I’m on right now.

So, now that this post really isn’t really about anything anymore, I might as well tell you about my new fantasy. Those of you who know me know that every so often I get this idea in my head that I might want to really have career X. Granted, I’m in my third career at this tender age, so it stands to reason that I have these ideas, although they’re not always practical. I applied to the Forest Service; I looked at photography schools; I interviewed at a winery for an outside sales job. You know, ideas. But now that I live in a house, an old flame has been rekindled: woodworking. Now that I kind of have a space to do it in, I am laying out some furniture making projects for myself, which has me excited. I’m sure I’ll blog them.

So the long term fantasy part is I’ll buy some farmland up in the central valley or central coast and build a barn to be the New Cranky Workshop/hog butchery/meatlocker. Then, once I have a boyfriend that can stand me for more than a couple of years, we could even build a house on it. Like I said, fantasy. I have to sell my place in New York before I can do anything.

So that’s the news from Lake Woebegone, where all the women are strong, all the men are goodlooking and all the children are above average.

Listening: The Crash Test Dummies “Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm” God Shuffled His Feet

*Also known as Frog Hollow