Day: April 2, 2008

Marks and scars and lusts

Karl ElvisLeave a comment

The wound in my hand wasn’t as bad as all that; the following morning the pain was gone entirely, leaving behind only a vague tenderness. More interesting, though, was the leathery texture my skin has now. It’s like it’s someone else’s hand, when I feel it against my skin. The ridges and whorls are burned entirely away in a few places, leaving only the exact imprint of the pan’s handle on my palm and fingers.

The only discomfort, amusingly, is when I put on my one my skull rings on my left middle finger.

In any case, marks lead to marks; I’ve been thinking about tattoos.

I think it’s time I got back to work on long-shelved tattoo projects. With things at work getting back within the range of ‘normal’ at work, my mind’s had a small amount of space to wander.

I called a local shop today, and sometime in the next three or four days I need to visit to pay a deposit and arrange a start date. I’m planning to finish my half-naked right arm.

It just feels like time. And the other things I’m obsessing over are harder, both financially and logistically, to manage just now. Yesterday I started to fantasize about boats and diving and tropical breezes, and spent a few minutes looking at trips to cozumel or la paz or some such lower-cost diving destination; though in truth the windows I have for travel this year are small, and, well, we all know what finances are starting to look like in the next weeks or months, for most of us.

It’s not a surprise I’m a creature driven by desire; one of the things that tells me how hard I’ve been working, how buried I’ve been, is that my mind starts to re-direct the energy of avaricious thoughts into basic survival. I stop thinking about who and what and where I want, and think about how to get through a day without losing more ground.

It’s clear that I feel better, despite (or even because of) a little pain and a visually striking injury. It’s clear because I’m now looking at motorcycles, thinking, how can I swing a new bike; I’m planning tattoos, trips to warm, sunny beaches, and fantasizing about who-and-what I’d be doing in any given scenario.

I feel like me when the low, simmering desire begins to come back. So that must be a good thing.

Remind me, though, not to shop for any new motorcycles. At least not this week.

All Wrong

Karl ElvisLeave a comment

Tonight, I was cooking dinner; Grilled pork chops, bulgar wheat, and oven-roasted baby carrots. Now, when I’m roasting stuff, I often use a heavy frying pan. I own a number of very good such pans, and they go easily from stovetop to oven. Most of my frying pans have nice, stay-cool handles. No matter how […]

Tonight, I was cooking dinner; Grilled pork chops, bulgar wheat, and oven-roasted baby carrots.

Now, when I’m roasting stuff, I often use a heavy frying pan. I own a number of very good such pans, and they go easily from stovetop to oven.

Most of my frying pans have nice, stay-cool handles. No matter how hot the pan gets, the handle stays touchable. At least, that works when you’re on the stove top.

I have trouble learning some things though. Little things, like fire burns.

So of course when my carrots came out of the oven, I plated them nicely, and then turned to clean up, picking up my frying pan to move it toward the sink.

The handle – like the rest of the pan, and the carrots that were in it, and the inside of the oven – was something like 375°F. And of course I don’t have the sense to just drop a hot pan, but instead, tend to set it down carefully (respect for my cooking gear runs deep; much deeper, evidently, than self-preservation or pain threshold.

You’d think eventually I’d learn, right? Well, ok, maybe not. Not if you know me.

There’s really nothing like the sound of skin sizzling, is there?

After plunging my hand into icewater, I took a look and found a handful of blisters in a palm similar in color to the pork I’d just taken off the grill. Guess I don’t have quite the calluses I used to.

This I thought, is going to smart a bit.

I finished my dinner, and then washed down a double handfull of vicodin with a Duval. And then wrapped my hand in ice and figured, you know, what goes well with vicodin?

Morphine.

She had black hair like ravens crawling over her shoulders
All the way down
She had a smile that swerved
She had a smile that curved
She had a smile that swerved all over the road
It’s all wrong all wrong
All wrong all wrong
She had a way of making people feel good to be around her
As it should be
It’s all wrong all wrong
All wrong all wrong (x2)
All wrong
And when she laughs I travel back in time
Something flips the switch and I collapse inside
It’s all wrong all wrong
All wrong all wrong (x2)
All wrong

I don’t do favorites lists the way I once did.

I used to have lists; favorite albums, favorite bands, favorite songs. Favorite concerts. They’d be ordered (if fluid), and they’d be conditional (favorite songs to have sex to, favorite driving albums).

I had them ordered and ranked, and at one point even sorted my Lps by favoritness, rather than alphabetical.

It’s all way too much work for me now; and in any case it’s generally too fluid to mean anything beyond right now.

There are exceptions. I can pick a favorite single album; I have a list (un-ranked, but consistant) of my five favorite jazz albums. So when one of my daughters asked me the other day, what’s your favorite band, instead of my usual I don’t have a favorite (an answer they hate), I found I had one.

Morphine.

I don’t need more on the list than that; If I think about it I start feeling like Dick and Barry from High Fidelity. But there’s that one.