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The broken and the baked

A tender spot in my heart for cripples, bastards, broken things, and deep fried foods


Headed out to Queens yesterday to see another doctor.

Ended up grabbing lunch with my brother, who’s in town for the week. The thing about the two of us, and my sister, is that we have pretty strong stomachs, which I think is direct result of us growing up poor. My parents tried their best to give us a rounded diet but we essentially ate anything we could get our hands on.

Him: (picking at fish) This is terrible. Do you want to try it?
Me: No! (thinking) On second thought…

There’re all these dishes that are the result of poor people taking scraps and making something amazing out of them: oxtail soup, collard greens, liverwurst, broiled bone marrow, and fried rotten tofu (as seen above).

People are no different from the food they make.

In Game of Thrones, Tyrion Lannister says, I have a tender spot in my heart for cripples, bastards and broken things.

I think I’m similar, for similar reasons.

Some of the most broken things in the world aren’t easily seen as such. A good tailored suit can cover up almost anything.

But I suppose that if you had some device that could look and see what we look like on the inside, I’d be a patchwork of duct tape, splints, and glue. All baked in steady childhood of beans, canned tuna, caned ham, white rice, and slightly stale bread.

I have a tender spot for those of people patched together and baked in a similar way.

My brother’s a doctor and I’m a lawyer, but there are few things that give us as much simple pleasure as eating at a local dive.

If I meet people like us in the world, I’ll ask if they want to grab a $5 meal at the local dive around the way.

And if they’re members of my tribe, they’ll have no problem sitting down to a meal complete with plastic forks and sticky condiment bottles.

Me: We probably shouldn’t have eaten all that.
Him: Yep. (standing up) I’m going to get some caffeine.
Me: Good call.

Location: snowed in again
Mood: full
Music: I can’t be free from all of the things that I used to be
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We’re titanium

Riddle me this


A riddle from Good Riddles Now:

Something all men have,
but all men deny.
Man created it,
but no man can hold it.

What is it? – the answer here.

On that note, last week was quite possibly one of the worst weeks of my life. And I’ve had some bad weeks. Got two separate calls for two separate issues; one was horrible, the other merely terrible.

Call 1
Her: It’s the doctor.
Me: S___t.

Call 2
Him: So it’s not good, it’s not any worse than we thought, but it’s still not good.
Me: Let me sit down.

But at some point, you just get tired of being sad/anxious.

So my brother went out to drink, and my wife and I went out to dinner around the way. We sat next to an actress we’d seen a few times on television who was very friendly (good) and very loud (bad).

Afterward, my wife and I took a short walk around our neighborhood.

She also made me some oatmeal cookies, so that’s a plus.

Finally got to have some rum again, too.

Me: We’ll be ok.
Her: We’re titanium, Logan. We’re frick’n titanium.

Location: -3 hrs, shoveling the walk
Mood: deflated
Music: Shoot me down, but I get up
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There’s always room for more down

On my knees again

Doctor: You’re not having a good day?
Me: I’ve had better.
Him: (pause) Well, it’s about to get a lot worse.

So after I wrote the last entry, went on with my day. Later that night, got another phone call for a wholly different reason.

In 40 years, think I’ve honestly been on my knees twice. This is a third time. There are things that one knows but does not truly believe in life.

Like last time, I could handle it all, if it was only one at a time.

Spent the day slogging from offices to offices in the blinding snow, trying to make sense of a litany of things that make no sense; making decisions I’m ill-prepared to make.

Him: Well, you gotta figure that this is rock bottom.
Me: No, there’s always room for more down.

But I went to teach my fencing class last night and for about 90 minutes, I got to put down the things I’d been carrying all day.

It’s a blessing to have things in your life where you can put down the weights you bear.

Student: This wasn’t what I expected.
Me: We’re not here to dance, we’re here to fight. We’re here to struggle. Life’s a struggle we all lose one day. But until then, we struggle.

Never saw that student again.

The thing with leaving things at a doorway is that, ultimately, you have to pick them up again on your way out.

So I do, trudging home in the snow, bearing it.

And I swear that the whole goddamned weight of it all is sinking me deeper into the snow.

———-

If you write or see me, I won’t tell you so please don’t ask. As with last time, I’ll tell you when I’m ready.

 

Location: yesterday, three hours in a frozen car
Mood: heartbroken
Music: It’s true, the suffering shapes you
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The one with the barber brainteaser and Nighthawks

And I’m selling my Edward Hopper: Nighthawks


There this old joke/brainteaster I heard once where a stranger arrives at a small town and needs a haircut. There are only two barbers in town so he visits both of them.

The first one he goes to has a terrible haircut and looks like a mess. The second one has a perfect head of hair. The man immediately turns around and goes back to the first barber who had the terrible haircut – why?

While you’re thinking about that, I’ve been sick and have been fighting a lot of insomnia. I got up the other day to bake some cookies.

Was awake enough so that it was me and not Sleepy Logan.

Back to the brainteaser – it’s not that hard; if there are only two barbers there, the first barber must have gotten his hair cut at the second barber and vice versa. So the first barber’s terrible haircut is because of the skill of the second barber.

There are tons of logical issues with that but if you have a kid, it’s a good one to ask.

Which brings me to the picture above. The wife and I decided a while ago to buy each other one ornament a year for Christmas. That’s what she bought me.

She tends to buy me fun, homey-type ornaments while I buy her elegant classy ones. And the reason is the same – I tend to think of her as very classic and proper while I’m a lot more casual.

She bought it from Carolyn’s Christmas at the Columbus Circle Holiday Market. Their ornaments are made in the Andes Mountains “using age-old methods of sculpting bread dough.” So it’s an ornament made of food, which I find kinda appropriate for me.

Apparently, they were super nice and spent a good amount of time getting the wording (“The Lo’s!”) just right so I thought they deserved a little mention here.

On a different matter entirely, I’m selling my Nighthawks painting by Edward Hopper; it’s a framed poster print in a dark brown hardwood frame. It measures 44″ x 32″ and I paid $300 for it a few years ago (and it’s in perfect condition since it just hung there) but can sell it for half that.

Here’s an entry on it that I wrote back in the day; I still love the painting but it’s a little dark for our living room now.

If anyone in NYC’s interested, lemme know.

OK, off to drink some more hot liquids and have a cookie.

Location: desk, wrapping up for the deal
Mood: sick
Music: Lately I’m obsessed and I need the rest. I hope that you’re impressed
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Pizza vs. Chili

Having endless pizza in NYC

Me: Can I ask you a question?
Her: (continuing to stare at computer screen) Sure.
Me: What does the fox say?
Her: (turning to me) Ring-ding-ding-ding-dingeringeding!

My brother was in town last week and it was a (relatively) light work load so I managed to spend some time with him.

He lives out in LA now so each and every time he comes out here, he has the same thing for almost every meal: Pizza.

Although we did try and balance it out with a salad. But still, it was mostly pizza.

Her: Are you ok?
Me: (coughing) I just had a *huge* piece of anchovy in my salad.

It’s a bit like when I go out there and have chili. We are very different but very alike at the same time. It’s a sibling thing, I suppose.

We did break up the pizza-fest with the occasional – equally nutritionally-bad – fro-yo. This one was from when we visited his friend out in Queens.

Him: (sitting at table) OK, I’m done.
Me: (pointing to his cup on the far right) Are you sure? I still see some space in your cup where you could still put in more stuff.

After he left, tried to eat a little more healthfully. The wife had made some homemade granola – pumpkin for her, regular for me.

Me: Which one’s mine?
Her: (calling out from other room) I wrote it on the label. The one that’s not my name.

Location: waiting for the phone to ring
Mood: fatty-fat-fat
Music: Wa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pow! Wa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pow!
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From the Archives: Safe, Grace, and Mercy

Sal, a letter, and the difference between Grace and Mercy


My best friend’s granddad is a fella named Sal. He and his family have always been kind to me. I remember we once discussed Dean Martin. Good ole Dino. Good ole Sal.

Sal just passed yesterday so I’ve got to dust off my black suit and say goodbye. I’m sad, not so much for him, because he lived a good and long life, but for those he left behind.

After all, A man’s dying is more the survivors’ affair than his own.

I wanted to write more but I think I said it best already in the two posts below.

Safe
I thought of my own grandma when I heard the news. We were close because she lived in Taiwan and I’m an insomniac. When I was up at 3AM, I had someone to speak to. After she passed, when  3AM rolled around, found myself just sitting in the dark by my lonely. So I wrote her this letter.

 

Grace and Mercy
And in that entry, talked about the difference between grace and mercy. One is when you get the good things you don’t deserve; the other is when you don’t get the bad things you do deserve. You can read which one is which here.

Back on Monday.

Location: in front of my closet
Mood: sad
Music: don’t remind me to forget
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The Moon Festival 2013, the Walnut family, and the revolving door

Good souls are a comfort in the world


Growing up with my parents, there was a revolving door of house guests. Not really sure why.

I’m guessing it’s partly because my parents were immigrants and probably couch-surfed for a while when they first came here and remembered what that was like. Or maybe because sometimes people are just nice for no reason.

A brother and sister stayed with us a while, apparently. I don’t remember them well – as I said, revolving door. For years afterward, their parents would send us a huge box of walnuts once a year from their backyard. Then they moved, ergo, no more walnut tree, ergo, no more boxes.

But I still called them the Walnut family.

In any case, went home to see the rents yesterday. Was a spur-of-the-moment type of thing because my mom took the day off from work and a project I had finished up early.

When I got there, my mom said it was the Moon Festival this week and showed me a cake she got from the Walnut family.

She hadn’t heard from them in years and immediately rang them to thank them. It was then she heard that the mother had just died. Breast cancer.

F____ breast cancer.

The father said that one of the last things the mother said was, Send the Lo’s a cake this year. They were so nice to the kids.

Then my mother started to cry.

Her: I wish I knew. I would have done something for her.
Me: You were nice to her kids. That’s a lot. After all these years, she remembered it. So I think that’s a comfort, knowing that there are good souls in the world.
Her: She was a nice woman. And now (the husband’s) he’s by himself. It’s so unfair.
Me: (patting her on the shoulder) It really is.

Location: yesterday, the family garden
Mood: somber
Music: you come to me on a summer breeze, keep me warm
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Vlog: Where I tell two stories about pizza

A Homemade Pizza and a Spinach Pizza

No time to do a proper entry so I just posted a video above.

Below is a pizza from my pop to my mom on Mother’s Day. Clearly, I am this man’s son.

Let me know if you think I should vlog more, I know i have the energy for it, I’ve always been interested in making money on youtube.

In other news, I’m going to be posting at around 3PM Mondays and Wednesdays for a bit. New work schedule coming up.

 

Location: Courtroom
Mood: amused
Music: Tom, your circuit’s dead, there’s something wrong
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Cinco de Mayo in Jersey

Chili Contest? OK.

Her: (getting into bed)
Me: (leaping into bed)
Her: Oh, you’ve clearly misread the situation.

We’ve been together now for over four years and have a kind of seasonal rhythm . When the weather gets cold, we end up huddled at home for most of Fall and Winter and start to head out again in Spring. Nothing special, really. Suppose most people are like that. It’s just how it is.

But when spring does come, she’s generally more responsive to it than I am. I’m usually still shaking the cobwebs out. Unless there’s chili or rum involved.

To wit:

Her: I’m meeting up with some friends in New Jersey next month.
Me: I’m not sure if…
Her: There’s a chili cookoff…
Me: I’m in.

So this past weekend, hopped onto the PATH train and headed out to Grove Street in Jersey City.

An ex lived there so I took the train there dozens of times in the past but I’d not in ages. Walking upstairs, everything had changed but was still the same. It’s just how it is.

A buddy from my wrasslin class lived spitting distance away so we met up too, spoon in hand, and tried 25 different chilies. Once it was over, we went back for more. I may have gone back a third time. Or fifth. Don’t recall.

He and I both agreed that we liked our own respective recipes more; having a recipe is one of the 15 things I think every guy should know.

The wife and I took the train back and were home before five.

Her: I’m always glad when we head out early and come back early. (looking me sprawled out on couch) What’s wrong with you?
Me: (mumbling) Food coma. Tired.

 

Location: about to run to wrassle
Mood: hungry
Music: I am yours
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Mycroft was smarter than Sherlock

Not involved in the nerdy for once

High line train tracks above the meat-packing district

Work’s been getting even busier so I spent most of last week running around to client sites for this or that. Was a blur.

It’s hard to gauge how I feel about the work: On the one hand, not having to stress over coin is always a good thing; on the other hand, man, I’m beat.

On top of that, my bro came into town this past weekend because it’s my birthday in a few days. Didn’t really get to spend too much time with him because of all the deadlines I had coming up but Paul came over with his girl over the weekend and we all had some pizza, rum, and conversation.

I told Paul’s girl about Hopper’s Nighthawks because she and I are both insomniacs. It’s no fun.

While my bro was here, he showed us this game he played and my wife’s mouth was agape when she saw how quickly he played. She’s been playing it non-stop since then.

Me: Well, it’s been nice being married to you while I was.
Her: (deadpanning) I wish I could say the same.

Sherlock Holmes – as smart as he was – freely admitted that his older brother Mycroft was far smarter.

I joke all the time that in my family, I’m the dumb one. This is actually true.

But then again, I’m sure you knew that.

Her: (to my brother) …we treat for schistosomiasis.
Him: With praziquantel?
Me: This is the nerdiest conversation in my house that I’ve not been involved in.

Location: my desk
Mood: ambitious
Music: I’ve been sleeping in my bed
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