Acoustics.

Fall has come in so acoustically, and it is all around me now.  I can see it most in the morning, when the rest of the world is asleep.  The dogs stretch their long limbs, widen their jaws into yawns.  They don't want to walk on the dew.  They want to sleep on the hand-stitched Navajo blanket in the morning.  The coffee comes in bursts of steam.  I wipe my glasses off with my sleeve.  I stand in my underwear at the new kitchen sink, head dipped over the last of the summer's peach. I tear it with my hands.  I feel most strong when it's quiet.  When the shower is scalding hot.  When the window is down but the heat is on.  When I can wear jeans around the house.  When our two bodies interlace at night, when I see the tan-lines faded.  When the birthmarks start to show.  When my palms and cheeks are red.  When it's late and you can only hear the occasional siren in the deep, deep distance of our new hometown.  And soon a quick inhale and his long, familiar snore drowns everything else out. I let the change happen, because it's been good to me.  I did not trust it at first, the change of adulthood.  I looked back on how many lives I have lived, and how many more I have ahead and realized that, for each, the impetus was a desire for difference.  I am lucky to feel the autumnal metamorphosis this year, because it is usually so stagnant in California.  I am lucky to live in this two-bedroom house. I am lucky to discover all the new things I'm learning to love these last few years.  I am lucky, I am lucky, I am very, very lucky.

This is not what I thought three weeks ago, buried in the bed.  Covered up, hidden from my own insecurities.  Afraid of my failures, not able to see my triumphs.  My father called me and I hung up mid-sentence.  Nolan kissed my hand and asked if I wanted to get ice cream.  I cried until I shuddered.  I was tired of owing any small amount of success to someone else, attributing each failure to my own misunderstanding of life and how it worked.   I did not feel powerful.  I did not wake up early and take a minute, recollect my thoughts, drink black coffee that fogged my lenses.

I locked the door and didn't let anyone in.  I incubated myself for three days.  I reminded myself to be happy, because sometimes you have to, because no one else will.

I turned 23 the next week.

I moved into a new house four days later.

And at each moment I discovered something new.  When the bruises began to turn purple, when I was most tender.  When I limped away, licked my wounds.  I found myself glad for the change.  Glad to be alive, to have my head above the water when it came to my debts.  Glad I recognized what I owed Nolan, happy to let myself be vulnerable so I could tell myself how stupid I was.  Happy to wake up before the sun, because the sun sleeps in late these days, to brew coffee and write a note to Nolan. "There's coffee waiting for you.  Have a good day."  I write it on paper I got in Belgium, a souvenir of who I was, written over as someone new.  I changed, I evolved.

I remind myself that my clothes aren't in trash bags anymore.  I remind myself that I never loved that drug dealer.  I remind myself that my father was right, that I was young and stupid and didn't appreciate a goddamn thing when I was 17.  All of those things are different now. I remind myself that I have lifetimes ahead of me, and that this one is just passing.  I remind myself that when I'm arthritic and can't hold anyone's hand, to be comforted in knowing that I let myself be vulnerable or a day or two.  I remind myself all of these things, because fall isn't a time for dying, it's a time for remembering.  That peacefulness of daybreak is all we have right now, and I couldn't lay in bed once I realized what a mistake I'd made.

I made this fudge to have in the moments when I felt strong, when the ripped up stone fruit couldn't satiate me.  I made it to feel comforted by the pecans, to savor the tang of the buttermilk.  It didn't feel like home, but it felt like nostalgia.

Pecan Buttermilk Fudge 

fudge1

from Bon Appétit

Ingredients

  • 1 cup pecans
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 1 cup buttermilk
  • ½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into pieces
  • 1 tablespoon honey
  •  teaspoon kosher salt
  • Flaky sea salt (such as Maldon)

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 350°. Line a 9x5” loaf pan with parchment paper, leaving a generous overhang on long sides; set aside.
  2. Toast pecans on a rimmed baking sheet, tossing occasionally, until fragrant and slightly darkened in color, 8–10 minutes. Let cool, then coarsely chop.
  3. Heat sugar, buttermilk, butter, honey, and kosher salt in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until butter and sugar are melted, about 3 minutes.
  4. Fit saucepan with thermometer, bring mixture to a simmer and cook, stirring occasionally, until thermometer registers 238° (mixture will be pale golden and smell faintly of toffee), 6–8 minutes.
  5. Immediately pour mixture into a medium bowl and, using an electric mixer on medium-high speed, beat until cool and thickened (it will be stiff and matte), 5–8 minutes.
  6. Fold in pecans. Scrape fudge into prepared pan; smooth top and sprinkle with sea salt.
  7. Let sit at least 1 hour before cutting into pieces.

Pecan Buttermilk Fudge

Le premier anniversaire de chien.

He's one-year-old today. Image

He's one and I'm twenty-two, and I'll have this dog all throughout my twenties.  It comforts me to think of commitment and unconditionally loving something that's not my own ego.  A dog is a great companion for people like me, for people who have jaded views on the need for friendships and loves to be needed constantly, incessantly, selflessly.

Nolan and I adopted Murphy when it was probably a dark time for us.  We had just transplanted our humble life of studio-living in ramshackle circumstances, the metallic taste of grudges still fresh on our tongues, and we wanted something to bond us together again. Before it was California, and before we tired of that manifest destiny sort of dream, it was just simple--sex or food in Pittsburgh.  We moved into our current house and I remember the exact moment I came across Murphy's picture.  I was staying for a week in a La Quinta off Harbor Boulevard in Orange County, taking the rest of my law exams for my 1L year.  He was on Craigslist and I was on a comforter that was orange and scratchy.  I got him after my Contracts exam in an Korean community in Los Angeles County.  I gave the owners some extra money for food.  They were poor, Hispanic, and fed Murphy crushed-up, watered-down dog food.

He was inquisitive and cautious since birth.  Energetic at the promise of a walk, a newfound spot to pee, a friend to make, or a kiss from "daddy" or "papa".  It is not a hyperbole to say he has been a blessing and an angel to me.  I was unemployed for six months and he was a reason to still wake up at seven every morning to take him out for his morning ritual (sniff around the mulch, avoid the sprinklers, and squat to pee, his eyes closed in the morning light).  It was a period of bohemian, relaxed self-reflection that involved becoming a caretaker to a child, really.  I considered myself a father and told Murphy my secrets when we were alone.  He's grown into the perfect dog.  Obedient and loving, careful and curious.  He's everything you want in a child, and I brag about him often.

He's the only picture I have in my cubicle at work.  It's when his hair was still shaggy and you see him in all his emotional ranges.

I baked him dog treats and a cake until eleven at night (recipes below).  I wrapped up a sock monkey that we named Pete.  We took him to the park and to lunch, a walk and a nap.  I kissed him a few more times than usual and even wrote him a card.  I sometimes wonder if I do it for myself or for him and how much he recognizes as gestures of love.

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Then I wonder, as most children do when they grow up, if my mother ever thought this way about me.  If I ever really appreciated the post-it notes stuck to my car, saying, "Have a good day."  I hope so.

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Two-ingredient Dog Treats

Ingredients:

  • 2 4-ounce jars of baby food (I used carrot x banana for one combination and turkey dinner x sweet potato for another)
  • 2 cups whole-wheat flour (I caution using this much, as I had excess flour.  Start with one and a half cups and add more until it forms a dough)

Directions:

  • Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and prep a baking sheet with parchment paper.
  • Mix baby food and flour together in large bowl.
  • Once well-incorporated, turn onto lightly-floured surface as it begins to form into a workable dough.
  • Roll to desired thickness with rolling pin; or, alternatively, pat to desired thickness (hey, they're dogs--they won't know the difference!)
  • Cut into desired shapes.  I happened to have bone and heart shapes to work with.
  • Bake in oven for 20-25 minutes, until harden.
  • Let cool before serving to your dog.

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Doggy Birthday Cake

Ingredients:

  • 1/2 cup whole-wheat flour
  • 1 Teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/3 cup canola oil
  • 1/3 cup apple sauce
  • 1 egg
  • 2 Tablespoons honey

Directions:

  • Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
  • Prep small ramekin for cake.  (Alternatively, this could make two cupcakes.  I, in fact, used these handy baking cups from the Container Store and it was perfect for the festivities and utility.)
  • Mix all ingredients together until well-combined.  Batter will be fairly runny but consistent.
  • Pour into prepared bakeware.
  • Bake 10-12 minutes (or longer.  Mine took 25 minutes) until a toothpick comes out clean.
  • Allow to cool.