Creamy

For a while there I was so lost all I could do was sit in an armchair and rub my heart. I did it in slow circles and it felt good. There are many forms of self-care but this one was direct and effective. Dealing with heartache like you would a tight hamstring. 

Things were tough at the time: money-wise, work-wise, relationship-wise. I was too honest in some places and too shady in others. I was at odds with the flow-gods and the flow-gods are not who you want to be at odds with.

There are these things in the ocean called abyssal plains. They are between ten and twenty thousand feet below sea level and cover more than half the earth’s surface. Not much flourishes there. Sometimes, life is an abyssal plain and all you can do is stay afloat until you get to more receptive waters. The harder you try to change things the more abyssal they get.

I got a close friend who was a bad junkie but a charming son of a bitch, whether he’s high or straight. He knew this woman who ran a rehab and she took a real shine to him. He got out of treatment and went back on a run. She was so upset about it she came to see him, and when she saw how he was living she cleaned his filthy, junkie-squalor apartment from top to bottom. As she was leaving, she said, “Brian, please, please, all I ask is that you just don’t use tomorrow, and he said, “Randy, I’ll do anything you ask… Except that.” 

I don’t know how that's related to what I was talking about before but somehow it is. I’m not even sure how I got into all this. I sat down to write about dairy products, specifically Alexandre dairy products , which I am a huge fan of.

There are certain words that just hum with comfort; they are great to say and the meaning just as strong. One is pie. Pie is a wonderful word. What it conjures, how it feels in your mouth, all that goodness in one short open-ended syllable. It’s hard to say pie and feel bad. Go ahead, say it right now. Try to resist its buttery crust or cinnamon-scented waft. There is no sadness in pie. Maybe a bittersweet ache; a late-night diner Edward Hopper aloneness, but even that is noble. 

Another word that is just a pleasure to say, and the meaning just as good, is creamy. Creamy is incredible. It can go smooth, it can go thick, it can even be a little dirty in the mouth of the right scoundrel. Go ahead, say that one a few times and see where it takes you. Alexandre dairy is really creamy. We are not talking metaphor here, creamy sheets or a creamy shade of brown, we are talking actual cream, milk, yogurt, half and half. Theirs is the best I’ve had.

Now, I am a child when it comes to coffee. I don't like it sweet but I do like it fairly light. I like really good, strong, French press coffee, and I like cream in it like they serve at the Apple Pan, the great pie and burger joint out in West LA. It’s probably because they whip so much cream for the pies (banana, coconut, chocolate, and occasionally boysenberry) so, they just decided to use it for the coffee as well, and let me tell you, it’s a treat. To sit with a slice of warm apple and a cup of old-school Joe, and you dump that shot of whole cream in there and the counter man, who’s been there since Eisenhower, gives you a smile, and you know America has done some awful things, but at least they got this one right.

I’ve been sad lately. Not quite as sad as I was back when I was struggling or maybe it’s just a different kind of sad. This sad is trickier because it’s a you-have-no-right-to-be-sad, sad. I’ve tried to snap out of it, but it just won’t listen to reason.

I have this other close friend, also charming as hell, but never a heroin addict, and he says that the blues are real and sometimes you just got to sing them. I’m not sure if singing the blues and making your way through the abyssal plain are the exact same thing, but they’re related. I haven’t really been able to find my best blues warble, but I do still have that same arm chair from back in the day. Maybe I’ll sit in it and give my heart a rub.