Enchanting Juno

WIP

So I realized today I am not a Democrat.    You would think I would have figured that out sometime in the last 39 years, but nope, it took me this long.  I was reading something about Senator Obama and his centrist moves now that he has the nomination and I was frothing and muttering and doing Supreme Court math.

And I realized - dude was always a centrist.  Hilary Clinton is a centrist.  Except for Dennis Kucinich, all those cats are mostly way to the right of what I think proper.   
Since I was a kid what I have been is not-Republican.  I looked over there in about 1982 and thought, I'll take the opposite of that.  But there is only so long you can define yourself negatively and the opposite of Republican is a wide open field.  One not occupied by the Democratic National Committee.

I am not a Democrat.

I've been reading a terrific blog recently:  Ta-Nehisi Coates.  The thing I like about him is that when he has gaps in his knowledge that might be influencing his thinking, his expression, he absolutely cops to it.   Which strengthens his writing, because he is thinking about what he's missing, thinking about his own bias, thinking about what there is left to ask.

Jon Carroll is another favorite of mine. His column yesterday was about the fallacy of believing in answers.

I grew up thinking that if you couldn't defend every idea you had to the death, with talking points and bluster, you should keep your mouth shut.  Better to be thought dull than ill informed.  I hate conflict and debate makes me a bit queasy.  So many people think that having their opinion respected means you are not allowed yours, not allowed yours with a big stick and a torch-carrying mob and a lot of righteous outrage.  But maybe the point is that you have your ideas and you talk about them with other people - not to win, but to learn.  I've been practicing having opinions and not feeling like that makes me a target of the mob.  It's going pretty well.

I was going to speculate about what I am, politically - socialist? anarchist? full of despair? progressive? independent? constitutional activist? constitutional purist? left-leaning liberal? crazy hippie pinko? - but I think that defeats the point.  Once I slap a label on it, am I still asking myself what I believe?  Am I still developing ideas? 

Mostly not. 

But I think leaving the definition open is very different from defining myself negatively.  Is there a political party that believes in not having an answer for everything?  That's the one I want.  The player to be named later.

Howdy.

Well that was fun - Thank you all for the recipes.  For anyone looking for cake, I recommend a stroll through the comments of the last post, armed with printer paper and a note pad - there is something for every taste, every style, every appetite, some of them so fantastic sounding that I get a little emotional thinking about it.

I have about skateyleven I want to try but unfortunately the heat has sapped my will to eat to the point that I have been living on tabbouleh and baba gannouj mostly for a few weeks - also fruit, yogurt, apples with peanut butter and similar.  Every time I walk into my kitchen I become suddenly paralyzed with indecision and reluctance, fill my glass with water or iced tea, pick up an apple and leave the room.  I tried to makes some broccoli with rice and scallions and tofu the other night but I didn't have the will to cut up the greens.

This has never happened to me - I mean, I once made the mistake of having a dinner party in August,  and I was fine making 1 million tiny breaded lamb chops and spending the day 6 feet from the stove double shelling fava beans.  Sweaty, I admit, but fine.

I have air conditioning and I'm not a fool, it is on, but something about the air quality is foul, so foul.  It was 94 F yesterday and that is just wrong - I think the real factor is that it is not breaking at night either, so even though its cooler first thing in the morning it still has that shimmering sick dampness too it.

Not that I want to dwell or anything.  Not productive.

This year's window boxes are really pretty.  I was explaining what I was doing to someone and she said, "well, but that sounds pretty", in this really surprised tone.  Which made me laugh - she must have thought I was looking for reassurance or something - nope, I'm actually good at stuff like this, I just like to EXPLAIN how pretty is it.  I'm an enthusiast. 

All the purple stuff died though.  Different water requirements than the others - was worried about that.  But the white and silver are thriving and twice this size now and actually the simplicity of white and silver is beautiful.  Didn't Vita Sackville-West have an all white garden?  I begin to see the appeal.

The thought of touching wool is repugnant to me right now - I am ignoring it all so thoroughly I began to wonder last night if I were outgrowing these hobbies.  But I think not, just focused on other things until I acclimate to this summer, sometime August 31st probably.

This made me laugh:

Queen Street, Toronto, June 2008

Maybe you had to be there? 

Give me cake.

Seriously.  I want to make a cake, but I don't want to make just any old cake,  I want something really, really worth eating.  Something delicious.  Something outstandingly good, something you want to nibble forkfuls out of the fridge at 1 am from.  Something with a ton of flavor, not just a sugar high, to offer.  Something that makes you sad when it's et.  Can be simple, can be complicated, can be anything at all......you know what I want? 

Magical Cake. 

Got any recipes?