Another reason for an un-toasted peanut butter sandwich is that last night I popped another crown off of a molar. I've just about run out of molars to chew with, and must rely on front teeth for chewing as well as biting. A nice, soft sandwich would be pretty easy to eat— well, as compared to just about anything else. I'm not sure how I'm going to get through all the crunchy snacks I've got on hand. I've got chips, and almonds, and Chex mix, and some other stuff that demands some vigorous mastication. Not to mention the rest of my New York Super Fudge Chunk ice cream, and a Trader Joe's pound-plus dark chocolate with almonds bar. Life just keeps getting more challenging.
It's getting hotter each day again, and tonight is when the wind is supposed to come up. So far all I feel is a soft breeze, but it's supposed to get up to 18 mph, coming from the NNW. I don't think there's much fire in that direction right now, and if none gets started the air shouldn't be too bad. The air quality web site is saying it's good right now, and will be moderate later today. I certainly hope so. I especially hate coughing when my stomach hurts.
Sunday Verse
Eating Light
by F. J. Bergmann
It all started when I was sent to bed
without supper. I was playing with my flashlight
under the covers and tried shining it in my mouth.
Light flooded my throat like golden syrup.
Soon I was tasting light everywhere,
the icy bitterness of fluorescents, a burst
of intensely spiced flavors from an arc welder,
the dripping red meat of sunsets.
Natural light was most easily digestible,
but at night I was limited to the sparse glow
of fireflies and phosphorescent rotting logs,
and inevitably succumbed to the artificial flavors
of a strip mall’s jittering neon rainbow.
Sodium lamps always had a nasty, putrid aftertaste,
like rotting oranges, which is why I so frequently
vomited in nighttime parking garages,
but mercury-vapor emissions foamed on my tongue,
aromatic, green. Have you ever had key lime mousse,
or lemon-mint custard? It’s nothing like that at all.
Each Hallowe’en I followed trick-or-treaters
from door to door, gorging myself
on jack-o’-lanterns’ sweet candlelight.
Autumn bonfires burnt my lips
with the pungent heat of five-alarm chili,
smoky with the ghost of molé sauce. I hid
strings of holiday lights in my underwear drawer,
in case of a sudden craving.
On a high school field trip to a nuclear facility,
I was finally overcome with an insatiable hunger
for the indigo twilight of a reactor pool, glowing
with the underwater gradient of Cherenkov radiation,
a blue light luscious as chocolate, hypnotic as a liqueur,
decadent as dissolved gemstones.
I am no terrorist—merely an addict.