a bucket of fried chicken on a tuesday
a sprig of fried thyme
paired with a few ounces of hot hooch
and a mid-week trip to the desert
the gift of a scapular to always remind you
“our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. that is not our business and, in fact, it is nobody’s business. what we are asked to do is to love, and this love itself will render both ourselves and our neighbors worthy.”
t. merton
I wake in the morning to the cracking sounds of metal on concrete. Demolition. Diesel engines. Hard Hats coordinating through specific directives, rapid shouts of construction, the high-pitched metronome of a truck in reverse. I don’t really mind, sometimes it’s nice to eavesdrop on industrial activity.
At night a group of drunkards stumbles past my bedroom window, reaching their way home from bars and booze, slurring a grocery list of topics only the inebriated discuss. They’re new here, rolling back and forth for the past 8 months. I don’t really mind, one day their repetition will break and they’ll walk home somewhere else; that can be a nice thought to think.
Everything is new here in my old neighborhood.
A few blocks West there are 3 new joints hawking fried chicken. To my immediate North there are FIVE NEW ESTABLISHMENTS SERVING PIZZA. I can’t complain, I love pizza.
Pizza Maria is a small restaurant within a large building that once held a cooperative grocery called Natures, then Natures closed and the building sat empty for several years. Now you can wait in line to eat at multiple establishments on the first floor and/or live in a condo on the top three floors. There are buildings just like this being constructed every 3 blocks within a mile radius of my apartment.
This is a cocktail that my friend ordered at Pizza Maria, she enjoyed it because she loves bourbon.
This is my minty lemonade mocktail which I enjoyed because I was very thirsty and love lemonade.
Here is a $9.00 cucumber salad which employs faro, sage, feta, olives and and a vinaigrette dressing. It’s actually a lot of food for two people so $4.50 per person is not a bad deal.
This is a sausage pizza. The owner of Pizza Maria moved here from NYC where he worked for Thomas Keller. He wanted to move here and open a restaurant because people in Portland have important conversations about food, at least that’s what he said in an interview. I can’t disagree, Portland is a nice place to talk about food.
There are only two important facts about pizza:
pizza is good
and for everyone.
A year or so ago I met Dennis on Twitter, a place where I like to read and laugh about basketball.
This spring Dennis flew to Portland and we met in person.
We watched basketball, ate pizza, shot pool, drove past a suspicious Dali museum on our way to a backwoods casino, and debated the Power Ratings of various Portland Parks.
Being around Dennis is like hanging out with an extremely kind and well-humored search engine; he has the best answers to my incessant questions.
Anyway, he gave me a NYK toaster for my birthday.
I suspect he knew exactly how much I would love this.
It’s perfect.
I’ll spend the rest of my mornings in branded NBA luxury.
Thank you, Dennis. You are incredibly important to me. Never stop being an artist who paints with tweets.
Go Knicks!!!
bunny bread surprise 