Oh the jetlag

Ok I got up early today but I am absolutely fecked. I'm hoping an early night tonight can do it.

The guy in the middle was a depressed fish in the window of a restaurant on 5th ave around the corner from us, who just stayed in this position the whole time I stood there gazing at him. It is like he knows.

I never saw him again after this.

The Mexican Breakfast Started Here

Wonder if I could make a silk purse out of it?

Cake, lots of it

I went to my friend India's house yesterday, and this is what we ate. That chocolate cake was the size of two heads, and contained stout! Each slice was a cake. Sensational. We drank tea in very civilised fashion, and then a friend of hers came with some prosecco and champagne. Hurrah!

Starved

But of course, this being Ireland, it's back to late autumn/early winter weather, this past few days. Especially at night, cycling home. Cold. Windy. But moonlight lighting the fields and narrow roads I ride through.

I've just been reading this article. Clearly a complex man. Endearing, also. It must be strange if you're sensitive, being a popstar from a very early age. You know, the beard would have been enough. He could just have gone off on his alien hunt and kept his little obsession private. But instead, he was compelled to call Jon Ronson and make a documentary out of it. Well...

Check out the ingredients in these recipes, folks (or folk, as it may turn out today). This is having a profound effect on me today, as I sit in the Hilton lobby, munching on Brazil nut special toffee...

Stories on the eve of Thanksgiving

Thirty million people in the United States of America didn't have enough food in 2006. One in six new yorkers cannot afford enough food, that's 1.3 million people in new york city, who can't afford to eat. But I bet most of them have their rent paid.

I heard about a farmer who was native to the swamps of the Mississippi delta of southern Louisiana, and who went out for a ride one day on his horse, and found himself swamp-bound and horseless, in crocodile alley. Crocs everywhere, he did all he could do, which was to scarper up the highest, nearest tree he could find. And wait it out. Sweating. He wasn't up there long, in the scheme of things. He was local, so his neighbours went out searching, when they didn't see him. It took them three days to find him. He had a sandwich to eat in that time. But what made it fun was that, in the evenings, three big bull crocodiles came to sit at the bottom of the tree, looking up at him, their eyes glinting in the fading evening light, just sitting there. Licking their lips, occasionally. Waiting.

Your lips distil nectar, my bride
honey and milk are under your tongue
the scent of your garments is like the scent of lebanon.
A garden locked is my sister, my bride,
a garden locked, a fountain sealed.
Your channel is an orchard of pomegranates
with all choicest fruits
henna with nard
nard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon
with all trees of frankincense
myrrh and aloes
with all chief spices
a garden fountain, a well of living water
and flowing streams from Lebanon.

Four sweet chords

Do you know about having the blues at the same time as feeling electric and alive and thrilled and excited by life and the texture of the moment? It's so strange. Been going on, on and off, for a few days now. I suppose I've just got to write about it.

It's funny, you know. The human desire for simple, uncomplicated happiness, is actually the death knell for vibrant living. Rather, the state of uncomplicated happy satiation is that. The desire for it can be interesting and vibrant. But often, the presence of the desire for uncomplicated human satiation eclipses the nuances of living, and that's just where the good stuff is, really. So I can feel in me a somewhat suspicion of this blues, the blues left out in the cold.

And then I think of a conversation I had a couple of nights ago, about old cold feelings and outsider, stranger qualities, and treating them like human beings out freezing - open the door, for christ's sake, and come in and warm yourself by the fire. Come on, now. Are you hungry? Do you need something to eat? Human, you know. Sometimes it's hard for things to melt.

I need something to eat, I haven't had breakfast yet. Getting picky about food, lately. Food shopping has been so random for me over the past few months. I find it difficult to make wholesome and sensible food shopping trips. I mean, I usually end up with reasonably wholesome food (and haagen d), but not in my usual way of food shopping. I buy a hell of a lot more put-together foods and sauces now than I think I ever have before. I suppose it's just easier. I'm living in a flat with a broken oven and one pot. I haven't had much interest in cooking since I got to new york. I seem to have lost my libido for cooking (but not eating) : it's gone somewhere else. It's gone into sitting by this computer, it's gone into sitting with the guitar that's popped a string, into other stuff besides.

Going to look at a flat today. Maybe a few more over the weekend, before I head off. Within a week, I'll be blogging from Ireland.