Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Rice Pudding (9-15-11)

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Rice Pudding (9-15-11) I don’t blog publicly that much anymore. Honestly, ever since my birthday and my poetry show I’ve hardly typed a word. I still scribble poetry or some random thoughts onto sheets of paper but I’ve been staying away from the keyboard. I’ll always have the pen, even when I’m going through a dry spell. In the last month I’ve only written a few new pieces but they are not in the same voice as my previous work. Nowadays my pieces have an underlying sadness to them, plus a hint of defeat or even gloom. I’ve always been a dreamer… a hopeful sort that no matter how bad things got or bleak they appeared, I’ve always hoped for brighter days. Sometimes I even took steps to provide them for myself and others. Lately I’m trying to provide brighter days for other people because that usually makes me feel great but it seems like those might be the only times I’m truly happy… when I’m doing things for others. I don’t know why I’m more apt to do something nice for someone else than I am for myself. Too much of my mother in me I guess.

Going back to when I was young, I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with myself. I wouldn’t give myself the same patience and understanding I’d give a friend. I wouldn’t really mind if anyone messed up around me but I when made a mistake, whew would I be upset. I was and am so critical of myself, although not like I used to be. The fact that I give out mixtapes and perform poetry in public is proof of that. But I’m still critical. Back in the day I’d hate myself for my faults, my weaknesses, my impulses and the bad choices I would make while loving myself for my kindness, compassion, love and intelligence I possess. More simply a lot of times it would boil down to this conclusion: I’d love my heart but hate my head. They’d work in conflict with one another often and it would frustrate me. Why couldn’t everything be on the same page? Why couldn’t there be just one fully functional Edwin, with one Edwin agenda? If I know deep in my heart that I want to be thin again why does my mind allow me to keep doing the wrong things to get there?

Sometimes I wonder that if one day I achieve my goal of getting back into good shape, will I then move on to find another reason to hate myself? Like maybe my weight is my most glaring weakness so that’s what I’m fixated on. When that’s gone maybe I’d find something else. I’m bummed because this summer hasn’t gone the way I would have liked with my nagging ankle injury and other things preventing me from doing all the things I wanted physically and reaching the goals I set out. Now that the summer is ending, perhaps I’m feeling a bit like a failure and maybe that’s the heart of the matter and why I feel so blue lately.

There’s so much joy and hope and love for people and life within me but there’s also sadness, doubt and loneliness. All of those things are in there. I’ve talked about my personality type (INFJ) on several occasions and isolation and complexity are two of the most common traits of it. Life is a roller coaster ride but being who I am I love the highs and lament the lows more than most. Right now unfortunately I’m feeling some lows.

I think to me, right now the end of the summer insinuates many things, whether right or wrong, true or false. I think I feel like I lost the chance to get into “summer shape”. I think I will see my friends a lot less in the coming months. I think there will be less opportunities to get out and do fun community things. I think there’s less likelihood that I’ll meet someone to go bonkers over and hopefully vice versa because less people will be out now. All of those things along with the changes the new season brings have me feeling a bit down… like the party is over or the good times are fleeting. It’s a feeling that builds in the spring with each warm day and culminates when I am smack in the middle of a great time outside somewhere with friends all around in the middle of summertime. That’s not to say I couldn’t be out having a great time with a bunch of friends 2 months from now, but maybe I’m more inclined to believe such occasions occur with regularity in the summer and far less frequency, if at all in the winter. The truth is I don’t want to let the summer go.

While I do love the fall and the color, holidays, traditions, warm drinks, getting re-acquainted with half my wardrobe, crunching leaves, pumpkin flavored everything, football, hockey and more I guess I need to find closure to summer to get to the place where I can love the fall again. This is me, the last one to want to go home when having a good time and the one who is heartbroken when the good times end. I think I write more youthful, hopeful, optimistic poetry in the spring and old, sad, reflective poetry in the fall/winter. I guess it makes sense. As an empathetic individual I like to tell people I am a sponge when it comes to the emotions around me. I soak it all in. Perhaps I just pick up on people’s excitement and happiness for the spring and also people’s apprehension and sadness in advance of the colder times and my mood reflects it, sometimes surprisingly to me because I might not have felt that way and all of a sudden I do.

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Speaking of apprehension around me perhaps also fueling my gloomy mood of late is the political climate. I just don’t trust the American voters/people and as the Congressional elections in New York City and Nevada 2 nights ago proved, I have reason not to. Two Democratic congresspeople were ousted by Republican challengers in districts that have supported the Democrats for several years. Uh-oh. The Obama pile-on is getting out of control as he’s being blamed for everything under the sun despite not having a lot to do with it. I’m not foolish enough to think he’s done the greatest job but I also don’t think he’s done nearly as bad a job as people have said. I wish the guy could have gotten a fair try at it. That first year or so he had the opportunity to do some things but just as he was hitting his stride the mid-term elections switched the congressional power to the GOP and they’ve acted like nothing short of a spoiled brat ever since. This “my way or the highway” mentality is completely counter-productive, dangerous and cruel and they know it is.

They’ll never admit it while Obama’s in office but I feel like the last 2 years they’ve basically sabotaged his presidency and the short-term welfare of low-income Americans with their inability to be flexible despite that being the very essence of governing in a democracy. They’ve sabotaged Obama in order to regain control and when the plan comes to fruition they will continue pissing on the poor, outsourcing jobs, forcing God into everyone’s lives, widening the chasm between the classes, telling people who they can marry, giving tax breaks to their buddies and deregulating the stock market so the same filthy, cheating scumbags who started this recession with their greed and immorality can pick up where they left off robbing Americans blind. Did I leave anything out? They probably figure that most citizens are too stupid to realize that it’s not Obama’s fault because they pin every thing they can on him and are in a constant state of attack on him. Meanwhile they put a stop to anything the guy tries to pass and they quickly tear apart and squash any ideas the administration comes up with and then turn around and accuse the President of not doing anything. They’re absolutely burying the guy and recent poll numbers suggest a lot of people are buying into it.

I remember the feeling I had in 2004 when Bush won a 2nd term. I thought holy crap is America that dumb? I knew Kerry wasn’t anything special and I didn’t vote for him but I thought Bush was probably the worst president of my lifetime. That’s when I knew I couldn’t trust America to make the smarter choice. We live in a place with short attention spans, too many choices and people are more likely to keep up with the Kardashians than they are the issues of the day. In a lazy, spoiled society fixated on instant gratification like this one it seems the masses will listen to whoever is talking the loudest and saying what they want to hear and they’ll go with that. People look at bullying as fire and strength just as long as they’re talking loud and saying scary things. For many, it doesn’t even matter if they are is lying, being unfair or not making real sense, because quite frankly they’re blinded by their beliefs, their selfishness, their fears or simply their ignorance. I dunno folks, but I feel a storm is coming. I feel like we’ll have some crazy person who doesn’t give a crap about me and people like me like Rick Perry as president and then we’ll see how much we can take. If they haven’t already, the poor will start to get very angry. Maybe that’s what we need. Maybe we need a revolution. Maybe we need riots and marches and demonstrations. I mean, it’s been too long since we’ve had a meaningful cultural rebellion around here and how else will the rich and their minions realize that we’re all in this together? There’s still a naïve part of me that hopes that one day we’ll figure it out and do what’s right for all of us but as I said earlier I don’t trust voting Americans. History has shown us the fat cats will go too far and then it’s up to us to check them and bring humility back into the equation. The gap between the rich and poor is bigger than I’ve ever seen. How much longer can it go on like this?

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On the happy side of things, this weekend looks like a really fun one as I will be busy and walking that line between sports and art that I love to balance on. Friday night starts off with culture and the Ghost Walk of Allentown. I guess I’m going to hear some of the legends of the Allentown area and as much as I am a skeptic, I also am also kinda open minded and very fascinated by the supernatural. On Saturday I have 3 football games. That’s right 3! If my injured leg will hold up I’ll be playing at 11, 3 and 4. After that is rushing home to get ready for Music is Art and I will spend the rest of my day soaking in the atmosphere, music and food of what might be the last great festival of the summer season around here. Sunday I’m going to get together with the fellas and watch the surprising Bills take on the Raiders in what should be a very winnable game for Buffalo. When the game ends I am going to venture out into Bidwell Park and enjoy friends and sunshine. So there it is, friends, music, culture, folklore, sports watching and sports playing. Now that’s a weekend!

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And lastly, last night I came this [ ] close to making a decent batch of homemade rice pudding. My cooking skills are not, how shall we say, highly evolved. BUT, I’ve been dabbling with rice pudding off and on for years trying to make a good batch. There have been some decent results but nothing like the memories of phenomenal rice pudding at Christmastime with family when I was little. I will keep trying and I may never get there, but I must go on because even when it’s close, it’s still alright! Let’s face it, I’m just a man in search of love, meaning and amazing rice pudding.

Anyone have any EASY to follow rice pudding recipes? Please share!