cellini's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4th of July Yesterday I ate a 10 inch largemouth bass for breakfast. I spent a ridiculous amount of time manicuring the meat from the bones. I put it on a pan on low heat with some finely sliced wild onion, butter, olive oil and dill. A pair of eggs that Trish bought from a farmer went on the pan beside them. The bass was the only fish I caught in an hour of fishing on Sunday afternoon. Later I hiked up the mountain behind my brother's house and went down the ridge a ways to pick about a half gallon of wild raspberries, which I have been stuffing myself on. There is nothing to hunt right now except for fish but at least there is a fair amount of wild plants to eat at the moment. My book advance still hasn't shown up. My editor emailed me the other day to ask how I'm looking for the deadline at the end of this month. I refrained from telling her what I was really thinking, which was "how the fuck am I supposed to write a chapter full of recipes when you still owe me my fucking advance and I don't have money to pay for ingredients?" Nor do I have money to pay for the research materials I need for the chapter on mu1e deer. I had a reasonably nice 4th of July weekend. No fireworks or parade but Mary & F. had a cook-out at their place with a bunch of people. I played boche and didn't come in last. There were other kids there for H@rry and Ida to play with. The regional daily newspaper had a story about me as the front page item on Sunday, which was nice in terms of free advertising for the new classes. We went to a lake down the street from Mary & F's place which is on a large estate. The daughter of the owners had a whole bunch of people over at the lake for the 4th of July. I didn't know any of them but they all knew who I was and they all asked all sorts of questions. I haven't been getting out or socializing much lately, aside from hanging out with Mary & F. and a few other close friends. This tends to prevent me from seeing what my actual notoriety has become. Whenever I venture away from the usual routine of work, home and the woods I am constantly recognized by total strangers. I googled myself last night and found all sorts of unfamiliar blogs and news sources talking about me. Becoming slightly famous hasn't really done me a whole lot of good yet. It does not get me laid or paid. This probably means I'm doing it wrong. Yesterday evening I was obliged to stop by Trish's parents' place for a few hours. They had the TV on and I saw American TV for the first time in ages. How do you people watch this shit? The commercials, the shows, the 'news' and everything. Its all so fucking shitty. Nor do I understand how people manage to arrange their lives such that they could sit there on a couch and stare passively at a screen for 4-6 hours a day. Don't they have things to do? I know I'm out of touch. I live surrounded by a culture that I'm not a part of. I don't walk into their stores, eat at their restaurants or watch their movies and TV shows. Literally I cannot remember the last time I walked into any American retail business other than a grocery store. I read 100 year old fiction and some new non-fiction and I kill my own food and I live in a figurative cave. When I was in MA for my grandfather's funeral a few weeks ago I visited the houses of several family members. I wanted to cry a little bit. It all looked so normal and luxurious. They had kitchens with dishwashers and lots of cabinets and appliances. Floors so straight and level that a marble probably wouldn't roll from one side of the room to another. Bathrooms with plumbing that worked and didn't drip constantly. Doors on all of the rooms. This is a world that I have been outside of for a long time. I don't really like things this way but there is still nothing I can do about it. I want to live like a civilized human being again. I really do miss it. There's just no way right now for me to do that. Somebody I met at that party by the lake said "you're like Michael P0llan on acid!" And yeah, I guess that's about right. Whee! I just got an email from the Discovery producer. He's checking in and asking me if I have a hard deadline for this. Well, that was nice of him. 11:30 a.m. - 2010-07-06 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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