All Japanese Girl Rolls

From a ring of chopped spinach with some basil mixed in, you can go just about anywhere. This is for when you're too lazy to eat a salad on the side of whatever you're eating, but you know you need the vegetable-goodness and some aesthetic satisfaction:


I went with ravioli. Moving on.

Let's call this the "before" shot:


I figure, I spent so much damn time looking for the tank, and had the whole inside resealed, so I might as well protect the outside. It's not so bad, but it's a little doggish. I was going to do it myself, but paint doesn't behave well in cold. And I don't have space to spray in studio, nor the ventilation in the garage-spot. It would have been cool. But I'll let the shop handle it. This is one of the few early graduation presents for myself. The other will be a bottle of single-malt scotch.

Meanwhile, I just commented on a rough draft of a student paper using Word's Comment feature. Why isnt' there a hot-key combination to put those in? See, I'm trying to use less paper, so am taking rough drafts via email. And reading off the screen doesn't kill my eyes. Yet.

The student wrote about how he likes funny poems. This is a student who obviously knows his audience. Makes me want to share a poem. It's not funny (ha-ha), but it's great.

From Resin by Geri Doran

Retrospective

What carried us from year to year was yield:
potatoes in, potatoes out, like rowing.
Fist-sized, firm, rich tasting and abundant--
of such abundance we could eat them all
winter long and have some left for seed.
It seemed holy even then, to harvest
red and russet, shake the moist earth
from the tuber, feel its heft and lob
it on the pile soon to be transported
to the fruit room (dirt floor and damp cement,
tomatoes on the vine, apples, potatoes).
An earthy flourish of the immanent.

Spring, and quartering the rest to plant,
one eye, at least, per chunk. Father crouched
over the hoe. When did I learn to see
paternal love in seed potatoes planted
with a grunt? Or catechism in the rhythm
beat out as he sowed, tamping down the dirt?