It smells like giblets! π
Are they yours? Pass the butter.
Who made the green bean casserole?
Hopefully not Susan Miller. She always undersalts.
Jann and Shells are headed to Red Lobster for Thanksgiving. We rented the whole place, and we have satin gloves on. Itβs for the butter.
See you tomorrow for turkey and mayo sandwiches,
A Parboilβd TGiving
Realized by The Efficient Susans
Here we are at another tepid November, loosening our pant strings and inhibitions. To feast this time of year is a tradition and a privilege, but to feast with irreverence is a feat that we dare you to consider. We love to think outside the canned cranberry here at Parboilβd, and Thanksgiving is an apt time to put a jiggle in your jugglers and let her rip. Weβre particularly jazzed about the apt opportunity to turn the foundations and traditions of this holiday on its head this year and consider a radical reframing.
Weβre partial to the ancient Nordic tradition of Hamm on Jamm (also known as Jamm on Hamm in some parts of the north) as the feature of the meal, but not the focus. We like to pair it with a Cinnamon Charmagne apertif to cleanse our palates, as well as a cup of clementine gelatine for a smooth chug.
While we dine, we say out with gratitude and in with ratitude. The difference really is in how you feel it. Following is a list of some of what tickles us this year:
A fresh-scraped heel
That Jell-O makes sugar-free Jell-O
The pebble in my pocket
A Circuit City gift card and nowhere to be
The bevy of Native American and Indigenous literature to digest and share
Dianaβs rotating seasonal cobbler
Groupon
Aubergine breathable jersey sheets
A chocolate collar
My grandmotherβs cummerbund
A Velveeta solution
Dido
Turpentine tomatoes
Coarse hair to brush
The opportunity to pay rent for occupying stolen land and organizations like Real Rent Duamish here in Seattle
Silky chinos
Cucumber culottes
Cream gaucho pants on sale
Sails on sale
Equestriennes
Butter your loins, and be well.
A routine
Realized by Jann
In the morning, I try do what the magazines say and feel my feet hit the floor. No, really feel them. Β I maybe glance at the sweet poem I pinned above my bed reminding me to experience the sweet window of presence the sweet morning offers. I dispel the contents of my bowels, wash my hands, and then likely have to do it again because it is just never one go. There are pulses, pushes. Births. I try to tame the morning because the morning feels indicative of what the rest of the day will be like. Thatβs what the magazines have always said in momβs bathroom basket and at the dentistβs office and in my own goddamn mailbox. We forget that we can reset and make a lot of different kinds of moments their own mornings. Mornings are meant to feel expansive, but they quickly become scarcitized. In the morning during a pandemic, I eat weekend breakfast every day with Shubert and time blends in a way that I never knew I would prefer.
In the afternoon, I panic. It is stale and still and feels like it should be the heartbeat of production, but itβs just so exhausting. And weird. The afternoon feels like a weird-shaped boob. The potential is there, but you should have already met it to be ahead and alert, which is nothing like a weird-shaped boob. Night looms to tell you itβs nearly done, but it actually isnβt true. The afternoon is a holding space and lots of different people tell you what the contents are, arenβt, or should be. The afternoon is a time Iβd rather skip, and so I do these days. I lie down and wait for it to pass. I never have any trouble falling asleep.
In what comes last as the evening or night, I fight believing itβs the end. In many ways it feels very much like the beginning, but Iβve never actually claimed the title of night owl. Itβs so rogue-sounding, and I donβt stay up all night flooding with ideas and creation and scurrying about my home. Except I do. Iβm often up in my bed, petting the sheets as Iβve always done: a tactile form of soothing that I pretend Shubert doesnβt know about but he does. If Iβm very tired, Iβll drift off, but mostly I feel energized. Iβm so excited to swim in what is waiting to be born or what is actively dying, but it doesnβt often turn into leaving my bed and wading in. I still donβt want to miss out on everyoneβs predetermined time for sleeping! If I donβt sleep now, Iβll sleep during the day and miss the morning jump. But I actually really hate the morning jump, so maybe what is the end is actually the beginning or maybe the end isnβt what we think an end is or maybe starts and finishes and lines and orders are cackling because they arenβt real.
Containers are useful and they also really are not. Β
To Leelee
Realized by Shells
Leelee Sobieski came to me in a dream once and suggested I try Corn Chex. I told her I didnβt believe in cereal conglomerates, and I think this upset her.Β
βYou were iconic in βNever Been Kissed,ββ I offered. βIβve never stopped thinking of Alpo and Aldys.βΒ
I expected her to leave, or at least suggest her better work was βJungle 2 Jungle.β But instead she unbuttoned her Donatella Versace gown to reveal the very blue catsuit Alyds wore to the prom. Only now sheβd bejeweled it with sea shells and trinkets, up and down the spine like spikes! Vaguely Stegosauran. I wondered if it was symbolic, but before I could ask, she shuffled two steps to the left and clapped.Β
βYouβre seeking something,β she said. βAnd you wonβt find it in cheap beer and casinos.β
I asked what she meant, because I hadnβt been to a casino since 1986 when Connie got addicted to quarter slots and Little Caesarβs pizzas.
She snapped her fingers twice to produce two jewel cases, which she placed in front of me one at a time, certain and with eye contact.
βYou can choose only one. Choose wisely.β
I asked if she understood this decision felt cruel. She said heaven doesnβt take kindly to poor babies.
Infinite futures flashed before my eyes, my brain computing cost-benefit analyses that all felt like a loss.Β
βBut what does any of this have to do with Corn Chex?β I cried.
She laughed, then sat down on the ground and bum-scooted her way to the door. She didnβt say a word.
When I woke, I considered what it would heave meant to follow through with my choice.
I pray we never know.
Autumnus amongnus
Realized by Plutops
In brown there is decay, but not quite death. Brown is crisped and crunched and off-putting, but it is also rich and bold and making a statement in the background of other statements. Brown is ongoing and inevitable. In brown, I feel stable. Itβs hard to not separate it from the common color of mammal feces, and for that, it is impossible to choose as a favorite because someone will always be laughing, and try as you might, you cannot ignore it or even shake a finger at them because they arenβt wrong. I tried to choose a deep brown for my 20-year-old bedroom walls, and it was a horrid mistake. It failed to be and to feel and to convey the warmth of chocolate or stoic tree trunks. It looked of the body in a non-inspiring way.
In yellow, there is a harvest. There is a mustard swirled on the side of a plate for sophisticated dipping of anything---something you didnβt know was possible in your understanding of mustard as a kid. Yellow are the last leaves to fall, it seems. It gilds, but it can also quickly cheapen depending on the shade. In yellow, I am warm and met. I crave yellows, but I donβt need much because I am a golden Leo Rising Lion. In yellow, I nuzzle and I shiverβthe kind where you feel like magic is brushing your skin and you want to rush and tell someone but it wonβt let you because now itβs gone and you canβt recreate it.
In red, there is arrant vitality. I am frightened, but I am also aroused, and Iβm unsure if those two experiences are all that separate. In red there is urgency, but if you crawl deep enough down your insides, that urgency takes on a new meaning. It doesnβt loom over you and berate you and trick you into some arbitrary form of self-assessment. Itβs an urgency that pumps the breath and swirls the blood and screams/cackles/whispers that itβs time to go. Any being of a certain age who chooses red as their favorite color isnβt subtle about it. Red is far from astute; it splashes itself about in sharp angles and pools and puddles alike, demanding that you hold your glance until it becomes a stare.
There There
Tommy Orange
This oneβs a hot fiction dish with spicy meatballs aplenty. Through twelve different characters, Tommy offers a nuanced and needed story of intergenerational trauma and Native identity. The writing is sharp as a bee sting, and I dare you to tell me otherwise!