A Brie Grows in Brooklyn

On Mexican-Themed Dinner Parties, and Other Sundry Things

I was at a dinner party last night at my friend Caro-linda’s house, who is a writer for Epicurious, as well as one of the prettiest ladies ever to kiss a pineapple on a video blog. She is the contemporary Great Gatsby of hosts, minus the penis and the obsession with a worthless nymphette, plus beauty, brains and a sense of humor. Every few weeks, I have the good fortune of being invited to one of her salons, to which I bring the finest Chilean wine $10 can buy.

(Put this braggadoccio to a beat, and you’ll have a Kanye West song.)

Last night’s theme was Mexican cooking, and I swear on all that is holy to me—which is nothing, when I pause to think about it—that it was the best Mexican food I’ve had in New York.

It was prepared by Caro-linda and her friend Fernando, and it consisted of roughly five courses—rock shrimp, huitlacoche quesadillas, an orgy of salsas, a cured beef flown from the North of Mexico—so good that they almost made me cry. The last time I ate so well was when I was in Oxaca, where I played the role of a lifetime as an earthworm stuffed with cheese, soaked in tequila, and then left out to roast in the sun.

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Poet of the Week: Charles Bukowski

I went to Barnes and Noble

tonight

to look for

a poem by Ann Lauterbach

and when I didn’t find it

I picked up a book by Charles Bukowski

and decided to buy it

because I thought:

“how decadent.

a book of poetry.”

but before that

I spent a while looking

for a poem to love

 amongst the “best of” collections

of Mary Oliver

and

Reynolds Price

and

Rainer Maria Rilke.

I lied about the Rilke

but I thought it sounded good

 in this context.

now I’m standing

at the bottom of the escalator

in the basement of

this 86th street store

typing this on my iPhone,

while I’m walking

back and forth

to the bookshelves

 to remember what I spent

30 minutes deciding was mostly pretty

boring.

 in the meantime,

a man with a gravely voice

asks me if I need anything.

if I weren’t wearing a short skirt

he’d have left me

the fuck alone.

and all I can do,

after all of this superfluous browsing,

is think in

fragmented sentences,

 which is alright

because at least

the words are pouring out of me.

 Bukowski would have liked that.

the man has lingered

so I’ll be on my way

to the check out counter.

or rather

the cash register.

unfortunately,

this is not a public library.

although I couldn’t check out at the library

anyway

without paying a hefty fine
 

for the long-due

children’s book on Magellan the Explorer

that I always forget to return. 

I’ll buy the book on a credit card

and then curse myself

all the way home

for not being more frugal with money.

the cab last week,

the pedicure on Saturday.

the trash bag full of rotted Trader Joe’s food

and now this book by Bukowski.

I’ll read it on the subway,

forcing myself through every poem

because for me,

they cost money.

and I’ll think about all the work I would have done

in college

to make Charles Bukowski fall in love with me.

so here’s the first poem

that I flipped to

and lingered upon

in the book I shall not name

by my poet of the week

Charles Bukowski.

Re-union

when you left I thought you’d never

return and finally I got to feeling good

about that.

now it’s starting all over

again

right here

right now.

I watch

the pyramids stand by quietly as the monkey eats his

fleas.

somehow

once again

we seem to be as 

content as a package of peanuts

bleached by the sun

and then

caught like

a 

ringing bell.