Just can’t live anymore.
Always happy to shoot the breeze.
—John Ashbery
It’s driving me stupid that I
have an announcement to make.
That said, what you smell is pro-
bably not what you think: it’s the
sugar cookies, shaped like armadillos,
almost ready to be removed from the
oven, cooled a bit and then sprinkled
with sugar the color of a tuna (or the
bulldozed tenement block down on the
East Side as it is readied for this week’s
episode of To Scrape the Sky) and then
toted up to our mouths for melting (you)
or for swallowing whole (me). The cow-
gals are out in the desert, their meat-
packs ready to explode. And we’re here
knifing footnotes into the glass coffee
table, always kids in junior high. Some-
body at the newspaper stand this morning
said “Whew! It’s a hot one today!”
and I thought he was commenting on my
new blue pajama top. I almost wore that
russet onesie. That’s how alive I felt! The
ingredients arrived fresh this morning from
Zanzibar. Or at least I think that’s what the
man in uniform told me, but not before adding
that “the Tazmanian cinnamon hunks weren’t
available this week.” And you know me, I didn’t
cry or anything. I just put down my hand mixer
(Sorry about the glops on the porch, by the
way!) and gave him the biggest bear hug ever.
