they say never to dine out on mondays—the chef always takes the day off. but we did, an office mate and i, after a particularly bruising meeting. while waiting at the bar, a loud hirsute man was telling his date how fleshy the wine he was slurping showily. i heard him say “furry tannins” just before we were led away to our table.
the french poet paul valery said “all our language is composed of brief little dreams.”
while slogging through my watery polenta, my dining fellow had the kindness not to ask me how my order was. his steak was so not rare, it looked chalky.
“and the wonderful thing is that we sometimes make of them strangely accurate and marvelously reasonable thoughts.”
one morning, this during my tenth or eleventh birthday, i woke up to the tumult of a heifer being slaughtered in our backyard. there was a marvelously quick cut to the carotid and blood gushed out and was channeled into a deep cast iron kettle which, in no time, overflowed. red rivulets ran in the ground and two mangy dogs quickly lapped the blood up before being shooed away.