maple barley malt

i'm not in bed, sleeping. it was a hard day, and it's not over. what i'm still doing up is baking bread; i have not baked bread since before saint patrick's day, when things went very, very bad. the full moon has risen over my mountains and my peepers are out, singing. "good luck, boys", i always tell them. i know that the girls always go for the good singers. i could fall in love with a species like that.

the bread that's rising (too slowly) in my kitchen is my own recipe (as always). it is maple barley malt, a hearty, heavy, dense nut brown sweet bread made with (just as it sounds) barley flour, barley malt, and grade b dark maple syrup. it is heavy and takes for-honkin-ever to rise.

i bake a lot of bread. i have adopted a practice where i bring fresh bread to church: a loaf is reserved for the pastor. a loaf is reserved for you if you are rumblestrip or if you won the right in the auction, but there's always an orphan loaf, unspoken for and left quietly in the back of the sanctuary. people are shy about taking it.

tomorrow it seems very important to bring bread because tomorrow is the last sunday before Barbara goes on sabbatical; for a while an interim pastor will be receiving "her" bread. i do not think the interim pastor knows this yet.

tonight while i wait for the bread to rise i'm drinking malta goya, which is an oddball carbonated beverage that i think you have to develop a taste for.

now that the bread is in the oven i can relax a little. tonight i saw the revs play and that was good. blame the Flyingfishers if you need to assign blame for it, but somehow i care about how the revs are doing, and it's "revolution", not "reverends".

yesterday i went geocaching in the rain with Flyingfisher, and we met some lovely and interesting cachers but it was weird because they treated me as if i'm famous, which is a little awkward, if satisfying. as a child i always wanted to be famous, but i thought i was going to be a famous musician rather than a well-known finder of ammo cans, so it's a little strange.

it rained all day today, too, and i had an appointment with Barbara partly just to talk to her and partly to help clear out her office and i can't really explain why, but i cried a lot. i'm going to miss Barbara powerful much.

and it occurred to me (and maybe this is an asshole thing to think) that maybe part of my rush to suicide was based on a desire for her to do my funeral. once she leaves there'll be no suicide until she comes back, if that's an operating force.

and, see, even though funerals are partly an occupational hazard for her, it's kind of a crappy thing to wish on someone and i'm sorry for it. i love her. and then i think: "when it's time for my funeral, i hope you're too damn old."

and i was stopped in my tracks for a while by the sound of the train going by. Barbara asked me about it: did it still get me?

well, yes. but it's not my train. happy news for her. and you, probably.

me, i'm waiting for that bread to come out of the oven. then i'll be able to wash this day off of me and crawl into my bed (which i love) and spread out like a liquid. i'll be nameless and faceless, insensate.

i will light my candle and have a few words with bob. i had a few words with bob this afternoon when i was down at the church (i never can resist) but there's always something new to say to bob. lately and perhaps unaccountably, i am especially grateful for the color green and i say a prayer of thanks for it.

i ask bob to watch over Barbara and rumblestrip (whose proper name gets a capital letter, but you will never see it here) and deanne, whom i have never met or even spoken to, but who i hope has gotten a good job, and k, whom i miss and i'm so thankful for them and the Tharaglebs and the crashcos that there isn't room here in my chest for it all. please, bob, watch out for skipper and fritz and linda and betty and the Flyingfishers and all the oggs.

i'm too overcome and maybe if i have a hot shower i'll be able to stop crying and maybe rumblestrip will laugh, but it's saturday night so i have to shave and i think i'm going to sleep right up until it's time for church. i haven't even marked up my hymnals even though i have the bulletin in my pocket but bob always understands, and if i get very lucky tonight i will sleep.

i'm maybe not entitled to sleep the sleep of the righteous, but i'm doing my best over here to make my life mean something and to simply get through the rough patches, so maybe i'm entitled simply to let breath pass in and out of my lungs without rasping thorough the crying, and maybe i'll get lucky and just sleep a quiet sleep.

often i don't really want to die; i just want respite. so please, bob, if ever i did honor you, if ever i did love you, bring me a gentle, dreamless sleep. Flyingfisher says i have courage. love is good enough for me. i love you; goodnight.