It's an axiom or a saw or a saying, "You learn something new every day."
I was in the supermarket, and there, on sale was a brick of "chicory coffee."
I had never bought chicory coffee before.
I knew it was a Louisiana kind of thing because, the first time I went to jail in this state (where the highest per capita amount of its citizens are incarcerated in the nation) there was something funny about the coffee.
That was the time I was arrested as part of a "sweep," when the Baton Rouge police were given the freedom to indiscriminately remove any and all people from the street who appeared homeless as part of the buildup to the LSU homecoming game. I was charged with "disturbing the peace."
The East Baton Rouge Parish Prison was populated by a lot of racist black inmates and the blood of white inmates splattered the walls and floors. I had the good fortune of having been taken under the wing of the biggest (by at least 20 pounds) and baddest (by 2 murders) inmate in our block, who had seen me, while the other few new arrivals were walking the block, scrambling to find one of the empty beds so they wouldn't have to sleep on a mat on the floor. I had been so absorbed by the book that I was reading, that I sat at a table, not wanting to put it down, even to find one of the cells that had only one inmate and an empty bed so I wouldn't have to sleep on the floor on a mat.
"Oh, you like to read; you can move in with me," Dominique Smith had said. But that is a story that has been blogged already (August 2011).
The chicory coffee "woke me up," when it was delivered at 6 AM along with breakfast in bed. I would have traded food items off of the previous days trays for "your coffee in the morning," and would wind up drinking at least a half dozen cups of it.
Maybe this was the department of corrections way of acclimating people to the place, making them feel at home; and at the same time deterring out of state-ers from breaking the law and risking jail, because the coffee there sucked so much.
Mystery Solved; Case Closed
I got this current batch of chicory coffee the night that I had started to develop a toothache.
At one point, I had doused my hands in sanitizing liquid before putting my fingers in my mouth to explore for where exactly the pain was coming from and, as the pain worsened, hoping to find a loose tooth that I might pull out, out of desperation.
Then, as the evening went on, I began to feel an unease in my stomach. My spine, especially around where the nerves to the stomach were attached tightened up, as if my body was trying to brace itself against something.
I thought that I had perhaps not let the sanitizing liquid dry completely and had swallowed some and it had gone into my stomach and killed all of the "good" bacteria so that I was not digesting the rice and beans that I had eaten and that my body was trying to pass it, undigested, through me. That's what it felt like.
I also considered that maybe one shouldn't mix Ibuprofen with chicory coffee, or with hand sanitizing liquid or with both.
I was so bound up and suffering that I called Rose on the 3rd floor, who gave me 8 "stool softeners" in (a groovy purple and white swirl patterned colored) pill form.
"Take all eight," suggested Rose.
She said that using laxatives would be a much harder row to hoe, as they would bring about "cramps" as they worked. The whole analogy of a woman in labor trying to pass a baby came to mind.
Well, the pills kind of worked, and I kind of had returned to normal by this afternoon when I woke up and had a large cup of steaming chicory coffee.
This time I didn't swallow down any sanitizing liquid with it.
My spine in the middle of my back soon had tightened up, as if bracing itself against something, and, at the age of 55, I had discovered that chicory doesn't agree with me. This is good knowledge to have and sheds a whole new light upon why I had to meditate so much when in that jail, just to try to relax the knot in the middle of my back, that I wasn't sure what to attribute to.
But I feel like I have a wad of undigested chicory that I will have to pass through the 20,000 miles of intestinal tract, or whatever it is, that I have, and have learned a lesson. I'm glad I only drank one cup and I'll get some real coffee on my way home after leaving here (The Uxi Duxi).
The abscessed tooth is receding (as seen in top photo) and I feel like I am gaining the upper hand over it.
I almost went to the emergency room last night, where they would have most likely prescribed me antibiotics that I might have been able to get for a "co-pay" amount of a couple bucks.
The 160 bucks of Mardi Gras money that I deposited is down to something like 48 bucks, with no large, significant purchase to show for it.
I thought I was going to have to use the balance of it for some kind of laptop when this one went down. Or, at least a replacement power supply.
Two of the tuning machines on the Takamine guitar are screwed up and I have to turn them in the opposite of their intended direction to bring the strings up to tension.
This is a temporary solution, as I have learned in the past -average life span of about 2 months before the things become inoperable in either direction.
But, since I can tune the thing up tonight (and every night is "tonight," right?) I have been procrastinating upon making the trip to Webbs Bywater Music to see Paul the technician, who has a large guitar junkyard in a room above his store, out of which he has in the past been able to harvest tuning machines which he sold to me for like 5 bucks each. Of course they didn't match the other ones on the guitar, but this never bothered me and made me feel like I had a customized instrument. The small gold head tuned the D string, the mother of pearl tipped one, the G string, type of thing...
I have enough money for a brand new Suzuki Harpmaster harmonica, and that is where I should store my treasure. Nothing makes me feel confident that I can go out and busk up a good amount of money like having a pristine harmonica, factory tuned by Japanese people using lasers. "Spend all of your money on a new harmonica, and money for everything else will take care of itself" I say.
It's similar to teaching a man to fish, except it's not quite "for life" -the harp eventually wears out...
Uxi Duxi has 5 ounce bags of kratom for sale, at $40 each, and wouldn't you know, the very first one that I looked at after they had been first displayed in their glass case, alongside a couple others, was the "Green Borneo," which is the strain that I usually get.
I envisioned myself doing a 3 to 5 day intensive music recording session, fueled by kratom.
The way it works out, I pay 3 bucks for a 5 gram shot almost every day, it's a habit like the morning cup of coffee habit.
Numerology, And Why You Shouldn't Borrow From A Witch
I have blogged in the past about how, in the cosmic world that I inhabit, this amount of 3 dollars recurred in the "all day bus pass" that I had been relegated to spending after my bike was stolen about 9 month ago.
The bike had been stolen on a night when the barista at the Uxi Duxi (where witchcraft is facilitated through books and rocks and mushrooms) had given me a shot of kratom on credit.
I had no problem making the 3 dollars (I think it had been a 28 dollar night) but the bike had gotten stolen while I was doing it because I didn't lock it correctly; I went around the pole but not through the frame.
This, I had seen as being kratom related, because I was feeling so industrious and ready to get right to playing, after a shot of green Borneo, that I had hastily locked it.
It seemed like, after borrowing a 3 dollar shot of kratom, I was going to wind up paying 3 dollars every day for the bus pass until I got a new bike. 9 months of bus passes later, it is like that shot of kratom cost me about 800 dollars (but saved me a lot of pedaling, to look on the bright side).
The Smoke Clears Around The Ben Lambie Situation
After reading a couple comments left on recent posts by none other than Ben Lambie, I was made aware of at least a couple things:
First of all, I was wrong in thinking that he doesn't give enough of a shit about me and my life to ever even check out this blog, and so I can talk "all kinds of shit" about him here.
Second, it was the cigarette smoking, and my failure to have remained off them, after I had succeeded in going a couple weeks without, that was what caused him to leave my place and get an Airbnb for the rest of his vacation.
I remember thinking that, by the time he arrived, I would have been about one month without a cigarette and would be starting to reap the benefits of that healthier lifestyle and it was one extra incentive to stay the course, be strong, disciplined, not a slave to a weed that grows in Virginia, etc.
It is still a mystery to me why, though, he didn't say something like: "Hey, didn't we discuss this already?" as soon as I lit up the first one, whereupon I would have gone outside to smoke during the rest of his stay.
What I wound up doing was opening the door and kind of blowing my smoke out into the hallway, being too lazy to go outside every time.
But, rather than mention it, I guess he chose the passive-aggressive approach of just going away, to punish me for not abiding by his request.
Add that to the list of consequences of smoking, along with complicated pregnancies, I guess.
I guess you would have to go through 15 years of having your roommates chosen for you and having to smell their farts, to understand Ben's attitude.
It was a blessing that he wasn't allergic to cats. I would have been going outside to smoke and to pet Harold at the same time.
Like I said, though, I closed the door to the back bedroom like we had been doing, and found that the air became mighty stuffy, even to someone who has lived under a wharf with a black caped night heron, within a couple hours.
I'm thinking of drilling a hole through the wooden frame around the painted shut windows of the place, and installing something like an aquarium pump to draw fresh air into the place -so maybe something good can come out of the Ben Lambie fiasco...
The Other Cheek
I got a letter from the food stamp office, addressed to Travis Blain, "care of" myself.
What kind of care I will give the letter, I am still debating.
I could turn the other cheek and call him to inform him of the action that he must take to keep his free food coming, so he can continue to live off Ramen Noodles and use his cash for keeping himself stoned 24/7 and for a roof under which to do it, while feeding his cat the most vile food found underneath the bottom shelf of the dollar store.
Or, I can send the letter back to the department with a note stating that "I" make so much money working online for Amazon now, that I will never need food stamps again, and thanking them for all their past assistance.
Or, something between those two extremes...
 |
| Zen, the zen alchemist, at Uxi Duxi |
I was in the supermarket, and there, on sale was a brick of "chicory coffee."
I had never bought chicory coffee before.
I knew it was a Louisiana kind of thing because, the first time I went to jail in this state (where the highest per capita amount of its citizens are incarcerated in the nation) there was something funny about the coffee.
That was the time I was arrested as part of a "sweep," when the Baton Rouge police were given the freedom to indiscriminately remove any and all people from the street who appeared homeless as part of the buildup to the LSU homecoming game. I was charged with "disturbing the peace."
The East Baton Rouge Parish Prison was populated by a lot of racist black inmates and the blood of white inmates splattered the walls and floors. I had the good fortune of having been taken under the wing of the biggest (by at least 20 pounds) and baddest (by 2 murders) inmate in our block, who had seen me, while the other few new arrivals were walking the block, scrambling to find one of the empty beds so they wouldn't have to sleep on a mat on the floor. I had been so absorbed by the book that I was reading, that I sat at a table, not wanting to put it down, even to find one of the cells that had only one inmate and an empty bed so I wouldn't have to sleep on the floor on a mat.
"Oh, you like to read; you can move in with me," Dominique Smith had said. But that is a story that has been blogged already (August 2011).
The chicory coffee "woke me up," when it was delivered at 6 AM along with breakfast in bed. I would have traded food items off of the previous days trays for "your coffee in the morning," and would wind up drinking at least a half dozen cups of it.
 |
| Another former cellmate who might need a couch to crash on... |
Mystery Solved; Case Closed
I got this current batch of chicory coffee the night that I had started to develop a toothache.
At one point, I had doused my hands in sanitizing liquid before putting my fingers in my mouth to explore for where exactly the pain was coming from and, as the pain worsened, hoping to find a loose tooth that I might pull out, out of desperation.
Then, as the evening went on, I began to feel an unease in my stomach. My spine, especially around where the nerves to the stomach were attached tightened up, as if my body was trying to brace itself against something.
I thought that I had perhaps not let the sanitizing liquid dry completely and had swallowed some and it had gone into my stomach and killed all of the "good" bacteria so that I was not digesting the rice and beans that I had eaten and that my body was trying to pass it, undigested, through me. That's what it felt like.
I also considered that maybe one shouldn't mix Ibuprofen with chicory coffee, or with hand sanitizing liquid or with both.
I was so bound up and suffering that I called Rose on the 3rd floor, who gave me 8 "stool softeners" in (a groovy purple and white swirl patterned colored) pill form.
"Take all eight," suggested Rose.
She said that using laxatives would be a much harder row to hoe, as they would bring about "cramps" as they worked. The whole analogy of a woman in labor trying to pass a baby came to mind.
Well, the pills kind of worked, and I kind of had returned to normal by this afternoon when I woke up and had a large cup of steaming chicory coffee.
This time I didn't swallow down any sanitizing liquid with it.
My spine in the middle of my back soon had tightened up, as if bracing itself against something, and, at the age of 55, I had discovered that chicory doesn't agree with me. This is good knowledge to have and sheds a whole new light upon why I had to meditate so much when in that jail, just to try to relax the knot in the middle of my back, that I wasn't sure what to attribute to.
But I feel like I have a wad of undigested chicory that I will have to pass through the 20,000 miles of intestinal tract, or whatever it is, that I have, and have learned a lesson. I'm glad I only drank one cup and I'll get some real coffee on my way home after leaving here (The Uxi Duxi).
The abscessed tooth is receding (as seen in top photo) and I feel like I am gaining the upper hand over it.
 |
| I did get a bike light, though... |
The 160 bucks of Mardi Gras money that I deposited is down to something like 48 bucks, with no large, significant purchase to show for it.
I thought I was going to have to use the balance of it for some kind of laptop when this one went down. Or, at least a replacement power supply.
Two of the tuning machines on the Takamine guitar are screwed up and I have to turn them in the opposite of their intended direction to bring the strings up to tension.
This is a temporary solution, as I have learned in the past -average life span of about 2 months before the things become inoperable in either direction.
But, since I can tune the thing up tonight (and every night is "tonight," right?) I have been procrastinating upon making the trip to Webbs Bywater Music to see Paul the technician, who has a large guitar junkyard in a room above his store, out of which he has in the past been able to harvest tuning machines which he sold to me for like 5 bucks each. Of course they didn't match the other ones on the guitar, but this never bothered me and made me feel like I had a customized instrument. The small gold head tuned the D string, the mother of pearl tipped one, the G string, type of thing...
I have enough money for a brand new Suzuki Harpmaster harmonica, and that is where I should store my treasure. Nothing makes me feel confident that I can go out and busk up a good amount of money like having a pristine harmonica, factory tuned by Japanese people using lasers. "Spend all of your money on a new harmonica, and money for everything else will take care of itself" I say.
It's similar to teaching a man to fish, except it's not quite "for life" -the harp eventually wears out...
Uxi Duxi has 5 ounce bags of kratom for sale, at $40 each, and wouldn't you know, the very first one that I looked at after they had been first displayed in their glass case, alongside a couple others, was the "Green Borneo," which is the strain that I usually get.
I envisioned myself doing a 3 to 5 day intensive music recording session, fueled by kratom.
The way it works out, I pay 3 bucks for a 5 gram shot almost every day, it's a habit like the morning cup of coffee habit.
Numerology, And Why You Shouldn't Borrow From A Witch
I have blogged in the past about how, in the cosmic world that I inhabit, this amount of 3 dollars recurred in the "all day bus pass" that I had been relegated to spending after my bike was stolen about 9 month ago.
The bike had been stolen on a night when the barista at the Uxi Duxi (where witchcraft is facilitated through books and rocks and mushrooms) had given me a shot of kratom on credit.
I had no problem making the 3 dollars (I think it had been a 28 dollar night) but the bike had gotten stolen while I was doing it because I didn't lock it correctly; I went around the pole but not through the frame.
This, I had seen as being kratom related, because I was feeling so industrious and ready to get right to playing, after a shot of green Borneo, that I had hastily locked it.
It seemed like, after borrowing a 3 dollar shot of kratom, I was going to wind up paying 3 dollars every day for the bus pass until I got a new bike. 9 months of bus passes later, it is like that shot of kratom cost me about 800 dollars (but saved me a lot of pedaling, to look on the bright side).
The Smoke Clears Around The Ben Lambie Situation
After reading a couple comments left on recent posts by none other than Ben Lambie, I was made aware of at least a couple things:
First of all, I was wrong in thinking that he doesn't give enough of a shit about me and my life to ever even check out this blog, and so I can talk "all kinds of shit" about him here.
Second, it was the cigarette smoking, and my failure to have remained off them, after I had succeeded in going a couple weeks without, that was what caused him to leave my place and get an Airbnb for the rest of his vacation.
I remember thinking that, by the time he arrived, I would have been about one month without a cigarette and would be starting to reap the benefits of that healthier lifestyle and it was one extra incentive to stay the course, be strong, disciplined, not a slave to a weed that grows in Virginia, etc.
It is still a mystery to me why, though, he didn't say something like: "Hey, didn't we discuss this already?" as soon as I lit up the first one, whereupon I would have gone outside to smoke during the rest of his stay.
What I wound up doing was opening the door and kind of blowing my smoke out into the hallway, being too lazy to go outside every time.
But, rather than mention it, I guess he chose the passive-aggressive approach of just going away, to punish me for not abiding by his request.
Add that to the list of consequences of smoking, along with complicated pregnancies, I guess.
I guess you would have to go through 15 years of having your roommates chosen for you and having to smell their farts, to understand Ben's attitude.
It was a blessing that he wasn't allergic to cats. I would have been going outside to smoke and to pet Harold at the same time.
Like I said, though, I closed the door to the back bedroom like we had been doing, and found that the air became mighty stuffy, even to someone who has lived under a wharf with a black caped night heron, within a couple hours.
I'm thinking of drilling a hole through the wooden frame around the painted shut windows of the place, and installing something like an aquarium pump to draw fresh air into the place -so maybe something good can come out of the Ben Lambie fiasco...
The Other Cheek
I got a letter from the food stamp office, addressed to Travis Blain, "care of" myself.
What kind of care I will give the letter, I am still debating.
I could turn the other cheek and call him to inform him of the action that he must take to keep his free food coming, so he can continue to live off Ramen Noodles and use his cash for keeping himself stoned 24/7 and for a roof under which to do it, while feeding his cat the most vile food found underneath the bottom shelf of the dollar store.
Or, I can send the letter back to the department with a note stating that "I" make so much money working online for Amazon now, that I will never need food stamps again, and thanking them for all their past assistance.
Or, something between those two extremes...
Chicory coffee is great! what you do is, get one of those orange cans of "French Market coffee" and a "phinn" which is a Vietnamese coffee maker, watch YouTube videos on how to use it, and enjoy!
ReplyDeleteOh, and if you need a laxative, just take a spoonful of gumbo file' it'll move things along. Geez, you're in New Orleans and I'm out here in California and I know these things and you haven't picked them up?
ReplyDelete