On Avocados

June 9, 2011: I really like avocados. It's not something I talk a lot about, but it's true. I mean, I really love them, actually.

To begin, you may or may not know that my favorite color is green. (You may or may not care, but it's important I establish that, given how green avocados really are.) Avocados offer a range of greens to them also, not just one, like some produce -- (oranges, for instance, in my estimation, don't try hard enough; it's like they just live on their reputation, while avocados are always giving it their all). That's one of the things I love about avocados -- their greenness. There's the initial skin, which is often brown actually, and I have nothing against brown, per se, but it doesn't satisfy me at the level that green does. Anyway, they're also green inside, and it's such a lovely green (and I know greens, believe me!).

More interesting, they also kind of roll in color inside from that deep, gritty green into soft yellow, and I just love that. It reminds me of a pistachio nut, which I really love for their color range, which will have that green to yellow transition (and a nice red shell in many cases), and pistachio nuts remind me of autumn leaves in the earlier part of the season, in particular the maples. Or perhaps more accurately the maples, especially the sugar maples, remind me of pistachio nuts, which in turn remind me of avocados, but not quite as much, but you see how it all comes full circle, and I haven't even gotten to the fourth paragraph yet.

I also really love the consistency of avocados -- that firm yet mushy quality that holds its form so well, and yet can be mashed at those times when a mashing is in order. It might be worth noting here (and why not here, for who knows for how long I can keep going on about a vegetable, after all) that I have a very great way of peeling avocados simply and quickly and cleanly ... but I won't tell it to you here and you'll have to write me directly if you want to know it.

I like how avocados taste, too. It's a nutty taste, though not quite pistachio-ian in nature. I love guacamole too, but an avocado alone still lights up my train whistle. I hate it when they start turning, however, and some crappy restaurants will try and serve you avocado with those awful grey-black patches of disgust. Shame on them, the dirty, mealy bastards! Avocados are often put on hamburgers in California, which was one of the things that really attracted me to the idea of moving there years ago. (Now you can get avocado on burgers in Connecticut, so why leave the state?!)

Another great thing about the avocado is that enormous seed. I mean, how can you not love that seed. It's not even a seed, or at least to call it a seed seems insubstantial. It should be called a pod, or a goiter or something. And I have an especial fondness for those seeds because, for some strange reason, my mother used to always try growing them when I was a kid. Yes, she had some weird book -- I remember it was green -- not avocado green, but more of a lime green -- and just such a 1969 artifact (back when they made books of irregular size and length, and on unique topics like growing avocados). And so my mom would stick toothpicks in these seeds and put them in a glass of water and hide them in a dark cabinet ... and there they'd start growing roots, like those pods in "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," and the water would turn brown and when they got big enough, I guess, she'd plant them and they never grew. But it was always a nice kind of thing, really, these nice avocado goiters sprouting in our dark cabinets, like alien symbiotes.

I haven't touched on many other aspects of the avocado, but perhaps I can revisit the topic later in the summer. I'm remembering fondly the one and only time I ever actually saw an avocado tree, which was a few years ago when I was living in Santa Monica, and I just randomly happened to walk by one in front of someone's lawn -- this little leafy plant with a whole mess of these things hanging off of it. It was awesome. "Hey!" I said outloud, even though I was alone (and you see, it was okay, because this was California), and I said, "That's an avocado tree!"

And it was!

How Green Is My Toilet

March 17, 2011: Aloha and begorah to all you Irish folk; may all your vomit be green vomit.

Remembering that I've adequately bashed this and other revered iconic March moments in past Blah-ugh! entries, I thought tonight I'd (once again) focus on something much nearer and dearer to my heart -- the sanctity of toilets. Toward that end -- (and I must have used that silly double-entendre before!) -- I thought I'd present you with a most poetic moment that I experienced just tonight.

You see, I was feeling somewhat despondent earlier owing to several factors -- among them, humanity's failure to recognize my greatness, my Blah-ugh! readers' failure to recognize my greatness, my failure (thus far) to find a literary agent, my Blah-ugh! readers' failure to help me find a literary agent ... All in all it was a frustrating night, in which I was focused on humanity's numerous shortcomings, as well as the one or two that I can claim. Most of all, I couldn't shake that too-often recurring sense of my not being understood, of my not being accepted as I am, and not being loved simply because I'm (after all) so infectiously lovable.

So it was that I found myself in the downstairs toilet of my local library; not for any particular reason, except I had to urinate, and what better place for a literary man like myself to do so. And as I approached the urinal, I was overcome with that singular inspiration one only finds in Muse-addled moments of bathroom clarity, and the first lines of an inspired poem formed effortlessly in my pee-focused mind ... I took out my pen and wrote:

"Hello Toilet.
You still accept me, despite my shortcomings.
I can always come to you
Open and honest
And share
My innermost secrets"

Yes, once again, the answers were presenting themselves in porcelain, and all I had to do was show up. All at once my angst and frustration were softened by the satisfaction of being understood, as well as the elation of creative birthing. (I knew I was on to something big, and envisioned the veritable epic I would write as both tribute and analysis of the role the toilet has played in my life.)

Then suddenly this guy came in and hurried into the adjacent stall. This, in itself, wouldn't have bothered me, but he began talking over the wall. "Do you use the toilet on the second floor that often?" he said. And believe me, I froze, because I'm not one to talk to strangers in a toilet, let alone close friends. For a minute, I thought I must have imagined it, or perhaps he'd brought a phone with him or ... something. Let me tell you, it was very disconcerting.

"Somebody tore the toilet paper dispenser right off the wall," he said, louder now. "Brand new it was!" Again, I didn't respond, but raced to wash my hands and flee before he came out and identified me. (I was probably in my car before he even had a chance to flush.)

Looking back, after I jotted down his dialogue to get it verbatim, it seemed a kind of interesting coincidence that this weirdo would intrude on my toilet solace to express his own (dare I say) loving insights and experiences relating to the sacrosanct library toilets. And who was I, but a self-centered urinator bent on using the toilet to meet my own needs and not open to sharing the communal nature of this particular pee parlor.

Anyway, it gave me pause, if not humility. Tonight I was able to recognize our shared humanity, replete with the fallibility, need to be accepted, and -- when all is said and done -- deep, deep affection for, and gratitude toward, the many toilets in our lives.