blogs, city streets, breads, blood type O

What is blogging? Is it an act of despair? An attempt mainly at self-promotion, of some arrogance? Irresponsible journalism outside the realm of reasonable editorship? A place for vices and being a crank about something? A good chance to sound like a Trostkyite? Who gives a darn? We read me? Why is my randomness applicable to anything important at all?

Still, it interests me, how a blog takes form. You're writing a piece that's been on your mind, just trying to get it out into words, and you say quite often to yourself as you write, 'well, this is craziness.' Only as an intellectual exercise of some sort do you permit yourself to wander on. But, if I am allowed to be wildly optimistic, slowly you are constructing a pyramid, if you have faith with this little form of expression, the blog. Every day, you roll a new block out from the cave pit of the mind, throwing the wooded logs of sentences underneath, pulling it forward.

One is entitled to his thoughts, after all. They are a part of his karma, as it is the karma of the child with musical talents to be born into a family supportive of music. The thoughts are a kind of inheritance. Was it Keats then who described education as 'the process of imagining, of remembering what you already know,' to clumsily quote an interesting notion that is not my own. So is one blog piece like a doorway to the next, a continuing process of imagining and fleshing out instinctively the things of this finite world, piecing together why is a Kennedy a Kennedy, or what is the connection therein which links Irish culture to Catholicism, Catholicism to liberalist political agendas, politics to poetry, one set of attachments running over and joining with others, on and on, so that ultimately all things are connected in some meaningful you-almost-don't-want-to-even-call-it hierarchy, for its suggestion of one thing over another in the scheme of things, whereas real things are humble and agree to patiently coexist without bother.

So, why, it's interesting to ask, was I born into this family and not that family; why at this time, my life, and not some other time; what does it mean to get older; why do I habitually fall toward this set of sins rather than another one; why do I ask questions; why do I blog, etc. Many many interesting questions, when you stop to think, and even more basic ones, such as, why do I have legs, two of them, not four, not wings, not fins; why do I have two eyes which face forward as opposed to the whale's or the birds? And maybe more to the point, maybe blogging is just the thing, that I wouldn't have it any other way, to write just so, my own 'to catch the conscience of the king,' for my own tastes.

I like to wander the streets at night. The streets seem real to me. Many are passing them, obviously, for the sake of a destination, a good steak, live music, a lively restaurant, a party. Often times I am lugging my groceries home, mineral water, V8, catfood, spinach, and so I cannot stop, as it would be awkward to burden into a place with your stuff. But if you are passing along, you see, at least in the summertime, when it's not too hot, a bit of the character of a place by the people by the door, coming and going. An outdoor table. A doorman. A sign. A conversation outside. The lively way people step out on a Friday night, the city spread before them for their taking.

The streets are, through their very physical nature of taking up geographic space, a part of the natural world. That world may be completely paved over, and built up completely with big blocks of amorphous car parks, but still, chances are there will be a tree, maybe a weed poking out, birds. Streets are susceptible to weather. Rain makes them shiny, lights reflecting. They are built out of some form of stone, rock dust, cement, and when they are wet, you can smell the minerally stone in them. Lights, natural and artificial, play across them, as moonlight does. Not all of them are perfectly flat and straight and endless. Some have no choice but to abide by the geography, a hill. If you walk them enough, observantly, you get a picture of humanity, out of a compilation, the variety, of all from homeless bench-sitter, to fancy date people, and now of course, the cars going by, the likes of which leads one to the conclusion that a lot of people have found some mysterious way to make money, as by selling drugs. All walks of life.

A neighborhood barman restores some nature to the street. He is a welcoming neighbor, to be found at a certain place along a city street. His presence, the establishment itself, sets one point in a street in relation to another, a point on one's mental compass. He is there to meet the randomness of life that drops in.


Dough, as good as it tastes when done well, inflames and congests. It puts me in a confused mood, and maybe even depresses me. I know that may sound silly.

I eat now the kind of bread that is supposed to be good for people of my blood type, which is O. It is found in freezer sections of health minded grocery stores. I can eat whole grain rye, and Ezekial Bread, made of sprouted grains, millet, oats, etc., but the best for me of all, is called Manna Bread. I find it touchingly simple. It is nothing more than sprouted rye and water. It doesn't cut so elegantly. It has a texture that could be described as being mushy. It comes in the shape of a low loaf form, and because one can not easily cut a thin piece, and because it has not risen, a cross section shaped like a biscotti, it doesn't really lend itself so well to that modern staple, the sandwich. It's good to chew on, however, and to soak it with olive oil and maybe a slice of tomato with a sprinkle of thyme, oregano, and basil. As it turns out, I should add, these are herbs that are naturally anti-inflammatory. No wonder they should taste so good to us.

Manna Bread has no flour in it. No wheat gluten, which is the main culprit that makes bread as we commonly experience it fairly bad for people with the blood type O, at least as far as weight gain, congestion and poor digestion.

O people do well with fish and animal protein, red meat. They should avoid acidic things. Potatoes promote arthritis. Peanuts also should be avoided, along with corn and lentils. But to examine Manna Bread in its simple rustic beauty is to learn something about early humans, about human evolution. The bread speaks of how life was for this charactered creature that rose to the top of the food chain. They kept operations pretty simple. They took grains as they came upon them on the go, and basically germinated them, so that the grains were a living protein, then baked them after forming a lump. It was very simple and very basic, and this made them happy and joyful, the Os, and the recipe survived. They were nourished, and Manna Bread didn't slow them down or mess with their joints. (Rice is something else Os can handle.) Then the next beast would come along, and the O's natural light-or-flight adrenal response would kick in and out come the spears, the arrows, the harpoons and fishing apparatus, the traps and whatnot. The Os followed the migrations of the natural creatures they liked to cook up and eat. The cave painting of Lascaux suggest Os found a powerful poetry and beauty in animal form and grace. The iron skillet, while very useful, they chose not to immortalize so.

Other blood types would come along, with other systems, and bread became part of a very fancy and elaborate process involving what must have took a lot of cooperation within a settlement. Some grew the wheat, some milled it, some baked breads out of it, and maybe some took to selling it as a means of fairly distributing it. But this bread, so made, so tasty, was not so good for Os. It wouldn't kill them, but nor would it promote optimal health, and as mankind was, had to be, very in touch and in tune with his body and its functions would have felt the poisonous nature associated with ingesting certain foods. The O man would return to the life he loved, the good exercise he got running down naturally grass-fed bison meat, the thrill of the hunt, the pride of the catch and bringing home dinner. He would let those people have their wheat and their pasta and their risen bread and the life associated with it, and maybe exchange a strip steak for a green vegetable if it were hard to find them growing naturally in his path. They were human too, the wheat growers, the people of that kind of society, and their females were attractive too, if a bit crazy. You could find common ground with them if you had to, even if you were pulled quite a bit more by the savage calls of nature and beast, and didn't really need any caffeine to get revved up. (And maybe they, the settled down, thought that you were the one who was off a bit, excitable.)

Os require a good dose of aerobic exercise at least three times a week to keep from going nuts. Manna Bread doesn't slow them down. It's good for Os to write things down, a natural way for them to vent. They have an excellent immune system, but they need to remember their roots as they cope with modern life.