the Genny

Heath. I always use black pepper in my chai.

Here is my personally tried and true recipe:

Cardamom pods

Cloves

Bayleaf (x 2)

Vanilla pod

Cinnamon stick

Nutmeg

Black pepper (whole peppercorns)

2/3 water

1/3 milk (full cream)

Black tea (add tea at the end, after everything has got its – I want to say juices flowing – or, guts out – but it sounds like the opposite of what chai tea stands for so I’ll say none of it)

Optional – fresh ginger – noting that this adds heat and changes the entire feel of it. I add ginger once in a blue moon. That’s not me talking about your broken heart ok?

If you want to know how I do it please do feel free to ask.

You can view this as a written invitation. Since you’ve been too much of a fucking pussy to instigate a conversation with me when you’ve wanted to.

Just joking. Not really. Yeah, nah, I am.

On the black coffee front… I did try and drink black coffee but I just find it lacking in roundness. Cream has the right density I need to add the right roundness without messing with the overall components of the coffee. Milk isn’t dense enough to do what it needs to do. I won’t spend any time on why – it’s not worth the time. I feel the same way about rice, by the way. I just don’t care about it, rice. I won’t spend time on why.

I never buy ready made coffee from a coffee house or bulletshop or pop up thing or cafe. Not even in cities or towns where they make super good coffee. They never make it how I want it. That’s not true, let me say that differently: I never know what to order. What I want doesn’t exist there. The closest I get is piccolo latte but even that isn’t right.

So it’s not them, it’s me. I’m not uncultured, I’m just not into it. I love to do these things time-to-time though – go to somewhere where they represent this whole thing to the hilt.

But really only once will I walk through their door. I’ll not make a habit of it. Not that one door. I’ll go to another door another time.

It’s just not for me. The whole thing is not built for me. I feel it. It laughs at me. It looks at me and then takes a sweeping glance with a wave of its hand around the room and looks back at me, smirking, and says nothing. Nothing needs to be said. We both know it’s not for me, what that whole thing is for.

But I’m the same at supermarkets. I never know what to get. So I don’t go often. What do people eat? What do I eat? It’s too much to think about – I don’t know. I do like the music they play at supermarkets though. Farmers’ markets are even worse. Unless there’s agricultural equipment there. And maybe a crocheted tea cosy somewhere. Rickety trestle tables definitely. But even then it’s not for me. I already own that stuff.

I just bought a lovely generator last month, by the way. I call it ‘the Genny’. She’s a goer. Another fucking power cut? No problem – get the Genny out. Lacking spark? Got a broken — I dunno — anything?

Go into the big shed, wheel the Genny out.

Same with clothes shopping. I can’t do it. I hate the shops. I hate looking. I hate being asked if I need help. Ha. Do I need help? Fucking hell, do I fucking what? Where does one start?

If I need clothes I make them myself. If I must buy them I hold off for weeks, months even, then I spontaneously take a right (or left) turn into a shop one random day and spend hundreds or whatever (the timing’s right, you see, it’s synchronicity or something – they had everything I liked and it fit me). Because it was time. The moons were aligned or something. Not blue moons though, Heath. I’m not trying to get you to talk about your broken heart, I’m talking about shops for chrissakes.

Malls. Twice in a month I’ve gone to a local mall to get Apple stuff (when I say local I mean it’s about a 40 minute drive away on an open road (go however fast you want but drive to the conditions) freeway so, miles away thank fuck) and each time I’ve gone I’ve wanted to bawl my eyes out while I’m there. I’ve felt so upset at the whole concept of a mall. The bling of it. The music. The colours and smells. What it all stands for. I look around at the people and feel despair. I want to say ‘no, don’t come here, go to the workshop. Go to the funny cardigan wearing guy down the road!’. But they don’t want that. So I’ve stood on the escalator and gotten quite blue about the entire thing. Heath, still not a ploy to try to get you to talk about being blue.

What I want is for the world to go back to one-on-one but with the knowledge of now. Going to the sole practitioner. Going to the one guy. Need this? Go to ole Blanche – she does that shit. Oh, that thing of yours needs a service? Go to Bob. Bob’s been doing that for ages. Bob’ll look after you. Oh, you need one of those? Bruce has just come up with a way to suss that out. Bruce — yeah, Bruce is weird but he susses it, you know, give him time. Bartering system. People who care. People who know. People who want to know. People who suss it if they don’t know but need to know, either for themselves or others who need it to be known.

But we can’t, can we. The world has gone too far for that kind of carry-on. And we wouldn’t have had the knowledge if not for now. Sort of. Unless you’ve had access to one of the marvels of old.

I sort of have it, how I live. But I want to go more remote again.

Sometimes I think the only way the world will be that way again is if it almost ends and then rebuilds itself but remembers what happened last time.

NB: I am aware most of this makes no sense. This is what’s on my mind at the moment. Sometimes a conversation with me is shorter. Next time I’ll probably use only one or two words. Maybe more swearing. Or less. But it’ll all mean the same to me.