Letter to Julia 20110730

So, you like my jeans? Actually, they are too long for me: they would fit you, but the waist might be too big. Not that I could ever fit in your clothes: you're just too dainty, even though you're so tall. Sigh. I've become too bulky in my old age. I don't get much of a thrill from gender-bending anymore, for the simple reason that I don't pass. My hobby now is tending the yard, and watching the plants grow.

Fasting month should start on Monday. Are you excited? Are you psyched? Are you ready to rock? Well, I'm getting ready to fast. My cooler is actually full for a change. I found a great deal on mackerel, so I bought 3 kilos. 3 kilos! Have you ever filleted 3 kilos of mackerel? Now, that's tedious. But all that fish fits so much easier in my ice box, including the bones for calcium, fish heads for Chee Cheah, and the liver and roe for flavor and as a delicacy. This is also the season for fruits called durians, which you may have heard of but I don't eat, and cempedaks. The flesh of the 2 fruits are similar, except that the durian smells like a bomb and has a higher fat content, while the seeds of the cempedak are edible. I really don't like either all that much: I dislike fruits with a high sugar content. The cempedak has so much sugar in it, that it turns from light green to black when overripe! Can you imagine that happening to your limbs or something? Ew! But it so happens that on my mother's property grow some cempedak trees, and I happen to have one fruit which I removed the flesh, and kept in my cooler. I don't know what to do with it yet. Sweet and sour? Maybe I could use it to caramelize beef? I certainly can't eat it fresh, for all that sugar will make me sick. The flavor is so strong, though, and I have so much of it... And that's just from one cempedak!

It sure must be nice to be you in New York. You're so pretty, with a smorgasbord of food to select from. Of course you don't eat it all, otherwise you would be a blimp-sized model. I do miss a lot of the food of the USA. Strawberries, Dreyer's and Breyer's, Polkska Keilbasa (the Jewish and Middle eastern one, of course), and the wide variety of cheeses. I even miss the Middle Eastern food there, like gyros, which I used to eat daily. I would buy a whole wheel of gyro meat and keep it in my cooler. The grease is not edible or usable (expect maybe to lubricate pistons and bicycle chains), but the meat is so versatile. I believe The Boss commanded me to stand my ground in the USA, but I was unable to do so, as I was forced out of my home & studio. Not that I would have been able to stop the financial meltdown or anything like that, but who knows what would have happened? Perhaps I would have died a martyr on the streets as a sidewalk musician, and became the catalyst for a global thermonuclear war? Instead, I fled back to my mommy like a coward in exile, to a similar situation here. Well, at least the house belongs to my mother, so there's little chance I would get evicted.

Due to your connection with me, you will find people seeking your aid in religion. Yes, I know that you are barely a Muslim, but it is your duty to help them, except against a people with whom you have a treaty of mutual alliance.