Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Mostly Tripe, with Poetry

One of the menu items at Canton Wonton House is Beef Bibles Tripe with Vegetable. Does one order that with a side of Deuteronomy? [Thanks to TP for Deuteronomy.]

Honestly.

I ordered wonton soup (which I keep wanting to type as "wanton" soup) with crispy noodles but there was nothing crisp about anything. The tea tasted like bleach.

The bok choi, however, was lovely and fresh, as were the wontons, with shrimp nestled inside each one.

I wonder: can one order the Beef Bibles Tripe and hold the bibles? And when the word "vegetable" is singular as it was tonight, my worry is that they've already sold the one vegetable. Or does it mean that it comes with generic "vegetable", an undistingiushable fibrous mass? These things are cause for concern.


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Manuscript preparation is a chore I detest, so much in fact that tonight, in lieu of getting to work on it, I sat down and paid bills. If I don't watch out I'll soon have a sparkling oven and tidy closets. God help me if I start on the garage — it'll be taps for my future in poetry.

Many decisions to be made re: poem choice. Toss the ex-husband. Revive the dead husband. How much history to include? Keep it mostly au courant? There are a lot of pieces that aren't particularly pretty, pieces that might cause a ruckus. (Of course, that's assuming that 1) the collection gets published, and 2) someone reads it.) Include humor? (That's an easy one: yes.)

Oh dither dither dither.

As Kafka says at the top right of this blog, "Writing means revealing oneself to excess." Can't be avoided.

(The good news is that there's a press interested in reading my manuscript.)



4 comments:

  1. Nowadays Chinese restaurant owners make sure their menus are translated by proper English speaking natives. A lot of fun has been lost to the world.

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  2. the tea tasted like bleach? yuk.

    so pleased that you have press who is interested in your work! I don't envy you the task of preparing the manuscript, however, the decision points you describe seem impossible. Best of luck - and if you run out of diversions, I've got a car that could use some detailing.

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  3. Aw, go for the ruckus. And hooray about the press!

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  4. This is just hilarious. 'hold the bibles' -Ha! Love it.

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