Pop and Goofy Tie

On Christmas Day, the first I'd had with Pop since mayyyyybe 1991? 92? 90? fuck, 1876? we popped a few bottles, ate root vegetables, rolled a few virginia slims, cried a bit, made a fire, ate oysters with lemon from the sea (the oysters, lemons come from trees) and listened to Pepe Marchena and Charlie Parker, Miles for Miles played for dessert...We sat in Teresa's kitchen...which, as a word, does not do the environment she has created justice. I know that kitchens are not for all women and vice versa, same for men...for me, the kitchen has good memories (colombia, san francisco, modesto, 2nd Street BKLN, 18th Street SF, 44 Broderick Street, 365 Clinton Street, etc.) but I do not know how to inhabit it...I find it more of a foreign space than not...Teresa's kitchen carries in it a constant stream of smells and ghosts and stories and sons and daughters always present, peeking in the bread box searching for one of Teresa's famed cakes or warm bread...it is the type of place where hours pass and all of a sudden it's dark outside and past your bedtime...anyway, aside from winning a Pulitzer or finding validation, making and having a kitchen where life breathes and lives is another of my lofty goals...Pop sported this tie all day, and I wore the tough guy jacket he gave me when we went out later...It belonged to a traqueto named Gary Cuellar, who gave it to Beto Borja in Paris in the 1980s, who traded it for another jacket of Pop's in San Francisco...and when Camilo is 18, I will give it to him. At that time, perhaps I can afford a place with central heating, and will not need to wear it while I cook in my kitchen.