SELECTED APPETITES
“If there is any truth to the saying that God is in the details,
then it pays to get on a first-name basis with the details.”
— Bill Hylton, Illustrated Cabinetmaking
I consider losing my appetite to evidence positive moral and ethical standards. I consume a single Kopiko, no pot of coffee or stack of toasted vacuum-sealed German bread. I should be more productive. I should be writing The Book. J. is training for a half-marathon. The cat is hunting stink bugs. The stink bugs live inside our cellular shades, but I don’t tell the cat. He tracks onion and garlic skins through the house. The house has a lean to it, so the skins accumulate on one side. We mitigate the lean somewhat by keeping the heavy furniture on the opposite side. The skins rustle like mice inside a wall. I sealed the exterior with blocking, steel wool, and expanding foam. The worry is sealing something inside and not knowing until you smell the rot. The odor in the basement means the roots in the sewer line need to be cleared. We need a bucket of copper sulfate. I scrape the main water supply line with a penny. I learned this trick at a rally against lead poisoning, then from a pamphlet distributed by a coalition against lead poisoning, then during the city’s lead poisoning awareness week. The worry is how it tastes like candy. I began eating stacks of toasted vacuum-sealed German bread to lose weight by inundating my body with fiber. We read books about clean living. We buy a Vitamix. I misload it. I overfill it. It overheats. I overeat. We eat piths. We replace our nonstick pans with carbon steel. I season and re-season them, test them by frying eggs that have become too expensive to be sacrificial. J.’s body rejects eggs, she believes, because of her past diner exploits. We read books about victory gardens. We start a garden in the backyard. We wield hori hori knives and multi-pronged cultivators. We get our knees wet. We mist everything with wolf piss to discourage the varmints. We buy a resin owl that must be relocated every few days or else the varmints will know it isn’t living. We’re good neighbors otherwise. Our ice melt is pet safe. But one of us will have to go outside and shoo away the deer. I find tracks that lead to a gap in the neighbors’ fence. It’s spring and nobody has taken down their holiday decorations. An inflatable Bumble blows over during a windstorm. And the trees! I read a book called Understanding Wood. Another called Illustrated Cabinetmaking. I buy a handsaw and a rusted vintage Made in the USA Stanley No. 5 bench plane. I relearn to use a protractor, a square, and to sharpen a pencil. I buy warped knotty wood in sedan-friendly lengths from the home center. I click through a catalog of simulated natural material rods. I spray the exterior for carpenter ants. I put pennies in a sandwich bag and fill it with water. J. and I are making each other waxed canvas aprons. I try making her a bowl, but it ends up a spoon. I try making her a chair, but it ends up a stepstool. Now I’m trying to make us a classic six-board chest. I will line it with cedar to discourage the moths. There are holes in our sweaters. We might as well be naked in some of them. On the internet, the vice president is up to his husky varmint tricks again. He tells us to let him tell us something about Ohio and then about the rest of the USA. We might need second and third jobs. I planed these six-boards too short trying to make them square. So, do you want to buy a spoon? Do you want to buy a stepstool? The art school nearby is still hiring despite everything. I can be a nude model. I can be there wearing a sweater.