What's in a donut?

So I'm eating a donut at work (and feeling quite guilty about it) and I happen upon the list of ingredients. Reading down the list I come across the more obvious donut components... flour, water, yeast, etc. Then on to the more complicated phonetics... sodium acid pyrophosphate, sodium stearoyl lactylate, ethoxylated mono and diglycerides, etc. Then I see agar. What the fuck is agar? And why does that pique my interest more than those ingredients that require careful pronunciation?

On to wikipedia! Apparently agar is part of the donut glaze... a gelatin added for thicker texture. Not so scary. At least it's a naturally derived substance. Somehow that quells my fears.

This whole experience reminds me of my dad. If he sees guar gum on an ingredient list (we, as a family, pronounce it as a two-syllable word with stress on the first syllable), he gets the heebie-jeebies. I felt the same with the knowledge of the mysterious agar in my mouth! Yeah, guar gum sounds scary, right? Do not fear the guar gum! It's primarily the ground endosperm of guar beans, used a thickening agent (with 8 times the water thickening potency of cornstarch!) Mmmm... endosperm. Again, a naturally derived substance. From a bean!

I think we, as a packaged-food society, generally accept the more verbally complex ingredients as a necessary evil of our grab-and-go diet. "Yeah, yeah, there are preservatives and artificial chemicals in what I'm eating." They're easily overlooked and ignored... the phonetics of the word alone allow us to catalog the item as an "unknowable" thing and move on with our daily activities. But agar. Agar and guar gum gave me pause. These were tangible words, therefore tangible ideas. Small enough for suspicion. And, ironically, both derived from plant sources and used as thickening agents.

Maybe next time I'll look up sodium stearoyl lactylate.

And here's my haiku:

Quickening heart beat,
a trickle of sweat... Wiki-
pedia saved me!

Side note: Is the use of a hyphen valid in haiku timing? Thoughts?

Make it stick!

Note to self: Make sure to tell my [future] children not to fuck around with 4th grade teacher's aides.

Tape? No. Glue? No. Ah....
Staples! To affix a note
to the juvenile flesh.

Lazy!

Wow, it's been a while since I've posted anything... and since I can't think of a good reason why then today's topic is LAZINESS! And also inspiration to maintain the creative connection... assuming someone else reads this shit besides me. I'm getting my ass off the mental couch! I doubt I've been the only one who's neglected something this summer... so join me in absolution and write a damn haiku!

Two and a half months...
Seventeen syllables feels
like a marathon.

Half-light

I love the times of half-light. Twilight, dusk, dawn... before the sunrise and after the sunset. There's a crispness to everything; the light reveals details that full sun does not normally allow. Color is not saturated, the tones are muted. Blue and shadow and quiet. So yeah, I was awake through dawn this morning. Thought I'd bust out a haiku before going back to sleep.

What's your favorite time of day?


Pools of blue shadow.
There is an awareness now.
Quiet. Life is muted.

It's a process, a gift, and a journey...

Originally, this blog was to focus mainly on the form of Haiku... but once in a while a gem like this one surfaces. I just want to make sure the voices of today's poets are heard, regardless of medium! Loud and clear! With blatant emotional pauses...

Thanks Funnyordie.com! She is truly an inspiration to us all.

Everyone loves a little Diesel

I'm sure most of us have, at one time or another, run across the website that lists random facts about Vin Diesel's supra-human awesomeness. Not super, but supra... it's like a whole other level above super.

Here's a taste... When Vin Diesel goes to donate blood, he declines the syringe, and instead requests a hand gun and a bucket.

Supra. Like I said. Also, he's hot. And fantastic Haiku fodder!


Bad-ass muscles, he
drives me as fast as his cars.
Shaved head on my thigh.

Woe

I'm not in the mood to preface much... I think this haiku is self-explanatory.

A vacuum action,
Swirling downward. Fight it!
I miss him so much.

My favorite was Scary.

So... the big news on the Entertainment front today is that the Spice Girls are reuniting for a world tour, 9 years after the break-up. There's a picture of the hoochies holding flags from 'round the world (Europe mostly) in the article on CNN. I see two possible outcomes of the tour: 1) they will sing our hearts into total world peace (which is obviously their intent), or 2) the tour is actually a new kind of entertainment WMD that will maim and kill masses through audio torture.

Makes for good haiku though...

Tell me what you want,
What you really really want!
Solo careers flop.

Absence

Tonight's topic is absence. I made a dear friend at one of my past jobs, and we still keep in close contact, but it's not the same as seeing each other 5 business days a week. He's helped me through a lot of life, dark and happy, and he wrote this haiku (below) a few weeks ago. I miss him a lot too... although we didn't get a lot of work done for all the pranks pulled on each other. Thanks Erick. :) Feel free to post comments/haikus/whatever!

Seasons change, with them
glory, bright, color blazing
I miss my Autumn.

Hoppy is happy!

Just spent an evening at my favorite bar, Yeoman's on Davis Island, with some of favorite dudes, Kenny and Guitar Mike. I had a really nice hoppy brew from Sierra Nevada, Summer Fest. Nice. Haiku worthy.... feel free to post about your fav vice.

Bitter on my tongue,
Acquired love, heavy taste.
Hoppy is happy.

What do balls taste like?

A friend forwarded this article to me this week... great haiku material. Feel free to post your own.

** Woman jailed for testicle attack **
A woman who ripped off her ex-boyfriend's testicle with her bare hands is sent to prison.


What do balls taste like?
She's not violent, she says.
She just loves them balls.

Haikouth

Currently under construction... but eventually this will be a place for readers to dip into a form of poetry most of us only remember from elementary school.

Five, Seven, and Five.
Three lines beat, a pulse refined.
Welcome to Haikouth.