Tåß has a HUMAN FACE

yessssss.

I have finally reached a tumblr rating of one (1). Honestly, it was not a surprise. I’d not been feeling particularly sanguine about my chances of hitting the zeniths I glanced last May after I posted this picture of a sandwich I once consumed lovingly and with some regularity when I lived in Miraflores, LIma.

Last week, I went to a conference in New Orleans — my first trip there since my freshman year in college when a friend and I walked into town with $30 between the two of us and asked for the cheapest, trashiest rooming house in town. (This is a typical strategy of a budget -minded - and bright, don’t forget terribly bright! college student, no?)

It was after this conference last year that it became apparent that I was very, very ill. After most of January spent eating hospital food* in an air-tight, isolation ward (in the same wing that Mircea Eliade died, no less), I left the hospital as the sun was setting and waited in my wheelchair for a cab to plow through the ice to take me home.

In between deathly sickness in November 2008 - October 2009, I managed to move me and the old lady to DC.

I just erased all the images I took of a barbershop on Pulaski Rd (in Chicago) that *still* specializes in designing graphics for fades. I am in the right place, evidently.

Had my second Birria meal of the week. I can not say enough good things about Birria Zaragoza on 48th and Pulaski. It gets better as you learn how to ask to tailor the bowl/plate exactly to your tastes. They frequently send you home with leftovers — this time with fresh tortillas and consommé.

I asked for birria bien surtido in a bowl rather than a plate, since I prefer more broth and more fat vs less of either. It was utterly sublime.

I am now eating quesedillias made with their tortillas — hecho por mano por supuesto, queso fresco and their salsa molcajate — and looking at pictures of birria on the ‘net. Earlier at the restaurant, they even gave us bowl of what they, the Zaragoza family, were eating for lunch: camarones diavolas. And the recipe.

(I wonder is Norma is recruiting orphans to learn her trade, or if such secrets must remain with the Zaragoza family and others with whom the family have deep, established friendships and ties.)

Afterward, James and I went to a hipster-y coffee shop in the loop while we waited for an Iranian film showing at the Gene Siskel to start.

Now, I am home, reading my new copy of Max Weber’s Economy and Society and going through a stack of old New Yorkers for fun. Do things get better than this? Nah.

*an actual image of an actual meal consumed.

our front porch in DC.