Mat Twassel's photos

It seems I’ve always owned several penknives, but one time a number of years ago I found myself in Natick, Massachusetts, one thousand miles from home, without any of them. I was on the square at a bakery where they have excellent Morning Glorious muffins, and I needed a penknife to share the muffin with Laura. As it happened, there was a hardware store a few doors down, so I went there and told the clerk I needed a knife. She gave me a look that said she thought I was a serial killer and said rather nastily that they didn’t have knives. But a customer, a kindly old man, told me to try the outdoor supply shop just near the railroad bridge. So I walked over there, and they had lots of knives, and I bought this one without any fuss. I use it mostly for sharing treats and opening the seals on bottles of wine and sometimes opening mail. This is now the penknife I most often carry. It’s very light, with just enough weight so I know if it’s missing from my pocket. I don’t know how the chip came off the corner, but otherwise the handle is exceptionally smooth. The donut came from Weber’s Little Donut Shop. Weber’s makes the best donuts in the world. Luckily they’re only on Cape San Blas and in the winter only open Friday through Sunday from 7:30 AM until they sell out, which sometimes happens before 10. The way we like to work it: Laura walks the 3 ½ miles from our place to Weber’s, and I set off by car 45 minutes later to meet her there. We buy the donuts (one dollar each plus a dollar tip), and then Laura takes the car and I jog home. The donuts and fresh coffee are waiting for me. On this day I bought a coconut (as a kid I hated coconut) and a maple dipped. Laura got a chocolate coconut and a chocolate dipped. Pure deliciousness. Now that I look at this picture, I think there is something decidedly sexual about the donut. Do you agree? And I suppose I should admit that there is yet another use for the knife. With the blade safely shut, of course, it can gently caress Laura’s nipple skin, nudge her clitoris, and tease the edge of her anus. Pure deliciousness.

Actually it’s pretty nice here today. The sun is warm, the wind is down from yesterday. Should be another good day on the Gulf Coast. I’m not unhappy to have missed the blizzard up north. We have power. We have Internet. We have snowman paper towels in case anything spills and needs to be mopped up. The only reason I post this, other than to mark the day after the bad weather in NYC, is because I really like the feathery bit of torn paper towel curled up at the bottom right. Like a wisp of snow caught for a few scant seconds in a pretty girl’s hair.

detail from a painting in our bedroom

The bananagram game has begun. Jet Jot Tart Toy So Joy Son Pen Jerk Fake

Last night we had fish—a tilapia baked to perfection—along with couscous and a salad of fresh spinach, pears, and walnuts. Afterwards we watched two episodes of Transparent. Before going to bed, I filled the glass baking dish with hot soapy water and set it down to soak. In the morning I scraped the dish to loosen the debris and carried it to the bathroom to dump the water into the toilet, having first made sure that the toilet seat was up. In the story I write of this, no doubt it will be Laura who carries the dirty, water-filled baking dish. She will start out slow with the baking dish pressed against her bare belly, before I instruct her on the best way to avoid sloshing: hold the dish away from your body and walk fast but smooth and don’t look at the dish. In real life I managed not to slosh. In the story there may be quite a bit of sloshing. Anyway, I flushed the toilet and took the empty dish back to the kitchen sink and washed it thoroughly with fresh, hot, soapy water. I also washed the couscous pot and the salad bowl. But I forgot to wash the lid to the pot. An hour or so later (which would be about 15 minutes ago) I ran water onto the lid. The rush of water on the metal made a nice sound. I took a photo with my camera phone.

aka still-life with scissors

A number of years ago I drove the turnpikes across Indiana and more than half of Ohio to my niece’s wedding. A few miles before South Bend I stopped for gas and I noticed the right rear tire was low. I had a spare but didn’t trust it, and I didn’t want to change the tire in my suit if at all possible. I filled the tire, but at the next service plaza I stopped again to check it. Sure enough it was low again. I filled it and went on, stopping at every service station for fresh air. I checked into the hotel, arriving just in time for the ceremony. Both wedding a reception were held in the hotel. At the reception I met an attractive woman about my age, and we flirted a little, but we agreed we shouldn’t take it any further because now we were family of a sort. (As it turned out, my niece’s marriage lasted less than a year.) At dawn the next morning I went down to the parking lot to check the tire. It was low, but the car looked to be drivable. Across the street was a shopping mall with a Sears. I’d ascertained the previous evening that the Auto Shop would be open today, Sunday, at ten o’clock. I planned to buy a set of new, badly needed tires. Beneath a light pole in the parking lot a space or two from my car was a ruby slipper. Just one. Of course I wondered how it came to be there and what happened to the other one and what was the story of whoever had been wearing these slippers. I should have taken the slipper or at least taken a photograph of it, but I didn’t think of it, and even if I had thought of it, this was a time before cell phone cameras and my regular camera was up in my room, and I probably wouldn’t have thought it quite proper to take the slipper, even if it was abandoned. I went back to the room. The woman from the wedding was still asleep. I crawled carefully back into bed pretending I was trying not to wake her. I didn’t succeed or I did succeed, and when she heard about the slipper she wanted to see for herself, so we snuck down to the parking lot like guilty teenagers. Later that morning, closer to noon than ten, I did buy four new tires, and we made the trip home without incident, though we did stop several times for various reasons.

It's a fine line but someone's got to walk it.

A prize-winning design?

black eyed susans

I have planted some acorns. Watch this space.