It's hard to think of a better accompaniment to Kazuki Tomokawa than that boxer barking in the background.

"People always mean well. They cluck their thick tongues, and shake their heads and suggest, oh, so very delicately."

These are the things I hope to teach my kids, mostly by example, over the course of their lives. I'm recording them so that they can read them if something should happen to me. It's important to note that by articulating these I am not claiming to have accomplished them. In fact, I have failed largely at each. But, they remain goals nonetheless.

The air will be full of soft enveloping salt and fat. Whole milk will work over hard flakes. Heat will emanate in rough rectangles out of the toaster. Invisible towers of condensation will obscure the window while I stand and wait. Out there, I will see bittersweet branches brought low by precarious piles of snow. Blue jays will bloat against the smoldering cold. Birds yesterday flew wildly against the choke of vines and berries. Birds today big and blue and still. Birds tomorrow torn apart by three black cats. Their transparent temperament tells the temperature. There is a frozen city for no man. Here is the heat of deceivers and the light of self-deception. I peanut butter toast.