raven.

I picked up a half gallon of butter pecan ice cream at the supermarket this weekend. Didn't think much of it. Just a flavor I hadn't tried in a while, taken home. Taken home to wait. I didn't even know if I'd even get a spoonful--I've been eating a reasonably clean diet in recent weeks: whole grains, fruits, vegetables, legumes, seafood. Limited dairy. No red meat or even poultry.

Suddenly I am ravenous.

*****

Standard ingredients in butter pecan ice cream:
cream
butter
brown sugar
pecans
vanilla

Those who make it as a custard will use eggs as well.

*****

I didn't sleep well last night, the culprit being a snuck-in coffee. Even when I'm not eating a clean diet, caffeine destroys my sleep. After weeks devoid, an iced Starbucks transforms the dark hours into delirium--me, mostly conscious yet only vaguely aware; sleep and awake: vicious, violent intertwining, coupling, tossing, wrestling, no one on top of the other for any notable duration.

Lavender seeps through the shades, slight, a drip, a light, slowly, slowly, herald of the hour so familiar this past year: four o'clock to five. When the drip is a pour and the awake finds a hand at its throat, sleep slides in.

*****

A thicker ice cream, a hard and custard-based, nearly begs less a lick and more a firm, persistent sucking. One might think it decidedly masculine, in that preference, were it not sometimes so rich as to engage the teeth.

The beauty of butter pecan, however and of course, is the concurrence of the savory and the sweet.