Chocolate shops (specifically, those selling chocolate drinks) aren't so much of a thing in the United States, and that is a shame. Cacao deserves the same reverence that coffee gets. Cacao deserves shrines on every street corner, with learned priests purveying wisdom and beverage. But, alas, perhaps due to separation of church and state, one must leave the country to find these pagan establishments.

Canada understands the power of cacao. Nicaragua as well.

(Edit: Seattle has one. But, is Seattle even in America?)

Montreal: https://listed.to/p/L8LFgZDqMT

Lisbon: https://listed.to/p/jjVGvuzDE0

Ericeira: https://listed.to/p/6VcHXq3eF6

Havana: https://listed.to/p/hJBEZlnNf9

One on business (or is it busyness?):

https://listed.to/p/IlxEixsJao

One on phones:

https://listed.to/p/36EsKbSntT

One on messes:

https://listed.to/p/nrv5GsJVGO

And, one on horses:

https://listed.to/p/F24QyCxQq7/

There is a swath of America that lives by the water, but not by the beach.

There is age-earned wisdom there.

Sit in a seafood bar in a fishing town, that's a town by the water, but not by the beach, and you will see it. The patrons are categorically old. The young people don't venture this far away from the cities or the beaches. What, exactly, is it old people get that young people don't? As you sit there with the fish of the day you will see old people laughing and eating and drinking. You will see these old people having the time of their lives. At the same time, in the cities, there are young people stressing out, having breakdowns. They are dying while the old people are living.

I enjoy almonds. They are a filling food. You eat a few and you feel good. This is very different from chips. You eat a few chips and then you need some more chips. So, you eat some more chips. After you eat some more chips, you will need just a few more, so you can feel good. So, you eat some more. But, perhaps you should really eat 7 more after that. That's it, just 7, then 6, then back to 7 one more time. Chips are salty. They make you need. They are needy food.

Some women are like this. Some men are like this. People and chips, then, are very similar and very salty. They want you to want them. This is a Cheap Trick song. It is also the story of humans and chips. When a man eats a chip, there is no better romance. The man needs the chip, the chip needs the man. The story is complete.

Bourbon is the writer's drink. It is complex. The drunks and savants call it sweet. But, it is bitter. Perhaps it is the bitterness that allows it to be sweeter than anything else, really.

A cat is a nice way to ensure that you are never the most important thing going on. Kids do this too, but not as well as cats.

Cats should come with houses. Cats don't care about the people in the houses, they care about houses. They are the realtors of the pet world.

It is said coffee is socially acceptable crack, but when did crack stop being socially acceptable?

You live longer with coffee because without coffee at a certain point you would just fall asleep and never wake up.

We should be more scared of Bluetooth.

Acorn squash do not look like acorns.

After a while, you just have to go to bed.

You don't get to choose where and when you write or what you write about. This is the mistake of the failed writer. The failed writer falls in love with a trope and pines after it with reckless disregard for what is really moving him. This is first nature; it is how we were raised. We are told: you can do anything. Beyond this first nature is getting out of your own way and letting what moves you move through you and out of you and on its way. This is submission and it is awkward and confusing. For, we should have been told: you can do some things, but not all things, and maybe not even that many things, bordering on no things.

Where are these words coming from? How are they moving and where are they going? Perhaps there is some black hole far away that consumes nothing but words. Its pull is so strong that it pulls the words out of people through their mouths and hands and bodies and eats them. Why do black holes eat words? What is the digestive process like? Where does it all go? What does it all mean?

Questions are the most fertile of the word combinations. They combine words and result in more words from those they are aimed at. That is to say, questions are a black hole's favorite sort of word grouping.

Then again, maybe this has nothing to do with black holes. It could instead be that words have their own agency. That this world and all of us exist to facilitate their movement. What a realization to learn you are a stepping stone for another. Especially for another you likely thought was your stepping stone.

Many a king has realized he is trapped by his subjects. It is often a sad day for the king, but it should be a happy one. With no more subjects, the king has no more responsibility and is free. Words, then, are the facilitator of this sort of unmoving movement, an under celebrated field of gymnastics. All while the king sits unmoving on his throne can he realize he is the subject, and then he can realize that if he submits as the subject he is free, and then he can realize that he is no subject at all.

"I am free." He might proclaim, broadcasting those words through space, where they will long outlive him here on our rock, unless of course eaten by a black hole. For, where does sound go? Where do the vibrations go? When does it stop? Is there an edge? Can anything truly attenuate to nothing? Perhaps. Perhaps not.

The writer sits at his desk, troubled by his failure to truly grasp the knowledge hiding in the forrest of the above, and still trying to write a love poem to a trope that doesn't love him back. Maybe others will buy this garbage. There are plenty of others that know what it is to want something that isn't moving through them. Often this misguided attempt at domination is called a "goal" or a "dream". More honestly it is something you don't care to have otherwise you would make it happen.

It would move through you. You would let go and let it go. Submission, however, can be dirty and painful and it can use you. The art itself may be the benefactor of your sacrifice. And the art may take 200 years to take root leaving you long dead before the oft sought after currency of gratitude begins to move your way.

Is it worth the risk? Impossible to know, after all, are we dealing with black holes or free words or something else entirely?