The slices pop up from the toaster with a ding! My tentative fingers pick them up, one at a time, and drop them on the plate before the heat signal can travel from my skin to my brain. They need to cool, just a bit, just enough to acquire a hardness that won't give when the butter is spread over the surface. Golden, salty butter. Kept out of the fridge just long enough for the knife to cut through the smooth yet firm rectangle. I move the knife horizontally across the fat brick of butter, gathering a thin layer that curls over the finely serrated blade to form a small ribbed cylinder, like the ones in the silver dishes in fancy hotels. Impressed by my unexpected artistry, I place it carefully on a slice and watch as it yields to the warmth, its butteriness oozing slowly over the golden brown surface, sinking into the pores. I quickly spread the rest, realizing that I haven't waited long enough and that the butter will soon disappear into the bread, visible only as a dull shi
making sense of the everyday