QUITE WARM, FATHER

this "winter" sucks and i hate how people are walking around all effusive in their love for this wimpy weather - hello???  it's almost January, it's NOT supposed to be nearly 60' out!!

when i was little, i used to play outside in the snow all the time.  since there was literally nothing else to do in the hills, i spent a lot of time alone in the woods trudging through snow up to my knees, making snow forts, snowmen, snow angels, sledding, slip-sliding across frozen waters and just generally freezing my ass off.  not only did our perpetual poverty at that time make ice-skates or really good slippery sleighs completely out of the question, it evidently also put the kabosh on real snow-wear: i remember just layering up pants and pants and pants over socks and socks and socks, which the snow and ice would inevitably make its way through, quite confidently at that.

regardless, i loved the snow.  at night, it would sparkle like nothing less than magic under the moon and stars, and every snowfall had a special signature of its own.  sometimes it would leave thick white fluffy flakes that screamed "every day is Christmas!!!!!" or sometimes it would leave fine, gritty, nasty snow that would pelt you mercilessly in the face like a million tiny knives, but no matter which, they both sparkled like straight up fairy dust under any kind of light.  and it was cold, but being that everything was enveloped in this cozy white, it was somehow warm too, the odd way that only winter can make it.  

one of my favorite tales growing up was a Russian one about an evil stepmother (naturally), a spoiled stepsister, a meek father, and a perfect daughter who suffered tremendous grief at the hands of the first two.  to make a really great longer story short, the stepmother sends the good daughter out in the freezing Russian cold assuming that she'll quickly keel over and make life a lot easier for the rest of them, but when Father Frost comes along to the poor thing - i imagine he swooped and swirled down around her with his white, sparkling, shimmery robes - snapping and crackling his fingers to make it even colder out and asks, "Are you cold, my dear?", she responds, "QUITE WARM, Father."

Frost keeps it up, snapping his fingers all mad crazy making it colder and colder, yet each time she lets him know that she's just snug as a bug, even though her teeth are practically chattering right out of her head.  finally, he gives in, and, evidently impressed with the strange tenacity of this poor little peasant girl, wraps her kindly in all sorts of fine furs and sends her home atop a chest full of other precious goodies to boot.  of course the nasty stepmother eventually gets her very sad due, and i imagine that the snow maiden went on to lead a very posh and fantastic life afterwards - most likely in the south of France.

  

rêves de lavande

the problem with myself is that i have always been a dreamer.  now, i understand that the first step to accomplishing anything in life is probably to have a dream, but it seems that my own general issues come from actually stepping out of the dream world and making things happen in real life, so if you're looking for me, you'll find me having tea in LaLa Land.

currently, i live in a shared space in Brooklyn.  i do love my cozy little quarters, but it's a FAR cry from the grand, airy, stone villa in the south of France surrounded by fields of waving lavender that i always imagined to be my official place of residence since the time i learned to read and figured out there had to be sexier rural settings than upstate NY.  Paris would be a few hours removed through a pleasant drive in my small Renault or Peugeot, or top-of-the-line, latest BMW hybrid suv, which would be just fine, too.  in this version of my dream, my trunk would be packed with fragrant cheeses, some crusty breads, fresh picked field flowers and a fine Bordeaux to share with my Parisian city-amis, where i would switch up all those fresh trunk goodies for some equally nice city goodies, say shoes and shirts and scarves and dresses and eccentric hand jewelry, from the Marais.  on the way home, i'd call my stable-keep on my cute, non-smartphone Euro-cell to get my finest Arabian mare ready, as we'd be going on a long trail ride when i returned, me with my velvet-lined black riding hat (which i really do already own, in anticipation) topping off the rest of my finely tailored riding threads.  after that ride, i'd take a light meal consisting of cream-and-wineish something on my stone patio overlooking a fine Provencian valley, where i'd sit and wonder, in my now fluent French, how everyone back in the States is doing, being that, why not, i could think about them from time to time.  a perfect breeze would toss my hair lightly about my shoulders a little then as i checked my watch (in Europe, i might wear a watch.  a nice dainty silver one picked up somewhere in the back streets of Paris) and figured that right then would be as good a time as any to take an early evening dip in my perfectly unobtrusive pool before heading out for the night to a small theater production in Aix.     

wow.  coming out of that one back to the reality of Williamsburg sure ain't no Parisian Picnic, but you know what?  I'd like to take a moment to think of and thank Thoreau here, with his seriously-Frenchy sounding last name: "Go," he said, "confidently in the direction of your dreams."  

i'm goin, buddy, i'm going. 

sand

this dumb Christmas season really has me up in arms.  there's a girl i know, sort of a colleague, who i started to mad-respect a while ago, who then became an amazing, first-rate friend.  i love it when that happens, as it really almost sort of never does these days.  anyhow, she was the only one i really wanted to get a gift for this year - other than for my nearest and dearest, of course - so i've had my eye out for a while, but i have to admit, i am just NOT a good gift-giver.  finally, i bought her a little glass perfume bottle like the kind my mom used to fill with rose oil when i was a kid and filled it with a little bit of sand from the Sahara desert that i keep in a glass Coke bottle from the time i was there.

what a time that was.  the Sahara is like practicing tantric yoga by accident, those flowing creamy dunes for as far as the eye can see.  you're in the midst of this grand white silence, gazillions of tiny pieces of rock from time inconceivable blasted into particulars so minute that if you swallowed one you'd probably never ever ever even notice, yet get gazillions of them together and you might be saying good night forever in the face of some of those.

sand is just no joke.

you know what else i like about it?  take one tiny particle of sand at the west end of a beautiful beach somewhere.  now, imagine another, similar-minded, gleaming particle of sand on the east end of aforementioned beautiful beach somewhere.  technically speaking, these two wouldn't have a chance in heaven, or the Universe, or whatever Nirvana it is that particles of sand subscribe to, being, in this instance, significantly separated by both distance and mass [those gazillion of other particles of sand], but look at it like this:

- first of all, they're not really separated.  yes, they might have a gazillion other little particles of sand pressed between them, but being that they're all pressed so tightly together that you might as well not even count that space, does it all even matter then?  it's like they're already pressed up, one against the other.

- secondly, if you don't want to look at it like that, consider those two same particles in the following fashion: let's say they really are separated the west from the east end, with a gazillion other particles of obnoxious sand in betwixt.  well, the beauty of sand is that it's always shifting.  one day, it might be on a dune in the Sahara, and the next it might be making out with the sea.  granted, perhaps i'm taking a bit of time-lapse liberty here, but i'm sure you get the drift (PARDON the pun).  ANYHOW, along those lines, in terms of constantly shifting sand, and time and earth and all of that, who's to say that those two luckless particles of such-separated sand might not just end up running into each other like it's all out nobody's biz?  just like that, and then it wouldn't even matter if there had previously been a gazillion other particles of sand in between them or not, if there had been a whole world or an ocean, it just wouldn't matter because right then, there, now, or at least for that moment, they'd be together.

i met someone so very very very dear to me at a place called "Ammos", or "sand", in Greek.  being a person who has to read into the metaphysics and further symbolism of every breath and step i make in life, i've long pondered the meaning of meeting at such a place, and now, some time later, i finally understand.

fuck, i love sand.  it's so tiny, yet so grand, and all of that into one tiny glass perfume bottle.

here is some sand stuck to my toes after i went to the beach right after a pedicure.

merry Christmas, Jess.

Soli Deo Gloria

the other day, i finally accomplished one real biggie off my Bucket List.  i finally took part in the annual Sing-In of Handel's Messiah at Lincoln Center.
MY.  GOD.

that thing is NO joke.  you grow up singing the Halleluia chorus and you think you have it under your belt until someone pulls the whole book [and by "book", i mean a score that is more massive than the King James] on you and you're cowering under your forty-year-old rickety wooden seat out of sight of the stage at Avery Fisher Hall like there's a comet coming at you.  and He shall WHA??  how many 8th note melismas CAN  a person possibly throw into ONE chorus??  how then can one person proceed to sing those melismas sanely, let alone a choir-ful??  I'll tell you, that man had FAITH.

oh God, MUST you continue to mock my mediocrity??

what does it matter, i guess.  does the National Endowment for the Arts even even still exist in America these days?  does anyone know what music is, or is it all Justin Bieber across the FM dial??  did good music really go out the window with Stevie Nicks?  woe is me with the Selena Gomezes of today.

how does God decide as to when someone gets to putz around on the face of this earth, as to who gets to live in intellectually impoverished times like these sad ones, where people don't know the difference between your and you're (or even care), and who got to live during the Renaissance amongst the Italian court, or better yet, who got to live across the way from 25 Brook Street in the great city of London, anywhere between the years of, say...1723 to...1759.  is there a Divine Spreadsheet He uses for that?

anyone know a good harpsichord tuner?

Joyeux Noël

an amazing thing happened this morning.  i put the holiday station on Pandora, figuring if it weren't going to snow and give me some good ol' Christmas time in the city here in New York, i might as well at least let a little cyber cheer into my heart.  lo then, the complete joy and amazement as i stood there shivering in the snowless December morn, when suddenly this wondrous feeling really did creep into my heart, sort of like the Grinch, but backwards.  in the midst of all the consumerism up your ass bullshit that is Christmas today, I realized that way back when, whenever, in the day, Christmas REALLY must have been the most magical time of the year.  standing there listening to Brenda Lee rockin around the Christmas tree, i truly felt the magic in my heart, kind of like Jack Frost, nipping at my nose and oh what a feeling that was

think about it - those were the days before this little nuisance of a thing called global warming. it probably actually snowed back then in December, and not just some wimpy squeaky little streaks that didn't make it past the first cut at snow globe try-outs in Arizona. no thanks!  Christmas lights must have twinkled across the snowy white way from neighbors' porches, which you'd gaze at through frosted windows as your cheeks flushed red from the roaring fire on one side of you, a lush green tree decked out with angels and gold and red balls on the other, as your hands warmed up around a cup of freshly squeezed hot cocoa, straight from Mom's happily glowing kitchen.  in your mind you'd be replaying the happy laughs of you and your buds as you skated across the frozen pond that afternoon, Grandma and Gramps would be arriving shortly with presents that actually meant something, and for once a year, your Pops would be in not just a good but great mood, with plenty of sparkling cheer to go around, as bright and yellow as Aunt Lilly's eggnog that you weren't supposed to sip, but which you and your big brother would amply try from time to time, in the course of one night.

think about that.  those were the days.  these are the days of clawing off someone else's face to get the last 60" plasma at Walmart at 4 AM the day after Thanksgiving.  

i wish this post could play Dean Martin's rudoph the red nose reindeer from Christmas with Dino and have the whole world realize just how fucking great life is.

all i want for Christmas, jingle jingle.  

eerbetoon

when i was little, there was a certain cripple that lived in town.  whenever my mom and i would go for a grocery run, we would inevitably see him somewhere - he was very tall and thin, with sort of a bald dome, and grey hair over his ears.  he wore silver-framed, spectacle type glasses and actually, i think he was rather handsome.

here's the thing.  he had some sort of condition that caused his spine to arch up and back, so literally, as he walked, he faced the sky.  i don't know how he did it - can you imagine?  if you think you can, try it - walk around your living room with your face turned upwards towards the ceiling, and see if you can make it past your couch to get a glass of water from the kitchen.

anyhow, i thought of him yesterday, and i haven't thought of him in some 20+ years.  i wish i could find out who he was, what happened to him, where he was from, how he ended up in our dinky little town walking through a park being ogled by some little twerp out the window of her mom's '84 toyota camry.  i want to know if he's alive so i can go and plant a kiss on his cheek, and if he's dead, where do i have to go to place some daisies and stand at his grave?

i tried to find a picture good enough for this...despair, and this is what i came up with:  sometime last year, the female (Ida) of the polar bear couple at the Central Park Zoo died.  in her absence, after 25 long, presumably happy years together, her mate (Gus) became noticeably dejected and despondent, and then took to swimming endless laps in the pool - back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, ad infinitum!  i didn't know this when i visited, and i wondered then what kind of horrific, dumb life that polar bear led, swimming back and forth in that glass pond all day, people peering in on every single side...i didn't know it until this very day, when it finally hit me - ALL that fucking polar bear wanted was to be left alone, but there was just. nowhere. to go.

i think about how much sky that man saw, the tree tops, the sun..............and then think about HOW MUCH of straight up NOTHING the rest of us see, even when we're just staring.  straight into each others' faces.

have we met?

yesterday i had a great, long conversation with a dear old friend who i just don't see enough of and one of the topics that came up was that of ol' Abe Lincoln and his proclivity towards the males.  Abe is hands-down one of my favorites, which got me thinking of Thomas Jefferson who I'm equally enamoured with, which got me thinking of time-travel fucks, something i've been meaning to dedicate some serious space to for some time now.  that is, if you could, who would you travel back in time to and just sit right down on his or her face?  imagine what a mark you've made on the world when years later, centuries even, some broad in Brooklyn is writing about the fact that if she could, she'd be banging down the gates to your plantation to, uh, take a tour of the grounds and maybe take a gander at that famous alcove bed, you know?  

what's sex got to do with it?  i don't know - men that thought, whose words stick it to us even today, men who moved [the world under their feet], who charged over mountains and oceans, men who meant it..........God i miss those men.  Jesus, Buddha, Dionysus and all other god-like or spiritual figures are a matter for another day.  

  

stove top

every year, at this time, i sit around a table with my nearest and dearest and we recount the things we are most grateful for.  i try to live in this spirit every day, but really, i just forget.  all the time.  like, ALL the time.  why??  does it really take a plate of deep fried tofurkey steaming in my face to make me realize just how much i love my family, friends, and health insurance?  whenever i'm down in the dumps, everyone's always telling me to adopt an attitude of gratitude and obviously they're right.  my brother says we need to adopt an attitude of what we're not grateful for, and therein change it.  i don't even know where to start in between the two of those.  time for another plate of stuffing.
 

сжала руки под темной вуалью...

in guiding young illiterates to the light, educators often make use of a simple but effective graphic organizer called the "Venn" diagram.  these two intersecting circles are meant to make blooming minds understand how separate entities or concepts can be disparate while nonetheless retaining some conjunctive qualities.  that's the story of my life.  i have two names for this one body - my given, Christian name, which my Slavic-minded (or simply phonetically agile) friends call and know me by, as well as an amero-anglicized reduction of the first syllable of my real name which everyone else in the world knows me as.  how can i possibly live by one name that is so regal and beautiful and conjuring of images of medieval queens in one language, and invoking of bald Jewish men in another???  as if first-generation discombobulation weren't bad enough, where does one truly find the peaceful center of these two intertwined circles in this humanoid case, and why does it have to so painfully extend to just about everything i'm aware of, from personal hygiene to politics?  hair does not ever need to be washed, hair needs to be washed every day.  Americans are awesome, Americans are annoying.  Europeans are awesome, Europeans are morons.  I'm American, I'm European.  I'm European, I'm American.  I'm everything, I'm nothing.  I'm nothing, I'm everything.    

i remember learning that Anna Akhmatova, the famous Russian poet, who wrote such devastatingly beautiful...words, considered herself half whore, half nun.  i remember thinking how perfect that was, that i didn't want to live life any other way.  someone draw up a Venn diagram on that.  

Sūrya Namaskāra - सूर्य नमस्कार

you know what i've been noticing a lot of lately?  the sunset over Manhattan outside my window at work.  i'm kinda obsessed with it.  i'm so obsessed with it that i've begun obsessively taking photos of it, like every time i see it, which is a lot.  aside from being completely unable to understand how i can possibly be at work that late, it's like, holy FUCK are you AMAZING, Sunset.  it's a little strange how desperately I don't want to miss it, as if it might not happen tomorrow, although i guess the more valid question here is probably will *i* happen tomorrow??  i think about how that Sun has been setting right there since time inconceivable, over the dinosaurs, the glaciers, evolutions and revolutions, and now its pretty little pink face is smiling right down on little ol' me.  that kiiinda blows my mind.  

one of the three songs my mother used to sing to me when i was little was "sunshine on my shoulders".  two of my best friends who completely do not even know each other like to burst out with "you are my sunshine".  Rumi said "a shadow cannot ignore the sun that all day creates and moves it"  i just love every little ray.

this below isn't sunset over Manhattan, this is sunrise over a lake in the north.  i watched it rise from the moment i felt it and i was so sad that i couldn't get every second of it on some kind of film in my head forever.  why isn't everything as predictable and perfect as the Sun?  that doesn't make any sense to me.

i am just. not. getting it, God.

break on through

a couple things happened today.  i got back to my blog, and i got my Blackberry back.  in perusing my blog, i realized that i had accidentally published a draft - WHO does that??  it's like having your ass hanging out in the wind for two weeks and no one telling you about it.  like trailing toilet paper from the bathroom on your left high heel around a posh restaurant for two hours and everyone just kinda smirking at you.   that was also me for the past two weeks with the iphone, unhinged, but i see i can quickly get over it.  see "summer of 69" below, it's great really - amended, pulled up, removed from my left high heel.    

so, that's the effect technology has on me.  top-end technology turns me into a raving ADD psycho and i feel like i'm on Mars.  gimme some straight-up streamline super snappy Blackberry email push over bouncy text message notifications any day, and i don't even MAKE money.  in other news, my psyche so rebelled against the iPhone that i actually got sick.  ill as can be.  i sat around sweating it up in fever all day, not even able to think about how i can make my life better, which is pretty all that i'm into these days.  i haven't even been thinking about wars, plagues, pestilence, famines, droughts, poverty, women's rights, OWS, ousted dictators, world energy supplies, tumbling stocks, the crumbling euro, or any of the other multitude of uber-probs that befall this happy little planet and just really eat me up inside whenever i carelessly dare stop for a moment to ponder upon them.  nope, i've just been thinking about myself, and how there's this other side to things, all silvery and shiny, and i feel like i'm standing right at the very edge of some precipice, over which you tuuuumble to get to, that other side.  who says it's scary stepping off a cliff.

this carriage was in front of me in the express line at the supermarket.  seems like a lot of work for something that could be so simple.     

take a bite outta this

sooooo, a couple of days ago, i got an iPhone.  people had been sneering at my Blackberry for way too long and my complex was growing.  everywhere i turned, everyone had an iPhone.  these people had to be onto SOMETHING.  SO, goodbye my Beloved, i left you for another, but these are things we'll all learn from and grow stronger through one day.

granted, it's sleek, it's sexy, it's shiny, it's straight up strutty, and everyone said to give it about 24 hours before the words Blackberry were to leave my mind and mouth forever.  well, it's going on a week now, and once again, i've learned a lesson.  if you're so happy with something, why make a change?  conversely, if you're miserable, you better take a solid leap or deserve the life you'll lead mired in the simple mental anguish of daily existence.  hm.

it turned out that the Verizon store in my neighborhood was completely out of Blackberrys and i was told that i was the first person in the history of the world to demand an exchange from a shiny new iPhone.  on the way home, i took note that every other last sucker on the face of the earth seemed to be staring at their own shiny little fruity screens, which i find beyond ironic considering Apple's big spiel not so tremendously long ago was alllll about busting out of conformity.

hopefully BB will be back in stock tomorrow.  Suckers.

open up and say...............

look how pretty this little pic is, it astounds me really.  it seems so quiet and serene, so much so that who could ever believe that the scaffolding holds a horde of workers, unseen to the lens, drilling and banging so loud i bet you even loud hellish demons take cover.  around them is a bunch of cars and trains and buses and pedestrians, everything just whirwhirwhiring and then beyond that, as you can see, is NYC, not a place known as the quietest place in the world. but this pic, look at it...it's saying why don't you all JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP. shut the fuck up, and LISTEN.

summer of 69

bryan adams is a real douchebag.

up until this past summer, i had absolutely no qualms whatsoever with a certain process called AGING.  in fact, up until about August, precisely, i felt as if i were twelve, but you know who came along?  Mother Age.  she just came jangling right along in her flowy robes and streaming gray hair and jangly bangly bracelets and bony wrists and hands and straight up smacked me, right in the face.  this time last year, i'd be damned if i knew what a good eye cream was; now, i take a nightly bath in one, just in case.

this is what i don't like.  i'm starting to understand that old adage "a good woman is like good wine" nonsense.  men, their features just kind of settle, and the crows feet around their eyes are nothing short of maddeningly sexy.  there isn't a crinkle in this world that doesn't just set me happily right off.  women, MANY WOMEN, i should say, on the other hand...ay.  women become true parodies of their youth - their features sink, as opposed to settling, necks become stringy, or saggy, and animal-like, and i'm not talking gazelles here, and the wrinkles around their eyes are like cracks in a mirror and who's going to tell me that THAT'S even remotely comfortable to look at??  i was never really sure if i wanted to have the kiddies, so it's not like i'm feeling the click tock here, but suddenly, EVERYONE'S younger than me, which makes me think of that other age-old adage, "youth is wasted on the young".  ohhh is it ever, George Bernard, you clever one.

so, what's Bry-Bry got to do with it?  the other day i caught sight of him now, at age 52, and i'll be damned if he is just not a million times more of a smoking hotty than he was on the '87 "into the fire" tour.  how is that possible, or even fair?  i'm going to go ahead and say that it's just not, not either one of those, although evidently it is.

one of the loves of my life is 21 years older than me.  every time i see him, i think he just keeps looking better.  the babes flock to him, and he's fifty six.  i don't even think Demi could do that.

the other day, another Love of My Life - and also, incidentally, a real asshole - told me that i'm just all insecure about my age, which is evidently possible, but i really wonder how assholes age.  by all accounts, it ain't pretty.

this is the sky over Brooklyn a couple of days ago.  if that's not timeless, i just don't know what is.

melts in your mouth

everyone has a junk drawer.  mine is the top left hand drawer of my desk.  it collects pens, pencils, receipts, hand lotion, scissors, half done packs of post-it notes, nail files, nail polish remover, keys, clips, index cards of information that i never ever use, my wallet...

every once in a while, i'll quasi-clean it out, just to sort of see the bottom of it and feel all refreshed, but then it's right back to business again.  truth is, my desk has five other drawers, but i'll be damned if i'm opening any other one throughout the course of the day remotely near the number of times i jerk that special drawer, so for all intents and purposes, that big ol' desk might as well just have come with one.  top left.

i've been looking at everything in life as a metaphor lately.  i just can't stop and i have a sneaking suspicion that my junk drawer seems to be one, as well.  yes, it's a mess, but everything i ever really need is usually in there, all i have to do is jerk that sticky drawer open and rummage a bit.  sometimes what i need is gratefully right on top, sometimes i really need to shove layers of redundant writing utensils aside to find the the telephone number to that place that i wrote down on the back of a magazine subscription card two years ago.  isn't that great?

today, feeling perhaps overwhelmed for whatever reason, i jerked my The Drawer to find a red pen, and i had to literally shove through pounds of candy, and leaves that a child picked for me *to make tea*.  i mean really??  i LOVE IT!!!

what metaphors do you see in your life today?

      

guys and dolls

i've always hated dolls.  i recall having three in my life:

- a life-sized baby one that would cry "ma-ma, ma-ma!" when you took the pacifier out of its mouth.  i would cling to that babe for dear life whenever my mother would leave to work leaving me sniffling and alone with my not very affectionate and completely uninterested father, usually in a freezing cold home.  that little bitch was crying "ma-ma, ma-ma!" for both of us.

- a fake red headed Cabbage Patch that I named "Suzie".  that was the time when Cabbage Patch euphoria was sweeping the country and perhaps sensing that my parents were too poor or perhaps poorly inclined to dolls, some of our friends from the city came up with her one weekend.  i always made sure her fake cabbage patch body - probably picked up off Canal Street - was well hidden whenever we found ourselves in the presence of one of my more affluent upstate friends with their absurd patches of 'real' ones.  

- my absolute favorite, a Pink and Pretty Mattel Barbie who met an unfortunate, mangled end when she pissed me off one day when i was trying to dress her, so i threw her in the fire.  watching the poor lass's leg melt, i obviously immediately regretted that impulsive and poorly considered decision, but i see it now as my first and very telling instance of inadequate anger management.  i can't believe i wasn't even spoken to.

i just said that i've always hated dolls, but now i see that i actually gave a lot of love to at least those three.  today, when i see dolls, with their perpetually staring, non-blinking, creepy eyeballs, i want to run to the closest house of worship and cower in the foyer.  i think that's why the deep midwest completely creeps me out - i've never been, but i imagine that they're all a bunch of weird, plastic, unfeeling, eyes wide shut creepazoid demons.  shallow, i know, but what am i saying - sometimes i feel like large swaths of upstate are like that, too.  shit, what am i really saying?  half the time, i feel like my response to the rest of the world's bullshit is about as effective as a scary, plastic depiction of human adolescence.  oh, and that's the way i felt around him.  alive, but dead, really.

it turns out i can get a Pink and Pretty off of ebay for $19.95 and an original Cabbage Patch for 295.  that's two hundred and ninety five good green american dollars.  evidently the recession hasn't hit that part of the garden.

            

get up, you sluggards

a couple of weeks ago, i spent a quiet afternoon at the beach.  there was no one around, and having come unprepared, i spent my time lying on a couple of warm, sun-kissed (yup, i did just say that) boulders.  i was pretty depressed, actually, so i literally just lay there letting my thoughts drain out of my head and body, down the sand, and into the sea.  i imagine some helpful seagull came along later, swooped them up and dashed them over and over again against the rocks, bashing their nasty little useless bad thought brains out.

i had gone out east for the weekend with someone i loved, but in whose presence i feel pretty much nothing - nothing - but anxiety, fear and perpetual dissatisfaction.  there was a pretty face, a pretty house, a pretty car, and pretty much nothing - nothing - else.  woe was me, really, whoa, with my hands empty of everything but the sand running through my fingers on that gorgeous, sunny day.  

when i finally got up to head back to the pretty car, i followed a really pretty, colorful path made by the tide of all these beautiful, shiny shells and stones; it was truly hypnotizing.  i felt like hansel and gretel, following the path of stones back to the safety of home and i was almost overwhelmed by this burgeoning belief i have that the Universe really does take care of you.  it was truly uplifting, and i was starting to feel better: the Answers would surely, shortly be revealed.

i followed the stones back to the car, got in, sat down, and looked out to meditate over the water one more time before i left, and this is what i saw:

if that's not a message from the Universe, i don't know what is.  

you're all i need

i used to be obsessed with Motley Crue.  my brothers listened to them all the time, so i quickly caught on that Tommy Lee was very obviously the love of my life.  i think i was probably ten.  at some point, they eventually rolled into town and my brothers and the boy next door went to that concert, obviously leaving me all disconcerted and crying, forlorn and heartbroken, alone at home.  before they left, I BEGGED them to get me their autographs.  i imagined then, in my little ten year old baby head, that they could just walk up to one of the greatest hairbands of the 80's after the concert and be like, yo man sup, great show, sign this here autograph book for my nerdy little sister yo (....did they actually talk like that then...?) and the next morning, i got up at the crack of dawn, salivating over the autographs i would soon be pressing close to my heart.  

naturally, my brothers cruelly sneered and jeered at me over breakfast, but later that day, Brian, the boy next door, came over with four little slips of paper with completely disparate signatures on each: Vince Neil, Nikki Sixx, Mick Mars, and, oh JESUS, TOMMY LEE.  I kept those little slips rolled up in a little China shoe I had on  my nightstand for years, even when it finally dawned on me that Motley Crue really never had been sober enough to sign shit that night, let alone for three pimply little boys from the stix.

a couple of years ago, Tommy Lee crashed some party i was at.  it was electric seeing him - he had a shirt on that said, "I would fuck me", and i managed to sidle my way into some personal space with him where i promptly realized he was absolutely fucking disgusting.  i spent the rest of the night trying to get over multiple  buzz kills, mainly through having to lean as far back as i could hoping that he wouldn't sweat on me.

i celebrated a birthday the other day, which is always great, but you know what i've just now realized?  it's time to grow up.  

here's to you, Kid.  

  

father of man (the child is)

i have a concern that we're all being technologied out of our minds.  more specifically, that men are being mommy-technologied out of their minds, into a very poor state of existence.  i look at it like this:

men grow up to be boys.  they were enabled their whole lives and nothing changes just because their testicles drop.  they go through puberty and then they have little mini-mommies running all around them, fawning their faces off, bringing them tea and cookies, literally and figuratively, and then off they trot to beat their hairy chests and ejaculate enough sperm to fertilize every woman in Europe each time they come to climax (this is not even close to Hyperbole; it is completely, simply, scientifically true).  who wouldn't have a Zeus complex in this instance?

this has obviously been the case since the time of Adam, but the thing that bothers me today is that you couple this state of being with the fact that we're part of a growing oppressive culture that barely encourages any real thinking anymore, and then, BAM, you have a real catastrophe on your hands.  what i wouldn't give for some real thinkers struttin around here callin the shots in their bowties behind smokey pipes, but no, you have these men...cock in one hand, ego in the other, more product in their hair than i've ever even considered in my life in mine, making decisions in life and love as quickly as they can shoot off an email or status update on their smart phone.  it just doesn't seem to work out very well in the end for anyone now, does it?

it just does not.

what to do in these cases?  move to Colorado???

this guy says yes.  no shit.

stop. smell this flower

so, a friend told me about a wedding she went to over the weekend.  by all accounts, the couple and ceremony were beautiful and the young bride was just a sparkling sight to behold.  apparently, however, *immediately* following the ceremony, flush with the grand newness of being a Mrs., the missus took off to the ladies room....and proceeded to stay there for the *remainder of the reception*.  therein, she missed the first dance, the father-daughter dance, the chicken dance, and every other cheesy dance there is at these things, and exited the john only when all the guests had nearly dispersed, at which point, she made a mad dash to her car and drove away.

i can't stop laughing.  is that bad?

i mean, i feel bad for the poor baby.  i personally do NOT understand this weird western obsession with weddings, but ok, she really must have been looking forward to the blessed event, and to spend it all in the bathroom???  evidently, she had a panic attack and spent four hours on the crapper.  all that money Pops must have shelled out, right down the drain, literally.  and HOW do you deal with THAT recollection the morning after??  man oh man.

oh for God's sake.  why didn't anyone at the party pull out a Xanax?  and what's with this wedding obsession anyway.  what's with this weird MARRIAGE obsession, honestly.  what year is this???

here are some flowers i saw along Park, some version of marigold, i think.  look how perfect it is with all its little mini-flowers, it just blows my mind.  sometimes i wonder why humans can't be like nature, which is pretty cool and plain ol' perfect, but then i realize maybe we are.  i will need to exercise some serious mind bends to get my head around that one.

  

buns

this morning, i happened across an article about how girls as young as 19 are turning to sperm banks to just, well....get it over with.  good for you, Ladies.  i hate to say this, but i haven't met a single -single- man in the NYC area who's truly ready for a committed relationship, let alone a little tyke running around the kitchen table when they're trying to get over a hangover....

guys, guys, guys.

one of my more seriously bad-ass girlfriends recently announced that she too was headed the route of cryogenically-kept spermies.  after years of trying to find Mr. Right, she decided to circumvent all that harrowing business of 1st, 2nd, and all other uncomfortable follow-up dates, and made an appointment for something that should really take.  can I be the godmother???

i clinked on a link in aforementioned article by a therapist who treats men only, and she pointed out that men have such a hard time opening up to others that, for the most part, they don't even understand issues they might have themselves.  not just not understand them, but simply even speak about them in order to remotely assess or know what they are.  can you imagine a woman not able to speak incessantly on any single one of her many emotional afflictions, at length, for days, months, even??  well, as it is, women let loose, on average 28,000 words a day - guys take the road less traveled, with almost half that at TWELVE thou.  my heavens.  it seems like a lot really can get lost in there.

sigh.

here's the pie that i ended up having for breakfast.  never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.

best served hot

i got three things on my mind:

these protests and the pool of prospective Republican presidential hopefuls.  i don't want to be too much of a naysayer, but i'm thinking that shortly, it will be time for me to retire to a quaint residence of simple country living, otherwise known as a mud hut, where i can grow potatoes and live off the land because i feel very strongly that, very shortly here, the shit is going to HIT the fan.

the last time i stood on a square chanting, it was the night of the election of Barack Obama.  New York was a fucking walking party that night, everyone hugging and dancing and laughing and cheering and and screaming and crying tears of joy - i stood on Union Square at 4AM singing the Star Spangled Banner with a hot guy named Nick who kissed me after in this great - so great - embrace who i never saw again before or after and then i walked down to the LES for a celebratory drink and that was that.  i missed work the next day but i was sooooooo fucking happy because i really thought that maybe Jesus' black twin brother had come....i really did...

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

i'm not at these protests now because, thankfully, i have still have that job (that i actually think i love), and it takes up a lot of my time.  during that time, i try not to think about how fucked up we are as a nation and since i can't stay up till 4AM, let alone midnight, or really do anything too energetic anymore without serious repercussions for days to come, what i do is look out the window of said job out over the skyline of lower Manhattan, before i even clock in 7 minutes late for a job most people would actually kill for, come to think of it, and kinda guess where the protesters are and go there in spirit a little, guilt be damned.  

anyhow, i feel there's no real choice now, other than the Slippery Slope and we're all gonna get seriously dinged at the end of it, whether we're calling in a paycheck this very moment or not.  there'll probably be The Other Side i'm sure, whatever comes after, like there is say, after the Apocalypse, but who wants to be hangin around all lonely for that?

my last concern is whether or not it's too late to eat this pie.

  

there's an app for that

so, Steve Jobs died.  that was bound to happen.  i give the man credit for plenty of things, and i'm sure part of his vision wasn't the gaggle of annoying young people that would marry their iPhones if they could.  i take it back, maybe it was.  obviously it was.  there's that freak genius gene again - how do the rest of us NOT have it???  


Jobs: 


You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.


and 


Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.  






The man evidently said that those who hadn't tried hallucinogenic drugs could really never understand him.  May you rest peacefully in the the land of shimmery colors and lights, a good trip and Godspeed man...without the paranoia and debilitating fear, of course.  And I might not own one single Mac product, but...thanks. Why can't we have so many more like you? 

thank God. knock on wood.

in an attempt to free myself from many harmful habits of the past, i have now turned my sights on superstition.  i'm Bosnian, so this is kinda like performing a lobotomy.  growing up, we shifted, spat, blew, twitched, turned, knocked, coughed and crossed ourselves endlessly away from the evil eye and perhaps even into oblivion, that perchance being the case even with myself.  i am so terrified that an evil djinn will overhear and sabotage any happy plans that i may have for the future that i am endlessly choked up, and not just from emotion.  every morning on the way to work, i touch wood, like, literally, i stop and caress a tree.  when a cat crosses my path, i cross myself and the road ahead of me, then switch streets and even counties, if possible.  i wear red underwear, red strings, prayer beads (from every faith, just to be safe) and try not to cut anything, swear, sweat, or lie, on Sundays.

my therapist tells me that these are all just a series of lame crutches, but she has very obviously never had her Turkish coffee grinds examined or Tarot spread read.  wtf?

the other day, someone asked me if i were given the chance to look into the future, what would i want to know?  well, shit, i don't know that i'd want to know anything, because what if it's good and i jinx it, and what if it's bad and i can't move forward?  i guess i'd probably want to see if i'll be 90 and still worrying about this.

who am i kidding?  there's so much i'd want to know.  for starters, i really want horses.  will i ever get them??  the fact that i'm putting that out there just BLOWS away my previous notions on keeping super wishes to myself, but fuck it.  serendipitous sprites must have ears and read, too.  

look Universe - here's one i might like:

 

call me in the morning

sometimes i think that i'm either going to die soon and unexpectedly, probably when i find out that i've had cancer all along, or, more likely, that i will live to be 120 and just be absolutely miserable.  every time i go see my doc, i ask if i have cancer and he laughs, but i don't fucking find it funny, not one bit.  

you know what else is sort of like cancer?  football.  i don't understand this American obsession with a shit culture that serves for nothing but brain rotting.  think about what Sundays and Monday nights and whatever other nights the games are on now must have been like back in the day.  i imagine that people either read, spent quality time together in the outdoors, ruminated on certain unfortunate circumstances in the world and how they might be solved, gathered in jolly congruence and ate heartily - or not, who cares, they just didn't watch football.  whatever it was they were doing, i bet it was better than sitting on a smelly couch throwing crumpled, empty Doritos bags at your 97 inch flat screen while belching over your 16th beer and feeling valid stress over the fact that some fat assholes did or didn't just move the ball a couple yards down a field.  i mean, this shit fills stadiums, "football night in America".  why doesn't the fact that we're dumb as sin move people to react in similar fashion?  these kids marching now on wall street might be up to something, except for the fact that they're all probably carting around iphones, so....shut the fuck up already then.     

i just found out that someone i love so so so much has cancer, stage iv.  i'm glad this isn't 100 years ago, or even 10, but THAT is a hard, hard pill to swallow.  

 

L'Shanah Tovah

i have quite a many quality friend from amongst the Chosen, so i need to give them a shout out, as in, may they be sealed in the book of the Righteous.  i really want that for them.  according to Jewish tradition, and i hope i'm not mistaken, it's during these days that God decides who lives and who dies in the coming year, and also, we eat pomegranates, which is indeed a very sexy fruit.  

what do I know about Jews?  i know a whole lot of anti-Semitism, real strong putrid hatred from people that really creep me out.  my therapist says that all of our discomforts come from a projection of something that we wish to displace from within our own selves, so i'd really love to take some xray glasses to that shit.  i mean, am i perfect with complete, adoring, pan-accepting Jesus love for everyone? obviously not, so obviously i need to take some xray glasses to my own discomposures as well.  i could start with my deep discomfiture towards white men of certain substance, or maybe my skepticism towards recycling in New York, but now i think i'm headed into Yom Kippur territory.        

i was asking some children where they thought our English language came from and one answered, "Moses?"

oh Moses, Moses.  40 years on the parched earth.  which way's out here??

all ye need to know

the greatest poem ever was written by a kid who died when he was 25.  if someone went around talking like this (see below) today, i'd probably consider him the biggest asshole i ever laid eyes on.  today, i watched a 25ish year old prick not clean up after his dog.

ODE ON A GRECIAN URN THOU still unravish’d bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fring’d legend haunts about thy shape	5
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?	10
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave	15
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal—yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!	20
Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearied,
For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!	25
For ever warm and still to be enjoy’d,
For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy’d,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.	30
Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead’st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea shore,	35
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of its folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul to tell
Why thou art desolate, can e’er return.	40
O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!	45
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,”—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. I mean, seriously???  Marry  me. (Keats, if you really don't know.)

"suppose you were an idiot"

you know who i've been, like, kinda obsessed with lately?  Samuel L. Clemens.  yes, I've known all along that he's considered the grandgodpappy of American literature, and who doesn't love the "travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness" line from Innocents Abroad, but who can take any of that seriously when they shove Tom Sawyer down your throat in a - i would venture to say - most unfashionable fashion in yonder parts north where someone may just have happened to have spent the 6th or 9th grade.

there's a question i like to ask people (as you should ask yourself): if you could have any three people (living now, or having already passed) to dinner, who would they be?  in general, i always think my three are Maria Callas, Mozart and Dostoevsky, but i think i'm going to have to recalibrate in this here Year of Our Lord 2011.  i actually don't think i want any women there, so, i'm sorry Maria, i continue to love your voice, but you know it would be all me me me me, so you are herein officially disinvited.  also, Dostoevsky...you may continue to be my favorite wordsmith, no doubt, but i feel like the evening might take on a morose turn which i reeeeally need to stay away from these days, so, with that i officially invite Christ, Jesus, and the ever-illustrious Mark Twain.  Mozart remains.

THAT would be a pretty fucking awesome amazing dinner.  what would i serve, what would i wear??

the rest of that Clemens quote ("Suppose you were an idiot.") goes "And suppose you were a member of Congress.  But I repeat myself."

here Twain is with one of his best buds, someone else who i'd really like to have over for dinner: Nikola Tesla, inventor of the iPad.

pfft!

THE greatest strip since bloom county:
http://gynostar.wordpress.com/

honk honk if you hear me

i can't stand the Today Show. i can't stand it, but i watch it almost every single day.  i can't help it.  i like to hear 2 minutes of quasi-real news, know whether or not i should grab an umbrella on my way out, and then be completely transfixed by mostly 20-minute segments on cute youtube videos of dogs that sing "i love you".

FUCK YOU, MATT LAUER.  there's, i think, at least 17 wars that we're currently involved in with young men getting maimed or killed, people starving around the world and in Pittsburg, the Earth is basically melting, our children are statistically illiterate, and there is probably a very large meteor headed our way, but this goose in England that follows its owner around is just so fucking cute that the Today show sends a special correspondent out to get a live, exclusive interview.  i mean............granted, he really was such a cute littl' bugger, the way he all waddled around after his master.............................................why why why why do i have a tv, whyyyyy????

i'm so sad about this.  i might go down to Rockefeller center and stand around with all those blithering idiots from Idaho that bounce around there every morning hoping to get a shout-out from Al Roker, and i'm gonna hold a sign saying "you dumb assholes, GE sucks your life plasma for breakfast", but i guess where would that get us, and who wants to go to midtown anyhow.  

i take it back, Matt.  you might actually have a soul.  i may have left mine on the L train. 

"i like thing"

:
cupcakes - cream cheese frosting
fam and friends - smiles till your face hurts
fresh air - hurts your lungs
a full night's rest - PAST 545
sex - take two.  oops - takeS two.
good words - thank you, thinkers
good art - thank you, lovers
good music- thank you, God
silence - i'm old now

meow

while i may only just now be warming up to the possibility of dogs being real cuties when considered completely outside of the realm of their owners, i have long held a deep love of cats.  those nasty little bitches don't mess around - they don't like you and they're not even going to waste their time pretending, so go get those tasty vittles right the fuck now and make it snappy or you might just very accidently trip and fall and break your neck when you're walking down the steps in the morning and something just happens to go twirling around your ankles oops and that will be the end of it, oh look a sunshine patch, time for a twelve hour nap!

my mom was recently adopted by a stray upstate.  that asshole literally gets pissed if someone stops petting him and you'll walk away with a whole inch of cat claw buried in your calf. when momzy walks the dogs, the cat runs around after them like ha ha look at me, i'm playing with your leash and your pissing on every other droopy flower like someone cares you dumb dogs.  honestly, i think he has more character than many many many many many people i know.  shit, even people i love.  Christ God, that is just the absolute truth, and THAT is just sad.

the charismatic cat in question, a rather handsome feller at that:

and now, a little self-loathing

not so far removed, yonder parts northern...

=

someone's in cahoots here, America

forget and forgive

prancing along a city street this morning, I saw a nun.  she wasn't prancing, I was, but boy did i fall in love.  she was tucked in a doorway, evidently waiting for the bus, and i couldn't take my eyes off her.  i just stared and stared as i walked on by.  she stared back, if you must know, probably because, in a recent attempt to let go of old, overaggressive inhibitions, i've shed some black (from my person...al wardrobe) of late, for the other side, that being white or whiteish, and it is very possible that she might have just thought i was an angel, all streaming super sexy down the street toward her.  she was so damn cute, one of those grandmommy faces, the jowels, the eye glasses, the white hair coming out from under her habit.  oh!  it was the perfect pressed habit, with a crisp black polyester jacket, her black skirt at midcalf and the finger-thick hose stuffed into her comfortable old lady hospital nurse nun shoes, and you know what happened???  she smiled!  she smiled at ME, and being all startled, i smiled back. hellooooo Magic!

the ONLY things i regret in life include NOT having accepted 5th row center tickets to a Prince concert at Madison Square Garden ("dumb------ass" does not come remotely near to serving this situation justice), and making a big HUGE devastating mistake a couple of years ago that just continues to eat my heart and soul right out.  being all estranged from God, i thought i could forgive myself, but it doesn't seem to be working.  who gives absolution these days?  i shoulda asked the nun.

what's in a name

tonight i ate at Best Pizza in Brooklyn, which i'm going to go ahead and say is a complete misnomer, but isn't that a problem we all probably have?

for entertainment purposes only

today, by chance, i met a local, no need to be named, leading representative of the Democratic party.  he was all sweaty and i found it weird that in our conversation he let me know that he had broken up with his girlfriend last week.  who cares, you dumb fuck, have you noticed the NATION lately????  i'm a Democratic, but i actually hate them, because they're a bunch of whiny pussies.  i hate the Republicans too, because they're a bunch of greasy hypocrites.  actually, they're both a bunch of shithead losers, since it's all a straight up farce anyway, so i don't know which is worse.

anyhow, i told this dude that education was important to me and that maybe i should start getting involved instead of just pissin and moanin on and on about it like a little ol loser, being that words are cheap and all that.  really, the state of American education seems to be pretty much deep in the potty, and therefore then, i would venture to say, the state of our nation, in analogous fashion.  so the guy gave me his card and said something about filling potholes, and i realized he was serious.  he'd help me get potholes filled on my block, because, let's be serious, do they even print books anymore?
    
yesterday was David Copperfield's birthday, which i meant to mention yesterday.  i happened to see him on the colbert report the other day talking about how we all love to live an illusion, that we all love and need to be deceived and that magicians/illusionists are honest deceivers, therein making it ok and just pretty much awesome.  where can i sign up?  oh wait, i forgot, who isn't a master illusionist, that is so fricking hilarious.  wow...now i'm getting myself all confused.  oh wait, it's not "illusional"...i believe the word i'm looking for is delusional.  yea, that's us. abracadabra.