December 2012
These precious gems are pomegranates, and once removed from their encasement they shine like jewels. The trick to excavating them and not getting your hands stained with their potent color, is to cut the whole fruit in half, then work to remove the seeds in a bowl of water. It just takes a bit of practice, and soon you’ll have a gorgeous pile of antioxidant-rich fruit, ready for snacking, cocktailing, or just sprinkling on melon or salads.
{Note: The Madonna Timeline is an ongoing feature, where I put the iPod on shuffle, and write a little anecdote on whatever was going on in my life when that Madonna song was released and/or came to prominence in my mind.}
This is one of those ‘morning-after’ songs, when you look at the world through the dim lens of regret, a look that is both frightening and unforgiving. Perhaps it’s the death knell of a relationship, or the realization that you’ve been betrayed. Perhaps a friendship has fallen apart and you understand and accept that there is no way to right it. Perhaps it’s the simple acknowledgment that what has passed is indeed, and finally, in the past, and we can never be the same. It is a chilling notion, and this is a chilling song.
From the 2008 album ‘Hard Candy’, this is Madonna at her most brittle and bitter, but there is beauty at work too. Resignation can be redemptive, and the cleaving of heartache a necessary, if brutal, form of self-preservation.
Drugs or drink, sex or danger, debauchery or depravity – we all have our demons. They prey upon us in the night, they use and expose our vulnerability, they turn us inside out. “I know what it’s like to be bad. I’ve been bad…” In the gray light of dawn, the morning that always comes, no matter how late, we pick ourselves up, and clean up the mess. There is no happy ending, no quick and easy resolution, and we will do it all over again until it is all we know.
Like her best songs, this one can be read on multiple levels – but in the end I think it’s as much about pointing the finger at yourself as it is about blaming others, confronting the visage in the mirror, the person we don’t always want to recognize, the person we pretend isn’t really there.
On her ‘Sticky & Sweet Tour’, Madonna performed a haunting rendition of the song, cloaked in black for much of its duration, only rising and revealing herself toward the end. In a career made out of pretend, it is a magically stark moment.
This is going to be a rather slow day here, so I’ll direct you to The Pictures portal for your perusing pleasure. That’s where the featured picture was culled from, and there’s a whole Winter gallery to whet the appetites of those fiending for snow. I’m not quite ready for the white stuff, but to each their own.
It’s difficult to determine what exactly is being sold until the end, butt does it really matter?
You’re never too old (or big) for Santa’s lap. In this never-before-seen shot of what was once a Holiday Card contender, this is me sitting on the lap of a very special Santa – my husband Andy. Yes, back in the day I somehow cajoled him into appearing in a possible Christmas Card decked out in full-on Santa Drag. I’m not sure why it was never used (he likely didn’t sign the release), or what monstrosity replaced it (there are a few sordid options here and there and everywhere), but it’s being posted now because I’m feeling the Christmas spirit. (I’m also just glad that the wretched door seen in the background has been replaced. Some things are worth celebrating over and over and over…)
Before the snow arrives, as we approach the shortest and darkest day of the year, we invite our friends old and new over to celebrate the season.
The title of this post says it all, and then some, but male model Ngo Okafor somehow says even more. I have never in my life been with a guy built like this, and if I had I probably wouldn’t have had the first clue what to do other than laugh nervously and get the hell out of there. Some things are too good to be true.
We must interrupt this day of male models for the shot below of Tom Daley holding up a sprig of mistletoe and inviting the viewer to… okay, I can’t. Is this bitch even legal? (Yes, he is.) Anyway, he one of the favorites here, so in the spirit of Christmas, I present Mr. Daley in these three holiday poses.
Is that a gun near his pocket or is he just happy to see me? While tattoos are not usually my thing, I’ll suspend that foolish rule for the sake of this bad boy, male model Mateus Verdelho. Is he bad because of his tats, or are his tats bad because of him. (I sincerely hope you didn’t come here today for the written word.) All we have are salacious pubic shots, all day and half of the night.
This post, and the near-naked ones that follow, is a complete lazy cop-out, designed for ease and speed when I’m too sick and tired to do much else. It is male model Tobias Sorensen, and he is only the first of a parade of male models for the day. Apologies for the lack of long-winded prose, but you’re probably already scrolling down to see how low the pubic hair shots go, so don’t let me interrupt you. Just don’t come back and revisit my words because that’s just plain rude. Enjoy the rest of the day… more to come.
Tonight, at midnight to be exact, I will be seeing my first midnight showing of a movie since… well, probably ‘Evita’ with Suzie in Times Square. This time around it’s ‘The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey’ with my friend Skip (who is also webmaster of this very site). Consider it a midnight man-date. (His wife Sherri said it was okay, and so did my husband Andy.)
I have no idea what to expect, other than a few people wearing costumes. I debated going that route – I love an excuse to wear a costume! – but time ran out, and a sniffle derailed me, so I’ll have to sit the wardrobe portion of the evening out. The best I can do, off-the-cuff, is an approximation of the fur ensemble seen below – though it might prove awfully hot in a crowded theater.
I am woefully aware that I missed out on the golden age of office holiday parties – those wild and carefree days when you could smoke, drink, and make sexual advances while under the influence of said smoke and drink, and all would be forgiven and forgotten by the next Monday morning. It was the ultimate representation of ‘What happens at the office Christmas party stays at the office Christmas party’. Sadly, those days are done, and there is so much political correctness at the office parties I’ve attended that there is no more room for indecent fun and debauchery. They have been watered down to sanitized versions of their former glory, with no room for outrageousness, and no hope for excitement. I never got to experience the wicked ways of the past, (and I hold little to no hope of having it happen at today’s office party), so I’ll pop in the Christmas episode of ‘Mad Men’ – the one where Joan leads a feisty conga line – and dream of the sugarplums of the 60’s, back when life was quaint, and you could bribe Santa with a nip.
I never realized that Fred Astaire was the voice behind ‘Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town’, which is currently playing in our den. (And who the hell knew that Mickey Rooney played Kris Kringle??) And does anyone call this room a ‘den’ anymore? Forgive me, a trifling of a cold has got me slightly down and delirious, just at the most inopportune moment, but I am determined to lick it quickly and decisively.
It turns out that Burl Ives, Fred Astaire and Boris Karloff formed some of my most happy Christmas memories. I wonder if the stop-motion style of these stories casts the same spell over today’s kids. Incidentally, my favorite song from all of these Christmas specials is in this one – ‘Put One Foot in Front of the Other’ – which I love as much for the tune as for its moment of misunderstood-bad-guy-transformation.
This is our Christmas tree for 2012. It’s usually done with colored lights, but I begged and pleaded that Andy let us do it in white lights to match the rest of the decorations this year. Before he had a chance to answer, I strung it myself. It’s easier to ask forgiveness than to ask permission. Personally, I think it’s just as lovely, and much brighter than usual. Next year he can go back to the full-color version since the tree is usually his thing.
While trimming the tree used to be my favorite thing to do, since I grew up, I stopped bothering with it. I’m not sure why. Sometimes the things we think will be the last to go are the first to be forgotten. When I lived in Boston I never had a Christmas tree, not even a tiny Charlie Brown version – it just seemed like too much work for such a small thing.
If I were to end up in Boston again, I would most definitely get a tree for the holidays. In fact, the last time I was in town I was tempted to get one for the condo just for the scant weekends I’d be there this month. (Kira rightly argued against it.)
No matter what else is going on in the world, waking to the smell of a fresh Christmas tree in the living room will always make things just a little better. That’s something that will never go away.
