It was only Monday, and the week had already kicked us all down. One friend was just getting out of the hospital, for the second time in a week. Another was locked down in the hospital he works at, thanks to some guy with a gun. And then our neighbor had a medical emergency, to which Andy rushed out to offer assistance. I thought about not checking my phone for fear of what news might arrive next.
Alone, I stood in the middle of the house, listening to the rain on a late-March evening, when the world should have been full of hope. Instead, it was a day of tragic news too – another school shooting left three children and three adults dead. Tornadoes in the south left almost thirty people dead. Standing there, I reached out for a wall, and then brought my hands to my face because suddenly I was crying.
Darling are you feeling The same thing that I’m seeing? The troubles of the day, Took my breath away Took my breath away
I didn’t know whether they were tears of relief or release, tears of sadness or anger, tears of exhaustion or powerlessness, or a little bit of all of it. It was over quickly, because I took one step forward, and then another, and I kept walking, aimlessly through the hall, through the kitchen, into the den, and back. One step after another, because it was all I could do, and all I could think to do. In the bedroom, I pulled open the curtain and looked out to Andy’s car in the neighbor’s driveway. The rain mottled its sleek surface, running onto the pavement and down the street. It shone on the bare branches of the plants still blissfully asleep. The world was weeping with me.
Now you’re no longer talking And I’m no longing hearing There’s nothing left to say Said it anyway Said it anyway
And I want you not I need you not I’m dying ’cause this is the saddest song I’ve got
The saddest song I’ve got
I worry. I worry for my parents. I worry for my husband. I worry for my family. I worry for my friends. I worry for my neighbors. I worry for the world. And I worry a little for myself, because I haven’t felt this fear in a very long time. I worry that this is it – the long, or maybe not-so-long trudge into old age, into obsolete madness, into days that only know loss and sadness and the memory of what once made us all so happy, the memory of what made the world so bearable. I wonder what to make of the days when that memory fades for good.
Darling are you healing From all those scars appearing? And don’t it hurt a lot? Don’t know how to stop Don’t know how it stops
Now there’s no sense in seeing The colors of the morning. Can’t hold the clouds at bay Chase them all away Chase them all away
I went into the attic and started writing this post while listening to this song. Probably not the wisest thing to hear in such a mood, but sometimes you have to dive into it and feel it, however awful it might be. The only way out is usually through.
Andy texted that another neighbor was dropping off a blueberry coffee cake so we would have breakfast in the morning. That made me cry more. The heart aches at all the hurt in the world; the heart breaks when another human tries to make it better. I thought of one friend’s answer when I once asked how she managed to not get overwhelmed and consumed by all the awfulness of the news: she said she thinks of her kids and how they are making this place better.
A 47-year-old man weeps in front of his laptop and feels absolutely ridiculous doing so, but gives into it anyway because some nights the world is just that awful. Some nights a good cry is the only thing that forces us to keep going, to put one foot in front of the other and keep going, to wipe the tears away and keep going… keep going, even when it hurts… just keep going… for all the people who can’t.
And I’m frozen still Unspoken still Hearts broken Remembering something I forgot Something I forgot
The current phenomenon known as ‘Heartstopper’ originates with Dazzler of the Day Alice Oseman, who wrote the webcomic on which everything was based, and who has helmed the Netflix series as creator, writer, and executive producer. She has crafted a world of fascinating characters and stories in the young adult novels ‘Solitaire’, ‘Radio Silence’, ‘I Was Born for This’, and ‘Loveless’. She’s been nominated for the YA Book Prize, the Inky Awards, the Carnegie Medal, and the Goodreads Choice Awards. Check out Oseman’s charming website here for further brilliance.
The hazy shades of winter persist, as predicted, because in upstate New York spring is usually slow to come and then quick to pass – all hurry! hurry! quick! quick! wait! wait! stop! stop! – and then we wonder why some of us denizens are so crazed. Give us a moment to adjust!
Normally I wouldn’t include such dour and drab photos, not without some scintillating commentary to spruce them up, but today you will have to make do with what is at hand. ‘Tis the damn season. I’ll need all the energy to gear myself up into tackling the winter mess once this snow finally departs for good.
We need way more hilarity in this wretched period of American history, and no one is better to provide that than Jessica Kirson. With a take-no-prisoners style of hilarious attack comedy, Kirson doesn’t let her audience relax from laughing for one minute. She’s recently made a splash in TikTok and social media, and is touring the country providing some much-needed laughs at a time when most of us don’t know how badly we need it. Her acerbic brand of humor is caustically effective, finding the most vulnerable spot in our armor, piercing it with one deft jab, then ripping out the beating heart of the human experience, and giddily wringing out every last drop of hilarious blood. Maybe it just speaks more personally to me and what I find funny, but she more than deserves this Dazzler of the Day.
Behold, the pussywillow! These furry little harbingers of spring harken to some happy childhood memories. When I see them on offer in the market, I know spring is at hand. As their common name suggests, these are a member of the willow family, with all the magical properties that tree carries.
A simple vase of them is enough, though they make wonderful vertical accents in bouquets. I like to keep them to themselves, where the interesting features can be inspected without competition with more colorful scene-stealers. There will be time enough for them in the coming months – let’s begin slowly, and softly…
The month of March bridges the birthdays of our two dear friends JoAnn and Ali, so when they made a visit this past weekend we celebrated both with a cake and low-key celebration. Just being together with friends who go back decades is a celebration, and the older we get, the less importance we place on birthdays, and the more we put on being together.
JoAnn texted in advance and asked if we still had snow. I had to answer int he affirmative, as I look dout into the yard and saw swatch of dirty white stuff still heaped and mounded on the garden and lawn. We would also get a spattering of snow and rain on Saturday, but our plans were solidified, and we weren’t going anywhere.
On Friday night the gals arrived, to a light dinner of classic dips and chips – it’s been so long since we had a proper party, I put together the beloved dill dip in a bowl of rye bread and a batch of the red pepper chutney dip. A dinner of dips, reminding us of parties and past debauchery, provided moments of happy reminiscence, with the added flavor of gratitude that some of those times are behind us.
After the first flush of happy reconnection, and gorging on all the food (Ali had provided an assortment of insanely-delicious Portuguese confections, as she always does) JoAnn and I headed off to bed while Any and Ali stayed up talking util 5:30 in the morning. We’d already decided to sleep in and indulge in puttering about the home the next day, when forecasted nastiness of wind and rain and snow would keep us homebound.
Lazily and happily sleeping in, we reconvened with a few breakfast sandwiches that I asked JoAnn to make (she does them the best) and spent the day doing nothing but talking and munching. By afternoon, we settled in for a viewing of ‘Troop Beverly Hills’ and ate popcorn and movie candy for dinner. The perfect sort of day while we waited for the season to shift closer to summer.
It was a glorious kick-off to spring, and being around good friends is the best balm for shaking off a dreary winter.
A member of BTS named Jung Kook is the rumored face and body of a new Calvin Klein collaboration. Once upon a time, this site would have been entirely on top of this and I’d have been able to give you the complete run-down on all involved parties and appendages. As it stands now, I know nothing about what’s happening from either end of this pairing. But hey, here is Jung Kook in his Calvins, not unlike Shawn Mendes and Nick Jonas and Maluma.
Putting a weekend of friends and family to bed is never fun, and this was one I wished could have gone on a bit longer. Reality and life are not quite ready to bend that way just yet, and so the work week begins again, and our Money morning recap is illuminated by this pretty bowl of grapes. Here’s what happened the week that this hemisphere turned to spring:
They make it look so easy on those Instagram reels and TikTok dreams, but when I try something like this ‘super simple’ French omelette, it sticks to the pan, burns to the consistency of a rubbery frisbee, and tastes like French bulldog shit. There is a Sunday morning lesson here (aside from not walking away from eggs to check your text messages) and it comes with the posting of these decidedly-imperfect photos.
The vast majority of posts that go up here are highly curated and edited, cropped within an inch of their lives (and sometimes my dick) to the point that everything looked deceptively pretty and enchanting – even the darker stuff. Well, that’s not really true to life. It’s true to the spirit of this site, and the idea of aspiration, but I never liked to sugarcoat, so in the ongoing quest to embrace and accept our inherent imperfection, this post shows that failure is part of the game.
I will try this again – though not for a day or two given the price of eggs. I ate this one, most of it, because it was edible, just not very good. There another lesson there too: accepting what’s good enough rather than tossing it out and trying to achieve something great.
The James Renaissance continues from this ‘Tomorrow’ post, with a preview of their new orchestral album ‘Be Opened By the Wonderful’ which sounds like it’s going to be aural ecstasy to my ears. ‘She’s A Star’ gains poignance and a more tender luster than its original incarnation through its orchestral treatment, and the lyrics come into greater focus without all the glorious guitar work and drum noise.
Whenever her face is frozen, Unable to fake it anymore
Her shadow is always with her, Her shadow could keep her small
So frightened that he won’t love her, She builds up a wall
Oh no, she knows where to hide in the dark, Oh no, she’s nowhere to hide in the dark
She’s a star… She’s a star
If this is any indication of how the new album will transform some classic James songs, I’m already on board. In the 20th year of this website, I’ve been indulging in some nostalgia of late. The advancing march of time feels especially swift these days, as I watch my parents, and now my friends, go through their health obstacles – mostly due to the simple act of getting older. I feel it in myself too – the blood pressure pills, the stubborn paunch, the more-salt-than-pepper hair, the failing eyesight, and the frustrating way I can’t remember anything that happened in the last five years, or five minutes. (I can still give you stellar and detailed examinations of what went down from 1996 through 2002, however – more than anyone needs to know, and largely useless in 2023.)
In this nostalgia, I find pockets of time when I see how badly I treated some people, and how badly I’ve treated myself. There is empathy for everything we went through, rather than the mean and arch way I’ve confronted discomfort from the past. When I look back at the young man I used to be, I find myself shaking my head and giving off the smallest laugh at what we did to each other, and at the guarded ways I tried so valiantly, and foolishly, to protect my heart. All the while, I failed to find the goodness there, and the real power in being open and vulnerable. Too concerned with being perfect, too afraid of losing love by not being perfect, I walked a tightrope with all the requisite tension and carefulness involved. There should have been more happiness, and a little part of me will always mourn that I didn’t allow myself to feel that.
She’s been in disguise forever, She’s tried to disguise her stellar views
Much brighter than all this static, Now she’s coming through
Oh no, she knows where to hide in the dark, Oh no, she’s nowhere to hide in the dark
She’s a star… She’s a star
How often do we dim our lights or silence our speech so as not to be the lighthouse or the foghorn? They have real purpose and meaning – how dare we act like we carry the same right to be here, the same right to shine or scream? The caution we craft and create is the very thing holding us back, and so we play into the grand scheme designed to keep us quiet, to keep us behaving, to keep us exactly like everybody else. How dare we be different…
Don’t tell her to turn down
Put on your shades if you can’t see
Don’t tell her to turn down
Turn up the flame
She’s a star… She’s a star
The older I get, the more myself I feel, and the out-of-place awkwardness that peppered my youth has largely dissipated. Those years were helpful – they held their own lessons and imbued me with their own power – I just wish I had learned it all a little faster. But that’s no real reason for regret – it happened when it needed to happen. It happened when it was supposed to happen. If I look back with a bit of bitterness for not knowing better, it’s only because I’m a little happier with where I am today.
And so the star-like journey of a life is played out, and like the real stars, each one is different and unique, each has its own lifespan and trajectory designed by destiny. Each of us finds our way to our own enlightenment like we find our way home.
Jake Shears just released a dance floor bop that brings me back to those full-throated dance divas of the 90’s, thanks to a featured vocal tour-de-force by Amber Martin. It’s the perfect antidote for a rainy Saturday night, when you need some inspiration, and a reminder of how fun Saturday night could and should be. Turn this one up, let go your mind and inhibitions, and set yourself free on the dance floor – even if it’s the kitchen these days.
Wearing a rather ugly flannel shirt in plaid, burnt out with some intentional rust stains, and procured on some exasperating visit to Marshall’s or TJ Maxx when I needed something different, I waited while the cashier at Price Chopper rang up some items. She was a young girl in her twenties maybe, and exuberantly asked me how I was. Mimicking her exuberance – I hadn’t quite decided whether to be nice or snarky – I said I was great and asked how she was doing in a tone that anyone who knew me would describe as manic and aggressively not-friendly, but then quickly slipped into nice mode because that usually ends things quicker. She said she was good and then looked at my shirt. The aforementioned flannel shirt. Clearly, obviously flannel. Plaid.
“I like your blouse,” she said.
“Blouse?” I asked, my snarkiness returning despite my best efforts.
“I’m just bougie like that!” she replied.
My look must have indicated my feelings, and it went beyond any Resting Bitch Face I would typically conjure, as she immediately began defending her ‘blouse’ comment.
“What would you call it? It’s more fancy to say ‘blouse’ right?”
It was amusing now, and I didn’t want her to panic. “I’ll take ‘blouse’!” I said. “I love fancy. Normally I would just call it a shirt. A flannel shirt.”
So now I wear blouses – and, truth be told, I always did.
I don’t know what the fuck these people witnessed Jehovah do, but they have not been right since. I was working from home when the doorbell rang, and since I was in the line of sight I couldn’t pretend no one was home like I normally would. Two strangers stood at the front door looking in, and I walked tentatively toward them while Andy slept in the bedroom. The woman in front wore a mask, and as I opened the door a crack, she pushed her hand inside to hand me the pamphlet pictured here.
The women looked confused, and looked to her back-up, who proceeded to tell me they believed what Jehovah believed, that marriage should be between one man and one woman. She said it sweetly and kindly, like that would negate what she was really imparting.
“That is what the Bible teaches, and that is what Jehovah’s Witnesses believe, and personally I do not believe in same-sex marriage, but I do not judge others and no one would treat you badly if you were to attend…”
“No thanks,” I said, cutting her off. The morning was cold and I was letting heat out of the house and I just didn’t have the strength or desire to have a discussion with two strangers who approached our home and came onto our property to spew sweetly-worded hate.
She thanked me for my time, perhaps relieved that I didn’t say more.
These kalanchoe blooms are little when taken on their own, but pack a wallop in their shade and number – a lesson in how to make an impression by coming together. This was one of the first plants I ever grew as a child, a story more fully expounded upon in this post. I remember that winter in the guest room where my grandma would stay when she visited. It had the sunniest window, with a southwestern exposure, and it provided the strong light the succulent leaves of kalanchoe loved. They like to be kept on the dry side, and so are pretty easy-upkeep, even after they finish flowering (in-flower is the only state in which I’ve ever seen them sold).
Taking a few tentative steps into spring with these blooms feels good. There is still snow on the ground, and a few more snowstorms likely to come, but it’s okay to give in to this beauty. It’s healing after a winter of cold bruises.
Everyone thinks the winter wind is the one that cuts the deepest, but it’s the wind of early spring, when things are heaving and breaking and melting, that carries the biggest risk of pushing you off the edge of a building. As I walked toward the moon, I felt the wind at my back, and the ledge of the observatory roof was a dim line straight ahead. Carrying a heavy heart, one that had already been broken before I could leave my teenage-years, and mostly by my own machinations, left my walk slow but deliberate. Resigned and intent. The seductive spell of a spring night had been whispered to me from the wind, and I moved away from my classmates, nearer the edge, nearer the forbidden space the professor had warned us against.
I see you falling How long to go before you hit the ground You keep on screaming Don’t you see me here Am I a ghost to you?
Ahh, spring. Your treacherous offering of hope when what you really have to give is heartache. But you do it wrapped in a cherry blossom, nodding in the cheery self-obsession of a glade of narcissus, teasing from the tip of a tulip petal. Spring and all your madness, stripped in a storm, rendering all of us naked and tender and ill-equipped for the cold that’s still deep in the night, and still waiting for us in the morning.
Now your grip’s too strong You can’t catch love with a net or a gun Gotta keep faith that your path will change Gotta keep faith that your luck will change tomorrow Tomorrow…
Back then, whether admitted or not (and for the most part I never admitted it to anyone) my only goal in life was to find a partner ~ a companion. I just didn’t want to go through it all alone. I was tired of being alone.
I don’t think I’ve ever said that out loud.
Not that I wasn’t good at being alone. Not that it had ever been a choice. I was simply ready to find someone with whom I might share a life – with whom I might make a life. And while I never put that into words then, as even I understood that wasn’t first date banter, my actions and desire spoke more than I ever could, frightening would-be suitors and maybe-friends away. Maybe, too, I knew that I wasn’t ready for it, and sabotaged myself before letting anything happen, before getting too carried away. But oh, what spring could seduce from the merest hints of connection, and oh how badly I wanted to be with someone.
This song arrived just as I found myself without a girlfriend or boyfriend, and I sought out solace in my platonic friends, calling them late at night, wondering if they could sense my desperation, the terrifying need to not be alone at those dangerous hours. Anything but lonely…
Why are you phoning? What am I to do when you’re miles away? You’re always calling from the darkest moods and we’re both scared…
Life then existed in letters and late night phone calls, hushed conversations held in indulgent secrecy, hidden from flatmates and strangers alike – that was how we kept in touch, how we made connections. There wasn’t texting or FaceBook or seeing someone’s whole life history. We only knew what we were told, and what we could read in between the laughter and sighs, much of it was made-up – and all of it better than the false-transparency of what we put out on social media today.
Back then you had to trust your friends to stick with you despite distance and time, and it didn’t always work. Even the closest among us found ourselves growing apart – it couldn’t be helped – but I railed against that, struggling to stay in touch, wrangling us together for parties and gatherings, even when no one knew what to say. Because it mattered, didn’t it? That we had been through it together. That we had been through that formative part of life, that we knew each other before we knew ourselves. It had to matter. As soon as the thought formed, I knew that time in our lives had passed. I knew also that I would not let it go so easily, finding the nets and guns and forces to keep us intact and together. That was my purpose.
Now your grip’s too strong You can’t catch love with a net or a gun Gotta keep faith that your path will change Gotta keep faith that your love will change
Every spring, I listened to this song, and every spring seemed to get a little less lonely. It revealed different meanings as the years passed, changing from a lesson in how to get through a lonely night to a lesson in learning how not to force things, especially love. That was a lesson I needed more than most. My friends could always keep their heads when it came to crushes and obsessions – I lost mine, and willingly gave away my heart in the process. I listened to ‘Tomorrow’, as I listened for tomorrow, and slowly I began to understood the mantra:
Now your grip’s too strong Can’t catch love with a net or a gun Gotta keep faith that your path will change Gotta keep faith that your love will change tomorrow
It was on a summer evening – and even though I certainly didn’t feel like I had any semblance of shit together, looking back, that was the beginning of when I started to pull it together. Or at least put forth the appearance of keeping things together. Getting by, and getting on with it. The first steps in being ok with being alone. I knelt down to tie my sneakers, then grinned at the light still pouring into the bedroom window. Summer in Boston beckoned, and I ran into the South End as neighbors took their dinner plates onto their front steps.
Running every night was my little way of getting out in the world. Too socially-anxious to prowl the bars or clubs on a regular basis (and certainly never on my own when everyone else had departed the city for the summer) I connected to people from the distance of speed and flight, as I raced the streets of Boston, running away as much as I was running toward something. I spent most nights spent and heated, a late-night shower to cool off, and then a spell of reading in the bedroom. Slowly, I was learning to love being by myself. Something told me I needed to do that – genuinely and authentically – if I was ever going to learn to love someone, and let them love me in return.
I’m just out of your range Tomorrow All your suffering’s in vain Tomorrow
“This song was written as an attempt to stop a close friend jumping off the roof.” ~ James
I didn’t know that this was the origin of this song. It never meant that to me, but it makes sense about why it spoke to me on so many levels, and so deeply. This has always been one of my favorite songs, one that has withstood time and place. And James has always been my favorite band. (Relax, Madonna is not a band.) I loved them since they wore dresses and ate bananas for the cover of their absolute best album ‘Laid’. That song cycle informed my life at its most crucial and influential moments – when the soul was solidifying into what it will always be.
Now your grip’s too strong You can’t catch love with a net or a gun Gotta keep faith that your path will change Gotta keep faith that your love will change tomorrow
This song reminds me that it’s ok to sink low sometimes, to walk toward the ledge and wonder about jumping off. No sane person would witness what we do to each other and not wonder at the futility of this world. How could we not want to off ourselves now and then? We weren’t designed to withstand such cruelty, but here we are, doing our best, doing it together whether we realize it or not. It’s there in a late-night phone call from a friend, an unexpected letter in the mail, a FaceBook message from a stranger just checking in – all these little ways we show that we care, that people are worth a little suffering and pain, that we are alive in this exquisitely imperfect and fucked-up world, and for the most part we are each doing our best to be better for each other.
I got out of your range Tomorrow All your suffering seems vain Change tomorrow Some forgiveness now Tomorrow Love’s no sacred cow
