“When summer gathers up her robes of glory, and, like a dream, glides away.” ~ Sarah Helen Whitman

Our end-of-summer recap posts will go up next weekend, but for now a little sneak preview cloaked in shadow and distorted by glass and reflection. Like the watery haze of a chlorinated pool, or a sun so bright it adds an impossible sheen to everything beneath its glory, summer is a heady mix of the seen and the unseen. The world grows bigger and brighter and greener before our eyes, the pace seems simultaneously quick and languid, and the air feels heavy and light all at once.

The bulk of September, lest anyone forget, is still summer. I always lost sight of that when returning to Brandeis at the end of August. I would prepare for sweater weather and cold nights, and always regret that I didn’t bring more short-sleeved shirts for un-air-conditioned dorm rooms and stuffy T rides. We are so quick to let summer go.

“Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer’s day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.” ~ John Lubbock

This year I’m making the most of it until the very end, holding onto every last ray of sunlight, basking in every day we inch back up toward the 80’s. Summer has been kind to us. It isn’t always, so I offer gratitude and thankfulness as we near its end.

“I know I am but summer to your heart, and not the full four seasons of the year.” ~ Edna St. Vincent Millay

Season premieres always thrilled me. If there were new clips and an updating to a show’s theme song, that was even more exciting. (Who among my generation didn’t delight at every updating of the intro to ‘The Cosby Show‘? I still remember that tropical orchestral version that turned it on its head in the best way.)

We’re changing things up a bit here for the fall season of ALANILAGAN.com – which has its own premiere on September 23 – the official first day of fall this year. Don’t worry (well, go ahead and worry in this case) there will be regular posts up until then, including a fantastic summer recap for the few kind folks who have been clamoring for some pool shots these past few months. You got to skin it to win it.

The fall season of this site will begin where I have rarely gone – into my work history with the state of New York. It’s a bit of a dry start for anyone who isn’t in the drudgery, but it has some juicy tidbits for anyone who’s been part of the state system.

On a broader scale, we are also headed into the fall and/or possibly winter of this blog. At a whopping sixteen years of age, this thing is a dinosaur among blogs, and part of what has kept it going is not commercial or popular success – it’s just a simple need to create. That won’t change anytime soon, but blogs haven’t been hot in quite some time, and to do all of this takes time and work. The latter I don’t mind, but the former is in short supply these days, and doesn’t look to expand any time soon. But that’s for me to figure out, and no sense in saying anything other than I think we’re well beyond the halfway mark of this website’s lifespan, at least in its current incarnation.

To keep things interesting in this second act, I’m going to change up the general pattern of this site. A typical day of posts has more or less included a morning piece, a midday collection of #TinyThreads, and a Hunk of the Day happy ending to finish the evening. We are reshuffling this a bit. Fall demands change.

First up, I’m easing off on the Tiny Threads series. It was, to be sure, an insignificant series for this site, but will still crop up from time to time – just not on the daily schedule it used to occupy. You should totally check in now and then and follow the long linky trail that each of those posts has within it (just keep clicking on the #TinyThreads link to bring you back to a previous TT post).

I’m also moving the Hunk of the Day to the middle of the afternoon on most days, when I can shoot out a proper promo post on FaceBook and Twitter during my lunch break. Pretty people bring in appreciators of beauty, who may then (hopefully) peruse more posts. Or they can simply enjoy the prettiness in the middle of the day, when most of us need a jolt of inspiration to carry us into the evening hours.

The Madonna Timeline is most definitely into its own winter season, with the final quarter of songs I have locked and loaded and ready for random selection. There are a few gems yet to be excavated, though the main soundtrack of my life has already been pilloried for the series. [See ‘Crazy For You‘ or ‘Live To Tell‘ or ‘You’ll See’ or ‘Secret Garden.’]

As for the rest of it – the Naked Male Celebrities, the Tom Ford, the Fashion, the Flowers, the Family, and Andy – much will continue as it always has, at least for the time being. This is the stuff of my life, and I’ll keep trying to make sense of it here, with all its accompanying foibles and follies and frills.

It happened as I swirled the bar of ‘After the Sun’ Beekman 1802 soap in my hands and drew the lather over my arms. The shower was warm, the day had been long, and in this solitary moment of indulgence a simple bit of soap brought beauty and solace to the evening. It struck me that this was what the Beekman Boys had been talking about when they explained their vision not just for a cleaner and healthier lifestyle from their beauty products, but a happier one. As the captivating aroma of lavender filled the room and the softness of aloe and goat milk permeated my skin, I thought of the notion of happiness, and how gloriously contagious it could be. If you can be happy, do it. If you can be happy and naked and surrounded by suds, do that.

Having been a Beekman 1802 neighbor since this trip to Sharon Springs in 2012, I’ve been religiously using their products, and it’s enriched the way I take care of myself (and others, because these items make great gifts). The bar of ‘After the Sun’ soap has lasted since earlier in the summer – a glorious creation that perfectly soothes any angry bits of redness the sun may have inadvertently left on the skin. I place it back in the holder, where it leaves neither soap scum nor mushy residue, and once again wonder at the simplicity and enchanting properties of goat’s milk.

More than that, I experience a moment of euphoria – a moment of sheer happiness and comfort and joy culled from the beauty of the world, and the way in which the Beckman Boys so lovingly spread that message of happiness. It’s in the idyllic wake-up pictures of their farm that they post, in the uplifting way they give back to their local community on small and grand scales, and in the careful curation of products that eschew harmful chemicals. They leave their mark in a sustainable fashion, and share their message of happiness with neighbors around the world. There’s no better way to be a citizen of society. We are all in this together, and there’s something very poetic about finding all of that in a simple bar of soap. 

{This weekend, the Beekman 1902 company will be hosting the 10th anniversary of their annual Harvest Festival in Sharon Springs and if you’re in the area you should absolutely check it out. I don’t think we’ll be able to make this one, but we will be watching their televised HSN event and being neighborly that way (while also stocking up on holiday gifts… ok, and maybe something for me because the giver needs some pampering too).}

Do you remember that now-classic Steven Spielberg scene at the start of ‘Jurassic Park’ where the suspense is built upon a single ripple in a glass of water? It portends the arrival of the Tyrannosaurus rex and is chilling in its simplicity and power. I was reminded of that when I looked out the window and saw bits of bark and leaves fluttering down from the sky. Up until then the day had been a lovely one and there was still light in the sky. But falling debris out of nowhere meant that the winds were high nearby, and strong enough to carry such lofty detritus down to the earth. A metaphoric substitution of a coming storm for the coming fall. Such dramas, if they stay so little, have always thrilled me. I went outside to the backyard to await its arrival…

Tomorrow this site goes dark, as it has since I first started posting things in 2003, in honor of those lost on 9/11/01. The beauty of September has been marred ever since that date, but it also marks a time to remember all the love that is still in this world. I forget about that sometimes. Here are a few posts that remind us of the capability of the human heart, and what we can do when we pause to see the beauty of the world. At least, it’s what I try to do – and what I need to do more often. 

Walking in the woods.

Looking up at the moon.

Breaking the day.

Smudging a home. 

Holding hands. 

Wedding love. 

Babysitting adventures. 

Painting memories. 

Wording.

Falling for Shirley.

Returning to beauty.

Holding the ocean.

Finding woodland peace.

Posing in a tree.

Milking the goats.

So many nines in the date today, let’s hope they bring us luck. In the meantime, as some fall-feeling nights have snapped us into school-time awareness, we shall look back at the first full week of September, already over, as the rest of the month charges ahead at full speed…

It began in the finest of forms – Maluma and Ricky Martin to be precise.

Morning visitors and afternoon storms. 

The category is Tom Daley in skimpy attire.

#FuckingVirgos.

Ghost objects.

We want and want and want.

I ate a hot dog with peanut butter, bacon, cheese, and scallions. 

Twelve years ago I found FaceBook and vice versa.

Can’t be mad about it now. 

The moody magnificence of Madonna’s ‘Music’ album. 

Do I have ‘Google’ written on my ass?

Hunks of the Day included Mark Cirillo, Max Parker, Ryan Russell, Daniel Franzese,  James Heatly and Theo James.