Oh my God, I thought as I turned my hands over in themselves, rubbing lotion into the dry cracks of my knuckles, I’ve turned into Mrs. Loomis. She was my second grade teacher – one of my favorites – and I remember quite a few days of that school year. It was the year we each got a folder with our name on it, one we would keep until the last day of school.

In a method that would likely be unthinkable in today’s overly-egalitarian coddling of children, those students who completed a perfect day of school work would receive a sticker for our personalized folders. At the end of the year, the student with the most stickers would get to pick from a pile of prizes, and so on down the line until everyone got one. I guess in a way it was kind of cruel, but only if you were one of the dumb kids. Well, scholastically-challenged. Oh fuck it, dumb. This blog isn’t going to win any child-friendly awards any time soon.

But I digress… back to the lotion at hand. Or on hand. I use it sparingly now, remembering a certain day when Mrs. Loomis made the mistake of squeezing out more than she needed. She often sat at her desk while we were working, twisting her hands and fingers around each other after procuring a small amount of lotion from her container of Vaseline. I watched with keen interest this magic ritual. She didn’t even take her rings off to do it. One day she absent-mindedly squirted too much into her palm. She looked up and asked the class if anyone wanted some. A few girls stood up and got in line, and a boy or two. (I was not one of them.) She took a little bit from the excess on her hand and put some on each child’s hand until she had a manageable amount left. The kids acted like little adults, rubbing it in as they returned to their desks. One of the kids, Sammy, was notoriously ill-behaved. I had no tolerance for such nonsense, so he was never one of my favorites, but he stood in line, much to my amused surprise. He got his little dollop of lotion and swirled it around in his hands. My heart softened a little at that moment. I wondered if he lived in a home bereft of the luxury of lotion. I wondered what else his home might not have that mine did, and that I’d always taken for granted. While I’d never been outwardly mean (I was actually frightened of him), inwardly I became a little nicer, unsure if such an internal change made any difference at all.

This particular statue holds a special place in my heart, as it stands sentinel in front of the patch of green where Andy and I were married. At this time of the year, it’s still too soon to be surrounded by much life, but soon – very soon – it will be backed by a trio of pink Kwanzan cherries, the chartreuse strands of weeping willows, and a majestic Metasequoia. The duck-and-swan-filled pond will return to squawking activity, and the foot-bridge will carry pedestrians from flowering tree to flowering tree. It will return. It always does.

“Laughing at all the haters out there who spend their energy trying to limit and label me with their prejudices and fears! Take your evil tongue and eye and turn them into birds that fly! Don’t waste precious time. Spend it on things you love!” ~ Madonna

The time has come for March to depart, and not a moment too soon. This is not a complaint – March has been, for the most part, pretty damn good to me, laying the groundwork for some major changes – mostly good – to kick-start the rest of this spring. More on that a little later. For now, this recap of the eventful last week of the month that came in like a lion and will hopefully exit as softly as a lamb.

We started off with a few Cocks in Socks. Will there be a Part 2 with my own junk front and center? Wait & see…

It turned out that everyone has a ‘Punky Brewster’ memory.

A British ass menagerie featuring Ben Cohen, Harry Judd, and Tom Daley.

Waking up with a woody.

I’m just a jeans-and-t-shirt kind of guy. NOT.

Say a little prayer. Or a lot of them

Our shirtless American hero, prepping for the Winter Festival.

This woman brings out the beast in me.

A pair of birthdays on the same day ~ here and here.

Some were like lions, some were like lambs – all were hunky, including Kevin Selby, Mahershala Ali, Olly Barkley, Kirill Dowidoff, Adam Coussins, and Lenny Kravitz.

The rope of beads wound around my grandmother’s wrinkled hand, while the cross swung with the gentle rocking of her chair. She worried each one between her fingers as she said each prayer, then moved on to the next. It seemed an endless chain of recitation to my childish mind, but I assumed it was another adult mystery that would be revealed in time. I didn’t know that there was no answer for this, no magic moment that suddenly made sense of faith and religion. Instead, I did my best to believe, even if the drudgery of saying an entire rosary was beyond my comprehension or capability.

The ritual seemed to calm her. Maybe that was how it worked. It was a form of meditation, and, when you get right down to it, what else is prayer at its most basic essence? The words eventually ran into one another, the meaning but gleaned, and by that point it was simply a matter of a mantra, a chant, a rhythm of speech, a cadence of sounds. The calm and soothing drone of a river of words ~ whispered prayers ~ and an outwardly peaceful disposition belying a raging heart.