Category Archives: General

Following a stretch of black and white entries, and all sorts of ‘shades of gray’, this post feels like Dorothy entering Oz from the sepia-toned doldrums of Kansas. Even if it’s less gloriously-shaded than late spring or early summer posts, it manages its own magnificence. Fall thrills differently than spring and summer. It’s strange to see the blue of the pool echo the blue of the sky at such a late date, but our world is sick, and this is one symptom of its slow-burning-up. We’ll get there soon enough, and for those too young to realize it yet, hope you can stay cool. 

The lotus is born amid mess and muck. I try to remember that when stirring up the still waters of the past. The muddy murkiness that results often gets me into trouble for making such a mess, but sometimes things have to get worse before they get better. Or some bullshit we tell ourselves to make sense of the hurtful. 

Lately I’ve been analyzing things, questions that have arisen over decades of patterns that I’ve only recently seen with a keener sense of such long-range arcs. 

Why have I always felt so uncomfortable around my family? 

Why have I always sought out mother figures?

Why did my most consistent drinking happen during family events? 

Why does the both-sides framing of things trigger me so much?

Why does injustice feel so personal? 

I’m beginning to detect answers as I look over my family history, and see the ways in which we have established, confirmed and exacerbated dysfunctional patterns. I’ve seen where the problem child gets the help and aid, and felt the cool shadow of neglect for doing what is right and expected. I’ve returned rebellious behavior thinking it will turn things in other ways. I’ve brought things up to burn them down and only ever gotten hurt in the telling of truths. 

After some extensive talking in therapy, I see that perhaps stepping back a bit is best for my own self-preservation, and when I look over the past I see that all my behavior has been done with an instinct for survival. Whenever there have been moments of confusion, when things didn’t make sense or felt off, I usually attributed it to me, rather than the systems in place that may have resulted in my predicaments. My default was self-blame, reinforced by guilt and generations of family tradition. Maybe we all fell into those patterns, and took up those roles because they were all we knew. I don’t ever believe anything was intentionally malicious; that doesn’t negate the fact that I’ve been the one consistently hurt, over and over and over again. 

Untangling decades of such confusion isn’t going to happen overnight. It’s also likely to be a one-man-show, as this hasn’t seemed to bother anyone else. Another sign of confirmation, as the only journey over which I have any sense of control is my own. 

While the previous post went back twenty years, this one skirts a little closer and looks back to where this blog was at ten years ago. A lot can happen in a decade, but seeing where November began then puts it closer to where we are now than might be apparent. Still, we have profoundly changed, even if it doesn’t look like it. 

Back then, it sounded like I was losing my mind. Same today. Check.

Back then I needed bifocals. Same today. Check.

Back then I enjoyed an avocado. Same today. Check.

Back then I was already looking back ten years. Same today. Check.

Back then Ben Cohen was an ally. Same today. Check.

Back then I was enamored of ‘Evita’. Same today. Check.

Back then Cafe Madeleine had just opened. Not the same today – it closed a while ago. 

Back then ‘Like A Virgin’ was thirty years old. Not the same today – it’s forty.

Back then I was in love with words. Same today. Check.

Back then I didn’t have a clue about keeping score for a basketball game. Same today. Check. 

Back then I had a party in my pants. Same today. Check. 

Back then I simply didn’t give a fuck. Same today. Check.

Who knew that 2004 would feel like such a quaint time? I don’t think we’ll look back at 2024 with quite the same fondness. While we continue along the corridors of my ‘shades of gray’ project, I am pausing to recall a party we had to celebrate its release – a photo from that night fronts this previous blog post – the featured photo for this post is simply from around that time.

It was a fall night in October, and though we usually saved our big gathering for the holidays, that year we were ambitious and had a party in the fall as well. I don’t remember much from it – other than a good time was had by all, and I had made sausage cheddar meatballs for an appetizer. It was designed to be a cozy night – and I wore an old three-piece gray suit that once belonged to Andy. (Today neither of us could fit into that thing.) 

Outside, fall raged and darkened, but inside there was warmth and light, music and laughter, friends and bonhomie. We created our own coziness, we made our own merriment. The outside world may have seen itself as black and white, but our inner world was all these beautiful shades of gray…

~SHADES OF GRAY~

Midway Through Life

Gray Ghost 1

A Bagel in Boston

At the Mall

Gray Ghost 2

Squirrelly

Brother 1

Andy’s Mom

This day began in usual fashion. I signed on early to the work laptop and began sorting through e-mails. Andy padded out to the living room, put on his classical music, then turned on the coffee-maker. I went outside for a minute and took these pictures of the sky and the remaining leaves in the early sunlight. They would fall off soon enough. The air was warm – warmer than it should be for November, a little blessing when the mornings have recently been so cold. 

I wondered why it didn’t feel like I was in proper mourning. Maybe when you’ve mourned things that really matter, you no longer feel so affected by world events. Then I realized: I’ve already mourned.

I mourned when Donald Trump got elected the first time.

I mourned when his administration separated children from their families. 

I mourned when he incited an insurrection, his followers trashed our Capitol, and he tried to overthrow an election. 

I mourned when he stole classified documents and got away with it. 

I mourned when he was convicted of sexual assault and didn’t serve jail time.

I mourned when he appointed Supreme Court Justices who promptly took away reproductive freedom from women. 

I mourned when he allowed a pandemic to ravage our people by downplaying it and giving out misinformation. 

I mourned when he embraced racism and homophobia and sexism.

I mourned when the media presented both candidates as relatively equal, and then people who didn’t really follow politics assumed they must be, so any little thing could sway them one way or another rather than presenting the clear and present danger one candidate was. 

I mourned when I saw interviews with young people who said they were voting for Trump and when pressed why didn’t have any answer whatsoever, and didn’t even seem to care. 

I mourned when this country even considered that someone who spoke like that man would be a fit President. 

Mostly, I mourned for the people who suffered the most under his policies and didn’t even realize it until it was too late. 

So for me, I’ve already mourned what has happened, and what is about to happen. I’m not mourning this again. 

Outside, I watch the sun move a little higher in the sky. Feathery seed heads of fountain grass sway gently in the breeze, and every now and then an oak leaf spins slowly to the ground. It truly is a beautiful morning. Our little world, of beauty and love and compassion, is still intact. Find me here. 

We jumped the gun on thinking we had our last swim of the season, as Andy and I both went into the pool yesterday – November 5 – which marks our very latest to be in the water. It was quite a different experience, even more-so than last time. Where the late spring swims were perfumed by lilacs and lilies-of-the-valley, this time the air was seasoned with the earthy scent of fallen leaves – it was the smell of rust and brown and gray, a tinge of rot, a dollop of decay – fall upon the fallen.

There was also a restless wind, a playful wind, that reminded me of Dad, somewhere still watching over me. I wonder what he would make of things now. What would he make of this world, of the world he once knew, so wholly transformed into something likely unrecognizable to him? I shudder in the air, so cool after the warm water. 

The yard about us is changed, leveled by the frosts, laid bare and barren by the onslaught of fall in the nights. Grasses have spilled over the pool ladder, pots of tomato plants have fallen onto their side. This will be the disheveled scene until we clean it all up in the spring. Winter snows will offer some reprieve. The focus turns to the interior. It’s time, but both of us will miss the pool. On that November afternoon, before we know what this country was capable of doing, it offered healing and calm – one last chance at floating away.

PS – Don’t take this as the definitive last swim – perhaps we’ll be in again when snow is in the air. Like it used to cover the roses…

When you’ve grown up in this country as part of a marginalized community, you see and feel enough hate to not have much faith in other Americans. While a small part of me had hope that this country was better than that, deep down I doubted it. And with a media machine that kept people woefully misled and uninformed, electing a black woman was just too difficult for many people to do. So no, I’m not surprised, just profoundly disappointed. Again. 

And I’m sad – mostly for my niece Emi – and all the young girls – because they saw so many of their fellow citizens choose a convicted felon over a capable and competent woman… again. She texted me early this morning, writing, “How awful today is… We can only hope and pray.”

She then followed it up with, “I can vote next election!”

I hope she’s right. 

Saving some daylight, night comes early now, increasing its hold and sway for the next two months. This post concludes our intended day of peace and calm, with a cozy glimpse of candlelight. I used this candle to light a stick of Palo Santo incense, then sat in the early evening doing my daily meditation. 

A very long, slow, deep breath in…

a very long, slow, controlled breath out…

and again… and again… slowly, calmly, deliberately. 

When all else fails, and you feel like you’re been left with nothing, you always have your breath, right up until the day you die. It’s one of the few constants in a world where everything we once thought we could count on has slowly dissolved away. The older I get, the more I realize that. At first it was sad, as most of the changes had to do with loss – of health, of loved ones, of youth – but then it was jubilant, as it meant a certain freedom. Some days, all we have is our breath – and it is enough. When I focus on breathing – when I slow it down and let it occupy my mind – it pushes the silly things out of the way – the grievances, the hurt, the offenses. In their place I can plant swaths of peace and cultivated calm. Weeds will always pop up in the neglected patches of our minds – the trick is to fill the space with mindfulness. 

On this night, of all the nights, I burrow into that mindfulness, and by the light of this candle I begin the deep breathing. 

This day feels large and important, and slightly dangerous too, so to act as counter-programming, I’m going back to the main premise of this blog, to the atmosphere I attempted to create over twenty one years ago. Back then, and for all the ensuing years, I have tried to foster a place where calm and beauty came together for a thoughtful, whimsical, and sometimes trifling exploration of escapism. While it’s also been a diary of sorts, I’ve done my best to make things palatable and engaging, without being too off-putting and challenging. Sarcasm and snakiness often run through my daily existence, but this space has been a reminder to me to be gentle – not only on myself, but on what I present to the world. 

To that end, I am filling this day with hope and light and a little bit of whimsy. We begin with the very first Thanksgiving/Christmas/Easter cactus bloom, just in time for the early start of another holiday season. Just as the outside gardens are finishing up (a few last blooms a little later) this stunner of a color called to me from the guest room in which it quietly resides. I’d noticed the swelling of the buds a couple of weeks ago, and the cuttings that I took of it earlier this year have begun setting buds themselves – the circle of life finds a new generation of epiphytes taking gentle root. 

Yes, I’ve given in and begun the acknowledgment that we are already in holiday season. I’ve started my Christmas shopping, even if it’s too late to start that damn Christmas club everyone was talking about. Come back for a late-season look at some more pink flowers. 

For anyone looking for a bit of escapism this week (hello to the possible end of democracy as we know it) this site may offer you a way out with the online debut of my ‘shades of gray’ project – which marks its 20th anniversary this fall. I’ve been wanting to post it for a while, and since we are two decades into its existence, it felt like the right time at last. There were other things going on this past week, so let’s take a look with at weekly recap – and then you can go back to worrying about whether this country still believes in its original founding principles. PS – Don’t vote a convicted, lying felon.

It began with a charming trip to New York with my person. 

The way Maggie Smith says ‘fork’ in ‘The First Wives Club’.

A detour post.

Mid-life crisis or mid-life meditation?

When a witch turns their back…

Who’s afraid of little old me?

Bewitchery becoming: a witch’s playlist.

Sound the siren.

All-too-brief visit.

Think about this.

A bad and cruel place.

A villain re-emerges.

It’s Ben Cohen calendar time.

A November surprise twenty years in the making.

Midway through life.

Gray ghost.

Summer storm, Part 1.

Dazzlers of the Day included Christopher Sieber and Cooper Koch.

“Is evil something you are? Or is it something you do?” ~ Bret Easton Ellis

Arriving at November, the penultimate month in the calendar year, after the warmest Halloween we’ve ever had, the world feels dangerously on the verge of something. Hopefully that’s my own little world – over that I have some semblance of control. The broader universe is on its own. 

While I’ll never begrudge a bit of summer lingering this late into the year, it doesn’t feel entirely right – there’s a sort of queasy sickness to the air, a few more allergies in the slightest breeze, a sense that something is slightly off. And then I realize – things are very much off – and it’s going to take a reckoning for the world to be righted. I don’t trust all of us to do the right thing. If given the choice between doing the right thing or doing something that benefits us, we’re all headed to the latter. Fairness, accountability, and even truth itself, have been reduced to hollow shells of what they once were. Moral nobility is the exception. The hurt and wounded will do what has been done to them; the selfish and spoiled will take and take and take. The dogged do-gooders will behave right up until you lose them. A bridge too far is still a bridge, but too far is still too far. 

November always feels like the cruelest month. 

“It strikes me profoundly that the world is more often than not a bad and cruel place.” ~ Bret Easton Ellis

Seen online: “So many folks talk about how they’re being ‘forced to accept’ things that go against their beliefs. You’re not being forced to accept them. If you have a problem with people of color, with gay marriage, with trans people, with immigrants, with women of any race, etc. then you’re still welcome to feel however you want to feel about those people. You’re just not allowed to make their lives harder because of your feelings. You’re not allowed to turn their daily lives into a battle ground. No one is forcing you to ‘accept’ a single thing. You’re just not being allowed to terrorize people.”

Dad stopped by fleetingly in a dream the other night. At a time when I’ve been feeling alienated from family, perhaps he sensed some bit of loneliness I have yet to face. 

I was under my Mom’s dining room table, and the whole place was a mess.

(That’s become less of a dream and more of a reality.)

In the dream, I’m trying vainly and valiantly to clean up another mess that had been left there. A sugar bowl for coffee, a candle, and a bunch of other things lay scattered on the floor. I scrambled to pick it all up before anyone got home. I don’t know why, I just wanted to clean it up and then get out without being seen.

Dad appeared then, just from the chest down, as I was under the table. He caught me and asked if I was feeling sick.

Then the dream ended. 

Too soon.

Even in our dreams, some messes never get cleaned up.

“The point is in this whole wide wicked world the only thing you have to be afraid of is me.” ~ Fiona Goode

Happy Halloween to the friends, readers, and those who dare to tread in these treacherous stretches of the internet without ever having met me. The latter is likely the luckiest of them all, and Halloween is the most harmless time of the year when you consider how much hurt I’ve caused the rest of the days. Yes, I said it. And I know it. The day doesn’t seem all that scary anymore.

… The who’s who of “Who’s that?” is poised for the attack
But my bare hands paved their paths
You don’t get to tell me about sad

… If you wanted me dead, you should’ve just said
Nothing makes me feel more alive

… So I leap from the gallows and I levitate down your street
Crash the party like a record scratch as I scream
“Who’s afraid of little old me?”
You should be…

… The scandal was contained
The bullet had just grazed
At all costs, keep your good name
You don’t get to tell me you feel bad

… Is it a wonder I broke? Let’s hear one more joke
Then we could all just laugh until I cry

… So I leap from the gallows and I levitate down your street
Crash the party like a record scratch as I scream
“Who’s afraid of little old me?”

Halloween used to begin with such innocence and end with such guilt. In my secret heart of hearts, I always wanted to be a beautiful witch – in a costume layered and rich with flowing robes, hidden jewel tones of royal violet beneath velvet as black as the darkest night. Boys couldn’t be witches then, even if we really were on the inside. The rage stayed contained – it whirled and spun and ravaged all that was inside me. It ate me up before anyone even noticed I was disappearing. The most wicked among us were devoured long ago. 

I was tame, I was gentle ’til the circus life made me mean
“Don’t you worry, folks, we took out all her teeth”
Who’s afraid of little old me?
Well, you should be

… So tell me everything is not about me
But what if it is?
Then say they didn’t do it to hurt me
But what if they did?

My potions are perfume. My spells are words. My broom is the straw-man in my head, taking me away to anywhere but here. My exorcism is your antidote. You’ve come for relief or relapse, and I have nothing to offer of either. Long ago, I learned to forge a way separate from whatever you wanted me to be. There was always disappointment in that. I know there was. I felt it too. Maybe that’s why some of us turn into witches – the world is too wicked to make it through being anything else. 

… I wanna snarl and show you just how disturbed this has made me
You wouldn’t last an hour in the asylum where they raised me
So all you kids can sneak into my house with all the cobwebs
I’m always drunk on my own tears, isn’t that what they all said?
That I’ll sue you if you step on my lawn
That I’m fearsome and I’m wretched and I’m wrong
Put narcotics into all of my songs
And that’s why you’re still singing along

Let them call you those names – the ones that rhyme with ‘rich’ and ‘hunt’ – as they reveal who they are in their vain attempts to skin you alive. It’s going to hurt, and we shouldn’t pretend it won’t. Yes, I’m sorry to say, there is going to be much pain in this whole wide wicked world. And there is much reason to be afraid.

… You caged me and then you called me crazy
I am what I am ’cause you trained me
So who’s afraid of me?
Who’s afraid of little old me?
Who’s afraid of little old me?