Author Archives: Alan Ilagan

Whispers of the full Harvest Supermoon had grown over the days leading up to it. I actually avoided much of the talk until the insanity of work and the idiocy of the drivers on the road made me wonder whether something was astrologically afoot, at which point I asked Andy and he confirmed that a supermoon was on the way. 

I’ve never done well with super moons. They’ve resulted in some vicious arguments, some semi-intentional accidents, and some dastardly set-backs over the years. Only recently have I begun to embrace them, turning that lunar insanity from chaotic lunacy into focused moon energy, trying to harness the power and the pull of our nearest heavenly body. Tonight’s blog post will reveal how I literally did that.

For now, these blurry shots of the moon were taken the night before it went full and super and eclipsed. There is often magic and madness in the lead-up and lead-out of a full moon moment. Such energy is too great to be contained in a single night, and the universe doesn’t like to put too fine a point on such things.  Come back tonight to see how the actual Harvest Moon played out…

Clouds gather in the sky between Vermont and New York – a visually-arresting crux affording only a glimpse of the blue sky that spread across most of the day. Troubling clouds, perhaps, more for the spirit than any following rain – for the rain stays away. The sunlight seems to be drawing it up into the sky, and still nothing comes of it. Tease. Portending preview. Harbinger of hell…

A certain femininergy is coming to the blog this fall, as we look to right the world with the hope of women, because men seem to do most of the fucking up these past few centuries. To that end, look for a celebration of the female here, and a celebration of everything divine. That began in no small way with my friend Suzie who was kind enough to drive me out to Vermont for this rollercoaster of a day trip. She reminded me of the difficult balancing act of being a mother. That’s never been lost on me, as complicated as things may occasionally be. Yet let us also remember the words of Leo Tolstoy in the epic ‘Anna Karenina’: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

I would go further to say that every family has their secrets, even and especially the happy ones.

But that’s all for fall – we are still in the throes of the final days of summer, so we take it all with a laugh and lilt and a humorous peek at some of the ladies we happened across during our day in Vermont. A little spooky, a little kooky, and maybe just a little bit coquette. Summer exits with dramatic flair and ghostly sighs. 

It was slated to be our pre-fall pow-wow to welcome the upcoming season, but summer decided to stick around in full-sun force, so our recent day-trip to Vermont turned into a celebration of this last week of the sunny season. A simple folding fan in my hand was enough as Suzie was kind enough to drive us into Manchester, where we’ve started a little fall/almost-fall tradition of a Vermont day-trip get-away. Both of us seemed to be in need of escapism, and so we made our way over the rolling hills of New York and into the instantly-more-picturesque environs of Vermont. 

We got some serious family talk out of the way first – Suzie is always a safe sounding board, and she knows me and my family better than just about anyone. She also just sent her first-born off to college and had her own stories to tell; there’s no better way to get through a moment of melancholy than with an old friend. We’ve been doing this for decades, and it’s one of life’s greatest comforts. 

We made our usual stops at favored haunts, pausing for a lunch of crab toast and pizza before finding our way to an ice cream store that had the best thing we have tasted in years: the maple creamee. It’s a soft-serve version of a twist on maple syrup ice cream. I should have prefaced this proclamation with the fact that I don’t typically like maple candy – it’s usually too sweet for me – but for whatever reason this hit us as incredibly delicious. I’d even gone the extra step of ordering mine in a root beer float, completely at odds with someone who doesn’t like things too sweet – and yet this was insanely good. We are going back this fall just to eat it again. 

Stuffed with all the sweet goodness Vermont had to offer – forget warm apple cider on a day soaring into the 80’s – we packed it back in the car and made our winding way back home. It wasn’t the quaint entry into fall I’d originally planned and anticipated – it was instead a hot and happy ending of summer, the way life can sometimes reward us when we let our stubborn notions go and follow its gentle guidance. 

Procured from the internet:

Dear people who type in all lowercase,

We are the difference between helping your Uncle Jack off a horse and helping your uncle jack off a horse. 

Sincerely,

Capital Letters

I didn’t see the second one at first.

The first was apparent and I was zooming in on it.

Only after I opened the window to the backyard did I see the second one, thanks to its immediate bolting out of the vicinity when it heard the window squeak open. 

Two rabbits were making the most of these glorious last few summer days. If you look in the shadow beneath the lawn chair, you’ll see what I later realized I had captured before scaring it away with the window. 

I watched the remaining one for a while – it’s good for the heart to hold still in these last moments of summer, especially when the sun is so lovely and so warm, and a rabbit is pausing to pay its respects too. At this point the garden is in need of some editing and cutting back, so any help the rabbits want to provide in munching on leaves is fine by me. 

As I closed the window to the backyard, I wandered to the front door before sitting down for y daily meditation. There were two more rabbits there. Could they be the same ones from the back? Unlikely, as they seem to have been there a while based on their peaceful and slow grazing on the grass. But who knows… rabbits are magical creatures, and I wouldn’t put it past them to try to trick me in such a whimsical manner. 

Here, too, the last rays of the day’s sunshine drenched their endeavors, summer hanging on to the very last minute, perhaps showing fall how nice it can be when things are done gently. The preponderance of rabbits is also a boon to my soul when it needs something enriching. It was a happy end to the last Monday of summer. 

We have arrived at the final week of summer, and it feels like we are actually getting one last dose of the good stuff – thank you global warming! While the world burns, a look back at the week that came before…

Preparing for a fit of rightful rage.

A golden September gets all the blame.

To the left?

This blog always go silent on 9/11.

Dad’s second heavenly birthday.

A mealy little meal.

An unhappy harvest.

A not-so-scary confession.

Keep calm and coquette on.

Keeping on coquetting.

Papyrus or bust.

A summer-salvaging moment by Andy.

The summer of John Duff.

Dazzlers of the Day included a very naked Hugh Jackman, Morgan Freeman, Benson Boone, and Chappell Roan.

What a strange name ~ papyrus. 

Say it again ~ papyrus.

Keep saying it ~ papyrus.

Papyrus.

Papyrus.

Papyrus.

Doesn’t it sound strange? That happens with any word if you say it enough – it starts to sound strange and odd and you wonder how a word came to ever be in the first place – or maybe it’s just my mind reaching its long-predicted breaking point. 

Anyway, our pot of papyrus, drainage holes mostly blocked for extra moisture, and which usually does quite well with the regular watering and feeding I give it, failed to astound as it has in previous years. Another disappointing result of this past summer’s waning charm. 

Maybe all those perfect summers were never quite as perfect as they seemed, but the factual comparison of this one and the performance of papyrus in the past – strange word again! – lead me to believe that things have inarguably shifted. 

No one will pay much attention to that, despite its momentous ramifications. 

This blog post will be lost and forgotten.

Nothing really matters.

Papyrus.

Let us have one final full weekend of coquette escapism before the official arrival of fall, and for this one I’ll even get up into a dress and Sunday hat and pearls. A boy shouldn’t go anywhere without a pearl necklace. The Sunday hat is really just for Sundays, or Kentucky Derbies, but it fits the finery of our coquette aesthetic for the moment, and in honor of summer magic it stays on. Frilly and fantastical, I’m seeing this summer theme through to the end, though in all honesty I’m rather over it. The sweetness has turned sour, which is the greatest risk to any act of coquetry. 

A reprise, then, for this penultimate summer weekend, courtesy of Laufey, who provided much of the soundtrack for our coquette moments. This is ‘Bewitched’ again. 

A bit of bewitchery bodes well for the transition into fall, as does a certain feminine energy – and all will be revealed in the months to come. For now, let’s let out a sigh of gratitude for the summer. It’s largely been good to us, even if we haven’t always been good in return. There were sunny and beautiful days where I just didn’t manage to make the most of it, choosing to stay indoors, to stay hidden, to stay in a stasis as much from grief as from healing. There were also new wounds that opened old ones just when I might have thought things were better. The conundrum of a coquette summer… the work of the coming fall.

The sun shines differently in September. It still warms the day, but its staying power has diminished. The earth is priming itself for the bigger chill on the way. I hope it takes its time, slowing advancing into coolness instead of taking some precipitous drop that kills our tender plants in one fell swoop. Maybe that’s the better way though – like jumping right into the deep end of the pool instead of wading slowly in. Rip that ridiculous cherry bandage right off with nary a flinch or flutter. 

Our hanging ferns in front of the house have performed poorly this summer, putting on the worst show of any ferns I’ve ever hung there. Of course they happen to be the most prominent plants on view to the street, another one of life’s little fuck-overs. I’ll take them down right after I write this, and drop them into the dumpster. Beneath the veneer of a coquette summer, there is always an underlying ugliness, some bit of bitterness to poison the sweet. Now I’m already veering into fall, and we still have a glittering part two of this madness to post.

{…to be coquettishly continued…}