Two candles burn on a winter’s night. One end at a time – as there are two we need not burn one at both ends. That’s the quickest way to burn a candle out, and make a mess in the process. Instead, two are better than one, and the glow of a duo makes quick work of the darkness, even on a Monday night, which is when this is being written.
My friend Ann once remarked that she loves Monday as it offers the chance to start again fresh. I love the sentiment, even as I find it difficult to love the Monday aspect. I went into the day with that mindset, however and for whatever reason the day wasn’t as bad as it usually is. The sun and slightly warmer temps no doubt helped contribute to the change in attitude, but maybe we have more of a say in any given day than we think we do. I’m going to try it again today; Tuesdays are always more trying than Mondays because we think they won’t be.
In the meantime, before the light of the day really kicks in, there is candlelight.
There are things that you guess and things that you know…
Every greenhouse keeps a store of sexual secrets inside its sweaty glass walls, at slight odds with the way flowers so flagrantly flaunt their sexual activities. For those attuned to every protuberance and emission of pollen, reproduction is around every corner, and in every crack and crevice of a greenhouse is the possibility of propagation.
There’s little things you hide and little things that you show…
Most flowering plants are monoecious, meaning they contains both female and male elements, so that they can procreate on their own. No need to get into the science of it all – that always waters down the sexual energy buzzing in the greenhouse air. Better to let the floral fantasies unwind, unfettered by fact and technical terms.
I said I won’t tease you, won’t tell you no lies…
Amid an endless winter, a greenhouse provides greenery and life – pulsating, pumping, refusing-to-be-pushed-down life. You can almost feel the fluids flowing through the stems and leaves, filling the veins and throbbing through each unfurling flower.
It’s playing on my mind It’s dancing on my soul…
Bulges of buds, swelling and bursting, some with color, some with fragrance, some with sturdy erect form, some drooping and hanging limply in extravagant splendor. There is sex around every corner, waiting to be grabbed, wanting to be bent over, needing to be opened and filled and hit like a truck…
It’s natural It’s chemical It’s logical Habitual It’s sensual But most of all…
Bumping against each other in the slightest humid breeze, or in clandestine meetings behind the veil of night, flowers will have their fun for survival.
Lacoste was the lucky company who snagged Taylor Zakhar Perez as their underwear model, and he fronts this weekly recap – hot enough to thaw out our frigid January space…
In this age of misinformation, FaceBook or Meta or whatever the stupid fucks have named it now has decided to do away with fact-checkers, because who needs them?
Incidentally, it seems that Mark Zuckerberg is reportedly and allegedly a pedophile. Oh, and dead. This is what is being reported and I only wish there was a fact-checker to disprove it.
Just to be fair, let’s give Zuck the last word, though I’m not sure how it supports his fact-free stance for FaceBook, as it seems that {consults notes} fact-checking might solve his issue?
Writing this blog post on a Saturday morning, scheduling it for a Sunday morning, and titling it ‘A Sunny Sunday Beginning’ takes a big old set of foolish balls, especially without having consulted any sort of weather app to even attempt something with any accuracy, but such recklessness is what makes writing this ridiculous blog so much fun sometimes. (As does a wildly unwieldy run-on sentence – it’s my blog and I’ll run on if I want to. I’ll even wrongfully end a sentence with a proposition if I want to. Twice.)
Playfulness rears its welcome head when the possibility of a sunny day approaches – and given the meteorologists lately, we just don’t know when that might be, so I’m taking this as that possibility. If it’s dark and dreary, so be it – no sense in worrying about that until it’s actually happening – and even then, what can we possibly change about the weather? What I can do is focus on the diagram presented here – one that dissects the fact that we have finished out the ten darkest days of the past year. It’s only getting lighter until summer, and maybe that’s the energy, and preposition, to end on.
We started the day with the Danish String Quartet, and it feels like that’s the ideal way to close the day out as well. We begin in silence and end the same way – what happens in between is mostly up to us. A scary thought burdened with responsibility, and I know that feels like a lot right now – at least, it does for me. There aren’t words or sentences powerful enough to profoundly change most of our trajectories, not in a single hour or day, often not in a single year or decade, but we nudge, we cajole, we embrace in the hope of making some small difference.
This winter already feels like an eternity of bad news and trying times. My friend Chris asked me a while back how I’m dealing with everything – like the descent of fascism in this once-great country, for frivolous example – and I told him that I was focusing on how artists and people of compassion lived during such treacherous times. In my case it would be to create a safe haven in our home, for friends and family and anyone who still believed in truth and beauty and freedom and love – and to live my life as authentically and defiantly as I’ve always lived my life. Perhaps even more-so in the face of rewinding history to a more heinous time.
We move forward, in the face of oppression and hate – unleashed and unraveled with the awful complicity of misinformed, ignorant, selfish people – and we do so while trying not to get bogged down by all that awfulness. A bit of turning a blind eye, a bit of self-preservation, a bit of fighting back – the things some of us in marginalized communities have always had to do, as we have never experienced a time when we didn’t have to do it. Maybe that’s eye-opening for privileged lucky folks, maybe it’s something they still choose not to see. My place hasn’t changed much; my armor hasn’t rusted. There is power in that, and a little bit of peace too.
Suzie introduced me to the music of the Danish String Quartet, and every winter around this time I turn to their songs to quell the wildness of the outside world and the wilderness of the heart. This past week of madness and morification, coupled with the coldest temperatures we’ve had thus far this winter, has necessitated some peace and calm and comfort. My daily meditations have provided such a haven, as has an intentional effort to remain unruffled and unbothered by all the news that tried to creep into our daily existence.
I didn’t always succeed, and there were moments when I reared into righteous and defiant anger, but I did my best to strike a balance. These are things we learn to navigate throughout our entire lives. Hopefully I haven’t neared the end of it yet. And somewhere within this interminable winter there is a flower – perhaps it is only the seed, or the desiccated, hollow stem, or the deep, frozen root – but it is there, waiting for the return of spring.
“The world may of all things bereave me, Its thorns may assail and aggrieve me, The foe may great anguish engender: My rose I will never surrender.” ~ Now Found Is The Fairest Of Roses
Outside, a blanket of white snow has kept the ground secure. Snow acts somewhat strangely as the garden’s best insulator, and surprise savior, so long as it lasts. When it falls, it casts a different spell – something mesmerizing, something meditative, something that stills time. Watching from the cozy confines of a conversation couch, I pause in my reading and survey our front yard. I remember when the twins excitedly romped through the green grass of late summer, when the first blooms of the Chinese dogwood opened their delicate sepals, when the Japanese painted fern nodded its impossibly-gorgeous fronds in a warm breeze…
The panoply of life plays out, each day like a snowflake – unique, one-of-a-kind, precious and as rare as it is common and mundane – and all the days so heartbreakingly beautiful, even the worst ones – because to have a bad day means you still understand what it is to feel things. Most of the tears we shed are out of love – love that wasn’t returned, love that was lost, love that was misguided into hurt, love that those who departed seemed to take with them – but almost always it was love propelling our sorrow. What comfort and what splendor resides in such a realization.
I don’t allow myself to feel that as much as I should.
For those of us caught in this cold spell, here are a few photos of Tom Holland sans shirt to heat things up. If this is what not drinking alcohol does for the body, how do I not look closer to this? I digress… and apparently I must diet. Anyway, Mr. Holland is celebrated as much for his non-alcoholic turn in these parts as he is for all the other fine attributes on display here. See other shirtless male celebrities here.
As our country continues its descent toward fascism, I originally intended for this website to operate as it always had – with an eye toward escapism and amusement with the odd and only very occasional political post. Andy and I have totally turned off the news as it continues to normalize the convicted felon that half of the country supposedly elected, and that has made a profound improvement in our daily existence. Still, turning a blind eye to egregious assaults on the country we love can only go on for so long, and every once in a while I will have to take a stand and make a post as I did yesterday, if only so that future generations know that not all of us are cool with what’s happening.
None of this is ok, and simply going back to making frivolous or cute comments about Melania’s wardrobe or Elon’s weird moves will not cut it. One day your children are going to look back at this time and ask what you did or said or wrote – I don’t want my electronic footprint to show me critiquing the First Lady’s fucking hat or fashion like the rest of it doesn’t matter (or like she wasn’t monstrous enough to say “who gives a fuck about the Christmas stuff” while her supporters craft some false-narrative about a War on Christmas – classy elegance my ass).
That said, I will largely be back to the non-political in a very intentional effort to offer some sort of escapism from what is happening in the world. This website was only ever about me entertaining myself, and in the process perhaps entertaining others. It will be about what inspires or moves me, what I find interesting and beautiful and important. At the same time, it will not operate in a complete vacuum and bubble. I’m too honest to pretend everything is ok, and I’m not evolved enough to let those who set this into motion off without accountability.
Outside, the icicles are either growing or diminishing, melting or amassing greater girth, and it’s not quite clear which. The sun is strong but the icy wind chill feels stronger. There is balance somewhere, I just don’t have the discernment to determine exactly where it lies.
REPORTER: You would agree that it’s never acceptable to assault a police officer. Among those you pardoned, DJ Rodriquez, he drove a stun-gun into the neck of a police officer who was abducted by the mob that day – he later confessed on video to the FBI and pleaded guilty of this crime – why does he deserve a pardon?
DONALD TRUMP: Well I don’t know…
Your FOTUS (Felon Of The United States) Donald Trump just pardoned all those January 6 insurrectionists – including the ones who brutally attacked, maimed and killed police officers – in an act that is as expected as it is despicable. He literally told you he was going to pardon them. Anyone who backs the blue and believes in protecting our officers needs to explain how they ever supported Trump in the first place. Today the #FAFO award goes to The Fraternal Order of Police, the largest police union in the country, who endorsed Trump even after he told the world he would pardon those criminals. They now seem to be concerned about his pardon for all these criminals and have uncensored him. (Spoiler alert: too late, morons, you helped get him elected.)
Breaking into the Capitol and attacking police officers seems pretty violent to me, so how do people feel about letting such violent criminals free again? Because in New York State a lot of people seem VERY concerned about letting criminals back out on the street.
How do you reconcile supporting our officers when you release those who were convicted of assaulting police officers? How do you explain supporting the candidate who said he was going to pardon them? So many seem so concerned when it comes to letting certain criminals back out when the jails can’t hold any more – where is your outrage over this?
To The Fraternal Order of Police, this is on you. You endorsed him. You were told he would pardon them. He told the world he would pardon them. Now you are concerned that he pardoned them. It’s too late. Reap what you sow. Fuck Around and Find Out. You did this.
We know what happened on January 6, 2021. The Fraternal Order of Police knows it too. And their President, the one they endorsed multiple times, just pardoned all of the violent criminals convicted for their actions on January 6, as he promised he would.
PS – Still waiting for grocery prices to go down, the war in Ukraine to end, and gas to plummet. Weird that he kept the free-the-Jan-6-criminals promise first.
“I am not going to apologize for asking for mercy for others.” – Bishop Marianne Edgar Budde
Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde is the very first Bishop to be named as Dazzler of the Day, thanks to her courage and grace to eloquently and calmly speak truth to ill-gotten power. In a service at which FOTUS (Felon Of The United States) was in attendance, she used her pulpit to defend the very essence of what it means to be a true Christian, and a true American:
“Millions have put their trust in you. As you told the nation yesterday, you have felt the providential hand of a loving God. In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now. There are gay, lesbian and transgender children in both Democratic, Republican and independent families who fear for their lives.
The people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings, who labor in poultry farms and meatpacking plants, who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals. They may not be citizens or have the proper documentation, but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. They pay taxes, and are good neighbors. They are faithful members of our churches, mosques and synagogues, gurdwara and temples.” – Bishop Marianne Edgar Budde
And for those who disagree with using the pulpit to espouse mercy for people, I don’t think you understand Christ very well.
A perfect encapsulation of recent days, this plume of smoke from twin factory chimneys is a vivid representation of all that humanity has done to the earth. Maybe it’s producing heat for someone somewhere – I hope it’s worth whatever might be going into the atmosphere. I hope somehow we learn to embrace our planet. I hope… for more hope, even as I feel it dwindling away.
This Tom Yum soup is the ideal antidote for these frigid days – warm to the taste, both from the spice and temperature – and packed with the traditional flavors of Thailand. I’ve made a few variations and deviations based on what was in the house, but it’s a soup that bends beautifully beneath such changes. Instead of Thai chiles, I used a habanero. Instead of galangal I used ginger. Miraculously, we had the lemon grass and kaffir lime leaves in the freezer from a previous summer. Andy had a pound of shrimp on hand from a batch we forgot to put out for a recent family dinner. I picked up some mushrooms after work, and used some remaining tomatoes and a new bottle of fish sauce to round it all out. It was just the slightest bit too biting when I first sampled it, so I added some coconut milk to temper it – not too much… these are icy days and nights.
