This is usually the very first thing I see when I wake up in the morning.

Before even walking to the bathroom to take a leak, I reach over to the bedside table and pick up the glass of water that Andy has delivered in the night, like magic. I gulp most of it down to start the day, and as my eyes adjust to whatever light might be available at the early hour, I begin to discern the bottom of the glass. Taking on kaleidoscopic properties, it offers a jumpstart to my imagination for that day. Sometimes it unfurls grandly, spooling off into all sorts of possible directions – and it’s the possibility that is so intoxicating. Some days it stays put, barely lit by the darkness of a winter morning, and hardly able to make itself into anything more than a simple glass of water. 

Even on the unimaginative days, it offers stability and sustenance, a stalwart embrace of reality first thing in the morning – a necessary reminder to remain grounded, to nourish the basic needs of the body, to heed the basic needs of the mind. 

We are speeding through this holiday season, because it doesn’t even feel like it’s December but here we already are on its second week, which will bring us to the mid-way point of the final month of this year. Mercury is still in retrograde motion, and I’m embracing its chaotic energy because it gives us all an excuse to lose every last fuck we ever had. Bye fucks! On that decidedly Christmas-like vibe, here is the weekly blog recap:

The official fragrance of this holiday season: Promise. (See also ‘a lot’.)

Everything is fine, even if just two people noticed the shirt.

A lunch made from leftovers.

Ghosts of Christmas parties past.

Finding moments of quiet amid the holiday bombast.

The blue hole.

Snap out of it!

No rest for the unmerry gentlemen.

Naked and gray, then and then.

The holiday card 2024: Shitter’s Full!

Modern humanity. (20 years later…)

Sanctuary.

Not quite the end.

The afterward.

‘Shades of Gray’: the complete project from 2004.

Harry Styles in well-hung form.

Our holiday Dazzler of the Day was Peter Billingsley.

This Christmas ornament popped up on one of my social media feeds, courtesy of Macy’s. I laughed, almost out loud, at the ridiculousness of it – it’s supposed to be Harry Styles, and if I were him I’d have a little discussion with a favorite lawyer to see what could be done about the matter. Personal, I prefer Styles in actual photographs, wearing striking outfits that get tongues wagging and critical ridicule flying. Or on stage, where his showmanship and star quality are brash and undeniable. Others prefer him in his underwear or fishnets. And some just want to see him buck naked. All are options here. For those who want him hanging on their Christmas tree, go for it. All gratitude to Mr. Macy. 

The two pictures posted here were taken approximately ten and twenty years ago respectively. The featured one is from 2014, and the one below, taken on some New York work trip, is from all the way back in 2004. Yes, this blog was around way back then, but thankfully posts that old have been excised long-ago. Unfortunately for 2014, most of those posts are still here – check the archives for reference (or don’t, please). No one likes looking back at their previous selves. 

This is merely a clickbait post for the upcoming finale of the ‘Shades of Gray’ project, also from 2004 and celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. In many ways it feels like another lifetime, but in some of the writing I see that hardy anything has changed. Humanity wavers, people change, but the real changes are subtle and largely undetectable until the perspective of decades builds. 

‘Shades of Gray‘ was one of those works where I got totally emotionally naked behind the guise of other people’s stories, and I’d forgotten about the freedom and joy in that. Maybe it will spark a sequel of sorts, even though I abhor a sequel… 

Lest anyone forget, it’s still technically fall, so while the holiday season is in full effect, the true season remains autumn. To that end, there is still avenging to be done, and with Mercury in retrograde providing the necessary mayhem to throw a tantrum and go giddily unnoticed, now may be the time to release some truth bombs that are too heavy to carry. 

This Fade-To-Black Fall has been like turning the lights off our Coquette Summer with the flip of a switch. It was night and day, white and black, or at least pink and green. I am realizing that it will ultimately prove helpful to acknowledge and experience sadness, regret, anger, and vengeance. All are valid experiences, and all serve a certain purpose. In the past, I’ve held a lot of that in, to my own detriment, and in the end it all came out in various convoluted and mistaken efforts. 

The stress of the holidays can trigger all of that ickiness, stirring up the muck and murky depths of past transgressions and grievances, and deciding to face some of it now is tricky and risky business, perhaps quite foolish business. But the hurt of what haunts us doesn’t retreat for some arbitrary human holiday. Cue the dramatic music, and the unrest of the unmerry gentleman. 

Christmas is, contrary to its reputed lore, not kind to the sad and lonely. If this is the spirit that’s supposed to lift us and cheer us up, God may not be helping us as much as we want to believe. Sensing this, I’ve always found sorrow running through the holidays – in a song, in a mood, and culminating in the shortest day of the year.

Night expands.

Darkness envelops. 

All is black.

All is eloquent loneliness.

A fan.

For a stretch of difficult days. 

For the memory of when the days used to be fabulous. 

For a moment of delusion to save myself from weeping.

For real.

Snapped out of anger.

Snapped out of viciousness.

Snapped out of the fiercest fucker any Christmas has ever seen.

Snapped out of the exasperation and exhilaration of having no more fucks to give.

The yard has suddenly turned stark and barren, brown and lifeless. This will be its wardrobe until spring comes again. There may be snow and ice to cover things from time to time, but things slow and still now, and this will largely be how things look. The stagnation tends to spark a creative flurry, though it’s been a while since inspiration has moved me to do that much. My last official project, ‘Once Upon A Watercolor’ was over five years ago. Simply surviving the age of COVID and all that followed seems to have been a project unto itself. And then there’s this blog. Daily posts and photos don’t just happen without work – and a week’s worth of posts here once populated an entire one of my projects – so I’m basically cranking out a project a week – 52 per year – just think about that. 

I’m fucking tired out. 

But when I step outside and feel the chill, knowing that winter hasn’t even begun yet, I look to the sky for something to inspire me, and a little hole of blue appears in an otherwise-gray firmament. And I feel it…