Snowy Day

Snow Days rule:

Blank Page

Bahhh, the Blank Page is f-ing horrifying. The glass-half full girl in me says, "this is your opportunity. make anything you like. have fun. be a kid. go for it. what r u waiting for?" What I am waiting for is it to be not so f-ing horrifying.

Today was gorgeous. And the sunset tonight over the suburbs was incredible. I took a drive down route 424 yesterday to hit up Homestead Gardens. What an awesome place that is, I always feel somewhat out of my element there. I've always lived in small spaces and the extent of my foray into gardening has been small house plants-- of which I have killed many...and when I go to Homestead Gardens I feel so out of place, as if at any moment someone will find out that I really have no business being at a high end garden store, and will ask me politely to leave.

So on this drive, I'm passing the usual bizarreness of 424; a once beautifully untouched country road. You pass new builds, old builds, farms, condos, long winding lanes, ponds, mansions, gas stations slash quickie marts and fields of corn. Stretches of 424 are really quite beautiful still, but then there is that strange development of closely clustered homes that seem to be intruding on the bucolic fields, where animals graze and crops are brought in year round under the warmth of the Maryland sun. My friend Steve calls these homes tissue boxes. That is what they look like. As if the earth cracked open and spit out this monstrosity of a house, a huge tissue box on a hill.

I have severely mixed feeling about such places. First of all they look so out of place- I almost don't know where to begin. It would be like if, George Hamilton showed up to the Vanity Fair party sans tan-- very out of place. But the other part of me has been ingesting architectural digest and Elle Decor design mantras for years and I have come to realize that I too want a palatial playground to lay my head.

I saw this home in one of my Architectural Digests, it's in Connecticut I believe. I'll have to get the real info about it, but I saw this reconstructed barn and thought YES. This is living. This is life... and in the words of someone very dear to my heart, Liz Lemon,"I want to go to there." Now I realize that four walls made of lumber and dry-wall do not constitute a life but I bought into the magazine. This house is gorgeous and I have it pinned to my vision board which is another story for later. But I am no different than those people living in the tissue boxes on 424. If I had the money I would say you betcha, where do I sign? I think the 424 homes are a little Stepford wives for me-at least the Connecticut barn has some history, and is isolated from the pack. I guess the only think separating me from them is that they have what I want, but I wonder, can they really afford it?

Jazz Hands Revisited

I'm just going to jump in where I am and take it from there. This will be an experiment in non-editing and letting go of the micro-managed moment. OK? So here goes...

Below is a favorite image of Judy Garland. I have dreams that I am dressed in fish nets and I can sing and dance with the best of them. The dancing part I may just do, but the singing? Not so much. That's fine though. I really am tone deaf, its kind of painful.

INFESTATION

So this week we had a nest of huge horse flies hatch in our house. We have no idea where they came from but let me tell you, they are here and they are massive... I mean between the two of us we have killed 18 bugs in 2 days. They aren't your average house fly either, they have spiny backs and red eyes!! Gross. At first, I was wrangling them, and letting them out the front door. It was like getting a bird to fly out of a barn- seriously I'm not sure anyone can fully grasp the gi-norm-osity of the situation. Then they multiplied and we believe that they have been terrorizing the dog. Our lovely dog Marco has been doing weird things lately. For instance, this week, Marco will not, under any circumstances be left alone downstairs in our living room. On a typical day he usually lays on his blanket or on the couch, or lounges on the cool hard wood in the kitchen. Nope. No longer. I could not find him a couple of days ago, he was not in any of his usual spots, so I came upstairs to find that he his hiding in our bedroom closet. Bizarre. So we thought he was just under the weather - the weather has been a little strange this week and we thought maybe he was also just tired. Then we realize he can't stand the fucking, massive, bird-like flies that have infested our first floor.

See like right now, one of those things is in the other room knocking over lamps and glass ware. Where did these things come from? And why are they mutant size? We think they may bite...

The Quintessential Jazz Hand

Judy Garland In Concert
Hand-Signed, Limited-Edition Etching
Edition Size: 525,
20" x 19"

www.alhirschfeld.com

Ray Rulz

If you haven't heard of Ray Lamontagne. Please look him up. His voice and lyrics are breathtakingly beautiful. I wish I could write like that, spare and unflinching.

" Love can be a liar, And justice can be a thief, And freedom can be an empty cup from which everybody want to drink" How Come

Judy Garland

Rodin's Lover, Camille Claudel

Because Rodin was Camille's teacher and lover, people always assumed that her work was merely an imitation of his. Nothing could be further from the truth, and Rodin himself said, 'I showed her where to find the gold, but the gold she found was truly her own.'

Sound of a Heart Breaking

I know intimately the sounds of a heart breaking, of fears found true, alive and living well in my own life. This sound; the gasping and uneasy queasiness of failure, of let downs, of love lost and days bound by unwelcome solitude is the sound I express alone, in private behind closed doors. I recognize in others, the familiar sound that escapes my throat from time to time when I realize it is April 9, and for ten years I have not been able to speak to my father. It catches me off guard these days. I may see a man who reminds me of him, or hear a song reminiscent of the out of tune whistling on a Saturday morning, at an hour when not even the birds dare open their mouths. I miss him and I mean to say that I know what it feels like to have your heart broken and to have to carry it piecemeal with you in the the hopes that you may find someone who knows how to make it whole again. I wish for myself to have gumption to not be trapped by my fears of losing again, to not be overcome by a "what is the point" attitude, but to thrive and remind myself often that to love and lose love is to have lived to the fullest; the richest life possible.