Here’s a little tropical flower to set the tone for this hot and humid week. Summer is at hand – let us rejoice and be glad in it! When I’ve slipped into songs I once sang at religion class every Tuesday afternoon waiting for the bus to bring us home, you know things have gone slightly awry. I have no excuse, I have no reason, I have no sense of sanity anymore. But I still find prettiness around me, such as in this little purple flower, the scientific name of which escapes me, as does the common name. All names escape me. Mine would be included if it wasn’t sewn into my underwear. Just kidding. Not even I am that precious.
Wow, this Wednesday post is something. All silliness, little substance, and the world outside is wilting. Nothing makes sense anymore, and I’m tried of trying to make it so.
A purple flower is all I have – there is majesty in it, no matter how small.
Our butterfly bush is in its first flush of blooms – later than usual, like so much of the garden this summer – and it’s been enticing the bees and butterflies, handily earning its namesake. It’s even helped to attract the first monarch we’ve seen this year – a happy return of a beautiful creature whose sightings have gone depressingly down in the last few summer seasons.
In the front yard I noticed that a new butterfly bush has seeded itself along the driveway – a most unfortunate location that I will rectify should it survive this winter’s salt barrage. Most of the garden plans at this point are taking place in my head, as I’ve more or less given up on anything major for the rest of this summer – my heart is not in it, and without that my body is certainly not about to lead.
Lately I’ve fallen out of the summer island groove, but with Mercury finally out of retrograde motion, the full moon finishing up, and Mars leaving Virgo, perhaps some relief is in store, and the rest of the summer can return to relaxation and rejuvenation. My hopes and expectations have been tempered of late, so I’ll be grateful for whatever summer deigns to give us next. A song then, from our island inspiration, to keep the summer going.
This song personified the summer of 1995 – and if you thought my recent return to 2005 took us way back, 1995 goes back thirty full years, thus leaving only snippets and an incongruous patchwork of memories. There was a train ride to Chicago during a heatwave, the last gasps of Madonna’s ‘Bedtime Stories’ era, and the first rumblings of all the drama that was about to ensue that fall. In the backdrop of all of it was this summer hit by TLC, gently percolating and offering warnings and melodies and water-laced atmosphere to cool us down. Summer cuts many ways.
Not sure what ad campaign this might be for, but I’m not sure it makes me want to buy a jet ski or wear a life vest. Of course, I never wanted to do either of those things before this, so maybe I’m not the intended target audience. Still, Bad Bunny has made nearly-naked appearances here before now, and they’ve always been a smash, especially when he’s in his underwear. He’s also been a Dazzler of the Day here, a feature that I need to refocus on since it’s been a while since we’ve had a string of them. Recommendations and requests are always appreciated and almost always honored.
Going back twenty years gives me back all my dark hair and moody posing thanks to this summer’s online debut of The Divine Diva Tour: A Fairy’s Tale. Here is another outtake from that project, as we enter the fall palette with hues of amber vanity, and a look back – much like our weekly blog recap…
While Mars has just exited Virgo’s realm, the combination of a full moon and Mercury in retrograde motion are the reasons I’m giving for a recent bout of melancholy and madness. Maybe there are other causes – remembering my Dad, the approach of my 50th birthday, and several instances of feeling under unwarranted attack – but if I can put this all onto the back of the universe, it lets a few people off the hook, including myself. It’s sometimes harder to be upset in the beautiful days of summer, when a happy hibiscus is finally coming into glorious bloom, and the garden has decided to stay lush for as long as I can maintain watering it. That makes the sadness and mourning I want to indulge in feel especially wrong, but I’m not pretending anything anymore, and if my mood is at odds with the weather and season, so be it.
Approaching fifty feels like approaching freedom, and the socially-acceptable invisibility that allows one to genuinely enter a zone of fuck-it-all-I-just-don’t-give-a-fuck. Some could make the argument that I’ve been operating in this mindset for a while, and there is certainly an element of truth to the calculation that I have zero fucks left. It may be a small element, however, as if it were true that I truly didn’t care I don’t think I’d be so bothered with everything. My sadness, or dissatisfaction, or annoyance are proof that it all still very much matters. May my arrival at the half-century mark make it all matter less.
When summer is high, and the grill is on, Andy puts on a steak and cooks it just right. When the deep fryer is in effect, you sprinkle a few tater tots in until they’re golden and good. When the squash is tumbling off the vine, you slice and steam with some salt and pepper. It all makes for a delicious dinner, and in summer everything just tastes better.
A positive post in the midst of swirling negativity.
One of the great summer songs that has dominated many a sunny season for me is ‘No Woman, No Cry’. Aside from its unheralded and likely-unintended reading as a gay male anthem (no woman, no cry – get it?) it carries the great message that “everything’s gonna be all right” like a meditative mantra – the ideal attitude for such troubling times. My friend Chris introduced me to this one in the summer of 1997, when neither of us had a woman or a real reason to cry, but it didn’t stop us from feeling all the things a 22-year-old could feel.
Looking back, I realize how lucky we were, and what a quaint time it was – not only in our specific lives, but in the world as a whole. We had only just begun exploring and living on our own – everything felt so much more profound and powerful than it would ever feel again. Thankfully, part of me knew that, and I understood on some level that those days would become the best days as life advanced and responsibilities shifted.
Our island summer is quickly dwindling – the first week of August has already come and gone – and the days are only growing shorter. (We recently passed the last day that the sun will set after 8 PM – that won’t happen again until next May – a depressingly long time from now.) I don’t want to use the ‘F’ word, but fall is indeed right around the corner. For now, let’s slow things down as much as we can. The weather looks to be hot and sunny in the days ahead – I will take that as my cue to continue the idea and attitude of island living, and remain remote and distant from all the real cares of the world. There will be time enough to address them when the wind changes…
“Strange to be almost fifty, no? I feel like I just understood how to be young.” “Yes! It’s like the last day in a foreign country. You finally figure out where to get coffee, and drinks, and a good steak. And then you have to leave. And you won’t ever be back.” – Andrew Sean Greer
To capture oneself in one’s youth is both a blessing and a trap, and it’s best to forge the key to that trap while you know your way around it. By the time you get around to returning to it, by the time you realize the trap has captured you as well, you will have forgotten how to unlock it.
“Wisdom comes with winters.” – Oscar Wilde
“I want to grow old without facelifts… I want to have the courage to be loyal to the face I’ve made. Sometimes I think it would be easier to avoid old age, to die young, but then you’d never complete your life, would you? You’d never wholly know you.” – Marilyn Monroe
“It is best as one grows older to strip oneself of possessions, to shed oneself downward like a tree, to be almost wholly earth before one dies.” – Sylvia Townsend Warner
“The afternoon knows what the morning never suspected.”~Robert Frost
Shades of fall have been creeping into the cooler nights we’ve had this week, but summer is about to return in a big way if the forecast for the next few days is accurate. Similar tones have found their way into the current section of The Divine Diva Tour: A Fairy’s Tale, with golds and wheats, ambers and caramels. The loose narrative has brought us well into the autumn of the tour book, and the early spring days of lavender tulle and pink chiffon feel very far away…
Way back then, my easiest entry into the world was through a cocktail and a pose, even if it was largely affectation and atmosphere. In the ensuing years, the cocktails came and went, but the affectation and atmosphere persisted. Poses were invented to be struck. Attitude was designed to be lived. And divinity was at my disposal.
Mottled by the watery lens of time – two decades ago and counting – the photos from 2005’s Divine Diva Tour: A Fairy’s Tale bring me back to a section of my life that feels very different from where I am today. A few weeks from 50, I look back at the year I turned 30 and reflect on how things have changed. In so many ways I was so serious then – perhaps serious isn’t the most accurate word – earnest, seriously earnest, may be more apt. It’s there in my expressions, there in my lugubrious prose. While I can now view much of it as humorous and tinged with irony, I could never quite laugh or find silliness in any of it then. There has been a great deal of healing and growth in re-examining this project, something that wasn’t close to possible twenty years ago.
The next chapter of this divine saga begins tomorrow…
Unhealthy air advisories have been announced throughout the past week, and both Andy and I have felt the effects. Coughing and sneezing and runny noses have plagued us, a constant annoyance barely rising to the level of a minor cold, and dissipating once we find ourselves indoors or out of a particularly particle-filled patch of atmosphere.
On a recent ride into work, barely after seven in the morning, I caught the sun peeking through the blanket of smoke and whatever else was hanging thickly in the air. It was a queasy sky, and summer sometimes revels in such queasiness. This week, and whatever atmospheric conditions are at hand, had me feeling nauseous, which is unusual for me. It’s the final week of this period of Mercury in retrograde motion, so hopefully things will look up soon. In the meantime, the weekend has arrived…
Expanding upon the musical renaissance that began with ‘Take My Bow’, Jim Verraros releases an EP of new music that fans have been salivating for since ‘Take My Bow’ and ‘Pyramid‘ brought him so spectacularly back to the musical scene. ‘Explicit’ looks to skyrocket on that cheeky dance-floor trajectory, with a few sizzling remixes, as well as several brand new songs. As Verraros continues to edge us with these glorious drip-release burners, the hope for a full-length album still burns brightly – for now, ‘Explicit’ gives us fans something substantial to swallow until that dream comes to fruition.
