Typically I’m a big Tom Ford follower. I appreciate his moody style, his studied and deliberate use of color, and his luxurious underwear. This season he’s putting black lace on his male models for the advertising and I am once again here for it, as impractical and ridiculous as it is. Will I be rocking this at my next dinner party? Highly unlikely, but at this point anything is possible…
More intriguing is the new parfum version of ‘Grey Vetiver’ and the latest Private Blend in the Soleil summer line – ‘Soleil Feu’. If it’s anything like ‘Soleil Brulant‘ I may be tempted to cash in those Sephora gift cards, and still have to pay a couple of hundred beyond them.
Some dazzlers are so dazzling that the mere naming of them as Dazzler of the Day feels trite and a tad bit silly. (See Beyoncé, Dolly Parton, Madonna, Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga for example.) That points to something in humanity that afflicts the best of the best: whenever someone seemingly has their shit together, we forget to check on them or grant them the honor and adoration due their talent or art or mere existence. Meanwhile, the trouble-makers or perennially problematic people get all the glory and attention and support. Such is the case with artists like Carole King, who have amassed a breathtaking body of work (and if you look into all the songs she wrote for others it truly is epic) while remaining humble and true to their work. When they take on important causes like environmentalism, they dazzle us even more, and want no recognition for being good people. So here’s to those who have dazzled us for decades, asking for nothing yet always giving their everything.
Not all moments of meditation and mindfulness have to be lengthy or accompanied by Palo Santo incense or done while perched lotus-style on a silk cushion. Some can take place while you’re taking the first leak of the morning. I realized that for the first time as I was pissing on Easter morning. I’m one of those guys who starts the flush just as he’s finishing up the pissing business in an effort to save time. After 47 years of practice, I’m pretty good at judging the timing needed to complete my flow before the flush has completed its full cycle.
As I stood there with a final flick of the dick, it dawned on me that I was rushing a moment that could, for all its supposed obscene glory, be one of ease and relaxation. I think I can safely say that urinating feels good for most of us (provided everything is working correctly). It offers a welcome release of all that has literally been bottled up inside, giving the body instant gratification and pleasure as we unburden our bladders of pressure and discomfort. This was a moment, however brief, that should be enjoyed and exalted, not quickened or hastened by my typical double-duty of flushing and finishing up at the same time.
From this point forward, I’m going to mind the moment of urination, proof that there can be mindfulness in the most unlikely of places and actions. It’s also a reminder to seek out those unexpected times when mindfulness can be playful and fun.
First of all, anyone who rocks a ladybug purse is a dazzler in my book. Second, when you add a lifelong career in helping others and giving back to your local community, you more than earn the title of Dazzler of the Day. Daquetta Jones has been doing both, and doing them fabulously, for more years than seems possible. When the stunning style and colorful sophistication of one’s fashion sense is matched by a career of service (Jones has been the Executive director at YWCA of the Greater Capital Region and the Deputy Commissioner for Administration at New York State Department of Civil Service) the result is a dynamic inspiration for all of us looking to dazzle in our own way.
Entering my twentieth year of ALANILAGAN.com, I’m feeling my age. Sad case in point: I spent Saturday evening scoping out heating pads for a strained neck (which is much better today, so the heat hit just right). I’m also in need of a pill box, as a number of my friends are, to keep track of everything. My hair is finally more salt than pepper, and my body is continually telling me that salt is so much worse than pepper (hence the blood pressure meds that I need in a pic box so I don’t forget to take one, or, perhaps worse, forget that I’ve already taken one). So yeah, that’s where we are in our fabulous progression toward death.
That said, I’m embracing the brighter side of getting older, and I see it in the progression of posts over the last twenty years. I don’t usually go back further than a couple of years, as some of the shit I’ve written is, well, shit. But every one of those cringe-worthy moments brought us to this point, and I’m not all that unhappy about it. Regret is a waste of emotional space, and I’d rather fill that place with hope and promise. After all, it’s Easter Fucking Sunday, and despite scary bunnies shrouded in purple tulle, I’m filed with the reason for the season. Nobody beats the Riz!
For all those with extra Easter time on their hands, here are a few posts that might jingle the memory bells. Now I’m mixing Christian holidays and making a muck of this place again…
{Note: The Madonna Timeline is an ongoing feature, where I put the iPod on shuffle and write a little anecdote on whatever was going on in my life when that Madonna song was released and/or came to prominence in my mind.}
You say that you need my love And you’re wanting my body, I don’t mind Baby all I’ve got is time And I’m waiting to make you mine
You say you wanna stay the night But you’ll leave me tomorrow, I don’t care All of your moves are right We can take it anywhere…
I have absolutely no recollection of this song from when it came out. It was early days for Madonna, before I was even aware of myself, much less the latest pop star about to take the world by storm. We were both in our infancies then. Of course I become aware of it later on, but by then other songs and career moves held my attention, and this one never took on classic status in my eyes. That’s ok – not every single Madonna song is destined for epic effect, and others seem to have embraced this one from the get-go so it doesn’t lack for fans. I’m just not one of them.
Maybe we were meant to be together Even though we never met before We got to move before the sun is rising And you’ll be walking slowly out the door Out the door
Physical attraction (physical attraction) It’s a chemical reaction, ooh It’s a physical attraction It’s a chemical reaction, yeah
The Lark Street Renaissance continues as John Robert Bowers is crowned Dazzler of the Day, joining the vaunted ranks of Albany denizens such as Lynn Beaumont, Kevin Bruce, Tess Collins, and Elissa Halloran. Founder and lead therapist at Spa Halcyon, Bowers has been creating an oasis of wellness in the midst of Lark Street, providing spa and beauty treatments in an inviting environment. With his welcoming energy and expert techniques, he knows precisely how to help his clients achieve their desired level of relaxation and stress-release, while aiding in a holistic approach to self-care and health. Too many of us forget that self-care is absolutely vital to taking care of others, and in a world that feels increasingly fractured and disparate, Bowers is a friendly reminder that we need to take of ourselves and each other. {Check out Spa Halcyon’s FaceBook page here.}
There is a hushed solemnity to this sacred pocket of time between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, as if much of the world waits with bated breath for something miraculous to happen. Not to mix religious metaphors, but it’s a purgatorial sort of place, located somewhere between sorrow and hope – a common and fertile space where humans reveal whether they’re on the side of cynicism or optimism.
For someone who has traditionally reveled in the anticipation of everything, I never found much solace or joy in the Saturday before Easter. Maybe all the anxiety and stress of serving so many masses during Holy Week had my mind too wound up to lower its guard and relax, especially when the biggest Holy Day of the year was yet to come. Church was always fraught with that discomfort and strain. I tried to focus on God and what constituted the true lessons and meanings of all that scripture, all those stories, but in the end it was just me and my social anxiety trying to get through being part of that black-and-white-clad parade of altar boys and priests.
A pause, then, in this spring of 2023 – a pause before Easter, a pause before resurrection, a pause before any miracle. A pause to determine whether we will stay in the dark or move toward the light. There is always that choice. I want to believe we would all try to be better, but I’ve seen the hurt and harm humans can do to one another. No amount of faith or believing can counter the utter lack of humanity with which some people have been left.
It’s been a while since I’ve returned to the church in my memory bank. There are no great or horrid secrets lurking there – whatever tragic fate befell so many other altar boys never touched me. Whispers of it remained elusively on the periphery of my experience, and maybe the danger lurked closer than I knew, but no abusive horrors informed my altar boy years. Instead, it was the dogged and consistent strain of anxiety of facing a church filled with staring faces that wreaked its havoc. Every Sunday I would dread the mistake or mis-step that would lead to the ringing of the bells at the wrong time, or a missed cue to bring the priest the gospel, resulting in frantic snaps of his fingers beneath his flowing robes. I wanted to please the priest, I wanted to please my parents, I wanted to please every person in the pews, and I wanted to please God. That’s a lot of emotional pressure on a kid whose baseline nature was not naturally pleasant.
Every once in a while I will talk in my sleep, and Andy will catch it, then wake me and relay whatever nonsense I’ve been mumbling. The other night I was apparently screaming, “I’m cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs!” and then opining, “Who gave us Cocoa Puffs?? What are we, nine?!”
It didn’t end there. I went on to say, “What am I gonna do with all these Cocoa Puffs?!?” which is where Andy woke me with this: “Put them behind your ears!”
As you can imagine, our bedroom is wild in the wee small hours of the morning.
Last fall, when planning out 20th anniversary posts for this website, I asked all of my friends’ children to send me a few songs that embodied me and ALANILAGAN.com in their minds. Each response was fascinating because it revealed a few things about what they each thought of me, and unintentionally, perhaps, a few things they thought about themselves. I’m slowly working my way through them, and one of the first ones that spoke to me illustrated the intuition and unexpected clairvoyance of Suzie’s daughter Oona.
Always sharp on the ways of humans, thanks to keen and practiced observation, Oona has had a prescient brilliance that set her quietly apart from the rest. I remember what it’s like to be a little different that way – a little quieter and more self-contained – and it has a tendency to work against you in the very ways you most want to reach out and connect. That ended up saving me some serious heartbreak, however, and I’m sure Oona is turning it to her own advantage. As for this song, at first I wondered why she chose it, and then I decided to write what it meant to me before I asked. Here is ‘Death By A Thousand Cuts’ by Taylor Swift, and as I listened to it an understanding of stories I’d forgotten I’d written began to unfold…
Saying goodbye is death by a thousand cuts Flashbacks waking me up I get drunk, but it’s not enough ‘Cause the morning comes and you’re not my baby I look through the windows of this love Even though we boarded them up Chandelier’s still flickering here ‘Cause I can’t pretend it’s ok when it’s not It’s death by a thousand cuts
Upon first reading, the lyrics seem to indicate some sort of treatise on the demise of a romantic relationship, which is usually what Taylor does best. The first few listens I got some resonance from that, but then another relationship presented itself in my mind – my relationship with drinking – and suddenly this song became one of those flashpoints when everything comes brilliantly alive in frightening fashion. “I get drunk but it’s not enough…”
It’s been three and a half years since I last had a drink, and it’s not even something I think about all that often. So completely has my lifestyle changed in that time, along with the world, that it feels like a thousand years ago, but sometimes it’s good to remember, and to see how drinking might have become my death by a thousand cuts.
I dress to kill my time I take the long way home I ask the traffic lights if it’ll be all right They say, “I don’t know” And what once was ours is no one’s now I see you everywhere The only thing we share Is this small town
You said it was a great love One for the ages But if the story’s over Why am I still writing pages?
When you use alcohol as a method of dealing with your demons, it takes on aspects of a very toxic relationship – the kind of relationships that slowly kills you rather than ending it in one fell swoop. It doesn’t start out that way, and for a while – a couple of decades in fact – it seduced and made it seem like that was the best way to solve any and all problems. It was my way of dealing with social anxiety, and unfair situations, and anger and loss and happiness and joy and celebration… well, you get the idea. It feeds on itself, and I could feel myself heading down a darker path that was alienating loved ones as much as I was alienating myself. My sense of self grew hazier with every martini, my bearings and judgment grew shakier with every glass of wine, and when you start to lose those things, you sometimes hold onto yourself by drinking more.
‘Cause saying goodbye is death by a thousand cuts Flashbacks waking me up I get drunk, but it’s not enough ‘Cause the morning comes and you’re not my baby I look through the windows of this love Even though we boarded them up Chandelier still flickering here ‘Cause I can’t pretend it’s okay when it’s not It’s death by a thousand cuts
On those mornings after I’d had too much, that was when it really hurt. It wasn’t the physical aspect of a hangover that was so debilitating and destructive – it was the emotional and mental state I’d be in, the incredibly depressing down that came from drowning myself in a depressant and thinking that would solve anything. The flashbacks woke me up… I looked through the windows of the boarded-up love I shared with liquor… and I knew that liquor would never be my salvation, it would only be my death, no matter how insidiously long it took. Deadened by a thousand cuts…
In that gray haze, I would look around me at the world and wonder why I couldn’t just be like everyone else, why I never felt like I fit in, why everything felt so much harder and more difficult, why I needed a drink to make it all bearable. Slowly, I began to make sense of things, and on the day that it finally and fully dawned on me that my drinking was self-medication for social anxiety and how ill-at-ease I felt with myself and my place in the world, I decided to work on that, and the need – the want – the desire – for all that annihilation instantly dissipated.
The bridge of this song hits harder when I think of all that I put myself through. A bridge is a powerful symbol – it can connect disparate places and parts, piecing things together that might not normally be joined. The rivers and ravines of our lives aren’t always without purpose, but when we create our own divisions and cuts and separations, sometimes we need a bridge. To heal, to join, to make us whole again.
My heart, my hips, my body, my love Trying to find a part of me that you didn’t touch Gave up on me like I was a bad drug Now I’m searching for signs in a haunted club Our songs, our films, united we stand Our country, guess it was a lawless land Quiet my fears with the touch of your hand Paper cut stings from our paper thin plans
Knowing that and stopping my drinking was relatively easy once I fully understood what was at work – the hard part was untangling all the things that my drinking had infiltrated and tied in knots. How to dismantle something that had formed such a pillar of my existence? Wasn’t the cocktail an integral part of what made me so fun? Wasn’t it the only thing that made me fun? A part of me that alcohol didn’t touch? A part of me that drinking didn’t take up? I was so mad at myself for not seeing it sooner, for letting it almost take over, I scream out the rest of the bridge in a rage.
My time, my wine, my spirit, my trust Trying to find a part of me you didn’t take up Gave you so much but it wasn’t enough But I’ll be all right, it’s just a thousand cuts
That’s the trick of drinking. It would never be enough, not for the reasons I thought I needed it. Once I saw that, and started to address the underlying reasons for it, I could let that relationship go. The clean-up and shift took some time, as it was a drastic life-change, but it felt so good that, as frightening as it was to deal with the real reasons for it, I knew it was worth it. Finding the way back to yourself after twenty-plus years of running away from that person isn’t easy. I’d hurt myself, and others, in all that time, and facing the man I’d become from a place of purity – from the place I was in before I started drinking – was uncomfortable and humbling – and precisely what I needed. It was good to see him again, to feel him still there, no matter how badly I hurt him just trying to do the best I knew to survive, to get us both through. We both did our best, and somehow we both came together, fully integrated all these years later, and ready to start again.
I get drunk but it’s not enough ‘Cause you’re not my baby I look through the windows of this love Even though we boarded them up Chandelier’s still flickering here ‘Cause I can’t pretend it’s ok when it’s not No, it’s not
It’s death by a thousand cuts (you didn’t touch) Trying to find a part of me that you didn’t touch My body, my love, my trust (it’s death by a thousand cuts) But it wasn’t enough, it wasn’t enough, no, no
I take the long way home I ask the traffic lights if it’ll be all right They say, “I don’t know”
Anyone who steps onto a country music stage and defiantly celebrates drag queens at this moment in time is way more than a Dazzler of the Day, but that’s all I have to offer Kelsea Ballerina right now, and she most definitely deserves it. Be sure to visit her website here to see how much she has already accomplished, and find all the signs of all the promise that is yet to come.
My memory is officially shot, and I can better answer questions on what went down in 1997 (it was probably me) than what happened just ten minutes ago. Case in point: I recently took my daily regimen of pills at night, then promptly took another bunch just half an hour later because I couldn’t remember if I’d taken them before (luckily I’m only on baby doses of blood pressure medication and the rest are just allergy and Vitamin D and other nonsense). Yes, I would probably do well with a weekly/daily pill box for more than vacations now. But I digress, another sign of aging and forgetfulness, and the real purpose of this post was to examine the crocus you see so beautifully in bloom here.
It’s a bit of a surprise because I didn’t remember planting this corm – and in all fairness to me, it was a package of about 50 crocus corms, only one of which actually survived the hungry animals burrowing in the topsoil of our backyard a number of years ago. Yes, one out of fifty, which is why I don’t bother much with bulbs anymore.
As seen above, it is almost completely hidden in the brown debris of winter’s end, even with its striking purple coloring. I actually missed it the first time I walked by, only catching it on my return trip, and the reward was handsome. A few days later, the bloom was gone, eaten by the usual culprits, and another heartbreaking reason not to bother with certain plants at certain times of the year.
Thankfully, I captured it when it had just opened, and the fleeting nature of such beauty adds to its allure ad appreciation. A welcome sign of spring.
