This may very well be the most riveting and inspiring speech I have ever seen in my lifetime. Fittingly, the only other speech that I recall (because I honestly am not usually moved by political speeches) was also given by Michelle Obama at the DNC Convention when her husband Barack was running for re-election. She was electrifying that night. But it was nothing compared to this speech, at this immense moment in history, when the world balances precariously on the razor-thin line between good and evil. Ms. Obama rose to that occasion in stunning, breathtaking fashion, and her words should be heard and read in the history of our country. Take the time to watch it – it’s that good. It’s that necessary. It’s that important.
“Donald Trump is the wrong president for our country. He has had more than enough time to prove that he can do the job, but he is clearly in over his head. He cannot meet this moment. He simply cannot be who we need him to be for us.†– Michelle Obama
I haven’t intentionally planted any cleome for the past few years, yet our front yard has always had a few self-seeders that have come up faithfully. Actually, the past two years I’ve spent pulling out more than I’ve let remain, so this season, along with the late start and then sudden onslaught of summer, we’ve only had a few make it through the mulch. I’m glad they did, as they are providing some new florals for the second half of summer. On with the weekly recap…
They had such great promise. They started out so well. And they, like most things in 2020, ended up being a big-ass failure thus far. These photographs of our tomato plants hide the sad fact that before any of the ‘Early Girl’ or ‘Giant Beefsteak’ varieties have reached ripening stage, their lower portions rot out – just the bottoms, and in every single fruit that gets red. After researching it online, it seems that this is blossom end rot, which is not a fungus but a physiological disorder based on a calcium imbalance.
A physiological disorder based on a calcium imbalance? Are you fucking kidding me? Growing tomatoes shouldn’t have to be this complicated. That’s part of the reason why I’ve taken it all in stride, like other incidents from this disappointing year, chalking up the failure to the general suckiness of 2020. Blossom end rot is not the end of the world. The end of the world will be the end of the world, and we may very well be there. So I shall focus on the cherry tomatoes.
Our cherry tomato plant is doing quite well, producing red fruit, and an abundance of it. Andy consistently did well with cherry tomatoes, both here and at his first house. Next year, I will work only with the cherries. Their foliage remains handsome, while the bigger varieties have started getting spindly and raggedy. Gardening leaves us with such lessons. Failures and successes and all that comes in-between.
How frail the human heart must be – a mirrored pool of thought. ~ Sylvia Plath
Summer turns to high, and in the midst of a pandemic the creative juices have begun flowing. My last project was a rare summer one – I tend to favor spring or fall for project releases, but it’s good to change things up. Whispers of something new have been haunting my nights and the elusive spells of silence during the day. I always heed those hints, allowing the universe to gently nudge or lead me in the right direction.
I don’t anticipate anything coming to full fruition in 2020 – like much of the sensible world, I’ve written off the rest of this year. If anything good or wonderful happens, I’ll consider it a pleasant surprise. A new project wouldn’t see the light of day until 2021, but it’s time to look ahead. To that end, a small hint at the road on which I may soon be traveling. Something temporal, something fleeting, something ephemeral… something not unlike summer, shaded with a little melancholy, mirroring movement of the body, mirroring movement of the mind.
If it sounds a bit vague and abstract, that’s the way it always is at this early stage of development. It’s also probably my favorite part of a project. A quieting of the mind to heed the little whispers of the universe goes along with the sense of peace I’ve been courting for the past few months. To capture the synergy of those lessons with the fulfillment of the creative process may be a daunting challenge, and it just so happens that I find indulgence in a challenge.
This is not a year for traditional social gatherings, which has made birthday celebrations, and all celebrations (such as ten-year anniversaries and twenty-year anniversaries) a different sort of animal, and I’m not completely upset by it. With our own private pied-Ã -terre in Boston, we are planning another quiet birthday there, social distancing and safety as intact as possible. (And quite frankly the folks in Boston wear masks and ensure on safe practices far more insistently than people in Albany – that post may come in the near future based on a recent day trip I made.)
As for my birthday wish list, it’s more of the usual, and I’d like to add Tom Ford’s ‘Tobacco Oud‘ and/or ‘Tobacco Vanille‘ Private Blend to the mix, because as a coolness seeps into the late summer nights, I feel the pull of tobacco. (His upcoming ‘Bitter Peach’ won’t be available until October, so put that on the Christmas Wish List.)
A Southern charmer who knows his way around the sewing machine as much as he does around a set of court briefs, Craig Conover earns his first Hunk of the Day honor, mostly because he sews a mean pillow. Bonus: he wears eyeliner both proudly and nonchalantly. Another Bravo hunk to join the Bravo Hunk Pantheon (listed out here).
Not many of you know this, but Suzie and I were once apparently part of some synchronized swimming extravaganza in Amsterdam, NY. [See featured photograph.] Actually, I think this was taken during our Olympic trials for monkey-in-the-middle (I was the monkey at this particular moment). I can’t for the life of me recall whether we medaled or not. I’m guessing no since I can’t find the thing anywhere.
Summer was always bookended by our birthdays: Suzie opened the season on June 9 and I brought up the rear on August 24. When I was younger, and the days seemed to last so much longer than they do now, I always considered my birthday to fall smack dab in the middle of the summer. (With a great deal of relief too, as I couldn’t imagine having to deal with all the attention that bringing cupcakes to school would entail, and with that came the benefit of not wasting a minute of a birthday stuck in school.) As I grew older, my birthday seemed to creep closer and closer to fall and the end of summer. By the time I hit college, and the first day of school moved up into the end of August, my birthday was very much the final sigh of summer. To that end, it was the anticlimactic finale to every summer season, tinged with melancholy as the sun always slanted a little differently in the sky then, and a coolness had already seeped into the nights and early mornings. More birthday ruminations later on today.
For now, check out this other vintage photograph of when Suzie and I were competing for badminton glory. Based on her poor form and wardrobe (she refused to don the regulation track suit) we lost this game, and any chance at making badminton history slipped through our fingers. Summer has its disappointments too.
That breath a summer takes right about now, inhaling one last gulp of hot, humid air before slowly exhaling the long warm breeze that slides us into fall. There, now I’ve said the f-word and spoiled things, but with back-to-school stuff replacing the pool supply aisles, it’s happening whether we like it or not.
And so I slip into a gray robe after a quick swim, sprawling my legs onto the ottoman and settling in for an evening of trash TV courtesy of Bravo and some Real Housewives. I’ll cleanse my palette with an episode of ‘The Golden Girls’ before heading to bed. Even in summer, this world can feel cold. These small comforts ease the evening.
As far as anyone can foreseeably tell, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will be running against Trump and Pence, and that’s going to be the choice this fall (with the possible addition of a self-proclaimed-bipolar spouse of a reality television persona). I posted this on FaceBook as soon as it was announced: “I would have loved to have seen Kamala Harris as President… maybe someday I will. For now, she’d make an amazing VP.”
Soon, the comments had devolved into an argument, rooted in a conversation about whether Biden was fit for the office. So let me just explain myself here, in a succinct post that I will copy and paste as needed whenever similar comments surface on social media.
We are not having a conversation on the fitness level of Joe Biden for President.
We are not having a conversation about the failings or shortcomings or gaffes of Joe Biden.
We are not having a conversation about previous votes or previous stances or previous poor decisions by Joe Biden.
There is too much at stake for this election.
There is also no comparison to the horror that currently occupies the White House.
Until such time that Joe Biden has told over 19,000 lies, paid off a porn star after having an affair with her while his wife was pregnant, bragged about grabbing women by the pussy, ordered the tear-gassing of peaceful protestors so he could pose with a Bible in his hand, caged children after separating them from their families, incited and emboldened open racism and hatred, allowed over 160,000 Americans to die from COVID, and gotten impeached for abuse of power and obstructing Congress, I don’t want to hear anything bad about Biden.
I hope there will come a day when we can again discuss the subtleties and nuances of candidates, to have a thoughtful debate on the merits and failings of their platforms and personal attributes, to have intelligent and constructive arguments exchanging differences of opinion on policy and methods of enacting policy. This is not that time.
There are only two choices right now: Biden or Trump.
To question, denigrate, or tear down Biden in any way is to implicitly support Trump. I don’t like that that’s how it is, but that doesn’t stop it from being true. As I said, I hope one day we can have these discussions again, when questioning a candidate is not going to guarantee the election of a monster. We are not at that day. We are at a very perilous point, where if each and every one of us doesn’t do all that we can to make sure Trump is defeated, I genuinely fear the dissolution of what made this country so great in the first place.
“To be gorgeous, you must first be seen, but to be seen allows you to be hunted.” – Ocean Vuong, ‘On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous’
Swimming, I fight the current, wondering how much more buoyancy salt water really affords. From the dark depths of the ocean, its gaze is felt and intuited. Somewhere a shark circles. Somewhere a giant squid torpedoes through deeper darkness. Somewhere the ocean pulls from the shore, itself pulled by the moon, and somewhere I feel the sand displaced beneath my feet, the way the receding tide eventually takes us all down.
In a summer when we are mostly bound to our homes, if we’re being safe, a different kind of wave laps at my bare feet. In the gentle ripples of the pool, a book rests by my side – the only way to reach the beach. When the sharks arrive, when the squid’s tentacles wrap their way around the water, I am not to be found. Only a swimsuit floats where once I was, eerily bobbing in ghostly fashion, the way fashion feels like such a ghost these days.
In so many ways, it’s simply another shedding of another guise – a guise I once thought made up the most of me, but fashion, and an enduring love-there-of, was only ever a mode too. It lasted longer than so many others… The trickster shape-shifts again ~ the jester and the king become one. The summer sun casts its own spell.
There, in the space between water and light, I cast off the frills and frivolity, and, naked, swim away to another sea, leaving behind the threads of some silkworm, floating like the plucked plumage of a water-shirking bird-of-prey.
There is something gorgeous about being unseen, too, something gorgeous about not being hunted. That is the place where true beauty resides.
Our first full week with the pool in effect makes it finally feel like summer, just in the nick of time. There’s a light now for nightswimming, and a fan of steps that makes entering the water so much nicer than using a ladder. It’s my new favorite hang-out. While I’m luxuriating there, and making up words here, ride this recap like a wave…
“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse, and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.†―Desmond Tutu
The cup plant has been in its seasonal glory the past couple of weeks, the blooms bursting like countless orbs of sunshine against the sky, providing a feast for the bees and butterflies and a pair of hummingbirds. A group of yellow finches favors the flowerheads too, and will be here until the fall, when the seeds ripen and turn brown, hoping to fall into some remotely hospitable patch of dirt somewhere and carry on the legacy. With all of these visiting creatures, there is much activity in the garden now, and it’s a glorious sight to behold. So much of these last few months have been filled with a sense of quiet in the backyard.
Bereft of the usual string of parties and gatherings and get-togethers, and bereft of the pool for the first half of the summer, it’s been a strange season, as this is typically when we would see our friends and family. Come fall and winter we tend to retreat from the world a little – this would normally be our chance to connect for the year, to see the people we love and make the memories that would warm the winter.
And so I spend the days trying to soak in the sunshine and the cheer, the things that summer does best, the things that only summer can do, trying to warm the heart enough so that it will see me through another winter.
YOU’VE BEEN SANCTIFIED
AND I’VE BEEN TRIED
GUILTY BY ASSOCIATION
YOU’VE BEEN CANONIZED
AND I’VE BEEN FRIED
GUILTY BY ASSOCIATION
First she broke my heart.
Then she got me angry.
Now, she’s silently seeking forgiveness but in silence there can be no forgiveness.
We need to talk.
She needs to talk.
Not talking is giving up.
And if she wants me to give up, I will not fight it.
Madonna recently posted that crazy video of a homophobic lunatic (and I say that because this woman believes that cysts are the result of us having sex with demons in our dreams) in which she denounced the need for masks, a video also shared by Trump. Instagram deleted it for being false information, then she re-posted it again, only to have it taken down a second time. Then there was radio silence, after which she started posted videos as if nothing had happened.
After a righteous firestorm of negative responses, Madonna has still not addressed it. That’s not good, and the fact that someone who once acted so intelligently could be so duped and then so defiant about it is a disheartening statement on how far humanity has fallen. As each hour passed in which she ignored it and pretended it never happened, I felt us fall further apart from one another.
Those hours hurt.
Those hours stung.
Those hours worked to change my life-long love of Madonna.
It still feels wrong to listen to her music. I still have a sour taste in my mouth after everything, and so I haven’t heard anything by her in days – which is rather an unprecedented development. By aligning herself with conspiracy theorists and wacky doctors, not to mention the evil of something like Trump, all the joy I once felt in hearing her songs suddenly drained from the experience. (Thank God for Taylor Swift’s ‘Folklore’ right now.)
I’m working through it.
Working to reconcile how to find that joy in her music again despite her personal failings and faults. I believe in forgiveness, but I need her to say she’s sorry.
2020 takes and takes and takes, degrading and destroying everything we once considered stable and unbreakable, every last thing on which we thought we could always count and rely.
I was originally going to post Madonna and Joe Henry’s version of ‘Guilty By Association’ because that’s such a fitting song, but that feels wrong. And so I take her voice out of the equation, giving you the original writer’s version of it, silencing Madonna’s foolish nonsense and misinformation, her dangerous stubbornness, her death-defying lunacy.
For now, I mourn the mistake. I mourn the madness. I mourn the disgust I feel at it, and the level of my reaction, wondering if it’s all too much. Mostly, though, I mourn the fact that right now I cannot locate the joy in her music – the joy and celebration I’ve always felt, from her saddest songs to her most silly and exuberant. That joy has slipped away. And though my opinion makes no difference to her, if a lifelong fan like me is this disillusioned, I don’t see this faring well for her future or her legacy, and that’s a fucking shame.
Even if wearing a mask helps me reduce the chance of transmitting a virus by 5%, that’s worth it for me to put one on. I don’t get the people who don’t. These memes offer some perspective.
