The light is magical when it illuminates the clouds, and the sky behind them turns a bit deeper in blue. 

Like clouds of cotton candy.

Whimsy eludes me at the moment. 

The notion of it will have to do. 

Enjoy your Friday, and your weekend.

The Divine Diva invites you for a cocktail again tomorrow… 

With spring hesitating to show off her true finery, I find myself feeling wistful for summer. It’s a bit soon but the heart wants what it wants when it wants it. There’s nothing so terribly wrong in wishing for a slightly warmer and sunnier clime than we’ve had of late. To bide the time, a little link list of summers that have come before:

Last year’s Coquette Summer was a smash in many ways, most of which got written up here. 

A sad summer was looked back upon here.

The summer of 2022 was so fun that it had not just one recap post but this second one as well.

The summer of 2021 seemed less fun but that didn’t stop it from getting a part two too.

I am closing out this look back with the summer of 2020, which was billed as insane and must have truly been such, because it came with a whopping third post.  

These sad magnolia blossoms were stopped in their almost-beautiful tracks by some snow and wind, and as spring stalls in her arrival we are left with brown-tipped and ice-ravaged blooms. It’s a dangerous business blooming at this time of the year, and I have great admiration for those plants that brave the treacherous thing that is spring in these parts. 

Respect. 

A dreamy spring finds a sky that complements its dreaminess. 

Think the ‘Lover‘ color theme from that Taylor Swift era. 

Think the background of the mural behind the King Cole Bar at the St. Regis in New York. 

Here we have the whimsical addition of a moon as it was encroaching on achieving full status – this would become the Pink Moon – fitting for a sky featuring clouds hinting at pink.

Some days the sky feels more like a painting – muted, soft, impossibly beautiful. 

Or maybe some days the paintings are like the sky – muted, soft, impossibly beautiful. 

‘The Last of Us‘ has taken over from ‘The White Lotus‘ as the only television I’m watching right now (ok, with the guilty exception of the reunion episodes of ‘The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills‘). And truth be told, all of it is just a waiting game for the new season of ‘The Gilded Age’.

This shirtless post of Pete Buttigieg is dwarfed by the reaction to any shot of Pete Buttigieg with a beard. Nobody who frequents this blog seems mad about it. 

{See also this couple of Dazzlers.}

One day I want to make peace with a shaggy dough.

But not today.

#TinyThreads

Spring arrives in short, halted steps – retreating a bit with some wet snow, then advancing in tentative fashion – while we wait anxiously for things to warm up and give us a hint of sunnier days to come. The past week brought a full Pink Moon, and the requisite restless sleep and stressful exhaustion that accompanies such lunar stretches. That rollercoaster of a weekly recap begins now…

Spoiler alert: Buster Poindexter is NOT the same person as Al Franken.

Bonus shirtless Patrick Schwarzenegger post.

A monologue for this very moment.

Is Levina pronounced like ‘Regina’ or ‘vagina’?

Under a mindful sky.

This one goes out to those FOTUS voters who voted because the economy.

Spring stalls.

History repeating, ducks quacking.

A Danish sandwich.

Tie die.

What’s going on?

When did Jesus get a haircut?

The smile of a pansy.

The diva makes a call.

A milky interlude.

Rock out with your cock out!

Hang out with your wang out!

Bad ass boys ride bad ass toys!

Hot nude yoga.

First world whining.

Do I even have the energy to build rapport with a new tailor?

I don’t feel like I do.

(And are we even in the first world anymore? I fear we’ve already slipped at least to second.)

My friend Anu asked me what the alternative to building rapport with a new tailor was, to which I replied I’d have to learn how to hem pants. Not a big deal, and I’d have saved myself hundreds of dollars in adjustments over the years, I just yawn thinking of the prospect. The other consideration is that my eyesight is nowhere near what it once was, and I don’t want to go blind like all the sewing nuns that came before me.