Grogu at the Oscars is the energy and attitude I will be bringing into the spring season.
Now, I haven’t seen any Mandalorian shows, and I don’t even think this is the baby Yoda (just the same species?) so if this creature is not someone to emulate, pretend this post never happened.
But how can something this cute not be iconic?
This post should come with a profound and poignant quote about the end of winter, something that speaks to a new beginning, the restorative power of a winter spent fully focused on slumber and rest, but you’ll have to Google elsewhere for that, as I got nothing.
So much of this season was spent in obscurity and shadow, encased in the darkness of snow and ice, and not even granted any semblance of a January thaw. All we could do was go through it – inhabit the cold and dark, and just keep on going through it. This winter made us work in that way, so it didn’t exactly feel as restful as I would have liked. Winter work can be maddening when all you want to do is sleep and be silent. Still, we went through it. We got through it. At the end of winter, sometimes that’s the best you can do.
Thought I have yet to encounter anyone who truly enjoyed the recent ‘Wuthering Heights’ adaptation, I know plenty of people who appreciate a shirtless view of Jacob Elordi.
See also his crowning as Dazzler of the Day.
The exquisite bloom of the Ranunculus isn’t celebrated as much as it should be, and I’m not sure why. Is it the name? Agreed, it’s a bit ridiculous, but what’s in a name?
What else?
Just as I was mulling over which Louis Vuitton fragrance to request for a possible wedding anniversary gift (the heart is currently drawn to ‘Meteore’), Tom Ford’s company releases something that speaks to so many of my comfort and crave zones. See and sniff the sun-kissed brilliance of their latest release ‘Taormina Orange’.
A natural offshoot of their summery Portofino line, this one sounds like it has all the makings of a happy summer dream. A few of my favorite Ford fragrances are in this freshie vein – the original ‘Neroli Portofino‘, the exquisite ‘Mandarino di Amalfi‘, the spicy ‘Costa Azzurra‘, and the emotionally-weighty ‘Azure Lime‘ come to mind.
While my preference is for more potent bottles when it comes to the Tom Ford price point, I forgive a lot once the calendar turns to summer, and no one wants a clingy, cloying perfume to stick to the skin during the sweaty season anyway.
With its blood orange center and promised bitterness to take the sweet seas, the note palette here touches on some of my favorites – from cardamom and orange flower to earthy oak moss. As with most fragrances, just because all the listed notes align with scents I love, that doesn’t mean that they will make beautiful music together; this one could sway cloyingly wayward, or the blood orange might veer off the path of pleasant – all of which means I’ll be sampling this before requesting or purchasing it myself. We don’t have the financial fortitude to blind-buy anything these days.
That said, I’ll be clearing space on the Tom Ford shelf of the cologne cabinet just in case.
It’s been a hot minute since we crowned a Dazzler of the Day for purely superficial reasons, but it may be time for this silly and superficial blog to get back to its thirsty roots. Enter Max Kramer, a male model recently featured in the Dietz underwear campaign. That’s all, and that’s more than enough.
It has come to my attention that ‘Gaelic’ means something totally different than what I assumed all these crazy years. (Turns out not everything is about being gay – whoopsie daisy!) So on this day of shamrock shakes and pots of gold and little bearded green-suited men, here’s some music by Tulua, and a few pics of green heaven.
My one and only visit to the Emerald Isle was an enchanting one, and I still recall a very specific brush with the sublime there (and the eloquence I earned from making out with the Blarney Stone).
May your day be filled with magic and luck and all the charms.
Fresh off his Oscar-winning performance in the should-have-been-Academy-Award-winning-film ‘Sinners’, Michael B. Jordan fulfills a long-promised crowning as Dazzler of the Day first so salaciously teased about in this scintillating post. It’s been a long time coming, as this tease will also attest.
Mercury remains in messy retrograde motion for most of the week ahead, but relief arrives with the coming of spring. This Winter Obscura has been precisely what it said it would be – a hazy, obscure, confusing season where nothing was certain, nothing resolved, and everything in flux. Let’s put an end to it with the weekly blog recap…
It began between the quiet blank lines.
White flower palette to match the snow.
Being normal is ridiculously overrated.
A gratuitiously naked Paul Anthony Kelly.
Meaning and beauty in these Wicked Fabulous bracelets.
Afterglow of a dinner party for two.
Soul-searching Sunday scaries.
Dazzlers of the Day included Harry Francis and Jordan Palmer.
Oh possum, how I feel your pain, how I get your predicament, and how I share your unbothered, fabulous brilliance in the face of the world burning down as you so eloquently foretold it would.
Burn it all down, I say, and fuck ’em if they can’t take the truth. As this crazy cold winter limps to its inevitable end, what was once hazy and obscure is starting to come into clarity and focus – and all that’s been hidden is revealed for a true reckoning. Our country made have given up entirely on accountability, but this blog hasn’t.
With that, I straighten my tiara, align my pearls, and watch it all unfold with a detached glee.
Sometimes I just want to play Block Blast without the Tai Chi Chair Workout offer.
Am I asking for too much?
“Wow.”
It was the last thing I said as we finished up my most recent therapy session. My therapist laughed a little, having just acknowledged that our session had been a lot.
A lot.
A phrase that has followed me for my entire life, one that I’ve only relatively recently learned to lean into and embrace. One that still stings when I suspect it’s meant in a pejorative manner. In this instance it was my therapist’s way of saying we’d gone deep and started the work on issues that went back to childhood. And it was a lot, as well as a beginning.
It’s been over six years since I began regular therapy, and I’m still reminded that things which happened for half a century won’t and can’t be solved in a few sessions. Or even six years of sessions. It’s humbling and daunting and precisely the sort of challenge that sets my mind to work.
Despite the carefully curated and cultivated image that most see here – an image of some dainty, hot-house flower of privilege that I’ve flaunted, taunted and perpetuated – I’ve always been ready to put in the hard work, and never shirked off a challenge, especially when it involves the possibility of self-improvement. I’m constantly on the prowl for such opportunities. It’s not all sequins and sparkle, feathers and fluff.
Sometimes, we have to go deep.
And sometimes it can wait until spring…
Tik-Tok sensation Jordan Palmer runs the JPalm Hairdressing Salon with their wife Alex, and thanks to an inclusive attitude and forward-thinking frame of mind, they more than earn this Dazzler of the Day crowning. Located in Omaha, Nebraska, Palmer’s salon is a refreshingly supportive establishment, particularly for often-marginalized communities. They make proper pronoun usage and terms of consent a matter-of-fact non-issue, gleefully rendering gender-affirming hairstyles as dictated by their clients. Jordan’s easygoing spirit and infectious enthusiasm works to pump up their client’s hair wishes and dreams in a way that is dazzling indeed. (You can make a hair appointment here.)
The runny golden yolk of an egg oozing into the middle of an egg, cheese and tomato sandwich is just… there are no words.
