July 2026
Hummingbirds love these deep-throated salvia blooms – because who doesn’t enjoy a deep-throat experience? I’ve planted several in pots on the patio so that we can watch them flit from bloom to bloom, darting with pinpoint precision and split-second motions. It’s one of the most enchanting displays of the summer. Enticing the hummingbirds is always a worthwhile endeavor. They usually favor colorful and interesting blooms, so everybody wins.
A sign that mid-life malaise has kicked in: I missed the due date for my eye appointment by a year. Usually I am right on top of that benefit, as I’m only allotted a check-up and new pair of glasses or contacts every two years, and my eyesight is deteriorating faster than that schedule. This time I let things go for an extra year beyond that – mostly out of laziness and such an onerous experience last visit (clearly I didn’t take my own advice and find a new company). This year the wait time wasn’t any better, I’m just more resigned to accepting that it’s always going to take an hour and a half for a five minute appointment. That little shift made all the complaining go away. There are badder fish to fry.
As for the new specs, I like their less bulky frames – it’s keeping with a simplicity I’m trying to bring into my life. Same thing with the underwear selection, because that’s what most people came here for – no judgment, all respect.
I just read a disheartening report that a disturbingly-large percentage of bees have died in the last year or so, a telltale sign of the distresses that our earth remains under. I no longer know how to process all the horrific news that is happening, other than ignoring it for my own sanity and well-being. In service to that, I will lean into scenes like this – a strikingly scarlet variety of bee balm (Monarda) thus far blessedly unaffected by mildew. We will take our small victories where we find them, grateful that there is still beauty left in the world.
Actor, comedian, and most decidedly NOT a piece of shit based solely on his own website, Evan Mulrooney handily gets crowned Dazzler of the Day for that clarification alone. His work on ‘Only Murders In The Building’, ‘Fargo‘, ‘Justified: City Primeval‘, and ‘South Side‘ – along with his social media hilarity – have righty made him a star. Coupled with his good looks and the build of a former football player, Mulrooney has made an enviable splash in the entertainment world. Watch his Insta space for good things to come.
Emi and Noah came over for the 4th of July festivities (such as they were) and we had a lovely little cook-out with Mom before the twins and I went out for ice cream and a walk at The Crossings. They’re getting older now, and I feel them shift slightly to their phones, shortening their attention span which was never all that substantial in the first place. The changes from generation to generation ring differently when you’re on this side of the divide.
When walking The Crossings we were able to enjoy a moment of touching the grass as it were, even if they complained that they didn’t want to walk. Noah was the one who discovered this lone daylily in bloom, and I explained how each bloom only lasted but a day. He said that was sad, but I showed him the other buds that were waiting to take over when this one had spent its day – and I said that if the daylily only knew of one perfect day, and had no idea of how long other flowers lived, why shouldn’t it be the happiest flower alive for that single day?
Back in the attic, we shared a ‘Circle of Trust’ moment where we talked of things that shall only remain within that sacred circle. One fun and slightly insane thing I can share is that we realized, at Emi’s keen observation, that I had never worn the same outfit twice whenever I’ve hung out with them. Since I see them maybe once a month – and often for the big life events like birthdays and holidays and graduations – it was entirely plausible that they’ve never seen me in the same thing twice. Respect.
More moving was Emi’s unprompted explanation that she always appreciated that she could come visit us no matter what craziness or drama was unfolding in her life, and that our home was a place of calm and relaxation, where she could simply be. Emi’s always taken after me when it comes to astute observations – and being blunt no matter how much it may sometimes hurt. On this day, there was no pain, only love and gratitude.
Is anyone’s star shining as brightly as Meg Stalter’s right now? With a new single (‘Prettiest Girl in America’), scene-stealing moves in ‘Hacks‘, and a Broadway debut in one of the hottest shows, ‘Oh Mary!’, Meg Stalter is doing everything right, and easily earns this crowning as Dazzler of the Day. Check out her hilariously entertaining Insta here.
Mary Haynes may have doted on a fictitious perfume called ‘Summer Rain’, and I myself may have a bottle of the Hermes beauty ‘Un Jardin Apres la Mousson’ recalling the garden after a summer deluge, but I’m still trying to find ways of appreciating a rainy summer day, and I’m not quite succeeding.
Instead, I take a rainy night and turn it into an abstract study in contemplation, painting it somewhere in my mind and streaking it with blurry lines that obfuscate as much as reveal. Strange and wonderful the way rain brings the streetlights to electric, reflecting light; this is why they wet the pavement when they shoot movies. Once you notice that you’ll see it in every outside movie street scene.
With the possible sweet exception of the linden tree blooms, no other summer flower reminds me of childhood, and in such unassuming and visually quiet fashion, as a simple hedge of privet. It immediately rekindles summer memories of Provincetown, of family vacations, of nights walking in hot and humid air, which always carries floral fragrance more potently than any other time of the year.
Like the linden tree, privet doesn’t shout its presence with bold and colorful flowers – it speaks solely through its sweet and somewhat subtle fragrance. When appearing en masse during their blooming season, it manages to fill the surrounding air with a lovely perfume, and most don’t know where it’s coming from since the show is far short of grand ostentation. It speaks to me more sweetly because of this.
Like some paper moon, this bamboo lamp casts a starburst of shadows before a branch of coral bark maple. A scene from the Floating World perhaps, centuries ago, that replays itself in varying versions over all the ensuing years. What remains is the beauty, the lingering sigh, that feeling of being so full you want to squeeze someone’s hand to realize your place is still of this earth. Rainy summer evenings make for some of the saddest times, such gloom at direct odds with the season of the sun. One expects the dreary stuff in fall or winter; summer makes the sting more acute.
This is when we find solace in the interior. This is why we make our rooms as pretty and peaceful as possible. This is where a branch of maple leaves becomes a portal to another century, another place. This is the space where music speaks for longing.
The last thing I want to do is wish the summer away.
Keeping that in mind, I endeavor to embrace the moment, rainy night and everything that goes along with it – the stickiness, the air with enough coolness to give it just an edge, the purgatorial wait until the sun comes up and out again. A rainy summer night is right in its own way, it carries its own beauty hand in hand with its darkness. Still, I yearn for light…
While his song ‘Cruising’ came out a few years ago, it still makes for the perfect summer bop, so give it a listen down below. Before that, check out Matt Harkenrider’s entire body of work for an illustration of why he has been named the Dazzler of the Day. Catchy melodies, infectious fun, and visuals that are more than easy on the eyes, Harkenrider is just about the perfect package deserving of all the flowers.
Welcome to the Northeast, where a stretch of upper-90-degree days can suddenly turn to rainy mush in the mid-70’s and no one knows how to dress or act or behave anymore. Add in an unhealthy dash of Mercury in retrograde motion and you have the making of a minefield of moods just waiting to be set off by the slightest foraging mouse. Mice be forewarned.
I look back to this past Sunday, when my niece and I took a drive out to Manchester, Vermont for some maple cream ice cream (which is more than worth a drive if you’ve ever had it). The scenes along the way were idyllic; the company sublime. It lives in my head on the rainy mornings.
I’ve said this before and it bears repeating: I think my favorite Peanuts character is Woodstock.
Most people peg me as a Lucy, a few wiser folks see me as Snoopy, but I’m probably closer to Woodstock. I mean, the thing wears feathers. Hello. This is a kindred spirit.
Like Snoopy, he just wants to have some fun and live his life without bothering anyone else.
That’s a good philosophy.
American patriotism has been killed by the MAGA movement, and it’s quite the shame. The less said about that, the better – so on with this weekly blog recap – the very first one of July in a very golden summer…
Read your lips, shut my mouth.
Happy return of the yellow flowers.
A moment of summer melancholy.
It’s purple and veiny and you’re gonna love it.
Madonna’s ‘Confessions II’ is her best album in two decades.
Requisite freedom Speedo and jockstrap post.
F.A.F.O. – Taste of Italy, Latham, NY
Our Dazzler of the Day was Jason Watson.
A flower that lasts but a day.
What a wildly hot stretch of weather we’ve had this week, and despite my reputation for complaint, I haven’t made any because it’s summer and time to embrace it all. (When you have a pool and AC, you don’t really have a right to complain anyway.) It’s felt good, the way early summer always does when the sun deigns to shine. Some summers don’t grant us that, so when it’s here I show appreciation. Even at the tail end of the day, the heat has persisted, sometimes actually increasing into the night. Such strange turns have resulted in momentous storms popping up out of nowhere, landing a nightly deluge upon a grateful garden, and keeping all but the most dramatic of plants from wilting (looking at you, hellacious hydrangeas).
People can wilt in such heat too, physically and emotionally, and when summer turns like a knife it doesn’t care how it cuts – and sometimes cuts made without care are the most dangerous of all. At the end of a day, when the sun goes down but the temperatures refuse to follow, there is still no relief to be found in the air. Only beneath the water can you plumb the depths to locate a spot of coolness, and even then you can’t stay there for long.
For a flattering backside appearance, Tom Ford reportedly insists on a hard tan line to carve out the necessary sculptural shading to visually lift what might need to be lifted, and if I’m going to take advice from anyone on how to look good naked, it’s probably going to come from Tom Ford. Though I’m less about that these days and more about the least amount of baggy clothing to accompany a swim without going completely naked (though there’s nothing wrong with that either). Hence this floral Speedo shot, splayed legs and all – a reminder that this site used to be all about the clickbait and the pics, especially in the summer. My mind is elsewhere of late, but it’s nice to indulge in the superficial when so much of what’s beneath that is rotten. That brings us back to the Solid Gold Summer theme, and the next song in our summer playlist. Cue the music…
What’s the sense in sharing
This one and only life?
Endin’ up just another lost and lonely wife
You’ll count up the years
And they will be filled with tears
Love only breaks up to start over again
You’ll get the babies, but you won’t have your man
While he is busy loving every woman that he can, uh-huh
Shades of 70’s disco (and a 90’s ‘Romeo & Juliet’ redux by Baz Luhrman) this ditty gives summer funk a good name, as it celebrates love and youth and the carefree, breezy romance that life sometimes bestows upon us at any age. If your heart is golden, and if your heart is true, age falls by the wayside, and numbers never mattered to anyone but the most petty of misers. Live and let live, love and let love, and whenever in any doubt, dance it all away.
It’s high time now just one crack at life
Who wants to live in, in trouble and strife?
My mind must be free
To learn all I can about me, uh-huh
I’m gonna love me, for the rest of my days
Encourage the babies every time they say
Self-preservation is what’s really going on today
