Category Archives: General

When the news hit that Ricky Martin and Enrique Iglesias were uniting for a tour, squeals of glee and shrieks of delight were heard the world over, and those were just the ones coming out of my mouth. In truth, I probably won’t get around to seeing this double-billing (much to my disappointment), but it does sound absolutely scintillating. Mr. Martin has a long list of links in which he’s appeared previously, starting out with his very first Hunk of the Day nod, a brush with his naked tush, this scorching Speedo glimpse, and this pairing with Maluma. 

Mr. Iglesias has been here as well, in his Hunk of the Day post. Tag-teaming the stage will no doubt be an event to remember, so here’s to wishing them well as they embark on thrilling the world with their voices and their moves. (And their bodies.)

Losing that hour for Daylight Saving Time is always a bummer, but I’ll gladly give it away for the arrival of spring. This is the last full week of winter, and it begins with a full super moon and Mercury still in retrograde. Though the world seems to be falling apart around us, let us find shelter and beauty amid this recap.

Whimsy collected and recollected in a childhood home. 

Madonna’s greatest album to date celebrated another anniversary. 

Not-so-mad Max in motion. 

The colorful and dynamic world of Bright Bazaar. #MakeYouSmileStyle

Enjoy the silence. 

The M-Empowerment Mix. 

A gratuitous Daniel Newman moment. 

Join me on this journey. 

Betty Buckley returns to the Cafe Carlysle this week.

These #TinyThreads wove their way back to the blog. 

The Swans of Fifth Avenue were ravishing. 

Preparing for a weekend at The Plaza.

‘Plaza Suite’ begins previews this week.

When I first started meditating a month or so ago, I found it quite a challenge. Even the brief ten-minute window I allowed myself seemed interminably long and despairingly bleak. It was also the first time I allowed my darkest thoughts and emotions to have their time in the spotlight of my mind, and all their ugliness and awfulness was on gross if necessary display. I wasn’t proud of all the things that came rushing to the surface: the anger, resentment, bitterness, jealousy, fear, sorrow, anguish, cruelty, and rage. Each reared its head, but instead of pretending them away, instead of faking that everything was good and I was not bothered by it, I sat beside them, taking in their grotesque nature, acknowledging and honoring the place they had taken up in my mind, respecting that they had been a part of me for all this time. One by one, I allowed them their say, their existence. No longer was I trying to snuff them out, for they each had their purpose. They each had a reason for existing. I sat with them, and then I let them go. Every meditation gave them a chance to be heard and acknowledged. As the days and nights passed, the thoughts and emotions that came up gradually changed and shifted. The heaviness and darkness that seemed relentless slowly lifted. Other thoughts took their place – healing, resignation, acceptance, forgiveness, and even hope.

Still at the start of my meditative experiment, I’m not sure which way it will take me, but I’m feeling much better, so I hope it continues. Enraptured by this trajectory, I’ve taken to expounding upon and promoting meditation for my friends, explaining to Suzie and Kira how I go about it, subtly suggesting ways they might make a practice of it. Suzie asked if I ever cried at the emotions dredged up during a session, and I had to admit that I had in the very beginning. Not so much for what I was feeling at that specific moment, but for the fact that, while I’d made my life all about me for over four decades, I’d never really taken care of myself. There was something very sorrowful about that distinction. It clues me into a profound realization that in all these years of putting forth a self-centered image in the hopes of making some sense of self-worth stick, I’d failed at simply taking care of myself. And in the last few months, when I understood in heartbreaking fashion that no one – not my husband, not my parents, not my family, not my friends – could ever help if I didn’t help myself, the simple act of focusing on my own breath, my own life, became the most tender, kind and compassionate thing I could do.

“Solitude is independence. It had been my wish and with the years I had attained it. It was cold. Oh, cold enough! But it was also still, wonderfully still and vast like the cold stillness of space in which the stars revolve.” ~ Hermann Hesse

Quiet and stillness and silence. These are the things I find myself craving as the world grows louder, and the possibility for being alone becomes more scarce. On any given day, I am surrounded by a barrage of sounds and noise. The radio playing classical music. The television and its 24-hour news cycle. The washing machine and dryer. The beeps of the microwave and dishwasher, the beeps of the refrigerator, the beeps of the coffee maker. The drone of co-workers, punctuated by the occasional squeal of laughter. The incessant talk of meetings. The roar of traffic. The rumble of a garage door. The buzz of a phone call. The ping of a text message. Even when I make it home, and everything is turned off, there are still noises ~ the hum of the heater, the ticking of a clock, the sporadic drips of a diffuser. Such is the modern world.

We have become accustomed to such noise, and for some people total silence is more jarring and disturbing than a wall of sound. I used to be that way. A trip to Sharon Springs and its accompanying quiet was a jolt to my system a number of years ago. It was then that I realized I was losing an important aspect of life: silence. Since that time, I’ve worked to regain the moments of aural respite that quiet affords. It’s become more important as I’ve been implementing it as part of my daily meditation. Whereas I once meditated with Tibetan flute music or background yoga chants, I now do so in complete silence, and it makes a grand difference.

To start, it allows one to focus on the breathing, the most important part of meditation. By isolating the internal gaze to the primal function of life, I’m more able to push distractions to the side and allow the more prominent emotions and feelings to enter, be acknowledged, and pass on.

Second, silence allows for rejuvenation. Whether I was realizing it or not, being surrounded by a constant barrage of sound and noise was draining. Like the subtle scratch of an underwear label that doesn’t sit quite right, you may not even be aware of the discomfort until it’s removed. The same holds true for quiet: if you haven’t had it in a while, its appearance may be a marked relief. In the simplest terms, it allows your ears to rest, and in turn your brain to become calm. The cessation of an auditory assault is always a relief to me, especially now that I’ve accustomed myself to equate silence with peace and contemplation.

Finally, an atmosphere of quiet and stillness makes for an environment in which it is possible, and almost fostered, to examine yourself. Rather than raising the volume of those inner voices that most of us entertain during the day, it somehow works to quiet them, as if they too want to join in the hushed reverence of the moment at hand.

“How much better is silence; the coffee cup, the table. How much better to sit by myself like the solitary sea-bird that opens its wings on the stake. Let me sit here forever with bare things, this coffee cup, this knife, this fork, things in themselves, myself being myself.” ~ Virginia Woolf

A strong dose of color can change the world, especially a world mired in winter greys, chaos, and Mercury in retrograde. Charging into that battle with his #MakeYouSmileStyle and lifestyle blog (currently undergoing an exciting revamping), Will Taylor has been bringing color back into our lives, literally and figuratively, and I’m here for all of it.

His Instagram feed is a steady stream of inspiration, one that highlights his uncanny knack for impeccably matching his outfits to his surroundings, and offering helpful information on which products and techniques work best for him. Nothing is a hard sell, and his enthusiasm is as genuine as it is contagious. In other words, he’s the best sort of social influencer.

Lately I’ve been getting a kick out of his Twitter feed as well, as he opines his relative age in a world of youngsters who don’t remember what it was like being charged per text message. (Taylor’s a generation younger than me, so you can imagine how my dinosaur ass feels. He’s been blogging since 2009; I’ve been doing this since 2003.)

Above all else, it is his infectious spirit and unflagging optimism that has captured the fickle attention of style-watchers and design aficionados the world over. Ever-ready with a smile or a supportive response, he injects a badly-needed dose of colorful glamour into a mundane universe. Whether it’s his unabashed excitement over the new Lady Gaga song, or perennial reverence to a classic Madonna moment, he straddles the past and the future, while boldly living in the present. He bridges a clean, bright, modern aesthetic with a classic celebration of color and vibrancy, crafting a style that is at once accessible, functional and impossibly fabulous.

As evidenced by cheeky glimpses into bare-chested glory, he also knows his audience clamors as much for him to don colorful garb as they are to see him slip out of it. (A preference for briefs has endeared him to a whole new audience.)

More impressive than that pretty package is his relentless drive to better the world around him, starting with the outside and gradually and ingeniously working within. He isn’t afraid to share his personal stories and setbacks, and today we demand that from our social media stars. He’s also one of the most responsive Instagrammers out there, so if you say hello he’s likely to reply with a smile or quick word of thanks.

It’s a welcome breath of brightness in our dour and drab social media timelines, and whenever I see a new post of his pop up, it’s the first thing I click. We need more color in our lives. We need more color in the world.

Bits of wreckage strewn haphazardly about the house hinted at childhood and the wonders of youth. None of it made much sense to me as an adult, which was sad, as I pondered where I might have lost the path I once knew so well – a path of pure imagination, of whimsy and fantasy and make-believe. It was a path that led to woodland fairies perched among polka-dotted toadstools, where miniature cows moved and mooed on mounds of verdant moss, and dolls poked their heads up from frazzled piles and demanded finer frocks.

Today, there is little room or time for such happy frivolity, unless I’m spending time with my niece and nephew. Perhaps this is why people love children so much – they remind them of being young. Even though part of me feels I’ve lost my way, I still hold onto an active imagination, an appreciation of the whimsical, a respect of the power of make-believe. There is a magic that only exists in the mind. The fact that it isn’t real only makes it more potent. It cannot be stopped or limited or killed. It lives with all the creatures we conjure in our heads – in another, unreachable land, a place to which only a dreamer might gain entrance.

The first recap for March is upon us! The month of spring at last at hand! A few more weeks of winter first, so let’s rush on through this recap and move ahead. 

Mercury in retrograde knocked out the first Broadway selections of the season. 

My baby brother celebrated his birthday.

This website celebrated Ass Wednesday.

The Soup Dragons went Softly.

Teaching my Mom how to use FaceBook.

Never too late for a narcissus.

The Madonna Timeline returned with ‘Dark Ballet’. 

Sunny words of warning.

March enters with the lions. 

A brief post filled with sexy half-naked gents.

Hunks of the Day included Sam Gravitte, Nicholas Hoult, Ramone Owens, and Ben Affleck. 

The royal return of the king of beasts marks the start of March, and such thunderous entrance and cacophonous fanfare seems fitting as we continue on our not-so-merry march of Mercury in retrograde. We have entered the month in which spring officially begins, and though that’s not for a few weeks, hope is on the horizon.

I have a soft spot for lions, as evidenced by this dreamy song, and this summer memory. As for their connection with the start of March, I’m all for it, and if history is any indication they’ll see us through the entire month. Lambs don’t get their meteorological match until May usually. March is much more volatile, and the first days have Mercury behind them, leading to the kind of war I’d much rather avoid. To that end, I will maintain my schedule of meditation. It isn’t much, just fifteen minutes a day, but those fifteen minutes matter and make a world of difference. Silence and stillness are undervalued in today’s world, which means carving out a time and place for both can be difficult. It’s not something you can do in the car on your daily commute, or in the shower, or even lying in bed. It takes concentration and work ~ it’s not just lounging and chanting and ommmmm. But I’ve never been one to shy away from a challenge, particularly if tranquility and serenity might be one of the outcomes. They will be especially important as the lion rages and March rears its hot-blooded head. We must also remember that lions can be peaceable creatures as well, so long as we don’t interrupt the hunt.

When the sun begins its late winter burn, that’s when it might be at its most dangerous. After a winter of darkness and gloom, the days have been growing longer. It began almost imperceptibly, right after the winter solstice, and only now, with the benefit of hindsight, can we see the progress. The brilliant bookend of a Thanksgiving/Christmas/Easter cactus, which had its initial flush of blooms when the light first leaked from the sky at the end of fall, recently started its re-blooming period, indicating that the light had returned.

As lovely as that may be, I feel we need to slow down and take the universe’s gradual progression to heart. At this point in life, I can step back and not rush into anything. That’s for the young and foolish, and there’s a time when that’s right. I’ve passed that point. Luckily, the universe has its own way of doling out lessons and warnings, and it’s powerfully effective at slowly but persistently making sure we heed its signs. Like the slow trudge to spring, it warns with almost unseen form. In fact, it may dangle something tempting or exciting in front of you even if it’s not right. Or maybe we simply ignore such warnings when we want something. At those times, the universe steps in with small signs and blips – maybe a recurring cold or other issue. If you fail to listen, or if you don’t want to listen, you might be able to ignore it a little longer. Fear not, the universe will continue to work to correct the path.

It may knock a little louder, and things may get a little rockier. Perhaps other systems fail, perhaps everything else seems to go wrong. That’s the universe nudging a little more forcefully. If you still don’t heed its signs, it shines its sunlight of truth with relentless intensity. It’s the kind of sunlight that only comes in late winter, before the leaves are on the trees, before the haze of warmth and humidity. It’s this sunlight that can burn, and the universe bangs on your front door, waking you from whatever spell holds you blind to the path you should be on, to right the wayward turns you may have taken.

One must have faith at such times. It’s possible for the world to be both too bright and too dark to see clearly. 

The usual time for forcing bulbs has already passed. In many parts of the country, the real deal is already poking through the ground. Spring and all her requisite beauty will be upon us soon enough. Typically, I do most of my bulb forcing starting in November, when the days are grey and grim, and I need a jolt of hope and the promise of greenery and blooms. That’s what I did late last year, just as the holidays were getting underway. It was a rather piss-poor batch of them though, as if dark forces were stymying their growth. Many buds were stillborn – the saddest thing a plant can do – and a number of bulbs didn’t even bother sending up buds. Sometimes that happens. I’d purchased enough bulbs for several rounds of plantings, but after that initial dismal showing I didn’t have the heart to start over again.

The holidays passed, thankfully, and then the bulk of winter. The days weren’t as harsh as they could have been, and could still be, and at the time I gave in to the darkness at hand, forgetting about the resort the bulbs that were stored on a shelf in the unheated garage. It wasn’t until I painted and needed to do some work requiring tools that I stumbled upon the bulbs again. This late in the game I was surprised to find them with buds of green. Little tiny hints of hope at the edge of winter. Still, I was hesitant. Perhaps too much time had passed. Maybe too much damage had been done. It hadn’t been a particularly brutal winter, but there had been days and stretches of ultra-frigid weather. We just came off a twenty-degree day, for example.

I held their brittle shells in my hands and wondered if it was worth a try. Part of me wanted to throw it all away. My heart had been broken by the first batch already, why should I risk more pain? I felt them in my fingers, pressing into their bodies a bit, trying to decipher if they were still intact, still solid enough to put forth any buds. They felt all right. They still felt substantial. I decided to give them a chance.

Resurrecting the glass container that had housed previous failures, I covered them with gravel and warm water, then placed them by the window in the dining room. Within days they perked up, sending a few straps of leaves into the air, and immediately following that a heavy crop of buds. I don’t know if they will bloom. I had such hope before, only to be left with disappointment and disaster, but I’m hesitantly optimistic. At the very least, there is already the essence of hope. That’s more than some of us ever get these days. The only things to do are wait and gauge their growth and progress, keeping them watered well but not too well. The precarious balance between life and death. For now, there is new life.

We still have one more week of this awful month to go, and Mercury remains in retrograde, so it looks to be a trying one. Lent begins on Ash Wednesday this week, not that it means what is used to mean for a lapsed Catholic/former altar boy such as myself. All sorts of vexing traumas are rekindled with this time of the year, and new ones are being born every day it seems. On with this recap so we can end it sooner.

There were winter warnings because the season is far from over. 

My new iPhone is a pleasant shade of seafoam. 

When the world swerves out of focus, get into your underwear.

The best way to bear a burden is to share it. 

Sniffing around memory triggers.

The #TinyThreads resurfaced because of a bathroom incident. 

The unmindful shower (warning: minor male nudity).

How to inhabit the body in downtown Albany.

Boston beckoning.

The kind of coat you can’t wear.

Saddest coupling of words: Author Unknown.

It took me three decades to finally learn how to do this. 

Hunks of the Day included Nick Pulos, Duayne Boachie, Rick Cosnett, Erik Steinhagen, and Markus Thormeyer. 

Thirty years ago I rode to Ballston Spa to meet with the woman who would become my oboe teacher. For our first lesson, I barely got to play a note. Before I even took out my instrument, she made me lie down on my back. The key to playing the oboe, she explained, was learning how to breathe. I thought I knew what she meant, but I didn’t, and even when I approached understanding, it was just going through the motions. At the time, it was a difficult lesson that didn’t open itself up right away.

She told me to lie back on the couch and relax.

In case it isn’t obvious, the moment someone tells me to relax, I tend to do the opposite, resulting in all sorts of additional tension. Shoulders bunched up, shallow breaths into my upper chest, and the wish that she would just tell me how she wanted me to relax made for an uncomfortable set of circumstances. I lied there for a while doing my best imitation of a relaxed person while she waited and watched. My mind scrambled to find the way out of this, the magic thing she was looking for me to elicit. Should I yawn? Should I feign sleep? Should I fart? What did this lady want from me?

She pushed my shoulders down. “You’re not relaxed yet,” she told me. No shit. You are telling me to relax and I just met you ten minutes ago. I’m lying on my back on your couch and you’re hovering over me, watching every intake of breath. How in the hell was I supposed to relax? It was at least the fifth circle of social anxiety hell, and every which way I looked was just another circle of it.

I stayed there and she instructed me to close my eyes, because whatever a relaxed person was supposed to do was clearly not in my lexicon. I’d always impressed every teacher I had and within the first few minutes of this oboe lesson I was letting her down. If I couldn’t do something as simple as relax, how in the hell could I play an oboe concerto? Well, I didn’t quite make that connection at the time – I only knew that I was failing and flailing at the whole relaxation exercise, and that made me even less relaxed.

We stayed that way for about ten more minutes, at which point she indicated I still wasn’t relaxed. Detecting a note of amusement in her voice, and guessing that it usually didn’t take this long for other students to relax, I implored her with a little laugh of desperation. Patiently, she waited for whatever sign she was seeking that would indicate my desired state of relaxation, but it never came.

I couldn’t do it.

I couldn’t relax.

Not under command.

Not while being watched.

And all I wanted was for her to tell me what to do so I could pretend to actually do it.

Was all my tension and unease written on my face? I tried relaxing the muscles of my forehead and jaw, I tried letting a soft smile spread to the corners of my mouth, and I tried to slow the erratic blinking of my eyes.

This was an excruciating exercise for a kid like me. I don’t know how long we waited, but I knew it usually didn’t take this long. Already, and forever after, I would be slightly different from everyone else. My mind began to wander because I was at an impasse, and whenever I find myself with nowhere to turn, I let my unconscious mind work its own way out of the predicament. In this instance it was just enough, and my breathing went just the slightest bit into my stomach, at which point my teacher perked up and said I was finally relaxing. She put her hand on my belly and asked me if I felt the breath going in.

Oh my sweet Lord in heaven, that’s what she wanted? Why didn’t she just say so from the damn beginning? I can breathe into my stomach and look like the most relaxed person on earth! She wanted something genuine and real, but I was in no way ready for that. In fact, I wouldn’t be ready for decades. But I could feign a physical state of relaxation simply by slowing my breathing and letting it fill my stomach. I knew it was pretend, but it was a start. And it got me up off the damn couch.

I would not be able to truly relax for many years. From my outward appearance, most people couldn’t tell. It wasn’t that I was a high-strung person – I didn’t usually act jittery or tense or nervous (unless I happened upon excessive caffeine or sugar), and I didn’t have the typical persona of someone who didn’t know how to let go. In fact, the majority of people who encountered me assumed I was more relaxed than most, living a charmed, easy life with nary a care or concern. Unfortunately for my health and well-being, I kept it all bottled inside. My tension, my anxiety, my crippling doubts – they all held up within my heart, hiding there and wreaking havoc in other ways.

For a long time I thought it could be solved in another person – the perfectly supportive set of parents, the loyal and trustworthy set of friends, the caring and tender romantic partner – and those things helped in their own way, but they also hindered finding it on my own. Only recently have I begun to see that it doesn’t involve a husband, a family, or a support network of friends, it doesn’t involve a job, a career, or a creative outlet, it doesn’t require fancy clothes, expensive cologne, or material accumulations. It was within me, just waiting to be unlocked, waiting for me to figure out the way to access the calm serenity that is possible when you look within and face whatever truths you’ve kept inside. That may mean accepting the unease when someone commands you to relax. That may mean acknowledging the discomfort that comes with worry and fear. That may mean lying on a couch and realizing that you can’t always be perfect for everyone, and that it’s ok not to be. Because if you’re ok with yourself, you don’t need all those other things.

Today, I breathe into my stomach when things are falling apart around me, and it helps. It doesn’t solve everything, but it changes the dynamics of perception. Most of the time that’s enough. I breathe in slowly, then breath out slowly. Repeating this a few more times, I shift my focus from the bad things at hand to the singular effort and action of the breath.

Two words, otherwise innocuous and innocent, when put together can become the saddest thing in the world. ‘Author Unknown’ is one such pair that has always struck me as supremely sad. Coupled with the sadness is a mystery, a tantalizing hint at something still left to be discovered, a puzzle that can never be fully solved. Banished to a blank background, without a known author the only thing we can go on is the words themselves, which is how writing should be read for the most part, even if it results in a disembodied voice. A voice that exists on its own, without history or source or baggage, speaks to us differently. It demands something more from the reader, and only the strongest among us will truly attempt to engage. 

Comes the Dawn

After a while you learn the subtle difference

Between holding a hand and chaining a soul

And you learn that love doesn’t mean leaning

And company doesn’t mean security –

And you begin to learn that kisses aren’t contracts

And presents aren’t promises –

And you begin to accept your defeats

With your head up and your eyes open –

With the grace of a woman – not the grief of a child

And learn to build all your roads

On today because tomorrow’s ground

Is to uncertain for plans – and futures have

A way of falling down in mid-flight –

After a while you learn that even sunshine

Burns if you get too much –

So you plant your own garden and decorate

Your own soul – instead of waiting

For someone to bring you flowers –

And you learn that you really can endure—

That you really are strong

And you really do have worth –

And you learn and learn—

With every goodbye you learn

~ Author Unknown

Over the last long weekend, I painted a pair of bathrooms – one in a shade called ‘Summer Sky’ and one in a shade reminiscent of the summer sun called ‘Wild Daisy’. You may guess where my mind has been. As Mercury shifts into retrograde motion, we need to ground ourselves with safe rituals. Painting has always been that for me. I may not like it, but it helps.

According to my Uncle Roberto, who was a house-painter when he was alive, painting is all about the preparation. It was the prep work that was the most difficult and time-consuming, but it made all the difference in whether the paint job was to be successful or not.  My Uncle was best at showing us how not to live, mostly with warning tales of his storied past and questionable decisions, but when it came to painting he knew what he was talking about, and I took the lesson to heart.

These days painting often signifies a rebirth, or a cleansing of some sort. It was literally that for this round, as I couldn’t get some candle soot off the walls and ceiling so I simply threw new paint at the problem and here we are. We were due for a change, and as we enter the final throes of a winter I’m all too ready to forget, it’s time for something new.