Category Archives: General

There have been a number of notable gifts that I’ve received/begged-for over the years: a Laser Disc player back in the 90’s (which was the only format in which Madonna officially released her Blonde Ambition tour, and the sole reason for me wanting it) that my parents found at Radio Shack one Christmas, a Louis Vuitton Keepall 50 that Andy got me for another Christmas many years later, a small painting that Suzie did of me decades ago that was slightly reminiscent of Edvard Munch’s ‘The Scream, and this delicious bottle of Diana Vreeland perfume that Sherri and Skip found on one of my wish lists.

For my 50th birthday, Sherri and Skip gave me what may very well be the best gift of the year, and I don’t mean the pair of precious Hermes fragrances that was part of their offering – it was a box of 50 little colorful notecards in individual envelopes, each with a memory or musing or moment written on it that went back over the past twenty years of shared friendship and office adventures. To say that I was touched, this year and this birthday especially, is an understatement, and I can’t thank them enough for such a meaningful and poignant gift.

While I was tempted to tear instantly into all of them – and started off doing just that with the “Imagine Dragons” card (a very private joke) – I slowed down to savor each one, going over the memory or moment that was mentioned, and smiling or laughing at the thought of it. That sort of warmth and love is not something I wanted to end so quickly, so I paused about halfway through, choosing to open a few each day for as long as they last.

Even better is the idea that once I make it through them this initial time, I can put them away for a darker day, bring out this lovely box, and revisit such happiness again. Sherri and Skip have often provided a reassurance of my dwindling belief in the goodness of people – and it’s still there, especially in the people I am lucky enough to call friends.

Behold the humble and somehow magnificent common daylily. Seen proliferating along roadside banks, the daylily is one of those overlooked gems often maligned for their steadfastness and reliability, yet entirely capable of putting on an exotic show. If these were as rare or delicate as a bird of paradise, especially in these wintry parts, they would be celebrated just as grandly. Alas, we do not reward or appreciate the steadfast and reliable, only the problematic and difficult. It goes against reason or what’s righteous, and illustrates the impossible fickleness of a world designed to cause as much hurt as possible.

Refusing to extoll or praise such noble traits is sadly the way of this world right now, but as long as I have voice and space in which to use it, I’ll keep on plugging the magnificence in something as common as the daylily, even if the blooms lasts but a day. Beauty is as eternal as it is ephemeral, and nothing proves that more than a flower that lives its entire life in a single day. We should all endeavor to live like that.

It may be time to start normalizing letting coleus go to flower, at least if we are being blessed with this almost-blue shade of brilliance. I’m the first one to espouse pinching coleus back hard in the beginning – it creates for a bushier plant with a stronger multi-branching infrastructure, and way more leaves – but by this time of the year, let the plant have its full life-cycle before the first hard frost of fall finishes it off. Some people continue fertilizing and pruning and insisting on the show going on full-throttle until the last possible moment. I find comfort in seeing the natural die-back of the garden starting about now. We need the rest, we need the respite, and we need the winter.

But before that, let’s sneak in a few coleus blooms as they are so stunning against their more-celebrated foliage.

Sometimes the only thing that exceeds how often I’m right is how often I’m doubted.

And that’s really fucked up when you think about it.

[Shrugs and moves deftly on]

#TinyThreads

“You dig up the past, all you get is dirty.”

My dear, precious, darling friend Chris sent me this candle for my 50th, which is hilarious given that he is older than me. It’s the sentiment that counts, and I do love a candle. Andy and I just spent and savored a long birthday weekend in Boston, and I’m still in a bit of withdrawal. Boston has always been a place of enchantment, and these past few days lived up to such a myth. Those stories will be written a bit later – right now it’s almost 10 PM on Monday night, and the Sunday scaries are in full effect before a return to work tomorrow, but it will be Tuesday, moving things quickly – the way time begins speeding up for this second act of life.

The ferns are giving their second act show, lending a refreshing aspect to the garden with less than a month of summer to go. Sadness and beauty, the currency and cruelty of summer.

Well fuck, I’m fifty.

This is my first blog post as a fifty-year-old – how fitting that it’s a recap so I don’t need to do much work in my advanced age. Enjoy this weekly recap as I figure out how to limp into the next stage of living…

Jeremy Allen White got shirtless on the beach to remind us that it was still summer.

Family drama reared its semi-annual head, but I’m saving those stories for the fall season…

In the meantime, this song gives a good indication of where we are on the family front.

Snoopy was so dead-ass for this.

Not gonna lie.

Texting with the besties is always… interesting.

A maiden’s second act.

I always confuse milquetoast with milquetoast.

Draining my life-blood.

Pastel facade.

The Divine Diva Tour: A Fairy’s Tale resumed its wicked, winding way with this bowler hat trick post.

Stolen magic.

A bewitching hour at hand.

The collective man.

On the eve of a half-century of life.

A letter to myself on my 50th birthday.

Fifty and officially out of fucks.

The traditional birthday suit post.

Dazzlers of the Day included Ben Ahlers and Rachel Zegler.

“To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself. When you are born a lotus flower, be a beautiful lotus flower, don’t try to be a magnolia flower. If you crave acceptance and recognition and try to change yourself to fit what other people want you to be, you will suffer all your life. True happiness and true power lie in understanding yourself, accepting yourself, having confidence in yourself.” ~  Thich Nhat Hanh

Fifty years ago today I came out of my mother and into this world. It’s been a bit of a calamity ever since. I’ve left some marks, made a ruckus – made you remember some things and forget some others. Perhaps I made you feel something; perhaps I made you feel nothing. In the end, it was usually the ones I wanted most to reach who wanted nothing to do with me, and maybe that will be the greatest lesson of this half-century of living.

Fifty finally feels like the perfect moment for definitively not giving a fuck. Some might say I’ve been here for a while, and that’s fine for them to think, but the truth is I was hanging onto a fuck or two with the foolish hope of… something. That hope has happily flown out the window with the arrival of fifty. There are, at long last, no more fucks to give – and that feels like freedom. That feels like fifty. And that feels just fine.

“To dwell in the here and now does not mean you never think about the past or responsibly plan for the future. The idea is simply not to allow yourself to get lost in regrets about the past or worries about the future. If you are firmly grounded in the present moment, the past can be an object of inquiry, the object of your mindfulness and concentration. You can attain many insights by looking into the past. But you are still grounded in the present moment.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

“A real love letter is made of insight, understanding, and compassion. Otherwise it’s not a love letter. A true love letter can produce a transformation in the other person, and therefore in the world. But before it produces a transformation in the other person, it has to produce a transformation within us. Some letters may take the whole of our lifetime to write.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Dear Alan ~

Considering all my supposed vanity, how strange that this should be the first letter I’ve written to myself. For all the self-help techniques espoused by new-age writers, somehow I’ve managed to avoid the vain indulgence of such an exercise, because it always felt pointless to put down in words the silly things I voice to myself internally. That inner-dialogue is persistently consistent, pausing only for meditation and sleep, so there never seemed a need to translate it into written form. Strange for someone who purports to love writing…

I think I’ve also left you alone for all these years because I sort of assumed you could take care of yourself. You always have, even as a young child. When left to your own devices you would find ways of mentally entertaining and surviving various difficult predicaments – the typical pratfalls of childhood – through wit and whimsy and make-believe. Your imagination ran wild from your earliest days, and it remains one of the most potent exit strategies for an increasingly-worrisome world. I reserve my deepest pity and sympathy for those young creatures who have bartered their imagination for a cel phone and screen time. How sad to be so disconnected from the world! On your 50th birthday, I think you deserve a small pat on the back for maintaining your connection to nature – to plants and animals and the wonder and beauty of any given day. May it prove as reliable for comfort for the next fifty years as it has for the first…

I know you didn’t want to celebrate fifty in any grand or bombastic way – too typical, too predictable, too much like too many others – but you need to hear what I’m saying.

Do you hear what I’m saying?

Do you know what I’m saying?

Those words once rang in your head during your first year of college, when you thought you were going crazy, when you thought you might not last. That’s partly why I insist upon you honoring this day: because there were moments – several of them – when you almost chose not to be here. You came close to snuffing out all the goodness and awfulness and sweetness and sadness of these wonderfully wickedly woefully wildly winsomely few decades that followed the darkness. That choice – that option to be or not to be – has occasionally reared its head, and thus far whatever angel or spirit or sliver of self-worth that perches on your shoulder has guided you right on all your ways. You cannot take reaching this age for granted, because I know all of the struggles that sometimes barely brought you to this point.

Perhaps I should have written to you sooner. There were so many moments when you needed someone – anyone – so badly, and I let you do it all on your own. I thought it would make you stronger. I thought it would help you survive. And maybe all it did was come close to killing you. I’m sorry for that, I’m sorry I left you to fend for yourself all these years, I’m sorry I wasn’t there… even when I was.

Despite my absence and despite my silence, or perhaps because of them, my faith in you never wavered, and you turned out all right. I know you don’t always think that. You’re still too hard on yourself, but you’re getting better about it. That’s difficult, because I also know there were pivotal moments when you should have had unconditional, unwavering, and unquestionable love, and it simply wasn’t there. When you lack that at certain key steps, it’s almost impossible to make up for it on your own. There’s only one word that matters in that sentence though: almost.

And so, in however many years that may follow this half-century demarcation point, I want you to remember all the possibility and opportunity that ‘almost’ affords, remember all the hope and power that reside in a ‘maybe’, and remember all the love that lives within your ‘self’. Going forward, that’s all you’ll ever need.

Happy birthday my friend. ~ A.

“I have lost my smile,
but don’t worry.
The dandelion has it.”
~ Thich Nhat Hanh