Category Archives: General

“They are two people who seemingly have it all ~ admired and respected, feared and adored ~ yet I don’t think two lonelier people exist…” 

We have reached the point in this holiday season, as we have reached for so many years past, when our protagonist pauses to listen to a melancholy Christmas waltz, indulging in one brief moment of existential crisis before going back to the grind and barreling through it. This year is slightly different, as I haven’t quite decided whether I’m going to slip out of crisis mode or let it all come to a head. If that scares you, please trust that it terrifies the fuck out of me, so we’re not quite alone. 

Cue the music…

Maybe resurrecting the ‘shades of gray’ project from twenty years ago has stirred up those old ghosts – friendly ghosts – and all ghosts remind of days long gone. I suppose that’s sort of the point of a ghost. They haunt us until we face what we have ghosted. Sometimes they feel especially persistent around the holidays, and the Christmas tree, glowing and mysterious at night, has always been a portal to the past. 

In so many ways, the magic of a Christmas tree has long disappeared from my life, which is sad and strange, because as a child I seemed to adore and appreciate every aspect of its existence more than most. I could lie on the carpeted floor beside it for hours at night, examining the ornaments and branches, studying how the lights were trapped by certain glass balls, and shattered into a thousand sparkles by others. Its scent was intoxicating too – like we had opened the windows to the outdoors at such an inhospitable time of the year and somehow remained warm and comfortable. Sometimes I’d slide beneath the lower boughs, looking up from the base of the trunk, breathing in that lovely pine and feeling part of this world in a way that thrilled and confirmed my existence. There were moments when I froze there, hidden by the tree and whatever early presents had made their way beside me, while my parents or brother would hurry by, not noticing either of us – the tree or me – and I was left in smug reassurance tinged with wonder and worry. 

These days I leave the tree entirely to Andy, who still feels the magic I once felt, and does his best to share it with me. Most years I’ll finish with the last few ornaments to be hung, but this year I simply didn’t feel like it. Mom gave up on her tree as well, allowing Emi and her boyfriend to decorate it and set it up.

Maybe Christmas belongs to our childhoods.

Maybe I already gave it up years ago.

Our next full moon is almost due, along with the end of Mercury in retrograde motion – both set to occur on December 15. Until that time, prepare to be maddened by the insanity of all the astrological unease at work, and do your best to harness the energy such heavenly-body motion affords. That it should come right in the midst of the holiday season is traditionally one of life’s little fuck-overs, but at least this one is set to finish before the Christmas finale. Buckle up, buttercups. 

Andy has always handled the erection… of our Christmas tree.

That includes selecting it, putting it up, trimming it, and keeping it watered through Little Christmas (and often beyond). It brings him more joy than it would me, which is strange since that used to be one of my favorite things. Life changes us, so much so that I now view the whole Christmas tree process as a bit of drudgery, and if it weren’t for Andy I doubt I’d even bother. 

That said, I’ll still succumb to the magic of being in a room with only the glow of the tree in front of me, and embrace the magnificent scent of balsam first thing in the morning, the way I used to do as a kid. For that, I’m grateful that Andy still makes the effort, and if I have any Christmas spirit this year it’s largely due to him. 

Right now, as of the very moment of this writing, he has finished with the lights and the angel, and is about to embark on the ornaments. There is a simplicity to its look now that I admire, but I also anticipate the arrival of the decorations, and with them the memories we have made over the past twenty-four years. 

There are times when only a Ritz cracker and some peanut butter will do. 

And then years will go by without me eating them. 

Life is beautiful in all its whims. 

(Add ginger ale for extra nostalgia.)

Turning off the news has been one of the wiser decisions of our household, and now that all the Christmas programming is in full-effect, it’s been even more of a joy. Here are a few of my favorites – and I’ll always let one of these play out when they happen to come across the screen. Unplugging the news has been something many of my friends have done long ago – we are recent happy converts, and it’s opened up our days and nights in wonderful ways. When that unfortunate regime-change kicks in come January, our old news-watching habits will be a dim, depressing and ever-distant memory. I won’t be at all sad to see it go. 

We’ll ring in the new year with TCM, and keep the old-fashioned cinema rolling into 2025. 

“If we can create a breathtaking effect, it’ll be simple to monopolize all the worthwhile men.”  ~ Meet Me In St. Louis

See also, “These things must be done delicately.” ~ The Wizard of Oz

This is usually the very first thing I see when I wake up in the morning.

Before even walking to the bathroom to take a leak, I reach over to the bedside table and pick up the glass of water that Andy has delivered in the night, like magic. I gulp most of it down to start the day, and as my eyes adjust to whatever light might be available at the early hour, I begin to discern the bottom of the glass. Taking on kaleidoscopic properties, it offers a jumpstart to my imagination for that day. Sometimes it unfurls grandly, spooling off into all sorts of possible directions – and it’s the possibility that is so intoxicating. Some days it stays put, barely lit by the darkness of a winter morning, and hardly able to make itself into anything more than a simple glass of water. 

Even on the unimaginative days, it offers stability and sustenance, a stalwart embrace of reality first thing in the morning – a necessary reminder to remain grounded, to nourish the basic needs of the body, to heed the basic needs of the mind. 

We are speeding through this holiday season, because it doesn’t even feel like it’s December but here we already are on its second week, which will bring us to the mid-way point of the final month of this year. Mercury is still in retrograde motion, and I’m embracing its chaotic energy because it gives us all an excuse to lose every last fuck we ever had. Bye fucks! On that decidedly Christmas-like vibe, here is the weekly blog recap:

The official fragrance of this holiday season: Promise. (See also ‘a lot’.)

Everything is fine, even if just two people noticed the shirt.

A lunch made from leftovers.

Ghosts of Christmas parties past.

Finding moments of quiet amid the holiday bombast.

The blue hole.

Snap out of it!

No rest for the unmerry gentlemen.

Naked and gray, then and then.

The holiday card 2024: Shitter’s Full!

Modern humanity. (20 years later…)

Sanctuary.

Not quite the end.

The afterward.

‘Shades of Gray’: the complete project from 2004.

Harry Styles in well-hung form.

Our holiday Dazzler of the Day was Peter Billingsley.

This Christmas ornament popped up on one of my social media feeds, courtesy of Macy’s. I laughed, almost out loud, at the ridiculousness of it – it’s supposed to be Harry Styles, and if I were him I’d have a little discussion with a favorite lawyer to see what could be done about the matter. Personally, I prefer Styles in actual photographs, wearing striking outfits that get tongues wagging and critical ridicule flying. Or on stage, where his showmanship and star quality are brash and undeniable. Others prefer him in his underwear or fishnets. And some just want to see him buck naked. All are options here. For those who want him hanging on their Christmas tree, go for it. All gratitude to Mr. Macy.

The two pictures posted here were taken approximately ten and twenty years ago respectively. The featured one is from 2014, and the one below, taken on some New York work trip, is from all the way back in 2004. Yes, this blog was around way back then, but thankfully posts that old have been excised long-ago. Unfortunately for 2014, most of those posts are still here – check the archives for reference (or don’t, please). No one likes looking back at their previous selves. 

This is merely a clickbait post for the upcoming finale of the ‘Shades of Gray’ project, also from 2004 and celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. In many ways it feels like another lifetime, but in some of the writing I see that hardy anything has changed. Humanity wavers, people change, but the real changes are subtle and largely undetectable until the perspective of decades builds. 

‘Shades of Gray‘ was one of those works where I got totally emotionally naked behind the guise of other people’s stories, and I’d forgotten about the freedom and joy in that. Maybe it will spark a sequel of sorts, even though I abhor a sequel… 

Lest anyone forget, it’s still technically fall, so while the holiday season is in full effect, the true season remains autumn. To that end, there is still avenging to be done, and with Mercury in retrograde providing the necessary mayhem to throw a tantrum and go giddily unnoticed, now may be the time to release some truth bombs that are too heavy to carry. 

This Fade-To-Black Fall has been like turning the lights off our Coquette Summer with the flip of a switch. It was night and day, white and black, or at least pink and green. I am realizing that it will ultimately prove helpful to acknowledge and experience sadness, regret, anger, and vengeance. All are valid experiences, and all serve a certain purpose. In the past, I’ve held a lot of that in, to my own detriment, and in the end it all came out in various convoluted and mistaken efforts. 

The stress of the holidays can trigger all of that ickiness, stirring up the muck and murky depths of past transgressions and grievances, and deciding to face some of it now is tricky and risky business, perhaps quite foolish business. But the hurt of what haunts us doesn’t retreat for some arbitrary human holiday. Cue the dramatic music, and the unrest of the unmerry gentleman. 

Christmas is, contrary to its reputed lore, not kind to the sad and lonely. If this is the spirit that’s supposed to lift us and cheer us up, God may not be helping us as much as we want to believe. Sensing this, I’ve always found sorrow running through the holidays – in a song, in a mood, and culminating in the shortest day of the year.

Night expands.

Darkness envelops. 

All is black.

All is eloquent loneliness.

A fan.

For a stretch of difficult days. 

For the memory of when the days used to be fabulous. 

For a moment of delusion to save myself from weeping.

For real.

Snapped out of anger.

Snapped out of viciousness.

Snapped out of the fiercest fucker any Christmas has ever seen.

Snapped out of the exasperation and exhilaration of having no more fucks to give.

The yard has suddenly turned stark and barren, brown and lifeless. This will be its wardrobe until spring comes again. There may be snow and ice to cover things from time to time, but things slow and still now, and this will largely be how things look. The stagnation tends to spark a creative flurry, though it’s been a while since inspiration has moved me to do that much. My last official project, ‘Once Upon A Watercolor’ was over five years ago. Simply surviving the age of COVID and all that followed seems to have been a project unto itself. And then there’s this blog. Daily posts and photos don’t just happen without work – and a week’s worth of posts here once populated an entire one of my projects – so I’m basically cranking out a project a week – 52 per year – just think about that. 

I’m fucking tired out. 

But when I step outside and feel the chill, knowing that winter hasn’t even begun yet, I look to the sky for something to inspire me, and a little hole of blue appears in an otherwise-gray firmament. And I feel it… 

If you ever hear me saying any of the things printed on this t-shirt, get to a safer location immediately. (I found this shirt in Maine and got it because I’ve reached the point where I have to laugh at such things or I’ll totally lose my shit.) A few more phrases and their actual translations may be found in this post. It’s helpful to have a pocket translator sometimes, as no one seems to understand tone or context or basic communication.

Anyway, this classy ensemble was what I wore for a quick promo video heralding the low-key arrival of this year’s holiday card, which hits mailboxes starting today. It will be posted here in a few days, without much fanfare, and the only hint I’ll give is that it’s slightly uncharacteristic as far as my typical themes go. It also has the potential to be a complete miss if you haven’t seen the pop culture scene it references, but such is the risk of niche holiday fare. Next year will be the 30th anniversary of my very first holiday card, so this is just a quiet non-event year, the promo of which may make bigger waves than the actual card itself. I like how messed up that is, and it’s fine. Everything is fine.