Category Archives: General

May this recent bout of Mercury in retrograde leave us with a bit of relief and release, because it was a goddamn doozy and we are all over it. I’ll let the recap speak for its own freaking self, and let’s dive headfirst into this week to move as quickly and as far away from the previous one as possible. 

What kind of monster does something like this?

Spring perfume.

The pleasure-maker: a dildo for allergies. 

The return of Chip!

Like a virgin all over again.

Allergies had me down and out with nary a sign of Beverly Hills. 

The triple threat of the Jonas Brothers.

The anniversary that almost wasn’t…

… and the anniversary that very much was. 

Happy Mother’s Day!

Dazzlers of the Day included Heath Thorpe, Alex Borstein and RuPaul.

My allergies have absolutely stopped life in its tracks for me, as I am unable to do just about anything. I have no idea whether a new set of contact lenses are working, because my eyes won’t stop watering. I have no idea how dry the garden is because I cannot go outside for more than thirty seconds without suffering a sneezing attack. I have no idea whether my frustration is due to the discomfort I’m in or the lack of a full meditation session because I can’t sit still and simply breathe for more than ten minutes. 

So the next few posts will simply be lazy posts, with links and stinks and clinks to the past. With no rain on the horizon, the suffering looks to continue… 

Our pal Chip has returned for the spring season, pausing in the day to strike a pose on our front step. Say hello to Chip! And say hello to vanity…

This phallic-shaped cartridge is the item that is giving me the greatest pleasure these days. When the oak and pine and maple are populating the air with their pollen, I am absolutely in allergy hell. After just a few minutes outside, my nose starts running a marathon that lasts the rest of the evening, while sneezes and a sore throat provide just enough accents to be even more annoying. Allergy season has arrived, and I’ve buttressed my regular Zyrtec regime with this double-puff of Flonase. Still, it’s not enough, as my mucus will so voluminously attest. 

This is one of the drawbacks of spring, and a necessary evil of the season. I’m doing my best to go with the Flo. 

I’m all out of sweet tea today – all that’s left is bitter dregs, so if you’re seeking something positive and upbeat, you’ve come to the wrong place. Case in point: this person’s parking job last night, which took up not one, but two parking spaces. 

This is the definition of a dick.

Don’t be a dick.

Be better.

Happy Tuesday.

Just a few more days of Mercury in retrograde to go…

At this turn in the seasonal year, my attention turns to living rather than notating things about life, and so my posts of late are lighter and less time-consuming – both for you and for me. To that end, this is the weekly recap, quick and mostly painless.

It’s been a full year since this haunting.

The evening song in the morning.

All about the men of the Met Gala.

A cultural shift seen through the sparkle of a coat.

Where have all the flowers gone?

Loves of my life.

Blossom of plum.

All this loving on Boston.

A wild violet.

A purple tulip.

A lilac glory.

A family dinner.

Our wedding anniversary.

On a recent cool spring day, I went deep on the cologne selection, daring to trot out Tom Ford’s ‘Plum Japonais’ – a decadent blend of plum fruit and plum blossom for a fruity, warm, holiday-like devastation. It’s not a light, ephemeral fragrance; it leads with a punch of fruity power and lands strong, lasting for hours and warming the air around the wearer. There’s some spice to its fruity sweetness too, and a bit of smoke that lends it a coziness ideal for a chilly spring spell. 

These plum blossoms carry the tender, delicate essence of spring, when it’s barely strong enough to hold onto the warmth of a day. Our fleeting sessions with the sun prove equally weak, yet still the blossoms stand, fluttering in the wind no matter how cold it gets. The plum blooms brave every end-of-winter, honored in a fragrance that lends some heat before the sun returns. 

A year ago I wrote this post which ended up setting free a ghost that had haunted me for thirty years. At the time, I didn’t realize what I’d done, and only now on this anniversary do I realize that the ghost of my childhood friend hasn’t visited for the duration of the entire last year. That post is worth a revisit, and since I no longer feel the need to write about Jeff those posts are all I have to offer for the moment. Revisiting such items, when thoroughly investigated and worked through, has the power to heal the past. The magic of words, the magic of writing…

One of our favorite months is at hand, Mercury in retrograde be damned! I also hear a full moon is rising later this week, so let’s see what mayhem results and try to keep things as calm and collected as possible. It appears April showers will be bleeding into May, and I shall endeavor to embrace the rain because what other choice do we have? Stomping around in a state of tantrum because of the weather was so three years ago… on with the weekly recap!

It began with some filler, because fills and frills make the world go around.

Sephora: out of stock and out of honor.

Sunday family dinner.

A dandy shift in perspective.

Here we go again: back in retro.

A lunchtime companion decked out in gray.

The search for the elusive Himalayan blue poppy.

Spirit of the trees.

Total eclipse of the heart.

Albany assiduity.

Only the second man I ever kissed.

Dazzlers of the Day included Brad Bradley, Michael Bevan, DB Woodside, Josh Sundquist, Atsushi Akera, Todd Sanfield and Matthew Camp.

Happily spent from two nights of dining with our dear friends Eileen and Raph, I stumbled into the house well after 10 PM last night and heard the following music emanating from the local classical music station. It was mystical music, carrying calm and beauty and a sliver of mystery to it – shards of whispered secrets sounded across every pluck of the harp and strum of the guitar string. It was spring music, imbued with hope and a bit of tension, the way cold could still creep into the night and shock in the sunniest of mornings. Entitled, ‘The Spirit of the Trees’, it went perfectly well with the photos of our coral bark maple tree just coming into its miraculous chartreuse splendor. 

Here we are already at the end of April, one more day of the month to go before the glory of May arrives, in apparently rainy fashion. Spring rains are somehow more maddening than the rains of fall – less depressing perhaps, but more bothersome. We waited all winter for some relief – it’s like stalling and hesitating and pulling back when you’re ready to go, go, go… 

A little rain – or a lot of rain – won’t stop the show of the coral bark maple leaves. They will shine brightly even on the grayest days, brightening their corner of the yard with this magnificent shade, accenting themselves with that striking red bark. This fresh hue will last for a while, carrying its clarion call into the start of summer before ripening into a slightly deeper shade of green. Then, come fall, the reversal of fortune occurs, as the leaves turn bright yellow before fading to a ghostly pale cream color. By winter, all that will remain are the coral stems, which will burn through the months of slumber until they recreate this spectacular show all over again. 

This little squirrel decided to share a lunch-break with me as I sat at the counter in Stacks earlier this week, drinking my decaf Americano and nibbling a cookie. He or she or they munched on a peanut left for their friends in a nearby park. Not mad about this sort of company. Peaceable companions are the best. 

This time around I felt it before I confirmed or knew about it. There was an uneasiness in the air, a slight shift of the spring trajectory we had been on, and when it finally came across someone’s FaceBook feed it was almost a relief to see it. Mercury is in retrograde. A relief, and then a worry, and then something in-between.

Sitting down for a daily meditation, I watched as the wind brushed through the thuja hedge, touching on the Japanese umbrella pine before scuttling out of sight. A spell of rain began soon thereafter, and the chill in the air signaled we had not yet crossed the frost-free date in upstate New York (last time I checked that happened the first week of May). 

Now that I know Mercury is in retrograde, I can relax a bit, and lean into the mayhem and mishaps to come. It’s a more peaceable way of dealing with life in general, a reminder that when we roll with the punches it’s sometimes easier than going against the flow. 

The bane of lawn purists around the world, this little dandelion is too often seen as a pesky weed, but if they were less hardy, less common, and less unrefined they’d be cherished as garden plants. It’s all a matter of perspective, and a shift in the way we view the world is always a healthy exercise. 

The flowers themselves are radial works of sunshine and wonder, their seed-heads the stuff of childhood whimsy and wishes. The jagged leaves are handsome in my eyes, but I like a leaf that looks like it could bite. When you learn to appreciate something like the dandelion, life is so much sunnier at every step. 

Officially announced as the Commencement Speaker for this year’s SUNY at Albany’s graduation ceremony, DB Woodside has a formidable entertainment portfolio that goes back to the 90’s. As an actor and director, he has appeared in ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’, ‘Single Ladies’, ‘ Parenthood’, ‘Lucifer’, ’24’ and ‘The Night Agent’. SUNY’s commencement speech will bring him back to his alma mater (he earned his BA from SUNY and a Master’s degree from the Yale School of Drama) and this earns him a Dazzler of the Day crowning.