Whole Hog

Why is it that when you’re trying to do something like LEAVE TOWN, everything goes a little NUTS? G. & I are on our way to the islands of Canada tonight and in the last 24 hours:
I spent nearly 4 hours trying to get my passport renewed, having discovered that it had just expired 3 months ago. Oh, that’s fun!
Ran to the post office when I discovered a Great Gals order hadn’t made it.
Ran BACK to the post office when I discovered our cat sitter hadn’t received our keys yet—so I had to mail another set to a local address.
Also discovering that a WELL of communications via e-mail has gone KAPUT!
All this and returning urgent phone calls, getting last minute gifts, cleaning our apartment so that it doesn’t resemble a big furry beast, and just trying to get out.

And then, there’s the pesky double chin. I keep discovering I have a big FAT double chin.

I don’t think I’m alone in saying I hate pictures of myself—the only ones I can stomach are the ones I take—although lately, not even this is true. Lately, a beautiful heaving piece of flesh has decided to take over in all my pictures—yes, you guessed it—the double chin. Occasionally “D.C.” has made its way into images—but is it that I’m getting older and/or fatter so that the DC is even more bountiful than usual?

When I was younger, I used to try to hide what I considered my faults with desperate shame—hoping and praying that they never leaked out. It was a desperate and scary way to live. I still sometimes slip into this way of living—but time and time again I see that if I am ever to GET OVER MY BAD SELF, I need to acknowledge and embrace that pesky place of WHAT IS; I need to embrace the sticky, yucky, and unattractive parts of me. Dang it! I mean, DANG!

Among my wide hips, my impatience, my bad spelling, my funny (ha!) grammar, my increasing inability to PARTY, I have at times a large double chin. The only thing to cure such blows to the ego is to go WHOLE HOG, I think. Luckily, I have a husband who is willing to go along the ride with me. Embracing WHAT IS is so much more fun with somebody else.


I don't know if I'll talk to you before then, but in case I don't, have a freakn' great Christmas. See you in Canada!

Anybody Else Having Trouble With Yahoo?

This is what I sometimes do to get a good internet signal--I sit out on the fire escape. It's getting less and less handy as it gets colder!

I am having SERIOUS problems with my e-mail, so if you have sent me an e-mail and it's either been bounced back or you've never got a response that is why! I think Yahoo! should be changed to RATS!

I Did This- How About You?

My December Illustration for the glorious Skirt! Magazine

I Won't Forget It

Probably the most moving and beautiful film I've seen in a very very very very long time. I couldn't get out of my seat. I didn't want to. I had to stop the deep gulf of tears that kept coming. For those wary of tears--it isn't sad at all, but very moving and inspired.

For those of you who feel blocked or worry over doing whatever art form calls to them, this man wrote an entire book letter by letter, using only one eye to communicate it. It kind of makes you wonder at the spirit of art and the ability to give it a voice.

Go see it. Please.

See What Develops

Book Titles You Might Not Find in Your Local Bookstore

My husband used to work in a book store. That's where I met him. All you single book loving ladies and men out there: I highly recommend getting to know your local book sellers. You might just get to KNOW them (wink wink, nudge nudge, snicker snicker). Practically the whole town had a crush on him. He was Cute Bookseller Boy. He likes to deny this, but I can remember a time when I had the requisite conversation with somebody about who we had crushes on, and when I mentioned him, they'd say, "Oh, I know EXACTLY who you're talking about."

But I DIGRESS.

He has many bookstore stories and it has given me a deep appreciation for the behind the scenes reality of running an independent book store. His stories include sordid information about how certain famous authors (I won't name names) require coffee mugs of alcohol, and creative uses people have for the only public bathroom in the area. My favorite stories are of the wrong names people give for books they are looking for. As much as I adore the original , there is a catchiness to The Killer Mockingbird. I don't know, but I might just have to get back into the music business with a band called The Killer Mockingbirds.

Every time I tell someone about Love in the Time of Cholesterol, I don't expect them to believe me . It just seems like a punchline. I always want to ask Graham "They were kidding right?" Recently, we were recounting this story and I was about to ask him if it really was true, when he told me about a man looking for the literary journal Mixed Weenies. After that, you just have to LAY DOWN and say, UNCLE. I give in! My disbelief is suspended and floating out the door.

An Experiment in Memory

Oh man, oh man, oh man. My brief trip to California was so full and fantastic. My camera kind of died while I was in San Francisco and so I didn't get a picture of the VERY picturesque ceremony of Brian and Sara. They stood in the afternoon light against the bay and the Golden Gate Bridge, with Sara's blond hair all gold and Brian's face illuminated. We all cried, we all cheered, we all laughed. They've been together for 8 years and we were all so thrilled!

I also didn't get to take pictures of how TEENY WEENY Kirstin's new baby was or how my little brother Luke has no front teeth and spikes his hair with hair gel. Apparently when you enter the first grade you suddenly become A DUDE.

I wish so much I could have taken pictures of Andromeda sitting on her purple couch with coffee and her son Zephyr cracking up at bubbles being blown at him. I wish I could have taken a picture of my friend Judy in her stunning 40's style dress at the wedding, or my friend Rolly in his velvet blazer. Better yet, I wish I could have taken a picture of Meg singing "Celebrity Skin," while her husband played "guitar" and their housemate played "drums" to the brand new Rock Band video game.

So many things! So many things I wish I could have captured. Without the picture, it becomes an experiment in memory. How can I still hold onto it? How can I relive the pleasure of it? How can I somehow mark it? Long ago, I somehow formed the belief that the memory will be lost forever without the image or the proof, but somewhere these experiences continue without them. I have to trust it, because oh, it was such a good time. I want to continue knowing all of it.

I'm Gonna See The Folks I Dig

She Did It The Hard Way

Just a note to remind folks that in order to receive a Great Gals Calendar 2008 before Christmas and New Years, you must order it by Friday, December 14! You can order it here.

Exciting facts I've learned from making this calendar for 6 years:

Bette Davis' gravestone says "She did it the hard way," while Dorothy Parker's says "Pardon my dust." I also learned that Dorothy Parker left everything to Martin Luther King, Jr. And in the realm of gravestones, writer Alice Walker is responsible not only for getting Zora Neale Hurston's books back in print, but for placing a proper gravestone on the late writer's unmarked grave.

Oh, so exciting! Don't you want to know MORE? Sure you do!

It's Snowing in Brooklyn

I am drinking tea and listening to Monk & Coltrane. The cats are asleep and Graham is out. Good day.

The Corrections

Well, people, I am thinking of pitching a panel for the next Blogher conference on how you can increase comments and visible popularity of your blog by misusing a word. I have NEVER received so many (and I mean MANY) comments--all correcting me on my word usage of "throws" vs. "throes". And, may I add, all but one decided to do so without any credit--as in anonymously.

I have never claimed to be the Chicago Manual of Style's star pupil, and I don't plan to start now, but as I received another few "corrections" this morning, I think it's time I addressed this SCANDALOUS error on my part:

You can all sleep now, because I am not THROWING anything. I am in the THROES of an obsession.