My dog ate it.
A car ran it over and its still at the vet.
I've been busy.
I've been sick.
I died and it took a bit to get reincarnated 'cause there was a line and I hadn't been around all that long and there were three holy men and a skunk in front of me.
I was brushing my teeth.
I overslept.
The Primaries.
The Secondaries
And the Teriaries.
Oh. And I was happy.
Above are the reasons I haven't been posting on the blog lately.
Except I wasn't sick- I took a mental health day two weeks ago but really I just had a lot (a lot, a lot) of macaroons to make.
And I CAN'T oversleep. I asked VLH to wake me the other morning as my cel phone was wet (long story having nothing to do with not writing on my blog) and wound up waking him instead- I KNOW I can wake whenever I want- I just don't believe it and so spend the night tossing and worrying and not sleeping- I am more likely to over-wake.
As for the primaries... for me its not really a choice. Hilary gives me the shivers and John McCain...well- does this country REALLY need another old white guy in office? Let somebody else talk for a change. And even though he has ears like a pitcher- Obama seems honest- might be nice for a change- we'll see.
I didn't die- though I did go to my friend's memorial. I had the temerity to believe I could stand in front of the group and tell amusing stories of my friend now gone and instead wound up weeping onto the podium in front of a hundred near-strangers.
It was a funny time for my heart to show up, but as Frank Baum said hearts will never be practical until they are unbreakable. I felt it crack with the feeling of loss. And felt its healing with a rendition of "All You Need is Love" sung lightly off key by her stepson and the world's most earnest band. Which is exactly how she would have sung it.
And I don't have a dog- my cat would eat it.
I've travelled- to Atlanta to eat a hotdog with Cole Slaw on it- the staff at the Varsity marvelled when I said I'd never had one. Even asked "Where you from that you ain't had a slaw dog?" I said New York- "mmm-mmmm" they said- deep in their chests nodding and adding New York to other third world places- deprived of even the basest necessities. I didn't have the heart to tell them I'd never had an orange whip either (for the rest of you starved souls- it tastes JUST like a melted creamsicle slushy) they probably would've called a preacher and had a prayer meeting for this poor heathen.
I looked at the cherry blossoms in DC. A Japanese print done in 1935 of the same trees lining the tidal basin show very little change from then to now as they curve gracefully towards the Jefferson Memorial. What has changed are the people. Despite multiple signs CLEARLY reading "Please look out for LOW BRANCHES" I stood by one particularly sturdy branch that hung over the pathway and watched as one cel-phone yakking distracted so-and-so after another walked into it. Only one word for this- "Good". Nature has a way of making you pay attention- no matter WHAT happened on "Lost" or "American Idol" that week.
I've seen several plays- among them Les Liasons Dangeureuses and Young Frankensten- but though they were fine- I was most impressed by my friend Jen's fabulously frank one-woman show "The Laws of Attraction" about cosmology and being a lesbian. When we talked before the show she told me it was a play best appreciated by homosexual intellectual women. I figured- I have a brain- and a vagina- I'll just wing it. And unlike the two previously mentioned plays, Jen had a full staff serving dinner while she pulled off this massive task. In the last one-man show I saw, "A Bronx Tale"- Chazz Palmientieri would not allow the audience to leave their seats to go to the restroom during the performance. I cannot imagine him moving through something as demanding as a one-man show while a strident theater-goer insisted that her bronzino was overdone. I think that the...unifying moment (and there were many) came when Jen was discussing the universe after the big bang- stating that after that event there were 800 bazillion (ok I forget the exact number but stay with me you'll get the punch) pieces of anti-matter in the universe and 801 bazillion pieces of matter- and then compared it to dating. And before she explained I just KNEW what she was driving at- since she had just uttered the exact number of bad dates I had been on. But it's that one piece of matter that's left over, that matters. And I was as amazed at her sheer guts for putting her life up there on the stage, as I was at her talent- and how beautiful she looked up there being her- all her.
So- I HAVE been busy. Two seders- a gross of macaroons and a box of matzoh. A new hard drive and a broken button on my camera- a porch full of new plants and a looming trip to New Orleans, a birthday party to plan for which there are already RSVPS though I haven't actually invited anyone yet. My life seems to gallop along and yet there is time. And I wonder about the wild bits, my wild bits- and poke a bit in the fireplace of my life- checking on certain embers, seeing that in their own way they still glow. I move the firescreen a bit closer here, It would be just like me to let the sparks fly. But in truth I think if I've learned anything lately it's the difference between drama and excitement. And to savor the slower burn.
And I have learned one other thing. If you order from Frederick's of Hollywood- don't send the package to your office. Even if you BEG, they will keep sending catalogs to you at work.
I didn't say I'd removed the wild bits- lets just say I've channeled them.
:P X
