at the ballet

it wasn't paradise
it wasn't paradise
it wasn't paradise
but
it
was
home.

Barack Obama touched my shirt...

... and skirt.

I may not have been the person wearing them, but remain starstruck nonetheless.

**This incident is further proof of the excellence that is Elise Shrock. Reason #5589 why she is awesome:

Me: [5 min girly ranting/screeching]
Elise: "Barack touched your shirt."
Me: [further delight at high decibel level]
Elise: "And your skirt."
Me: "What?? Oh my god I was hoping you'd say that!"
Elise: "Yeah, I made sure that I brushed up against him so both articles of clothing made contact."

Now that's friendship.*

*Also a great excuse to create a physical moment with the man described as being 'the most handsome man alive in person... Allison, pictures just don't do the man any justice."

yes.

There are moments when wellness escapes us,
moments when pain and suffering
are not dim possibilities
but all too agonizing realities.
At such moments we must open ourselves to healing.

Much we can do for ourselves;
and what we can do
we must do –
healing,
no less than illness,
is participatory.

But even when we do all we can do
there is,
often,
still much left to be done.
And so we turn as well to our healers
seeking their skill to aid in our struggle for wellness.

But even when they do all they can do
there is,
often,
still much left to be done.
And so we turn to Life,
to the vast Power of Being that animates the universe
as the ocean animates the wave,
seeking to let go of that which blocks our healing.

May those
whose lives are gripped in the palm of suffering
open
even now
to the Wonder of Life.
May they left go of the hurt
and Meet the True Self beyond pain,
the Uncarved Block
that is our joyous Unity with Holiness.

May they discover through pain and torment
the strength to live with grace and humor.
May they discover through doubt and anguish
the strength to live with dignity and holiness.
May they discover through suffering and fear
the strength to move toward healing.

Rabbi Rami N. Shapiro

parker! zoe! melvil!

oh my god just discovered that Broken English is back out in theatres and will be released on dvd next month, just one day before my birthday.

oh my god oh my god oh my god. i really needed that kind of fantastic news today... oh my god so excited. now must debate whether or not to pre-order via amazon...

Crude, Crass, and Briliant

I may never mature past the intellectual humour level of a 14 yr old boy. Don't worry about it, it's fine.

"Hi, my name is Jimmy* and I'm the president of Gays for Bush!"
"Hey wait a minute, since when did gays support Bush?"
"Since he surrounded himself with Dick and Colin!"

(Reason 4322 Why I Love MXC)

oh my god. so fantastic.
*oh, and 'jimmy' was dive-bombing in the mud pit in his Sunday best short-shorts. HOT.

Two Other Gems from Today's Conv with Elise:

1. Elise: "You know how we both love Harry Potter so much sometimes we wish we were wizards?"

2. Me: "Well... we're both just really spontaneous, very 'fly by the seat of our g-strings' kind of girls, you know?"

[Patsy and Edina for Life.]

Alexander, c'est moi.

Salsa dancing and Bossa Nova lessons?

A splendid weekend chock-full of delightful adventures... none of which I have the time to currently detail. But I will forget about them if I don't mention something/make a list before my trip...

**forthcoming (and hopefully collaborative) topics include:
- Civil War re-enactors
- the Bible... and the unbeatable socks/sandals combo
- Penelope Cruz
- white wine chez IMA film screening... and one very unhappy security guard ('protection officer?' jyl?) named 'Dave'
- McDonalds
- cigar shop, the great Tony Bennet, and Reason 783 why Elise and I will always be most successful with older men
- noted exception to previous statement: High School Musical tickets aka "Coo Coo ca-choo, Mrs. Robinson"
- red wine, red lipstick, vulgarity at said performance
- Ab Fab: the Transformation Continues
- Jewish Men Who Rock
- Patio gardening
- cigarette holder vs. cigarette case debate
- shoes
- being pegged as residents of specifically unflattering Indiana towns
- the splendor that is local newspapers, craigslist personals, and Italian food

leaving for the week. still doing laundry and enduring lectures about packing 'comfortable shoes' and 'casual clothes'... sadly, I have no fanny pack or flannel (sleeveless, since it's summer of course) but I shall make do. xoxo

Let Freedom Ring

Reasons why my friends are great and July 4th is more than just a holiday:

1. One of my best friends is marrying the Fruit Pizza King. He chops, he bakes, he decorates by theme using blueberries and strawberry slices. Today's edition featured an American flag.

2. Said FPK and crew proved the theory that men never mature past the emotional age of 13, lighting firecrackers in their bare hands, attempting bribery for someone to launch one from a more inappropriate anatomical entity, picking aggressive man-fights over bean-bag tournaments, and eating popsicles. And we all know how much I love popsicles.

3. Snuggling.

4. Hot dogs.

5. Getting off work by 7.

6. Feeling sorry for Marsh employees, particularly the girl cashier who despondently informed me (after I pulled out the small-talk classic, "So... how late you workin' tonight?"... and no it was not a pick-up attempt) that "We don't close until Thanksgiving"... AND SHE WASN'T EXAGGERATING. This particular Marsh is in fact open 24 hrs/day from now until Turkey Day. (Bummer, I say.)

7. Not getting a speeding ticket since Sunday. Goddamnit.

8. Not working tomorrow... and secretly cackling at every other poor sucker who is. mwahaha. I shall be planting my garden, tiddling around my house in scuzzy t/boxers/flip flops, reading, playing piano... and it's Clean Sheet Day, the best day of the week.

9. Gossip. It's evil, the root of all social discord, and completely wicked, but oh sometimes it's just so good to be bad.

10. "Party Favorites" music channel on digital cable or whatever that was... picture a mix of every wedding/mitzvah classic, blend in some Prince/Madonna/Gin Blossoms/"Proud to be an American", and you've got yourself a bbq soundtrack.

Grasshopper

The paradise of summer lingers in the air as delicately as the honeysuckle scent on my skin or as gently as my bed linens caress my sunned legs, sweet and soft and warm like the promise of a distant and misunderstood happiness. The solstice has come and passed, leaving behind a trail of ever-fading daylight hours, bright summer minutes burning themselves out in what will soon seem a desperate grasp of light known as Indian summer, a time when afternoons are as slow and heavy as Mississippi mud.

Light shines from my nightstand as if to illuminate the air laced with a faint scent of flowers, intoxicating in the exotic femininity of jasmine blossoms and honeysuckle. Scattered across the bed is a stack of books, as usual, and the requisite black extra fine point liquid ink pens that always accompany them.

I can't seem to get one tiny line of an old Dixie Chicks (strangely) song out of my head: "The moon is full, my arms are empty..." The melody seems to play in a constant repeat, much like a music box or carnival ride.

My thoughts are likewise scattered, looping in and out of each other like the classic atomic diagram, a whirl of ideas and hastily hidden dreams. I still find it so hard to describe them or create some sort of tangible existence for them, a defined set of wants, desires, hopes... these elude me to the most frustrating end.

One finds what one seeks when it is meant to be sought, I keep reminding myself. Wisdom, understanding, and the enlightenment of the soul are elusive mistresses, though amorous.

Another thing plagues me. (No pun intended). Had a terrifying incident during my drive to work today involving an open window and a giant electric-green grasshopper/locust. In short, one alighted on my head while I was stopped in the shade of a leafy tree garden on Allisonville Road. Having minutely sensed the rapid flutter of wings, an almost imperceptible hum drowned beneath the Cure, I caught sight of the creature (on my head. my head.) in the rear-view mirror. Suffice it to say my reaction is best compared with an epileptic fit as I screamed and shook my head frantically until the poor insect flew out the opposite window. It remained, legs eerily bending (one can easily see why grasshoppers are compared to musicians, for indeed it appeared to be playing as one would a cello, that strange natural symphony), on my side rear-view mirror until I parked at work, slammed the door as cautiously as possible, and jumped aside as it landed on a neighboring blue Astro-van.

Try as I might, I cannot conclude any sort of satisfying lesson or interpretation of this event, symbolically or otherwise. Besides the obvious Kung Fu reference, of course. Searching for grasshopper mythology has been rather unsuccessful, though I have managed to collect the following

GRASSHOPPER: A symbol of the unbeliever, symbolizes the conversion of pagan nations to Christianity.
Grasshopper Noble

In Plato's Phaedrus, Socrates says that locusts were once human. When the Muses first brought song into the world, the beauty so captivated some people that they forgot to eat and drink until they died. The Muses turned those unfortunate souls into locusts— singing their entire lives.

I rather like the story of the Muses. Perhaps I am likewise doomed... though a lifetime of music is not so seemingly 'unfortunate,' especially in this world of chaos and cacophony and mayhem... how better to express joys and triumphs and melancholy and anguish and delight than with song?

Nonetheless, a disturbing incident.

I gathered what I've christened my 'starter set' of plants and blooms for the back steps. I simply cannot live without some remote imitation of a garden and the harsh industrial terracotta of the back stairs and bricks and pipes and concrete is utterly withering after so many months. I shall thus take a gamble on several geraniums and herbs and vincas and impatiens and lavender, etc. Daisies too. Tiny ones.

Mary Mary quite contrary
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells and cockle shells
And pretty maids all in a row.
____________________________________

On the Grasshopper and the Cricket

The poetry of earth is never dead:
When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,
And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run
From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead;
That is the Grasshopper's -- he takes the lead
In summer luxury -- he has never done
With his delights; for when tired out with fun
He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.
The poetry of earth is ceasing never:
On a lone winter evening, when the frost
Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills
The Cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever,
And seems to one in drowsiness half lost,
The Grasshopper's among some grassy hills.

John Keats