the great carrot quiz

so, if josh sticks a baby carrot in my ear, then i stick it in dan's ear, whose ear is dan gonna stick the baby carrot in?????

yes, we are almost 40 and this is the kind of stuff we still do at weddings.

Photo Credit: Josh Wolk

FINALLY

they kind of look sick. but, hey, they're 'cuddling.'

or i'm forcing them together because they both want to be on the couch with me, it's emmy night, i'm stressed and this is as good as it's going to get for them. so they succumb to touching each other...

if you insist on knowing my bliss

so, last sunday i'm driving past the hollywood bowl and i see that hall & oates are playing soon and i think "i would LOVE to see them!! who can i sucker into getting tickets with me?' well, the very next day, less than 24 hours later, i get a message from my young friend paul saying that he has one extra ticket to hall & oates and do i want it. you could have knocked me over with a feather! so i texted back HELLS YES! (to appeal to his 23-year-old sensibilities) and a very genuine THANK YOU!!

the show was last night and it was so much fun! i got to check off two major accomplishments at once: seeing hall & oates for the first time and going to the hollyowood bowl for the first time. they were playing so many hits i was getting confused over which one was my REAL favorite (it's a hard toss-up between 'i can't go for that.' 'maneater,' 'you make my dreams come true and 'say it isn't so'). there was a general hipster uproar at the end though because they didn't perform 'private eyes.' they didn't encore either and their finale was a cover of 'me and mrs. jones' which was all very suspect. regardless, it was an amazing night for me. hall & oates, i hope everything is ok with you two. was it because i ended up not buying the t-shirt that said 'maneater'?

hot rah

other than going to different labor day get-togethers, this is what the beasts and i have been doing all weekend...
we're on about what feels like our gajillionth day in the 100 degree temp mark. for the first time in years i don't have a.c. "you don't need it here." i was told when i bought this place. this week you need it here! i'm noticing that even the places that have a.c. are still very hot. my place looks like a war zone. it's too swealtering to do anything other than sit in front of a fan that blows warm air on you. i've been catching up on my reading, but even that makes me sweat. there is comfort at night when the sun goes down and it cools off to about 85.

last night when i was doing my nightly routine of putting all the shades down to ward off the following day's heat, i saw this guy hanging out outside of my office window. it's a possum right? he looks much cuter than the possums we had in virginia.

here is some trivia: on this date back in 1991, my friend cindy and i drove cross country from virginia beach, va to los angeles, ca. she's been here ever since. i stayed for a year and a half, then went back to richmond for two years and then on sept 5, 1995 (only two days away) moved to new york city for the next 11 years.

ok, now i'm off to cindy's to bask in her beautiful a.c.

then comes marriage: vermont!

vermont was a ton of fun! particularly because i got to spend lots of time with my buddies gillian, dan, christine and josh! look at how awesome they are...

and look at how beautiful jenny was (i like to think this image has a certain 'photo journalistic' quality to it)!

and this one has a certain blurry quality to it! but look at how cute they are! in my opinion, the couple that karaokes together (and high fives to their success) stays together! YAY brian and jenny!

look at what we found in the burlington airport: gillian's 'sharp objects,' the new paperback edition, front and center at hudson news!!

first comes love: virginia!

last week i made my bi-annual pilgrimage to aylett, virginia to visit my oldest, bestest friend in the world, sarah pope. i've known sarah since we were 8 and she is one of the smartest, kindest and most beautiful people i have ever known (our 31 year friendship is a testament to that). for the first time ever, i spent a couple of days with her at where she heads the menokinmenokin foundation. menokin is an estate that was once owned by francis lightfoot lee, a signer of the declaration of independence. it is now a historical landmark. the property was last owned in the 70's by a family of eccentrics who let the estate fall apart. during a storm a tree fell through the foundation and rendered it unlivable. sarah and the menokin foundation are preserving the estate and establishing it as grounds where architect students can come to study how homes of that century were built. it is an unbelievable destination that you should seek out if you are ever in the area (plus they sponsor an annual, kick-ass, bluegrass festival on the property)!

the areas outside of richmond (aylett, tappahannock, warsaw, saluda) where i spent my formative years are rural and picturesque. driving down the narrow, curvy roads you see many abandoned properties, like this barn. i believe this is why so many artists reside here: there is something very romantic about these old places and the landscapes surrounding them. my mom was a wildlife artist and many of her paintings were inspired by views such as this.

(this one's for jeanie!) um, tattoo parlors were not around when i was growing up, but it was the 80's so establishments such as 'immortal ink' wouldn't have been popular then. now this is the landmark where you turn left to get to menokin. don't you love how it's housed in what looks like an old country store (wonder if they specialize in inking john deer tractors and chevy logos?)? i told sarah's 7 year old son flannery (perhaps you've heard me mention him: the boy who proposed to me when he was 4 - adorable!! when i left this time, he gave me a plastic, red superman ring to remember him by - the sweetest offering in the world!) that i'd take him there for his first 'piece of work'. he looked more terrified than flattered by the offer...

and finally i leave you with an image from the wall of nathan pope's art studio (sarah's talented husband). nathan is one of my favorite landscape artists who, despite growing up in georgia and north carolina, appreciates the beauty of rural virginia and perfectly captures its' colorful grace in his work. currently he is using a lot of sea-foam greens and blues in his pastels, which are my favorite! one day i'm going to have my own pope collection and will feature them in my future, bad-ass cottage in ware's wharf, virginia!! oh, the coloring book images are not done by nathan, but by the also talented flannery. i love that nathan hangs them with his own work and have happy thoughts of them making art together in the studio.

in addition to seeing sarah, nathan, flannery and rebecca (beck!), i got to spend time with sarah's cousin (and my old nyc partner in crime) lizzie and finally meet her sweet 8 week old baby, libbie, who she is madly in love with. lizzie hosted a fun girl party my first night in town with sarah, her sister ella and me. lizzie's cool baby nurse, norma (baby nurse to the nyc stars, but you didn't hear it from me) hung out too and there were appearances by both lizzie and sarah's parents (the 'adult-adults'). it was such a relaxing and fun week on the rappahannock river. can't wait to be back home with them for christmas!!

cat in a dryer

tonight i almost shut the dryer door on 'dear prudence' because i didn't see her amidst all the other 'white' things going on in there...

what is she thinking (um, is she thinking)?

so i'm away all week and this is what i had available to leave you with until i can post again. when i return there should be some fun stuff from my trip to virginia and then on to brian's wedding in vermont. and if that's not enough for you to look forward to, by that time the intimate ryan adams show i attended last week should be online. i can't properly describe the dual feelings of ridiculous happiness/helpless fascination i felt for those few hours without the visual. hopefully all of his craziness won't be edited out of the online edition. i felt like a mouse trapped in his cat house and it was kind of alright (and now these pictures of prudie fully tie today's musings together!)...