Hail: we had HAIL last Wednesday. The storm that raged from Chicago to Maine hit us here on Long Island as a 30-minute pounding of wind, monsoon, and HAIL.  Of course, Yours Truly was out in it, experiencing the weather so I could write about it in my journal (weather: the single most interesting part [...]

This is what the solstice sun set looked like on the Long Island Sound on Monday. Top Cat and I packed a picnic dinner (See that plastic wine glass? That’s what’s called a Traveller in the Carolinas, and a Go Cup in New Orleans) and we had a big chunk of the North Shore all [...]

Last week these two baby raccoons waddled into my backyard. This is how they walk, haunch to haunch, like they were tied up for a three legged race. They aren’t fast, baby raccoons — here they are staggering towards  the bowl of cat food that I was able to punt before them.

And here they are, [...]

This picture is called Woman at her Toilet, by Titian.

Look at it good and hard:  this is about all I ever want to know about what goes on in your toilet. You’re re-arranging your hair, you got a mirror, that’s all I need to know about what you do in there, OK?

Yesterday I got in [...]

I was talking to my brother yesterday about a mutual acquaintance. OK, I was enumerating to my brother some of the personality flaws of this mutual acquaintance.

My brother interrupted me and asked, “Is he really that bad? Because, you know, you can be very critical.”

(Critical? Moi?) I said, “I’m not critical! I just happen to be [...]

I was in the country because I got the call: The mountain laurels are blooming! So hie ho, it’s off to upstate New York we go.  To walk in the woods. To see the mountain laurels.

You know how inspiring nature is, right? Well, when nature is in bloom, it’s pretty inspiring.

Some of those mountain laurels are pink! [...]

No, not like that. Ideas are not wafting in the atmosphere, waiting for me to get all gauzy and goddessy with an Enya CD playing in the background whilst I face West (or is it East?) for the zephyrs of inspiration to blow my way.

No, this is (usually) how I get my ideas:

Yeah, when I [...]

I opened a bottle of wine (Graves, Bordeaux white) last week and it lasted for four days.  That’s how I knew something was wrong. Dreadfully wrong. That’s how I knew I was in a slump. The dumps. The crapper. The joie had vamoosed from ma vie.

The first thing I do when I am in the [...]