It is a new year .  Yes, another.  They do sprint into view with too much haste, just as you are again making promises to do better during the year not yet finished............it is indeed finished.  How can it be 2024?   I just came back to this blog.  Had almost forgotten I had one.  I originally began blogging (if you can call this very occasional revisiting to the site) back in maybe 2008?  (I don't remember - and while on this page I cannot figure out how to get back to that information).

I decided to go back to it in 2017 and actually published a few times.

Now, I have been lying dormant (or rather, this blog has been lieing dormant) until today when, trying to comment on Neil Steinberg's "Every God Damn Day" I was shunted into the "Blogger" site and..........here I am.

This is intended to be just a toe in the water kind of thing because , honestly, I have no time today,  However, if I do one small entry, and promise to do better, perhaps I will start actually posting almost daily.

I just read some of my older ones, and they werent bad.

So - for today - let's just say.....I'm baaaack.

Or, at least I will try to be.

This week, it is very cold - Alaska tundra kind of cold - and usually I don't really go outside when the chill arrives since I can scurry across  a narrow alley-like street into the Prudential building and from there go most places on foot through the Chicago "pedway" - or I can call a Uber.

But Sunday at 4:30 I walked a block, wearing layers that I had learned to use when I ran daily..............a short sleeved t shirt under a long sleeve t shirt under a cardigan sweater under a wool zippered hoody under a faux fur vest I hadn't worn in years; with a knitted cap pulled down to my eyes to hold down the long pony tails I had rubberbanded over each ear ( I have a lot of hair - warming as earmuffs); and both fingered gloves and mittens (found in my old runners drawer) and a wool scarf to wrap around my fact..

I had to go out because I read on Facebook about something called "Drunk Shakespeare" at a theater on Wabash that I never knew existed.

I recommend it.

You walk into a long narrou corrider which is a bar, into a doorway on the far side which leads to a rectangular room with two red thrones on the other side from the door and bench type seats on either side - on your right and left; plus a second row of seats on the right, and both a second and third row on the left. All of the walls are lined with shelves holding old hard covered books.  

An actor greets me with "welcome - here is a libation. let me show you to your seat".  The young man hands me a small shotglass with something pink and sharp, and to the left side where I am in seat no. 14 on the bench.  He points out there is a cubby under my feet in which I will find a menu and into which I can stuff my layers of outerwear.

I then am regaled with a strange but hilarious performance of a raucous version of MacBeth in which one of the five actors is chosen to become a "drunk" actor - and is given several shots of mezcal at the start of the show (two extra shots are imbibed by him and an audience volunteer to prove to all of us that it is really liquor - it was, she reported).

When there are two deaths in the plot,  two members of the audience are handed white bib type shirts spackled with blood (paint) to wear so as to stand in for the killers.

Lady MacBeth is a young and sexy woman who moves like a cat and makes it very clear she is randy , so that MacBeth can forget about his problems from time to time as she writhes in front of him.

Audience members bid to be seated in the two "thrones" where a couple (they paid $100) received free food, a bottle of champagne, and involvement in the action from time to time.  For example, the woman ("Lady " whatever) is asked mid show to decide if the one drinking actor is drunk enough and if she determines that he is not, then he must imbibe again. 

At one point, they all dance down the aisle to the toon of Michael Jackson's "Beat It".

I ordered food and drinkby using a QR code on the menu, and a server brought me a coktail and hummus with pita

It was definitely worth the walk.

And this entry is not a very good sample of my blogging, but is here just to start out and prove to myself that I will indeed start doing it daily.

Daily?

Well, maybe , at least, from time to time. 

New Adventures in Theater and Travel

Im sitting on a big intercity bus in the parking area of Midway airport watching the black sky lighten and a yellow/ orange edge emerge and climb from behind the trees. Its 6:44 am and this was our first stop
 I  boarded in front of Union Station on Canal at 5:45 am after young people with bleary eyes and unruly hair emerged clutching pillows and backpacks, arriving home for the weekend from school in Madison Wisconsin, where I will arrive at about 10:45 am. From there, I pick up a rental car I reserved yesterday and drive 45 minutes to Spring Green where I will check into a small hotel and then drive through the woods to the American Repertory Theater to attend a 2:00 pm outdoor performance of Shakespeare's Midsummer Night Dream.

Let me explain

Last summer I attended a panel of authors at the Printers Row Litfest because the Sun Times author and "Every Goddamn Day" blogger Neil Steinberg was a participant.

Also on the panel was Michael Lenehan, author of "Much Ado" - "A Summer With A Theater Repertory Company" .

 His conversation about his book was ntriguing enough to cause me to purchase the book and ask him to sign it.

Also. it is  small and red and not covered in an extra paper coat.The feel of the cloth cover in my hand is warm and cozy in a kind of quiet friendly way and the size perfect for holding and fondling as I read.

Yeah- Im a little crazy when it comes to books- the old fashioned kind you can hold.

I finished it in July and I was surprisingly stunned by how the story affected me.

Expecting to find the book mildly interesting, I was instead fascinated by the infinite insider details from every aspect of the complex planning and staging of performances at such a small but renowned venue.
The author covered with a kind of wide eyed awe everything from choosing the actors and working with them on alternative performance nuances and choices, to deciding where and what and how much in connection with furnishing and props, to standing behind the wigmakers as they performed their detailed and demanding tasks.

I thought maybe some day I could see for myself but I hadn't focused on the name of the theater or where it was exactly- just somewhere up in the woods, I recalled.

 Then in August I found that my friend Zoe was busy one weekend because she was going to "APT".  Thats what her text said. Strange, I thought. It sounded familiar.

Sure enough. The theater was in Spring Green Wisconsin, not far from Madison.

Though busy clearing my desk and getting ready to run off to Paris, I purchased a ticket online for a 2:00 Saturday performance at the end of September, thinking I could worry about getting there later.

Then, last week - while still recovering from jet lag and juggling six real estate transactions all closing during the same one week period - I went online to discover that Madison was not all that close ( Think Chicago to Woodstock), that almost every jotel, motel or b&b was full, and that driving the last leg was the only option.

I sold my last car years ago since I decided at the time that it made no sense to own and support what I had started calling a "junk sculpture sitting under the building depreciating and costing me a fortune to keep there."

So I drive maybe once a year.

Yeah, it IS sort of like riding a bike in that I dont really forget how to do it- but I nevertheless do face the prospect with a healthy bit of trepidation each time.

However- below is a description of what awaits me at 2:00

So I am on a bus with my backpack and a small wheely bag filled with toiletries and a change of clothes. On the seat next to me are the printouts of my round trip bus reservations, my reservation for one night at the Round Barn Lodge in Spring Green, my Enterprise Rental reservation ( I must call at 8;30 am to confirm their pick up of me at the bus stop at 10:55 am) and a BIG cup of coffee.

Life is an adventure
 It has to be or you might as well sink under the covers and into oblivion.

Im tired but having fun.

There's no one on this bus but me and sleepy youngsters who look both tired and stressed. Life is so difficult when you have classes and exams and not much else to worry about. Awwww.

Its now over two hours since I started this entry and the sun is up and bright and the day is looking beautiful.

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DRE

AM

By William Shakespeare
Directed by John Langs
What better way to christen our new stage than with the quintessential APT experience? An iconic fairy tale, spun by these funny, fabulous players in the moonlight. Like APT itself, Midsummer offers a mingling of realms, the everyday with the fantastical, with all the poignancy and humor we’ve come to expect from our favorite tales. The ones we want to see again and again. It’s a heart-expanding journey, and one that feels like it was born of this stage on the Hill. See it in its true home – in our own enchanted woods, on a gossamer evening. There’s so much magic in that. So much good. Come take your fill. 

Surprise and Love

Paris is the kind of lover you always wish you had.  It is quiet when that is your mood - raucous and fun on the other hand if that is what you yearn for- and always, always, if you are open to it, full of surprises.

Take the last few days.

One day, I sought calm, so I sat in a park with the birds, a breeze and the intermittent sun (it IS September, a month during which one always carries her parapluie) and read a book and wrote quietly on my wonderful new, light computer that is easily stuffable into a less than gigantic back pack.

Then another day I again was looking for  calm and an emotional and spiritual experience when I sat in the back of the church before the 9:00 a.m. Sunday morning service at St. Etienne du Mont - and I did, indeed, find what I sought since it is during that time when the grand and beautiful old church is solemn and silent so that  the calm washes over you .

I attended the service to continue my quietude and also experience the accompanying sounds of the St Etienne organ, not knowing that there was to be much more since the organist sometimes has his own plans.

After the service, the priest and congregation filed out as the organist played a suitable up tempo escape or run-away kind of tune, but then came the surprise.  After the green robed priest had shaken the hand of the last congregant filing by him and decided the rest of us were not coming his way and  he, too, exited  the church- the organist kept on playing. And playing. And playing.

Five or six of us just stood there, heads turned upwards towards the giant piped monster behind which he hid, and listened.  Five minutes. Ten minutes. Almost fifteen minutes.  He swept down and up the scale, pounded out giant sonorous chords, slowed his pace for almost (not quite) pretty passages, and then revved up once more.  I could picture his elbows out and his arms jumping on and off the keyboard with an emotional vigor as if the Phantom of the Opera married Liberace.

I asked one of the men collecting the hymnals if this was a regular thing.  He said it often happens, not necessarily just on Sundays, and sometimes not on Sundays, but it is a fairly often recurring phenomenon.

Then there was yesterday- a day that presented me with a number of unexpected turns.

My plan?  To go up to Montmarte and revisit Espace Dali - my favorite little museum where in barely an hour you can wander among a  huge sampling of his scuptures and watercolors.   I assumed the museum would be back to its old normal self after having cleared out the special bande dessinee exhibit I visited and wrote about last year.

After the museum,  I was to meet my friend Raluca at the Relais de la Butte, a lovely restaurant on a terrace part way down from the butte - a little off the rue Norvins tourist laden beaten path, but still with a great view.

A simple plan.

But it was to be an afternoon of surprises.

Not all surprises are welcome.

I knew that there are a number of metro stops one can emerge from around the Butte Montmarte to get there, but Abbesses is my favorite since you arrive on a lovely little Place with a colorful merrygoround, right across the street from a church, and the walk up to Sacre Coeur isn't bad, and..........................there is always an elevator to take you up to street level ..........which is a looooong way up!

Not yesterday.

The signs that the ascenseurs were under repair appeared on the platform after I emerged from the train.  I think I lost my French for a moment and used a word beginning with "sh..." while others were just sighing or uttering an "oh la la" or such.

So it was around and around and around up the quaint and lovely but very taxing circular stairway up and up and up until I reached the street .

But then, the museum provided gifts that overcame the ascenseur issue.

I regained my breath and stretched my legs, I arrived at the Musee.  I found that  , after clearing out the bande dessinee exposition,  the Dali museum had  put back the regular sculptures and artworks as I had expected - but in locations other than where they had once been, PLUS they had added some additional ones I don't recall seeing there in recent years. And everything was configured in a clear and interesting organizational method.  The artworks were grouped  in themes, with each themed area marked by a large wall sign describing in two languages the meaning of that theme in the works of Dali and, sometimes, in the history of the world.

The section on  time and science included the sculpture that Dali had done of Sir Isaac Newton - which I don't recall seeing  in the museum last year - where the figure holds a ball at the end of a string (the apple in its gravitational pull) and there  are large holes where Newtons face and vital organs would be.

The explanation is that   Dali felt the living Newton had become to the public a "mere name in science, stripped of his personality and individuality."

I have always loved the Espace Dali, and now so much more.  The changes were a surprise.  A wonderful one.

 Then there was the unexpected historical cabaret entertainment up on Place de Tertre.

I   had wandered into the Musee Montmarte just before reaching Dali  because I knew Claudia Hommel had that stop  on her schedule for her Chicago Paris Cabaret Connexion activities this week (see http://Chicagopariscabaretconnexion.org )  and, since I had not been able to reach her by phone,  I wanted to ask her about the time when  her  Saturday night concert really started (after the talks and panels) .

I found her and her group in the museum garden.  She answered my question, but then also told me they were ending up at 3:30 at the Boheme de Tertre on Place de Tertre to give a presentation on black women singers in Paris.

I don't eat at the tourist places on Place de Tertre and I was looking forward to the Relais, but told her I would come a bit late.

After lunch, Raluca and I entered the lower "club" level of the Boheme to find a  full room listening to Claudia and an African American woman explain the successes and tribulations of Josephine Baker and Eartha Kitt etc. while at intervals, the African American woman sang the ladies' songs from the era.  Spectacular voice!

Then, Claudia brought up to the stage a woman who had been Josephine Baker's personal assistant. She told interesting an intimate stories, such as when Walter Winchell was being unkind to Josephine but Grace Kelly stepped in (she was still Grace Kelly at the time) and later when Queen of Monaco, she helped Josephine back onto her feet with a gala concert in Monaco.

At the end, a woman sitting near me stood up and told the room, in French (claudia translated) how she had been at Josephine's last concert - just before she died.  She described with emotion the see through costume on the then 77 year old woman, her voice, and the electricity felt in that audience.

The woman described how Ms Baker expressed her life choice, despite her age andv failing health, to continue to enjoy the highs even if death was to arrive.

Indeed, she died the next day of a cerebral hemorrhage.

Finally, as I left the Butte to head down to sit in on a service at St. Gervais (to hear the harmonic voices of the acolytes and the old and wonderful organ), I passed a small terrace just below the walkway along the bottom of Sacre Coeur and watched a theatrical group in costume putting on a play for the  few who stopped to watch.

It's Paris.

You never know what will happen.

If you are open to it, the day can go many different ways you have not anticipated.

I love her.

A Day in the Life of a Restaurant

La Verre A Pied is little.  And sweet. And local.  And the food is spectacular- well cooked with  small but perfectly filling portions, lovingly put together by the woman who co owns it.

At lunch it seems generally  to be packed.  I walked  down rue Mouffetard on Tuesday and arrived there just a little after 1:00 in the afternoon with my paraplui since it had been raining all morning (still was as I wrote the first part of this entry, sitting at a table in the restaurant at 5:00 ).  Only two seats were left when I arrived, and I was given a choice.  One was right up against the open door which I thought was cool since I could people watch as I ate - but it turned out to be not so much "cool" as too cold so they moved me to the back on a comfy thin cushion on a bench  next to two tourist Paris newbies from Jerusalem.

The server/owner  Hendricka, when asked, recommended the dinde - "saute de dinde a la citronnelle - riz" which was spectacular.  She was right. The sauce was aromatic, tasty, memorable - the kind that you can't help finishing and even sopping up with the remaining riz and some bread - even if  not hungry. 

Afterwards, as the restaurant emptied out, I stayed in my seat for an allonge. (a large and diluted coffee a la America).

Then the young woman who works at the counter in the afternoon showed up and since it was still pretty nasty outside, I decided to take an empty table up front.  Actually, by then all of the tables were empty.  And with my phone plugged in and my hotspot turned on my computer can get the internet, so I sat there  with a Ricard pastis - one of my favorite drinks,  and then a second Ricard -  typing away and feeling like a local and a writer.

Others walked in for a coffee or a wine, and talked to the young woman, or perused one of the local papers sitting on the bar with pamphlets about nearby theatrical performances and the like. 

The small woman with the well toned body and the well coiffed and banged  red fuzzy hair was back.  She was there Sunday  when I walked in  for lunch too late and they served  me with a plate of cheese and charcuterie anyway (very nice of them).  and the somewhat scuzzy man with the  8 oclock shadow, a belly  apparent  behind his sports type casual shirt and little earrings - he was also back.  She treats him as if he were a boyfriend with her giggling and touching and laughing too loud. I'm thinking he is not.  But they are apparently here often at the same time.

I came back yesterday for a quick bite  on my way for a get together with friend Monique at Verse Tourjours.  It is very pleasant to be in such a warm and  welcoming place and even more so as it becomes more familiar to me as a once or twice a year regular..  I could do this a couple of days a week if I lived here. I keep filling in the spaces in my picture of life as a pretend resident of Paris in general, and this little neighborhood in particular - the neighborhood that Hemingway lived and wrote in during his earliest Paris days and wrote of in "Moveable Feast."   My apartment this time is just around the corner from his apartment on rue Cardinal Lemoine and down the block from where he wrote on rue Descartes.

Yesterday I  walked in to Verre a Pied  only intending to eat an entree and a wine - but when Claude told me the kitchen was still open if I ordered quickly - and Hendrika came out to get my order, I could;t help having a second chance at the dinde.  It didn't disappoint.

I have loved this place for years but never until recently understood the ebb and flow of its daily life - from the crowds at lunch and dinner to the regulars and walk ins who turn it into a pleasant place to relax during the afternoon

My friend Lynn - who, sadly and surprisingly  passed away this year after a hitherto successful battle with cancer on and off for over 15 years - wrote a wonderful description of the restaurant  two years ago. It was published in friend Richard Nahem's "Eyepreferparis" blog.  There is no way I could top her description - so with due deference to her and the talent she showed in her writing of it and to  him for  publishing it - here is Lynn's wonderful piece from 2015: (SEE www.ipreferparis.net for Richard's wonderful daily blog featuring his insightful Paris articles, his tours, etc.)

September 29, 2015

Lunch with Lynn/Under 20 Eats- La Verre a Pied

Lynn is back in Paris and wrote today's Lunch with Lynn.

How would you like to return to the days of the French Revolution while eating lunch--hear the horses galloping by, watch a blacksmith making horseshoes?  Le Verre a Pied (The Stem Glass), a tiny, very old world café/restaurant right on the narrow cobblestoned rue Mouffetard in the Latin Quarter can offer you that. Claude and Hendrika have owned the enchanted place since 1983, the two of them working as a solitary team to bring you marvelous French dishes, different daily. They bought it in 1983 from Madame Paulette who bought it in 1947 from her father who bought it in 1919. It became a café about 1870, during the French Commune, and before that (here comes the Revolution) it was a long passageway at the end of which was a forge, where the kitchen is now (time to use your imagination).

Richard and I and a Chicago friend, Michel Kurlander,had lunch there on my birthday two weeks ago (not a pivotal birthday but one that seemed appropriately symbolized by the French Revolution).  Hendrika makes the various plats each day –but no appetizer, simple fare is simple fare --and a variety of desserts that are so French you think you are having dinner with Parisian friends on a Sunday chez eux --and you really are. I had the rabbit in mustard sauce; Richard and Michel had the lamb stew. The rabbit and the lamb were deliciously tender and the sauces so divine your tongue can never forget, leading you back to the same dish over and over again.

You get homemade desert with the formule plat/dessert, and we could choose chocolate cake, crème brulée, or fromage blanc with raspberry coulis. Which one do you think I chose?  Right!  Richard had crème brulée and Michel the fromage blanc. We waited a bit longer than usual until suddenly out of the kitchen/forge stepped Hendrika with my chocolate cake and one 
lovely discreet candle (I heard the horses gallop by!) And it was a huge piece of cake, the size of a map, French obviously.

Magnificent. I made my wish, blew out the candle in one blow (sooo talented)  and voila! 

The wish of course has come true. 

If you are wandering down rue Mouffetard, the oldest market street in Paris, do stop in at Le Verre à Piedand step back in time. Say hello to Claude and Hendrika for us. Let’s all be part of  the food revolution. “Ah ! ça ira, ça ira, ça ira!”

La Verre a Pied 
118 rue Mouffetard, 75005 
Metro: Censier- Daubenton 
Open Tuesday to Saturday 9AM-9PM
Sunday 9:30AM -4PM
Tel. +33 (1) 43 31 15 72

Getting Serious

ok.  I started this blog in 2008 or 2009 but have never been particularly serious about it - witness just a few .over the years.

Yesterday, I was sharing some of my latest Paris insights with a group of Paris expat residents gathered for Adrienne Leeds' "Apres Midi" get together, and one said "you should publish a blog" and I recalled I had already tried that, but never discovered how to do it on a consistent basis, or how to cause folks to tune in.

So today - it took me 30 minutes just to find out how to get back onto the blog - I will at least write something and, if I can, I will see if I can change my bio and my picture.

Yesterday I saw Paris through the eyes of my young Israeli cousin who I had just met for the first time Friday night when we both arrived in Paris that day(for me it was a return after several days once more  wandering the F. Scott Fitzgerald and Picasso paths on the Cote d'Azur, and for her it was a first time visit  from Israel )

Talya only had a few hours yesterday morning and at first wanted to visit a "small" museum.  The Cluny would have been perfect - but it was closed. Tuesday is one of those days when a number of museums are closed.

So instead, we visited the church St Etienne du Mont (the Midnight in Paris Church).

St Etienne du Mont is not on the regular tourist track - not like Notre Dame - but it is a very special, beautiful and historic church.  I actually prefer it not to be so well known, since one of the charms of such churches as St Severin and St Etienne du Mont is the silence in which you can meditate, or look quietly at the awesome architecture and artwork and sculptures without being interrupted by crowds - and definitely without such annoyances as electric cords to facilitate loudspeakers, long lines of camera laden wide eyed folks, and gift shops.

St. Etienne du Mont is the 15th century successor to the original church built by Clovis on that Paris hill in the 6th century.  He wanted him and his queen to be buried there alongside St. Genevieve, the patron Saint of Paris.  That original church resulted in the area being referred to as "Montaigne St. Genevieve" and the current church, across from the Pantheon, is on what is now known as rue Montaine St. Genevieve. It was constructed when the original church became too small for its congregation. The bell tower (Tour Clovis) from the original structure is now on the grounds of Lycee Henri IVacross the street.

Not only does the church feature the only remaining rood screen in Paris (an imposing and filigreed white structure ranged across and above the center), and a beautiful organ, but a cloister through which you can walk and, after picking up a pamphlet, view the details of the 12 beautiful hand painted windows that are along the cloister wall - put together from the remains of the original 22 windows.

On Sunday morning, I attended a mass at the church and discovered that the organist often continues to play for 10-15 minutes beyond the end of the service, for practice, fun, or just to provide an experience to the few (which that morning included myself and only five others) who choose to  remain behind for a few minutes.  It wasn't quiet music but loud and ranging up and down the scales with an energy and speed, alternating with areas of quiet, that was exciting and fun.

Talya and I then had lunch at Café Panis - my favorite café simply because one can eat, charge a phone, and observe Notre Dame  just across what I call a sliver of the River Seine, while eating and drinking.

Finally, we visited the Memorial de la Deportation, the stark and stunning and emotionally draining memorial behind Notre Dame, commemorating the 200,000 souls sent to Nazi camps by the Vichy regime.  From behind her, I took a photo of Talya sitting quietly on the stone in the courtyard contemplating the River Seine through the bars created by the tall iron pointed stakes at that corner.  I think she was particularly moved by  the corrider just inside the building, which is seen through a window with iron bars ,  extends to an eternal light at the other end and is lined by 200,000 crystals.   I was also so moved the first time I came to this site, and still am each visit.

I also am grateful for the opportunity to  know a relative I didn't know existed,  since of the Israeli family branch, only my cousin Chickie, Talya's grandmother, had been in contact with me over the years - through a "Facebook friendship." I feel as if I have found a new, dear friend.  I am sure we will keep in touch.

THE GREAT GERTRUDE

Woke up in the middle of the night again (actually - first thing in the morning under Paris time) and wrote a bit and then started to read "Narration", the book that includes the four lectures Gertrude Stein gave in 1935 at the University ...of Chicago, during the trip that marked her first return to the States since her 1903 move to Paris. According to the back cover, these lectures cover her thoughts about the American people, literary form & modernism, the nature of history, and the "inventiveness of the English language." Knowing the nature of her writing and her life - I'm excited.

Also, this is the only Stein I didn't already own. Until I spotted it in Shakespeare and Company last week, I didn't know it existed.

Just into the introduction, I found some information that brought me to posting this status - apparently, Chicago was her favorite American City and she came back here four times! Also, she had her book signing at Marshall Fields, where it was so crowded that a Tribune reporter noted that she couldn't even get to the floor of the signing!

Know how many times I have walked by 27 rue de Fleurus in Paris where Gerturde lived with Alice b. Toklas? and now, there is the Chicago connection. Wow!!!i

I love her "Three Lives" and some day I may even be able to make sense out of "Tender Buttons", where she used words almost as a painter paints in the abstract - favoring verbs and prepositions over nouns, interested in the "melody and color" of the words as if doing a cubist painting with them (according to one description): examples: "Water astonishing and difficult altogether makes a meadow and a stroke." a"Little eyelets that have hammer and a check with stripes between a lounge, in wit, in a rested development." (this last one is called "END OF SUMMER" would you believe).
Putting Tender Buttons right back on the Stein shelf. (There's a shop with that name by the way just north of the Loop. I think it actually sells buttons).
In the meantime, I'm reading her lectures. See More

 

Death, Life, Irrelevancies

This morning, in the throes of a newfound (and probably temporary) resolve to blog - even though not one damn person has ever read this bog other than me (next, I will try to somehow ascertain how to spread the word - assuming I decide i want to do that) - anyhow, throes and all - in between readying the Blue Apron ingrediants for a cheese on foccaccia dish later, putting on sweats,  making a quick assessment of what I must do today (most of  which is in the list of the things I didn't do yesterday - making lists is an endeavor that does not seem to move me one iota forward from the deep pit of lethargy and discarded good intentions) -and preparing to do a run/racewalk for maybe 30 minutes, ending at Marianos for an oatmeal, and  restocking of kale, chard, peppers, a small milk, and some olive oil - after preparing for all that.

Here I am.............writing nothing.

There are words spewing out onto the white screen as my fingers (newly painted in silver- don't ask) move with resolve and energy and speed , tap tapping on the keyboard - but words are just that unless they attach themselves to other words that in the entirety of their joining become something worthwhile, or at least interesting, or at a minimum - articulate.

Apparently, no hope of that this morning.

At least my new phone - the gifted Moto X - the one I am, after four days, still slowly getting to know (it's the same with most new relationships) - at least it now displays Chicago time.  After mucking arund with it for almost an hour yesterday when I discovered it thought I was on the east coast, and finally (I really don't recall how) , after going into every possible setting and app that could affect the time, made it understand that it was indeed Central time here...................well, I woke this morning and the window across my bedroom - the narrow sliver of window in which a wicker basket of small teddy bears sits - that window showed a grey sky perhaps an hour or two away from daylight.  The damn Moto, however - which I reflexively punched when its alarm rang (at what it told me was 7:30 am) and then rested against my bent knees to use to check e mails etc. - it  displayed a clear digital white reading on its black surface - yes, indeed, it was 8:30 in the morning.   I shone the screen onto my wristwatch as a mini flashlight - and my wristwatch told me it was 6:30 am.   That of course jibed with the sky and the world as I could see it from my under-quilt snuggly position.  So, 45 minutes later - again, after trying things too numerous to describe - all over the screen, general settings, clock settings, location settings, etc. - discovered when I checked the online 'help" menu and then went to reset "time and date" (had not even thought of that, since it is something on this damn machine that happens automatically,including initially) that it was set for central america - Bogota Columbia, to be exact.  How did that happen in the middle of the night with the fucking  thing on my nightstand?   Probably the same gremlins who periodically make my AOL software freeze so that nothing can be touched or pressed without a complaining "beep beep" that says in translation  "nah nah nah nah nah- I'm on strike". Oh - I DID try to "reboot" the Moto (that usually works with PC related shit) but no.................after three reboots and revivals, I was still in Bogota.

So it has thus far not been an auspicious beginning to what will I am sure be a shit day anyway, what with the client projects I really need to get to, the  run I probaby won't take (ok - probably will racewalk to Marianos since I'm already dressed, and do need the kale), the NAWBO article I just recalled I have to finish by today,  the dust and piles of papers collecting around me (I am way overdue in cleaning the apartment ), and the fact that now yet another week has passed, another week without the progress I promise myself will suddenly start occurring.

I am down another pound.

I have counted WW points for the last three days, and done well.

I did read the Washington Post this morning on the Moto while still in bed (at least the hard articles and commentary on the Russian situation - disturbing).

And I have written this blog entry - this lousy , meandering entry.

Which I called "Death, life, irrelevancies."  Why?

Oh, yes.  Death.  Too much of it lately.  I know it is inevitable and a constant, but dammit, I don't need to suddenly be reminded of it so vividly.  In the last 9 months - Amos, Sandra, Myrna, Catherine, and now Pat's spouse Vernita  (she was Pat's  first real relationship  after she came out, and Pat and Vernita were the first GLBT couple to marry in Illinois under the new law - with much fanfare).   The last one - Vernita's passing -  is in some ways the hardest for a number of reasons.  She was an important, vivid, exciting figure in the GLBT movement, civil rights, and other progressive causes - ever since her first awakening at Woodstock I recently discovered.. And that is the problem - my personal problem - the word "recently".  Her spouse Pat has been a friend of mine for many years, and I have met Vernita several times, though briefly, at her apartment during their annual Xmas bashes - but I have never gotten to know her.  I did ask Pat and Vernita to join me for lunch or dinner, but that was only in the last six months, after she had become so weakened that it was a hard choice to make such plans.  Now, I am getting to know her - since the announcement of her death yesterday morning - by watching You Tube videos of her speeches,  reading her biography, seeing the NBC piece about her - incuding the lovely Mary Morton description of who she -Vernita - was, and watching their wedding on You Tube.  And the result is that I want to get to know her better.  I want to sit with her over a glass of wine and talk about the history of the womens' movement, and civil rights, and politics, and this country, and black and white, and just girl talk and the talk of intelligent articulate people with similar world views.  And it is too late.  She is gone.  So many things that we delay can no longer happen.  That is the reality that the death of Vernita, and of others, and my aging body, and the bulbous face of Kim Novak on the Oscars, and the death of Philip Seymour Hoffman through a drug overdose in the prime of his talent and creativity after having kicked the habit and found a loving relationship,  and .............and...............and................all of the reminders smacking me across my face - more so lately than ever - that this life is going to end, and nothing and no one can tell you when and how - and if you (I) want to do something there may not be a "later" or "after I get this one other thing done"  or even another horizen.

That is the shit fact.  The truth.  The reality.

Most of us ward it off by forgetting it exists.  We live each day as if we have forever.

That was easier when I was twenty.  And forty.  But now, I'm approaching.................................(I almost cannot say it).........seventy!  

I cannot live even one day with the theory that..............I'll do that or get to that or write that or call him or her later.  Always later.

I already made that decision years ago, when that four year period from Hades occurred - during which my law firm and marriage broke up, my mother and father died, two of my children were injured, and I discovered and had surgery for breast cancer.

And I have run off to France when I feel like it, and written short stories, and spent a lot of time hugging grandkids.

but

A big but.

In the daily living of life, in between those life affirming and living -in-the-present actions - in the daily living, let's face it.  I'm a time waster - big time time waster.  Real Housewives and NCIS and computer games and re reading Travis McGee books etc.

For Philip Seymour Hoffman, later has stopped.  And for Vernita, and Catherine, and Sandra, and Amos and Myrna, and Paul Newman (I cried while crossing the Grant Park swale when I read that on my old smart phone a few years ago), and for I.J. and Bernice and Bobo and Herby.

The world keeps getting emptier.

They say - whoever the Hell "they" are - that you should live each day as if it were your last.  Well, that doesn't work because if it were really my last I would take every last penny in my puny - very puny - 401(k) accunt and do something with it - something that involves a foreign country and all of my kids and grandkids celebrating that last day in a glorious way.

But at least one should live each day with the knowledge that things may be over soon.  or not.

When the Hell am I ever going to write that novel?  Or those short stories? or read the rest of Proust?  Or read, thoughtfully, and with recall, all of the books i have on writing?  Or get a physical checkup?  Or become a runner again (recalling now the wind in my hair and the clarity of thought and clearness of breath and joy  I felt and had when I was running down the Lakefront in good condition) or  tighten my muscles (recalling the prideful high I had when I passed a mirror on a street and saw the then fifties firm body that was me) .????????

Ok - now I have managed to cause a deep lump in my gullet, and moisture behing my eyeballs.

I need to take that damn run or racewalk.

I'm done.  With this blog post.   I will be back for another tomorrow (I think).