happy [almost] new year!!!

'Twas the night before New Year's Eve and all through Times Square, dodging tourists was much too much to bear...

birthday forecast: outlook good AKA the "it's about friggin' time!" edition

From today’s Los Angeles Times…

Today's birthday (Dec. 27): The right decisions put you on a path that feels natural and easy. Work requires imagination in February. You give a standout performance in March. Taurus and Aquarius are especially adoring. Your lucky numbers are 5, 20, 33, 19 and 50.

And from the New York Post...

December 27, 2008

A new moon on your birthday, combined with Mars moving into your sign, urges you to go all out in your pursuit of wealth and happiness. A year from now you will look back and marvel at how far you have come and how much you have achieved.

Finally, excerpts from Susan Miller's AstrologyZone...

The week just keeps bringing you good luck. December 27 will be one of your most critical dates of the month to circle on your calendar, for that is when Mars will enter Capricorn for a six-week period, to stay until February 4. When Mars comes for a visit, it's big news, for it proffers an enormous advantage in all your undertakings.

Mars' appearance signals the start of a whole new 12-year cycle for you, and it's a very beneficial one at that! Mars will give you energy and drive, and also put you in the driver's seat. You won't take "no" for an answer, nor should you. You won't have to wait for opportunity to come to you, as you'll be able to create your own! Mars will give you a special presence and allow you to step up to assume a leadership position in any area of your life, at home or at work. Mars won't be back for another two years, so while you have the lead, press forward!

Mars will arrive in Capricorn December 27, and will really get the party started. Venus will have ordered the flowers but it will be Mars, the action planet, that really gets the party started. He'll turn up the volume on the music, open the bar, and signal that the food is ready to be served. Your chart will really begin to rock and roll from this date on. You'll love this - everything in your life will begin to step to a quicker beat and will continue to so do in the six weeks that follow.

If you were born on December 27, or within five days of this date, you will have won the cosmic jackpot.

This will be an extraordinary month for you! All the work you put in this year will soon pay off handsomely in 2009. You are so close to seeing an amazing victory.

In the meantime, celebrate your birthday, celebrate the New Year, and celebrate your accomplishments. You are surrounded with love and are about to enjoy the new life you have been busy creating in 2008. You are only in chapter one of a twelve-chapter quest. In so many ways, the best is still yet to come!

Fingers crossed!

punk/rock--- SOLD!

One of the best (and free) things to do on a lazy Sunday afternoon in the City is check out what's being previewed at the big auction houses -- exactly what a friend and I ended up doing yesterday.

Today, Christie's hosted its Punk/Rock auction. The collection featured memorabilia from punk/rock legends like The Ramones to The Clash and The Sex Pistols, including posters, records, clothing, autographed material and ephemera, as well as rare guitars owned by Bob Marley and Kurt Cobain, studio tapes with written orchestration notes by Jimi Hendrix, and the original artwork for the cover of Beastie Boys License to Ill album.

John Lennon's keyboard was sold for $182,500. According to the auction site, it was a "Vox Continental Portable Organ used by John Lennon at the historic August 15, 1965, Shea Stadium concert, as well as the Beatles' August 13, 1965 appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show and on the studio recording of I'm Down."

Elvis Presley's handwritten quote on a Las Vegas Hilton postcard, PHILOSOPHY FOR A HAPPY LIFE, SOMEONE TO LOVE, SOMETHING TO LOOK FORWARD TO, AND SOMETHING TO DO!, fetched $7,250.

The size and scale of the Punk/Rock auctions were, in comparison to other Christie's auctions, fairly modest, but it allowed me a trip back into time -- particularly revisiting bands that I used to love in high school -- The Cure, The Smiths, The Beastie Boys, The Clash and New Order.

What makes auction previews even more compelling is the knowledge that a lot of these rare items will end up in a private collection somewhere, possibly on display in someone's home. And it affords the public an opportunity to steal a peek before the items are going, going, gone!






Here's a link to a Flickr stream (better pics) posted by another auction previewer.

walked out the door and what do i see?

A Hamilton Heights "geyser" in the middle of the street...

loving my LA Times horoscope today...

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Life is a potluck dinner: You never know what you're getting, and the one thing you can count on is the dish you're bringing.

flow, baby, flow [veep debate version]

muddy blues holiday weekend

there comes a point...

I received this forward from Chett this morning and thought it was sweet (and so timely)...

There comes a point in your life when you realize
who matters,
who never did,
who won't anymore...
and who always will.

So, don't worry about people from your past,
there's a reason why they didn't make it to your future.

Be kinder than necessary because everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.

another picture perfect day in central park

This was taken last Saturday in Central Park after having a lovely brunch with V and Chett at Arte Cafe on 73rd and Columbus.

(Incidentally, I highly recommend brunch there - especially with the $12 unlimited drinks special -- love the strawberry sangrias and peach bellinis!)

Keep your fingers crossed for bright and sunny weekend... One more week to go till summer's over (sniff).

Happy Friday, everyone!

gone with the wind

Random chat
Realization hits
Recurring theme
Gone with the Wind
He lent me his copy and I found the pressed red rose from
Homecoming upside down
Took too long to let it go yet compelled to hold on
Eyes elsewhere to a lofty infatuation
Young Wilkes never was
A slap across the face
Rhett no longer gives a damn
Tara has gone
Moving along
Perpetual reconstruction

hansberry quote

"Never be afraid to sit a while and think."

--Lorraine Hansberry, writer and playwright

central park: summer foliage

how to dodge mates who would maul your happiness...

A Catholic priest offers New York Times Op-Ed Columnist Maureen Dowd some solid advice...

This weekend, we celebrate our great American pastime: messy celebrity divorces.

There’s the Christie Brinkley/Peter Cook fireworks on Long Island and the Madonna/Guy Ritchie/A-Rod Roman candle in New York.

So how do you avoid a relationship where you end up saying, “The man who I was living with, I just didn’t know who he was” — as Brinkley did in court when talking about her husband’s $3,000-a-month Internet porn and swinger site habit? (Not to mention the 18-year-old mistress/assistant.)

Father Pat Connor, a 79-year-old Catholic priest born in Australia and based in Bordentown, N.J., has spent his celibate life — including nine years as a missionary in India — mulling connubial bliss. His decades of marriage counseling led him to distill some “mostly common sense” advice about how to dodge mates who would maul your happiness.

“Hollywood says you can be deeply in love with someone and then your marriage will work,” the twinkly eyed, white-haired priest says. “But you can be deeply in love with someone to whom you cannot be successfully married.”

For 40 years, he has been giving a lecture — “Whom Not to Marry” — to high school seniors, mostly girls because they’re more interested.

“It’s important to do it before they fall seriously in love, because then it will be too late,” he explains. “Infatuation trumps judgment.”

I asked him to summarize his talk:

“Never marry a man who has no friends,” he starts. “This usually means that he will be incapable of the intimacy that marriage demands. I am always amazed at the number of men I have counseled who have no friends. Since, as the Hebrew Scriptures say, ‘Iron shapes iron and friend shapes friend,’ what are his friends like? What do your friends and family members think of him? Sometimes, your friends can’t render an impartial judgment because they are envious that you are beating them in the race to the altar. Envy beclouds judgment.

“Does he use money responsibly? Is he stingy? Most marriages that founder do so because of money — she’s thrifty, he’s on his 10th credit card.

“Steer clear of someone whose life you can run, who never makes demands counter to yours. It’s good to have a doormat in the home, but not if it’s your husband.

“Is he overly attached to his mother and her mythical apron strings? When he wants to make a decision, say, about where you should go on your honeymoon, he doesn’t consult you, he consults his mother. (I’ve known cases where the mother accompanies the couple on their honeymoon!)

“Does he have a sense of humor? That covers a multitude of sins. My mother was once asked how she managed to live harmoniously with three men — my father, brother and me. Her answer, delivered with awesome arrogance, was: ‘You simply operate on the assumption that no man matures after the age of 11.’ My father fell about laughing.

“A therapist friend insists that ‘more marriages are killed by silence than by violence.’ The strong, silent type can be charming but ultimately destructive. That world-class misogynist, Paul of Tarsus, got it right when he said, ‘In all your dealings with one another, speak the truth to one another in love that you may grow up.’

“Don’t marry a problem character thinking you will change him. He’s a heavy drinker, or some other kind of addict, but if he marries a good woman, he’ll settle down. People are the same after marriage as before, only more so.

“Take a good, unsentimental look at his family — you’ll learn a lot about him and his attitude towards women. Kay made a monstrous mistake marrying Michael Corleone! Is there a history of divorce in the family? An atmosphere of racism, sexism or prejudice in his home? Are his goals and deepest beliefs worthy and similar to yours? I remember counseling a pious Catholic woman that it might not be prudent to marry a pious Muslim, whose attitude about women was very different. Love trumped prudence; the annulment process was instigated by her six months later.

“Imagine a religious fundamentalist married to an agnostic. One would have to pray that the fundamentalist doesn’t open the Bible and hit the page in which Abraham is willing to obey God and slit his son’s throat.

“Finally: Does he possess those character traits that add up to a good human being — the willingness to forgive, praise, be courteous? Or is he inclined to be a fibber, to fits of rage, to be a control freak, to be envious of you, to be secretive?

“After I regale a group with this talk, the despairing cry goes up: ‘But you’ve eliminated everyone!’ Life is unfair.”

---NEW YORK TIMES -- 07/06/2008 -- An Ideal Husband By Maureen Dowd

cheesy quote of the day (it's been awhile...)

"People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed and redeemed; never throw out anyone."
--Audrey Hepburn, actress, philanthropist

happy hour - west 79th street boat basin

*Hat tip: Hoppy for this iPhone-taken profile shot of me*

*Hat tip:JMac for this iPhone-taken pic*






*Hat tip: Hoppy for these iPhone-taken pics*

one of my favorite shows gets it moment

Check out the cover story here.

match game

You, too, can play @USAToday.com!

riverside park - upper west side

my last trip home - may 29 to june 1

Not too many pics from this particular visit (it wasn't really that sort of trip)... Nice to have been able to grab dinner and drinks in Hollywood with some fellow New Yorkers, The Hoppys (!). Overall, I think my favorite part of this trip was a quiet and mellow afternoon in Malibu as well as time spent with family along with some of my oldest and dearest friends.

malibu - paradise cove






hoppys go to hollywood





grabbing coffee with guy in porter ranch (a bit on the blurry side)




mom, uncle jun and tita aida



tita aida and me



i *heart* my mom



tita rosemarie, dale, karen and emma