our lips are sealed...

 I waxed nostalgic and looked back at my thoughts a year ago...the awe and optimism...and puns of facing 2020...and here I am...year's end...looking forward to not looking back...deciding to put on some semi-real clothes...even if the celebration is in the living room...but there is one thing that definitely will complete this outfit tonight...lipstick...no mask means pulling out the cosmetic bag of various lip colors...gloss...matte...deep colors for dramatic flair...subdued neutrals begging for tanned skin...pencils for art...and suddenly my tired face will light up...those magical words of my Aunt Harriet in my head..."you have to wear lips, you never know who you'll run into"...well, I won't be running into anyone...but who cares...it is more than the lipstick...you all know the endless craving we have...the deep desire...to see mouths moving...laugh lines beckoning from the side of those mouths...and smiles...in all forms...from the grin to full teeth...and the glorious colors of lipstick...a brilliant mauve is calling my name tonight...before I face tomorrow...New Year's Day 2021...pale lips en mask...hoping we can toss those masks this year...and drown in a sea of smiles....

a woman's worth...

 in 2008 while perusing a local newspaper I saw a listing for a writer's group at The Women's Center in Huntington...I had been writing since elementary school...that first book of poetry was a soft-covered composition book...now buried deep in a plastic bin of memorabilia...I had been hoping to really write...structured with gentle critique...support...writing can be a lonely calling...and so I joined this group of remarkable women...I've always felt my writing has been the better for this decision...but not as much as my soul...the road of life is not linear...and it can be hard...everyone needs a safe place to land...and for me one of those important places has been Tuesday mornings...reading, listening, laughing and crying...at the First Church on Main Street...the Cold Spring Harbor Library...and now, on my computer screen...Zooming...our faces reduced to Brady Bunch squares...talent and wit intact...given the harshness of 2020...a pandemic eroding life as we knew it...perhaps it is only fitting, in the cruelest of ironies...that we lost two gifted beautiful women from this group...two voids that can never be filled...in January, Louella...and now, Lois...bookends...from a writer's view they were so different...each voice so unique...and then again...so similar in making their personal footnotes universal...I am sometimes lovingly called the baby of the group...although there have been a few women over these many years...peers born in Eisenhower/Kennedy years...but it truly never mattered...there really is no measure of years among kindred spirits...and for me, these women truly were that...how do we measure a woman's worth?...a thought we often ponder in the face of loss...Louella and Lois...their words will live on...in pages, CD's...in our memories and hearts...their worth a price above rubies...amen...

zoning out...

 yellow zone...orange zone...I feel like I am in the twilight zone...one thing is for certain...as you watch the numbers...they don't lie...this will be the winter of our discontent...and also...Lord save us...we are a dumb nation...Covid is not an abstract...it is not a political ploy...or a media fabrication...it is not just spiking in the south or the midwest...it is now an American horror story...coast to coast...and it is sneaky and lethal...turkey eve...this will likely be the strangest Thanksgiving in this nation's history...what is your family's side dish...compliance or defiance?...I'm subscribing to the former and trying to keep my chin(s) up...and truly be thankful for what is and not what was or could be...praying for recovery for loved ones and friends...hoping tomorrow's meal gives us real sustenance to buckle down and mask up for the next hurdle...wishing good health and peace during this altered holiday season...and that we can all work on crossing the Covid end zone together...

"I don't need your civil war..."

 ...it feeds the rich while it buries the poor"...how did we get here?...how do we stop the bleeding...how do we reach beyond the hype...deplorables...libtards...the seeds were planted long ago...under the watch of Presidents you loved and hated...or ignored while you stood in line for concert tickets...you turned a blind eye in the eighties...silently embracing the excess...but at what cost...and the divide started...by the time the towers fell the seeds had grown to vines which were holding back so many who wanted to join the success of fellow Americans...and we supported a war in anger and grief...a war that still rages and cripples us...the intellectualism of the last administration was a panacea for many...but stirred the wrath of just as many...and under it all the ugly roots of racism took firmer hold...you start yelling at me...at this blog...how that is not so...but everyone is racist at some level...it is part of early teaching...I don't necessarily mean your parents...your teachers...but your world during your minds' formation...what you saw...what was subtly indoctrinated...our current President's support and success is born out of rebellion...against moving too quickly away from what many felt to their core was the essence of patriotism...I could understand that to a degree four years ago...I cannot now...but whatever the outcome...we need to reach across the great divide...and for many it is at their dinner table...we are tearing this country down on the world's stage...if we do not trust the process that is our democracy...who will trust us...how will the final act play out as Putin and Kim Jong-un applaud from the cheap seats...

cold November rain...

we are almost 8 months into Covid...we are almost at election day, when we may know, or not know who will lead this country as we creep towards winter...and move indoors...and tempt our fate...we are tired...getting lazy...jaded and sloppy...and our medical community is pausing for a deep breath...getting ready once more...New York, once nearly the hottest Covid spot in the world...we are at the precipice...and I feel tired...don't you?...I look at my reflection on Zoom...and FaceTime...and in the mirror...and that scares me too...the virus takes its toll in so many ways...I desperately miss the movies, yet cannot bring myself to walk into a theater...fearing that I will look right...then left...see lowered masks...then walk...and for a devoted movie fan...I am sorry to inform...Netflix and any streaming service on your television or laptop at home does not replace that feeling as the lights fade in a movie theater...and you hear the hum and the previews begin...I will not discuss theater...because I will cry...there is nothing that will replace the feeling I would get as the lights would dim and the orchestra would play that first note...or the spotlight warmed the profile of an actor facing the audience and uttering the first word...nothing...I recently took some old vinyl from Mom's house...Broadway albums I played over and over in my youth...hoping to lift my spirits playing them on a vinyl turntable I bought a few years ago...the scratches and lousy acoustics heartwarming...the lyrics and chorus familiar and uplifting...because this is the reality...the warm breezes of Indian Summer are gone...the statistics more chilling than November rain...this Thanksgiving I will be thankful for never having to see another ad about Max Rose or Nicole Malliotakis...and I will be thankful that G-d has granted me and those I love good health...but also anger that the tables across this country will be smaller this year...that we may not sit together as we crave more than that favorite holiday dish...and that so many will have empty seats...Covid...and so more than the Macy's parade...or the svelte legs of the Rockettes...I wish crowded tables extending into oblivion next year...and this is what keeps me up at night...listening to the November rain on the roof...darkness in late afternoon...in 2020...

The four seasons...

Tommy DeVito passed away last month...his obituary was sandwiched between the daily horror that is our news these days...founding member of The Four Seasons, he sadly passed away at 92 of Covid...and such is life in this new normal...each day seems to bring the passing of a sports icon, music favorite, or actor who made you smile...and also the passing of more people on our planet from "the virus"....each day we also lose more civility and compassion...we are angry or numb or a lethal combination of both...and so it struck me with mild awe as I was driving earlier this week...to see the crisp colored foliage that has finally stamped the Long Island landscape...fall is here...but it strangely feels like a mere extension of altered time that began in March...seasons have changed...without much fanfare...oh, there was joy with toes in sand...diving deep in pools unmasked...but the feeling is still off-kilter...I've always loved spring, and then fall...the transitional seasons...in the Northeast we have not really experienced the completeness of either in many years...not quite like childhood in the sixties when each greeted us with blooming trees, and falling leaves, for 13 weeks...maybe I wax nostalgic because I long to stroll unmasked...crisp leaves underfoot...inhaling the musty aroma...a sweater wrapped tight...my cheeks pink with chill...later, hands wrapped tight around hot tea as the sun sinks late afternoon...Vivaldi plays in my head...reality is the chorus..."maybe next year"....

Sweeter than honey...

 5781...that is the year it will be this weekend as we celebrate Rosh Hashanah...the Jewish New Year...and I am thinking...is there a prayer stronger...more fervent and heartfelt...and communal...than for this year to be over...but alas...we are a few months from 2021...the New Year's eve clock hitting midnight...when this shit show...known as 2020 ends...this past April...when we were trapped inside at Passover...praying that Covid would pass us over...and it did for many...but for so many others it did not...weren't we all hanging on to that thread of hope that we would be seated at tables with family and friends Rosh Hashanah...and now again we adjust...and maybe stop thinking too far ahead...it is too depressing...I'm thinking of Rosh Hashanahs of years ago...the wonderful aromas from kitchens...the sparkle of crystal...setting after setting...always room for one more...the hugs and smiles...and now it leaves me wanting...feeling like a hamster in a cage...stuck in that wheel going nowhere...watching honey drip from that spoon onto apple slices...which we eat to symbolize the eternal hope for sweetness in life...and this year I think we should wish each other the following too...may we be healthy...and live so that we might look back on these turbulent times...and close our eyes in thanks...amen

We Need a Hero...

life is all about timing...some celebrity deaths are a footnote...not necessarily a reflection of how much they contributed...or were loved and admired...but more because they happened to die in the shadows of larger world or national events...in normal times, this might have been the case with Chadwick Boseman...people would have read it and gasped...at his young age...at the fact that he was fighting cancer while delivering incredible performances...how we never knew of his personal battle till his death...but these are not normal times...and I do not need to tell you that...this summer...the soaring temperatures...horrific storms...these have been the footnote as our country is burning and lashing out...in a state of near collapse under the weight of racism...and the denial of such...such is the agony of change...and people do not like change...and while living under the constant shadow of Covid, it is painful...so then how to we exact change...how do we cause "good trouble" that furthers greater understanding...I think there is a direct correlation between the obsession with Marvel and super heroes, and our current state of affairs...we search for the qualities of Superman...Wonder Woman...and Black Panther...in our would-be leaders...or we realize that futility, and before Covid, settled into our cushioned movie seat, armed with popcorn and the desire for pure escapism...what Chadwick Boseman gave as he became Black Panther...and he did...was a leveling of the playing field in movie representation...and for millions of children of color around the world...pride...what he gave us in his choice of biopic movie roles was an exquisite look into great, and flawed black men of the 20th century...and it saddens me to think of what else he may have shown with his talents...this summer we deal the loss of two great black men...John Lewis, and his towering contributions to the civil rights movement...and Chadwick...and his breaking the barrier of what a superhero looks like...and what that meant for all the young children who loved him through Black Panther...as we reflect on this I can only hope they are looking at this chaos we call life with benevolence...and that they use some superhero powers to exact some peace here on earth...

Watch your P's and Q's...

 that would be your posts... and QAnon...we are now deep in the rabbit hole...Facebook and social media, for that matter, have been close at hand through the covid quarantine...and aside from binge watching a never-ending supply, and cost, of television series...that Facebook crawl was ready at hand for weeks...we are upset and tired...not just physically, but emotionally and mentally...and many are ripe for the picking...if you don't know what QAnon is...or if you think...so what?...you'd better pay attention...many of those memes or posts you're sharing having originated in conspiracy accounts...and you are unwittingly strengthening their reach and influence...this includes the "Save the Children" posts about trafficking and pedophilia...which circle back to Pizzagate...oh, you thought we were done with idiocy?...now Marjorie Taylor Greene, a candidate for the Georgia House...who will most likely win as she is the Republican candidate in a traditionally red district...is a supporter of QAnon...as well as deep Islamophobia and anti-Semitic tropes about Soros...and felt the need to call Pelosi a bitch after her win...oh, and Ms. Greene...before you yell about Muslims and their influence...maybe I should remind you 3 out of 435 in the House are Muslim...but who needs math and percentages if you have Facebook and Twitter...and the praise of Trump...you know...I'm beginning to think when we repent for our sins this Yom Kippur...or when we ask forgiveness in mosques...and repent in churches...we should mention the sin of social media which seems to have taken away our ability to process critical thinking...and Mark Zuckerberg...you should start fasting and asking forgiveness for what you've unleashed just about....now...

Martha, My Dear...

I miss my aunts in the summer...oh, I miss them year round, but the summer memories are most vivid...Brooklyn beaches with Aunt Sharyn...all it took was one glance and I was in stitches as I knew exactly what she was thinking, as the knish man lingered by our blanket...and Aunt Harriet...summers in the sixties at Lake Carmel...and then Montauk...her contagious laugh sailing in the wind...her loving smile in the sun...and I think many times about my great-aunts...my Grandmother Bella's sisters...Ida, Dinah, Irene, Shirley and Martha...and have to shake my head and laugh about my Great-grandfather Sol...six daughters!...the Tevye of a shtetl in Romania...and then Brooklyn...I look inwards for memories...and they are there...crowded seders...family weddings and bar mitzvahs...but it is my Friday night memories of the seventies that crest to the top...over the Verrazano back to Brooklyn...cramming into my grandparent's kitchen...impromptu Shabbos...coffee and homemade cookies and loud, loud talking...my Great-aunt Ida lived in that same apartment building so you never knew which cousins would be there...when I think of those Fridays...I always think of my Great-aunt Martha...the youngest of those six sisters, who passed away yesterday, just a few weeks shy of 92...my memories are of an independent, loving woman...single, when marriage was expected...a great conversationalist...and listener...talking with me about books and movies and whatever I wanted...I cherished those moments when I really got to know Martha...and my large extended family...a family that is now spread out across this country...as so many families are...we keep track of each other on Facebook...and now even Zoom...we do not see each other for years...but still kvell at the good news...and cry at the bad...and it really gave me pause to realize that dear Martha was the last of those Blitman girls to be with us...and with her passing a generation goes too...and so I wish that our dear Martha's memory be for a blessing...amen

It's a cruel, cruel summer...

so here we are...the hot days of July...four months since NY shut down in the battle against covid...and the latest report for NYC...zero deaths...amazing...incredible...don't get too excited...I mean smile for a minute...with a mask if you're outside...because I keep remembering the scene towards the end of "The Perfect Storm"...(spoiler alert)...you know the scene where Mark Wahlberg and George Clooney are all excited...they think they've steered the shitty fishing boat out of the storm...and then that big ass Poseidon Adventure sized wave looms ahead...that's how I've been feeling lately...as our country plays whack-a-mole with covid...cases down in one state...up in another...then up, up, up...I seriously wonder if we, as a nation, have the stamina and fortitude for this war...think back to what generations before us endured during World War II...think about Anne Frank...761 days in that attic...people these days can't go 761 minutes without a frappuccino...rational thinking subverted by conspiracy theories and the blame game...gaslighting, the deluxe edition...so bottoms up...breathe that ocean air safely while you can...enjoy that iced coffee under a park tree...catch up 12 feet apart outside under a tangerine sunset...then, how does the expression go?...pull up the big girl (or boy) pants...and settle in for the next battle...we can do it...just ask Rosie the Riveter...

I wish...

the day before Lauren's birthday...and, as every parent does, I reflect on what I wish for her...there is no need to look at today's news...I know this is not the world I wish for her...but before those of us wax nostalgic...us tail-end boomers born as the fifties traded poodle skirts for bell bottoms...let's not get all choked up over better times of our youth...the sixties...assassination nation...Medgar Evers...John F. Kennedy...Malcom X...Martin Luther King Jr....Robert Kennedy...and Vietnam tossed in for good measure...and civil rights?...black men and white men side by side...floating in the Mekong...the seventies...well they were ushered in with Kent State...but Lauren's generation...Columbine...911...a Middle East war with no end...Sandy Hook...and now...a pandemic...civil unrest demanding change that never seems to come...and a recession...or perhaps worse...this past New Year's Eve...when everyone dressed like flappers to usher the "Roaring Twenties"...they should have cracked a history book...and would have seen a decade that began with the Spanish Flu...and ended with the crash of 1929...maybe not the best theme in retrospect...what I wish...change that creates stronger community...elevation and admiration of our scientists...an economy that benefits and encourages all...respect and tender treatment of this earth we've been entrusted to...and, yes...like Miss America...world peace...but mostly what I wish is that this virus is eradicated...so I can see a beautiful array of smiles in the streets...in the sun...and most especially...our children smiling at us...

waiting to exhale

there is this point...this tipping point...where your brain cannot absorb anymore...this world already leaving your heart broken...you enter a state of inertia...you go through whatever routine you have been left with...or moved back to...you wake up...you get dressed...and you blink, are back in bed...repeat...it is almost summer solstice...the long days of late spring and early summer are upon on us...and the maddening news of the nation is a drum beat constant and steady under the drone of your heartbeat...but there are moments...like during a walk last week...when the delicious aroma of a fresh mowed lawn crept under my cotton mask...and I remembered so far back...working in the city in the summer...walking home from the bus stop on Richmond Avenue...hot and sticky...and the sprinklers on pristine square lawns gently waved hello to me...calling to me with each sweaty step...until I slipped off my heels...and walked across a random lawn...baptized in the cool spray and pungent smell of the earth...and all was right...as I take baby steps into the new normal...a work in constant revision and uncertainty...exhaling my fear into flowered cotton...I'll be thinking of the simple joys...watching a blazing summer sun sink into a starry sapphire sky...

burn, baby, burn...

I am not an American person of color...I will not, and really cannot, claim to know your anger if you are reading this...I do know of religious hatred...and have been at the receiving end of antisemitism...but I can hide my Jewish identity behind my married last name that is most often thought of as Italian, instead of Russian origin...as I could hide behind my maiden name...one created by my father and uncle in their early adulthood...hoping to blend in like Hellman's mayonnaise into the white, Christian fifties...but I know from the history of my people...with every fiber of my being...that I can be a High Holy Day Jew...or daily observant...or one who walks away from it all...and it would not matter...as when my ancestors were lined up outside trains bound for crematoriums...2020...our country is burning...and crumbling under the weight of collective amnesia...here we are again...this time protestors are masked...crawling out of covid confinement...the anguish palpable...the situation flowing coast to coast...like lighter fluid...and I don't have any answers...I thought we had reached the bottom of the 2020 rabbit hole when I saw the food lines in Corona...and a mile away...this is not a rabbit hole...it's an abyss...a visual indictment of why our fellow Americans of color cannot escape the grip of institutionalized poverty and incarceration...but mostly it comes down to this...that every day when a black man walks the street...there's that invisible target on his back...it's a bullseye born of hatred and fear...passed down from generation to generation...Rest in Peace, George Floyd...

Broadway baby...

another night of restless sleep...and when I am blessed with deep sleep, I am also tormented with dreams...that I mostly cannot remember, but leave me tired and dragging all day...not that it really matters in New York...the Covid epicenter...but after another night of crazed dreaming, one thought did stay with me...how the three Broadway shows I had tickets for this year...one that I just barely got in two weeks before the "pause", one that now is pushed to the fall, and one, well, who knows these days...it's the titles...the subject matter that brilliantly mirror where we were...where we are...and where we might wind up..."Jagged Little Pill" this past March...now, weren't those news conferences...statistics...and unfortunately, for some, those phone calls painful to swallow?...and much as in the thematic content of that musical, this quarantine is somewhat a time of reevaluation and contemplation...maybe confront the demons or reconstruct the path...then there was "Company"...April, now October...or maybe not...isn't that the driving force behind much of the breakdown of social distancing?...we are not generally "built" to be solitary creatures...we want company...in person company...and much as in the musical's penultimate song, "Being Alive"...that is what we crave to feel...and finally, "The Music Man"...November, if I'm lucky...wouldn't so of the many weary and frightened welcome a Harold Hill and his promises of music and joy...only this time, maybe not a trombone, but a cure...a magic wand that renders that past few months a fading memory...but this is not a Broadway show...and pandemics don't wrap up neatly in a bow in 2 hours and 45 minutes...so remember as summer beckons, and brain fog sets in...remember to avoid those "Promises, Promises"...cause quick cures are often created in "La Cage Aux Folles"...avoid gatherings where "Anything Goes"...cause if you don't you'll just be another "American Idiot"...

Sunday in the park with masks...

or not...yesterday we ventured out to Eisenhower Park for a walk...parked the car, slapped on the masks and headed out...now, I know as we have been told at least a billion contradictory ways to deal with covid, you might think...more than 6 feet out for a walk...why the mask?...the neon sign flashed as we entered the park only minutes earlier..."wear a mask"...and here's why...do you really think after so many people have been cooped up for so long...especially after the atrocious weather in April...that we were the only ones with that idea?...and after observing the multitudes of people all over the park...do you think everyone could manage the 6 feet at all times?...or that the larger groups of people were from the same household?...all the people who were maskless...they didn't even have one with them to pop on if needed...and they didn't give a shit...you know who gives a shit?...those poor health care professionals who have been at the frontline since February...to add insult to injury, there were demonstrations throughout this country for the past several days demanding that their respective cities open up...in Commack as well...again, no masks, no social distancing...crying that they need their hair done...judging by the pictures...dye ain't gonna help...but you know what, I say fine...if you feel your personal freedom is greater than someone else's health then go ahead...but you forfeit treatment should you come down with covid...I say a database of those who feel that they cannot comply anymore...or that the media is making it all up...that it's just like flu...grab your fifty rolls of Charmin when you can't breathe...just don't expect a weary nurse to meet you at the ER door...

the hundred years war...

it's day 4 billion in quarantine...I exaggerate, but you all get it...yesterday Governor Cuomo extended our pause until May 15th...if you are from Long Island you should recognize this constant end-date revision...it is like driving home on the LIE...5pm...any Friday...in the summer..."Delays Exits 13-21"..."Delays Exits 22-35"..."Delays Exits 36-45"...I'm gonna shoot myself Exits 46-62...at least at the end of LIE torture you get some drinks at a bar and ocean breezes with breakfast...here you get homemade hand sanitizer and a mask that keeps popping off one ear as some stranger walks within that 6 feet in a empty-shelf supermarket...and for extra pleasure as we sit captive at home...we can watch those of dubious IQ protesting shoulder to shoulder in states far away...no masks...no gloves...demanding an end to this pause...some calling it a hoax...or worse...angrily doubting Fauci and the CDC...and any other scientific approach to stemming the spread...and as the Governor of Michigan sadly stated...spreading infection further with these protests...ensuring longer quarantines at home...we have now entered the real danger zone with dealing with this pandemic...we have food being dumped and lines of people waiting for food...we have small businesses being shut out of loans so desperately needed...and airlines who were given exorbitant bailouts signaling layoffs (United)...which begs...where the fuck is oversight...leadership...I keep looking for it when I look through my fingers covering my eyes when our President talks each evening...and then eviscerates those asking the tough questions...and then I have to turn it all off...and I'm dreaming of that beautiful, tremendous, terrific ocean at that end of a long road...sitting here foot on the brake...waiting to hit the gas...

"april is the cruelest month..."

Oh, T.S. Eliot, if only you knew...the trees are budding, and flowers gently awakening from a winter that wasn't...soon the grass will be lush and green...tulips opening to the sun...but we won't...we will briskly walk past them...if we can...peering above our homemade mask lines...plodding onward...afraid to really breathe deep...and we will be the lucky ones if we do...I have come to my own conclusion based on whatever brain cells I have left in this 59-year-old brain...a few weeks away from 60 and entering an age group of dubious risk...I conclude that no one knows what the hell they are talking about...as I mused about before we entered our initial lockdown, as it were, in my blog about life during war time, and the Talking Heads...and talking heads...we truly are at war...but without weapons...and with an invisible enemy...how quaint it was when our enemy was only terrorism...when our enemy were angry factions of starving nations who hated our excess...when life was stripping in airports...adjusting to code orange or red or whatever the fuck they called it that week...now we occasionally find solace in a governor who was hated weeks ago for a half-assed policy that left New York City streets brimming with crime...and now the streets are afloat with viral remnants...we look for hope in a little doctor's messages...he looks like that nice uncle that gave you a dollar at the seder...we crave hope...directions...levity...light...and then bury ourselves in distractions...hoarding...binging Netflix without chill...in need of that old school religion, we suffer without the benefit of dedicated clergy...they look at us with compassion through computer screens...our ears denied the solace of choir and community prayer...where does that leave us all as so many enter this holy week...I truly do not know...should we be anointing doorways with blood to protect us from plague?...and the irony...it's National Poetry Month...and with each new poem I read or write...I find myself returning to Eliot's "The Waste Land"...April is the cruelest month...

Love in the Time of Covid-19...

as we move in slow motion through a new normal...or abnormal...I am flooded with thoughts...things I want to write...poetry I'd like to create...but it is quickly consumed by the barrage of news seeping in at all times...life as we now know it has in a sense become a series of book titles...catch-22...the sound and the fury...brave new world...the plague...oh, no...sounds like a pitch for another lame network show...Seinfeld!...am I Jerry or George?...but the book titles...it was that moment last week as we descended into the rabbit hole that I thought of this book title...is covid our cholera?...and will my mind and these fingers ever reach the genius of Gabriel Garcia Marquez?...I think not...after all, I did submit my latest poem to Rattle's weekly Poets Respond contest...and they didn't respond...so it's back to the keyboard...trying to give voice...and words...to all the feelings these harsh days..the fear...the anger...the love...and the hope struggling deep within...today is Stephen Sondheim's 90th birthday...I'm looking at the tickets on my desk for the revival of "Company"...end of April...and the reality with each new statistic is that those tickets are toast...but I came across this Sondheim quote today..."art, in itself, is an attempt to bring order out of chaos"...yes it is...as I keep writing in the time of covid-19...

Life during wartime...

there is nothing more obsolete than a post about the coronavirus...covid 19...what we know is ever-changing...what we are told by talking heads (all irony intended...pay attention to this title) sounds like a 4-year-old telling a joke...no beginning, no end...just a bloated middle and no punch line...today I looked at twitter to torture myself...to see what form of panic is trending...and idiocy...so today's term was boomer remover...yes, the latest generation...gen z...laughingly tweets that boomers have destroyed everything and covid 19 is karma...they are tweeting this on $1000 cell phones that mommy bought who may be a boomer herself...eyeroll please...hey, miss gen z...I too rallied at a generation before me...the silent generation and its patriarchy...I rolled my eyes...and when I felt no one valued me and my world was crumbling below my feet....I blasted the angst of Janis Ian...who was the Alanis Morissette before the Billie Eilish...originality is an overrated term...but I digress...generational finger pointing aside...this is what I do know...it is morally wrong to hide your head in the sand and be cavalier about this disease...it is pummeling Italy as I write...as it did in China...don't be misled and have some false sense of security because your youth lets you check a different age box on a doctor's form than me...or those one generation up...and in your fear don't deny anyone their need to pray to their god in this troubled time...or also not to pray...please admit that maybe it's more than time to revere brilliant scientific minds again...from all corners of the globe...and in all languages...because make no mistake...however we get to the other side of this...there will be another virus looming in the distance...how we decide to move forward globally on the other side of covid 19 will have enormous ramifications...for all generations...especially those yet to come...this ain't no party...this ain't no disco...this ain't no fooling around...

the search for signs of intelligent life in the universe...

well, I've watched the 3 millionth Democratic debate...and I'll break it down for you...in one corner there are three grumpy old men fighting about pinochle...then there's their retired school teacher mediating...in another is the 8th grade debate team champion getting his ear pulled by the wannabe cool mom...oh, and in between is another billionaire asking everyone to sing kumbaya...of course, if red is your color...you get "caronavirus" "covfefe" and Pence...I keep picturing a Covid 19 breakthrough...the female scientist rushes into Pence's office...he can't be alone with her...omg...we are so fucked...there's no more eloquent way to describe it...we are polarized...plagued...and still in shitty movie season...serenity now!...there was a false report a few days ago...it said that 38% of Americans would not drink a Corona anymore...out of fear they would contract the virus...the saddest thing was it sounded plausible...we do not read anymore...we do not value great minds...or the beauty in intelligent debate...we do not value those who teach our children...we live by our phones...we worship at the fountain of celebrity...readily forgive the indiscretions of celebrities over our family and friends...faith is a charlatan shilling on Sunday morning television not the priest looking at empty pews...and it leaves me looking at the stars...wondering about parallel universes and about signs of intelligent life in the deep velvet night sky...praying for deep pause in fractured times...

heart smart

there are three days of the year when one should avoid restaurants at all cost...New Year's Eve...overbooked...that table next to you over inebriated...food...overcooked...Mother's Day...have you been to a diner on that Sunday morning?...there are probably more vasectomies scheduled that following week in May than the whole year...and yep...Valentine's Day...but there we were last night..with our 8:30 reservation at a local restaurant we hadn't been to in many years...as you New Yorkers know...it has not been much of a winter yet...(kind of dreading March thinking it will be a shit show)...but just in time for that day of hearts...well, the temperature matched the calendar...so we opened the door to the restaurant quickly to get out of the cold...and my heart dropped...so many people jammed around the teeny bar...we checked in and the hostess said..."it would be a little while"...I looked around and thought I would be collecting Social Security before our table would be ready...but it was 8:30 on Valentine's...so this was it...even with all that body heat...every time the front door opened for more people to jam into this place we were hit with that arctic blast..."would you like to check your coats?"...hell no!...the restaurant hired a singer/keyboard player for the evening...she wasn't bad...taking requests for couples' wedding songs as I played the game "don't get hit in the head with the drink tray"...after a few songs I began to realize what this felt like...it was "The Fabulous Baker Boys"...now, if this singer was Jeff Bridges circa 1988, I would have been a happy camper...or if she were Michelle Pfeiffer circa any year...ditto for Mike...by some miracle the hostess called our name only a few minutes past 8:30...we were unceremoniously seated at our table as the hostess turned her back to us and disappeared in the crowd...I ordered a drink...the staff was working so hard...the waiter was pleasant...and dinner not bad...the pinot softened hearing "Lady in Red"...again...dessert was sublime...and then it was late and time to bundle and head home...another Valentine's dinner done...I sighed...wonder what they'll have on the menu Mother's Day?

the parable of parallel parking

last week while leaving my Tuesday writers group, I joked with a friend about parallel parking...on Long Island we can joke about it...there aren't that many occasions out here, in strip mall heaven, to break out that oft dreaded driving test skill...or lack thereof...not like the years I lived in Queens...when you could spend the better part of your existence trying to fit a relatively normal sized car into a space suited for a Barbie jeep...all the while being honked and nearly side-swiped...and many people don't see it as a challenge...and just aggressively "love tap" the crap out of the cars bookending that sacred space...the rest of us...well, we keep circling...and circling...praying for that space...you know the one...it's really two and you pull right in... and you're done...and when I thought about it...parallel parking is kind of like life...those who take the challenges life can throw at us...and face them head on...and those that avoid them...pausing...thinking...maybe over thinking...those that need to "circle" and muster the skill and confidence...and then face the music...i keep thinking about most of us...we're just packing the roads...driving on fumes...passing those hard spaces...never hitting curbs...never failing...maybe never really living...now, I know you're probably talking back to this blog...yes, new car technology really can do almost everything for us...even park that damned car...and new advances in all other technology can practically take care of the rest...if you want to live life in grey...but maybe it's time to face that teeny space...hit the crap out of the curb till you get it right...take the spot not taken...you never know where it could lead you...