The Geographic Cure

The "Four Corners" of the American West exemplifies the idea that we are tied to our native lands by much more than a superficial connection, because any tourist who's been there can tell you that the biggest distinguishing feature to the monument is the same dusty red dirt on all four sides. Where does one state begin and the other end? Without a marker, you might not ever know.

That's not to say that it doesn't mean something to the people who live there. I hiked Harriman Park one summer several times with my dad, and for me, it became a lesson in identifying the landscape: first were the sticker bushes at the beginning of the trail, a small hillside with a dead deer slowly decaying, then a stand of pines above a waterfall, next to a rock quarry. By memorizing it, I was able to find my way in and out of the mountain, day or night. Those woods became home to me.

Most borderlines are like that, too: clearly defined by mountain chains, big lakes, or an entire ocean, just as I know that my eczema is worse in the warmer weather of New York because I'm missing the cold water seafood of Nova Scotia. And no, I can't pop a couple of pills or pile on expensive (and probably toxic) prescription-only lotions, gels, and salves. My body IS the land that I come from, so closely is our health reliant on this connection.

Armed with knowledge and experience, I avoided most of the pitfalls that accompany people who move around frequently. I didn't (and don't) pretend that a different view or country will cure or improve the human condition, as much as I can accurately recognize what a real home is, what "home" means to me, and when it isn't that, unlike many of my friends and peers who feel that changing locales is like going to a fun, new, costume party every single night of the week.

At its worst? An old college classmate of mine who was a typical Middle American cheerleader from Minnesota, then a fashion designer all about clothes and arty trends, and then a burnt-out Californian in her 30s and 40s just looking to "mellow out and chase waves", when she'd once been afraid of swimming alone in the Atlantic Ocean without her native Northeastern friends by her side in the water. Of course, besides the outfit changes lies her serious case of manic-depression that's incurable, which is the real "final frontier" for us, as human beings: the inner-space of our minds, filled as they may be with the broken dreams of what might've been. It's time to come home.

The Land of "The Happy People"

Like my infamous composure and great passions, my happiness is deep and profound. You would think that's a blessing, until you meet the opposite of contentment in the form of a depressed psychotic who hates you for, uh, being "pretty". Yeah, that's it! All of my life, my ability to "right" myself like a boat that was in danger of capsizing has been noticed, studied from a distance, and just as often, despised. Having a healthy brain is a very difficult thing to describe to someone afflicted with many serious ailments, so as a result, I simply took on more work than humanly possible to make up for the difference in abilities present in myself that are so lacking in the people around me. 

During the first work week I had at yet another job with a workflow that was rife with incompetence, I was met with derision, nasty quips, and prolonged looks of anger thrown in my general direction, because unlike fictional movies and t.v. shows, the heroine of every drama is the often the least liked person in the room. "How are you doing all this?!", an incredulous publisher asked me in front of some douchebag production manager who was drowning in his own anger that'd been set to a slow simmer for many years. I hoisted up a company coffee cup in salute "With this," and then I deconstructed the next problem that was mine to solve for them through art, design, and production.

Genius is fun from afar, but not when you're always the only person in the room with all the answers, with real solutions that don't offer shelter to the mad and hopelessly addicted, because it exposes them overmuch in their shoddy thinking. Most people I worked for absolutely hated their jobs, but they felt that they needed money for healthcare and housing, which, in this century, is being reclassified as "Disability". Really, they didn't need money for much. These were not the kinds of people who can actually enjoy traveling, or really good music, or excellent gourmet food, because they simply do not have the type of brains to appreciate such things in life, which makes the concept of "upward mobility" a bit of a joke for them, unfortunately.

It was like the exact opposite of the old saying, except it was beer tastes on a champagne budget, and this was publishing, a supposedly "highbrow" endeavor for the wealthy WASPy trust fund set, made of those less inclined to strike Wall Street gold. And then I showed up. It was the same as anywhere else, for me. Sigh...yeah, I know. I don't fit in here. Right? Right! But, then, why are you so happy? You mean besides the brilliant and beautiful thing? Uh, not much, I guess! What to say? You work for me, even though it's not  "supposed" to be that way because of (pick one): age, sex, status, looks, etc. There was always a reason for my oppression at the hands of the less gifted.

In a fascinating twist, the most literary people on the planet never figured out "why", when it had been published to such great acclaim so long ago, so perhaps it's time for a reprint. I'm happy because it is a part of who I am, blessed to be alive on G-ds Green Earth, and the receiver of His Greatest Gifts. That's why. How's Monday working out for you, office grunts of the world? I'll bet it's just as bad as all the other weeks you've ever had, and I'm not there to blame, which is too bad. The right to pursue happiness is every American's right in this world we live in. Avail yourself of it. Live well, like we do. Bonjour, Acadies!

Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie (1847)

• Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie Part the First - I
• Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie Part the First - II
• Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie Part the First - III

In the Acadian land, on the shores of the Basin of Minas,
Distant, secluded, still, the little village of Grand-Pré
Lay in the fruitful valley.  Vast meadows stretched to the
eastward,
Giving the village its name, and pasture to flocks without
number.
Dikes, that the hands of the farmers had raised with labor
incessant,
Shut out the turbulent tides; but at stated seasons the
flood-gates
Opened, and welcomed the sea to wander at will o'er the meadows.
West and south there were fields of flax, and orchards and
cornfields
Spreading afar and unfenced o'er the plain; and away to the
northward
Blomidon rose, and the forests old, and aloft on the mountains
Sea-fogs pitched their tents, and mists from the mighty Atlantic
Looked on the happy valley, but ne'er from their station
Descended.
There, in the midst of its farms, reposed the Acadian village.
Strongly built were the houses, with frames of oak and of
hemlock,
Such as the peasants of Normandy built in the reign of the
Henries.
Thatched were the roofs, with dormer-windows; and gables
projecting
Over the basement below protected and shaded the doorway.
There in the tranquil evenings of summer, when brightly the
sunset
Lighted the village street, and gilded the vanes on the chimneys,
Matrons and maidens sat in snow-white caps and in kirtles
Scarlet and blue and green, with distaffs spinning the golden
Flax for the gossiping looms, whose noisy shuttles within doors
Mingled their sound with the whir of the wheels and the songs of
the maidens.
Solemnly down the street came the parish priest, and the children
Paused in their play to kiss the hand he extended to bless them.
Reverend walked he among them; and up rose matrons and maidens,
Hailing his slow approach with words of affectionate welcome.
Then came the laborers home from the field, and serenely the sun
sank
Down to his rest, and twilight prevailed.  Anon from the belfry
Softly the Angelus sounded, and over the roofs of the village
Columns of pale blue smoke, like clouds of incense ascending,
Rose from a hundred hearths, the homes of peace and contentment.
Thus dwelt together in love these simple Acadian farmers,--
Dwelt in the love of God and of man.  Alike were they free from
Fear, that reigns with the tyrant, and envy, the vice of
republics.
Neither locks had they to their doors, nor bars to their windows;
But their dwellings were open as day and the hearts of their
owners;
There the richest was poor, and the poorest lived in abundance.
Somewhat apart from the village, and nearer the Basin of Minas,
Benedict Bellefontaine, the wealthiest farmer of Grand-Pré,
Dwelt on his goodly acres; and with him, directing his household,
Gentle Evangeline lived, his child, and the pride of the village.
Stalworth and stately in form was the man of seventy winters;
Hearty and hale was he, an oak that is covered with snow-flakes;
White as the snow were his locks, and his cheeks as brown as the
oak-leaves.
Fair was she to behold, that maiden of seventeen summers.
Black were her eyes as the berry that grows on the thorn by the
wayside,
Black, yet how softly they gleamed beneath the brown shade of her
tresses!
Sweet was her breath as the breath of kine that feed in the
meadows.
When in the harvest heat she bore to the reapers at noontide
Flagons of home-brewed ale, ah! fair in sooth was the maiden.
Fairer was she when, on Sunday morn, while the bell from its
turret
Sprinkled with holy sounds the air, as the priest with his hyssop
Sprinkles the congregation, and scatters blessings upon them,
Down the long street she passed, with her chaplet of beads and
her missal,
Wearing her Norman cap and her kirtle of blue, and the ear-rings,
Brought in the olden time from France, and since, as an heirloom,
Handed down from mother to child, through long generations.
But a celestial brightness--a more ethereal beauty--
Shone on her face and encircled her form, when, after confession,
Homeward serenely she walked with God's benediction upon her.
When she had passed, it seemed like the ceasing of exquisite
music.

Curfew

During the heyday of social media, I grudgingly opened a series of accounts online to reserve spots with my name on them, for sometime in the future when I had more time to devote to it, at the urging of a young acquisitions editor at the small Jewish publishing firm I worked for back then. Why not? It was summer hours, and I was already exploring commenting on websites and posting photography through this site you are now reading. I didn't know what to do with "social" media, but like any other social endeavor, most of it involves family grudges, drunk bitches posting crazy shit online with their ounce of "Dutch courage", some cyber-stalking, and good old-fashioned dating.

Like I've written before, it's a lot like "life" itself, because I've often said that social engagements online are like those first few introductions you make at a cocktail party: you want to be polite, make socially acceptable small talk, and avoid taboo topics like sex, religion, and politics. Of course, after several drinks in, the gloves come off conversationally-speaking (whether in person or online), as those partners somewhat engaged with you on social media conveniently forget that media is my world, and every time you hit the "post" button or "publish" tab, you are in my world, and this is where I rule.

But, that doesn't stop people from trying to pretend that they are on the cusp of a brave new world with no rules, like our initial explorations with the Internet as highly savvy media designers working in the famous Flatiron building of Manhattan on a DOS screen. Wow...sexy. Before more intuitive interfaces were built for the layperson, we used technology like that as a lark to our main business of making books, the benefits of which you reap today by reading my content for free. 

Back then, we were just tossing digital bottles into a large, dark, empty ocean that was devoid of the normal human warmth you might find meeting people in the flesh, like whether that dick hanging around the studio with his designer girlfriend really did meet some "hot chick" online, or it was just some balding older dude fucking with him, because it looked like this:

As I explored my online options with this new world of "online media" that now included nice things that are easy to understand, like pictures and photos with captions, I found the usual human suspects, including: that guy from high school who always wanted to date you but was too scared to ask you out, and his friend-of-a-friend who wants to meet you because you look "hot" in your profile pic, and your drunk redneck bitch of a cousin who not-so-secretly hates you for being prettier and more talented than her and her arty husband (whatever that means). Shit like that. Really common, easy stuff. And it did work. I briefly dated a guy I knew since junior high school days, a guy who knew an old co-worker of mine from my first job at SMP, and a former boss of mine from Denver, now back east again and dating as a rather new divorcee. Same type of stuff.

On the more professionally-geared social site, I met up with a few alumni looking to network and expand their projects through a less dating-themed kind of way that was too casual for their business worlds, which is also an obvious part of my life, too. And so, after a few casual emails traded on this corporate social site, I met up with an older alum who had his own small architecture firm on Long Island. We met at a casual burger-and-beer joint downtown when he told me upfront that he was married. Ah...good! He was balding and pleasant, but definitely not the type of guy I date. No pressure, then. We can just hang out and talk.

We got along well, as two RISD alumni working in the city as professionals, and he assured me that his wife would have no problem with our new acquaintance, because he often mentored younger alumni and attended alumni-based functions in the city socially on his own. Wonderful! I love clarity like that in conversations, especially with our very small pool of incredibly gifted working artists. Save us a lot of time to have that kind of speed, intellectually-speaking. Easy to understand, and easy to follow. Let's drink! You know? You don't want weird shit hanging over your head when you just want to relax and enjoy after-work drinks with a colleague.

After that first meeting, he invited me to an art book signing in "The Village" at an arty retail bookstore that catered to more rarefied artist books and large coffee-table editions with expensive photographic reproductions. In short, I knew I was walking into "Art Fag Central" upfront, but to what exact extent, I did not know, and that was part of the fun for my new alumni friend. He laughingly told me as we walked over there that we were going to meet a couple of mental patients he knew, through a young woman he met at another type of signing that was geared towards sexual content and explicit nudity. Okay...this, on the walk over there. 

Oh, and also, you should know, that at this book-signing will be the "artist" herself, promoting her new book of stupid photos about her dumb adventures as an S&M-themed cougar with severe emotional problems. Ah...so, fucking with me on a RISD-sized scale. Kudos! It wasn't exactly a heart-pounding request to build a DaVinci flying machine during studio class with only paper clips and rubber bands and a 1/2 hour time limit, but it was solid enough as an outing with rather extreme social tensions built directly into it. At first we did normal things, like tour the two-level store looking at weirdo books made about weirdo things, with overly-wrought covers that had weirdo thingamabobs stuck onto them, like a bad crafts project that retails for $400. So, basically, crazy rich white man shit. Got it.

We went back upstairs for the obligatory white wine and cheese course of the evening, served by suitably arty-looking waiters and waitresses, with the requisite "hipster" retail sales staff on-hand, in case you suddenly got the urge to buy an ugly book about an ugly woman who wants to have sex practically in your face for money. Like, a hooker. You know, just your average Wednesday night after-work kind of thing. And to make it even more awkward, she stood in front of the long table set up with a display of her horrible book dressed in a hooker outfit, with a really bad feather boa around her shoulders. Her hungry eyes that searched the room desperately for a social connection freaked me right the fuck out, but after a few drinks, "Fee" finally worked up the nerve to buy her book, ask her to sign it, and then engage her in conversation dressed like your grandmother in a Halloween outfit for a crazy "Times Square" hooker from the 70s that I could barely look at. Ugh...

So, I actually turned back to the two outpatients my friend had introduced me to when they first arrived at the book-signing, and that's social life in the city on any given night, folks: the "artist" at the opening was wayyy weirder than the two mental patients on curfew I was talking to. You see, dear readers, in addition to their mandatory check-in at their housing facility for the insane, they also had (of course) a keen, shiny-eyed interest in weirdo sex that more often included beatings over any actual human contact. The small Asian girl thought she could talk me into it, and at the point, I was like, what the fuck? I'm already here. Sure, weirdo! I gave her my cellphone number so she could send me outrageous text messages that I could show people, because at that point, I was already close to changing numbers from the harassing texts that every ex-boyfriend or male mate I'd ever been with had already sent me.

And that's it. That's our grand future that involves you, your mental disorder, and society. We will provide you with supported housing that has mandatory check-in times with the on-site staff that includes social workers and professional healthcare aides, medical charts with your medication times (because you totally forget that, girl), and key-card access while you recover and rehabilitate from your serious illness(es). With or without the feather boa(s). That's optional, folks. And what a beautiful world it will be. Healthcare and healing, guided by the same two people you love you the best: me, and Your Loving Holy Father. Amen to you, on this perfect late Spring day, New Yorkers. We've earned it. Really.

https://www.omh.ny.gov/omhweb/facilities/rppc/

Killer

Fake food makers and sellers are the new pharmaceutical companies, and "Big Pharma" was the beast that replaced the tobacco industry. It's disconcerting for lobbyists and other middle men, because if they can't skim off the top, who will feed them?! 

And that's the problem with stealing the flame from your neighbor's hearth: it robs everyone else in the tribe of life-giving warmth and protective light, forcing us back into the cold dark befitting scavengers who prey off the good that a torch-bearer brings, which means this in"Newspeak"*: evil does not change garb often, because it can't. 

http://www.medicaldaily.com/pulse/soft-drink-dangers-8-ways-soda-negatively-affects-your-health-319054#

Bad people are not as good as us because they never have been, and they never will be. Oh sure, one can conjure up a false sympathy for the devil and his agents, but at the end of every day's light lurks a demon of the night seeking to benefit from creeping around the edges of a real society's earnest efforts. 

Let's not allow them to win in this century, eh? Time for the Dawn of a New Age. Let's begin this age of enlightenment today and every day afterward, until we get what we need.

http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/html/living/cdp_pan_pop.shtml 

http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/html/living/sugarydrink-media.shtml 

http://www.medicaldaily.com/bye-bye-sugary-drinks-what-happens-your-body-when-you-stop-drinking-soda-326034

 

*Newspeak is the fictional language in the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, written by George Orwell. It is a controlled language created by the totalitarian state Oceania as a tool to limit freedom of thought, and concepts that pose a threat to the regime such as freedom, self-expression, individuality, and peace.

Wholesomeness

http://grimm.wikia.com/wiki/Hexenbiest

It's been remarked to me more than once than I have an air of fresh, good clean health about me, and that's mostly true. Oh, I do have the occasional smoke or alcohol overindulgence when I'm in the mood for party time excellence, but nowadays it's rarer and rarer, because I'd rather produce work in service to you. I am, however, an actual native New York kid, so there ain't much I don't know about, or have not done in the past, or know someone who does it, whether it's illicit or not. 

How do I stay "phresh"**?! I eat real food, a$$hole!

But my healthy appearance does sometimes trick the rather foolish, naive, and unsophisticated suburbanite or out-of-towner (and they are legion in this area) into believing they somehow have the upper hand, because I'm not some triflin' petty piece of sh#t who sweats over what people may "feel" about me (or anyone and anything else), which always amuses me: it's like a truck-sized hole in their persona that this city-traffic driver navigates like she was born to it, because I am. You read that one of my grandparents was a Medallion-owning cabbie, right? Yeah, so like that, kid.

This is called "healthy". It's a box of USDA organic cereal. Hard to do!!

Anyway, I'm also not "all hagged out"; a phrase my Scottish/British ex whose family emigrated to Colorado back in the day coined out of sheer necessity, so that he could accurately describe the low-minded office bitches who prey on union guys like him for ca$h, like some desperate throwback to "Mad Man" days in the city that required the master/servant, boss/secretary dynamic to earn a high salary. 
That is also not me. 

More "weird" stuff like grass-fed milk that's also organic. So strange...

He also called them "Office Cows", for their near-constant bitching about food in the common kitchen area that they graze on throughout the day, because your homemade cookies make them "fat", like it's everyone else's fucking problem that some Long Island yenta* blows her also near-constant diet (greatly assisted by tanning salons, hair extensions, and Boca Ration vacations) to properly maintain said upper hand. You know exactly what I mean because you've been there, and that's New York, too.

More "weirdo" stuff, like ancient Asian foods with ginger to sooth tummies.

So, there I was as an Art Director thrown into the mix, with no makeup on, no weirdo diet, nor overly expensive clothes (Pay retail? In Manhattan? Are you insane?! What turnip truck did you fall off of? This girl goes to "Sample Sales" with her size 6 ass, yo.), or having a total "raging bitch off her meds" attitude, which makes me seem like the glowing healthy town AND country kid I am. I am healthy, it does show, and I'm asked about it so often, I wrote the book on it for you to read. 

Just do what I friggin' tell you to do: SPF applied almost every day (and yes, you do need some sunlight for vitamins. Some, hexen-hag), no anorexia, or "tanorexia", or "drunkorexic" behavior in an office environment, take your prescribed meds, dress appropriately, groom yourself well, eat a decent, well-balanced diet of fresh food that's readily available, get regular exercise, be a decent human being to other humans (in AND out of human form, hexen), and failing all of that? Get the fuck out of my city, town, and/or state. Better yet, get the fuck out of my country, you insane asshole. There, now. Doesn't that feel better?


*   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yenta
** http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Phresh

Midget Ponies and Pet Therapy Dogs

My last pony sighting was way back in 2011, and here was my caption of said pony on Facebook: "Midget Pony!!! Should have been front and center. (March 23, 2011)." Notice the tiara, though, because she's a special, magical pony. That's the right attitude to have when showcasing the pony as therapy.

You all know by now about my fondness for the "wee pony", because I actively stump for their return to our town parade every year (see more about my annual complaints here: http://mariedoucette.blogspot.com/2015/02/old-houses-in-snow.html), and each time I have been denied my request. Why? Where have all the ponies gone?! 

As it turns out, they've been quite busy as a stable indeed. I sat up straight from my futon the other evening, when the local news flashed a story across the screen about "Magic" (I know, I know!), the magical pony that travels around, making wheelchair-bound Grandma's and hospital-sick kids alike happy with his fancy brand of happiness.

And it is very fancy: just like Pet Therapy dogs, the grooming requirements for healthcare visits are quite strict, as is the behavior for animals that visit the sick and infirm. We can't have any bad episodes! The select few animals trained and groomed to visit our sick have to be better than everyone around them, including the humans they tend to.

How do I know? Can't you guess by now, kids? I seriously thought about training my very own "Ted" as a therapy dog, after he successfully completed his first obedience course with my dog trainer friend in Brooklyn. Of course, I didn't have the time to floss Ted's teeth, or the money too pay someone else to do that for me, but he had the perfect temperament for therapy work, because more than a few humans told me he was exactly like me. Ted was me as a dog!! 

And so it is that I also find other famously healing animals with wonderful human parents, like Sir Harvard Dangerfield of Boston (a wildly famous Samoyed, just like my little girl "Snowflake" was!), Odin the Underfoot Mal (sensitive, highly emotive, and always lurking beneath Mommy's feet for food scraps, just like TeddyBear did), Lil' Bub the Cat, and so many others that are too many to mention here. You definitely need to be on social media more! There's a lot of good, fun stuff going on. Here's an introductory primer course in "coolness":

http://www.horse-therapy.org/

http://www.harvarddangerfield.com/ 

http://lilbub.com/

http://www.buzzfeed.com/alix/the-most-popular-dog-on-instagram#.mel1a2jJyK

Go forth and heal, my friends, knowing that I support you fully and completely, for all time. Happy Memorial Day weekend!

Mr. Squirrel

"Hi! I'm Mr. Squirrel!"  Hello to you, squirrel!

Last week I had an intense, cheerful, and also deeply meaningful experience with the small squirrel that lives in a spectacular tree on the front lawn of "National Frat Boy Headquarters", which is across the street from the big yellow Dutch farmhouse where I currently reside. 

As I watched him comfortably groom his cutely small body parts high above my head (where he's smartly safe and sound), I thought it a great sign that squirrels are living and thriving in direct community with a group that's well-known for hazing, poor drinking habits, and other life-hindering skills like independent thought, because at the end of any given day, my new friend "Mr. Squirrel" does way more for the planet than those shaky, flabby rich kids will ever do, with much less harmful results. Boo! at you: http://genius.com/De-la-soul-tread-water-lyrics* (* https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=allegory).

A big "thumbs up" goes out today to all the happily productive squirrels in the 'hood: http://mariedoucette.blogspot.com/2015/02/nut-job.html. 

I'm your "Number One Fan" for life (!), as well as:  

• wily woodchucks with cheeks full of young grass shoots 
   http://mariedoucette.blogspot.com/2015/04/woodchuck-lives.html, 

• young bear cubs wrestling unmolested on their Bear Mountain
   http://www.lohud.com/story/news/local/rockland/ramapo/2015/04/22/ramapo-police-bear-video/26176665/, 

• wild city coyotes on the move for game 
  http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/coyotes-deserve-warmer-wildlife-biologist-article-1.2199378, 

and all of the thriving, healthy bird life throughout the tri-state are also always happily included.

A highly alert and intelligent life form does his thing undisturbed. Yes!

It's all connected, peeps. 

Get with it, and get in step with the universe! 

Kids Books

Oh, "Peter Rabbit"! I loved this one, and it's Easter, too! Cute bun-buns.

My first love has always been children's books. Do you know John Roberts' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts_%28actor%29) "Mitty Moo" character, or his "Mom voice" from Bob's Burgers? No?! Well, if you're from New York, you should get in on that, because once you have the accent down pat, imagine any story being read to you with that kind of voice when you were a kid. I know, I know! 
It's outrageous, funny, and weird, which is the ultimate good fable.

Such bad squirrels! Jumping up and down on the trains' seats...

I love going back to my bookcase to look through my books. It's like a room full of warm, loving friends who had awesome, interesting experiences and the gift to tell it to you in the most entertaining fashion. It's the best feeling ever, so even though I have a crazy dysfunctional "New Yawk" family, I also have the steadying influence of a thousand rich voices to guide me along the way. As an artist, I know I'm never really alone, especially when I was a small lil Acadian girl trying to make her way on her own.

Hey! I marked this book as my own as a girl. Cool!

 
The greatest gift you can give children is a lifetime love of books and reading, for those times when the people around them fail (and they will), they will have what they need inside them to make it through. Because, dear readers, that's exactly what I did.

 See you soon between the stacks.

I learned my "ABC's and 1,2,3's" with these books.

Another bunny rabbit! What a strange Easter coincidence...

...and I'm still counting crows, too....hmmm.

Yay! A birthday cake! Ooo, the number "8". That's fun to draw...

...and I read each one cover to cover, many times over. See?

Cybercrime

Much hype and paranoid thought is devoted to "Cybercrime", a word right out of bad sci-fi, if ever there was. Truth be told, shoplifting (http://wordhistories.com/2014/08/16/shoplifting/) is as old as the hills, as any ole descendant of a penal colony will tell you....or maybe not. Crime is crime, and criminals exist within any strata of society because evil, pathology, and bad DNA (much like cancer) does not discriminate.

I do have discriminating tastes however, and the two incidences of theft against me that occurred in my life were way before the common usage of computers. The one happened while I was in school and working solo (One of three part-time jobs I had while enrolled at the Rhode Island School of Design. Yes, one of the hardest schools on the planet, I know.) at a pizza joint in Providence, Rhode Island, and the second involved a shopping spree in Virginia (caught by the card's red flag system for atypical purchases) because the thief dumpster-dived for old credit card receipts in Brooklyn which led me (through the credit card rep's sage advice to me over an old-fashioned land line rotary phone) to a lifelong habit of shredding old mail that has personal information printed on it.

In other words, crime exists everywhere people are, and some places where they are not. You can hedge your bets by being smart, careful, and level-headed as I am, by using common sense. Here's a quick primer: #1) DO NOT go jogging in Central Park after dark and/or at night, (no matter what century it is), #2) always have your back against a brace when the train comes into the station, as a guard against psychos who push people onto tracks and #3) dancers on the subway are cool to give money to but #4 (and this is an add-on bonus) buying candy in a subway car is a front for drugs because junkies use their kids to collect change by ripping off bodegas on the street for the candy, and then forcing their homeless kid to shake down white tourists on the train for some change. You're welcome!

Same thing with the Internet. No, you are not interesting (nor is your email, or Facebook page, or etc...) but you do want to keep your wits about you. Treat online content and engagements like you are meeting someone for the first time at a cocktail party. Do you tell them about all your surgeries or the nasty details of your perhaps fictional sex life? Hell, no...unless you're as crazy as the person talking to you.

Be careful out there, kids. Life can be one heck of a dangerous wild ride, so wash your hands often (but don't become OCD about microscopic germs), change your underwear, too (but don't get hooked on laundry as a cure-all for anxiety like some desperate suburban housewife), and most importantly, be kind (if you can) to those around you who deserve it the most.

And register with credit agencies like the ones pictured below that I am holding. Add on a security level or two (called "security freezes" and "fraud alerts") et voila! You may now buy from an online retailer, which is safer than talking to a human over the phone who might write down your information, because (and this is very important) a computer is a machine with no agenda that is only as good (or as bad) as the human who programmed it. Now get back out there and live!

Register with one, you register with all. Safety should always be this easy!

http://www.equifax.com/home/en_us 
http://www.experian.com
http://www.transunion.com/

P.S. - Recent emigres please note: the IRS does not, repeat DOES NOT collect taxes over the phone. They use our federal agency for mail called the "United States Postal Service" for official business (unless you're a criminal), because post offices use legal things like dates and time-stamps for verification purposes. Postal workers are also agents for the government. You should be able to trust them (unless they're having a really bad day, and look like they may go "postal". See link here for our lingo: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=go+postal.) Then, call 911 for help.

“Quiching!”

The perfect hot, bubbly, cracking crust of a quiche.

The grocery store had an amazing special on eggs last week: a full 18 pack with no broken eggs for $1.88 that I couldn't pass up. Would you? Could any halfway decent chef with half a brain walk away from a bargain like that, right in the middle of a really harsh winter? No, and  "%uck no!" So, I did what any respectable artist would do, by brainstorming meal ideas, first at my mom's house with her old feminist cookbook about hating cooking, which she urged on me along with her old taped-together-as-a-binding green cookbook with horribly outdated ideas. Of course, I already knew exactly what newspaper clipping I was looking for in her recipe box, because I remembered it as the essence of simplicity in a recipe, and here it is:

A humble, simply perfect quiche recipe.

Since my days currently revolve around simple as a life concept, I knew right away that this recipe was the basic standby I recalled from my childhood, because it seems like something my grandfather would make. Norman people are not typically fussy, overblown drama queens, nor are our shared recipes.

I gilded the lily (just like you would with any basic template) by adding mushrooms, onions, and good cheddar cheese, poured into an also-simple, easy pie crust from a box that just needed water added to it, with as few ingredients as you can make a pre-made, powdered concoction to be.

The perfectly flaky pie crust that crumbles into layers....from a box!

The result was perfection, and it occurred to me as I sat, stood, bent over, and alternately stooped achingly over a stainless steel bowl of egg whites, that I had just made my quiche into a sport, so athletic are cooking exertions without the messy clutter of stupid gadgets that don't ever work as well as one healthy, talented human being. 
Behold, human! I have made "Quiching" into a sport, and it is good.

I ate three pieces of quiche after it came out of the oven.

Like Water for Chocolate

http://barkthins.com/

I had a really weird day this week. During the morning, I saw the most beautiful movie I've ever seen (http://vimeo.com/38263988), and then I went food shopping in an insanely large grocery store. It was like a lesson in opposites from "Up High": this great, perfect beauty followed by lots of bad sh#t in triplicate lining every friggin' grocery shelf. 

I sought some comfort because I felt lonely away from my Brothers in Christ shown in the movie, and I'm also forever in mourning for my grandparents, people who shared a deep abiding faith in The Lord, and all the earthly delights as they happen everyday in nature (life philosophies and a real happiness that is rare). And so I went looking for them in the guise of my grandmother's recipe: a basic dessert (or so I thought) made of chocolate cake, whipped cream, and a jar of peaches preserved in a simple syrup, something we've enjoyed during wintertime when foods run scarce for many a year throughout the ages.

It was so hard, I thought I was going to cry. I couldn't find chocolate cake without reading an ingredients list that read like something written out by a mad scientist for some crazy project that never gets off the ground, and then I couldn't find real heavy cream without cancer-causing ingredients in them like Carrageenan and High Fructose Horseshit. I found a brand of preserved fruits in glass a few months back, so I put those peaches and pears in syrup in my basket, which made me feel slightly better (pear juice is a natural throat soother that elicits helpful, productive coughing: thanks to Dr. S in  Park Slope ;) But, I was starting to feel nauseous from the store's overheating with too many layers of clothes on, and lots of morbidly obese sick people with their bad energy and overloaded carts...it was too much.

What could I have for dessert? My time window was running out. Aha! How about chocolate? How bad can someone fuck that up? But...someone had. Package after package that I turned over to read listed high fructose this, and corn syrup that. No "cocoa" or "sugar" or "milk" or "cream". I felt like a monk, or my grandparents transported into the future, when everything is rotten and sick, like a "Soylent Green" fantasy gone wrong, until there it was; BarkThins. I turned it over, and there it was, too: the language that we speak to each other, in words easily understood, like childhood lessons we learned about good over evil, on a simple foodstuff package; words like "non-GMO" and "Free Trade Certified". The ingredients were the same type of words, too: real cocoa, and actual sugar cane. Yes! Score!! 

Later on, when I got home, munching on chocolate so good that it tasted like food I hadn't eaten in years; good, wholesome, rich, delicious chocolate, I looked at the package at little bit closer. 
And there it was, in black text on a light background, the name and address of the chocolatier in a town five minutes from the place my grandparents lived for many years, just a mere ten minute drive from the home in New City I grew up in Rockland County, New York. Thanks, Grandma and Grandpa. It was just what needed, exactly when I needed it, and that's just the type of love they always gave me: the really good stuff, of the kind that sustains you by lasting and being there whenever you need it, wherever you go.

Amen to you, on this winter day in 2015, from your beloved granddaughter who will always cherish, adore, and miss you. 
I honor you daily by not squandering the gifts you so lovingly gave 
to me, the first of which is this great lesson that so very many 
people miss: knowing the good from the bad. Amen.

Goodness, right here at home.

The Harvest Pumpkin

 

This happy hardy little gourd made it all the way to Thanksgiving from the first few weeks of October. I bought it at the store from a cardboard box filled to the brim with them, carefully selecting it from among the other gourds by taking my time, looking for just the right size and shape to complement my little doorway. The big box itself was a cheerful visualization of the harvest season, and I found myself brightening up every time I came home to it, which is just the way I planned it: that is the essence behind seasonal decorations.

I finally picked it up this weekend to throw it away, because it had gone soft and mushy from the inside out. The stem popped off as I picked it up, and the round little pumpkin quickly rolled away from me and off the porch, bouncing down each of the four front steps to the old yellow house, landing on the sidewalk. I felt like it was running its' last, final steps to freedom, and I took it as a sign that it's beautiful but brief life had indeed come to an end. What an adventure! 

And it was right on time.