Tig Tig Come Home

Miss Mint's longtime companion, as well as mine and Mark's, has had an extended stay in Phoenix with Miss Joy... BUT, it is time for the baby to return to us. He will feel I've abandoned him soon, if not already, and Mint pines as well for the rascal. Our family id incomplete! Tell me you'll be home for Christmas, je t'aime, mon ami. Noel!

The Ghost of Christmas Past

As Advent begins and we begin our preparation for Christmas I am deeply depressed, yes, probably as always. Depression is a miserable illness and sometimes I think the only way to meet the challendge of it is to take the risk of talking about it, as I do know.

Advent is supposed to be a deep quiet time of joyful anticipation. It is not in our home. Each year at this time the issue of money comes up with mark and we start arguments about how little the other one loves us and bring up years of injury. It is a heart killing time, and it cause us both such incredible pain. I don't know how to fix the wretched wounds which scars are ransacked with seeming glee by each of us for a little cheap satisfaction at seeing the emotinal blood flow again. Dear, lord, let this year be the end of these battles, end the heartache and the fighting; help me, and help Mark, to see what it was we loved in each other, or give us the steel grace to move onwards towards lives of love apart.

Dearest Christ Child, seek for me the humility and the gentleness and the love that seems swept away once again. Love of myself and love of my dear Mark.

In The Dark

French Rooms at the Metropolitan

Photoshop Play

Gratitude

I am American, and being so have grown up with today, Thanksgiving Day. As a child and teenager it really meant food, wonderful food, which to my family was rare and special. My parents, on a slim margin with four children, did not fund our weekday meals with bounty, though we never were hungry. So, you can imagine the FEAST of a day where food ruled and there was bounty enough to go back to for DAYS. I was truly thankful for the food I felt deprived of the rest of the year - and so in my waistline it showed. I binge ate, sneaked food and otherwise sent my body reeling in and out of shock far into adulthood. It is only, in fact, in the last few years that I have managed to eat normally most of the time. Though give me stress and give me ice cream, and pints of it! The way one starts eating in life is not easily changed! I'm really off track here though, the point of my post today is to say that along with how I eat has changed over these past three years so my reasons for celebrating Thanksgiving have altered dramatically. Today, the twenty-fourth day of November, 2005, I will have a lovely dinner at a small restaurant in New York's Midtown, and the one pumpkin pie attests to the fact we are not food centered today. So, what has changed and why? Six years of the GOP and Mr. Bush shredding our countries honor and dignity, pre-emptive war, a never ending 'war' on terror, (we cannot be eternally at war; terrorism, however horrible, is simply now a fact of life for America now as well as the rest of the world), devestation to thirty years of pro-enviorenment legislation - and most terrifying of all a new Supreme Court which appears set to limit severely our American right to privacy. Our government seems to insist it has a right to be in our beds, whether at home or in hospice and all points in between. The Patriot Act and Homeland Security have slashed and discarded Habeus Corpus and even America citizens must fear reprisal for speaking out against this administartion's actions. Though these Republicans state they are defending America's values they viscerate the Constitution with the religious rights' activism and propose to ammend this sacred document with the first segregation of American citizens from full participation in civil rights, my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters, since the abolition of slavery and equality for our African American citizens. Incredible evil afoot, indeed: far less in Iraq than here at home. Our separation of Church and State at risk as never before, 51% of our population supporting a president who allows torture of our prisoners and attempts to justify such action. A Christian majority which has forgotton Christ's words, relying rather on the Old Testamnet and their pick and choose of its passages to attack selectively those who disagree with them, including our Muslim and Jewish brothers and sisters. I am hardly thankful for any of this today! What am I thankful for today? Well, the possibility of change in our country, God willing, but something more personal. I'm thankful for my lovely daughter, Joy Belin, who has been incredible in her support of her Father and me through these last two years of illness and finacial crisis. Her maturity and love, her lack of complaints and her positive verbal and even financial help are so meaningful to me. I am grateful for my husband, partner and love, Mark, who has been my support and the other part of me for almost eighteen years now. His ability to ride the storms of our many trials, not least of all my depression, and certainly his broken back are inspirations to me and teach me more about honor and faithfulness than anything I've known . I love and thank them both. Lastly, I thank our dear Lord for His blessing of a new chance to rebuild our lives here in New York. It is difficult, I find, to move once again and start over. I am aging and dramatic change holds far less charm and excitement than it often has before, but I am firmly and honestly grateful for this great gift. It is said that man needs love and work. We have both again. Happy Thanksgiving, one and all!

Bacchus

Bacchus Teased by Putti

This new acquisition by the Metropolitan is a splendor of the Baroque in marble.

Detail of Griffins from a parcel gilt console table, Italian, 18th century

Time Waits for...

A fine Louis XVI Lyre Shape Pendulum Clock

A fine Louis XIV Boulle Pendulum Clock

Torso of a Greek Youth

The Met's Antiquities Collection, a beautiful Grecian youth's torso.

Grecian Burial Wreath

Thinnly hand hammered gold leaves and hand made wire, 22k. Bury me in this, please!

New York Metropolitan

Some favorite art objects from the Met's collection

The colors of new York's life are represented here with actual color - far brighter than the scene outside lighting, but representing accurately the interior light.

New York! New York!

Some photographs of New York as I've been seeing the city and its people

Leonidas at the Pass

Sleeping Eros

Midtown East

Well at last a residence - temporary still (it's a furnished monthly) but it has great amenities and will be more than adequate for the time being. Oh, I suppose that sounds ungrateful and in some ways I suppose it is, but it's still suitcase living, without my own furniture, art, sculpture, paints, china, silver, etc. All the components of what a signature style and self expression is about.Mkaing a home. It cannot be home here in a physical sense and it's left me feeling unsettled, ungrounded. Should we change our mail, insurance, health providers? I don't think so. Not yet. We've only just left West Hollywood - HOME - and it's on a' see as we go' basis, month to month, like a nihtmare holiday that has no end.

Mark has his work to distract him from the homeless feeling, and I'm glad for him. He's being productive and he has a purpose. I'm just left in a limbo of 'hanger on' or 'dutiful spouse' without direction, enthusiasim, aspiration or merit. I've been a house husband and parent for so many years; at this age how does one begin again? I guess I'll find out, one way or another. But California is sure looking better and better to me. See the photos - that's my old home; books, design, personal and intimate. Here in new York we've just got an upscale sterile hotel.

Republicans, Machismo & Queer Sports

President Jimmy Carter in a television appearance tonight, touting his book about America's changing values, said that the genuine difference between Republicans and Democrats is not gay marriage or abortion but war. Military might is the basic distinction between the two parties. Democrats believe in the use of diplomacy, and force as a last resort and certainly never a pre-emptive stike against a country which has not threatened us first with an actual attack. The Republicans prefer to and do think of America first and foremost as a military power who will find it's rightful dominance in the world by the use of force, even if it means attacking a country which has not attacked us simply because at some future date they may pose a military thtreat to us. This is the ultimate shift in American values. In the last one hundred years America has been committed to seeking first and foremost a peaceful resolution. If peace is not a possibilty we have chosen to work with allies and friendships to build coalitions rather than act unilaterally. Mr. Bush's presidency has now deliberately pushed us into the camp of conqueror and empire building. This is not an American value.

Mark Morford, the San Francisco Chronicle's columnist has expressed, in a different context, the exact same sentiment. (Link to his article via this post's title) Where are the "Out" male gay athletes? Oh, sure, we now have a lesbian in pro-sports, but that never rocked the boat. Why? Because it already confirms what all those super butch guys already believed... womens' sports are dyke heaven. But a Gay Male Athlete?! Not without the very essence of what American manhood, in other words their fuckin' balls, is threatened with a quick snip. Bush and War and Queer and Athletes. Damn. It always comes back to that great fundamentalist institution, famous in America since the beginning - got it? Christianity? Nah, you're not even close: it's just the Good Ol' Boys Club, alive and well in the White House and on the NFL football field.

Sleeping Endymion

The secret of Eternal Youth and beauty granted, but with the caveat of ne'er awakening to enjoy the accolades, but rather merely objectified as an object for all Eternity; such is the light of Diana, cast upon man in cool and calulating measure for her own pleasure. Better to worship Apollo, the light of day, music and knowledge!