That Girl

I put this on Facebook recently but I want to also capture it here.

Growing up, I was a huge fan of the TV show "That Girl." Watching this at an early age, the show fueled my desire to be a single, liberated, financially independent, strong woman living and working in Manhattan. And I might add her ability to be a feminist while being fearlessly fashion forward.

 I did move to Manhattan. I am a strong, financially independent, liberated and by circumstance, single woman. I embraced feminism without sacrificing a fashion forward sensibility. I can't thank you enough, Ann Marie.

And by the way, you were right not to marry Donald.

Jungle Fever

I love this song, just discovered even though it was recorded in 1972. And let's be honest. I like any song when it sounds like someone is having sex while the song is being recorded.

Hello, It's Me

It's time to come back.

I posted this photo to persuade you that I have spent the last few months lounging at some generic resort in Palm Springs, tanning myself to leathery proportions, drinking alcoholic frozen beverages and reading copious trash biographies about wastrel celebrities. I'd love to be doing that. But I'm not.

I'm working nonstop, upwards of 60 hours a week. I live in a wonderful suburb in New Jersey but I'm dealing with a 120 year old house that falls apart daily. I live with two dogs who provide me a great deal of love but present challenges themselves. I haven't had a vacation in a year. I am dating a man who is ten years older than me and who wants everything I don't want. I don't love him, but he doesn't seem to understand this despite that fact I have communicated this to him in several languages (including his native dialect of Jersey City). I still deeply miss Fang. He passed away 18 months ago and I feel like a piece of me died when he did. That's an old cliche, but it does feel as if a hunk of my flesh, like a festering wound, has instilled itself in me and it won't heal. I accept a portion of life will never be the same again and i mourn than. I miss that.

I have devoted much of my adult life to work and as my friend Hollabeck once said, "Work will never love you back." No, it won't. But I have to support myself. The politics, drama, Machiavellian nonsense of every job I've ever had at work still exists. Only the geography has changed.

I need an outlet and Facebook won't suffice. I need the gorgeous freedom of this safe place.So I'm coming back. I hope you'll read this and moreso, offer me the advice I clearly need.

White People Problems

Fuggetabouit

Chicken & Waffles Goes Mainstream

We're moving into cupcakes. Here's the recipe:
http://www.thenovicechefblog.com/2011/09/chicken-waffle-cupcakes/

The First of the Milestones

Today is Fang's birthday, the first since he's passed. I wasn't sure how difficult it would be since he personally deplored any fuss around his birthday. The biggest fight we ever had was when I threw him a surprise 40th birthday party at a chic bar in Manhattan in 2002. It went badly and we had a huge public argument about it at Penn Station after the event. At that moment, he made me swear I would never do anything like that again. Against my will and better judgement, I never did. Circumstance saw to that.

Today he would have turned 50. If he were living, I could have gotten loads of grief mileage out of the AARP applications arriving in the mail commemorating this milestone birthday. Instead, I am calling relatives and sharing memories of him, drinking a few glasses of wine and enjoying a series of outright crying jags. I'm just very sad tonight.

Of course if he were here, he would roll his eyes at all this and utter in his sardonic fashion: "Oh, please!" He hated people fussing in any regard. But he'd like knowing how much he was and is loved.

I miss my silly old bear so much.