Month: August 2011

Stupid world. The UK, the financial markets. Ugh, ugh, ugh. It’s a “don’t turn on the news” day. By the way, speaking of “it’s a madhouse,” did I mention I loved Rise of the Planet of the Apes? I quite enjoyed it. Movies instead of news, I say!

My friend Chris sent me this stunning, sparkling picture of a butterfly. I imagine she took it in her garden. I woke up and opened my email while drinking my morning coffee and saw this. A very nice way to start the day so I’m passing it on to you.

Every time I go there I love the feel of the Bronx. It’s like half city/half country, although it’s not really very country-like I guess. But it feels that way. Walking back to subway I saw a house for sale. It needs a lot of work, and it’s on a busy street, but it was surrounded by abandoned gardens. The Secret Garden in the middle of the city. This shot was the garden to the right, but there was also greenery in the front and the other side.

I want it. I want to take my computer and coffee out into this garden every morning to work. I’d leave the essential wild feel of it, and maybe just add to it. So, ah, rich people out there handing out money to buy houses, and I know there are a lot of you, please buy this house for me. Thank you in advance.

I’ve decided to give tretinoin a try. Every article I’ve read about the various non-drastic things you can do to look better (younger) say that all the various claims are bullshit except this, and topical vitamin c (and I’m starting to hear more about peptides).

It can take anywhere from two months to six months to a year before you see a difference so I guess don’t expect to hear about results any time soon! My doctor has started me out on the lowest dose—.25%—and we’re going to try that for two months. I’m just getting generic tretinoin and the tube I got cost $26.99. I’d be curious to hear what other people are spending. That doesn’t seem too bad to me.

I’ll report back first in October.

Tomorrow I’m going to call the Wild Bird Fund to see how my bird is doing. I put him here on top of a floor lamp while the landlord guys were fixing the door to the bedroom. If they ask me to take him back while he heals at least I’ll be able to close the door to the cats.

I just went to the best show I’ve seen in a long time, truly mind-blowingly great. It’s called Otherworldly: Optical Delusions and Small Realities and it closes on September 18. Do not miss it. I mean it. Just about every piece sucked me in, I could have spent an hour with each one and I rarely feel like that. But every piece created a world I wanted to spend time in. Or live in. Or own. I made a really short movie of one of the pieces, a zoetrope called Garden of Unearthly Delights by artist Mat Collishaw. When you’re there you don’t see the interruptions you see here in the movie (it’s annoying in the movie, I admit, but again, this doesn’t happen when you’re there).

On my way to the show, walking up Broadway, I passed by truck after truck, each filled with film gear for a tv show. Then out of the blue someone from the show contacted me today. She wanted to check what cold case files look like, to make sure the props are correct.

– I need to write a minimum of a page a day and I haven’t written for the past two days.

– I’m also freaking out about getting my writing done before my doctor’s appointment and here I am blogging about freaking out about not writing instead of writing.

– I have nothing to wear for the 9/11 ten year anniversary and I’m going to need TWO outfits because there’s a barbecue and service at St. Paul’s the day before, and then a service on 9/11 itself.

– Speaking of the barbecue, I’m trying to call all the 9/11 volunteers to invite them and I’m two-thirds done, which isn’t bad, but I’m freaking out about it anyway. Freak-out-age is not rational.

– My hair sucks currently.

– Money. As per usual.

– I need to get Finney back to the vet for another laser treatment and I suck for not doing this already.

This is a picture of the narrowest restaurant I’ve ever seen. I should have gotten a person to stand there to demonstrate how narrow it is. It looks more insane from the front, but I didn’t think a picture from the front would adequately portray the lack of depth.