Today is my birthday and I am home on the couch, mildly hungover from overindulging at a wonderful party last night. The Fucking Cats are lying beside me, their little chins resting on my lap (a cute trick they learned at Kitty Finishing School) and their bodies are positioned in perfect alignment with a sunbeam. It's been a good day.
Earlier, while browsing at Sephora, I overheard a man with turquoise lipstick telling his co-workers by walkie talkie that the way to feel better when you're having a hard day is to lift your chin, which mysteriously rearranges your molecules and lifts your mood.
"I'm going to try that," I said, my head instinctively lifting. "The other benefit is that it eliminates my double chin."
"It works for that too," he said.
"Have you tried saying 'cheese' when you're sad? It's supposed to release serotonin and make you feel better."
"CHEEEEEESE," he said.
"CHEEEEEEEEEEEEEESE," I said. And then we both laughed.
"Hey, ladies," the man with turquoise lipstick said into his walkie talkie. "I want you all to say 'cheese!'"
A confused chorus of "cheese" sounded across Sephora, followed by peals of laughter.
"See?" I said. "It works." And then he gave me four lip gloss samples and disappeared like a magical turquoise lip gloss fairy.
I am amazed by how easy it is to be happy today, when there have been so many days this past year when I've had to force it or fake it or simply give in to feeling desolate and lost. Since my dad died last February, I've seen sublime happiness come in strange and unlikely forms - a man with turquoise lipstick, the pink pads of a paw, a homemade whisky sour. As Feist would say, I feel it all, I feel it all. My happiness is myopic, but I'm so grateful for it - and for you, sweet readers. I can hardly believe you are still with me, after I have given you so little in return.
These days, I'm focused on the optimistic task of planting bulbs and seeds and clearing out the balcony for spring. There is more winter ahead, but I can still pet my seedlings and dream of a summer filled with dahlias and zinnias and poppies and cosmos. After so much sadness here, I want to share whatever happiness I have with you, and hope it makes you happy, too.
With so much love and gratitude,
P. xoxo
I have a post all written about what's been happening this summer, but the thought of uploading a million pictures to Typepad seems really tiring when the alternative is watching season two of "Call the Midwife."
If I had to summarize, my activities this summer have primarily focused on planning my Weight Watcher's menu around gin and tonics, freebasing Pinkberry and then falling down a shame spiral, sucking in my gut at the beach, flying into a rage over hand-carved ice cubes on Instagram, bathing in what has become Verne's toilet, trying Crest White Strips and being unable to breathe through my mouth for three days straight, trying them again just to make sure, buying cookbooks but ordering in, "gardening," driving a rented Camaro through downeast Maine while listening to Aerosmith, hiding from work on the High Line, revisiting my underage drinking haunts, watching Fauxhawk get skinny so we can "win Good Child points for being an attractive thin couple" but then letting down my end of the bargain, mixing it up with crazy people at CVS, taking candids of the back of Serena Williams's head, discovering secret gardens, standing slackjawed and mute while randomly shaking Chevy Chase's hand, stalking Clive Owen for three blocks in Chelsea, ditto Peter Dinklage, Susan Sarandon and that former Estee Lauder model what's-her-face, and buying obscenely expensive lip gloss that I don't have the balls to wear.
That's the City Mouse edition, friends. It's all glamour over here in Brooklyn Heights.