upon waiting for the 1 train.

there's a cool breeze teasing the edge of my miniskirt as i wait on the above-ground train platform- a treasured rarity in the depths of summer in the city.
i can see across the harlem river from here.
there is a small peak of rolling green hills amid the high rises which, seduced by the momentary fresh air, reminds me of italy.
which reminds me that my passport has just expired. damn.

but, i can't bear to sink below that film of disappointment. so i brush it aside, closing my eyes and turning my face into the beating sun.

here and now i will relish living in a destination city, even if the language is my own and the gleam has long faded and my dreams sit dusty in plastic storage crates under my one-side mussed bed.

the sky is bright blue. the color richer through my fancy sunglasses, a deeply perfect robin's egg.
it is surprisingly quiet for a 9am work day. the truck grumblings muffled somehow. a siren does a quick crescendo, but just as quick fade out, leaving only the light chatter that beats below the city, a heartbeat that never stutters.

there is no train in sight. unsurprisingly. i'm going to be late. the mismanagement of public transit is just another truth to be swallowed down on a pretty day.
but it does mean the tracks extend unblemished into the distance, curving enticingly away.

how many pictures of roads from all over the world are scattered in my life?

each curving forward. a promise, as all roads are, of paths ahead and paths behind.

what is the magic of the familiar?

kentaro hiramatsu "park II"

what is it that makes your body recognize a place, a person, a moment?


it's that illusive something that hits you when you turn down the street you grew up and your body says, yes. i know this place. no matter how the houses around my parents' homes have changed, i still get this feeling as i pass what used to be the "green store" katrina and i used to buy penny candy at. i still get it as i crest the pine tree covered hill on 751 just as pinecrest comes into view. 


but the strange thing, is that bodily recognition of something brand new. sometimes it is a feeling of deja vu--that you have, in fact, experienced the moment, the person before, perhaps in another life.  but it is often something simpler--or more complicated--than a "weird" feeling because it's just not weird at all.

take a place. for me, when i walk into a truck stop, the rows of kitsch plastic gifts, disposable snacks, the occasional shower rooms. i know these things. i know the smell of recycled AC with a hint of motor fumes.  i can anticipate the blase disdain of the attendant when i hand over my lone diet coke for purchase. what does this say about me that one of "my places" is a truck stop? i'd like to think that it does not point to my inborn hickness, but my propensity to long road trips my whole life.

it's the same thing with airports and that reaches all over the world. every airport i have ever been in gives me that same sense of knowing. from skimming over the highway to RDU to the lights leading into Cairo, i've yet to be surprised by an airport. true, the little outpost in africa from which we took a tiny 3-seater plane was different-- i don't remember it having any electricity, after all. but it still maintained that airport "feeling."  there is something about the area around any airport, the roads that lead into them, the people who make their living off them, the stores or food places inside that just feels the same, no matter the race, the religion, the language, even the city size...


then there are people. people are, of course, a-whole-nother story. they change, they toy with you, they create strife without even meaning to just by their very transient existence.  the only thing that stays exactly the same, in that way a place can, is your memory of a person in a particular moment.


and yet, you can have that moment of "knowing" with a person. when a stranger catches your eye as you both chuckle at something only you both have seen and find funny. when a long lost friend spews out a turn of phrase you haven't heard in years, but the simple words evoke a pandora's box of shared stories. 

when you kiss someone and you are surprised to think "yes, this is how they should taste." even if you have never touched them before.


it is pleasing, this recognition. a mundane chemical reaction in our synapses, but maybe a bit of magic too.

she used to be a classy lady. and then she met me.

in her mother's dress. beautiful.

so the question i've been asking myself since The Wedding is: is blacking out the gods way of giving you a free pass?

yeah, yeah. i know your answer to that one. however, this time (not that i make a habit of this sort of thing) it kinda feels like it was. a little gift from above, saying, you made it here, it's done, you can let go.

i mean, really. i am a damn fine imbiber. i enjoy a cold beer. love a cocktail on the beach. i lust over a perfect bloody mary. i dream of sweating Kilimanjaros in the African twilight. while i don't often go crazy, i have had my share of wild nights all over the world.  so why, on this occasion, with barely 4 drinks over an 8 hour period did i manage to lose an entire evening?

well, let's just say there was a heck of a lot of stress on this wonderful televised weekend.  some i brought with me-- though the "gay hell" :) of my dear friend's first fashion show all night before was not one of those stresses and is a story for another time.-- most i walked into disembarking at LAX.

there are too many awful stories to tell, somehow squashed into 72hr period. and some are not my stories to share. the main lesson though, is tv producers have only one priority and it won't be yours.

the "real" wedding ceremony was beautiful. almost the complete opposite of the wonderful event i last attended. a complete, honest to goodness orthodox ceremony, full of pomp and circumstance.

from the ornate church, to the greek cantor singing, and the careful attention to procedure, my biggest concern was not being struck down for all my wickedness.

not that it was free from the TLC debacle touch. there was a moment of impending catastrophe when one of the TLC photogs  started to cross into the inner alter sanctum that literally no one but the priest is allowed to enter or fear the wrath. i hesitated a moment too long for maria's parents' sanity, for fear of crossing the magical line myself, before reaching in and pulling him to safety.

we had some time after the church ceremony to reach and prepare for the second course. i maybe should have taken a nap in the limo. having pulled an all-nighter, then a very late night with the rehearsal dinner and catching up with long missed UI lovies, a very early morning with the stylists, not to mention jet-lag, a nap--even in my bridesmaid dress--might have helped in the whole let's-remember-this-evening plan.

ah well. hindsight.

instead we took the limo to the cali favorite In & Out. i had half a milk-shake. again, smart? no.

the second location for the day was a mansion high up in the hollywood hills. the guests had a large open lawn to mill around while waiting -endlessly- for the ceremony. the cliff side pool served as the open air alter. guest rooms made for bridal party respite and the wide courtyard made for bar, dinner, and dancing.

on television, i'm told, it looked like a dream. i haven't yet seen it myself.  my outlook on the place, what little i remember, is marred by the series of disasters, from stupid scripted mess-ups, to down right life endangering f*ck ups.

guests hike the mountain after 2nd bus breaks down

it probably would have helped if someone on that production crew had realized prior to the actual event that the mansion was in a cell-phone dead zone and that the crews' walkie-talkies would only work within a few feet range.  maybe some of the mess could have been easily resolved before it affected the rest of the evening.

the "party bus" waits patiently for the firemen to fix things above

but that is seemingly a lot to ask for from TLC. for some of the guests, including our wonderful UI family, the mistakes just added to a fabulous story. but maria and jeff repeatedly begged the crew to get things under control.

i often write here about memory and the creation of reality.

what is more important? what is more true?

is a list of "facts" more real than what we remember? and when the memory fades, polished by time, is that true? if we agree that what we remember to be real is more important than bare fact --"Maria Pallas wed Jeff Dyll on May 8th, 2010"--whose memory wins?

is it lisa's, who brought a calm touchstone in the midst of girly hysteria all weekend? is it mimi's, who overran incompetent caterers from poisoning the bride's family? maybe brent's, whose full bottle of maker's mark was an empty bottle before the over delayed tv ceremony even began?

i hope it is not my fellow bridesmaids', whose drama erupted, melting everything in its path.  surely maria and jeff's parents get some say, though they might not want the paramedics or panic attacks marked for all time.

the "happy" couple's memories should get most weight. and there are lovely pictures of the stunning bride and handsome groom to help cement those memories. though, as my best friend, i would wish away the heartbreak, the frustration, the sobs from maria's truth.

of course my own plays like reel-to-reel, where the projectionist has lost the second case.

not so TLC's "reality." it has been captured, cut, and recombined. it has been smoothed to a glistening 47 minutes of dreamy perfection. where a couple's "wish" to have fantasy only hollywood can provide is maybe the only thing that was really delivered. a fantasy.

twenty years from now, which will remain?

as long as no one shares a certain tape, my guardian something-or-other decided my reality never needs to include a certain speech.

classy ladies always cry.

classier ladies save each other.

salvador dalí, only in new york

the museum of the city of new york has an exhibition currently showing called "only in new york" based on photographs from the LOOK magazine archives. as usual, the archival images of new york are really compelling. what is it about this city that holds people's fascination?

living in new york is not easy-at least not for everyone. for me it is hard as hell. despite all my education, training, experience in multiple fields, i struggle to make ends meet, working several part time jobs in order to live out the desire of achieving my dreams. yet with the stress is the high ups of pleasure, entertainment, culture at your fingertips like a drug.  sometimes it feels new york embodies the ultimate schizophrenic, bipolar personality. something that, admittedly, flirts with my own artistic self.

life between the boroughs is literally crossing borders of culture and language. the economic classes, despite living on top of one another in the 22 square miles of manhattan, subsist in alternate realities. money changes not just your daily schedule but your entire relationship with the city. but even within your own reality life is in constant flux here. ups and downs, light and dark, sunlit days and megawatt nights, subway tunnels and grand ballrooms, high art and xxx porn, bikram yoga and hangovers.

it is surreal.

one of my good friends from the past is in town. whenever i am confronted with the reality of life outside of new york against my own day to day hyperbole, i see a bit of the edges of our bubble ny life.

i appreciated the jolt of salvador dali this morning. i have always had a fondness for dali, picked up as a self possessed teenager with limited drawing skills, but a ridiculous imagination. some how he captures the edge of reason with an air of both impending mortality and hysterical giggle. today, i feel that struggle not only in my own work as an actress, but in my aesthetic of life.

and on that note, a few dali quotes for the day:

I am painting pictures which make me die for joy, I am creating with an absolute naturalness, without the slightest aesthetic concern, I am making things that inspire me with a profound emotion and I am trying to paint them honestly.

The difference between false memories and true ones is the same as for jewels: it is always the false ones that look the most real, the most brilliant.

The desire to survive and the fear of death are artistic sentiments. 

facebook, friends, and growing young

what did we ever do before facebook? (i mean other than call each other, write letters, and have coffee)

it always surprises me when someone is getting married, having babies, and sadly even divorced. especially when i think of that person as i remember them- lounging in the cool coffee shop, scrunched in a hot school bus, slip-and-slidin' down my lawn...

yet another of my good friends is having a baby, i've just discovered, and it makes me miss crowding in her car along with too many others. afternoons spent at her house. even the "abs of steel" we did for a few months. it's hard to wrap my brain around.

so my introspection for the day: before the quasi-closeness of technology, did people suffer this conflict of past and present? i imagine one kept in touch and thus your perception of a person changed as life changed for both. or, you didn't. and they were relegated into anecdotes and memories and maybe old journals.

don't get me wrong-- i like the technological updates and sometimes it really does help you reestablish someone you shouldn't have lost. it's especially helpful for someone like me who is absolutely terrible on the phone. but i'm also a self indulgent wack job.

a couple of friends have recently been plagued with ex-partners and friends suddenly showing up back in their lives. live, in person. but me, i find myself half expecting a 15 year old to walk in the door.

then again, maybe it's not such a terrible thing. maybe it's nice to have these other versions of ourselves walking around, fresh in someone's head. i may be different than i was 8 years ago, even 3 years ago, but knowing that for some old friends, that's the me they carry around--well i guess i like that. maybe the versions of you that follow me around will help me remember the versions of me.

no i have not been drinking this morning. kisses.