Sunday Afternoon, March 22

1) As my late friend Hollis used to say, “I’m as jumpy as a virgin at a prison rodeo!” Jumpy almost since I got up; I get like this sometimes when I’m working on a project and assailed by doubt.

1a) But I got through it!

2) My doorbell just rang - most unusual as I wasn’t expecting anyone. With some anxiety in this Time of the Coronavirus, I went to the door and was surprised by my old second-floor neighbors with a tiny orchid plant as a gift! This was their social-distancing-appropriate way of doing some good and also getting out of the house. And don’t worry, we were always six feet apart at least. I felt bad not being able to invite them inside, but one can’t take risks. Still, I was deeply touched that they did this.

3) Last night I had two virtual cocktail gatherings, for which I broke out a bottle of prosecco for Aperol spritzes. Bubbles work against me if I have more than two, so I used the rest of the bottle to poach a piece of salmon for dinner (with an onion and a wee bit of garlic). It made an excellent dinner with steamed spinach and an excellent luncheon over green salad. While I won’t take any prizes for presentation, it was still awfully tasty.

Friday, March 20 - My Coronavirus Day

1) Today I had to leave the house for the first time since Tuesday, to pick up a prescription at the pharmarcy at ye Instytytte. I timed my departure for after rush hour, knowing that there wouldn’t really be much of a rush anyway. I was only the fourth person in my subway car about 9:30, and there weren’t many more as the train got closer to town.

1a) This, of course, on the Ligne d’Orange. The Ligne Rouge was fuller.

2) Medical at ye Instytytte was practically on lockdown. Only two entrances open, and when I got into the proper one, a masked staffer standing there IMMEDIATELY asked me “Are you going to the pharmacy?!” And of course I was, so everything was all right. But they’ve let the world know that walk-in appointments are NOT possible, and they are ready to enforce.

3) The pharmacist was very nice, but looked suspiciously at my cash when she asked “Do you have credit?” To prevent transmission yet another degree, they are almost enforcing payment by credit card, so that no one has to handle cash, even with gloves. Somehow I hadn’t considered that.

3a) I thanked her and said “You all are doing the Lord’s work, staying open for all of us.” “We try, all of us, the doctors and nurses and [Insert All Medical Professions Here],” she replied. And then I shot back my standard response to “I try:” “Well, you remember what Humphrey Bogart said in Casablanca? "‘We all try. YOU succeed.’” And her demeanor flowered. Clearly a new level of response from a patient, and she obviously appreciated it.

4) Ran errands on Centre Street before coming home, especially getting a takeout burrito for lunch at ye Pyrple Cytcysse. I think it was the owner who waited on me at the counter, and we ended up talking about coronavirus coverage in the Times.

5) Now this evening was a nearly non-stop series of conversations, both scheduled and unscheduled. At 5:30, FaceTime cocktails with my best friends. Eventually I had to sign off to begin making dinner, which was actually delayed by a surprise phone call from my old neighbors . . . because the children wanted to find out how I was! Isn’t that sweet?! So we had a nice conversation. And then once dinner was on the stove I FaceTimed another friend on the spur of the moment, inspired by some content on Instygrymme. And then after dinner at 9 PM pre-scheduled after-dinner drinks with another friend, which ended up just being audio because of a microphone fail on my part.

5a) I enjoyed every bit of all this, and I’m sure I will not be alone in this was we continue through this indefinite, possibly eternal period of isolation.

6) This afternoon, and night, have been unseasonably warm, but I just remembered to bring in the white poinsettia from the back porch, where I’d put it this afternoon to get some outdoor exposure. I’ve killed many house plants in my time, but I really love this poinsettia and I want it to last. Certainly its leaves look stronger and firmer than hitherto!

Wednesday, March 18 - Photos of Gramma for her Birthday

March 18 is my Gramma Babe’s birthday. Had she lived she’d be 118 years old. I’ve spent part of this morning scanning a few photos from the sheaves of photos and other documents I took from Mother’s house. So. Many. Photographs.

As a little girl.

With her older siblings Lillian Ophelia (11 years older) and Bob (10 years older).

With her mother, Anna Wondra Houska, and her sister Lillian. I suspect this was around the time Aunt Lil married.

With her mother. Gramma once told me that when she was very little she’d stand at the kitchen door and call out to her mother in the kitchen garden “Mamma, do you love me?” The answer came back “If I didn’t, who would?” I thought that was horrible!

As a young woman, early 1920s. This is the same hairdo in her wedding portraits.

Cities Service office, Minneapolis/St. Paul, 1923. Gramma is sitting on the desk at extreme right.

With Grampa Al, early 1930s.

I never in my life saw Gramma in a bathing suit. This is what she would have called “schnootzy.”

1940s. Tough to tell if it’s before, during, or after the war, but I’m gonna guess after.

With Grampa Al in an antique car, early 1950s.

March 13, 1954. I’m guessing this is Mother’s return home to Louisiana after her three post-college years working in New York. Uncle Bill at left, Grampa Al, Gramma, an unknown man, and Mother.

Christmas 1976 or 1977.

With me in 1980, a studio portrait from Muller’s department store on Ryan Street.

Plague- and Pox-Oriented Reading and Viewing

Years ago a friend who’s interested in the occult introduced me to Roger Corman’s 1964 film The Masque of the Red Death, starring the inevitable (and inevitably campy) Vincent Price. As luck would have it, someone has put it up on le Yewtybbe, so you can experience this garish Technicolor spectacle for free from the comfort and safety of your own home. This is worth seeing just to count how many different colors they can make wax candles out of . . .

I had already whipped out my copy of the Gold Bug and Other Tales of Mystery by Edgar Allan Poe - a childhood gift from my Uncle Tom and Aunt Joan (obviously a good choice - 300 years later I still have it!) - but now I had to reach for the slightly battered, red-bound gold-stamped The Works of Poe from the set of other red-bound gold-stamped books by classic authors published by Black’s back in the day.* In this book is Poe’s original short story, which is short on plot but big on Gothic atmosphere. The movie was based on a second Poe story, too: “Hop-Frog,” about a dwarf court jester bent on revenge.

So, you can read the original short story “Masque of the Red Death” at the Poe Museum’s website here.

And you can read “Hop-Frog” here at Poe Stories.

But my truly favorite pox-related story is “Lady Eleanore’s Mantle**,” the third of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s four “Legends of the Province House” in his Twice-Told Tales. (Read it here online at Hawthorne in Salem.) A monomaniacal beauty comes to live in colonial Boston, bringing with her a marvelously embroidered mantle of white satin. Well whoopsy-doo, Lady Eleanore turns out to be a smallpox carrier; hilarity ensues. This story includes my favorite speech in all Hawthorne:

“O Jervase Helwyse,” said the voice - and as it spoke it contorted itself, struggling to hide its blasted face - “look not now on the woman you once loved! The curse of Heaven hath stricken me, because I would not call man my brother, nor woman sister. I wrapped myself in PRIDE as in a MANTLE, and scorned the sympathies of nature; and therefore has nature made this wretched body the medium of a dreadful sympathy. You are avenged - they are all avenged - Nature is avenged - for I am Eleanore Rochcliffe!”

Something else tangentially appropriate: Lon Chaney’s silent version of Phantom of the Opera from 1929. The Phantom appears as the Red Death at the Opera ball (see gif above).

Otto Preminger’s Forever Amber of 1947 includes some great and gruesome scenes of London during the Black Plague of 1665-1666. Amber (played by Linda Darnell) has just married a jealous, elderly earl, but that doesn’t stop her from leaving her wedding reception to race to London to rescue her true love Baron Bruce Carlton (played by Cornel Wilde) from the horrible black plague. If it’s not one thing it’s another, from bribing a soldier to allow them refuge in an abandoned house to murdering the thieving nurse in self-defense, to lancing Carlton’s plague boil herself. I’m a big fan of the movie, not least for George Sanders as Charles II. Jessica Tandy shows up as Amber’s maid! And my beloved Alma Kruger (now remembered only by me, but who appeared as Rosalind Russell’s aunt by marriage in Craig’s Wife and as the Maria Theresa with Norma Shearer in Marie Antoinette) appears as a wedding guest.

Years ago I tried reading Kathleen Winsor’s blockbuster best selling novel Forever Amber, on which the movie was based. But once it diverged from the plot of the film, I lost interest. You might have better luck. Certainly she found a very genteel way of suggesting that King Charles was doing it doggy-style in the window with his mistress!

Lastly there’s always my beloved Jezebel, the source of Bette Davis’s second Oscar. Yellow fever sweeps through 1852 New Orleans, claiming principled Henry Fonda as a victim. Will Bette scheme sufficiently to keep Hank’s Yankee wife (Margaret Lindsay) from accompanying him to the leper colony?

So that’s quite enough (or is it?) for the moment. Enjoy!

*Maybe two dozen of them, always on our family bookshelves, and it was a source of pride to my father to give them to me years and years ago. In this winter’s purge I got rid of over half of them, to my surprise - but without regret.

**Remember, a mantle goes around your shoulders. A mantel goes around your fireplace. Don’t get them mixed.

Saturday Morning, Pi Day 2020

1) With tales of supermarket chaos and panic buying sizzling in ears, I left the house a bit before 6:30 this morning to shop at ye Ryche Brythyrs at ye Dywntyne Crossynge. So of course I was the first person through the door when the nice man opened it at 7 AM; the only other customer waiting stopped to talk to him.

1a) I chose this supermarket because fewer people live downtown than in, say, Back Bay.

2) While I didn’t quite have the place to myself, shopping was very easy and I found 95% of what was on my list. Mostly I had to dodge employees toting room-sized boxes of foodstuffs on dollies throughout the store to restock.

3) The most notable gap on the shelves was bread, though they still had quite a bit. Peanut butter, crackers. Otherwise the place seemed, to me, stocked as usual.

3a) I wasn’t looking for paper goods, thank goodness!

4) They did have a display of pies out for Pi Day, but I took a pass.

4a) Alas, they didn’t have any green carnations for St. Patrick’s Day!

5) Home by 8 AM! Not a bad 90-minute excursion to start the day. But having slept badly and gotten up at 5 AM, I know I am going to crash this afternoon.

Friday Evening, March 13 - Random &%$@ for National Jewel Day

I started the cocktail hour ten minutes early due to all the coronavirus announcements (mercy, my inbox is fully of coronavirus email messagas) and it is much more pleasant to think of the triviality of National Jewel Day instead. So I’m just going to reel out a lot of random crap for you to sort through.

1) About 25 years ago the Museum of Science held a large exhibition called “Gems!” of, obviously, gemstones. The first half was mostly geology (yawn), but the second half - ahhhhhhhhh! That was all fabulous jewelry! As I rounded a corner of an exhibition case, I suddenly saw in its original case (as I recall), a parure of beautiful amethysts: tiara, necklace, brooches, bracelets, a ring, and quite possibly hair combs. And being me, I gasped aloud “AN AMETHYST PARURE!” The friends with me looked askance, as though they thought I might need medical assistance. So I had to explain helpfully, “It’s the most complete set of jewelry you can own.” Which of course solved everything nicely, and they’ve been looking at me askance ever since.

1a) Also included, the Duchess of Windsor’s stained chalcedony bracelets, decidedly less spectatular, and the world’s largest rhinestone, on loan from the Liberace Museum.

2) This is surely my favorite rendition of the Jewel Song from Faust.

3) I just cannot watch Gaslight but I gather that Charles Boyer is obsessed with jewels. Don’t care how brilliant the performances are, it is just so abusive. Makes me absolutely frantic.

4) The chapter on Dorian Gray’s jewel collection just boggles the imagination.

5) My gramma had a beautiful scarab bracelet (Laura has it now, and wears it, which makes me very happy) of semiprecious stones - jade, tiger eye, etc. We must have learned our colors with that bracelet, because I remember pointing to the purple stone and saying “valendar” for “lavender.”

6) You can just tell in this gif that little Virginia Wiedlin is wearing a replica of the famous Marie Antoinette Diamond Necklace that brought down a monarchy.

Tuesday Evening, March 10

Not that anyone will see this, ‘cause I won’t be linking it on ye Fycebykke, but . . .

1) This week I’m not allowed to read. What?! you ask. Don’t be alarmed; it’s part of the Artist’s Way, and the big requirement for the fourth week is not to read.

2) It hasn’t even been 24 hours and you’d think I’d be growing hair on my palms by this time, but not so. That said, reading is such an important part of my daily life! News, daily devotional, books in the bathroom, books on the nightstand, always taking something to read with me out of the house, etc. etc. etc. What on earth am I going to do?!

3) The answer is write, get in tune with my own words instead of someone else’s. Already today I’ve written a column and half. And I’m cooking. I collated photos of my grandmother’s house into a small photo album. I’m more in my life than otherwise.

4) So if I don’t get back to you for a few days, call me! It’s not forbidden to talk voice to voice.

Tuesday Evening, March 3

1) When I voted this morning, somewhere around 10:30 or so this morning, there was no line at my polling place. Except . . . except for one man in my precinct who was not understanding the poll worker trying to explain to him that he wasn’t on the list even though the woman he came with was. So it was interesting to witness this interaction for the three minutes it took - it seems language was not the only barrier at play - but certainly reinforced for me that one should assume nothing and check on one’s voter status in advance.

2) In the words of the late Greta Garbo, “Aieee teenk Aieee’ve nevaire beeeeen so tyiehd een myeee lyeeeefe.”

3) What I was not expecting was the warmth of the day, practically 60! In all my life I have never been as fond of a house plant as I am of the white poinsettia I got at the supermarket just before Christmas. Silly me, I didn’t realize that they need light much more than water. I kept in the dining room so long it went bald from the bottom up, until there was nothing left but the medium-sized white flowers on top. Now, almost three months later of sunshine in the parlor, small leaves are bursting out all up and down the stems. I put it out on the back porch this afternoon for additional sun.

Monday Night, March 2 - Reactions to all the Crazy Out There

Oh Lordy, where to start?!

1) So, not having watched television regularly since 1987 (PeeWee’s Playhouse, the rebroadcast of Upstairs, Downstairs on PBS sponsored by the Eleanor Naylor Dana Charitable Trust*), I barely have an idea who Chris Matthews is and have never seen his little television program. But now he’s “retiring” early as a result of being an Out-of-Touch Old White Man Who Behaves Badly. You’ve heard me say it often enough, and it’s still true: a lady knows when to leave a party, and Chris Matthews was no lady. But at least he’s leaving now.

1a) Pat Robertson is no lady either, but alas, he owns his own network.

2) As I said yesterday, there are many principled choices for non-Trump voters to make in 2020, and I am not criticizing anyone for the choices they make (unless they are Bloomberg or Gabbard), and I expect the same courtesy in return (unless you’ve chosen Bloomberg or Gabbard, and then I guess I deserve what I get). But I will say, this morning it was dispiriting to have to consider which Angry Old White Man to favor. I keep channeling Suzanne Vale in Postcards from the Edge: “Joan, Lana, or you? These are my options?!”

2a) And that is all I am going to say on the subject.

3) I am not Mr. Science - you knew that - but I have a deep respect for Science and scientists, for Intelligence, for Knowledge - and I’m not going to pooh-pooh it out of hand. The way our government is disrespecting Science and scientists is beyond inexcusable. Action must be taken.

*Thank you, Eleanor Naylor Dana and your eponymous Charitable Trust! I will always be grateful for the act of generosity that brought the Bellamy household into my home during graduate school.

Sunday Night, March 1 - Au Revoir, Mayor Pete

1) Two months ago in New York over lunch, a friend was mourning the end of Cory Booker’s presidential campaign. We both noted that most of the candidates petitioned the party to bend the rules to allow Booker to remain in the debates and, perhaps rather heartlessly, I commented “Well, it’s supposed to narrow down to one candidate!”

1a) Later, mentally, I added “They aren’t running for President as a committee.”

2) Those words come back to me tonight with the breaking news that Mayor Pete is ending his campaign after an undeniably poor showing in South Carolina. Tonight I am extremely sad, but tomorrow somehow I’ll bounce back.

3) There are many principled choices for non-Trump voters to make in this election, so I don’t fault anyone for making the choices they made. The absolutely most important objective is to save Democracy - our Democracy - from the current administration.

3a) But for tonight, I mourn the passing of a gay Christian gentleman who is Younger Than I who really represents everything my parents taught me to be (except for the gay thing - they totally didn’t like that!) and everything good in American life that our current President is not.

BONUS: Cue Scarlett O’Hara in three . . . two . . .

Tuesday Evening, February 25

1) Yes, I’m planning to watch the Democratic candidates debate again tonight. I was thinking about what film to put on in the kitchen (for audio/visual wallpaper). Rather than turn to a political thriller like Advise and Consent or Seven Days in May, I was guided to Zefferelli’s famous (and too-little remembered) Brother Sun, Sister Moon.

2) And what an important reminder it is that Anger, that Outrage, cannot be the only arrow in one’s quiver. Patience, Calm, Perseverance, Humor - how few Angry People appreciate this last! - have justly important places

3) If I had the answer, I wouldn’t have to ask the question, but can’t we calmly and beautifully go about overthrowing the ugliness and Evil made manifest in this world, at a frightening rate, every day? Why is Anger the only tool so many use?

Tuesday Evening, February 18 - Tonight's Tarot: "Brace Yourself, Millicent!"

As most of you know (I think), I’ve been reading tarot cards since early college. Tonight I will confess to despondence over the national news, and anger over some issues surfacing in a project I’m working on. So I turned to the tarot, and was not really consoled. But there are action items for the future. I felt I could share this here (which I don’t usually do).

A couple quick points for tarot novices:

• The tarot is composed or two sets of cards: the minor arcana (on which our playing cards are based) which has four suits that include number and court cards; and the major arcana, 22 picture cards numbered 0 to 21.

• I use the cross and staff layout (see above photo) when I read. Each card has a meaning in its position in the layout, and it’s interepreted one way upright and another reversed (upside-down).

• My trusty copy of Mastering the Tarot by Eden Gray has been a constant resource all these years, and I’ll indicate when I’m quoting from it.

So, off we go. I was asking about the national situation:

FIRST: The upright card at the very center of the cross represents the origin of my question. Underneath that sideways card you can just tell that it’s the Queen of Wands, reversed. This represents someone who is not very nice: “A jealous and revengeful nature that can turn against others quickly. Deceit and infidelity are suggested.” Obviously I think it’s the President.

SECOND: The horizontal card on top of it represents the opposing force to the first card. Here we have the Seven of Wands, which is about the importance of being stalwart and unafraid to defend oneself. “Victory depends upon energy, courage.” In other words, man up, nancyboy!

THIRD: The card at the bottom of the cross represents the past. The Four of Pentacles - just look at that king grasping his riches! - is a card about greed. I think it represents the moment when America placed Greed at the top of the pyramid ahead of Civic Virtue and Christian Compassion: January 20, 2017.

FOURTH: At the far left of the cross, this card represents the waning influence, something that’s on the way out. This makes me sad, because the Queen of Cups is all about kindness, happiness, and gentleness. Also flights of fancy. I don’t like to think of those things disappearing when they are each so important to civilization.

FIFTH: At the top of the cross, this card represents something that might happen in the future. The Wheel of Fortune, reversed, quite literally indicates a turn for the worse! And you thought it couldn’t get worse . . . “Courage is required to meet the new conditions . . .” You see how the need for courage comes up again.

SIXTH: At the right of the cross, this card represents the incoming influence. And here we have a golden ray of hope, the Ace of Cups! Aces always represent beginnings, and Cups (hearts in our playing cards) are the suit of emotions. So here we have the start of something good involving the emotions. “The beginning of all good things, whether it be love, joy, beauty, or health. A new breakthrough in spiritual understanding.” Selfishly I am rather hoping that the latter interpretation will come from a project I’m working on right now.

Now let’s turn to the bottom of the staff and work our way up.

SEVENTH: This card represents our Fears. So it’s no surprise to see the Three of Wands, reversed. This is the card of the entrepreneur, the trader waiting for his ships to come back in. “There is a tendency to scatter one’s energies. Mistakes may be made through carelessness . . . Caution against pride and arrogance.” So, how to counteract this moving forward? Stay focused, check and recheck, and especially (and especially for me), don’t hit send if you’re angry.

EIGHTH: Moving up the staff, this card represents the Opinion of Other People involved in the question. The Five of Pentacles, reversed, picks up on a theme: spiritual understanding. “Revived courage. A new interest in spiritual matters.” What I hope this means is that more Americans who are angered and/or discouraged are deciding how best to engage effectively for the rest of the year.

NINTH: Almost at the top of the staff, this card represents our Hopes. The Nine of Swords, reversed, brings us the message of Scarlett O’Hara: “Tomorrow is another day.” I could stretch this to say that I hope for endurance, but I think it’s telling that the tarot communicated this by reversing one of the most despairing cards in the deck.

LASTLY: At the top of the staff, the Final Outcome, and it sucks. The Five of Wands is all about fighting; just look at those five young men bashing away at each other. Vigorous competition, lawsuits, quarreling - all the bad things. But then, the recurring theme of courage: “Courage and the willingness to fight for one’s right may change things for the better. [emphasis mine]”

So, taking a final review, here’s the takeaways:

• It’s going to get a lot worse, so expect it to get worse. Don’t be surprised; be prepared.

• Cultivate your courage from within. NOW. Don’t wait! Then be prepared to activate it bravely when needed.

• Cultivate your spiritual life more actively in whatever way will lead to the most growth. That is not, by the way, always the most comfortable way.

• There is something good coming that will have a positive influence (remember the Ace of Cups). I don’t think it’s a person, but it may be a happening or a change in the larger consciousness.

And that’s quite enough from me.

Valentine's Day 2020 - Inspirations Only I Would Provide

For Valentine’s Day this year, enjoy (or not - chacun à son goût, dahling) some musical and visual inspirations about love, and nostalgia.

An appropriate visual, above, is Eustache Le Seuer’s Bacchus and Ariadne at the local art house. There are obvious reasons to love this painting (do I really have to tell you?), but I’d call your attention to Ariadne’s lips. Back in the 1970s when it was called Persian Melon my mother wore it as lipstick.

Many former musical obsessions are appropriate for today:

• Jerry Hadley (may he rest in peace) and Frederica von Stade sing “You Are Love” from Show Boat. Fond as I am of Irene Dunne and Allan Jones, Jerry and Frederica bring so much immediacy to the song in this performance.

• Nelson Eddy sings “Auf Wiedersehen” by Sigmund Romberg. The verse - meh - but the chorus almost makes me weep. Helen Traubel also sings it in Romberg biopic Deep in my Heart for dying, poignantly radiant Merle Oberon. (The way Merle says “Anna, please” will just break your heart.)

• Speaking of Merle Oberon, I discovered this only yesterday, the waltz and love theme from 1941’s Lydia in which she starred. God bless Miklós Rózsa, he knew what he was doing!

• Caro Emerald’s “A Night Like This.” I discovered her ten years later than everyone else. So what?

• “Wanting You” sung by basso fabuloso Lawrence Tibbett and Grace Moore. I used to be addicted to the Nelson Eddy/Jeanette MacDonald recording from New Moon, but I just tried to listen to it again, and Nelson is so nasal! Tibbett does not have that problem! And you can just see Grace Moore falling under his spell.

• “One Heavenly Night” sung by Evelyne Laye and John Boles. Years ago the Yewtybbe had a clip of them singing this in a movie, which I loved so much I changed the last lyric to “I’ll overact one long heavenly niiiiiight wiiiiiith youuuuuuu!” But it’s gone now. :-(

• Ava Gardner sings “How Am I to Know” to Marius Goring at the beginning of Pandora and the Flying Dutchman. Daddy introduced me to this movie, and I love it, and especially this song.

• Petula Clark’s “This Is My Song.”

• Richard Tauber’s “My Heart and I” from his operetta Old Chelsea. Pick it up at 01:46, “Everything I would endure for you” and just ride the roller coaster. Just when you think all the angels in the chorus have sounded out, a few hundred more join in. Sure, you’ll laugh - I laugh through my tears every time.

• Moondog’s instrumental for strings and woodwinds “Ode to Venus” was introduced to me by a friend five years or so ago. Whip out your hankies.

I can’t think of a better representation of enduring love than this photo of my parents at their 60th wedding anniversary party in 2015.

And there’s this important message in sculpture.

Seen in Boston a couple years ago on the waterfront.

Because I just discovered it yesterday, I have to return to 1941’s Lydia and Merle’s remembrance of her first ball. “We don’t have ballrooms like that any more,” says one of her former suitors, and she responds “My breath stopped when I went in . . . I’ve seen a great many ballrooms since, very nice ones, but none as wonderful as that one. I entered the room as one enters in a dream, walking on air. Do you remember the graceful way people walked on those mirrorlike floors. Thousands of mirrors on the walls.” Skip of 07:25 and enjoy this dream of a beautiful past.

To conclude, I give you Mary Ellis in Glamorous Night singing the title song as well as “Fold Your Wings.” “Can’t we regain that delight, can’t we kiss and recapture that rapturous, glamorous night?”

Have a glamorous night for yourself tonight, dahlings!

Thursday Morning, February 6

1) This been such a horrible, cataclysmic week: the monumental collapse of the Iowa caucuses, the State of the Union, and the President’s acquittal. I was deeply impressed by the ugliness of social media, especially ye Twyttyr. So I made an impromptu decision yesterday afternoon, sitting in a Cambridge coffee shop, to take a break from word-based social media. I’ll stay active on ye Flyckr and will occasionally poke my nose into ye Yllo, but except for Etiquetteer, will be staying away from ye Fycebykke and ye Twyttyr.

2) And then the loveliest thing happened. Walking through Central Square a signboard in front of the florist read “Come in for a free rose if your name is ROBERT.” So . . . I did! And was given a full-blown Free Spirit rose, a luscious pale peach shading to pink. I felt like Henry Gibson leaving the shop.

3) This morning, parlor coffee and devotional yielded two readings that were helpful to me:

• II Thessalonians 3:1-2: “Finally brethren, pray for us that the word of the Lord may have free course, and be glorified, even as it is with you; and that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men; for all men have not faith.” [emphasis mine]

• Baltasar Gracián’s The Art of Worldly Wisdom, #131: “A gallant spirit. The soul has its fine dress cloths, the spiritual dash and boldness that make the heart look splendid. Not everyone has room for gallantry, for it calls for magnanimity. Its first concern is always to speak well of the enemy, and act even better. It shines most brightly when it has the chance to avenge itself. It does not avoide these situations, but takes advantage of them, turning a potential act of vengeance into an unepxected act of generosity. It is also the best part of governing others, the adornment of politics. It never shows off its triumphs - it affects nothing - and when they are due to merit, it knows how to dissimulate.”

Monday Afternoon, February 3

1) Dream imagery: From a balcony above, I view a grassy square surrounded by 18th-century buildings. Suddenly, the square is filled with people fleeing in the direction away from where I’m standing. They are all dressed in the style of the 18th century, and many are wearing regal red or orange colors. I see more than a few ermine collars and billowing royal robes or trains. I hear myself ask “Was there a coronation or something going on?” From above a pair of bodies, a man’s and a woman’s, locked together stiffly at right angles, fall from the sky to the ground. They’re so stiff they might be mannequins. A woman bends to examine the body of the right-angled woman who fell. I wake up.

1a) It’s worth noting that I’m reading A Perfect Red: Empire, Espionage, and the Quest for the Color of Desire, by Amy Butler Greenfield, which might be the cause of all those red and orange clothes. Certainly right now I’m lusting for a bolt of orange silk damask!

2) After an inexcusably lazy morning - I didn’t get out of bed except for coffee until after 11 AM! - I’m now scheduling, planning, and organizing. Feels good.

3) As Lieutenant Guild said in the novel The Thin Man, “See, I want people to talk to.”

Saturday Morning, February 1

1) The end of January bulges with anniversaries for me: the anniversary of my coming out (1989), of my first day of work at ye Instytte (1990), of the start of Etiquetteer* (2001). And because February invariably comes at the end of January, this year I can include for the first time the February 1 death of my mother (2019).

1a) How did I observe all these milestones this year? The first not at all, beyond daily gratitude for being able to live openly and safely. Original Boss and I celebrated our 30th anniversary over an elegant luncheon just off campus (it took all my willpower not to eat my dessert and his while he was away from the table), after which I actually had to drop off a couple things at the old office. For Etiquetteer I cobbled together a hasty Top Ten list (and have already had a thoughtful reader response to it on how to interact with the bereaved).

2) In the year since Mother died, so much has changed. My daily life evolves since I left ye Instytytte six months ago, and I struggle to establish and maintain a routine that is productive. One of Mother’s close friends died a few weeks ago. The Methodist Church is dividing into two distinct congregations. And we all know what’s happening on the national scene.

2a) What has not changed is that I continue to miss Mother every day. I’m not crippled by this, but it’s present.

3) I’ve mentioned before that, impulsively, I took Mother’s Bible when we were clearing out the house last March, and I am so very glad that I decided to do that. This morning, despairing over the national situation on this first anniversary of her death, I asked for her guidance to direct me to an appropriate scripture. That turned out to be Job chapters 34 and 35, strong meat for the current situation that I am still groping to interpret.

3a) Mother often compared Donald Trump to Rahab, along the lines of God using a sinner for His purposes. I would say to her “Mamma, that analogy only works if the United States is Jericho, and Rahab was working for the fall of Jericho. I don’t want the United States to fall!”

* Etiquetteer actually began as an email list in the summer of 2001. I observe the anniversary at the end of January as it coincides with the launch of the first version of the website, which might have been in — oh hell, who can remember?

Tuesday Morning, January 21 - First World Problems

1) This entry was going to start with acknowledging how grateful I am for all the good things and people in my life, but really be a complaint about my occasional housekeeper showing up an hour late after she herself had suggested an earlier-than-typical arrival time, for which I made ample preparation because the only reason I’d indulge in that kind of housekeeping is because of a weekend houseguest. Instead, I’m just going to be grateful that I have a house of my own to clean and a weekend houseguest for whom to clean it. Coffee will carry me through.

1a) Mother, the sweetest person most people ever met in their lives, told me how she once blessed out a tardy housekeeper - and herself felt terrible about it later. Like me, Mother planned her days around scheduled appointments (unlike me, she was often late) and had made arrangements on this particular day to be someplace at a particular time. One of the housekeepers appeared promptly, but the other (perhaps her daughter?) was well over an hour late. And Mother did not appreciate that, and basically ripped her a new one. That kind of behavior was just out of character for Mother!

2) So many people are following the impeachment proceedings intently right now, and I have to confess that I must pull back for my own health and well-being. There’s so much wickedness taking place it’s enough for me to get caught up in the morning. I simply can’t follow it all day and all night.

2a) Phone your senators!

3) On a lighter note, it seems every time I wear my winter white overcoat with enormous white scarf and dark gray fedora, a total stranger feels it necessary to tell me that I’m lookin’ sharp. It happened again this morning as I was returning from errands, some guy in a car calling to me as he drove by. I confess, I love it!

3a) And whenever I wear that coat out I hear Fats Waller’s “Spreadin’ Rhythm Around.”

Monday Night, January 20 - Sorting Through a Box

1) Right before New Year’s I had to sweep a few piles of paper into one great big enormous box and stash it in the study to prepare for Tea and Tarot. Now, with a houseguest coming to stay in the study this weekend, I needed to go through the box - and much else! - to make that room welcoming. I’ve discovered a great deal.

2) On the uninteresting side, reams of my old bills and bank statements, much of which has been consigned to the shredder. Also decrepit typing paper from Gramma’s desk - how on earth did that make it up here? Dozens and dozens of sheets of printer-friendly Christmas stationery.

3) Lots of documentation from Mother’s family, including a slender sheaf of obituaries cut from newspapers. It’s worth noting that Mother, her father, and his father all died of “heart ailments.” Lots of sympathy cards from the death of my gramma in 1983; I tossed the ones from folks who just signed their names. The illuminated order of service from Gramma and Grampa Al’s surprise 1924 Leap Day wedding at a dance. Letters Laura and I wrote to cousin Delphine when we were very small.

4) Photographs from three centuries, from carte de visite portraits of Gramma’s older siblings Lil and Bob when they were very young children to an envelope of our 2008 family vacation in San Antonio. Lots of studio portraits: school pictures of me and my sister and all of her children, family groups from the church directory over our childhoods. Five or six slender envelopes of photos taken by Uncle Bill at Christmas, 1976 - including one of photos just of things in the house, things that are now in my house. My great-grandfather Houska wearing his fez from the Osman Shrine.

5) I truly did get rid of two full shopping bags of papers! And I’m not done yet . . .

Monday, January 20 - Mother's 90th Birthday

Today, January 20, would have been Mother’s 90th birthday. Last year at this time I was just sure that today we’d be having a big party for her at home in Lago di Carlo, complete with napkins specially printed with “JoAnn wants you to have this napkin.” Mother was just obsessed with everyone having a napkin in their laps at the table. I used to joke that we’d give the ushers at her funeral at stack of napkins to hand to entering mourners. Daddy took me aside once to let me know that Mother didn’t think it was funny.

As we all know, “Man plans, God laughs.” Mother left us on February 1, and almost a year later - even taking in all the change since then - it feels unbelievable that she isn’t with us.

One of her books that I took with me from the house was her Bible, translated by George Lamsa. She used it daily for her morning devotional (along with the Daily Word), and she would make notes in the margins. Today the book opened to 2 Samuel 14, part of the story of Absalom (which I don’t know very well), on which Mother had clipped a big pink mitten bookmark. The verse that leapt out was verse 16: “That they may not destroy me and my son together from the heritage of God.” 

Continuing to leaf through, I stopped at I Corinthians 11:18-19, which Mother had bracketed: “First of all, when you gather in the church, I hear that there are divisions among you; and I partly believe it. For controversies are bound to be among you, that those who are approved may be made manifest among you.” Her note beside her bracket: “Controversies are opportunities.” 

Another book I sometimes use for morning devotional is The Secret Language of Flowers: Notes on the Hidden Meanings of Flowers in Art, by Jean-Michel Othoniel. I thought it would be appropriate to bring it out today because Mother loved gardening so much (and weeding! Mother is the ONLY person I’ve ever met who enjoyed weeding). The book opened naturally to Acanthus: “. . . the acanthus became a symbol of immortality . . . It also evokes perseverance and victory over the ordeals of life. It is a symbol of eternal love, the raising of our souls toward the divine.” Mother always persevered - she had infinite patience - and she triumphed over daily ordeals by expressing Love and making things beautiful for the rest of us. I kinda wish I’d had this information last year when I wrote her eulogy.

What is today like? Well, I’m not in Louisiana, and there is no big party, and no specially printed napkins. My sister and her husband have already driven to Lago di Carlo to put fresh flowers on the graves. They texted me a photo; the flowers they chose are lovely. I am reading, writing, reflecting not only on Mother’s life but also on this last year of important change. I emailed a few of Mother’s friends from church. Housecleaning will definitely have to be part of the day - a fitting tribute to Mother, who kept and valued a clean house, and necessary at Maison Robaire, to welcome a weekend houseguest in only a few days.

Serendipitously, an old friend in New York called to check in on me, and I heard from someone else who is concerned for my well-being that I don’t always hear from. Perhaps oddly, two snippets of last night’s dreams took place in the house where I grew up - but with my nephews and niece, who were never in that house.

The cupboard is bare, so I know I’ll have to go out for lunch. And you may be sure I’ll have a napkin in my lap.

Thursday Afternoon, January 16 - Three Books

1) Yesterday afternoon I was in the throes of a putrid headache when the doorbell rang. There was no one there, but a package had been left - addressed to me! An old colleague from the Pastel Prison had returned by post The Lady and the Law: The Remarkable Story of Fanny Holtzman, the remarkable biography of not just one of the great women lawyers of the 20th century, one of the great lawyers regardless of gender. Forgotten today, I’d first heard of her reading about Gertrude Lawrence (barely remembered as the creator of Anna in The King and I and Amanda in Noel Coward’s Private Lives), whose lawyer she was. Litigating for Princess Irina Yusupov against MGM in the 1930s, she famously said “I don’t follow precedents, I set ‘em.” And gosh darn it, she did!

1a) The thrill of pleasure getting to reread my favorite anecdote in the book, about Fanny’s first luncheon with Princess Irina’s mother, Grand Duchess Xenia, at Frogmore Cottage. The grand duchess asked how she should address Fanny. “After all, you’re a famous barrister.” “No, I’m not. I’m an American lawyer. Call me Fanny. But what am I supposed to call you? I suppose it can’t be Mrs. Romanoff?” Flickering only a hair’s breadth, the grand duchess replied “Call me Xenia.” Much later did Fanny find out that only King George V and a few family members were ever allowed to call her by her name.

2) Today, inexplicably, another book came in the mail, Music at Midnight by Muriel Draper. I’ve never heard of the author, but I sure do know the sender well: my cousin Alice. This book had been her mother’s, my beloved cousin Audrey, and I know I’m going to enjoy it.

2a) The subtitle, “Memories of a World That Has Passed,” evokes a lot for me right now, not just my world that has passed, but the world that passed before I got here, and which I miss without having gotten to experience it.

3) Such as what I’ve been reading about in the third book, which I bought in New York, Those Wild Wyndhams by Claudia Renton. Famously painted by John Singer Sargent, there’s an awful lot of unpack here! Mary, the eldest (who became Lady Elcho when she married Hugo, and then Countess of Weemys (sp?) when Hugo inherited), was a charter member of The Souls and the longtime confidante and possible spanking (!) partner of Arthur Balfour. Later she also had an affair with and gave birth to the child of Wilfrid Blunt, who had had an affair with her mother many years before. Madeline, known as Mananai (who married Charles Adeane), married for love and seems to have had a blameless life. Pamela, the youngest, married Eddie Tennant (later Baron Glenconner) and ended up with that wicked Margot Asquith as a sister-in-law. Pamela was rather a raving egomaniac, but also a writer of some talent. Her second husband was the former Foreign Secretary Edward Grey. And her youngest son Stephen was one of the most outrageous, beautiful, and very very gay Bright Young Things.

3a) There’s just so much going on this book - it’s fascinating, but also poignant. So many of their young male relatives died in battle during World War I, for instance. But I can barely put it down.