140

"Sometimes you see folks who have a negative view of dreamers - people who sit around all day on their hindquarters and do absolutely nothing. These folks aren`t dreamers - they are just lazy. To me, dreaming is just part of being alive, inspired, and curious about the world."

- Dolly Parton

139

Just saw 33 Variations - wow. Absolutely loved it. I mean there were some weak spots but overall just a very impactful evening. Jane Fonda and Zach Grenier were just superb in my opinion.

Maybe because I am really emotional now anyway but I was in tears by the end - not sad really but tears coming from the feeling of no longer being alone in your fears and anxieties.

We all wish we could control time, freeze a moment. We're all terrified by the passing of time and what that takes away and what it brings.

In one section Beethoven talks to Dr. Brandt about the ups and downs he faced when losing his hearing - one day would be horrible and then the next would be better, bringing hope only to be followed by the next day which was worse than ever, for twenty five years this rollercoaster of hope and despair before he finally lost his hearing completely. It was then that he finally felt relieved - the worst had happened, he was free.

I find such great peace in that. It touches the very heart of my struggle in the last year.

Anyway I figured that I would cap this day by sharing this quote from Beethoven:

“Then let us all do what is right, strive with all our might toward the unattainable, develop as fully as we can the gifts God has given us, and never stop learning”

And really that's all I can ever expect from myself...

138

i am so fucking tired of this move and this dissaray

my eyes are burning from the stupid dust, my mind is racing from the phone calls and the lists and the things to do and things i can't remember and blah, blah, blah

i know this isn't that big of a deal in the long run but i don't fucking care

i know i am supposed to be positive in here and that this has a purpose that goes beyond my daily nit nat and struggle but i am emotionally sucked dry at the moment and i can't find it within me to honor that today

maybe tomorrow but not today

137

"Sex. In America an obsession. In other parts of the world a fact."

- Marlene Dietrich

136

[SIDE BAR: I rarely comment on the photo but anyway - loved this shot but hated the rotten job I did on the settings - I got the exposure all wrong. Nonetheless it it would have been a perfect addition to the set I have been working on and I still like the subject matter so I am using it here]

"May I be at peace;
May my heart remain open;
May I awaken to the light of my true nature:
May I be healed;
May I be a source of healing to all sentient beings;
May I be safe;
May I be happy;
May I be healthy;
May I be at ease"

- not sure where this if from - I have this in some notes I took when exploring different Buddhist centers in NYC - I think this is from Tonglen (a Tibetan Buddhist practice) - anyway I love it and forgot how much peace it can bring in to your mind if you really open yourself up to it

135

Hello. Just walking on broken glass.

134

and the clock keeps on ticking and ticking

no alarm and no snooze button just tick tick tick

133

"And wouldn`t it be wonderful if we could all be a little more gentle with each other, and a little more loving, have a little more empathy, and maybe - next year at this time - we`d like each other a little more..."

- Judy Garland

[this is one of his favorite Judy quotes and I know it applies quite well to the bullshit he's dealing with from some people right now]

132

Went to see the legendary Angela Lansbury in Blithe Spirit this evening (she was marvelous!).

So I share one of my favorite quotes about acting, delivered by the legend herself:

"Actors are not made, they are born."

131

"All photos are accurate. None of them is the truth."

- Richard Avedon

130

"Yeah you can laugh, but you know something- I don't want more choice I just want nicer things! And you, you can take that look off your face, sitting there with your... with your wheels and AIDS and starvation. You know, skimming a neat profit of the whole of human misery. Labeling us all with this- with this global guilt. Well it may not be all great and good but it ain't that bad, so cheer up world it may never bloody happen!"

- Edwina Monsoon, Absolutely Fabulous

129

Knee deep in boxes, silver Sharpies, packing tape and bubble wrap.

Two weeks from now we will be releasing our possesions from their cardboard prisons into the wilds of Brooklyn.

It's funny how moving is like opening up your soul and your spirit and your mind.

I feel weird right now - kind of vulnerable - probably owing to the memories brought up in this process of packing - good memories, bad memories, memories otherwise forgotten and likely forgotten again until the next time.

Things moved from familiar places. Ghosts being left behind. New places to learn and explore.

Mixed emotions. Excitement. Dread. Fear. Relief. Sadness. Hope.

128

"No photographer is as good as the simplest camera."

- Edward Steichen

127

"No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow."

- Alice Walker

126

There are times, many more than we are led to believe, when we must break the rules in order to accomplish what we must do.

125

I can't stop wondering how long greed will be allowed to thrive?

Why haven't we stopped its spread?

When is enough ENOUGH? One billion? Seven THOUSAND square feet? Not enough.

We need more.

More tan, more white, more tight.

When is enough ENOUGH????

124

I'm thinking, I promise I am.

Just don't feel like sharing those thoughts.

Pennies be damned.

123

Some Sunday words of wisdom from one of the men I most admire - the great, darkly comic, brilliant, beautiful artist Charles Schulz...

“I love mankind; it's people I can't stand.”

“I think I've discovered the secret of life - you just hang around until you get used to it.”

“I have a new philosophy. I'm only going to dread one day at a time.”

“Sometimes I lie awake at night, and ask, 'Where have I gone wrong?' Then a voice says to me, 'This is going to take more than one night.'”

122

And to think prior to deciding to move to Brooklyn I had NO IDEA that there was an Ex-Lax Building! And people live here...since 1979 it's been a co-op.

And from what I read, prior to ceasing operation and becoming residential, the horrible pharma people who created Ex-Lax used to test their vile chocolates on monkeys and, adding insult to injury, kept the poor things housed on the roof here. The elders who live in the area and grew up there tell stories of the angry primates on the roof screeching violently (can you fucking blame them???).

I suspect that there are many revelations and adventures still to be had!!!

121

Rain, rain - go away...

120

Who wouldn't like a piece of cake?

That's what I want to know...

119

"I feel like the country dog in the city ... if I stand still they screw me ... if I run, they bite me in the ass."

- The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas

118

"In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer."

- Albert Camus

117

A friend of ours gave us this little package from someone who had given it to her after getting a bunch of them on his trip to Japan.

I see these cats in all sorts of sushi restaurants and apparently they are there to bring good fortune to the business.

I've been sad and really low lately.

I could use some good fortune.

I post it here and share it with you because we could ALL use some good fortune.

116

I'm going to miss seeing Polly Holiday when we leave the neighborhood.

Kiss my grits, indeed.

115

"The real voice of reason sounds like Bea Arthur..." - David Sedaris

Indeed.

I got so much joy growing up watching the Golden Girls and as an adult I have found fresh joy and comfort from the show. It remains my favorite tv program even after all those viewings.

I always related to the characters Bea played (Maude and Vera Charles amongst them) and when we went to see her perform on Broadway a few years back I found I connected with this larger than life, somewhat curmudgeonly and fabulously devilish character even more than I thought.

I just loved her.

***

Blanche Devereaux: Dorothy, you're a mess!
Dorothy Petrillo-Zbornak: I just spilled orange juice on myself.
Blanche Devereaux: Oh, really? I didn't notice that.

***

Dorothy Petrillo-Zbornak: Listen, you keep your bloomers on, Scarlett. He's taking me out tomorrow night.
Blanche Devereaux: But he wants me, I can feel it.
Dorothy Petrillo-Zbornak: Let somebody else feel it.

***

Blanche Devereaux: My Mammy, the woman who took care of me when I was little.
Dorothy Petrillo-Zbornak: Oh, I'm sorry, I don't think I ever heard anyone called Mammy before.
Rose Nylund: What about Mrs. Eisenhower?
Dorothy Petrillo-Zbornak: Mammy Eisenhower... I think only the Nixon kids got to call her that

***

And finally some words from the woman herself.

I especially love the last quote here - very fitting given the way things have been going lately.

"...I think I am a bubble-pricker... I don't like anything phony"

"I guess just, I don't know, I didn't know I was that vibrant, I just love being alive, and I love people, and I find something wonderful everyday."

"Life is filled with a lot of stuff, you know. There is never a dull moment."

- Bea Arthur

Thank you, Ms. Arthur, you've made my life better.

114

Constant Craving - kd lang and Ben Mink

Even through the darkest phase
Be it thick or thin
Always someone marches brave
Here beneath my skin

Constant craving
Has always been

Maybe a great magnet pulls
All souls towards truth
Or maybe it is life itself
That feeds wisdom
To its youth

Constant craving
Has always been

Craving
Ah ha
Constant craving
Has always been

Constant craving
Has always been
Constant craving
Has always been

Craving
Ah ha
Constant craving
Has always been
Has always been
Has always been
Has always been
Has always been
Has always been

113

We've got to fly like a butterfly.

Well we have to move out of our apartment. Our landlord told us today that she wants to sell as soon as possible.

The stress of living through open houses in the past has us hot in pursuit of new living accomodations sooner rather than later.

See I told you...changes.

Let the stress commence.

112

"The devil inside, the devil inside
every single one of us
the devil inside"

- INXS

111

I read the below as part of my tribute to Nana last year at her memorial service.

I've been thinking of her all day - being that today marks one year that she had to leave us - and hoping she was watching down on Kiawah as she comes closer to the end of her journey with us.

How lucky am I to have had such strong spirits around me? Such vital strong spirits fighting the fight for life.

Here’s To Life

No complaints and no regrets
I still believe in chasing dreams and placing bets
And I have learned that all you give is all you get
So give it all you've got

I had my share, I drank my fill
And even though I'm satisfied, I'm hungry still
To see what's down another road, beyond a hill
And do it all again

So here's to life
And every joy it brings
Here's to life
To dreamers and their dreams

Funny how the time just flies
How love can go from warm hellos to sad goodbyes
And leave you with the memories you've memorized
To keep your winters warm

But there's no yes in yesterday
And who knows what tomorrow brings, or takes away
As long as I'm still in the game, I want to play
For laughs, for life, for love

So here's to life
And every joy it brings
Here's to life
To dreamers and their dreams
May all your storms be weathered
And all that's good get better

Here's to life
Here's to love
And here's to you

110

Things will be changing so much in the next couple of months.

Little ways, big ways.

Tomorrow will mark exactly one year that my grandmother died.

It feels both a lifetime ago and also as fresh as yesterday morning. It's a change that I have yet to fully understand.

But sometimes you aren't meant to understand change. Sometimes change is just change - it doesn't make you a better person nor does it lead you to a better place it just makes things...different.

109

"In memory everything seems to happen to music"

- from The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams

This weekend it seems as though spring, and tones of summer, were absolutely busting to break out held just at bay by the thinnest of twine still lingering from winter.

108

"Teabagging is forbidden here at the Fudge Palace!"

- Tina (Martha Plimpton) in Pecker by John Waters

107

"I think the sea is a useless teacher, pitching and falling no matter the weather, when our lives are rather lakes unlocking in a constant and bewildering spring."

- Marie Howe begins her gorgeous poem "From Nowhere" in her anthology The Good Thief

106

"He could hear nothing: the night was perfectly silent. He listened again: perfectly silent. He felt that he was alone."

- James Joyce "The Dubliners"

105

I am an amateur photographer. I’m not a professional. Perhaps I never will be – but I hope that’s not true. I would like, one day, to call myself “professional” – but I am aware that it is a ways off.

I have been taking photographs since childhood when I first started using my father’s old Argus 35 mm camera, a Kodak 126 and a Polaroid (that I LOVED). I learned to develop photos (black and white) when I was in the photography club in junior high. I maintained that skill for a few years but interest waned when other things presented themselves (pubescent angst primary amongst them).

My father was always a photography nut. It seemed to me that he knew everything about it and was always the one chronicling family events and taking photos of the scenery and animals and things we would see on the many trips and hikes in the mountains of New Hampshire. I suppose then I got this interest from him. He doesn’t much take photographs anymore…and when he does it is with a p&s digital that doesn’t seem like it provides much satisfaction. I think he’d probably like to do more but I suppose work and life sometimes get in the way of nurturing the things we love…even those things we hold most treasured.

I don’t know that I would be much good in a darkroom right now (at least not in developing photos *bah-dum-dum*) but I intend to get back to those roots. I’ve identified the classes I want to take and hopefully by fall session our money will be free for me to invest in something that will bring me to the next level. In the meantime this project is part of my self-education and I like to think that it is helping me, even if in small ways.

Picking photography up again at this point in my life with such excitement and so much to look forward to in my development and connecting me to my past, is a great gift.

104

I’ve been seeing the ads for the “no smoking” in PG-13 movies on the sides of city buses lately. For some reason this morning seeing one really pissed me off.

I am no fan of smoking, in fact I hate it. I grew up in a household with a smoker and I know plenty of them but I’ve never quite gotten used to it. I find them disgusting and stifling. One of my biggest pet peeves in this City is walking behind someone who insists on not only smoking while walking but also in blowing the smoke behind them so not only are their lungs getting effed up but potentially so are mine. I find it vile.

That said I am really hocked off that there are demands to remove it from movies. The history of smoking in films aside, what does this say about our respect for creativity and the creative control artists’ have over their projects not to mention how much control we have relinquished (or wish to relinquish) when it comes to raising our children?

I don’t believe it is up to films or athletes or celebrities to teach children the facts of life (and death) – it is up to the parents, the grandparents, the aunts, the uncles, the partners, the neighbors – the adults in their lives should be teaching them not only with facts but also by example and experience. After that you have to trust that your child will make the right decision given these tools and examples.

To expect that a movie or tv show will make or break your child’s decision to smoke is irresponsible and very short-sighted not to mention doing a disservice to your child.

What’s next? Alcohol consumption? Candy eating? I mean how far do we go in our expectations regarding the content of entertainment and art?

I still maintain that you have a choice for yourself and your child – view it or not, listen to it or not, read it or not – why take that choice away from someone else who may not share the same views as you?

Why are we taking less and less responsibility for the lives we live and the lives we lead?

103

I’m grateful that this evening felt a little warmer, more springlike. It allowed me to go out on an expedition for photos rather than toting my camera along on my way to the gym, errands, etc. with the hopes of finding something of interest along the way. I anticipate that the summer will afford me regular opportunities at this. Makes me happy.

I started this evening in a rather bad-ish mood. This is an off day from the workout and I think sometimes that makes me a little crazy to begin with but add on my dissatisfaction with my job and it can be a snowball to hell.

Getting out around the City, on a decent weather night, with lots of people about, resets my mind.

Although I hide behind my camera often and I typically hope not to get noticed when taking photos, being out with my camera actually provides the greatest chance for me to interact with the pulse of this city.

I see things. I notice things. I read people. I search. I think. I understand myself better by understanding the place I live in better.

It's not a miracle but it's a small mercy.

102

May all of your days be filled with the technicolor tastiness of cabana strawbana, laredo lime and chesapeake cherry jelly beans!!

101

"Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody."

- Jane Jacobs, author of The Death and Life of Great American Cities, brilliant proponent and activist for the concept of bottom up community planning

100

"First you forget names, then you forget faces. Next you forget to pull your zipper up and finally, you forget to pull it down. "

- George Burns, legendary centenarian

Catlow:365 celebrates its 100th post today!

Have a drink on me...but just make sure you use a coaster so I don't get a wet spot :P

99

I'm continually stunned that there are people not content to focus on their own world view but instead feel the overwhelming drive to attack other people's world view.

As far as I know there is no one among us who knows everything.

98

Moment to moment. Happiness is here let it be.

No future and no past, only the present.

And that's good enough.

97

"Who can turn the world on with her smile?
Who can take a nothing day, and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile?
Well it's you girl, and you should know it
With each glance and every little movement you show it

Love is all around, no need to waste it
You can have a town, why don't you take it
You're gonna make it after all
You're gonna make it after all


How will you make it on your own?
This world is awfully big, girl this time you're all alone
But it's time you started living
It's time you let someone else do some giving

Love is all around, no need to waste it
You can have a town, why don't you take it
You're gonna make it after all
You're gonna make it after all"

- Paul Williams, The Mary Tyler Moore Theme

96

I'm older today.

Much older.

95

Although I took this yesterday I didn't get an opportunity to publish yesterday.

I won't get into the gory details.

But let's just leave it at this bit of advice...even if it is a celebration, say one's birthday, it is NEVER a good idea to go for drinks before you meet friends at happy hour for drinks.

Blech.

94

Clearly I am facing a lack of inspiration these days.

I suppose this project is one that I should have expected would have periods of challenge. And honestly I think that is a part of the whole thing.

Keep trying even when I honestly could give a flip about taking a photograph or writing in this journal. Keep going because I owe it to myself.

And also to keep going whether or not I got feedback. I tend to look for validation (as many of us do) in the approval or others. I wish it weren't so but I can't ignore that it is a part of me. Hopefully I will learn more and more to find the approval of myself above all others, as the only validation, as I live authentically and evolve to the person I am meant to be.

As the universe has made me.

This is where the inspiration to continue on with the project comes from and will continue to flow...hopefully smoother than it has been.

93

All I have to say is...it's the weekend and the sun came out after the rain.

Life can be good.

92

There is change on the air.

Maybe it's the seasons or maybe my birthday coming up, I'm just not sure, but I feel it all around me.

I'm going to do my best to make that work to my benefit and hopefully evolve out of this period, even if not completely free of bruises.

91

"It wasn't until I got to New York that I became Kansan. Everyone there kept reminding me they were Jewish or Irish, or whatever, so I kept reminding them that I was mid-western. Before I knew it, I actually began to brag about being from Kansas! I discovered I had something a bit unique, but it was the nature of New York that forced me to claim my past."

- playwright William Inge