I’m making a stir-fry tonight with vegetables I picked up at the Greenmarket on Saturday. I pick up whatever they have on hand that happens to strike my fancy, which changes seasonally and with my mood. Rinsing the vegetables just now, I realized I have the makings of a rainbow:
Behold what the universe hath conspired to deliver up unto me: the skull of a ravaged squirrel.
Okay, so technically it might not be the skull of a squirrel. How the hell would I know? I am not some kind of -ologist, people! Nevertheless, I am going to have to insist that it is indeed the skull of a squirrel, because it is just too perfect for my purposes. (Hey—conservatives make up their own facts all the fucking time. Why can’t I for once huh? HUH?)
And what might my diabolical purposes be, exactly? Well I wasn’t quite sure at first. But then I photographed it, the results of which you see above (watermarked). And I found it weirdly, oddly beautiful. Also kind of badass, you know? As in, evoking death and the transience of our mortal existence, or perhaps the face of some imagined alien being.
But of course what really, really pushes my button is that it’s a dead squirrel. Because let’s face it: the only good squirrel…is a dead squirrel. I ask you: could anything be more full of win?
Why, yes! Yes it can: its provenance.
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My Amazing Lover™ is the proud owner of a planting bed, one that sits beyond a slatted fence and just above street level. It’s full of lovely perennial plants like crocus, white tulips, pulmonaria and some waxy-leafed ground cover I gave him, extracted from the tiny yard behind my palace on Perry Street. He keeps it well weeded, watered and mulched. One day, he said there was something he wanted to show me in the planting bed. He pointed out the disembodied skull, which had a patch of gray-brown fur and some whiskers attached. “I think it’s from a squirrel,” he said.
OMG *swoon*.
The next day we discovered it had been moved, and now rested a foot or two away. The fur patch appeared to be significantly smaller, and I could no longer make out whiskers. By the following morning it had been moved once again, and picked clean by nocturnal scavengers. Circle of life, and all that.
I could not stop thinking about it, that small skull lying in the mulch. (I am super weird. FYI.) A few days passed. My Amazing Lover™ was on his way to me, and called to ask if I needed anything. “I need that squirrel skull,” I said. Like it was the most ordinary thing to ask for in the world.
“Okay.”
A few hours later, I was in possession of a clear ziploc bag containing my prized possession.
THAT’S RIGHT MY PARTNER BROUGHT ME A SKULL THAT MIGHT POSSIBLY BE FROM A SQUIRREL MAYBE.
If that is not the ultimate sign of deep and abiding love…well, I just don’t know what is.
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And because I am about nothing if not ♥♥♥sharing the love♥♥♥, I plastered that skull all over a bunch of stuff at my online store, so you too can be part of the #deathtosquirrels revolution.
Who needs pearls? You can have squirrels.
Subversive pocket square…
for all your formalwear occasions.
Board outside of Uncorked wine shop on Christopher Street, NYC:
WHAT’S A MEAL W/OUT WINE?
BREAKFAST.
Speak for yourself, Uncorked wine shop!
Gotta run before my breakfast burrito gets cold – and my BREAKFAST WINE gets warm.
Rules aren’t the boss of ME.
I was recently discussing with a friend whether we would trade our now noticeably aging bodies for our 25-year-old selves, if we had to give up all of the experiences and wisdom we had gained since that age in order to do so. Tempting as it is in some ways (bye-bye back pain! sayonara cellulite!), I am firmly in the NO camp.
There have been dark moments and bleak stretches of time when I would have eagerly taken the do-over deal, and I would have done so to escape my life. But I have not felt that way in more than a decade. I wouldn’t trade who I am now for anything. And who I am is only possible by my having lived the life I have: the tragedies, the triumphs, the mundane and the mistakes.
Would you?
You twenty-something whippersnappers need not answer, although it might be a nice exercise to consider who you might be two decades hence, and how you think you might answer then. Also: get offa my lawn!* :p
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*I don’t have a lawn. But if I did you’d be welcome on it.
With the exception of Gay Pride, summer weekends in the West Village are very quiet. Especially the mornings. I took a stroll to the Saturday Greenmarket at Abingdon Square to acquire some provisions for the week, and along the way I took a bunch of pictures with my iPhone like a goddamn tourist. I was thinking you might enjoy them.
It’s so hard sometimes to find that perfect objet d’art. You know: a little accent piece that delivers just the right pop of color, sophistication and whimsy. People who know me will tell you I am a huge thrift shop junkie, but that can be a hit-or-miss endeavor: on some days, I’d swear a marauding swarm of squirrels (with exquisite taste) devours every awesome object from all the downtown thrifts right before I get there. Fuckers.
And so, forlorn and thwarted by cruel fate, I decided to take matters into my own hands.
A good friend and Loyal Reader™ linked me to this Twitter feed, with the comment “I swear you’re behind this.” It’s generated by a bot (named Joel Dongsteen) that replaces the word “God” with “your dick” in the tweets of the insufferable pastor Joel Osteen. Much hilarity ensues.
When you’re secure in who you are, you’ll be comfortable where your dick has you whether your role is big or small.
— Joel Dongsteen (@JoelDongsteen) April 29, 2016
If you only look to people, you’ll be disappointed. Your dick is showing you that you shouldn't rely on people but rely on Him.
— Joel Dongsteen (@JoelDongsteen) April 27, 2016
If you’ll have the right attitude, your setbacks will be a setup for your dick to do something great in your life.
— Joel Dongsteen (@JoelDongsteen) April 24, 2016
Your dick is looking for people who cannot only handle the blessing but who can handle the burden.
— Joel Dongsteen (@JoelDongsteen) April 19, 2016
The situation may look impossible, but your dick has a way even when we don’t see a way.
— Joel Dongsteen (@JoelDongsteen) April 10, 2016
Nothing can stand against your dick. The bigger you make your dick, the smaller your problems become.
— Joel Dongsteen (@JoelDongsteen) March 1, 2016
Hahaha. Awesome.
While I am deeply flattered by my friend’s complimentary* comparison to the fine work of Mr. Dongsteen, I never in a million years would have done this. I would have replaced “God” with “your vagina.”
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*A psychologist once taught me to take anything as a compliment if it can be reasonably construed that way. Depression-prone veterans of cognitive therapy will recognize this tactic as an antidote to taking everything—literally everything—as a validation of our worst and most irrational convictions about ourselves. But then I thought, why stop there? Instead of simply negating those persistent negative thoughts with reality-based assessments, why not take everything as a compliment that can possibly be construed that way, even unreasonably? I mean, if unreasonable interpretations of everyday messages and events are a core part of the depressive psyche, why can’t they be a really fun part of the cure? In any case, it’s very satisfying to deliberately react with ostentatious gratitude to intentional insults lobbed in your direction; you feel great, and it confuses the hell out of your enemies.
One of the things I love most about this city is that it is constantly recycling itself. If you’re a fan of urban hiking, you can walk the same streets day after day and almost always discover something new. Sometimes you notice something old that somehow escaped your attention. And sometimes, if you’re really lucky, you get yelled at by the police for taking pictures with your iPhone in a public fucking building.
Anyway.
On Friday I had some business at the New York County court house at 60 Centre Street. The subways on the West side don’t get you very close, so when you come up from the station on Chambers Street you have to zig and zag your way North and East for several blocks. I guess I had never taken this particular path before, or at least not for a long time, because I stumbled on something striking: the African Burial Ground National Monument.
