A Roll in the Hague

A Roll in the Hague

Explicit reference to my anticipation of Dutch friends rolling into town next week.

It’s been a lucky hosting season here. First Fran and Jo, two Australian sisters with the most wonderful booming laughter, always in sync. They brought me to a wonderful Vinegar Hill resturants I had been meaning to visit forever. Because out of towners will do that, they will beckon you to rediscover or just do due diligence in your own town. It was one of the best New York meals I’ve had.

Then came Marie Regan. Another amazing gal, who keeps so many balls in the air, I am in awe. She has made a home in Paris as a job brought her there and I am envious of her up-and-go mobility. But not the colonialist condescension she is exposed to. Such is the mixed-bag.

Looking ahead I have Brazil and Croatia to look forward to this summer. I cannot explain the fire in my brain just thinking of new smells, sounds, flavors and colors I will feast on in a country I’ve never been too. Novelty-junkie, if I’m to name the game. So the roll may be in the Hague, but the draw is towards Dubrovnik.

I’m also happy to be nearing the end of a first draft of my new script and completely confused that I got what looked like 3 excellent reviews from the DC Shorts festival which strangely resulted in a reject.

I know Pears is no easy short, but I am really disappointed with how poorly it did on the festival circuit. More feedback like this festival would’ve been helpful. At least I wouldn’t be in the dark about its demise.

Let’s see what the Vermaas clan brings home.

Good as Gold

Good as Gold: Royal seals on secretive missives, the edible confetti that resist bite on the wedding favors, the retro leggings on the twiggy legs of high-schoolers nostalgic for something they never knew in the first place. This color doesn’t really exist in nature or in my quotidian.

Metallic polishes are hard to pull off, they streak, get goopy and clump easier than other colors somehow.

This new moon is supposed to be epic.

This entry shall bear a haiku quality to it.

No flow, just threads laid beside one another.

My golden child turned eight and we held the quietest, nerdiest strategy games party known to the hipsterhood.

He has taken a liking to Duck Rillettes and oysters.

My god, what have I done. A gastro-snob before puberty.

The glint in his eye as we watch Monty Python skits.

The groan in my throat as I receive undue attention.

The gargoyle that takes over his face when I cover his gashing wound in iodine.

He’s not mine.

I make a point of not answering all his questions so he knows I am not the oracle, but an occasional solace buddy.

But I indulge him in home baked goods and inappropriate anecdotes.

Precious.

Clambake

Fiery orange, electric clementines, sweet peppers and non-standard poppies. A lacquered Milanese chair, the scream as one descends Space Mountain, the frenzy to take one’s clothes off before a lake dive after the game.

That’s right, feeling vigorous and full of options. Internal flame operating to full capacity. Taking a nosedive into a pool of optimism. Not expecting things from others, nor assuming I deserve favorable conditions. Just feeling even keeled and like I am up to the challenges ahead. That might just be sufficient for now.

New York is still experiencing a prolonged chill, but internally, I have made the decision to ignore this altogether. My powers of denial will not be outdone by nature’s unkindness. I will come out of this unscathed and will eat warm pozole in your face. Smokey chilies, like exorcists reporting for duty, will help me get the warmth going.

My son thinks I rehearse poses in the mirror when I ask him not to come into my room and wake me early in the weekend mornings. Maybe I should set my alarm earlier and try to catch him in that act. I look forward to the fun times ahead with him as he grows into more of a peer than a charge and mourn the distance he will inevitably take from me once his friends start to matter more. 

Resort Fling

Smoked Salmon, Cantaloupe with yogurt, something I could have found in my grandmother’s medicine cabinet, little girl underwear, a particularly splendid winter sunset in the Northern hemisphere.

The first day of spring went off with a bang. It was suddenly one of those days for which you are either overdressed because you can’t be bothered reading the weather forecast or you are so optimistic and ready to shed layers that you end up coming out in a T-shirt and cotton skirt and freeze your legs, stiff calves and icy ass.

But even that doesn’t detract from taking in the melting snow, your skin breathing through every pore and your dry lips shedding for the last time. You can start looking forward to the warmer months and realize you’ve already been sold out to the summer’s best concerts. The airfares are already very high to go abroad or even to visit your friend in Portland.

The thought of pre-packaged resort experiences is not that repulsive altogether because I just want to vegetate under the solar heat, in a stretcher that won't creak, chip or give me splinters.

My head summons up a seamless, pleasurable experience.

Truth or Flare

Truth or Flare

A severe slate blue, grey perfectly entwining its fingers with a mild blue, think retro wool coats, metal filing cabinets, blue chalk on an abused blackboard. You ain’t had it blue until you’ve had that mood. 

Long winter taking its toll on me. Undersunned, underjoyed, spending too much time under my covers. So much so, that I became too aware of the linty dots making my jersey sheets, also chalky blue, beg for replacement as they press against my idle skin.

I’ve spent a fair amount of time this week thinking of that moment when my son’s eyelids stop their argument against tone and relinquish him to a state of abandon in his deep sleep. He’s always had that wrestling dynamics with sleep, as if when he was gone the most wonderful things were allowed to happen and escape his tender grasp.

The hardened snow boulders line up the block making everything chromatically dimmed and I have to keep nagging my son to stop climbing the thick ice platforms right beneath the boulders. It’s a funny rhetorical game, where I remind him how badly it’s going to hurt if he slides and he just keeps bounding up and managing ever more adroitly after each admonishment. I, of course, showing Jewish momma training complete, fear the worse.

I realized I had dressed all in denim and neutrals, which made for a monochromatic ensemble with Truth or Flare, so I decided to offset with a tomato red lipstick, like one does when trying to make a sleepy decision look intentional, by design. As if I had decided to bring all eyes in the room to my lips and therefore dressed to optimize that color pop. I’ve never made such a Checkovian entrance in my life and can’t think of a good reason why I should start now.

That tomato red lipstick, which paired so nicely with the slew of blue, was bought under Tommaso’s advisement at a make up emporium which never fails to make me nauseous with choice. I miss him, his scraggly voice, rolling eyes and color assertiveness. 

End slate.

"Jazz"

Jazz by Essie

It could’ve been a liver cleanser, a strawberry tofu pudding. A Chinatown plastic bag. A wispy, watered down tea-rose. Come to think of it, this color is as far from my feeling of Jazz as the chalky taste of old Halva. 

I was leaning towards the nudes, skincolor, possibly anticipating the onset of Spring  when you are reminded of the fact that peoples have limbs once they become exposed again.

It was certainly a poor choice.  My winter chaffed cuticles dry and sore, might’ve been better downplayed by a dark color. Raw skin against a very faintly mauve neutral beckoned a bright dress. I went with a retro-teal one and bright coral lipstick. Think Tupperware parties and Floridian tedium antidote.

Jazz is the type of color that when I see on a tall, svelte, carelessly chic woman wear, I think it’s divine, but in reality does nothing for me. I bought a V-neck sweater in a dull blush color of that palette this winter. Had I not worn it with bright red lipstick I would’ve looked positively jaundiced and about to expire of consumption. One of those Victorian maladies.

I normally slide into neutral mode when I am trying to emulate effortlessness, demure or understated. Visual antonyms of my inner traits, just to keep me in check. As usual, it backfires. This pale color creased and started to look crackly very soon after it dried out.

Nude, monochromatic, fleshtones, seamless blending with the rest of the finger and hand. Polished enough to look like it was there by design, but non-challant enough for full blasé effect. “The beige of conformity” making an appearance at the extreme ends of my stumpy limbs. 

Elegance doesn’t belong here, but I sure like to steal a small helping of it.

"Cute as a Button"

Feb 15^th, 2014

“CUTE AS A BUTTON”:  Mattel, Watermelon bubble gum, unfathomable in nature shade of pink.

I thought of redoing the picture given the fuzzy nature of my out of focus hand, but then warmed up to the self-effacement hinted by it. The color is still visible and that’s what matters.

I was hoping to dispel winter blues with this one, my back hurts from shoveling snow and we are expecting even more tonight.

It also reminds me of the Barbie doll in a box that came so neatly nestled in my parents’ suitcase when they traveled abroad and brought me imported toys that smelled of otherness and turned the eyes of the kids in my building.

Girly more than feminine.

This is the episode that marked my week: I came out of the shower to find my son removing a box of medicine I keep in my bedside table. I chided him for invading my things, my privacy. He questioned me:

T: What do you keep in that box? Sexy stuff?

K: Like what?

T: I dunno. Like placenta that you rub all over your body in front of the mirror.

Things we come up with when we know of a concept (sexy) but can’t quite break it down yet. So we just grab whatever props are around, the word placenta, in this case, to start assembling something of a construct.

I haven’t dreamt in a while and that concerns me, I like to keep that muscle active.

Got sold out of Morrisey/Smith Tribute concert at the Bell House. I thought it was the perfect Valentine’s antidote. But New York still surprises me with its myriad of afficionados that assault my Friday night plans and drive me to procure Saturday morning manicures for a pick me up.

Heaven knows I am miserable now.

But miserable and unfathomable pink don't mesh too well.