In my dreams

Last night I dreamed I went on a blind date, and when I arrived to meet the man, he turned out to be a four year-old boy. His mother and father were also there; I liked them very much and spoke to them most of the night. Later, his parents paid the bill and left early, and for the first time in the evening, I sat down with my date at a table for two.

"Listen," I said. "I don't think this is going to work out." (The boy looked as if he'd heard these words many times before). "I mean... you're not really that tall... and I'm super tall, you know what I mean?"

My date had a pained look on his face.

"But my mom had to pay for this," he said, and I got the feeling this wasn't the first date his mom paid for.

"You're right," I replied, "I didn't think of that; I should have chipped in."

There was silence. "Listen," I said, "If it makes you feel any better, I have every intention of sending your mother a nice bouquet of flowers tomorrow."

Suddenly my date eased up, as if everything wrong was now made right.

From A to Z's

I once had a lover who, in the beginning of our relationship, when I would wake up in the middle of the night, would wrap his arms around me and whisper, "Are you OK, Baby?" Toward the end of our relationship, when I would wake up in the middle of the night, he would express his irritation, accuse me of being a light sleeper, and move to the opposite side of the bed.

From here to wear

At first glance, a documentary about fashion and fashion photography, well, I couldn’t think of two things I was less interested in. But from the minute Bill Cunningham New York began, I was hooked. A film about a man obsessed with taking pictures of hats, legs and shoes, I would soon learn, had almost nothing to do with fashion, and everything to do with history, heartbreak and art.

The world of fashion strikes me as an ugly place, filled with beautiful, ugly people, and Bill Cunningham, although considered by his peers, “The most important person in the world,” is quite alone in that world, and in the world at large.

Cunningham has little need for fabulous as I see it, because he is a true artist. His art is the kind where youth, society and commerce may have a strong presence, but have little importance.

Clothes can enhance your beauty and clothes can mask your fear, but they cannot, and they do not make the man. Just look at Cunningham, 80, in the same shirt, slacks and worn blue coat, shining like a quasar in a galaxy of stars.

Bill is a rare and lone bird, hovering over the hard edges and straight lines of a tightly stitched industry, pulling poetry from the stage and the streets, pasting together the society girl and the ghetto boy, creating a collage of the human experience.

Design alone does not make art, nor is there beauty in numbers, lunches, and a list of Who's Who. Ideally, fashion is outerwear for the soul's innerwear, and a woman can't expand her heart by putting on the right dress.

But Cunningham embodies expansion; he does not swim with the sharks in shallow water--he lives on the bright side, and in the deep end. The divine and broken self, the artist; who takes colors off the runway and onto the walkway, with determination and grace, a vision of breathing streets, hats, legs and shoes; a vision of life.

Secret

I used to be so grateful when the email alert on my phone was from him... and now I'm just grateful when it's not.

In my dreams

Last night I dreamed I was standing with a young girl beside an aquatic display, and one of the things on the table was a sea anemone. The girl yanked it from its tank, tossed it to the side, and made a careless joke. Then I picked it up and looked at its underbelly.

"It's alive," you know? I said to the girl, and she gave me a stunned look.

"No it's not," she replied curtly, but when I put it back into the tank, it quickly buried itself into the sand. I looked at the girl again who realized her mistake.

I said, "A sea anemone is not your enemy, see?"

Pretty words

A guy who says he'll give you everything he has, is usually the guy who has nothing to give.