Back...and Better Than Ever!!

Hello, Patient Readers!!

I have been absent for so long that I am almost embarrassed to face you. However, my silence has been due to a long list of happy occurrences in my personal life. While I will catch you up in an upcoming post (or two), the reasons are pretty much as follows:

1)-Moving.
2)-Getting Engaged.
3)-Planning a Wedding.
4)-Going Back to Writing Full-Time.

Now that I have all of my ducks in a row, I will be back to posting regularly on a soon-to-be re-imagined 1000 Follies. Look for more in the coming weeks (really, no foolin' this time). See you soon!!

Moving House

The Chef and I are moving in 10 days. The need to sort, pack, and clean is taking up ridiculous amounts of my time. While I hope to post a few things between now and the end of the month, it will likely be sporadic. I do have a nice bit of writing (or two) in the works for this site. Fingers crossed that I will find a few minutes to sneak off and put it into words for you!!

A Jam-Packed, Crammed-Full April

Going into the first full-month of Spring, I had no idea that my calendar would end up being so sated with a long-list of engagements, obligations and events. After last year's 5-month long hiatus, I vowed (to myself, anyway) that I would not let my lovely readers down again. To keep up this end of the bargain, I am going to briefly step-away from my usual steadfast rule of never pre-writing posts. This week, I will be posting my writings on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. I will be back to my regular, if eccentric, schedule on the 18th!!

Mae's Days, or: Things I Have Done Since My Last Post Instead of Blogging

1. Visited family out-of-town. Ate way too much. Bonded.
2. Took too many meaningless, random photographs with my new camera.
3. Met my co-bestie Rebecca for drinks, hilarity, and catching up.
4. Continued the endless flat hunt. After much due diligence, we met the perfect place. We have asked it to co-habit with us. Answer pending.
5. Packed, not nearly enough.
6. Listened, obsessively, to John Hiatt's new release, The Open Road. Check it out.
   
7. Used the dog as an excuse to go on several long walks in the blissful Spring weather we have been enjoying in the Queen City.
8. Fell a bit deeper in love with The Chef.
9. Read Arna Bontemps' God Sends Sunday.
10. Worked too much.
11. Bought a breathtakingly cool mid-century modern chair here.
    
12. Found the perfect neighborhood bar--complete with incense, fairy lights, and pomegranate martinis--only because The Chef forced me to check it out. He was right, I was wrong.
13. Rode the Project Runway roller coaster. Anthony was out, then back in, then declared the (highly deserving) co-winner of last night's episode.
14. Purchased a brilliant pair of heels. Very high heels. Very high heels that rocked The Chef's world. They were worth every penny. I found them at one of my favourite shops in Columbus, The Emperor's Newest Clothes (the Short North location).
    
15. Ate at a Greek restaurant without ordering baklava.
    
16. Discovered that Jezebel can really piss me off. As much as you love or enjoy something, you will inevitably have a disagreement at some point.
17. Designed a new web-site (more on that soon, I promise).
18. Researched new laptop options.
    

Bobbed

Every Winter, we hunker down for months of living in the dark while the world around us settles into its annual parade of decay. It is a long, cold walk beneath a frosty grey sky; weighed down by a claustrophobic cocoon of heavy, chafing clothing, propped up by salt-dirtied boots, there is little to do but wait for the warmth of better times. Weeks before the official arrival of Spring, perhaps heartened by a prematurely balmy day, we start sloughing off or burying the various vestiges of Winter-sweaters are folded and bagged, legs are slowly bared, and hairstyles change. Nothing ushers in the new post-doldrums season, for me, quite like a bob.

It is refreshing, liberating and, as the most modern of looks, eternally relevant. In F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1920 short story, "Bernice Bobs Her Hair", the heroine may have been duped into going under the barber's razor but she should not have been so worried: her hairstyle, lank as it may be, is iconic. Poor Bernice ushered in a decade that was to see the bob take over the world. At the start, it was scarcely-to-be-spoken of daring. By the time of Black Tuesday, everyone's Grandmother had given into the craze and bared her neck.

The bob, in all of its impressive variety, was worn by most silent movie stars. The otherwise antithetical Colleen Moore and Louise Brooks were both exemplars of the bob. Colleen's was a sportier, more approachable version than Louise's sleek, sexy take, yet they both owned the style. They remain very modern looking, even contemporary, girls because of that hair. It has stayed popular these last nine decades for a reason: it is as universally flattering as the little black dress or a great shade of red lipstick.

Every March/April, I am slowly overcome with the ever-increasing itch to lop off all of my hair. It is truly a seasonal thing. As soon as heat starts accompanying sunshine, I become obsessed with the idea of short hair. Sometimes, this works to my advantage. A year ago, I was growing my hair when the leaves turned green; as it had been a pixie the previous autumn, it was at a perfectly chic mid-chin level. This year, it is on the cusp of cascading past my shoulders. As I am aiming for Veronica Lake territory by December, it is crucial that I ignore the peer-pressure voice in my head that is advocating a good, old-fashioned whacking.

Although it is surely only a matter of time before I return to my favourite hairstyle, I have reached a compromise, one that I am hoping will allow me to keep an aesthetic detente going for at least a few more months: that Red Carpet darling, the faux-bob (also known as the did-she-or-didn't-she). Until I am psychically prepared to again take the plunge into bared neck-dom, I will fake it like so many others. When that day arrives, I will be able to say, like Bernice, "You see"--her words fell into an awkward pause--"I've done it."

Left to Right: Zelda Fitzgerald; Nancy Carroll; Colleen Moore.

Cameras and Cake

I was lucky enough to spend a wonderful, and wonderfully busy, weekend with my mom. We shopped a little, ate a lot, and laughed even more. The only work-related task I accomplished was the purchase of a new, desperately needed, camera (more on that later). In appreciation of its five years of dedicated yet erratic service, I gave my old Kodak one more whirl by taking a few photographs of the dessert we made on Saturday.

Tomorrow, I will be back on task with something bookish, something cinematic, and something decorative.

Delicious Details: Thank you, England, for gifting the world with a ready-made Sponge Cake Mix. Though I love to bake from scratch, Sponge Cake is something I would never normally bother making. Enter "Green's Classic Sponge Recipe", one egg, some water, my Mother's elbow grease and voila! Robertson's Raspberry Jam is the yummy red center.

Obligatory "Green" Post in Honor of St. Patrick's Day (so I am not kicked off of the blogosphere)

Even though it provides me with a ready excuse to drink, St. Patrick's Day leaves me disappointingly indifferent. I neither understand nor appreciate the fuss. However, I am a redhead; as such, it is pretty much guaranteed that I love the colour green. I do, in every shade. It accounts for a sizable amount of my wardrobe; I could easily wear a green garment every day for two weeks., without feeling even slightly pinched by the challenge. What I do not have, unfortunately, is a green thumb. It is terrifyingly difficult for me to keep plants alive. Once, several years ago, I managed to desiccate my best friend's large collection of African Violet houseplants; her sojourn to visit her sister in Germany lasted a mere 2 1/2 weeks. I followed her explicit directions to the very letter; all but 3 died.

I can manage to keep cacti alive for sustained periods; my current specimen has been in my possession for 3 months and counting. I also have a lovely, stark, and serene boxwood wreath hanging in my kitchen hall. I have been told that, with an occasional spritz, it can stay alive for years. We will see.

I am an anomaly within my family. My Mother, especially, has superior gardening skills. She designed, planted, and kept the loveliest English cottage garden in front of the house in which I grew up. To this day, no matter where she lives, she cultivates things that are both beautiful and, well, alive.I have always envied that ability, as well as the level of interest and dedication it takes to keep such an endeavour not only going but thriving. In several of my myriad fantasy lives, I have a wild, intensely colourful and artistic garden at my disposal (puttering around in it it seems like a quintessentially 1920's English writer hobby).In reality, I live not only in the city but in an entirely self-contained flat. Though there is a public park across the street, it is largely for walking dogs and playing children; the flowers are entirely mundane (to such a degree that even I, with my chronic flower-name amnesia, can recite every single kind with alacrity).

Unless I suddenly find myself mistress of a wee patch of land, coupled with a newly-realized power to maintain flora for more than 3 weeks' time, I will have to stay content with other people's efforts,a closet-full of green clothes, and fantastically verdant dreams.

Dress: Liberty of London for Target