FPM: Yellow Patterned Tights on Christmas Day

Sitting here in my heatless apartment, huddled near the warmth of my screen, my kids still sleep although it's after 10 a.m. Should I let them?

I got three gifts for Christmas and really I don't need any more than that. I get myself stuff all year, and the only thing I want more of are books and magazines. And art. And tights, probably. I'm pictured here with my new yellow Christmas tights which I wore on the day with a red corduroy dress that you've seen. Christmas afternoon we went to N's and C's place on the Bowery for dinner and treats and dancing. The most enchanting--yes, ENCHANTING--thing happened. Six of the seven girls who were there put on costumes and decided to pretend they were at a fancy garden party. N put on music for waltzing for them and they began dancing and talking to each other in elevated diction. One line I heard was, "Coffee cake is just splendid!" The seventh girl, the 13 year old, thought they were nuts. I was amazed by this, and heartened at such sweetness, and (for a lack of a better adjective) non-jadedness from the mostly tween group.

Later, the adults danced and even my 74-year-old mother in law jitter-bugged.

Two of my three gifts are pictured here. Every year, on Xmas Eve I take the girls to an independent bookstore (this year it was McNally Jackson on Prince near Mulberry) and I pick out several items I might like and then they send me away and pick out items not totaling more than 20 dollars. This year they got me this new Colum McCann novel (set in 1974, one of my favorite years), and the current issue of Mojo magazine, which is one of the best magazines on the planet (which is always accompanied by a cd. This month it's The Wall covers. (Did you know Pink Floyd's record came out 30 years ago this month?) Unfortunately, Roger Waters is on the cover and I'm not a fan, but maybe the cover story will change my mind. Mojo can do that for you.

I also had a buche de noel on Christmas Day for the first time ever. What did you do? Please tell!

FPM: I Really Am Reading Dickens' A Christmas Carol

It's not just for show. I'm reminded again what a terrific writer Dickens is--at the level of the sentence, even. Who cares if A Christmas Carol has been done to death in a myriad of performing arts iterations. Who cares about the story's moral which you can see coming from a mile away. Reading it is a completely different experience.

I write this after hearing some disappointing news. I feel like I should be discreet, but recently I have been thwarted in my job search. It's not an easy time to be looking for any job, and it's even worse, I suspect, in my industry. I'm trying to be hopeful; I'm trying to not wish I weren't so old. It may be awhile before something I am qualified for comes around again. Sigh.

The first photo here shows a woman wearing a stretch sequined hat (under headphones), and tights with differently colored legs. Also, look really closely at her boots and you'll see stylized line drawings of cats! I love that. Other photos depict some weekend images from my community garden and just outside the garden.

Other than that, we were hit with a fantastic storm over the weekend, but not big enough in my opinion. I wanted to be completely shut in for days. I wanted the city shut down. I would have finished the Dickens by now.

As for the holidays, we will be here. We had tried in October to get tickets to Salt Lake City but some key flights were already sold out, and what was left was rather expensive. There are some siblings I will be missing terribly. And I'm trying to fight being sad on the day. I rather hate Christmas Day, much preferring the Eve.

What about you? What will you do? What will you wear? And I just don't ask this to ask this, but what have you been wearing?

FPM: I Like Christmas; So Sue Me!

I've been laying low about liking the holidays. I realize it's incredibly square to flaunt it; it's far hipper to just get through it, endure it grimly and cynically. It's the more responsible take, probably. Everyone I know is fashionably non-plussed by the holidays, or if they're not blase, then they are deeply annoyed--which is totally cool, and I can see why one would be. There is much gut-wrenching garishness about it, not to mention the negative environmental impact caused by all the consumption, the stress, and the guilt. I feel that, too. But all my life I've loved celebrations, and felt I grew up with very little of them. I celebrate Hanukah and the Solstice, and I would Kwanzaa, too, if I knew how. My parents were not good celebrators, and generally low energy about most things, especially these things, and I found that deeply troubling. I wanted lovely things about at designated times. I craved excitement. They ran from it.

One December, my father casually shrugged off the idea of getting a tree. I was in 6th grade and beside myself. How could we not get a tree?

"Trees are pagan," my father said. "It's not even part of the Christian aspect of Christmas." (Years later, my sister and I surmised that he just didn't want to spend the money and/or go through the trouble.)

Yet, at 12, I was grim. "I'll draw a tree then!" I said in characteristic martyr-like faction. We got an artificial tree, I believe, that year. My dad may have been trying to be doctrinaire, but he often bent to the pressure of his children.

I love our current tree, not artificial (which we take to the city-wide mulchfest every January). I love holiday windows. I love Santacon (see Bill Cunningham's inspired post about this). I love holiday songs, and holiday concerts. I love to sing. I walked through a snowy Tompkins Square Park the other afternoon with my kids and sang "Winter Wonderland." I'm humming it now as I write.

The dude below fits in perfectly with this week's FPM theme. When I spotted him, I thought "Art Garfunkel" and started to sing "Hazy Shade of Winter." Perhaps I'll try and pull that one into the Christmas canon.

Great Expectations

These shoes were on the free fence on Christmas Eve. Looked like a nice gift for somebody. I'm realizing that I enjoy the days leading up to Christmas more than Christmas itself, and I think that the dissatisfaction I felt this season has a lot to do with the fact that I miss my siblings and their kids this year. Everyone has congregated in Utah but me, and there is snow there. Here, there's just the free fence, with these shoes dangling off. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed making my kids happy, and I happily opened my one present from A (plus an unexpected and great handmade necklace from a very old friend in Arizona), but something was missing. We even but a small bag together for the man that sits out in front of this one store--we put it together hastily, and I'm not sure if he was annoyed by it or not.

We had been invited to friends for dinner, and that was very nice. But I felt sad, maybe because sad things seem to happen during the week between Christmas and New Year's, not sure why--this year something sad happened today too trivial to mention, but the biggest piece of troubling news is that Pat's murderer pleaded "not guilty" today in Salt Lake City, in front of Pat's friends who were in the courtroom with him. Whether this is what the lawyer told him to say or not, it's still upsetting.

Oh, and I'm still toiling over two papers for school. Whenever I look up from my work, I see this sign. Don't worry; I'm not having any holiday drinks. I have deadlines, after all.

Happy Helliday!

Yes, even the Hell's Angel's decorated for Christmas, or maybe, ESPECIALLY them. I'm really not trying to be subversive today, on Christmas of all days, only that I the kids and I spotted Richard Hell again two days ago, on Sunday near Union Square, when we were walking home. He wore his yellow rain slicker and jauntily strode a hair's breath by us again, but this time, two days before Christmas, Richard Hell carried a fancy shopping bag, tissue paper sprouting from the top in cinematic style. "Look girls! It's Richard Hell!" I adjusted their heads as he crossed 14th Street. The children's cries indicated to me that they, too, recognized his legend. I had just seen him the night before as one of the taling heads on VH1 Classic's Seven Ages of Rock, which you can also see on-line via their site.

The girls are watching High School Musical 2, hand selected with great care from Santa's bag, so I thought I'd break away to the computer closet, where I am listening to Townes Van Zandt on WFMU streaming, and post some helliday, er holiday photos talking over the past week or so.

Merry Christmas, and I really do mean that--I know it's terribly unfashionable to love Christmas, but I do.

(NOTE: the captions are not congruent with the images and I don't know how to fix it. I just have to let it go, let it go....)

It was the day before Christmas at the 34th Street stop, and people were in a shopping frenzy, but couldn't help but stop and listen to these guys, who were so great I unabashedly pushed my way forward to shoot several photos.



More holiday music: You never see long haired, gentle angry flautist types like this in NYC, but people were giving him money. He was, however, being ignored by the ultra-Orthodox man in the background, waiting for a train.


On the way back from the Christmas pageant yesterday, I made sure to walk by Lynn's place. Lynn was the kids' old sitter who died in 2004 of a heroin overdose in this building. Lynn would join us every Christmas morning and bring presents for the girls. We still miss him, and it looks like his landlord finally got everyone out of the building, like he'd been trying to. (Incidentally, this is Parker Posey's block.)



This is kid #2 going over her list with Santa. He was pretty faithful to the list, but what choice did he have?



Holiday window on 9th Street, between 1st and 2nd Avenues, which is where the best toy store in New York City resides, Dinosaur Hill. The owner, Paula, who puts up anti-global warming-themed toy displays, has been described as fairy godmother, and she is.


I had to be on Park Avenue for several hours last week--even the garbage up there is beautiful. Look!


Do you believe this? Is it true for you?

No Fashion Post on Tuesday Either

The stress level is so high here--what with a stack of stuff to send out to nieces and nephews in the west, and now said stuff probably won't get there in time.

I just finished my last class tonight, and still have two more papers to write, which makes me want to throw up. Plus, I offered to run the coffee kiosk in the school lobby Friday morning, forgetting I have a standing appt with my therapist at 10:00 am, and will not have time between now and then to back for it. Plus, we have misplaced a check here, and it's making me weep.

Plus, I still have a good amount of holiday-related errands to run. Tears well up.

The photo here is a random photo I just happened to find on A.'s desktop. I took it this summer in more leisurely times in Tompkin's Square Park. I was using photographing my kid as a ruse to photograph the intriguingly styled couple in the distance. As I write, I have a fear that I've posted this photo before, but please, if I have don't prove it to me. I don't think I could take that right now.

Paper Due Tonight--Fashion Post Monday Postponed 'til Tuesday

Finally finished the reading path, which I will post here this week. A reading path is a readers' advisory tool that public librarians supposedly use, but where? In some idyllic, Star's Hollow (which is the fantasy town where the Gilmore Girls lived on tv and if you live there, Sebastian Bach, from Skid Row, will join your amateur indie band) library on some better version of earth?

I have an ADORABLE Christmas story for those of you who have been waiting for one. Took the kids to see Santa at ABC Carpet and Home (where Chris Robinson--the ex Mr. Kate Hudson--was once spotted buying sheets). This Santa . . . we've been paying homage to him every year for the past six years. He's such a beautiful person that you want to cling to his legs and never leave, and he makes you desperately want to believe in him. Anyway, Kid #2 sat on his lap for the first time this Christmas. She carefully unfolded her list, and showed it to Santa, and they went over it together, he, in a very concerned fashion, spending a lot of time. Because when you go see this Santa, by some miracle, there is rarely a line.