Rose Hills
The Rings
I took off the ring that Billy and I wore since he proposed to me in our hotel room in Montreal when we went to the Black and Blue Party in 1997. They were a simple pair of unpolished silver bands. I’d been wearing Billy’s, plus another one he also wore that he found and really liked on the Venice boardwalk. Billy is still wearing mine.
The Couch
The office of our friend Jimmey was in a writer’s bungalow in the back of the Fox lot, tucked away beyond the prop and set barns, far past the lot’s famed New York street. Pee Wee was the previous occupant during his Playhouse years. He left behind a long sofa, each cushion a different Sixties […]
Thirty years, with and without
Thirty years ago today, I met Bill Ledbetter at a “party,” one where we connected inside my first five minutes of being there. After I left, I couldn’t quite shake how much I enjoyed meeting him, unusual for someone whose motto was always “in bed by midnight, home by three.” The next day I called […]
My dogs
The Back Stairs
If I close the door at the bottom of the steep service stairs that lead from the bedrooms to the kitchen, it blocks out the distant light from the Gaffers and Sattler stove, making the stairwell itself a pitch-black downward tunnel. The last thing I do before I corral the dogs into the bedroom is […]
A View from 25H
I looked at eight apartments on my househunting trip to NYC when I was about to relocate there in the earliest part of 2015. Liberty View was the last one I saw and the moment I walked into the corner unit and realized the entire city would be in my view, I locked it in. […]
Eddie, Our Worrier
When I landed In NYC mid-afternoon yesterday, I listened to the dire voicemail from the vet, so when the car dropped me off at the vet, I was on the people-mover forcing me toward something bad, real bad. The vet’s receptionist, instant sad eyes when I told her who I was, brought me into a […]
Circus Geek
It was pure comedy gold when my face kissed the sidewalk on Chambers St in front of an audience the size of an equity waiver house. How did you simply fall face first, you might ask? I’d say none of your business. But through that week, the minor nose and lip scrapes gave way to […]
Beirut, the “Paris of the Middle East”
Everything in Beirut has the forgiving blue light of the Mediterranean, its outstretched arms embracing the city’s spirit, and it offers an escape from its warring neighbors. The sea is at the heart of its culture and the people nurture that link to those countries not that far away. If you squinted really hard while […]