one thing today

  ... it's clear to me. Human elegance is about making others feel heard, known, appreciated, welcome, warm, enjoyable. Listen, inquire, encourage. It can be cultivated but you gotta have the initial awareness of the requirement to improve, enhance, increase. It takes desire and time and a willingness to be invested, consistent, persistent. It gets easier to understand. It gets harder to do.

Ain't it grand how the small things we love give us big pleasure. I bought this beautiful box in Paris maybe 50 years ago. I paid 40 dollars for it. It's Florentine leather which gets  better with age.   It is a premium, full-grain Italian vacchetta  tanned with tree bark extracts. It has deep, wide corner grooves it's always a great thing to rub.  I don't know where I found this cool pencil sharpener. It makes my number 2s sharp and ready for action. And again, it's an easy, good rub whenever you want to focus for a moment. The shavings are pretty, too. 

Its  8 in the morning.  I go to the deli for coffee and see Marcos .  Me: Somethings different about you. What is it?  M: I shaved. ME: You look ten years younger.  M: I don't like it.  ME: You don't like looking ten years younger?  M: No.  ME: How come?  M: I don't know.  Me: And you hair looks really good, too.  M: Well, sure. The hair's always beautiful. I walk through the Village. It looks like it's in Technicolor. I take a pic of two proud griffins - aren't they all.  I go down to the river to move. I think about my convo with sister Suzie yesterday. She asked me - notice anything different about me on this call. I tell her - you seem, peaceful, calm, a good mile per hour. She says - I haven't interrupted you. I say - oh, right . My sis changes. Gets better. Few people do.  I get a text from Lynda. Jay had a heart attack in Boston.  I talk to Sharkey. He thinks homelessness should be illegal. I do not. My phone g...

David is the best super in new york city and lucky me, he's mine.  This week, he turned a closet in my foyer into a book shelf. Flawless. He underestimates his worth. I told him I'll pay him twice what he asked for. He said   - I'll take it . I told him he's gotta know his worth. People pay for his time and and labor and talent. I paid him yesterday morning and included a good tip. I said - let's do more soon . He said - Yeah. Break something. 

I was going to write about how stupid it was that all these friends sent a friend of ours prayers for his daughter to come thru brain surgery - like God has to have a   dozen more "likes" to see to it that she comes thru alive. But instead, I'll note how beautiful the sun plops on my table as I finish a painting of the oldest house on Fire Island and listen to Samuel Barbers Adagio for Strings.  

David Sedaris was asked if he could go back and repeat a moment - what would it be. He described a Fall afternoon when he was in his early 20s and he brought his sisters record player out into the backyard and raked leaves while listening to Phoebe Snows first album.   Mine would be a Thanksgiving at Pattys house - probably '77 or '78. As usual, her parents were away and Don is with us and he's very relaxed and reading a newspaper in the den. I think it felt so special because it was a merging of my past in her home - summers high and listening to music with my friends and talking about what our futures were going to be - and having D there now - my new life. Here.