Last chance to vote in Best of Suncoast

In case you’re interested in voting for me in this year’s Creative Loafing Best of the Suncoast readers poll — you’ve only got a couple of days left. I think the deadline is Sunday night. Then, they announce the winners sometime in October. I’m eligible for Best Local Columnist and Best Local Blogger — but there are a lot of other cool categories to vote in. My vote for Best Waste of Taxpayer’s Dollars went to the City’s decision to keep Abbott on paid leave! I know, I know — I’m like a dog with a bone.

Any hoo — if you want to vote (and I’d sure appreciate it!) click here Best of the Suncoast.

Autumn sunset chez MC

Tonight, I took a break from a massive website project I’m working on and walked Boomerang. I was barely out the door, when I had to scoop him up and run back inside for my camera to capture this outstanding, beyond-beautiful and lovely autumn sky. As I snapped a few shots, something moving in the field below the view of my camera caught my eye. I stopped playing photog and peered into the dusky field and saw a hawk tearing something limb from limb. Again, I scooped Boomer up, ran inside, this time for my night-vision binoculars (seriously!) and ran back out to view him. I could see him clearly with the binocs — he (or she) was stunning. Much more massive than the Cooper’s Hawk I’ve seen here from time to time. A real barrel-type body. He was standing on the ground, and every minute or so would reach down to the earth and rip something with his beak and then I guess either chewed or swallowed. The whole time, he was watchful. Turning his head, this way and that. I’m sure he saw me, but I guess I was no threat. But then Boomer, who, to his credit had sat peacefully at my feet while I was captivated by the hawk, suddenly dashed up after a lizard or something in the grass. At that, the hawk lifted up in a flash and flew across the field. I got to watch him until he was out of sight. Honestly, I was grateful he had a good dinner; I tried not to think about what creature he was devouring — the law of the jungle, I guess. Or should I say, the law of my Walden.

September segue

All those years of living in New England have fixed my internal calendar to interpret September in only one way: the romance of fall.

I was born in the spring, but I’m a fall baby at heart. It’s the time of year I feel the best; a time of optimism and fresh starts. A time of anticipation for myriad seasonal festivities. A time for first kisses and getting a little crazy.

I’m so ready. Ready to stoke up a fire (I wish), cue up some Dinah Washington (schwa-ing!) and curl up on the couch with a book I should have read in college (okay, that’s not that crazy).

I’m ready to break out a sweater dress, throw on some sexy boots, and sidle up to a neighborhood bar for a little hot toddy and witty repartee (oh, geez, that’s what I want the most!).

But here in Sarasota, it’s still 90 degrees outside and we’ve still got almost two and a half months left to hurricane season, so how does one get in that September swing? Without the typical harbingers of fall – the changing colors of the leaves, the crisp air – how do Sarasotans make that switch in mood from full-on summer to please-come-on fall?

Um, as usual — my response to all times of change is to think of romance — dating – specifically first dates – I’m serious — a great, new first date is the best way to get in the fall mood.

If you can find a decent bar in this town that doesn’t have a ridiculously malapropos television turned on, a bar where the food is kickin and the martinis are icy cold … I can’t imagine a better way to kick off autumn that by cozying up to a bar or in a booth under the low lights; reveling in a first-date glow. With the crowds of season still a few weeks away, there must be plenty of places where September wining and dining would carry some major mojo.

Or, if you’re like me, after feasting all summer on the natural world’s works of arts – mesmerizing sunsets, for example, — you may find yourself longing for the sumptuousness of man-made art again. The Ringling Museum of Art, small and simple, is the perfect sorbet between seasons. Besides, a walkabout through the museum’s gorgeous interiors and courtyard will cleanse your palate of summer and ready you for the excesses of the so-called arts season.

I believe Ringling is having a special exhibition of Buddhist art through November; I’ll have to check it out to get my autumn on.

The dogma of dogs

I have a love/hate relationship with seeing a car go by with a dog poking its head or sometimes its whole upper body out of a car window. Head raised, ears flapping back, often a tongue hanging out flopping in the wind.

Photo courtesy of engnr_chik on Flickr (some rights reserved)

Feeling that deliciously heady sense of freedom that comes from going fast, feeling the wind on one’s face, knowing somebody else is at the wheel and you’re safe, knowing you’re hair will be a rat’s nest, maybe even having to spit the occasional bug out from in between you teeth when it’s all over … and still … loving every single second of it.

I gotta get me some of that doggie dogma.

*link for engnr_chik

Civilities

I dance around you
like a firefly —
caught
in the hand
of June;
made wary
by a past
that haunts
the present,
and fuels civilities.

I flail and fall
through impolitic coupling —
as alone
then
as later;
listening to the blues
or meeting your friends,
I murmur civilities.

I feel most honest
when you sleep —
your eyes closed
mine wide open,
holding my own breath
to listen to yours.

It’s those intrepid explorers
I’m wondering about —
the ones who swath
their way
through the overgrowth
through undoing incivility,
shrugging off the pounding din
staring down the dead-yellow eyes
of all those
jungle-hungry hearts.

If you want to hear MC’s opinion

. . . on everything from lizards mating to the kissing statue on our bayfront to my theories on clipping coupons, shopping at my local Publix, sex in the morning, and going with fewer martinis every week . . . have a listen at the link below! You can laugh, at least, at my goofy attempts to keep from swearing and roll your eyes, at the very least, at the very weird conversation about the word “colored” and the word “black.” And yes, I know I bungled it … but I was just a little taken aback.

MC on the radio talkin’ ’bout lizards, sex, and horse-surfing!

I’m not saying it’s the most fascinating radio talk of all time — but if you care to listen to the podcast of the radio show I was on earlier today — WSLR 96.5 LPFM’s Two Early in the Morning — check it out.

MC on WSLR Wednesday, September 16

Hey! MC will be on Two Early In the Morning — tomorrow, Wednesday, September 16th from 9 to 10 am.

Call the studio at 941-355-4540 between 9 and 10 and ask any question you like … of me … or Two Early In the Morning host Francis Scheuer. Whatever you want to comment/ask about — birds, parking meters, being single in the SRQ, health insurance … whatever.

Listen in at WLPFM at 96.5. Or listen live on the Internet at WSLR on the Internet.

Pileated woodpeckers … visit MC

September 11th … remembered

This is a column I wrote in 2007 … entitled Out on a Limb for Love

Another September 11th has come and gone. Six of them now since the first, and we’re still afraid. Maybe even more afraid. Of terrorists, of global warming, of war, of the stock market.

But mostly we’re afraid of each other.

Every day I hear at least one person express a desire for love – romantic, familial, friendship — but they’re too afraid to reach out and ask for it. Too afraid of rejection. To afraid their ego will take a hit. So frozen with fear that they’d rather live without the love they desire than go out on a limb and really, specifically, ask for it.

Single friends of mine are afraid they won’t find someone to love them. Married friends are afraid their marriages are failing or are numbly disconnected. Older parents I know are afraid to ask their busy middle-aged children for attention and time, something more than the occasional obligatory phone call or annual visit.

Fear. How can we let it be more powerful in our lives than love?

In the days that followed September 11th, everyone in America seemed willing to go out on a limb for love. Willing to call family members from whom they’d been estranged, to take the hand of the spouse they were cheating on and promise never again, to tell themselves they’d never send their children to bed without looking them directly in their eyes and saying “I love you more than the sun and the earth and the moon.” Willing to invite a stranger to dine with them or smile a greeting to the person who passed by on the street. Willing to be the first to say “I’m sorry.”

Six years later? Not so much.

We’re back to our old ways. Families are still fragmented by petty arguments and marriages still destroyed by laziness. People still twist their faces in angry grimaces at the elders who move too slowly in front of them. Friends still haggle over who “started it,” and who owes who an apology.

Six years ago, everyone said that those planes crashing into buildings and fields, those families decimated, those lives lost, would teach the rest of us the lesson of a lifetime: That we must not wait until we are confronted with death to say what was left unsaid. That life is to be lived and people are to be loved. Now, not later.

If you had just a few minutes left to live on a plane hurtling toward death, whom would you call? Whose voice would you want to hear? Whom would you forgive? Whom would you ask for forgiveness? To whom would you whisper, “I love you;” who would your heart break to touch and hug just once more?

What are you waiting for?

The lessons of September 11th are many, but the one that stands out above all is this: Love the best you can, as often as you can, while you can. Ask for love. Give love.

Blood-letting

Her hand,
a small one
according to standards
she’s never been able to meet

Says, “Look — she is here;
let the inquisition
begin.”

(If she’s told one lie,
she’s told ten.)

Fingertips poised
ready to draw
true blue
then drop à point
to be read
once bled.

The vellum almost
an admonishment:
She had better tell the truth.