Two Sarasota Bartenders Make MC’s Saturday Night

Interested in knowing what I was doing last Saturday night? Read today’s Sense and the City column (Sarasota Herald-Tribune TICKET section, always way in the back pages!) or click here to read it online.

Equality Among the Sexes?

No, I’m not channeling that long-ago tennis match between Billy Jean King and Bobby Riggs … just announcing today’s Sense and the City topic: Women’s Equity Day, which is next Thursday. You can read it in today’s Sarasota Herald-Tribune TICKET or just click here: Do Women Really Need an Equity Day?.

Feel free to come back here to MC Reality Online and debate the topic!

No books for you! MC’s booksigning canceled!

Remember that Seinfeld episode with the Soup Nazi!

Well, anyway, no books for you! My book signing for tonight at Bookstore1 Main (in Sarasota) was canceled by the shop. They accidentally overbooked authors for tomorrow night’s signing event … so MC is out! But they were super apologetic about and have invited me back for September sometime.

Sorry to anyone who may have thought about coming out!!

Dusk on a Sunday Evening

Sunday night. Sitting outside in the heat — beginning to abate somewhat. The heat that is. Me? I’m not abating at all. Waiting? Maybe. For something I’m not sure.

In the meantime, I have squirrels squirreling around. Coming closer for nuts. Closer, then rushing away. Closer, then running. Isn’t that the way life is. The way we all are?

Bromeliads are blooming. And I feel good. The heat. The singular beauty in front of me. The rodents at my feet. Boomer is at the window, licking his chops and wondering why I’m fraternizing with the enemy.

Friday night were the Perseids. I was watching around 4 a.m., from inside this time. Prone on my couch, the cool leather giving a reprieve to my skin. Looking out the tall windows toward the sky. The moon, on the other side of the horizon from when I saw it around 11 pm, subdued by the clouds but still illuminating … everything: my car in the drive, the shrubs, glinting off the bird bath.

Meteors flashing across a Sturgeon Moon sky.

I couldn’t see a one. But I knew they were there. Flying by on their way to somewhere. Whipping by in all their immediacy. Their urgency.

Make a wish. Quick. All the more reason if you can’t see them.

Signing Sideways

I’ll be signing copies of my book of collected newspaper columns — Sideways in Sarasota, on Tuesday night (August 16) from 6 to 8 pm at Bookstore 1, 1359 Main Street, Sarasota.

If you don’t have a copy of my book and want one — swing on by! If you have one but want to just drop by and say hello and browse this great new Sarasota bookstore — that’s great too.

Coffee with a conscience

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you might recall me writing about my new coffee-maker last year … . I wrote a different version for this week’s Sense and the City column. If you’re still buying coffee … maybe this will inspire you!

Coffee with a conscience in today’s Sarasota Herald Tribune TICKET (next to last page) or online here:
MC’s Sense and the City column online

Is Gulf Coast Community Foundation forgetting where it came from?

Wherever you fall on the issue of the Gulf Coast Foundation dropping Venice from its name — Eric Ernst’s colum in today’s Sarasota Herald Tribune is superbly written. You can read it here: Charity, remember: Venice is in your blood.

Bitten by the blues

Monday night I dragged myself out of the house at 9 p.m., and went to the opening of Ocean Blues (well, it was a soft opening for media-types and friends I think; the actual opening was on Tuesday night if I’ve got my facts straight). Ocean Blues is a restaurant/bar/music venue on Hillview; I think it’s the same location as the former New York New York joint that bit the dust last year or so; and there’s actually some space for dancing … .

Anyway, at the bar, I ran into Laura Daniel Gale — the visionary behind Black Diamond Burlesque. She and I both were wearing necklaces with lots of keys on necklaces around our necks. Mine happened to be handcuff keys, but um, wait, that’s a whole other story.

Anyway, I wrote about the blues — hearing them … not having them … for this week’s Sense and the City column out today on page 33E TICKET section, Sarasota Herald-Tribune. Or you can read it online by clicking Sarasota’s new house of blues.

Where you won’t see me tomorrow night!

I’m doing a book-signing on August 16th at Bookstore 1 on Main Street in Sarasota, 6-8 pm I think.

But the bookstore inadvertently listed me in the paper and on their website as doing the signing on August 2nd!

So, just in CASE you were planning to swing by the bookstore to meet me or pick up a signed copy of Sideways in Sarasota tomorrow night … I won’t be there until the 16th!

Musings on a Park Bench

You’ve got to read this fantastic piece by Marguerite Jill Dye that ran in today’s Sarasota Herald-Tribune.

Musings on a Park Bench.