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!

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

Unspoken truths … articulated by Christopher Hitchens

If you haven’t yet read Christopher Hitchens’ June essay in Vanity Fair … I can’t urge you enough to do so. I’ve been reading Hitch since I was just past knee-high to a grasshopper (give or take a few years) and his writing — his thinking — and most importantly, his feeling — are all more acutely drawn because of his personal situation.

You can read “Unspoken Truths” by clicking here. It’s a fabulous piece of writing, but far more than just that.

I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.
—T. S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.”

Dating do’s and don’ts

I could write a book on bad dates, dud dates, and my own many faux pas made on dates … there’s just a sampling of the many do’s and don’ts that can make or break a first date .. in my Sense and the City column in today’s Sarasota Herald-Tribune.

Swimming at sunset

Tonight, like a dream. Swimming in the pool at the house I’m watching over for the summer … a man was out fishing in the low tide. He’d rowed up to the sandbar on a small kayak. He threw cast after cast but I never saw him catch anything. I swam. Under the wide open sky, no cage overhead to stop the pine needles from the nearby Australian pines from floating down every now and again.

Nothing between me and sky and clouds and … my lovely osprey. How can a human be so in love? With a bird? But I am. I coo to him (or her) en francais, not caring what the neighbors think. I say, “Bonjour, ma petite. Ne cri pas. My honeybunch.” I’m like a looney-tune. I swim.

Remnants of something — a crab? — left off the side of the pool, where many crane-like, stork-like birds come to scout lizards or perhaps drink the water, one, crazily, even when I was swimming, ventured close.

Pelicans, seagulls, waterfowl of every kind, winging their way back to nests. The pool seems to be directly under their nightly flight path.

Luxuriating in the water. Watching the clouds and loving those moments when the osprey fly in so close over the pool that I feel I could reach them (and I pray they don’t drop any, um, thing … notably that fish in their talons). Every now and again, Mr. (or is it Ms.?) Osprey turns his head to look at me. “I’m not dinner,” I remind him. Their diet is 95% fish, you know. I looked it up.

It’s magic here. On the Intracoastal. Which I’d choose any day over a place on the beach.

I think a woman could find her best self here. Recall the woman she might have left behind while off searching for love and fortune. Recall the woman who isn’t afraid of never being married again. Who doesn’t mind, really, the uncertain future.

Recall the woman who doesn’t give a damn about anything else but the feeling of a light wind coming from the west wrapping around her bare skin as she steps out of the dreamy, warm, water. The air almost cool. The sun, now setting. The fisherman moving back toward his kayak.

It’s easy to do here: remembering who you were, liking who you are, and looking forward to who you yet will be. That’s the magic of this place.

The Buck starts here

If you haven’t seen the new documentary, Buck — I highly recommend it. It sounds like it’s about the horse whisperer and the equine world, but it’s really about life and how our life circumstances do not have to dictate who and what we become. Well, that and also how to treat a horse … which is an awful like how you should treat a human.

Check it out — www.buckthefilm.com.

Holy smokes! They’ve caught Whitey Bulger!!

FBI Nabs Whitey Bulger!!!

I used to hang around the North End of Boston before it got all prettied up and gentrified and yuppified and before the Big Dig and all the “walkable” improvements connecting the NO to the rest of Beantown.

I remember walking under I-93 which goes straight through Boston, through little-used (at the time) tunnel reeking of urine and a bit intimidating with homeless people lining the walls — all just to get to the North End.

I’d go there and hang out at the old caffes where men played chess and you could smoke ’til your lungs gave out. I met more than one made man there back in the days. And though I kept my distance, they were often very protective of me. I was always alone at the caffes, sitting in there all day long, reading, writing, smoking (yes, back then I smoked!), and drinking coffee after coffee. Sometimes they’d let me play chess with them. And often, if a man bothered me or was hitting on me (yes, this did happen to me … back in the day!!), they’d intervene.

Often the serious players in the crime world would come in and just go straight back to the doors that led to a basement meeting place. It wasn’t glamorous; they weren’t sexy (well, one was, but that’s another story), and I knew they were ruthless, bad — for the most part — guys. Not goodfellas by a long shot. But they were always decent to me. Go figure.

Of course, the North End wasn’t exactly Whitey’s hangout. He was a South Boston thug of mythic — and monstrous — proportion. I’m so glad they caught him.

Day with Dad Fuels Lifetime of Security and Love

Father’s Day is Sunday June 19th … hope you enjoy my “Sense and the City” column in today’s Sarasota Herald-Tribune — page 37E for you print readers out there and if you’re an online reader — just click here:

Day with Dad Fuels Lifetime of Security and Love

Here’s a snippet to get you started …with the spectacular, ever-changing view of the water, jumping mullet, and a family of ospreys flying directly overhead, it’s a challenge to look at a computer screen. I just want to watch the world.

Eye-candy for the sophisticated voyeur

A few weeks back, I wrote a column about how “sex sells” and questioned whether women as a group are empowered or disempowered by our culture’s commercialization of female sex appeal. I mentioned, among other examples, pole-dancing at Sarasota fundraisers and the Black Diamond Burlesque troupe that has been sizzling up Sarasota’s sexy factor.[/caption]

To read my update on “eye candy for the sophisticated voyeur, check out my Sense and the City column in today’s Sarasota Herald Tribune Ticket by clicking the link below:

Black Diamond Burlesque — ‘Eye-candy for the sophisticated voyeur’ — at McCurdy’s Friday

Birthday brings luck, life, and little creatures!

I’m the kind of person who LOVES her birthday. I plan for it weeks in advance, and usually like to celebrate with at least a full week of hanging out with friends and my Mum, getting together for a bite or drink or walk and talk. This year, my birthday seemed to last all month long — and just a couple of nights ago, two of the loveliest women I know in Sarasota took me out for dinner at Gateway to India where we had a nearly two-and-a-half-hour-long gabfest while munching on naan and devouring our delicious dinners.

And despite my pleas for no gifts, (more…)