Kyle took two massive bags of clothes over to the 2nd Mile on Thursday, and then, feeling like we were on a roll, we made up another bag to take to Curio Theatre. Following some very good advice, I decided I should have one of the dresses photographed before giving it up to a life on the stage -- and it certainly helped. I realized I'd rather see it on somebody else now. And the bonus is that we now have more closet space!



This week was my turn to be under the weather, so I've felt a bit out of touch with the world of West Philly. I read some excellent books, however, including Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, which was mesmerizing. And now I'm dipping into nostalgia by reading some early 20th Century Lit, like Rainbow Valley by L. M. Montgomery. It makes me feel a little melancholy, as if I'm reading someone's long-forgotten letters or looking through the pages of a Victorian photo album.

We did have a lovely picnic on Friday with our friends Conrad and Colin; Kyle (try saying "Kyle, Colin, Conrad" without getting tripped up!) created a wonderful vegan mayonnaise and made us sandwiches, which were delicious. It was a perfect afternoon, with a soft breeze, and we'd decided to dress up for it, looking like a band of Edwardian revelers, in three-piece suits and frilly dresses.

I'm looking forward to seeing the new Woody Allen movie -- Kyle and I just watched Vicky Christina Barcelona, which was a wonderful romp -- what a powerful presence Penelope Cruz has in it! She owned that movie and I realized how wasted she is in so much American cinema.

Now I'm off to practice my Irish brogue for the play I'm doing in the Autumn; stay tuned.

Going through my grandmother's papers and cedar chest while in Wyoming must have inspired me, because I spent a large portion of yesterday going through my own badly organized archives, trying to find some semblance of order. I found the process to be strangely melancholy, but the primary benefit is that I can now see what needs to be done, at least a bit more clearly.

Seeing me tear my hair out over the spacial challenges of living in a 100 year old house, Kyle took action. I came downstairs to find that he had emptied one of his closets and made a mountain of items to be taken to the thrift shop... next to my mountain of items to be donated to Curio Theatre.

I'm an incurable packrat, apparently, because I couldn't help sifting through what he had chosen to discard and found myself saying "Are you sure, baby? I'm just going to put this one back in the closet."

If anyone has some organizational/storage ideas for quirky houses, please share them! I think I'm going to ask Paul if he can make a storage bench for the "boudoir" -- a combination lounging spot/cedar chest for all those fabrics I love to collect....

The lot beside our house has become a meadow... a moor... a flowering wilderness to explore and in which to lose myself. Rabbits and opossums live there, unmolested until we poor explorers hunt them out and traipse through their well-appointed salons.





yackersmaren brought me this lovely brocade dress when she visited us the other evening and I've worn it non-stop ever since. I don't usually wear strapless dresses, because I'm afraid they'll fall off at the most inopportune moment; however, this one was made just for me it would seem and it is the height of comfort and elegance.

I've had recent adventures in clothing that I can't wait to share, but I shall wait, because it will make the reveal that much more satisfying. I will simply say that petitbout is artiste extraordinaire and has created something so beautiful and exotic and perfect in every conceivable way that words couldn't possibly do it justice. So you will simply have to wait. It will be worth it.

Moving gracefully on to the subject of perfect husbands, I woke with a jolt at 2:00 this morning to find Kyle's face six inches from mine, staring intently at me, as if he had willed me awake. Not expecting to see him so near, since I had fallen asleep to Momcat's somewhat malevolent gaze, I gasped and jumped in terror. When I asked him why he'd been staring, he said "It's like going to the museum and staring at the Mona Lisa all night."

Awwwwwwww!

Married life is awwww-some!

The LJ Advisory Board elections are now open and kylecassidy is now officially in the running! Please hop on over and make your vote here!

You can read all about Kyle's views in his post here. He sounds like the person for the job!

Thank you, everyone!

We watched "Heartland" last night. I remembered, when Kyle was telling me about Letters of A Woman Homesteader, that the movie was based on the life of Elinore Pruitt Stewart and that I had seen it too many times as a child because it was one of my mother's favorite movies. How interesting then that when I reminded my mother of it last week, she had no memory of it at all!

I was curious now to see it, because I too have begun the epistolary journey with Elinore, who was a homesteader the year after my great grandparents left Oklahoma for Wyoming in 1908. The characterizations weren't what we had hoped. Elinore's wonderful sense of adventure and humor were almost entirely absent, and they chose to focus on the hardships and loneliness of homesteading, which are interesting in their own right, but not exactly the flavor of the Stewart letters.

Still, it's always wonderful to see that familiar landscape again, carved out by millions of years of sea, ice and wind. It never seems all that lonely to me.

Lucy Snowe!

kylecassidy is running for the LJ advisory board and has great plans and schemes and is just generally an awesome person and needs to be nominated. I'm not sure if all the nomination comments are showing up, but if you haven't already voted, please do it now. He needs 300 votes by 4:30 today!

Comment at this link!

http://community.livejournal.com/lj_election_en/30590.html

I don't think you can ever get Wyoming out of your heart once it's there -- there's always a tinge of home-sickness, no matter where I am... and then, when the plane comes into Cody, with Heart Mountain as a beacon, something elemental in my chemical makeup is satisfied.



Kyle's still asleep, the clock is ticking in rhythm to my heart, and all is right with the world.

Last night, as we were whisked from the bus station and up Walnut Street, I happened to glance over and see that "Passage To India" is very closed and "IHOP is Coming SOON"! There are no words to describe my angst over this. Now, not only is Abbraccio, site of our first date, no more, but Passage to India, site of our proposal, is defunct.

This means that every year on the anniversary, we'll have to go out for a romantic Pancake Breakfast. And Kyle hates pancakes.

One of the nicest things is to be able to look over at kylecassidy and think "I really want to marry this person." And then remembering "Oh yeah, I already did!"

Yay me!

After watching The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, I vowed not to make another complaint about my wisdom teeth. The film was... phenomenal -- it's been sitting on the TV for about three months in its Netflix envelope, since neither one of us has felt up to tackling the subject matter. So, I used Kyle's absence as an excuse to just get it out of the way and back on its merry journey to the Netflix factory so that we could get something more palatable. However.

After seeing it, it's still here, awaiting Kyle's return so that he can see it too. It was beautifully filmed by an artist, Julian Schnabel... and is an inspiring story about triumphing over a seemingly insurmountable obstacle -- certainly what I would consider, in my weakness, an insurmountably grim health condition. When the protagonist stated five minutes into the movie, "Je veux mourir", I nodded my head and thought "So would I!" And yet, he triumphs; optimism and an innate zest for life and pleasure and beauty and the power of the imagination all conspire to triumph over complete and utter disaster.

Thank you, lillianleitzel (it was you, n'est ce pas?) for telling me about the autobiography of Jean Dominique Bauby and conveying just what an incredible story it was and is. I felt changed after seeing it.

Of course, today I was back to whining about my jaw. How quickly these lessons seem to fade....

The good thing about having my wisdom teeth removed is that it gave me a very good excuse to do absolutely nothing and catch up on a month's worth of sleep. I started an extremely good book called "Flora Segunda" by Ysabeau S. Wilce -- my favorite kind of strong-willed female characters thrown into extremely unusual situations with magical butlers and unwieldy elevators -- and slept a great deal. "A Funeral Farce" feels like it occurred in another lifetime... when I had more teeth and was a single lady!

We've had our friends, Nathen and Dave, over to keep me company while Kyle is in Minnesota... and they've fixed every sagging board and rusty nail in the house! It's rather like having a magical butler of my very own.

A farcical event that could easily have turned to tragedy, involving the erstwhile Mistress Hennepin, occurred the other evening. I had unwittingly left the back door open, she saw her opportunity, and when my back was turned, made her getaway into the dark of some terrible night. By the time I had remarked her absence, she was nowhere to be seen, but since our porch light wasn't working, all I could see was the gaping darkness of nothing. It was terrible. I circled the house twice, ran upstairs and down like Wee Willie Winkie, found a flashlight, scanned the horizon.... NOTHING. At last, I saw her retreating form silhouetted against the street light's glow, and it was pretty obvious she had heard the call of the wild and had not the slightest intention of returning. The ungrateful little wretch.

We played cat and mouse for awhile (for kicks, Hennepin decided to play the role of mouse,) but I finally managed to scoop her up and carry her home, much to her displeasure.

Today was Curio Theatre's Memorial Weekend Barbecue -- whafford and I went and he sat in on a reading of a new play in which I acted, and then we all sat under the trees of Curio House and drank wine, ate lovely food and talked of grand schemes for the future. It was a gorgeous day!

It will be even more gorgeous when Kyle comes home. I sure do miss him.

I tried to keep a little private journal for wedding stuff, but didn't really update it regularly. If you want a few more photos and some bonus material, you can head over to kyle_trillian and poke around. For fun, try to guess which entry Kyle wrote!

Thank you, everyone!

On Sunday afternoon, I married my best friend, kylecassidy, in an intimate Quaker ceremony in our home. I read somewhere that a house where a marriage ceremony is performed becomes a "home." I wouldn't be surprised to learn that other couples had already been married here, because it's always been filled with love and laughter.



I had intended to wear a dress I already owned, but on Wednesday Karen told me she had her grandmother's sister's dress from 1932 and would love for me to wear it. It fit perfectly! And was an absolute dream to wear -- all satin and lace, with a 50 year marriage behind it. I wore my grandmother's wedding slip from 1937 under it and carried her lace handkerchief with the bouquet of roses (that came from Karen's garden.)







Our witnesses reacting to the champagne cork that nearly KILLED me as it came back from its orbit around the earth!





We had the best Ring Bearer and Kitty of Honor I've ever beheld!





It was a beautiful day and a lovely way to solemnize a promise we'd made to each other long ago. Thank you all for the warmth and outpouring of congratulations you've already given us -- I am deeply touched by it. You've all been wonderful.

Just a reminder that there are only three more performances of A Funeral Farce, and then you'll never be able to see it again! Thursday at 7:00 and Friday and Saturday at 8:00.

I can't believe it's almost over; I feel like I've barely absorbed it all and now it's almost over!

And then I get me wisdom teeth yanked out.

Yay.

I had a lovely evening in the company of our good friend, shadowcaptain...





...who took me to see Leonard Cohen at the Academy of Music...




(photo by shadowcaptain)

... who, in turn, puts on an incredible show. What an amazing and inspiring performer, and a gorgeous poet. I could listen to his voice, spoken or otherwise, all night. And, indeed, it was all night. He entertained us for three hours, showing no signs of exhaustion.

And now I'm at home, listening to Leonard on my Itunes, and reliving the concert in all its beauty.

How wonderful!

Seeing the house look like this makes me incredibly proud and happy to have such amazing friends and live in such a lovely house.



In honor of Carolyn Turgeon's Philadelphia book reading, we thought it would be a lovely idea to throw a tea party. There were scones and tarts that my amazing mother made and tea served in German china cups, and chocolate chip cookies that Dan Ellerbroek (l'artiste extraordinaire) made and sent with daphnep... and incredible conversation about art and books and Germany and dreams and schemes....

And then Ms. Turgeon read from the first two chapters of the unpublished "Mermaid Book", whetting our appetite for more... as well as "Godmother" and her first beautiful novel "Rain Village." I'm so glad I happened to see that ad all those years ago for her Philadelphia reading of "Rain Village" and quickly discovered that she's as warm and generous as her richly drawn characters are. She is simply a phenomenal person and an incredibly talented writer.



We plied her with questions afterwards... and there being other writers there, including the lovely shvetufae and our wonderful whafford, the questions were of a deep literary nature; I wish it could have gone on for hours!

Ms. Nicki Jaine then sang several songs, including two new ones that are haunting and just... incredible. This photo, however, gives an impression of just how charming and delightful she is in person. How that sound comes out of her mouth is something I'll never understand. I'm sure that those who were lucky enough to hear Edith Piaf in the flesh wondered the same thing about her....



Thank you, all of you, but especially kylecassidy, for making this day absolutely perfect. I couldn't be happier!

Here's a nice write-up of "A Funeral Farce" that appeared in the University City Review this week.

The review.

We've been keeping this private, just to give lillianleitzel's fans the opportunity to RSVP, but now the cat's out of the bag. This Sunday, May 10, from 4 - 7, Carolyn Turgeon, author of Godmother: the secret Cinderella Story and Rain Village, will be giving a reading of "Godmother" and her next, as yet unpublished, novel (about the Little Mermaid), in our home!



Nicki Jaine will be performing original and old world cabaret songs, accompanied by Ray Ashley on the accordion.

Please comment here if you'd like to attend. Room is extremely limited.

It will be a fine opportunity to hear great literature, great music, and wear corsets and tulle! It will be lovely!