Cooler than You: Stupid Things I Say and Do

How does one start the next narrative? I do not know, yet here I am.   I'm back in Greece after a blissful month in the South of France.  There, I had elongated days filled with walks, stone fruits bleeding with juice, and the clicks of heels along smoothed cobblestones.  Of course, I stopped in Paris for a few sunsets, and then I spent nearly a month in Aix.  Knowing me as an urban dweller mainly thriving from smog and city noise, friends were keen to watch me as the days rolled by.  I have a hunch a few had bets I would lose my cookies and run back to the winding streets of Paris with panhandlers and pickpockets, tourist queues, and the endless noise and complacent stress of city life.  Instead, as the days lingered, I found a rhythm and solace within the small town.  Vendors at the market started to recognize me; the cafe I went to for iced coffee treated me as a local after my third visit--realizing I was there a long haul--as I blundered my F...

Since it has been sometime since I posted lackadaisical nonsense . . . okay, not that long , but since the valley of life has thrown me to the weeds in a long, and an undeniable shitstorm of power and persuasion, I escape and release myself through fantasy and humor . . . and as we all know sewing.  Today, enjoy a sewing diversion of sorts. When I am 80 . . . indeed.  Just as I have a to-do list of things for today (like grade, write a letter, pay a bill, finish a lingering article, walk the dog, grade, grade some more, work on another lingering article, read a book for review . . . yawn stretch, are you tired yet?) I have a list of things to do when I am 80.  My bestie and I conference a few times a year, meeting around the globe in airports and hotels, to meet, relax, give talks, make articles, and plot the next one . . . and drink wine and eat chocolate of good quality and seek each city's epic sushi spot (in Amsterdam . . . we found a place, on a side street, that t...