A Day at the Garden

Yesterday, I rode this small yellow bus to the gardens of Staten Island.

The whole place reeked of honeysuckle,

but the sky was crazy blue.



We read poems about foxes,


and we spoke to the trees;

we made birds with our hands

and we lounged in the grass.

In the end,we were left with nothing but the dandelion chains.

(oh, but, really, in the end, is there anything else that we truly need?)

Update on the Nuptials

I just had my wedding dress shipping affidavit notarized at the corner funeral parlor. Gotta love Brooklyn!

Little Miss Merry Christmas

All morning I've been plagued by a horrific image: I was ten, and I begged, begged, begged my mom to let me enter the "Little Miss Merry Christmas" pageant in this tiny South Carolina town we were living in. For the talent, I choreographed Snow White en pointe (that I could neither choreograph nor double-pirouette didn't seem to bother me). I wore my Sunday best, teased my hair a bit and slopped on some of my mother's Lancome Rosewood. In the light of the pre-show dressing room, it was clear that I would be discovered that day, plucked off the stage and carried off to Hollywood.

I think there were five of us. Let's just say I didn't win, and I wasn't one of the three runner-ups. If you could be transported to that day, you would laugh until you cried. Really. Until you cried.

Let them eat cake!

This is Addison Maxine. She is my (very sweet and funny) god daughter. Last week she turned one. Imagine being one! Imagine the cake! Imagine burying your face into the cake, and your fingers; imagine going deeper and deeper into it and not knowing that this is exactly what you are supposed to be doing, that this cake is all for you, that no one will say no or slap your hand;
you won't have to go to therapy or Weight Watchers or to that little place with the psychic in the west village; you can bury yourself in the chocolate, and the people around you--the people who have never hurt you, who have only loved you--will clap and snap photographs; they'll sing you a song, and you, you delighted little beast of a human, will keep eating because you have made it; you have made it to one (to one!), and you need all the chocolate you can get to make it another 99 years!

Cody's Green Thumb

In case there were any questions as to why I'm marrying this man.

Dr. Joseph Hefner: My Genius of a Brother

As a teenager, my brother had the habit of picking up roadkill and throwing it into the back of his Geo Tracker. He'd boil the skin off, bleach the bones in the sun and then paint colorful symbols on the skulls. Wa-La! Merry Christmas, mom--here's a raccoon skull with an arrow!

While this habit may have led my Irish twin of a brother to be a serial killer, he did what few Hefners have done before, he took the high road! Yes, folks, my brother has finished his dissertation and is getting his doctorate. I like to refer to him as a craniologist. The man loves skulls; he'd be the first to reach out and rub your head at a party.



This is the brother who painted the walls of the room I'm in now; the brother who, at four, pretended he was Hulk Hogan, who, at eleven, break danced on cardboard, who, even now, can pull quarters from behind your ear and rabbits out of baseball caps, who can pluck a tune on the ukulele and catch a fly with his bare hands; the brother who loves quickly and fiercely, whose laugh is maybe my favorite sound in the world; the brother who I could ride around in a car with for years, not caring where we were going or if we ever got there.

This morning I am thinking about the red bag he used to carry on his weekend visits. He was living with our dad and Linda, and I was living with our mom, and weekends were magic because we got to be together. When he came to stay with us, Linda would safety pin an index card to the bag which stated its contents: 2 pairs underwear, 2 pairs socks, blue corduroys, yellow Mr. T t-shirt, green sweater.

Just thinking about the red bag twists my heart a little bit, makes me think of the long drive back, after we had dropped him off, how quiet the car seemed.

But, my brother, we've made it! We are neither killers nor druggies, lunatics nor thieves! Heck, we're not even boring. You, for goodness sake, have a woman you love, a dog with a French name, and, come August, a piece of paper, you can proudly frame and display among your famous collection of skulls.

It Ain't the Hamptons...

...but it sure feels good:

Me and Cody, sitting in the backyard, sipping on cold beers and squirting each other with the garden hose.