accidental bliss.

okay...so i wore a shirt, but this is about how i felt.

oh, dear readers...lest you think i'm always in the throes of despair, lamenting the size of my thighs and my spotted chin (not to be confused with spotted dick - "a dish of British extraction, it's a steamed, log-shaped suet pudding studded with currants"), you should know i had an absolutely marvelous, though jam-packed weekend that made me feel blessed from frizzy-head to calloused toe.

how could you not feel blessed when...

...at 3 am on saturday morning, you share vanilla sponge cake squishy with layers of chocolate pudding and fresh strawberries with your band members in simultaneous celebration of your last NYC gig together and b's, the piano player, bday. making you, of course, just a little regretful and weepy of your decision to quit. boo. hoo.

...or when you get to perform in a show that speaks to you, through you...the words you are lucky enough to speak are delicious, fiery morsels, and if you could eat them, you would b/c in those words passion resides and Dad always said that "what you want in life is a certain fire in your belly." but instead, you share them with the audience members and, miraculously, they get it. (there were also 3 reviewers there...let's hope they got it too. eeks.)

...or when you watch the sunset over Central Park from the roof of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a giant butterfly kite hovers above the trees, suspended in silhouette against the buzzing, warm corona of the sun...the light, the colors, the lazy ambience so similar to those in th Monet/Manet/Renoir paintings you just passed inside. all that is missing, you think, is your parasol (and fluency in french, of course).

...or when you don a bright pink wide-brimmed hat and a flouncy white skirt that makes you feel, if even just a little bit, like a combination southern belle and ballerina. you have to tug on your shirt throughout the day because your belly keeps wanting to peek out from beneath your camisole, an impudent child who should be in bed, hoping to catch a glimpse of the glamorous grown-ups, but whatever...you fancy yourself pretty anyhow.

...or when you have dinner with friends in from Mississippi in a candlelit italian restaurant. you devour long-legged strands of al dente linguini in a simple dress of sauteed spinach and feta cheese, sip a cool glass of pinot grigio, and ride the cadence of their southern speak...a molasses and grits rollercoaster of colloquialisms and drawls.

and how could you not feel blessed when, looking out the open window of the cab as you ride over the 59th street bridge - you are sleepy, the whirring of the wheels against the pavement, the wind playing with your hair, together a strange city lullaby - you realize...

holy shit...i'm happy.