Get thee to my lady's chamber

...and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favor she must come. Make her laugh at that.

Note to Self:

Always be photographed from above.

Preferably by someone who loves you.

My Brand

There's nothing like a transatlantic journey to make the circles under one's eyes look deeper and darker than the Grand Canal.

The tyranny of the photograph: whereas once some 9 out of 10 photos of me actually looked like I felt, now 9 out of 10 photos of me look like someone who's much older and wider than I am. Can anyone explain this phenomenon to me?

On the other hand, it is fun to have fun....and maybe we are better off recalling it with the mind's eye.

VOLARE (oh, oh)

My last trip abroad was 10 years ago. I was commemorating my 40th birthday, the end of a nine-year marriage, and my mother's death. I took some of her ashes and sprinkled them under a rosemary bush at the monastery where St. Francis fell asleep for the final time on a very short, very hard bed made of rock.

Different circumstances. I am traveling with a good friend who has already been around the world a few times, starting when he flew to England from Frankfurt (where he was born) at the age of two weeks. This man -- I'll call him Krang -- is also my husband, and this is our honeymoon....about seven and half years into the marriage.

When you marry at 42 and 50, hoping among other things to procreate, you can't dilly dally. By luck or grace or what you will, our son was born 10 months after we married and we've been pretty busy ever since.

As we said in our birth announcement, all good things come to those who wait. We'll see.

Thanks, Mom

She's been gone 10 years but I fill the void by becoming more like her minute by minute. Buying sweaters at Macy's two days ago, I made sure to let the sales clerk know my husband would need them for our upcoming trip...to Italy. That was my mother, coming out of my mouth. That's sobering enough.

I was born 50 years ago today.

This photo may have been shot on or near my second or possibly third birthday, in the backyard of our house in Phoenix. The old lady was pushing 40 at the time, rather glam in her own cowgirl way. This didn't last. Look at my hand in hers. I can still feel it, or it seems as if I can.

Last Day of My First Half Century

On this auspicious day I had my eyebrows shaped by a professional. This is one of many things I used to do for myself that I am now paying someone else to do. What else will I pay people to do for me in the next 20 or 30 years?

Counting Down

My year of being 50 begins on January 23, 2010.