rebirth

There came an auspicious dream last night. I had been given the care of a new baby, like a new year. Infancy as potent potential.
Why I can't stop: I don't want the responsibility

tell mama

"You are a flawed human being."
"So are you. That's an oxymoron."
"Oh yeah. Whatever."
OK, readers: What do you want to make happen or try to make happen in this next year? Are you going to motivate or vegetate? Create or procreate? Clean your plate? Lose the weight? Rock and roll? Lose control?
Remember, this is a site about addiction. We understand indulgence here as well as restraint.
So what's it to be?
Why I can't stop: Where to start. . .

a mountaineer's marriage

The wedding was in the shadow of Mont Blanc, and the bride wore white fur. A friend from the National Opera of Wales entertained at the dinner for 70 in the Chamonix hotel, while outside the tourists with their rosy cheeks and ski boots clomped in and out of the cafes and fancy shops. The snow was early this year, and deep, and the ski towns of the Alps came alive with it.
Aspen, Gstaad, Cortina—they're all alike. People strapping things to their feet for a couple of hours a day and spending the rest polishing their images and sipping this or that in front of a fire. While all the people who take the snowbunnies up the hills and sell them things when they come down live for them and love them and loathe them all at once. It's the same in any tourist spot, but I prefer sea level and sand to altitude and ice.
Why I can't stop: Better her than me.

now they tell me

Dear Taxpayer,
You owe us something over three thousand dollars from 2003.
Your friends,
The IRS
Why I can't stop: Audits

all christmased out

OK, I've had Christmas with the exes, Christmas with the lovers, Christmas with the family, Christmas with the Yankees.
Why I can't stop: Are we done yet?

creche dummies

cold outside

aweigh for the holidays

Why I can't stop: The boats are still running, if not the subways.

the caesarian

Why I can't stop: They shopped, they bought, they opened.

is it me?

Why I can't stop: Getting is just as cursed as giving.

winter solstice

I hadn't planned on celebrating Christmas this year. For starters, I have not accepted Jesus into my life nor do I believe in a deity of any kind. For the main course, I am also still really pissed about the creationism thing, and I am taking this out on Christians. And for finishers, Christmas is for kids, and I don't have any this year. Not to mention, my usual present-buyer, gift-wrapper is out of the country.
And then I realized that even if I boycott the day itself, right before Christmas, at the time of the solstice on which this holiday is based, I am visiting two households full of nieces and nephews where if I don't want to figure as Aunt Grinch I will be forced to come across.
Why I can't stop smoking: I have to buy wrapping paper.

peoplemovers

Partial strike? What the heck is that? The parking regulations will be suspended in the event of a strike. But what about in the event of a partial strike? All I know is that there is a partial smoker from a distant part of New York City partly asleep on the couch.
Why I can't stop: Transportation issues.

frankly speaking

The Fourth Floor Web Guy played trumpet in high school. Then he bagged it until he was better than 60. It took him a year or so to get his lip (embrashure? something?) back in shape after all those years playing bass, keyboards and whatever else tickled his fancy. But he did it, and now is playing gigs. He just bought this beautiful new Phaeton. (More about Frank.)
Me, all these years I've been writing. What a fool. I never learned to play an instrument, though I've always wished I had.
Why I can't stop: I shoulda been a rock star—or a photographer.

wolfen's corner

Where she used to live.
Where she lives now.
Why I can't stop: I live in the first place.

this is 55

photograph by Donna Ferrato / "Ironbound" December 2005


Why I can't stop: I totally forgot my hairbrush

growing pains

This is my niece. She is four. She is wearing my daughter's dress.
Once my daughter was four, wearing this dress, and I was thirty-five. Now she is almost twenty-four, and I am going to be the same age as the speed limit on most state roads.
Why I can't stop:
Too many miles on the odometer.

alternate side of the street parking

rocket in my pocket

Note to readers: A reminder that this is not a PG site. The other site is PG. Please try to keep it straight. On that site. Not this one.

"What the hell has that dog got ahold of now?" I looked up from the keyboard (I don't touch type) and down at the rug at my feet, the rug that has become Moxie's preferred spot in the apartment to carry his snacks and secret scores to nibble on. I try to monitor this behavior, and so I looked down to find that this time it was—a sex toy ohmigod!
It was a pocket rocket vibrator with a rubber hat with dinglies on it and not mine. Nice toy for a toy.
I called my roommate Antonia to report.
"Was it on?" she asked.
"No," I said."I should have documented the moment, but I was more concerned with getting it away from him."
"The people at the studio are laughing their asses off," she said. "My life has become a sit com."
Why I can't stop smoking: Pet of the Month

so goth

"And Behold," a short short by the Drummer, was shot on the occasion of his trip to collect a Victorian child's coffin he bought from an old Bible Belt farmer on e-bay.
Why I can't stop: My friends are so weird.

a lot of damn moxie

Moxie has a problem. Until about a month ago, Moxie and family were living happily in a kind of premarital bliss. And then He told Her that He didn't love Her and She had to move out. And so did Moxie. And everything pretty much sucked after that with the holidays coming up and all and not a lot of love in the air to go around for little dogs.
But the worst was yesterday, when She was reading match.com and discovered that He was looking for a soulmate in the personals. One who seemed to match Her description in every particular except the part about a nonsmoker.
Moxie has tried everything to get Her mind off it—chewing on rocks and wires, pooping on the floor, sneaking out into the hallway—but nothing seems to work. She just cries and smokes.
Why I can't stop: What other comfort is there in times of stress?

love and betrayal

dem apples

Why I can't stop smoking: The apple not only doesn't fall far from the tree, it doesn't seem to fall from the tree at all.

bad role model

Why I can't: Now I'm supposed to inspire someone else to stop smoking?