While My Boyfriend Was Sleeping

What I write after Joe and Henry go to bed

Music to my kid’s ears: Why these albums rock

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About a year and half ago I interviewed a quirky Sarasota snowbird who had just won an award from the Sarasota County Film & Entertainment Office for an 82-page screenplay he wrote about a city kid who imagines he’s a cowboy in the wild west. The fella’s name: Mifflin Lowe. The title of his story: The Adventures of Cowboy Kareem. His objective: to get a studio to turn the script into an animated short; a big dream, but not impossible for someone with ambition, heart and talent.

As Lowe described scenes from the story – Kareem envisioning skyscrapers as mountains, bike handlebars as ox horns and women’s fur coats as grizzly bears –  I immediately saw the project’s potential. I could picture it almost as vividly as Lowe could; this beautiful and lively animated short about a boy with an overactive imagination.

In a perfect world, the script would fall into the hands of the geniuses at Moonbot Studios. (Note: Moonbot won the Academy Award in 2012 for Best Animated Short for The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore. In September the studio grabbed headlines again when its Scarecrow ad for Chipotle went viral. Dear Moonbot, Lowe is on to something with Cowboy Kareem. You read it here first.)

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Beach Shoot :: Hayden Reis

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Thought I’d share some images from last month’s Hayden Reis beach shoot.

Hayden Reis is a line of mega bright sailcloth bags. The company was hatched by a former pharmaceutical sales rep from Sarasota, whom I profiled for the paper shortly before packing up my bags to pursue freelance magazine and photography work.

It was one of my biggest shoots yet: six beautiful women + four adorable kids + a gorgeous location (Hyatt Siesta Key Beach) = so many pictures I maxed out an eight-gig card.

Special thanks to the designer for letting me borrow her camera card. I never expected to fill mine in two hours. I guess I got carried away — as usual.

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On 30

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I wanted to write something relevant about turning 30, but I kept coming up short

So I turned to Facebook instead. (Oh c’mon. Mark Twain would have done the same thing.)

I spent the day before my birthday feeling old and sullen, so I asked my typically responsive FB friends what words came to mind when they thought of turning 30.

I was so pleased with what I got I decided to create a video using their words and my photography.

I learned two things while making this project:

1. Age is a state of mind. (Duh.)

2. I’ve got way too many photos of amazing people clogging up my computer. Most of these pics were taken for the newspaper over the course of the last three years. The shelf life of a newspaper photo is short. Unless a story is about you, and thus you’ve stuck it to your fridge (or your ex-wife has pinned it to her dart board) it usually gets lost in the ether of JPEG files on some photographer’s hard drive.

I was happy to give these photos some love before they get deleted or forgotten about.

Regarding getting older — it’s a fact of life. You can either meet it with lightness and a positive attitude, or get tangled up in negativity. Lately, I’ve been falling into the second category for reasons I’m sure I’ll write about some day.

Having said that, I’m not a fan of internalizing shit. When something sucks, I admit it. On a whole, however, I strive to spend my 30s as I spent my 20s: upbeat, inspired and looking  for the next adventure.

Wish me luck. I know it’s not going to be a picnic. (Or maybe it will be. See. I’m actually a cynic.)

Oh, and in four days I’ll have written this blog for four years. I never thought I’d stick it out. Maybe it’s my cynicism that drives me. Now that’s a positive attitude.

i ♥ this memory.

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https://www.ubackdrop.com

For Valentine’s Day I give you a photo I took with one of my favorite Sarasota loves. (Remember Ricci?)

It was 2005. I was newly single and living in my first apartment.

We took it using self-timer and two tea light candles. It took more than a dozen tries to get it right and by the end of our little shoot the carpet was splattered in wax. It took hours to scrape clean.

What I learned that day: lighting a heart on fire is easy. Capturing it forever is another story.

It was sooo worth it, because now I have this picture and every time I look at it I feel like I’m 23 again, fearless and on the verge of everything.

—

PS. So you know how I was crying the blues about schlepping my kid into restaurants? Well, Ricci is on assignment in West Africa right now and she brought along her 16-month-old daughter, Amelia. Now THAT’S what I call brave.

Crawlout Shelter: Baby Cave

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This used to be The Man Cave. It’s now The Baby Cave since the word nursery is kind of weak. I realize that “cave” implies that our child has fangs and bat wings, but in our current vampire-obsessed culture I think he’ll blend just fine.

The room is 90 percent finished. When my dad comes down in June, he’ll install white chair rail between the beige and green walls.

The crib was a gift from my parents. There’s (of course) a ridiculous story behind the purchasing of the crib, but I’ll save that tale for another day. The rug is from Ikea. I LOVE IKEA. And yes, I always think of Ed Norton’s IKEA rant in Fight Club when I’m aimlessly wandering the store’s tidy/handsome apartment displays.

[Crib = Babies R Us. Rocking chair = Cracker Barrel.]

I still need to replace the mini blinds with white cordless shades. I haven’t decided if I’m keeping the green valances. My mom made them for The Man Cave a couple years ago and they seem to match the room’s current reincarnation, so we’ll see.

I take zero credit for the paint job and crib assembly. Last month, I escaped to my Oma and Opa’s place in South Sarasota County for a weekend away with my sister. When I returned two days later to a freshly painted cave and expertly assembled crib, I got all weepy and sentimental.

With each new step I take with Joe, I fall deeper and deeper in love. I’m a lucky lady.

[Paint = Benjamin Moore in aventurine green and interlude beige. Inspiration behind color combo = Eddie Bauer.]

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Pregnancy Confession No. 5

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[I want beer.]

This does not mean I've had a beer.
It just means I want one.

Or two.

I want the bubbles.
The foamy head.
The cool carbonation sliding down my throat.
The bottle sweating in my hand.

The buzz.

The subtle clinkety clink of the bottle hitting my wedding ring.
The white vapor tickling my nose

A fine mist
rising from the bottle neck
like a genie
granting me a wish the second I crack the cap.

The way one sip brings me home.
To my roots.

My beer drinkin
campfire sittin
motorcycle ridin
muddy
country
dandelion roots.

I was chatting with a fellow preggo the other day
and she mentioned that there's a bar in downtown Sarasota
that serves delicious non-alcoholic beer.

Clausthaler.
It's a German brew. (Like me.)

"You walk in with your belly and I promise you,
they'll hook you up," she said.
"The bartender loves pregnant ladies."

---

PS. Happy St. Patrick's Pug-trick's Day.
Guess where I'm going Saturday?

Eavesdropping in a Sarasota theater

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Two

The following is an excerpt from a conversation I overheard last week between two old women at a Sarasota theater house:

“You have how many children?”

“Three boys.”

“Boys? I didn’t know you had all boys.”

“All of them boys.”

“I heard boys are easier. Are boys easier?”

“I thought the toughest time was when they were two years old and they made no sense. You had to watch them every second of the day. I couldn’t wait for them to be independent.”

“Well, I adored my girls.”

“I always thought you could get closer to girls. Can you get closer to girls?

“When they’re teenagers, forget it. When Emily was 15, I would have sold her to you for a nickel.”

—

PS. Photo by George Schon.

PPS. Yes, I jotted down this conversation word-for-word. I was covering an event at the theater, so I had my notebook with me. Then again, I always have a notebook with me.

Yakking with Yoko [again]

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I interviewed Yoko Ono two years ago. Perhaps you remember. Some of you guys even gave me question suggestions.

Well, Ms. Ono’s at it again: plugging her late husband’s traveling art exhibit, Imagine: The Artwork of John Lennon.

If you’d have told me when I was a wanna-be journalist kid, that I’d get one crack at interviewing Yoko Ono, much less two, I’d have asked what you were smoking.

My husband thinks this is an exciting claim-to-fame.

Here’s what I think is exciting: I chatted with Yoko Monday afternoon from a Walgreens parking lot in Sarasota. After asking the usual battery of art/Lennon questions, I asked her for advice on motherhood.

To hell with What To Expect When You’re Expecting. I’ve got John Lennon’s widow.

One day I’ll tell my kid this and depending on how cool he is, he’ll respond one of two ways: “Who’s Yoko Ono?” Or, “That’s AWESOME.”

To read my short Q&A with the now 78-year-old Ono, check out The Observer.

—

PS. Photo by Charlotte Muhl and Sean Lennon.

 

The motorcycle diaries

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My friend Dex asked me to shoot some photos for his modeling portfolio.

So at 9 a.m. on a balmy August morning, we hit up my favorite alley in downtown Sarasota.

When we’d had our fill of alley shots, I suggested we head to a quiet spot on the downtown bay front.

I picked Centennial Park because it’s grassy, waterfront and relatively underused. As expected, the place was empty. Other than a homeless dude, who emerged from taking a bird bath in the park’s public restroom (and sat watching us on a bench for three minutes), we garnered no attention.

If you live in Sarasota and you’re unfamiliar with this park, I suggest you check it out. It’s at 10th Street and U.S. 41, not far from the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall. Although it’s mostly used for its boat launch, it has one of the best underrated picnic spots in all of downtown.

Oh, and did I mention Dex races this Ducati?

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