The civility cocktails allow

It’s just good manners really

Jean Francois Raffaelli's Blacksmiths Taking a Drink

True to tell I was raised to believe that cocktails before an awful true told were not only good decorum it was necessary. So, of course when the gentleman sitting next to me said he thought drinks being served before the ceremony were most civilized I knew I had made a friend for life. The wedding would more than likely have been as bile – the bride’s first and the groom’s third – if it weren’t for the mimosas that made drinking before noon acceptable I would not have made it twenty minutes let alone seven hours. There had champagne after the awful ceremony for which they had written their own vows, I still can’t believe she quote lyric from a Celine Dion song and I’m sure if we check the video from his previous weddings he recycled some of those sentiments. This had been the third such wedding of the season and I’m not going to anymore of these arrangements this year for fear I’ll become alcohol dependant.

My love my care,

Simone

Three of the One Hundred Women that has inspired me

More than beautiful they are Striking, each of these stunners is a master of nuance capable of brilliant silence with an enviable talent earned and honed through her relentless hard work.

Please allow me to present the actors Viola Davis, Tilda Swinton and Maggie Cheung, for they read to me as echoes of the same note heard at different points in the cannon. Each in her own way the personification of craft to artist.

Viola Davis

Ms. Davis has the gravity of a complex protagonist and is accomplished at conveying heartbreak with dignified smile. She is also able to do small and vulnerable but sadly it is not a part given to her enough. I would love to see her in something tender and layered as ‘Same Time Next Year’ or in the same vein as a Neil Simon perhaps reminiscent of say ‘The Goodbye Girl’ or one of those female positive films from the seventies.

 

Viola's Tiny Bio: Juilliard graduate, two times Tony Award winner along with Academy Award, Golden Globes and Screen Actor Guild nominations. Her opus magnum thus far is ‘Doubt’ but there is genius ahead of her yet and I for one can’t wait to see what she does next. She was nothing short of mesmerizing in ‘Solaris’ watch it or ‘Trust’ and let her blow your mind.

Tilda Swinton

Ms. Swinton has the mutability of an epic antagonist with what seems to be limitless reach; the woman can play anything and if you don’t believe me simply spend an hour with her film ‘Orlando,’ you will not be able to look away, I guarantee. She was phenomenal in Michael Clayton but as far as I’m concerned her opus magnum thus far is ‘The Deep End’ for in it she was no less than a divine vessel for the determined Margaret.

Tilda's Tiny Bio: Cambridge graduate, Academy Award and British Academy of Film and Television Arts winner along with Golden Globes and Screen Actor Guild nominations. There has never been one the likes of her on screen and she is truly a joy to behold.

Maggie Cheung

Ms. Cheung has the incandescence of a masterful heavy for it is not only that she is apt at playing human it’s also how seldom you take note she is but play the part. She is in it and we the audience is all the better for having seen what she has set forth. Her face is a mirror and within it all lives experience. In ‘Clean,’ her opus magnum she embodies loss and despair with just enough hope to make her pain tolerable to the onlooker.

Maggie's Tiny Bio: Singer, Composer and she is the first Asian actress to win a prize at the Cannes Film Festival. She plays extraordinary with such ease that I would love to see her play a suburban soccer mom or desperate house wife.

My love my care,

Simone

Three Sixty Five

Health, wealth and a ceremony on Wednesday in blue.

I wish for a few things with every breath

          Fortune without fame

                       Love without dating

                               To be ten years younger and ten years wiser
                                        But then I’m such a practical girl I would gladly accept the fortune and sort out the rest on the morrow.
Still I’m too sensible to believe any of it will ever happen for me and have long since sat down with financial adviser to draft up an alternative life plan. I’ll be a millionaire soon enough but what of the rest?

Quint Buchholz's Morning (I.)

My love my care,

Simone

Ode to Daniel Craig’s bum

I have nine great girl friends and besides a three times a year must get together there is seldom anything we can all agree on... that was until we say the print ad for ‘Cowboys and Aliens.’ Now you must understand they are women from ages twenty-seven to forty in this set. Some married for decades (one to her high school sweetheart), others single (one happily divorced) and a few that won’t admit to monogamy being a real state so believe me when I say for us to have consensus on anything is nothing short of miraculous.



We have had knock-down drag-out pissing matches over shoes and cake. Cake is good and shoes is better what is there to fight about I ask you and still... well I digress. Daniel Craig’s bottom is a thing of beauty and so says all of us. Not George Clooney’s easy charm or Chiwetel Ejiofor magnetism or William Fichtner soulful eyes or Gad Elmaleh eloquent silence or sweet Eric Bana for that matter could get the nod of all nine.

My love my care,

Simone

The irrational strangely linear path of an idea in my mind...

The thought: Am I happy here?

Victorian Still Life With Apple Blossoms by Martin Johnson Heade

I’ve always known that I was happier in the summer but it has only just dawned on me that it may also be necessary for my happiness. I was watching a film of oranges growing in someone’s backyard in some tropical paradise and it made me feel homesick. I kept thinking I don’t have enough money for that and I would miss my sister too much but she lives in another city and I hardly see her. We talk on the phone all the time so all I would really need is a good long distance plan. My mother would hate this! Money stops me doing everything. I don’t have a baby because I don’t have enough money and it would be irresponsible besides I’m not married. I don’t know if I fully believe one ought to be married to have children but I do believe children do better with two parents but what is to stop me packing-up my belongings for sunnier shores. I’ll more than likely make a list of pros and cons that will end with me popping down to the research library to find out how to create an orangery in my tiny back yard. I wish I had the courage to simply take my life savings and just go. Sadly, I won’t for I’m too sensible besides I have an obligation to my future self to take care of our retirement.

My love, my care,

Simone