The romantic query letter and the happy-ever-after

Westmorland Chapter Two of the Regency Novella

2012-01-23T20:36:00.004-05:00

Read the prologue and chapter one, chapter three will follow in about a week.

Demure by Johanna Harmon

ChapterTwo

Henry took amoment there on the front steps to contemplate all he felt for Claire. He knewit was love and that it had been that almost right from the very beginning.That truth terrified him. She had the power to devastate his life and after thehell he had been through with Viola, he did not know if he could survive losingClaire.

She and thefriendship they shared was the most precious thing in his life and now that hismother was leaving, he was going to need her more than ever. His siblings andfriends had all long settled into marriage. He would be alone if she went withhis mother to Francebut he did not know how he could possibly persuade her to stay without somekind of declaration.

Still withoutresolve, Henry returned to the blue salon where Claire sat patiently with thenewly arrived tea service and he took the chair across from hers.

“Shall I pouryou a cup tea or fix you a brandy?” she asked sympathetically.

He held amoment without bothering to answer with an expression she had never seen on himbefore, something serious and uncertain then he said, “Claire have you evergiven marriage any real thought?”

“Of course Ihave,” she said looking at him now in earnest. “What female hasn’t?”

“Then whyhaven’t you married?”

“You know why.”

“No, I can’thonestly say that I do. You’re beautiful Claire. In fact, I can honestly say I’veonly know a handful of women whose beauty compares to yours and though modest, yourfamily is respected.”

“Not modest,my lord, but paupers hence my vocation as lady’s companion,” she said withknitted brows. She could not tell what he was getting at and she didn’t like itone bit. She was accustomed to knowing precisely what he was thinking and wasextremely bothered by this new interest in her personal life.

“Has knowingme stopped you from marrying?”

“Here now –”

“What am I toyou Claire?”

“I beg yourpardon?”

“It’s been afull decade since you and I have been acquainted yet you’ve never once used mygiven name. Why is that?”

“You’re myemployer.”

“We arefriends.”

“Hardly that…”

“You don’tcount me as a friend Claire?” he asked with open affront.

“Is friendshipthe only cause for this inquiry?”

“I’ll startthere.”

“You eithertell me what this is about this instant or you leave.”

“It has to dowith you being in love with me.”

“I– What?”

“You’re heresacrificing your youth for the hope that I’ll turn up and brighten your day.”

“Let me stopyou there before you embarrass yourself any further.”

“You needn’tdeny it anymore for now that it’s been brought to my attention I’ve come tooffer you my hand in earnest.”

“Good Lord.”

“Henry will do.”

“No, my lord. It most certainly will not,”said Claire. “Who’s responsible for this? Who would be callous enough toconvince you of such a thing?”

“Do you denyit?”

“What do youreally want?” she asked.

“You ask methat after a lifetime of friendship?”

“The fact thatyou are indignant does not help me for even the guilty are able to expressrighteousness and I’ve been your confessor long enough to know what you’recapable of.”

“Then you alsoknow that if all I wanted was you in my bed it would not be a hardship for me.I see the way you look at me-”

“If you havemistakenly interpreted my pitied glances for an aged Lothario as anything butthat well… it explains quite a lot.”

She lied forthere was no denying that he had mastered the art of male allure or that youcould very well seduce her out of her good sense, clothes or inhibitions.

He was thequintessential romantic English lord. He was tall, fair, lean and brilliantlyproportioned with the sort of ratios that had undoubtedly inspired Michelangeloto put chisel to marble. He was beautiful and effortless with his clear blueeyes, wide shoulders and narrow hips.

He was sex,embodied.

He was builtfor it, smelled of it… Christ it radiated from his every pore with his lazymasculine smile to his easy fluid carriage. He was strong, intelligent andcomfortable in his own skin. Men coveted him, women were drawn to the rawcarnality of the air he exuded, and Claire was no different.

“What thedevil is that to mean?”

“That you havean inflated sense of self.”

“From anyoneelse that might have been true,” Henry said. “It’s strange how I’m honest inall things in my life except with you. You with whom I hold my breath, tryingalways to be more than I am, younger, faster, smarter. All for you who expectnothing from me.”

“Are youtelling me that our entire friendship has been nothing but a lie?”

“No, what I’msaying is I always make an attempt to present to you my best self but in theend I always fall short and through no fault of my own, I end up presenting toyou my honest self. Though, why I should feel the need to defend myself to youwho doesn’t even consider me a friend…”

“We are friends,”she conceded.

“And still youare an enigma to me, unseen but for your beauty. I know nothing of you, novulnerability, no flaw, absolutely nothing beyond your pretty exterior.”

“You say thatas if you hold me responsible.”

“Oh, but I do.You learned early that most are content to look upon a beautiful face, neverseeing beyond its façade and you use it as armour to keep everyone at bay.”

“Why don’t yousimply tell me what’s caused this sudden interest in me and my personal life.”

“Mother –”

“This is yourmother’s doing?”

“She worries thatyour deliberate restraint at my presence is a sign of your deep tendre.”

“I’ll admit toyou having a degree of allure but I would not go so far as to say it hasaltered my life.”

“Now, we bothknow that that’s not the truth and I feel it’s worth discussing.”

“There wasnever anything between us but a fleeting consideration and not even that if thetruth is to be told. I was never more to you than an awed girl with unspoiltadoration but I’ve long out grown my fascination with the idea of you asromantic hero.”

“I was alwaysso very careful with you, you know,” Henry said sincerely. “Ever mindful not tocross the lines of decency, never touched you the way I wanted. I let youprovoke want in me time and time and again… but then, it’s never been ahardship for me for I’ve always delighted in the thrill and the chase.”

“None of thismatters anyways. I hadn’t planned to tell you quite like this but I have decided to marry,” Claire said overher now strained emotions and his open stare.

“Is thatright?”

“Yes. MyCousin Rachelle’s widow,” she offered steadily as Henry looked on with an easysmile.

Claire wasbothered by his calm but she refused to let him see how much he was affectingher. After all, she was sorted now, she had just put him behind her and shewould not allow him to upset her newfound equilibrium.

“Tell me,Claire. How long dead will I be when this wedding takes place?”

“You are beingunreasonable. Besides I owe you no explanation and since that is the case Ishall take my leave,” she said in preparation to leave.

“I’ll have mysay, sweetheart.”

“What is therefor you to say now that I’ve found an end?”

“Does thatmean you no longer desire me chérie?”

“What does itmatter what I want now that I’m no longer available to you?” she asked angrily.“I waited a whole lifetime for you to acknowledge what it was that laid betweenus and had your mother not insisted, heaven only knows what would become of me.No more. I’ve found a gentleman who is sensible and reliable.”

“And it’s yourintent to build a life with this man based on qualifications that one seeks ina steward.”

“Better agentleman with the resumé of a steward than one with the credentials of a malcontent,hell-rake.”

“Why are youtrying to provoke me when all I seek is your comfort?” he asked with his continuedirritating calm while she burned with barely contained anger. He liked that hewas able to incite her out of her usual composure and took the opportunity tounsettle her further with a slow easy smile.

Poor Claire,she had never been able to tolerate the full effect of Henry’s lazy,self-assured smile and her traitorous body glowed with her want.

“I’d like youto leave this instant,” she said with dignity.

“Say it so Ibelieve you mean it and I’ll not only leave. I won’t return unless invited todo so.”

“Why are youdoing this to me now that I’ve found contentment?”

“Because whatlies between us does not belong to you alone and I no longer wish to deny theattraction I feel for you.”

“You’reperverse.”

“I know,” hesaid with a wicked grin. “Why don’t you come here and let me show how truly depravedI can be.”

“And so smug.You’re convinced that you’re more equipped to resist my lure than I am yours.”

“Am I to takethat as a challenge, darling?” he asked with a mocking brow.

“Now what kindof sense would that make? Why would I initiate a wager in a field where I haveso little knowledge?”

“Surely youknow that I’d be nothing but eager to teach you all I know on the matter.”

“Yes, alrightthen.”

“I beg yourpardon?” asked a flabbergasted Henry.

“I’m acceptingyour offer.”

“Yes, I seethat, but why now?”

“It will serveas a means to an end.”

“Yes?” heasked with a gesture for her to elaborate.

“It will cureyou of me and affirm for me my belief that my choice of husband is the mostsensible.”

“What thedevil did you just say?”

“This is notmeant to hurt you, you understand. It’s only that I’ve known you for longenough to know that you have not been able to sustain your interest in anyfemale once you’ve had full physical knowledge of her,” she said. “In fact, Ithink it’s the only thing that’s kept you interested in maintaining ourassociation.”

“You believethis to be true and still you continue to involve yourself with me?”

“I never saidI was without fault. I know my judgement where you are concerned is not to berecommended and it’s for that reason I’ve decided now to go this course.”

“Oh, I see… Well,I wish you a good afternoon, Miss Maxwell,” he said before rising to take hisleave.

“And to you mylord,” she returned with a triumphant smile as Henry rose to offer a curt bowbefore leaving.

Then somethingchanged in his eyes and she knew, in that instant before he spoke, that she hadgiven him the advantage by showing her hand too soon. He revelled in her loss,walking past her for the door as if he was nonetheless willing to concede. Thenhe stopped suddenly behind her with a, “Tell me, Claire… Have you alreadyaccepted this widower’s offer?”

“I will theinstant his period of mourning is over and he sets forth his formal offer.”

“Brilliant,”he said suddenly bending to whisper in her ear, “For I wouldn’t want you tohave to break your word once you finally accept that no one but me will do.”

He stopped fora moment so that she could feel the weight of his words while his breath, hoton her ear, pulled at her core. When he was sure she was well aware of thepromise of the moment he brushed his lips over the eager flush of her earlobewith a, “I’ll see to it that we are not disturbed.”

My love ,

Simone

Lets stop running into each other this way

2012-01-15T05:15:00.001-05:00

Misery is not seeing you and still there is no agonyas great as your face at my door and no bliss compares to looking up to see your smiling face there out ofthe blue

Flowers and Strawberries by Felix Vallotton

The Crush

Youmake of me a relic

Asort of dutiful pillar planted in quicksand but in time I’ll be covered

Hiddenfrom sight

Forgottenby you

Onlyto be excavation and made valuable

Stillit wouldn't have mattered for you would have been long gone

Allbut for the bits of you that remains a part of me

My love,

Simone

Westmorland a regency novella

2012-01-07T02:59:00.000-05:00

Read the prologue here, chapter two will follow in about a week.

Constance Ossolinska Lubienska by François Gérard

ChapterOne

“Shall I pouryou a lemonade, my lord?” she asked.

“MarriageClaire. With children, grand estates and my eternal gratitude… Doesn’t thatsound lovely?”

“And it wouldhave to be you I marry?” she asked, eyes sparking with mischief as she extendeda hand with the aforementioned lemonade.

“What keeps mesuffering your awful company?”

“Does thatmean you no longer wish to marry me?” she laughed.

“Did I tellyou how Lady Riley lured me to tea with that sumptuous body of hers then triedto marry me off to her daughter.”

“She’s alovely girl.”

“It’s perverseClaire. I could be that child’s father.”

“Oh, that’sright. You did court her mother when she was a débutante. Didn’t you?”

“Are youdeliberately trying to provoke me?”

“No, my lord,but after a lifetime of knowing you I find I no longer have to make an effort.It just sort of happens.”

“I never likedyou.”

“And still youwould marry me?”

“Taking joyfrom my humiliation makes you depraved. You see that, don’t you?”

“Surely youdon’t begrudge me my one happiness.”

“I realizedsomething in coming here to see my mother.”

“And what isthat, my lord?”

“I don’t likethe company she keeps.”

“But I’m notcompany so much as companion and you pay my keep so you could, I suppose,instruct her to have me behave.”

“You only saythat because you know full well she prefers you to me and would have mebanished from the premises.”

“Nonsense,”his mother said as she entered, “Now stop bothering Claire and come take myhand. I have wonderful news.”

“I warn you,my dear. If this wonderful news ofyours has anything to do with some suitable maiden I won’t be able to bear it,”Henry said as he greeted his mother with kind hand and a miserable smile.

“I’ve given upon finding you a bride and have instead found a husband for myself,” Blanche StJohn said pertly as she brushed pass her son to sit next to her companion.

“This is new,”Henry said to Claire as his mother settled.

“Have I yourblessing, my angel?” his mother continued in spite of his rude dismissal.

“To whom haveyou decided to marry my dear?” he asked indulgently though he did not believehis mother would, at five and fifty, remarry.

“Lord PhilippeMarcel. We are both widowed now and I should like to live out the rest of mydays in the land of my birth away from this constant chill here in England.”

“Et tu Maman?”

“This was notdone to you my angel,” his mother said defensively. “You’re three and thirtyand I’ve dedicated a decade and a half to finding you a wife to no avail. Nomore. I will return to Franceat season’s end and you will wish me well.”

“And what ofClaire?”

“Claire knowsshe will always have a place in my home, no matter where.”

“And you,Claire. You are willing to abandon England for my mother’s whims?”

“Your motherhas been nothing but kind to me and if it is her wish to return to the land ofher birth I will, if she requires it, attend her there.”

“Who elseknows of this?” Henry demanded.

“If you’reasking whether or not your siblings know,” his mother said patiently, “Then yes,I’ve told them.”

“I see.”

“Don’t sulk,Henry,” his mother said, “It reduces you to a child.”

“Lest youforget, my Lady. I’m your child.”

“You, my Lord, are also peer of this realm, headof your brood and well past the hour where I’m required to suckle you at mybosom,” his mother retorted.

“What a thingto say to me.”

“You are agood man, my son, and you have seen us all well since your dear Papa’s deathbut it is time you saw to yourself.”

“Meaning whatexactly?”

“You use ourcare as a crutch,” his mother said plainly. “Your father was a lovely man evenif a little rotten with the practical. I see that and understand how difficultit had been for you to care for us but you are now as wealthy as Midas. You didyour duty and saw your siblings happily settled. For that reason I have not,until now, pushed, but I must insist.”

“Have I been aterrible burden to you maman?”

“No child,”his mother said, “But I worry we’ve hindered your pursuit of happiness with ourunyielding demands and near constant crisis.”

“You mustn’tfeel it is so.”

“And still Ido.”

“Take heart mydear,” Henry said with guilt at having upset his mother. “I’ve been rotten inspite of your efforts. Marry Marcel and be happy.”

“You wouldpacify me now that I’m attempting to see you well?”

“I’m well whenyou are happy Maman,” he assured her, his voice warm but his tone firm and sheknew there was nothing else for it.

“Will you comewith me to Evelyn’s?”

“I’m not muchfor my sister and her constant offer of cheer just now, thank you.”

“Ah, ‘tis apity for Philippe will be there and I so want the two of you to be betteracquainted.”

“Don’t youworry, my dear, I shall make it my sole duty in the coming weeks to make myselfknown to your intended,” he vowed.

“Now, Henry. Youmust not terrify Philippe with your inquisitiontactics. I want you two to get on.”

“And we will.The instant that I’ve instilled unholy fear in him,” Henry said with a charmingsmile.

“See me to mycarriage,” she said with extended hand, “And Claire, my dear, see to it that heeats something before he leave.”

“Yes, mylady.”

The instantthey cleared the salon his mother said, “There is a matter I need for you tosee to?”

“You need butask.”

“What do youfeel for Claire, Henry?”

“She and I arefriends, mother. But then, you know that so I suppose that isn’t what you’reasking.”

“You do notlove her?”

“You ask as ifyou believe I do,” he said.

“I presumenothing but I see the way she is careful not to look at you and I’m a woman soI understand what that means,” his mother sighed. “That and I feel responsiblefor allowing it to go on so long.”

“What do youwant me to do, maman?”

“Forgive Violaand embrace the possibility of happiness with Claire.”

“I’ve longmade my peace with Viola and her betrayal.”

“Westmorlandit does not serve you to hold tight to injury when so much awaits you on theother side.”

“My dear,”Henry said with measure and his mother adjusted her approach.

“Then release Claire.She is nearly thirty and has made no attempt to marry in spite of myencouragement and offered assistance.”

“And you feelthis is due to her friendship with me?”

“You doubtit?”

“I never gaveit much thought.”

“Don’t youthink it’s time you did?”

There wasnothing else for it and suddenly his head hurt like the very devil. He watchedhis mother pull away in her carriage and lamented having answered her summons.

Chapter two here
Happy New Year to you all,

Simone

W/E

2011-12-06T02:57:00.001-05:00

It would be easy to have married him or so she believes

Mijn Hart byErik Suidman

A wasteland of her own making

She would only divulge the bit that she wascertain would cause her utter humiliation for at least then there would be asort of penance. The entire thing had all but killed her, had left her brokenand desolate, clinging to her isolation as a sort of sentence though she hadlong abandoned religion in hope of finding salvation.

She had been rich in sin right from thevery beginning and had, by her tenth birthday, known self-pleasure enough tooffer tutorial. It had been both comfort and shame but at least in that she wasno different from anyone else who masturbated in a God-fearing land.

Then there were the boys who at firstseemed to be co-conspirators for their parts in it but that was soon proven alie. She had never needed them as much as they had come to want her and in thatlay her tragedy. She valued the orgasm more than the device that got her thereand since she was able to find fulfillment long before the boys arrived theywould soon prove themselves no more than fallacy.

He had been the one that she wanted tomatter, the one, in whom she had pinned all hopes for a normality of which shebelieved herself capable. She had given him what all the other girls wouldn’tbut none of what was expected and in the beginning it had been perfection. Shehad no demand of his time nor had she required monogamy of him and in return hereceived all she had to offer.

She had not flinched at sodomy or gagged atfellatio but shewould not allow him to penetrate her in the usual way. That he could get from any other girl. And they went on in theirway until he wanted more, demanding of her truth, time and commitment.

She hadpanicked about how much she had lied to him. Not about other men for there wasno one else at that time but him not really. There had been little flirtationsbut for the most part she had made herself so she had been just for him and eventhat had all been a lie. It was more intimacy than she wanted to own up to soshe made it about something else. She made it about him.

It hadbeen easy to make it about him possessing her in the one way she had insistedwas sacred and it had taken no more than her confiding in the one man he believedcapable of what he wasn’t. Her confidant was one his dearest friends but therehad been a sort of rivalry between the two and she was a point of pride for herman. She knew this from the very beginning and there were times when he tookpleasure from seeing his friend look at her with lust and at he with jealous.So, it had been for her to make it his torment.

A few smilesand a carefully placed hand was all it took for him to be consumed by it. Thenhe was left impotent, unable to find release, made insane to the point ofmeticulous action. In this she was a willing party and of course it wouldultimately mean their end but what else could she do.

ByNovember she was twenty-six and willingly lost, thus waited for him to act. Whenthe time came he had kissed her in the manner of lustful teenager for nearly anhour on his sofa without hurry stilling her every attempt to put an aggressiveend to their building desires. Then he was selfless, his face buried betweenher thighs. He had planned everything to perfection. He didn’t have to pause orrush his purpose for that matter. Once he had lifted his head to look her inthe eyes.

He was notlooking for her consent nor would he have proceeded if she had said no but heknew she wouldn’t have and not because she was swept way, for that she was notcapable of. He knew only that she would rather sacrifice than tell him a singletruth and he no longer cared.

Shebraced for pain that never came and then it was nearly nice because forwhatever reason it still mattered to him that she knew he had tenderness andcapacity but it was for naught. She was in familiar ruins.

My love my care,

Simone

Don't pick at it

2011-11-05T04:26:00.000-04:00

You will only bleed and it'll leavean ugly scar

the intercepted love letter by Carl Spitzweg

Funny

Say it was good

No, say it could not havebeen better

And love me

No suffer for having lovedme

And be turned inside out atthe thought of not having loved me

Say perfect is knowing I’mpart of you and you can’t bear me being torn away

No, say aguish is your leavingand having me be a compliant accomplice

And insist on my blood,tears and regrets so our end is as our passionate beginning

My love my care,

Simone

Suddenly the impossible...

2011-10-06T04:21:00.000-04:00

Someone who knows me completely

If I were to marry it would be to someone to whom I was able to show all the awful bits of me. All the deep dark secrets pieces that I keep hidden in order to save face and protect heart. The tender vulnerable little girl parts of me that won’t let anyone see her cry and who leaves before she can get hurt or never bothers getting too involved because she is too afraid. I don’t know I’m capable of it and understand that it is an ideal that could easily be lost to want for children or fear of being alone. I’m at least self-aware enough to know it would take me trusting enough to let go my control and being honest.

Anne-Louis Girodet de Roucy-Triosson's Hortense de Beauharnais

This would not be easy for me and not because I’m unwilling but because it is fundamentally who I am and fundamental to the person I’ve grown into. In my family keeping secrets is a mitzvah and as romantic as I am I'm able to see with clarity the woman I’ve become. She is no less than a perversion of the ideal girl I wish I was but never was capable of being. I will more than likely marry without having shared more than the necessary bits and sadly it will be enough.

I hope against all that I’m wrong

My love my care,

Simone

2011-07-25T22:38:00.000-04:00

Quick to laugh with a killer smile
Tall
Independent
Eloquent
Kind
He is fit with a six pack
Well read and of proper books too, none of this Malcolm Gladwell popular fiction nonsense
A Professional
Good with his hands
A Yogi
And Masseuse
A baby whisperer
Tantric sex master
Chef
Plays the piano
Volunteers
Parallel parks with one hand
Love foreign films
Is a world traveler and is multilingual.
The Perfect man is more than a renaissance man he is pure fiction.

John Frederick Kensett's Sunset on the Sea

My care my love,

Simone

Mid-July

2011-07-17T06:16:00.000-04:00

Louis Aston Knight's Flower by the Edge of the River

I can’t bear it and not because the change I’ve so long anticipated is nowhere in sight but I’m bothered by the near comfort I take from the mundanity of todays that too often resembles yesterdays. I’m afraid of my pass, terrified my ills will manifest themselves as some awful change and so I’m glad to wallow here in the relative misery of Tuesdays that favours Saturdays. I’ve been wicked and ungrateful but it does not weight so heavy I fear as the worry of the consequence that karma promises. Though, why I a non-religious descendant of nonpracticing Catholics and Jews turned Rasta and half-assed Buddhist should worry so about sin is beyond me.

Bad people get away with murder all the time while innocent babies die from hunger. Let’s face it, good things happen to bad people all the time without rhyme or reason and still I can’t help but fret over the grand judgement. I wonder if that is a universal human worry.

My love my care,

Simone

Why I never wait by the phone

2011-07-09T04:23:00.001-04:00

Because at sixteen I wrote this in between breaks of frantically pacing the floor of my room while waiting for the boy I liked to call

Odilon Redon's Ophelia

Me at 16

For him I’m flames on the ocean and any thought of him sweeps me up as frenzied northern wind on wild fire
I burn and boil the water scalding the fish
I’m mayhem near cataclysmic

Violent, no?

My love my care,

Simone

The civility cocktails allow

2011-06-30T04:24:00.000-04:00

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

2011-06-21T04:26:00.002-04:00

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

2011-06-16T02:36:00.001-04:00

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

2011-06-09T01:59:00.003-04:00

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...

2011-06-06T04:03:00.002-04:00

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

The man I will love tomorrow will be so much more...

2011-05-27T04:50:00.001-04:00

Jaroslaw Kukowski's Untitled

The man I love today is:

Beautiful as youth and promise fulfilled.

He is paradise and live flesh.

Strength and victorious warrior.

He is my ideal

An erotic, charming, virile soul.

Accomplished and the reason for my blissful smiles.

He is Sundays and sentiment.

Kind, arrogant and competitive athletic.

He is bright, solid and a bit exotic.

For him I’m vulnerable and for me he is unavailable.

My love my care,

Simone

The feminist male...

2011-05-19T03:22:00.003-04:00

Puts me in mind of Hillary Rodham Clinton at the unset of Bill’s campaign for presidency, you know more detriment than aid.

Pietro Rotari's Penitent Girl

The effects of the feminist movement on men came up in conversation the last time I had lunch with a few of my girlfriends and besides being a point of contention very little was resolved. My argument was and will continue to be that its effect is negligible. Now, before you demand my head on a pike, hear me out. The movement was not intended to effect men and there was no agenda at its root or in thought thereafter to change one man’s mind let alone the entire perception of their genders view of ours. The entire point was to empower women and provide laws that enable us the same rights as men.

There was no initiative to encourage men to see women as equal only laws and shaming tactics that stopped them opening doors while we fight the immoveable glass ceilings. I’m certain that you like me have heard the arguments from reasonable to absurd: My personal favourite is that bit of madness where the feminist movement was dreamt up by some horny man looking to liberate women from their brassieres and there is that bit of insanity about the sex positive feminist caused the down fall of the entire movement.

The truth is nobody really knows any more.

I personally believe the truth is that womankind lost sight of the goal long before the war was won. We went along to get along and yes it may seem unsophisticated but it is no less true. It is our fight not theirs and no man no matter how lovely or well-intended can be our champion for then what would have been the point?

My love my care,

Simone

Metro Story

2011-05-11T02:32:00.010-04:00

I was telling my sister how I always seem to be on the train cart with the eccentrics when she told me this little gem.

Erik Suidman's De Stofzuigerkoning

She said it had been just before dinner time last summer. She was en route from the shops downtown to our mother’s place in the east end when at Sherbourne or maybe it was Broadview Subway she was no longer sure which when an older gentleman rose and got off. Now, she swears she would not have remembered him beyond the next stop had a mid-aged fellow not called all their attention to him.

‘Take a good look at him,’ he said pointing to the man by then walking on the platform towards the stairs. ‘For it will be me that’s like him in a few years, going home to an empty flat and working well into my seventies for fear of the alternative which will be staying in my lonely apartment all day.’

To this little outburst someone said something like, ‘Don’t project your short comings onto a stranger cause for all you know he could well be married to his high-school sweetheart who has a hot meal waiting for him as we speak.’

To which the upset fellow said only, ‘Did he look to you like he was going home to someone?’

There was nothing else said, the upset fellow sat staring off and everyone else prayed for their stops or his to come soon.

My love my care,

Simone

A sort of grand spectacle

2011-05-02T20:38:00.004-04:00

The lot was already seated when I got on the late train heading east at Young and Bloor and they had been in no way spectacular these children of East Indian immigrants. The girls in colours from their mothers’ countries – pretty jewel tone scarves, yellow gold bangles and light delicate sent – paired well with super tight blue jeans enviable boots and designer handbags. Though, the young men with them seemed less exotic in their beer commercial attire all of them in crisp white sneakers Lacoste, K.Swiss and the like with pop-star jeans and goose down jackets they had been no less foreign.

Mademoiselle Lange as Venus by Anne-Louis Girodet de Roucy-Triosson

They were happy with something like youth and sprawled over a dozen seats even though there I’m certain there was no more than eight. At their centre was a voluptuous goddess with eyes ideal and hundred watt smiles. It is for her the grand spectacle was set forth. Her escort for the evening by then mad in love with her peeled of his jacket to straddle the handle bars in an impressive show of strength for one his size. She granting him restraint smiles even as the other girls teased and the young men whistled and cheered him on.

Then a lone clapper, our protagonist entered from the front of the cart his tone openly mocking as he offer insincere near provoking encouragement that is utterly misinterpreted by the other commuters who now clapping in earnest for the lovesick fool now doing push-ups at his lady’s feet. Though his display had backfired it had produced for our protagonist the desired effect for now he had the goddess’ eye.

It had been posturing to garner her attention and it had worked. He knew he showed well compared to the overgrown adolescent now seated at the goddess’ side talking workout regime with other young men in their group for he was a good five years older than the lot. He was a sort of urban professional, dressed in grey with the trendy cross-bag and the Brooks Brother shoes compete with arrogant self-confident smile.

Only he didn’t take into account familiarity and comfort. The silly boy at her side was already a member of her set and mad in love with her. She knows he will grow into a man in time and she could guide him to dress the part of the urbane professional if she so desired. He won the battle, her attention but lost the war for she was sensible and rooted perhaps a more romantic girl would have...

My love my care,

Simone

Sugar euphoria

2011-04-21T04:39:00.001-04:00

Or what results from a sweet induce coma

I had slept as one content and spent but not from orgasm and still there had been a fulfillment that made even the sleeping itself sweet. Then I woke and it had all been somehow different, I could not have said for certain how for it was not as tangible as say the ugliness of hairs erect on the back of one’s neck nor was it the haunting displacement in the near anticipation of du déjà vu but it too was a misalignment of one’s psyche. I was uneasy and got more so with every shallow breath taken and still I pressed on washing then readying myself for the day ahead.

Woman Clothed with the Sun by Alice Pike Barney

At half-seven I stepped out the front door, into the sunlight and knew right away with certainty that the sun had been flipped upside down. As alarming as it had been it did no more than set my mind at ease for no longer did I have to fret at what it was that had so set me on hedge. I went back inside to check the news but it had been business as usual on all the morning shows and news outlets. I was late getting to the shop and noticed nothing out the ordinary for most the day. Well... there had been an unusual number of women celebrating being ten pounds lighter. It kept popping up the entire day, women treating themselves to an extra peace of sweet in praise of their good fortunes. I was positive it had something to do with the sun but did not understand how until moon rose and it was closer.

My love my care,

Simone

The Stunner

2011-04-13T05:02:00.000-04:00

I sometimes see a woman so beautiful I want no more than to write her a happy ending and it is not always just a charming face either. Sometimes it is no more than a small gesture or kindness done that makes her in that moment worthy of notice. I’ll give you an example; there is an elderly oriental woman who panhandles at Young and College in front the Starbucks on the corner. She sits there silently with a baseball cap in her hand looking slightly embarrassed and apologetic. I’d often give her the change from my coffee rather than tip the barista and feel pretty okay about it until a few days ago when I saw this pretty black girl sitting beside her with Tupperware in hand. I’ve seen this young woman before and thought her lovely enough and even spoke with her once something about notebooks and her being French, Caribbean from Martinique but it was not until I saw her sharing her lunch and listening with open interest as the little beggar whisper some secret to her did I want to write her story. In that moment she was perfect heroine and goddess deserving of brilliant happy end. Oh, and beautiful, she truly was. Her smile held such tender understanding for the little woman sitting next to her it filled my heart and broke it all at once.

first female astronaut candidates

I imagine that in order for something like that to work well – me writing her happy ending, that is - I would have to interview her and find out what that constitutes for her because it simple would not do. Now, would it? For me to write for her some happiness I dreamt up but which she finds hellish.

My love my care,

Simone

My ideal, the wrong me

2011-04-07T02:17:00.000-04:00

I’m often cruel without having been sentential and can even be sentential about my cruelty but then the focus of my malevolence is almost exclusively self so I image there is no help for it.

Tamara de Lempicka's Dormeuse

I loved this man once for whom I wanted to be a hundred impossible things. I would see him and instantly take catalogue of my flaws. He made me desperate for with him I was nothing but want. Want for his love, for longer legs and smaller waist and firmer tits. It drove me mad wanting to be younger, faster, stronger for someone who was no more than sweet for who I already was and so I left him. It took time for me to love again and when I did it was to a man who right from the beginning kissed me as if anticipating a long parting.

My love my care,

Simone

April’s fool

2011-04-01T04:30:00.000-04:00

I really do believe in love you know and that despite never having seeing any true manifestation that could not be explained away as something else. It is a matter made worse I believe due to these long conversations I have with my sister about the plausibility of romantic love where the end result is always dread of dying alone. Following that line of reasoning, lately the idea of tribe or rather our society’s lack of connect to an extended tribe where one feels ownership and connect has been running parallel with the notion of love lost. There is this idea that we love our pets, best friends, children and all else is a matter of necessity or chance. Fool that I am I want to explore more this idea.

James Childs's Bow Bridge

Then again our only duty is beauty to put forth what is true and good, which would make love the entire thing, right?

My love my care,

2011-01-24T23:53:00.000-05:00

Words

I tell you that you are beautiful.

You blush, you smile, you kiss me.

I tell you that I love you.

You blush, you smile, you kiss me.

And sometimes that is enough.

But deep inside, I feel a gnawing hunger for

Your nourishing words, an end to your silence.

Nikolaos Gyzis's Capuchin Monk

My love my care,

Simone

Awful for all involved

2011-01-18T14:08:00.004-05:00

Eavesdropping at lunch lends to my blog.

My Daughter Josephine by Edmund Tarbell

The End

“Happy in love is a cruel place to start,” the woman with her back to me said to the furiously still man sitting across from her.
“The fuck it is, you are a cheat and a coward.”
“There is no need to be ugly, I am sorry.”
“If you think that’s ugly you just wait sweetheart.”
“And if you ever really loved me you would forgive me so I could be happy.”
“Yes, and if you had loved me you never would have cheated and turned my goddamn life into a wasteland so you see we all have our cross to bear.”
“Will you keep your voice down, people are starting to stare.”
“What the fuck do I care. I hope he gives you syphilis and you die a slow painful death,” he said in angry rise, “And I want you out of my apartment before I get home tonight.”
At this he storms off leaving her seated while everyone in the restaurant pretends not to notice his little devastation and her open relief at his departure. She takes a long drink from her glass then took out her phone and dials, her voice in a near hush as she confirms his heartbreak to the person on the other end.
“It’s for the best. I just couldn't continue pretending to love him when I really love you.”

My love my care,

Simone

In Dreams

2011-01-12T14:24:00.000-05:00

I wonder what it all means?

The Bathing Place by Paul Ranson

I fell asleep, my body in a sort of tension over something I can no longer recall and quickly had a vision of the man of my life. He is in water clear, on quest for the hand of the woman he desires only she isn’t me. This is instantly evident to me and still I with heart offer him counsel.

“Hold your breath and dive until you hit the warm water that pulls to a current that will rush you along a jet, which will deliver you to the top of the canal from there the swim is negligible.”

He is grateful and takes hold my hand before wishing me a hasty adieu with promises of seeing me at the point of victory. I’m pensive but not concerned watching him swim then dive out of sight before sailing along myself to line where the winner is to be declared.

When I arrive there is a great deal of fanfare and for a moment I certain it is in celebration for the man of my life triumph. That is until I see him emerge from with defeat on his face.

“I’ve been beat even with your brilliant advice and all my certainty,” he laments and I again with heart offer solace.

“You are strong but it was an impossible task, the winner arrived on yacht while you braved the water with no more than body and skill.”

It is here where thing take a turn for the horrid for now the woman he desires with the victor at her side said with accusation to the poor dear still exhausted in the water. “The choice was yours, you could have sailed like all the other participants for my hand but you foolishly chose to swim.”

“But there is honour in my path,” he insisted.

“You could not have won, surely you see that,” she said and her words filled me with a sort of turmoil that made me certain the only thing to do was drown him. It was a kindness really, save him from living with the shame of loss and me with the disappointment of loving a man who would make such a spectacle of himself for another.

I explain to him my decision and he agrees, reaching out of the water to kiss my lips in sweet tender before allowing me to hold him under water without struggle.

My love my care,

Simone

As it occurs to me

2011-01-10T23:58:00.002-05:00

This I wrote after eating French macaroons in a pastry shop in Yorkville. I looked on with something like sadness while the friendly young woman behind the counter tie-up a box of sweets for the distracted cutie on his blackberry ignorant to her attempts to engage him.

Govert Grapjurk by Erik Suidman

He had been to her little pastry shop before in a way often but not regular, always without words and ordering with regularity a variation on the same theme; an espresso with some savoury something or the other. She was trying to sort him out in between the rush of orders, never bothering to learn his name, referring to him only as the worn Clint Eastwood with the hard sad eyes. Until the week she had gone off on whimsy to her parents in Montréal and he had turned up at their pastry shop near Saint-Laurent and Mont-Royal to tell her it hadn’t been the same without her there.

“Without you it had been no more than the four seasons and I rest my bags then tipped the man at the door. There was no smile or sweet cinnamon and I had been weary traveller.”

She should have been alarmed at his presence but she was no more than thoughtful rising with arms open and he had been reluctant despite having come so far, for theirs had been no more than her kind smiles behind the counter. It struck him them how unlike warmth her embrace had been to him there coiled around her soft giving frame feeling raw as if peeled and drenched in salt. Her words at his ears, “Have you eaten?” as her hands run over his back playing at comfort and familiarity.

He took breath in a sort of relief then said, “I don’t like sweets.”

My love my care,

Simone

Rush forth with purpose

2010-12-29T03:56:00.001-05:00

Or resolve to laugh more but make it count.

An Old Warrior - Patara Te Tuhi by Charles Goldie

Hold Dear

You share with me, those who came before and the ones that will follow, mortality’s fleeting legacy. Ah, but time marks no more than our imprint on the tapestry and on this fine work of art our mistakes are as valuable as our triumphs so don’t you be timid, or unwilling. Embrace this new year with the knowledge that age does wicked things to the body, but understand, it also bring urgency and wisdom. Have courage enough to leave bold mark on the canvas even if it is no more than your defeated blood, sweat and tears.

Never forget for a moment that we are all in it together.

My love, my care,

Simone.

Silent Night

2010-12-24T03:10:00.001-05:00

And heaven on earth. Everyone here is shopping on foot by the metro and counting calories in order to avoid the Christmas season seven pounds weight gain. I miss the gluttony and the two hours in the car listening to the radio running from shop to shop. I'll bake some, see some of my family and most all my friends. It will be a good enough Christmas. I wish you all a lovely Christmas Day.

Thomas Moran's The Autumnal Woods

All my love,

Simone

Remember summer

2010-12-19T02:43:00.001-05:00

A Sign

Give me a sign.
I am certainly not the first to make this plea,
Head bent humbly, legs weakened and
Nearly on my knees with despair.
I am certainly not the first to wish this in the
Solemnity of the night or the brilliance of day.
But maybe I am the first to make this plea
At your altar. Maybe I am the first to worship
This sadistic deity. How low must I be brought
Before I am worthy of a boon?
How far must I fall from grace before you
Lift me up and bring me into your sinful light?

Frederick Carl Frieseke's Lilies

I love you all,

Simone

Melodrama

2010-12-15T02:50:00.002-05:00

A moment ago, I would have song for you

At Carnegie hall
In the nude
Under unflattering light
For critics more brutal than Cowell
Me tone deaf and without music
My voice off-key and out of time
But that was all before you ate the last slice of pie and the cupcake too.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir's Two Girls in Black

Alright, I'll admit to overreacting to the lost of the sweet but who amoung us haven't gone a tad mad where delightful treat was concerned.

My love my care,

Simone

Associated with bad news

2010-12-10T03:52:00.005-05:00

There is a stark viciousness that leads itself to a telegraph that most all other forms of communication lack and I dig it. Not because I’m particularly vindictive or revel in the notion of brutally delivered heartbreak but simply for the fact it is a medium with a life all its own.

Telegram

I love you (Stop) I can’t be without you (Stop) You are cruel with your kindness (Stop) Hurry back to me (Comma) or rather (Stop) Stay where you are and allow me to continue (Stop)

Isaak Brodsky's Fairy Tale

...then again there is the dreaded facebook wall, all public and potentially awful.

Murray,

You love in me things imagined made possible by my genius at strategy and all per your request.
It’s all fog and mirrors my virtue and humanity.
Why, for you I’m without tears or tender emotion.
I’m quiet, always poised...
Palatable even if not often pleasant and still you are baffled by my vexation at request for my hand.

My love my care,

Simone

Snow, I don't mind

2010-12-07T03:16:00.001-05:00

Shovelling it, now that I can't stand.

Peter Paul Rubens' The Union of Earth and Water

Let Me

I want to give.
And I need you to take,
My every thought,
My only desires,
My very last breath,
Until the only thing left is
A vague memory of my existence.
And even as I lay bleeding,
Dying from your vicious wounds,
I will revel.
I will rejoice as you dance.
I will smile to see you ignore my anguish.
Knowing that you have everything
I can give.

All my love

Simone

December?

2010-12-02T01:45:00.002-05:00

A Most Appetizing Repast

Dinner.

I made it just for you.

After all these years, I still

Remember the way you like it.

But I’ve changed the recipe a little bit.

To give it delicate authentic flavour, you understand.

I added some truth to the vegetables,

So forgive me if they’re a bit tough

To swallow but take solace in the fact

That I grew them in a garden

Cultivated in the soil of my grief

And nurtured with the water of regret.

I got the meat from the butcher

Down the road, who swears that he

Treats the animals as well as you ever

Treated me. Then I seasoned the meat

with spite and the bitterness of sorrow.

I sautéed everything together in the

Remaining oil of your lies and the

Burgeoning heat of my anger.

It should be delicious. I made it

To remind you of our time together.

I expect that you will shed tears at

The fullness of the taste.

I imagine that no meal, even your last

Will ever invoke such sensation.

But I hope, with everything in me,

That you choke.

John White Alexander's A Meadow Flower

I had a lovely enough year but the truth is I'm really looking forward to the new year.

All my love,

Simone

Everything a pictures says

2010-11-29T01:13:00.001-05:00

It’s just as well it should speak for itself I suppose for I haven’t the words for beautiful and all its synonyms somehow seems wanting.

Frederick Childe Hassam's Sonata

I met a fortune-teller on the train. She sat next to me and asked if she could look at my hand. I smiled politely and removed my glove without word and handed it to her. My callused gardener’s hand was a tad self-conscious being cradled there in her warm elegant palm. The fortune-teller did not seem to mind as she studied the lines of my hand, her brows knitted together in something like deep consideration then she said, “Great fortune, true love and happiness will find you in a very short time.” I thanked her and dug around in the pocket of my coat until I found the five that was meant for my coffee and gave it to her. She smile her gratitude, rose and wished me well.

A lovely week to you all,

Simone

A bit of eden

2010-11-26T14:11:00.003-05:00

Where on earth but in the heart of an artist.

Three Beeches by Paul Ranson

You are for me

My capacity for sentimentality is boundless on Sundays, friend.
Ah, but Monday I wilt for want of you.
I can’t bear the hours from here to there and time marks in me an anxiety similar to bereavement.
And in those hours my Sunday, our Eden, is no more than my fear for your leaving.

My love my care,

Simone

Falling in Love Martin Johnson Heade again

2010-11-22T23:25:00.000-05:00

Follow this link to his catalogue on museum syndicate.

Martin Johnson Heade's A Spray of Apple Blossoms

suffocated

I’m running now to catch my wicked words carelessly embedded as shrapnel in your flesh.

Still, you are not without fault but then you are by nature charity where I’m devil.

Devil, screaming her distaste until it echoes.

Together we are passion without restraint.

Feeling all and experiencing none and your love so unlike blissful desire though I think it rapture.

We are wrapped in it until we burn.

All my love,

Simone

The Regent’s Mother

2010-11-17T12:36:00.000-05:00

The Queen Consort by studio of Allan Ramsay

Charlotte Sophia of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (19 May 1744 – 17 November 1818), wife of poor mad king George and mother to our spoilt fat Regent was consider by most her subjects a dull unattractive woman but to her credit she had been a dutiful queen in all the ways that mattered. She was a faithful wife and devoted mother with charm enough to rouse in me affection. I love that she was an advocate for the education of women and that she saw to it that her daughters were educated. She played the pianoforte and was a music enthusiast who vigorously supported the arts.

She had without fanfare founded orphanages, a hospital for expectant mothers and given from her own personal fortune moneys to the Regent in support of his Pavilion. I adore her near selfless carriage and love that she was competent enough botanist to contribute significantly to the expansion of Kew gardens.

I know there are those who would argue that she was an overly affectionate mother who didn’t instil in the rotten Regent and his siblings her sense of duty or even those who would call here pious hypocrite for holding close both faith in God and opiate. To them I would say, her life was her example to her children, she saw to it that they were all educated and there was no doubt she offered each her unconditional support so in that she was above reproach. As for the rest it makes her human.

My love my care,

Simone

So much for a proper post

2010-11-12T13:34:00.008-05:00

Oh, but my friends do tax me...

I have but to spend an hour with them to work myself in such a state I’m barely tolerable by other civilized human beings. Eli that toad and ringleader of the band of hooligans I call my dearest friends lured me yesterday for lunch only to insight in me rage so profound I was contentious with all unfortunate enough to cross my path in the hours following.

A Reading by Emile Verhaeren by Théo Van Rysselberghe

This time the quarrel was about their combined belief that the modern medium “the internet” more specifically youtube is a Petri dish for talentless hacks attempting to peddle their wares in hopes of finding fame and fortune. Try as I may to inspire in them reason they would have none of it.

‘The medium is as the individual,’ I urged, ‘Each with an unlimited capacity for fame or infamy.’

‘Fame and infamy is the same thing in our modern culture,’ was their argument and soon we were quarrelling about that rather than the medium. Then the subject got move to morality and the responsibility of the public figures to carry themselves with a degree of grace and on and on it went until I was late getting back to work with nothing close to a resolve to that or the original subject of conversation for that matter.

A sort of lovely afternoon so here is to friends that engage, infuriate and delight.

All my love,

Simone

Reunited at long last

2010-11-08T22:17:00.000-05:00

How have you been my dears? I've missed you all terribly and now with my computer is safely home there is so much I must do. One takes for granted all that one gets gone with a few clicks. I haven't set forth a proper post in weeks and hope to get one done by week's end but for now it is a quick hello with promises to return with something more substantial.

A Gift by Daniel Gerhartz

I thank you all for your continued support and kind words while my computer was away.

My love my care,

Simone

Still without my beloved computer

2010-11-04T01:43:00.000-04:00

But I'm to have my friend Bunny's till the morrow. She is truly a brilliant friend, my Bunny and I'm grateful to her for this kindness. Here now the art of some poor forgotten artist.

It is so very sad to be lost to time but at least the art survived.

My love my care,

Simone

Golden Decorated Crown artist unknown

2010-10-23T00:44:00.001-04:00

I’ve been delighting in the apples of the orchard. All of them nearly sweet and fit but not ripe or tender as only an apple can be. Here where the autumn skies hint at winter and laments the summer with shows of fantastic sunsets with brilliant magentas that rivals the trees grand display of stunning yellows, orange, reds, burgundies and sumptuous purples. In these fields I’m able to see the birth of the surrealist, hence my homage to my most revered.

Character Masquerading in Pinning Up a Butterfly by Salvador Dali

A lovely weekend to you all,

Simone

LOVE, Love love this painting

2010-10-21T13:27:00.000-04:00

Superciliousness, her eyes, her lips, her air of arrogance.

Portrait of Maggie Wilson by Frank Duveneck

There is a sort of distance between us and it grows with ever word left unsaid which is funny for we’re forever in conversation. Maybe today I’ll be kind and tell you some truth with the hope you will follow but I’ll more than like not for we are comfortable. Besides, what does it matter now I’ve out grown us.

My love my care,

Simone

Autumn falls

2010-10-18T11:45:00.000-04:00

I’ve squandered all I was allotted coveting the light

And on you so much brighter than the sun

For whom I’ve eclipsed all that is light gazing upon

I worship now by moonlight and even there I sense your presence

Hubert Robert's Architectural Landscape with a Canal

All my love,

Simone

Oh, I don't know... Faiza Shirazi

2010-10-14T12:47:00.000-04:00

But I do dig these words.

Gone is forever

Here is not

The golden ringlets of red

Perhaps black

Fastened and primped to fit

the wood box

Dressed in the best

to rest

A world away

Immersed in velveteen and cedar

To see the night through

No other way, No other choice he replies.

Portrait of a Woman by Miklós Barabás

My love my care,

Simone

Cake...Sweet...Cake

2010-10-11T21:39:00.001-04:00

Another Thanksgiving over shared with lovely laughing friends and here now Rozanne Miller's Cobweb Painted Blue.

La Jolla Arbor by Guy Rose

Always imagining,
              Never experiencing
Only allowed to observe,
        Never permitted to touch,
Refrain from feeling.
                                             Crawl in a cobweb,
                                                  a protected cage
                                                           tangled inside my fears
                                                                      of YOU.

Trapped in my secret hiding

place,

Watching you.

Smelling you,

A faint smile plays upon my lips,

Your eyes,

your smile,

your voice--

Your Entire Image--

are like watercolours,

spreading through my thoughts,

blending into my desires,

running into my desires,

invading my unfuffilled wishes,

painting my life blue.

Hidden from your knowledge.

Struggling in my cobweb

yearning to be free,

yet loving the protection,

the safeness,

the comfort of

isolation.

All from a distance

in my cobweb painted blue,

watching

YOU.

All my love,

Simone

I was told there will be cake...

2010-10-08T02:09:00.001-04:00

Your loneliness is infectious and soon I’m diseased

Unable to bear your loud silences
While you dread my songs in unpleasant keys
We whisper our agony only they register as incoherent echoes
I hold you without words and in an instant we were both cure

The Music Master by Frank Duveneck

Thanksgiving is upon us Canadians. This year there is to be cake not pies, I'm thrilled.

I hope you are all happy and well,

Simone

Love, sacrifice and the...

2010-10-05T01:48:00.004-04:00

'Love' my Great-grandfather McQueen told me is to be treated as oil transported in palm, securely cradled but not tightly gripped. This bit of wisdom bothered me something awful, for I thought if it is so precious a thing why not carry it in a proper vessel.

Venus with a Mirror by Titian

Despite my lack of virtue I have your consideration and not due to flawless form or brilliant wit but habit.
This I cannot stomach so here in an attempt to be worthy of this tendre I will put forth effort at virtue.
Now with prudence anew I have decided to be unselfish and will give you up.

My love my care,

Simone

Working too much and miss you all very much.

2010-10-02T00:44:00.001-04:00

Also I've been reading Thomas Moore love this one especially.

Portrait D'une Jeune Femme by Albert Besnard

To ......

by Thomas Moore

When I loved you, I can't but allow

                                      I had many an exquisite minute;
                                      But the scorn that I feel for you now
                                      Hath even more luxury in it.
                                                                                        Thus, whether we're on or we're off,
                                                                                        Some witchery seems to await you;
                                                                                        To love you was pleasant enough,
                                                                                        And, oh! 'tis delicious hate you!

My love my care,

Simone

Fury

2010-09-28T12:52:00.002-04:00

Ms Molly Sekera saw fury before I did but I'm certain it was the same face.

Lucian Freud's Man's Head (Self-Portrait)

I saw fury
He was strong and brave
He turned with fierce teeth
And strong muscles

I saw his hot, fiery face

And his ears steaming

And heard his scream

And I felt sorry

My love my care,

Simone

After September's Equinox

2010-09-24T03:25:00.000-04:00

I take in my rosemary from the garden and mourn the summer with some delight at the turning of the leaves.

Standing Nude by Guy Rose

I can’t remember your face
Not your soft lips
Or the warm brown of your eyes
Or your smile
The one that made me greedy to kiss you
But that’s alright for who need to remember what haunts
You are necessary friend
As artery to heart

My love my care
Simone

Buy and soak raisins in cognac for Christmas pudding

2010-09-21T02:50:00.004-04:00

This is a psychological exercise given to me by an armature shrink and dear friend. I’m to think of my latest obsession, the idea of loving said fixation and the thought of forever in its grips then I’m to write down the first ten words/feeling that falls on me. Here are the words but truth to tell I don't see the point of it even if I had a laugh when I saw mother on my list.

Responsibility, old, mother, promise, lips, time, possibilities, want, despair and perfection.

Sunrise on the Bay of Fundy by William Bradford

You are for me a strain

I wished you away and still you are for me an unbearable pain to which I’ve gone to the Chinese tea shop and purchased the cure. It was bitter, expensive and gave me heartburn but what else could I do? The hypnosis was not working. I was meant to pull out one strand of hair from the root with every thought of you and was bold my entire body over inside a week.

My love, my care,

Simone

I cried the whole train ride home

2010-09-17T21:57:00.000-04:00

And wonder now what could have caused her to let go her composure.

Memories by Lord Frederick Leighton

I’d been at the newsstand in Union station two minutes before I noticed the young woman with the blank distraught stare. She was looking at the cover of the Walrus magazine when she took breath and screamed as if her hair was on fire. No one could get her to stop, not the frantic man behind the counter or the lady with the steady voice and nurses disposition nor anyone of the host of increasingly (upset-on-her-behalf-bystanders). We were on the verge of calling for an ambulance when an unassuming gentleman stepped forward and pulled her in his arms. Saying only, ‘It’s never as bad as all that,’ his tone certain and tender. The poor distresses woman burst into tears and buried her face into his torso. She wept all her agony on to his shirt and one by one we now free of the responsibility of the moment disbursed leaving her to his care.

My love my care,

Simone

How much do you believe in luck?

2010-09-14T02:14:00.001-04:00

How about destiny?

You now the bit that says what's it all about and what it had all been for?

The Source by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres

I only ask because lately the two has featured strongly in my conversations with my contentious friends... well those and the perceived rise of female masturbation in popular culture by one who will go unnamed but that one will have to keep until some other time. Here is why, fortune presses on my mind for I believe in luck and this though I’ve courted it to no avail. In fact, I would go so far as to say the evidence of its existence beyond my continued belief that my luck is about to change for the better is minute. Now destiny that I’m sure is a fallacy but that could simply be due to its unwillingness to reveal itself to me.

In the end it was for us more about family, love, fortune and space travel but now I think it's more the arc of the collective human experience.

You have my love here on this day when I'm more rambling questions than proper post.

Simone

I'd love to call for dinner in this warm kitchen

2010-09-12T03:42:00.001-04:00

My gardan is preparing for its winters sleep so naturally, I’m a little heartbroken but only a tad for it has brought me such joy and will return once again in the spring.

So now it is back to the business of writing and the more serious pursuit of wealth or is that fortune.

Glow by Daniel Gerhartz

I am the silly mortal who fell for the summer star
Only it turned out to be no more than a firefly and though the poor dear is more attainable
It seems I was more in love with the idea rather than the source of the light
For here I’ve caught a dozen in a jar to illuminate and entertain

All my love,

Simone

A familiar sadness

2010-09-09T01:55:00.004-04:00

Still, when all was said and done nothing more than our exceptions were shattered.

And even so it becomes more difficult with each failed marriage of dear friends once thought solid to write romance and not believe myself a snake oil salesman. The fact is I'm usually too much of a romantic to ever be truly jaded by the ruins of other peoples marriages and still this one caught me by surprise for they were for my set the ideal.

The Conservatory by Édouard Manet

They were married seventeen years and were brilliant friends. Though, I had not been as thrown as dear sweet Eli who wept bitter tears and now vows bachelorhood until death I did consider taken a few volumes from a three year old bottle I found in my cabinet. They told us together and had been patient with our invasive questions. I realize now that they had been calm from the retelling while we had reeled with raw emotion for they had already gone through the exercise with their children and individual families.

We will adjust, I suppose thought I suspect this one will take us quite a bit of time.

My love my care

I hate dinner parties in the country

2010-09-07T03:42:00.001-04:00

All the fresh air leaves me with a headache and my once urbane friends turn country bumpkins squanders my patience with their melodrama. Not enough is said of too much wine and awful company, or has it?

La Pointe du Rossignol by Théo Van Rysselberghe

It is also in the country where my understanding of heart is reduced to that of an infant and here in this ungodly hour I’m no more than ill-logic or is that ill-will and hard feelings. Some of it due to the bliss that eludes one friend, the happy beginning that another believes he has found and I’m left to fret for they are in the same relationship. My friend Bunny thinks I worry too much and that the two silly creatures will be happily married inside a year. I almost believe her or rather I pray she is wrong and still a weak pathetic part of me hopes for both their sakes she is right.

Be happy,

Simone

A bit of Westmorland

2010-09-04T13:52:00.000-04:00

The two met and shared a passionate kiss and now they are friends of sort...

The Lady with the Veil by Alexander Roslin

Chapter One

“Marry me Claire,” Viscount Westmorland said to the stunning redhead seated across from him in his mother’s grand salon. “I can’t go on like this, another year. One of those ravenous maidens pinched me this afternoon in Harrison’s sitting room.”
“Shall I pour you a lemonade, my lord?” she asked.
“Marriage Claire. With children, grand estates and my eternal gratitude… Doesn’t that sound lovely?”
“And it would have to be you I marry?” she asked, eyes sparking with mischief as she extended a hand with the aforementioned lemonade.
“What keeps me suffering your awful company?”
“Does that mean you no longer wish to marry me?” she laughed.
“Did I tell you how Lady Riley lured me to tea with that sumptuous body of hers then tried to marry me off to her daughter.”
“She’s a lovely girl.”
“It’s perverse Claire. I could be that child’s father.”
“Oh, that’s right. You did court her mother when she was a débutante. Didn’t you?”
“Are you deliberately trying to provoke me?”
“No, my lord, but after a lifetime of knowing you I find I no longer have to make an effort. It just sort of happens.”
“I never liked you.”
“And still you would marry me?”
“Taking joy from my humiliation makes you depraved. You see that, don’t you?”
“Surely you don’t begrudge me my one happiness.”
“I realized something in coming here to see my mother.”
“And what is that, my lord?”
“I don’t like the company she keeps.”
“But I’m not company so much as companion and you pay my keep so you could, I suppose, instruct her to have me behave.”
“You only say that because you know full well she prefers you to me and would have me banished from the premises.”
“Nonsense,” his mother said as she entered, “Now stop bothering Claire and come take my hand. I have wonderful news.”
“I warn you, my dear. If this wonderful news of yours has anything to do with some suitable maiden I won’t be able to bear it,” Henry said as he greeted his mother with kind hand and a miserable smile.
“I’ve given up on finding you a bride and have instead found a husband for myself,” Blanche St John said pertly as she brushed pass her son to sit next to her companion.
“This is new,” Henry said to Claire as his mother settled.
“Have I your blessing, my angel?” his mother continued in spite of his rude dismissal.
“To whom have you decided to marry my dear?” he asked indulgently though he did not believe his mother would, at five and fifty, remarry.
“Lord Philippe Marcel. We are both widowed now and I should like to live out the rest of my days in the land of my birth away from this constant chill here in England.”
“Et tu Maman?”
“This was not done to you my angel,” his mother said defensively. “You’re three and thirty and I’ve dedicated a decade and a half to finding you a wife to no avail. No more. I will return to France at season’s end and you will wish me well.”
“And what of Claire?”

My love my care,

Simone

Moving my sister back to school

2010-09-01T12:49:00.000-04:00

I miss her already but I'm happy she is settled.

A Winding Stream in Summer by Peder Mork Mønsted

I spent the last five days helping my sister move in to her first flat and it was quite a move too, from Toronto to Montréal. She is glad to be living off campus and I'm jealous of her oh so romantic city. I hope to visit at least once before the year is out.

A lovely week to all,

Simone

I'll be back in a spell

2010-08-29T14:10:00.000-04:00

Boy and girl gazing at the moon by Norman Rockwell

I've gone off for a moment and will be back Wednesday.

My love my care,

Simone

On what it means

2010-08-24T23:58:00.002-04:00

Little girls with devotion to passion holds for me a place of deep sentiment.

The Audition by Daniel Gerhartz

I have always been fascinated by the life of others and looking at this painting is for me a bit of an obsession. I wonder what is going through her mind. Is it the hours of practice that has brought her to this place or is it the promise of a dream fulfilled?

My love my care,

Simone

The Sisters by Abbott Handerson Thayer

2010-08-21T04:28:00.002-04:00

Every time I see this painting I’m remained how much I really do love my sister.

She is fifteen years younger than I and I still reach of her hands when we cross the street. I drive her mad always trying to offer solutions to her every worry and I beam with pride every time she sing along to anything from the seventies for I know she got that due to my influence. She keeps me sane. I genuinely enjoy her company. I love that she is brilliant- like science smart and people smart too- even if next to her I read as unremarkable.

Abbott Handerson Thayer's The Sisters

We have most all in common and somehow we read as ice and steam. We each have strong opinions about everything and as a result row often but we laugh a hell of lot more. Talking to her after an awful day allows me sleep. I don’t just love my sister she is necessary for my happiness and without her I would be no more that a masterpiece lit by a match.

My love my care,

Simone

March Madness in August

2010-08-19T14:03:00.000-04:00

Five dear friends cram into an automobile at a most ungodly hour and on a work day no less, in hope of getting designer shoes for pennies. There was sheer elation and girlish squeals at the prospect of getting a pair of Louboutin, Choo, Blahnin or Balenciaga for a faction of the regular price. So much so it did not occur to any of us that hundreds of other women and their dearest girlfriends would have heard of the sale and like us would have rouse with the sun to piss away a small fortune.

The Ship of Fools by Hieronymus Bosch

Now just you imagine it, a horde of female all without their morning coffee or make-up hopped up on the prospect of getting brand name gear for up to seventy percent off retail. We laugh now but there in those desperate hours all anyone saw or care to see was the red at the sole of that most coveted instrument of madness.

A lovely day to you all,

Simone

With pen in the garden

2010-08-16T16:51:00.001-04:00

It is already Mid-August, but I do not despair for it has been a lovely summer thus far.

Charles Gleyre's Le Coucher de Sapho

Forget-me-not

Hard won confidence is in the presence of unrequited love subject to questions and demons long believed conquered. Turning the mirror that asset of beauty into no more than a faithless Judas, which shows awful truths by unfeeling light. Then it is seldom noted for one has long sat shivah for the bits that died pursuing a futile end and still that girl, the foolish hopeful one that lives deep in your heart holds dear the idea. That no one but he will do.

All my love,

Simone

I can't believe we were ever so young...

2010-08-13T15:18:00.002-04:00

It had been a brilliant summer the year I turned twenty and this painting puts me in mind of it.

House At Rueil by Édouard Manet

And even in that I had been practical

On your face I see the mark of time that passed too quickly
There in lines of anguish and bliss
Along eyes and smiling lips
With shaking hands I reach out hoping to erase the sorrow and you bury your face in my palm
Pressing your lips and forehead with tendre against my touch before taking hold my hand to sink your teeth in my flesh
You’ve left a wound but it like pain is soon dulled and all that remains is the memory of the warmth of your face against my hand.

My love my care,

Simone

I've been delighting in William Mason Brown's painting

2010-08-11T04:01:00.003-04:00

His work makes me want to walk barefoot in the orchard of his nostalgia.

Here his Fruits of Summer

I beg you eat me now I’m ripe if only to save me maturing to decay

Sink your teeth in the tendre rouge flesh set in place by my season in the sun

Delight in my juice and consume with glut my full offering

Then with thought I pray you lay my core in fertile soil so I may be resurrected with full knowledge of thy

appetite

And his Still Life with Peaches and Marble Vase

My love my care,

Simone

Four More of the 100 Women that Inspire Me

2010-08-09T18:31:00.005-04:00

The Peer from her I learned to feed my soul, eat often with friends, family and those you value. Her cookbook "Miss Dahl's Voluptuous Delights" is a feast for the senses and is ripe with lovely recipes.

Sophie Dahl

The Ideal because of her I've embraced my appetite for one can't but revel in life’s bounty with her as role-model. Set the table and take care to present it well. Her cookbook "Feast" encourages one to taste everything and I flip through its pages often for inspiration.

Nigella Lawson

The Apostle thought me that I too can bake well with confidence. To her and her cookbook the Cake Bible I owe a tremendous death of gratitude. This I learned from her and pass on to you: Baking is a science so every baker should invest in a scale for the correct measurement is key to the perfect cake.

Rose Levy Beranbaum

The Joy with her I think all is possible in the kitchen. Drink the wine and share a laugh. Her cookbook Very Simple Food is truly stunning but more than that it is foolproof. Oh and she is the Times Cook in London, so like the best job in the world.

Jill Dupleix

The Sheer Joy of simple food

The Bounties of Nature's William Mason Brown

My love my care,

Simone

A strong desire

2010-08-06T05:20:00.000-04:00

Today all I want is for you to be happy.

Pál Szinyei Merse's Lark

I’m fanciful to the point of madness and often wonder if it serves me well and on days when I’m unable to write I would gladly give up all my little silliness so I may be at peace only that would make me someone else entirely... wouldn’t it?

Also, if I haven’t written anything worthy in over a month am I still able to call myself an author?

Though I can hardly complain with the lovely days of brilliant sunshine and I swear I'm in bloom. I laugh more, cook more, eat a ton and gain little to no weight what with me running here and there trying to fit it all in before cooler climate demand more serious pursuits.

I do hope you are all having a wonderful summer.

All my love and care,

Simone

The Romantic Hero

2010-08-02T23:41:00.006-04:00

These poor gentlemen are meant to be loyal, strong and perfect but not too much so why it is enough to drive an author out her mind.

The Return Of The Prodigal Son by Pompeo Batoni

An oxymoron

A dark and brooding charmer

Who is a sensitive alpha male

Is passionate and compassionate

A fierce competitor, good sport’s man and is also selfless

Warm, strong and flawed but not so much so

Who saves orphans from burning building, overcome hardship and personal demands with sheer willpower

He is called something tragic like Darcy, Romeo or Heathcliff

The 7th Earl of Northampton by Pompeo Batoni

My love my care,

Simone

A silly creature and her perfect friend

2010-07-30T16:02:00.000-04:00

I had lunch today with one my dearest friend. She will be celebrating her fortieth birthday, twenty-first wedding anniversary and her youngest going off to university in the next little while, which of course filled with me with all sort of conflicting emotions. Jealous being the most prevalent and not for the reasons one would think either. You see, she is at peace, sort a like a Buddhist monk.

Hold Everything by Gil Elvgren

She kept telling me things have a way of working itself out and I shouldn’t worry so much and try to relax more. I tell you it truly is a strain having lunch with her, me there trying to hold it altogether and she there mocking my manic list making and fractured five year plan. Now, you may not know this but by nature I’m a frantic emotional perfectionist so naturally all this fills me with anxiety. I do love her though for she is the one person I can count on supporting my every fancy no matter how foolhardy then make me chocolate soufflé and holding my hand should said fancy fall apart.

Besides with her I'm able to laugh at myself.

A lovely weekend to you all,

Simone

Counsel that left an impression

2010-07-29T02:44:00.005-04:00

I volunteered at a home for the aged in my twenties while there I met a lady who imparted to me this, be kind to the one you share your life with. She kept telling me how very easy it was to be cruel and how easy vindictive scorn follows. In honour of her I try to live my life with this advice in mind and you know I see now a kindness done is usually a very small a thing.

Maria by Théo Van Rysselberghe

Not the saddest thing

Dita roams the halls of her retirement home, scolding the son she sacrificed all for only he is not there to hear her. She chants her disappointment with unyielding resentment but only the chiropodist understands her broken German. He examines her feet and coos his sympathy before saying I will see you in a month. She smiles and appears lucid then she replies as always I pray I will be dead between now and then. He takes her hands for a gentle squeeze then moves on to the gentleman in the other room.

My love my care,

Simons

Full Moon

2010-07-27T02:07:00.001-04:00

On nights when the moon is full and clear I fret we have upset without understanding a delicate balance but then I switch on my computer, Google my heart’s desire and soon all I’m able to do is whisper my gratitude. Thank you, Moon. I would gladly devote a full night in honour of all you have added to my life.

Moonlight by William Shih-Chieh Hung

Praise the moon

Luna tell me your secrets
Whisper in my ear all you have seen
Explain to me the purpose of Stonehenge or the mystery of Atlantis and the Bermuda triangle
Confide in me your thoughts on humanity for I often wonder how much you mind us visiting without invitation or if you resent our open ingratitude for your illumination

My love my care,

Simone

Summer madness

2010-07-24T11:56:00.002-04:00

High humidity, seems just the thing here in the heart of summer and so naturally I dread the rains that signal the end.

Théo Van Rysselberghe's The Model's Siesta

Impatient

Two weeks is not so very long if one is happily waiting.
Only for me it is no less than the torment of being trapped beneath the rubbles while fatigued rescuer surrender hope.
I grow certain you will not return with me in mind and the ruins become my grave.
All your postcards arrive with the hostile doom of a telegram.
I pray the phone will ring, it doesn’t.
The house is silent in a sort of respectful observation of our end.
I look at the calendar and lament for it as only been days.
I discover your note that says simply, “You’re mad. You have my heart. I’m coming home.”

My love, my care,

Simone

One of those ladies from the Regency

2010-07-21T12:09:00.002-04:00

Laure Junot, Duchesse d'Abrantès was a historian and wife of French general Jean-Andoche Junot. After her father died in 1795, Laure lived with her mother, Madame Permon, who established a distinguished Parisian salon that was frequented by Napoleon Bonaparte. It was Napoleon who arranged her marriage to Junot who was his aide-de-camp in 1800. Laure accompanied her husband to Portugal, where he was ambassador for a year. The marriage was unhappy, and Laure had a three year affairs with Prince Metternich, Austrian ambassador to Paris and, later, with a Royalist aristocrat named Maurice de Balincourt.

She later had an affair with Honoré de Balzac with whom she produced her spirited but somewhat spiteful Memoirs. The memoirs were published at Paris in 1831-1834 in 18 volumes. Many editions have since appeared. Of her other books the most noteworthy are Histoires contemporaines (2 vols., 1835); Scènes de la vie espagnole (2 vols., 1836); Histoire des salons de Paris (6 vols., 1837-1838); Souvenirs d'une ambassade et d'un séjour en Espagne et en Portugal, de 1808 & 1811 (2 vols., 1837).

Since, these things seldom last it was only time until this once well received in all the gaieties of Paris, and noted for her beauty, caustic wit, and extravagance was being ridiculed by Théophile Gautier, who dubbed her "Duchess of Abracadantès." With the passing of the years she fell into poverty and out of vogue, she died in a nursing-home in 1838 but her fascinating memoirs live on.

My love my care,

Simone

The ravenous artist

2010-07-19T03:25:00.005-04:00

This studio inspires in me want for an afternoon spent wrapped in its charms.

A Corner of William Merritt Chase's Studio

Love’s toll

I’m not able to conceive of it and still I think of little else,
but then it is no more than infatuation for my love is no more than coloured lights.
Ever fleeting rainbows or distant Auroras.
I tell you I cannot imagine our futures and yet I hold no dream dearer for you are music and magic,
but not love for to me it is as miracle for the nonbeliever.
Reduced to falling frogs and water for wine.
You laugh at my foolishness holding me above paradise and time in that place of eternal bloom.
I grip tight terrified you will let go before I’m able to master the wings your love has allowed me.

All is before you.

My love and care,

Simone.

Male apparel

2010-07-15T12:03:00.002-04:00

Yesterday afternoon I had lunch with a thirty-something real estate agent wearing a white belt. Now, I know you are thinking, ‘what a snob this Simone girl is turning out to be,’ and I may well be but you must also take in account the matching white shoes and his showcase of jewels (A diamond stud in each ear, watch, three rings, bracelet and chains). Here, it gets better for he drives a Mercedes-Benz convertible also in white. Oh and that was not the most ridiculous for you see there was also a white fedora and his cologne which I assume was very expensive only he used it in such a manner it read as cheap.

Portrait of Bonifacius Amerbach painted by Hans Holbein the Younger

Now you mustn’t think me cruel when I tell you I felt nothing but shame at being seen out in public with this absurd creature but I tell you something else beneath all this madness was a brilliant real estate agent and a charming conversationalist. Proving once more that old adage about books and there covers.

My love and a laugh to you,

Simone

A romantic end

2010-07-13T03:07:00.000-04:00

Allow me a charity my love and I will amputate with precision the bits of me that stubbornly cling to your selfish flesh then we will be as tragic constellation set to burn until consumed by dark void. Made happy in the nothingness, absent from all light.

Engulfed,

Free.

James Tissot's A Little Nimrod

No more than child's play...
The death of a character is an inevitability for a writer but mind now for a romance novel one is required to apply asp to bosom, poison on lips, blade at heart in place of the civil passing in sleep affair. While for a truly epic tale the end demands crucifixion, firing squad, suicide, guillotines, bloodletting in iron maiden or my personal favorite the old hanged, drawn and quartered.

My love my care,

Simone

Idle ideal

2010-07-12T01:10:00.002-04:00

I have infuriated my loved ones for rather than going on holiday this year I have with the money saved purchased pearl earrings, bed linens, a handbag and a bottle of my favourite perfume. Silly, perhaps but I simply could not bring myself to book a trip when the weather here is so lovely and the garden is doing so well. I know they fret I will regret it come the winter but I think I’ve made the right decision. Besides, I’ve booked a few hours at a local spa and will take a few days off to read in the warmth of the sun.

Julius LeBlanc Stewart's Reading Aloud

Let's

2010-07-09T02:46:00.000-04:00

Come see me.

Edgar Hunt's A Hen, Chicks And Pigeons

Spite

Domesticated as spouse and fowl.
Made useful for consumption.
Tamed free of wild desires.
Broken of natural nature and bridled into civility.
Petted to conform only to be.
Pent-up and denied flight.

A lovely weekend to all,

Simoneq

To be said in one breath

2010-07-07T14:11:00.002-04:00

But mind now for this only works if you are resolved to say it all in one go.

Everett Shinn's Nude

First take a breath

I love you so much I can hardly stand it yet still I’m unable to see to your happiness for long before you came along I squandered all I was allotted so here now all that remains is my desired hope for you to stay awhile because I haven’t the faith to will you stay forever so please understand take my hand and know I will always love you.

My love my care,

Simone

Catherine Breillat one of the 100 women that inspires me

2010-07-04T17:02:00.003-04:00

"There is no masculine psychology in my cinema. There is only the resentments and desires of women. A man should not attempt to recognize himself in my male characters. On the other hand, he can find [in the films] a better understanding of women. And knowledge of the other is the highest goal."

The brilliant Catherine Breillat

Author and filmmaker Catherine Breillat has garnered a reputation as one of the most controversial women in film and literature. Her works primary focus is on female sexuality and is told always from the woman's perspective.
At 17, she published her first novel, “L'homme Facile,” which became a cause célèbre for its blunt language and open depiction of sexual subject matter. The controversy generated by L'homme Facile gave Breillat enough recognition that she was able to pursue a career as a writer.

her prettiest film

In 1975, she directed “Une Vraie Jeune Fille,” which was adapted from one of her novels. The film focused on the unusually explicit depiction of the sexual obsessions of an adolescent girl, it generated a certain amount of controversy and was further hindered by financial problems on the part of the film's producers, which prevented it from receiving a proper launch at the time.
After directing two films that received plenty of hostile press but very little money, her career as a director was put on hold. She continued to write screenplays but it wasn't until 1988 that she was in charge of another feature, “36 Fillette.” Depicting the burgeoning sexuality of a 14-year-old girl hell-bent on seducing a middle-aged man. This one fared well enough at the box office to allow her to make another film.

her fairy tale "Bluebeard"

Her real international breakthrough, came in 1999 with the success of “Romance,” about a schoolteacher whose relationship with her boyfriend has gone sour, leading her into a variety of sexual liaisons with other men, it was one of her first films to play in mainstream cinemas across Europe and the United States though it clearly depicted explicit intercourse and fellatio, as a result it generated a great amount of press attention.
Romance also spawned a number of positive reviews and think pieces in major newspapers and magazines, and finally confirmed Catherine Breillat status as a major filmmaker outside her native France.

This thing she said and I love, "The problem is that censors create the concept of obscenity. By supposedly trying to protect us they form an absurd concept of what is obscene."

My love my care,

Simone

Gemini

2010-07-01T23:55:00.001-04:00

The Artist's Sisters by Théodore Chassériau

She had made an error at forty that even her youngest at thirteen had found laughable and still she could not have gone forth without having loved him.

I had instead a go at fortune the kind found in twelve hour days and smart parties with clever people.

She swam by moonlight in her best frock then tossed it aside to make love in filthy sand

I got promoted and learned how to golf with the bright young things

She chases the sun to shop in open markets in distant land without worry for her retirement fund

I’ve decided to use my vacation fund to enrol in Mandarin for business executives

She drives me mad with her incessant I haves

I make her crazy with my I wills

My love my care,

Simone

Enlightened indifference

2010-06-29T10:13:00.001-04:00

Johanna Harmon's Spanish Dancer

or farewell to youthful folly

I see now my ease of self was too dear a price to pay for your inconsistent fancy

Why, you taxed me free of elegance
Leaving me no more than an artless inarticulate toad
I’m unable to stand the sight of you and lament in the same vein all thoughts of you
I hold it as grudge Sir, the power you held over my once poised carriage
Made remedial fawning prepubescent malcontent and all for your smiles
So here in the light of day I, with competent solicitor am serving you with my intent to reclaim all
This means going forth your mere presence will not make of me the grotesque
There will be no more fumbling for speech, girlish giggles or delinquent declarations of tendre

My love my care,

Simone

My favorite place to spend an hour

2010-06-27T23:44:00.001-04:00

I have, since childhood, had an unnatrual fascination with cemeteries. I love the solitude, manicured lawns, all the sweet sorrow carved into stone and fresh cut flowers.

Caspar David Friedrich's The Cemetery Gate (The Churchyard)

I've found the garden

In it we sleep eternally

Without worry of depraved indifference

For long before we had gone we would have seen all worth seeing

and eaten all the cake.

My love my care,

Simone