Thanks go to Gusset, for connecting us to neumu.

Now for the painful part.

No. There are things I just cannot tell you yet, okay? I want to expose myself... I want you to know (really know) when darkness drapes itself like a wet cold dirty towell over my shoulders, dampening my daily existence [composed of what feels, sometimes, like weeks of saturdays (um, please note that I don't sleep past 9 am, hardly ever)].
It was a summer of love, freedom, and traipsing...Taking photos cross dressers, of wild 11 yearold girls, and of famous artists' cleavage from a balcony above.... Until: Enter loss, sadness, and even shame. But I don't think I am ready to tell you about all this. Not yet anyway.

fuckit. I lost my camera. Okay? So I lost it, alright? It seems to be gone. Or maybe it was stolen. It could have been stolen. Regardless, I no longer have my digital camera, the one I saved up for months to buy. And I have no job. Okay? Do we feel closer to eachother now that you know these dark truths? I don't know. Write your name and phone numbers on your stuff.
I mean, there are people out there, people looking for the camera for me, in the North Fork of Long Island where I had it last. They might find it. They might. You know what? I don't want to talk about it.

Where have I been? Why haven't I updated? There are various excuses, true ones, which I could access to explain a 5 day lapse. There are dark things, those I'm not ready to share, and there are lovely ones, too. The most lovely of them all is that I've been at the beach, on the North Fork of Long Island, for a few days, where we bought fresh seafood -- lobster, mussels and clams -- and arrived at Jorge's house, which our friend is helping to renovate, and first off met some other folks staying and working on the house, Seb and Dan, and also their visitors, Mike, Stephanie.

We merged our seafood booty with their calamari and swordfish. Seb said "I'll be in charge of the cooking". Well... I had never met Seb before. I mean, he seemed perfectly perfect and all, but we had no idea what we were getting into... we agreed he would cook, yet I retained a small, internal trepidation: "okay... But, uhh, I hope he knows how to steam the mussels... using the garlic, the wine, the parsely like I saw it done once.... And The Lobster...17 minutes! on STEAM, not BOIL..."

We fixed oursleves a Camapari and soda, official coctail of summer, (with a splash of grapefruit) and hung out in the spacious kitchen while Seb mixed it up, talking, telling stories, whirling things into shape. He sliced fresh herbs and chipolte peppers on the huge cutting board; He had all 6 burners of the industrial gas stove flaming, some boiling, a few sizzling, one carmelizing, something basting.

A cigarette dangling out of his mouth, a drink in one hand, Seb orchestrated it like an improv dance, architecting flavors, marinades and sauces on the fly. Within a few hours the table was set and we were served one of the top 5 most beautiful meals I have eaten (probably).

Forget all these expensive, haute, swanky NYC restaurants! Forget Them! This meal: It was fragrant, colorful, beautiful... the mussels were gingery and garlicky, perfectly steamed. Poured over a bed of arugula, the calamari wilted it to perfection. The swordfish: No. Never have I tasted a more fresh and perfectly prepared piece of fish. Lobster. Steamers. Some greens. It was painful, how good this meal was. And we had red wine from Mike's family vinyard in Napa Valley. And we were barefoot, still in our swimsuits from our dip in the pool earlier. And, it has to be said that under 50 bucks worth of seafood fed all 7 of us, lobster included. Seb was soooooooo king.

Oh, and the Pixelsurgeon article on Women In Design has been published. It's an interesting essay, and a springboard for what could become a deep and really juicy discussion, a Force, if you will. Oh, and it features a quote by, um, Me.