Spirit: Really Want to Know You

You'd think that at 40licious you'd get more fixed in your beliefs. I think I am becoming more fluid. There are some basics that I know won't change: I must exercise every day or I will get wonky and fat. I must be my best self and as nice as I possibly can be, in writing and in person, to each being I encounter during my day. I must tell the truth.

But occasionally one must look beyond one's own moral compass for help. I suppose that's why there's the bible, the koran, the watchtower, the tarot, a horoscope, the i ching, the fortune in your cookie. For a decade my mother, a mash up Christian, Catholic, Buddhist, has been feeding me books by the Dalai Lama. And a couple years ago, I started reading "How to Expand Love" when I'd finished the last novel by my bed. It was life-changing as a guide to try and love people who are not particularly kind to you; to see the "diamond" inside everyone. The Dalai Lama's words on compassion made the difference between us moving forward with our adoption or not, proving that when you act with love -- even with someone who is difficult -- everyone will win.

Enter the Modigliani.
My mother had asked me to get an appraisal on a piece she'd been given in the 1960s. As I navigated the fine art world to try and find the best way to get a fair deal for my mom, an artist herself on a fixed income living a meager life, I felt badgered by a relative as he criticized every choice I made: handing it over to one of my closest friends, an art dealer, to find an appraiser. The auction house. The contract. The reserve price. The $90,000 estimate from the appraiser at the auctioneer. After some research, it was determined that the drawing is a very, very, good print and is not worth anything.

And then the relative became invested in a theory that while the piece was being appraised, it was switched for a fake, like some Oceans 11 scheme. He brought up distorted versions of past events. All the while I tried to do what the Dalai Lama asked, to be loving, to be compassionate and understanding. To keep boundaries. Even though I felt attacked and that every button that could be pushed got punched.

I want to address the wild misconceptions. I want to punch back with the truth. But this will not help. I don't know what the Dalai Lama would have me do. How do I be loving but protect myself? How can we move forward without looking back? Today I listed to "My Sweet Lord" in a new way. When George Harrison sings "I really want to know you," I'm taking it to mean, "I really want to understand what the spiritually correct course is to take at this particular moment." And when he sings, "it takes so long," it means, "it takes so long."

Spirit: Alexander McQueen and why we need to move on our life's work

I am in New York this week. This is the city that made me think and feel and act as I do. It made me love certain things and loathe others. When I am anywhere else, including my Los Angeles home, the world is in smudgy pastels. In New York, it is wild crisp color.

I have the great delight of showing my husband this city, so we are taking tours and seeing iconic places. We went to the Alexander McQueen exhibit at the Met and I stood there, tears brimming with the creative beauty and talent of a man gone from our lifetime. And I was never more clear on the message that if we are to create something of beauty, our great work, the piece that will allow us to die happy and fulfilled, we need to get on it now. No excuses. We are 40licious and it is time to take everything we have learned and use it.

What will you start or finish today? If you are on it, how is it going?

DIY Wedding

As I've said about a million times on this blog, when you're doing something right, the universe greases your wheels. But what about when you hamfist it? The universe basically throws gobs of bleh at you and makes you start over, refresh. Step away. Reevaluate. And you can't have clarity until that clarity wants to wash over you like a blast from a fire hydrant in the summer on West 82nd Street in Manhattan in 1978, when you wore running shorts and tube socks and Stan Smiths and a shirt with maybe a rainbow on it.

We're figuring out how to have the most meaningful wedding we can. What we need, what we don't. One of my best girlfriends is a wedding photographer by trade, so that's a no-brainer. Steve's on it with the music, and has been the perfect partner in helping with joint brainstorming and intuitively leaving alone the decisions I want to own. Which bodes well for our lives together. We are all set with the place and the wine and maybe even the officiant. I've spotlighted about 15 women in my life who will walk me down the aisle, led by my mother. Friends are giving me hints about scoring the deal on the dress, or do I just want to wear theirs? Those seem like the easy parts.

Perusing invitations, however, is a labyrinthine exercise. I'm a writer. Paper and words and ink and how it reads and how one remembers is important. I went through a maze of paper and fonts and wording on the Internet, each selection leading to a slightly different variation ... more casual. More formal. More Christian. More Hippie. And finally, I found The One. And it's letterpress and charming and in our colors (dark teal, dove gray and white) and $800. For some paper with ink on it.

So I very liberally borrow the idea I like -- a dove on a trellis with some fleur de lis thrown in -- and we pour over fonts together, as if we are deciding our last meal, or the name of our child, or a move to the Wyoming mountains. And finally we plunk down $24 for our wedding font and I play and play and play for nights on end to get it just right. And then I have the design in mind all perfect. And the paper I want to use sucks and gets all mangled in my printer. And my trips to Michael's and Staples result in a bag full of stickers and card stock and bits of ribbon and a Martha Stewart Fleur de Lis hole punch, and 100 blank invitation cards.

And I make a mess of my invitation. It is no longer beautiful to me. The font we have chosen now looks so amateur. Might as well use comic sans. My print looks gaudy and my paper looks plain. Is the bird tacky? Is the whole thing a bit too "Very Hungry Caterpillar"?

My very sweet neighbors arrived on my doorstep yesterday, 8-year-old Kaya with a basket of mandarins and a piece of baklava, her architect dad trailing along. They are a little listless, I think, as Mom is traveling India for a month gathering food stories. They have sort of adopted us. Or maybe we have adopted them. Sanjiv, who is also a Pisces, picks up on my design plight and offers to help out.

So I will put everything away for two days. And try to see the possibility that my new talented friend sees. And maybe we'll make something beautiful.

A Tiny Gift for Yourself

Poets.org will send you a poem a day to celebrate National Poetry Month. I am sure that a poem a day will soften hard edges and sweeten addled minds. It might even inspire you to greatness, or niceness, or peace.

No, Love Is Not Dead


by Robert Desnos

No, love is not dead in this heart these eyes and this mouth
that announced the start of its own funeral.
Listen, I've had enough of the picturesque, the colorful
and the charming.
I love love, its tenderness and cruelty.

My love has only one name, one form.
Everything disappears. All mouths cling to that one.
My love has just one name, one form.
And if someday you remember

O you, form and name of my love,
One day on the ocean between America and Europe,
At the hour when the last ray of light sparkles
on the undulating surface of the waves, or else a stormy night
beneath a tree in the countryside or in a speeding car,

A spring morning on the boulevard Malesherbes,
A rainy day,
Just before going to bed at dawn,
Tell yourself-I order your familiar spirit-that
I alone loved you more and it's a shame
you didn't know it.

Tell yourself there's no need to regret: Ronsard
and Baudelaire before me sang the sorrows
of women old or dead who scorned the purest love.

When you are dead
You will still be lovely and desirable.
I'll be dead already, completely enclosed in your immortal body,
in your astounding image forever there among the endless marvels
of life and eternity, but if I'm alive,
The sound of your voice, your radiant looks,
Your smell the smell of your hair and many other things
will live on inside me.

In me and I'm not Ronsard or Baudelaire
I'm Robert Desnos who, because I knew
and loved you,
Is as good as they are.

I'm Robert Desnos who wants to be remembered

On this vile earth for nothing but his love of you.

A la mysterieuse

Nesting Frenzy

Here's what the equasion seems to be:

Informed about better-than-expected tax refund + news about great trip to Japan for 10 days + anticipating a child in the home + madly in love with boyfriend = INTENSE NESTING FRENZY

On my way to yoga tonight, I thought I'd buy Steve a sweater for Valentine's Day to introduce the prospect of possibly, maybe, providing a companion garment to the one he wears. All. The. Time.

But of course I had to make a detour into Anthropologie, because I have been invited on a trip to Japan for 10 days to taste sake and miso, and it is cold there, and clearly none of my current wardrobe will do. This is a store that switches my brain into French Bohemian mode and gives me all kinds of lifestyle fantasies, such as serving mint juleps to my guests in pink-washed glasses from Czechoslovakia, or having books on obscure cultural subjects on my coffee table, or hanging embroidered dish towels on fanciful ceramic knobs in the kitchen, or paying $238 for a sweater.

But tonight I found the happiest shower curtain ever on sale. And a couple knobs. And then I went on the hunt for coordinating towels and floor mat. And another curtain for the shower window because for the past five years, anyone who happens to walk by can get a pretty good idea through the frosted glass if it's a man or woman taking a shower. And a pot scrubber that looks like a flower. I don't know why that was so appealing.

And I will paint my bathroom this weekend and make it a cozy and scrumptious nest, which will perhaps give all who use it lifestyle fantasies.

I never made it to yoga. And maybe Steve doesn't even want a new sweater.

Orphan Christmas

First Annual Holiday Note to Self:

Each year, you try to have a lower-key Christmas. You try to lessen your waste footprint and do only the things that are meaningful. But it mounts. You think you can get off easy after the note to the friends and family, "Hey, I love you madly. But I am laying low this season and will get back with you in January!" You think you can hibernate and make recycled cards from two years' worth of cards collected for this very purpose. You are humbled that people you haven't spoken with in years still send you cards with their breathtakingly gorgeous and grown up children on them. (Hey! Those teen twins! Weren't they just, like, 2?")

But then Annie, who is your inspiration and laugh-riot girlfriend, comes over and says, "Hey, what do you say we do Nochebuena Thursday night? I bought a ham! Can we do it here? And can I invite a couple artists who don't have anything to do?" And of course you say yes because you would never deny holiday orphans, which, by the way, you are this year for reasons too sad to delve into for this semi-humorous note.

And you go to the store and get a bunch of food to feed other holiday orphans you never met, and you make your fourth batch of rum balls this week (where DID they all go? Hmm?) so you are sure to not run out and so that you can bring some to the OTHER holiday orphan parties this year.

And you sit, scrunched over at your desk, developing a knot like a billiard ball between your shoulders, looking for the exact right funny Santa to cut out from an old card and paste onto a somber religious scene with a peacefully lit tree. Because it is soothing and arty and fun and nobody can tell you that you did it wrong.

And your dog has had a terrible time of it with something too gross to post publicly, and she is sleepy and hungry but you can't feed her per vet's orders, even though she's giving you that WTF look. And you are broke, broke, broke from said vet visit, but relieved that she will be OK for at least another 12 years.

And you remember the Christmastime you got away from it all and spent three months in Southeast Asia, swaying in a hammock on a Thai beach on Dec. 25, listening to Nat King Cole on your Walkman, scoffing at the lights wound round the palm trees. And so, so, alone and sad.

And this, dear Self, is why you are so very grateful to roast beets and clean spinach and go back to Trader Joe's yet again because you forgot the feta and the pecans. To feed people you love and people you never met.

Love,

Vanessa

If you need beauty tonight

Thanks to Don for this.

Getting Ready

My two nephews, 11 and 7, and I did a collaborative art project for the forthcoming child. We took a big old framed picture that my neighbor threw out -- it was of these old-timey Italian men leering at a woman as she walked down the street.

The assigment was to reimagine what could go in the space instead for the baby, and here's what we made.

I love it.

Introducing the Compliment Lady

photo: Stephanie Simpson

I'd like to take the opportunity to introduce the Compliment Lady to you. She's available for events and parties, and takes it upon herself to offer a free compliment to anyone who wants one. Sincerity guaranteed!

You'll see her later this summer at the Artwalk in Chinatown, and again at the Company Gallery in September. And who knows where else she'll turn up! Let us know if you'd like her to come to your shindig and we'll see what we can arrange.

A Christmas Tradition

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

This is a little something I worked up with my brother Ilya, his wife, Gali, and their two sons, Jonathan and Adam. It was a little difficult to choreograph because some of us live in Israel and Copenhagen, and also, because Baby Adam can't walk yet, but we are all talented and managed to work it out. Enjoy!

Quantum of Soul-Ass

Dear James Bond,

I've loved all your incarnations since I was a wee lass. They have fueled my passion for the perfect man. For the pithy quip. For the way to get something done just so.

I loved you as Sean Connery, and Pierce Brosnan and Roger Moore. Then, when I thought it couldn't get any better, here comes hunky Daniel Craig, who was all smart and lovely and so. damn. beautiful. in Casino Royale. THIS Bond was resourceful and even more charming and so human and so lucky and so ... well, he fell in love. Even when he was strapped all nekkid in a chair and beaten silly on his manparts. My heart ached, physically ached for him. For Daniel. For the life we could have together if he could just get out of that chair! And come to America and find me! And decide that we're great together and get married, not just for the green card! Because he doesn't need one anyway, as an international spy!

So today, with a belly full of leftovers, I traipsed -- traipsed, mind you -- to my local theater to watch Bondliness wonders unfold in "Quantum of Solace." First of all, where did you get that title? Did you drink a bunch of tequila, blindfold yourself with your tidy whities on your head, flip open the dictionary, land your finger on "Solace" and "Quantum" and decide to just go for it? Did you enlist a brain trust from Oxford to find the perfect title, then go on Babelfish to translate into German, Spanish, French, Dutch, Esperanto and then back to English, and this is what came out? Did you outsource it to India? WHAT THE HELL DOES "QUANTUM OF SOLACE" MEAN???? It sounds like a euphemism for something, as in, "Dude, I downed a quantum of solace last night and I'm not going to be able to make your wedding. Sorry about that." It sounds like some obscure Medieval measurement, as in, "Sire, I must reveal that we've only a quantum of solace left in the entire shire. Surely it will not last the winter. What shall we do? Oh! Heavens! I shall ring a large bell and kill some peasants!" But enough with the title. Whatever.

James, I KEPT WAITING FOR THE MOVIE TO START. There was that insane violent car chase through all the Italian tunnels. Then some more stuff exploded. Then some people got shot. Then you made it with a lady. Then some more people! Then Dame Judy Dench was lovely and sassy with the meager amount she was given. And you threw your dead friend in the Dumpster! Then some more stuff exploding! And then it was over!

Honestly, James, I thought you'd be more resourceful. Yeah, you with a bloody face in a tuxedo is kind of ruggedly handsome the first time. We got that. Okay, enough already, you don't have to do it, like, EIGHT TIMES IN ONE MOVIE.

I don't know if it's good enough, anymore, to have your leading lady seek a revenge killing for the evil dictator that raped her family and burned down their house. Can't we think of ANYTHING ELSE HERE? Can't we transcend the hackneyed, puhleeeeeeeeeze?

So, my darling James, as you know I am a very forgiving person. Hell, I had two three-peats that ate up about a dozen of my best mating and dating years. I beseech you, please re-watch yourself in "Casino Royale" and "Dr. No" and 10 other films where you were masterful. You're verging on being downgraded to a thrice-recurring role in "CSI: Car Chase Explosions" at best, or the bad/good/complicated guy in "Miami Vice 4."

For now, James, you're on probation. And might I suggest several 12-step groups for you?

Love,

Vanessa

Yes, We Think We Can Dance

For some, it's glorious to watch Phelps glide through the water as if he were wrought from the loins of Neptune himself. For others, the ceremony and passion of nations coming together in friendship and sport warms cockles and muscles. For the McGradys, however, we've found our competition ... and we're in it to win it.

Ladies and gentlemen, sports fans and culture aficionados alike, it gives me tremendous pleasure to introduce two of my favorite people on the planet, Eirik and Bjorn McGrady.

I Made It - Part 2

And no, the red is not the blood. But maybe.

When I was in college, greedily lapping up all the art-history and classical civilizations classes I could, I dated a sweet, sweet waiter named Christian. He was from Hell's Kitchen. He didn't know a lot about art, or literature, or anything that involved aesthetic sensibility. But he was a great cook, supersexy tennis player, fun to dance with, and good, good, good as gold.

But there were three "strikes" that led to the ending for me. The first was that he wore gray jazz shoes when we went on a date. Mind you, this was the late '80s, but still. Um. I have always looked to a man's shoes as a way to decode him, a kind of cultural and personality Rorschach test, if you will. That may sound very unfair and slightly unkind, but hey, it was the '80s. Enough on that.

The second strike was something he said at a private moment. It was so private, in fact, that I will not even share it on this blog.

The third strike was that we went to MOMA, the modern art museum in NY. We were looking at some Mondrians, and I was reguritating all I had learned about abstract art: That it is not representative. Rather, it's more about the impression the work leaves, that it's how a piece plays, how it makes you feel, the geometry and balance of it all, blah blah blah. And after this lengthy explanation, he nodded in deep understanding, took a long look at the piece, and turned to me and said, "So the blue is the water?"

Personally, as the product of an AMAZING artist mother and grandmother, I have always felt particularly untalented when it comes to painting. But I took this abstract art class from the Annie Wharton (she's so cool and lovely and funny and chic. I can't believe she's my friend) and I was really pleased with some of my creations. I felt satisfied, like I did when I was about 5 and made this series of posters of a guy looking at a clock that I thought were so hilarious and I put them on my wall and laughed and laughed for a year, it didn't matter if anybody else got it.

This is a nice surprise about being 40licious -- there's more to tackle. I will never run out of stuff to learn.

tallpoppies

pink oyster


smellroses


breakfree

fatpoppy


blue oyster

I Made It

I re-cut my movie, "40licious!" and this, folks, is the God's honest truth of what happened when I went to see Barry Manilow for my 40licious birthday in February. I invited about 75 people. Eight came. Perhaps not a great turnout, but I was shocked -- it was, probably, not the kind of thing I'd go to myself -- that these people loved me enough to get their heinies on a plane and check into the Las Vegas Hilton. There were even two from work who went with me, and of course I plan to repay their kindness and affection by blackmailing the hell out of them.

I don't know why it's fuzzy. Sorry about that. But anyway ...

Salaam Garage

I'd like to take a few of these precious cyber lines to talk about my friend and collaborator, Amanda Koster.

Amanda is a photographer. But not just ANY photographer. She's one of the most socially compassionate people I've known. Ever. Her heart bleeds, much like yours and mine, most likely. But here's the difference: Amanda sees some kind of injustice -- AIDS orphans in Africa, body-image issues in the United States, women's status in Morocco, just for starters -- and makes it her mission to KICK THE ASS OF THAT PROBLEM. Personally. She takes world global issues on as if someone spit in her face, slandered her mother, stomped on her daisies. She'll go to whatever hardscrabble place and take a bunch of pictures of people at their most beautiful and vulnerable, then bring them back, introduce them to the world, ask for money and help for them, and change their lives forever.

She's begun a new project called Salaam Garage, a kind of new activistourism. Here's how she describes it:

Salaam Garage Adventures connects media savvy travelers and enthusiasts with international Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs). Travelers commit to creating and sharing unique, independent social media that raises awareness and causes positive change. The rest of the adventure is spent touring around the region, experiencing and exploring the culture and environment with an entirely new context. You will find that Salaam Garage is not just visual art, but also a body of work that has the capability to spark global transformation.

We are the media now. Join us.

Read about her in the Seattle P-I and Some Other Publication.

If anyone can change the world, it's this woman. But if you told her that to her face, she'd brush you off as she's packing for another trip to somewhere else and getting Kodak to sponsor her, like some modern arty Wonder Woman, where they need her more than we do here.

You might have some vacation time coming up. Or maybe you're a freelancer (or a mortgage broker) with all kinds of time. Do not take that stupid and shallow cruise to the Bahamas. Do not go see relatives you don't particularly like anyway in Dubuque. And for the love of all that's holy, don't step foot Disneyland. Or Disneyworld. Or, for fuck's sake, the French Monde du Disney or whatever it is.

Just go with Amanda.

I'm so proud to have been able to work with Amanda in the past, and I look forward to doing so again in the future, even though I am, artistically, not even in qualified to be in the same universe with her.

But most of all, I'm proud to be her friend.

Called to the Carpet

I've owed Wildman a favor for a while. He kept his word to be in my play -- even though we'd broken up the day before. So when he put the call out for help with an event he produces every year, the Vision Awards, of course I was up for it.

I got all tarted up in my Christmas dress and made the loooooong slow trek to the Beverly Hilton. I was embarrassingly late because of the traffic. (And because I'd gone to the Beverly Wilshire instead, where they were having another event and it took me a few minutes to realize that I was in the wrong hotel.) I finally arrived at the designated spot and my assignment was to help celebrities navigate the "red carpet," which is actually beige linoleum, and help move them along to paparazzi and "news" crews. Wildman paired me with an actress, who has done some formidable character work but is best known for her role as E.T.'s mom. I actually spent most of my time tracking down dinner tickets for her and her much-younger, very handsome date. Who was offended when I asked him for his last name, because they didn't have a ticket for him.

I am so pathetic at this kind of thing that I only recognized one famous person, Malcolm McDowell. He looked great.

It was the kind of event where there are too many "you've got to be kidding me" facelifts, too much anti-gravity bulletproof hair (does NASA know about these people?) and futuristic microfiber undergarments that squish everything in. And that's just the men.

I did have one of my favorite L.A. conversations ever with an artist who was lurking around the silent auction area in front of his paintings. I was glad that he wore all black and a black beret tipped at a jaunty angle so that I could be SURE he was really an artist.

Him: That's a lovely dress you're wearing. It's very artistic.
Me: Thank you very much.
Him: You look so familiar to me. What is your name?
Me: Vanessa.
Him: Are you an actress?
Me: Oh, not really any more.
Him: What is your last name?
Me: McGrady.
Him: Yes! I know your early work. Wonderful.
Me: Oh? Really? That's very flattering. Thank you.

I'm wondering if he's referring to the YWCA commercial I did in Seattle many years ago, in which I pretended to be a battered wife. Or perhaps he saw the low-budget mountain-climbing service one in which I played a businesswoman who just got back from an amazing trip and had to tell all her friends. Could it have been the infomercial for an amazing dusting/scraping/squeegee tool with an extension for ceiling fans? Or maybe he's just a fan of 40licious, the movie trailer.

DREAM(land)

DREAM(land) - Jail Gallery - May 10, 2008

I'm not ready to come home

... except I miss Lucy, my dog. Especially today, when we rode bikes around the countryside and rambled around John Constable country. We watched lambs gambol in the field behind Loz's house, and made fun of the ducks. It is truly Hobbitville here in Suffolk, in the southeast of England. Lu would have loved it. Don't tell her.

One of the great things about being 40licious, however, is that you have friends from, oh, 30 years ago who will take care of your dog. Joanna and Stephanie have tag-teamed looking after Lucy during this trip, and Steph featured her in the I Speak Film blog. Check it out!

Just. Stop.

Amazing.

Art stuns me into humility. I really, really, really wish I'd thought of this.