Mae
Today we meet Aunt May
Chairman of the Committee for Looking Disappointed at Other People’s Life Choices.
She’s our favourite Aunt, despite.
Stylish.
Wise.
Creative.
Likes a Negroni in the evening.
Not real.
Gustav
Gustav inherited the family business at age 23
Perfume
Tomorrow he will leave the family business to his children and move to a place with clean air
It’ll make no scents
Sunday
Sunday turned ten years old this morning
To celebrate
The family made her a crown out of yesterday’s news
Michael
Michael was born in Glasgow at a very young age
His parents, a lot earlier
Nine older sisters
They all miss the days they could plait his hair
“Why do you keep drawing things with fish in them, Kel?”
“I…don’t know.”
I ended a day of drawing with some drawing and at first it was just a quick painting of the woman with the hair. But because I always want to know the story I added the ladder.
Then I needed to know why the ladder?
So I painted the cats.
And why the cats?
So I added the missing cats sign.
And before I knew it I was onto a second page but it didn’t feel quite right.
“This needs fish.”
I think that’s how it happens.
“She looks like a cat”
“She is.”
Cursed and spell-bound by an evil witch to live forever as a woman.
In a man’s world.
I don’t know how that happens.
Albert
His name is Albert. Albie for short. He’s been working at the cement factory since he was twelve years old. Smokes a pack of cigarettes a day (still) and hasn’t trusted new music since Johnny Cash died.
Also none of this is true. I have no idea who he is. But I bet he could rotate your tires with one hand.
When your significant other has a brain so exactly like yours you sometimes wonder if you’re twins separated at birth (which, I hope not), you will find yourselves sitting on the couch any random Monday or Thursday or Sunday night laughing because one of you said the word awry. But both of you thought bread. From there you’ll brainstorm ideas for a zine. Or a picture book. OR A MOVIE (we went there), like two very excited children. Then finally, the one who can draw will have to scratch the itch further and turn it into the beginnings of something…
Here is proof of that.
Alice
Her name is Alice. Every Thursday she plays a European parlour game she insists was taught to her by a woman in Trieste in 1964. It could be true. The rules of the game are that there are no rules. She always wins.
Louie
Louie is a fishmonger, obviously. He comes from a long line of mongers. Cheese, fruit, fear…
FRANK
January 2025 I went to New York City, again.
I’d spent entire days walking and thanked myself hourly for the New Balance 327’s. Most comfortable. Most amount of money I’ve ever spent on trainers.
On one of these days, early evening, I stroll by the Hotel Chelsea. I take a few photos from the outside because… history, and that might have been enough, probably, had the story seeker in me not thought what the heck, ask the doorman if I can go in…
Fingers crossed.
Then a sigh of relief.
He allows it.
I walk around the lobby and take a seat by the fire to soak up the atmosphere.
I think about who, how, and when other people have sat by this fire before me.
The music that’s been written, stories told, arguments had. The love people had fallen into.
And out of.
By this fire.
On a dark brown leather chair across from me sits Frank, an older gentleman. Deep into his eighties, if I had to guess. Frank smiles at me, nods. I smile back. Nod. And before I know it we strike up a conversation.
Frank has lived at the Hotel Chelsea for thirty years, he tells me.
I ask him about the place, if it’s changed much over his time. It has. It used to be very bohemian here, he says, until the “renovations” several years ago, but the artwork on the walls remain. Frank tells me that’s how artists used to pay to stay here.
Another elderly man walks toward us. Frank tells me this guy is in his 90s and has just lost his dog of fourteen years. Frank gets up to give him a hug. “You took great care of her.” Is the first thing Frank says to him.
I say I bet he’s seen a lot of things living here for so long. Frank grins and stays quiet. I know not to ask any more about that. “Where you from?” “Australia,” I say, “flying back tomorrow.”
He tells me his good friend Fran Lebowitz hates that flight, it’s way too long. I agree.
An older woman, much older than Frank, comes over to say hello. She’s frail and walks with a frame but I can tell she still has some hutzbah by her accent alone. Frank introduces me. She was a dancer back in the day, a well known one too, I’m told. She’s lived at the Chelsea since the early 80s. Decade, not age.
Everyone here knows Frank.
And today, everyone here knows me. Frank made sure of that.
After a while I stand up and shake Frank’s hand, thanking him for the chat.
He wishes me well and I go on my way. A smile so uncontrollable it hurts my face.
Andy Warhol, Lou Reed, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Janis Joplin, Frank, me.
It’s the moments like this that keep me coming back to New York City.
Cook Longer, Eat Slower
Here’s the thing about redecorating your apartment in a way that feels, for the first time in your life, exactly like you. You will love it.
You will never want to leave it.
Tragic for your social life.
But here’s the other thing. The couch you draped with huge pieces of linen, over the top of, I might add, electric blankets (genius, thank you tik tok), will become your second favourite place to relax. The first being your bedroom. A puff of dusty pink. Ceiling to floor curtains. Wood. Red Persian carpets layered and overlapping on a concrete floor. It’s your teenage bedroom with adult money and at night you’ll drink tea there. In the mornings, coffee.
The quirky cabinet you got off Facebook Marketplace (the one that’s been back and forth to New York twice), will house your towels so absolutely perfectly that folding them becomes a moment.
The walnut dining table.
This one you bought new because when you first moved in you thought; modern apartment, modern furniture. But light oak was never going to be kind to your nervous system.
The LED candles you bought from Target, all twelve of them, will flicker and glow. Dotted on bookshelves and countertops like silent guardians.
You’ll fill your fridge with fresh food. Vine ripened tomatoes. Crusty bread and burrata. You’ll cook longer, eat slower.
You’ll remember how good a garlic bomb smells when you leave it in the oven just that little bit too long. And how good it tastes stirred through your pasta sauce.
Your bathroom will feel like a day spa. In Bali.
One of the expensive ones.
And you will never want to leave it.
Tragic for your social life.
Gloria
Gloria lives in a one bedroom apartment in Brooklyn.
It’s 1978. She is twenty-four years old.
She’s a good daughter, excellent mother, and never wants to date another man for as long as she lives. But she will.
On Friday nights, after a double shift at the American Dream Diner (Oh, the irony), she swaps sneakers for stilettos. Name badge for anonymity.
And she dances.
They Love the Rain
They spent a lifetime missing each other by an hour. A year. A street. They laugh about invisible string theories. It must be true what they say, they say.
They use words. For hours on end. That’s not hyperbole.
They could talk the arm off a low flying plane. Or whatever the saying is.
This is new to them.
They share a language.
Cave paintings become novels. Become memoirs. Become biographies. Become philosophy. Become a future.
They drink coffee from small cups in the morning and say “Look at him now, babe” when the chihuahua rolls over. Or wakes up. Or moves.
They make decisions for two.
Which is new to them.
Independence born from chaotic childhoods.
“You can lean on me” he says. “I’ve got your back” she tells him.
Also new.
Not all the days are easy. But they know when to hold. And ask to be held.
They understand the eighty twenty rule. Instinctively. Now.
They look forward to tomorrow.
They love the rain.
The matching pyjamas are for illustration purposes only.
Meanwhile
Here is a list of my current favourite words;
Melancholy
Despondent
Forlorn
Eumoirous
It’s not all sad.
The Emancipation of Cinderella
If I rewrote Cinderella, first of all, I’d call her, Cin.
She’d paint and draw and write stories about living in New York City. She’d be older. Married once, with a teenage son. I don’t know if there’d be ugly step-sisters. Not in the way we know them anyway. But there would be two things holding her back, I’d call them, Permission and Acceptance. Pem and Ace for short.
Pem and Ace would have a mother still, Imposter-Syndrome. Hyphenated. Possie to her friends. And at around twelve years old, they would all move in.
They’d make Cin do a lot of things she didn’t particularly like. Working through the night. Early mornings. Everything would have to be done yesterday and there would be no such thing as a weekend. Eventually, somewhere around mid-life, Cin would burn out. And for a long time after that, years even, Cin would scroll and scroll and see people with colour and looseness and freedom and life and Cin would ache. Pulchritudinous. Cin would also like words.
There’d be a grand ball still. Of sorts. In Ballogna. And Cin would dream of one day attending. Pem and Ace would have been many times before.
Possie would refuse to let her go.
“You don’t belong there.”
“Who do you think you are?”
“Ballogna? BallogNO!”
Pem and Ace would cackle behind their sketchbooks. Pages blank and never touched.
At some point Cin would meet a very handsome man. Not a prince. Not noble. But kind. Also, not really part of the story except to say, wasn’t she lucky.
Late one night a fairy god group would appear on her socials. A group granting wishes. All she had to do was answer some questions, find a few letters of support and supply a budget.
Why should we let you go? Essentially, would be one of the questions.
BECAUSE I NEED TO BE FREE! Essentially, would be one of her answers. Only more thought out and with less capital letters.
Four weeks later her wish would be granted. She would have seven days. She would wish she’d added more to the budget.
Pem and Ace would also go, but somewhere between a plate of mortadella with parmesan cheese and an espresso served by an old man who had owned Il Bar his entire life, they would lose their way. It’s possible they’re still there.
Ballogna would be everything she imagined. A delight. She’d meet people of great royalties. Lineage. And in the evenings, she’d dine alone under festoon lighting and impossibly romantic accents.
For the first time since she was twelve years old, she’d forget all about Pem and Ace. And Possie.
It was the beginning of her
emancipation.
The very handsome man would reappear in the last scene.
“You dropped your Blackwing pencil.” He’d say. And hand it to her.
It would fit perfectly.
Simon
Simon has been fifty-two years old for the last twelve years. He says it’s the coffee that keeps him young.
Seven pots a day. Four cups per pot.
Yesterday Simon received a strongly worded letter from his cardiologist.
He considers it merely “feedback”.
My sketchbook and I have wandered into vaudeville. And we like it here!
Cast of characters so far; Odette the Sword Swallower, Leonie who dances by a cardboard cut-out of the moon, Erik and Lars, sparring partners for a long time. Brothers for longer. And Cornfed Clive.
He’s a real clown.
