Two years ago, when our house burned to the ground, I went crazy.  Most of my journals, besides the majority of my family things, were destroyed, so I started a written diary of the experience that I called the Fire Diaries, because I needed to pour out all the things I was thinking into something.  No one has ever read it.  I’ve only gone back to read it once, and couldn’t get past page 5 before having to stop.

I googled “how to cope with having a house fire” and found almost nothing.  I found it funny that when I was in the most pain, I tried to find a solution on the internet.  This is both my heaven and my hell sometimes.

But the thing that really ended up saving me, was a beautiful little cottage in the mountain.  The one I’m leaving today.

It was temporary.  It was a place to live while we re-built our own home.  But for those first few months, during the slow sludge of red tape, as our charred skeleton of a home stood on a mountain 10 minutes away – I curled into a ball in someone else’s crocheted blankets waiting for the pain to go away.

That someone, was a man named Jerry.  He was an artist and this was his home.  He passed away 6 years ago at the age of 80, but most of his furniture, his towels, his utensils, his books, some of his art, and his crocheted blankets are here.  It is where they belong, in the house that he made his home for so long.  And I moved right into it all, when we had lost all of our things at our house.

We never met in life, but being here, in his home, I felt like I knew him.  His gentle presence soothed the rough transition I was going through.  In the first week, I woke up one morning, and completely unexplained, I found a small red plastic heart on the floor next to my bed.

It wasn’t mine.

I had not seen it before and I had no idea how it got there.  Burke had left shortly after the fire on a job and I had been the only one in the house.  My heart was broken over losing our house, and on that morning when I woke up and saw an unexplained tiny red plastic heart next to my bed – I took it as a sign.  It was a welcome from him, the artist who once lived there.  That’s what I believed it to be.

Spring started to happen.  I put the little red heart in the lap of a doll my friend made that looked like me.  I started to break out of my sadness a tiny bit.  Flowers started to bloom all over in the garden that was Jerry’s.  I would sit outside for hours with Niney and the colorful flowers that sprung up everywhere.   I would sit in the sunshine and read his books – Kurt Vonnegut’s “Breakfast of Champions” and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “Babylon Revisited” among them.  We would have been friends.

He was an avid bird watcher and his home is a paradise for them.  He put wooden feeders for them everywhere in the trees.  Some of the best times I had here was sitting on his old front porch, early in the morning and early in the evening when the hummingbirds would come to visit the most.  Those tiny creatures travel up to 3,000 miles over the ocean in their journey every year without feeding and are known for overcoming great obstacles.  I wanted this to be a place for them to come and be fed.  I added a red hummingbird feeder.

When I leave this morning, it will stay there, right alongside the feeders Jerry left for the birds.

The sun is rising now and there was just a tap at the window as I was finishing the last line.  A brilliant red cardinal sits there.

This has been a home for all of us.

Right now, the sun is casting its first orange glow against the trees in this forest.  I am grateful that I couldn’t sleep and that on my last day here, I could watch the sunrise.

This is the place where I healed.  This is the place that Jerry created that feels like home, the place that is filled with his gentle energy and the things he loved.  When I was cleaning one day, I found a picture of him in the garden, smiling, and I put it on the fridge – so I could see it everyday and be grateful for the person that created this safe space tucked in a mountain.

Jerry in his garden in the photo I found.

I moved here in May 2011 on the day someone had predicted the world would end.

It was my beginning.

The days moved into weeks, and into months and into two years.  I moved the doll that looks like me with the heart in its lap six months ago to take on tour.  I realized in a panic, days later, that the heart sitting in her lap was lost.  I searched everywhere and couldn’t find it.  It was tiny and most likely was lost forever.  Like the mysteries of this beautiful house, it would be a memory of a beautiful message.

Last night was my last night in this house.  I took Niney for a walk under the starry sky.  I could hear the river rushing nearby and I felt a peace in the darkness.  I heard an animal sound – perhaps coyotes or a bear, and turned on my flashlight.  I didn’t see anything and started making shapes with the flashlight on the ground.

I thought about how grateful I was for Jerry and this space he created.  I wondered if he knew somewhere, that I was leaving.  I wondered if he knew how much the comfort of his space had healed me and gave me space and freedom and peace.  I wondered if I would get a sign from him – my old artist friend that I had never met.

And at that exact moment, as I made patterns on the ground with my flashlight, something red glinted…..

it was the tiny red heart that mysteriously appeared the week I arrived and that I had lost six months before.

He was saying goodbye.

The forest is completely golden now.  The light moves across this room.  There is a car outside with all my things in it and a new house built from the imagination of my true love, waiting for me to arrive.

It is time for a new beginning.

I will never forget this place or the sweet old man who made it into a paradise.

Farewell, Old Friend.

I can’t help you get half naked. But I can help you attack your closet.

1.  This is a job to be done with one of my favorite drugs…. Music.   So, please, hit play on my very first 8 track mix (thanks for the tip, Gala Darling!) and enjoy the random picture of me passed out under clothing racks taken by Burke Heffner.

I’m not explaining it.

2.  Speed Sort – It’s like Speed Dating Your Closet.   Grab the first item in your closet and in a two-second gut reaction proceed to throw clothing item in question into one of three piles on your bed:  “Yes”, “Maybe” or “Hell No”.

• “Yes” pile:  if you love wearing it, it fits you right and makes you happy.
• “Maybe” pile: if it’s been sitting there with no action from you for six months or more.
• “Hell No” pile: if you bought it, brought it home, felt guilty, and kept it there because you felt bad about buying it.  It’s clothing.  It doesn’t have feelings.  Ditch it.

3. Rejoice in the Void.  Oh, you Saintly Thing.  Empty closet of cleanliness.  Ignore “Maybe” and “Hell No” and just say “Yes”.  Carefully put all the absolute 100% “Yes” pile on your bed – back on the rack.  Notice how cute your closet looks.  Notice how much room you just made for more 100% future YES clothes to join their friends here.  They would get along nicely.  Closet Fairy Godmother swoops in and allows you to pick 3 of your favorite things from the “Maybe” pile.  It is a struggle.  But you listen to her, for she is wise.

4. Release The Rest of Your Treasures into the Wild.   Donate, swap clothes with friends, or get your other friends to all do this together and team up to throw the clothing party of the CENTURY.

Wanna come to our party? *ahem!  More-vintage-slips-burlesque-costumes-vintage-hats-and-jewelry-than-you-can-deal-with…*

Announcing GOLDMINE - a wild closet raiding extravaganza!   Miss Scorpio @gemini_scorpio (event producer/promoter/curator extraordinaire with a closet to die for), myself and a bunch of our burlesque, designer, and cabaret circus friends are teaming up and opening our closets to the world!

When: The Sunday, May 19th!
Why: Miss Scorpio is fundraising for the Gemini and Scorpio Loft – a badass art space project now on Kickstarter and I am selling to fund the final push of re-building our upstate home that we lost to a fire.  We thought this would be a fun day to get together with some friends and create a dress-up dream sale! It’s going to be costume/vintage/custom/designer clothing heaven!
How: Click Here for all the juicy details.

This is Miss Scorpio. Clothes and Girl – YUM.

So Lovely Dangers….tell me about your closet clearing tips.   What would be in your wild clothes flinging music mix?  Have you held clothing swaps or parties?  Or share a picture of one of your favorite snags from a friend’s closet or party…..

I snagged this faux fur cream coat from my neighbor, Lucille, who told me stories of rocking it out in the 60s before she passed it along to me.  It has been in the gutter with me and all over the country on a tour bus….and of course, chillin’ with my lovely artist friend, Miss Zelda Devon.

Can’t wait to share style stories with you!

The magic of hair has been entwined in love spells and enchantments from deep within the wells of history.

It’s sexy… the old tales tell of mermaids brushing their long locks on rocks to enchant the sailors.

The Mermaid by J.W. Waterhouse

It’s strong….Dr. Frederic Leroy found that a single strand of hair can hold 3oz (100g) of weight!  That’s equivalent to the weight of 11 pennies holding onto one strand.

Model Lily Cole on the Dior Runway

It’s smart…. your DNA coding is written in each strand.

And it has long been used to cast enchantments…. This is a golden locket filled with a lock of Marie Antoinette’s hair on display at the British Museum:

Photo Courtesy of the British Museum

And I will admit. I have used mine to enchant a certain Burke Heffner to me…

In magic workings, my Grandmother Helen believed in the secrets of hair and the power of a well placed bobby pin or ribbon.

My Grandmother Helen with a magic ribbon in her hair.

You all ready for some old school magic?

Come a little closer…

If a woman sleeps with a bobby pin or ribbon in her hair, the old lore says that part of the bobby pin/ribbon will be enchanted with her essence. Then, that woman could leave behind her bobby pin or ribbon in a potential lover’s space to draw that person to her.

When I met Burke, I would casually drop my thin, black bobby pins between the wooden slats of his floor boards. I would wrap a single magic strand of my hair around a bobby pin and place it under his pillow. Later, we would braid pieces of our hair together for the times when we were apart. And only 3 days ago, two of our strands were waxed and sealed into the floor of our home.

Our DNA, our magic, our locks…entwined.

Hair flowers, found feathers and bobby pins. That’s what my Grandma would call a triple threat!

My relationship with Burke is one of the things I’m most proud of in my lifetime.

We keep our love super hot through working gorgeous enchantments on each other.

The bobby pin enchantment is just one of the many ones we’ve worked. And if you live anywhere near New York City, and are interested in finding out more about romantic enchantments to draw the right lover to you, or to enhance your current relationship, I will be teaching Sex Magic: Secrets of Love Spells and Old Enchantment Workings at Kitty Cavalier’s School of Charm and Cheek on May 31st. Interested? I’ve got six spots left…one might be for you.

Will you pick it up?

My Darling Dangers…. have you heard of hair magic or used it before?  Leave a message in the comments and tell me your story what country you’re from.  I know there’s lots of different enchantments around the world regarding hair magic.  Also you have any questions about magic for future Magic Monday posts…leave a comment…I’d love to hear from you.

Confession:  I picked 30 because it seemed high to me.  I wasn’t really sure if that many people would put a picture up or comment.  I didn’t realize more than 30 of you were reading this blog.

Until I saw this:

What the what? 

I kind of freaked out.

It was a huge deal to me to see your faces and to read your stories.

Burke sneaky snapped this one of me while I was laughing/half crying reading it all….

It was a moment.

And as I scrolled through the comments…my whole world opened up – to the world of you.

A world of you with wild cats….

Henrietta Cinderella, with her kitten, Snarf <3

And you with dogs…..

Berenice Wakefield and her bestie

A world of sticking out tongues and making me laugh…

Maria Razo rocking it.

A world of Mr. Moosechester on your head just because…

Sera Iacullo and Mr. Moosechester kick ass.

A world of battle, bravery and triumph…

A hero of mine, Katie Ostrowski during her tumor battle. She got a second chance and is living her life to the fullest in Australia – healthy, vibrant, and happy.

A world of you – then and now….

Marie Macula, then and now… same place, taken 25 years apart.

A world of you – being bold…

Jezebel with her fire fans.

A world of sharing the memory of a great man…..

Cassie Szer’s best friend and Grandfather, who recently passed on. He survived the holocaust and lost half his family, but always kept his spirits up and never let the bad guys win. I cried reading Cassie’s tribute. So much love to all of you.

A world of smiles…

plaugekoneko19 with her cat Shadow.

A world of you in cars…

Kurt Schwarz on an awesome Spring day.

A world of you sandblasting (?!?!)

NapalmEmmers doesn’t mess around.

A world of the Danger Diary and you (all the way from France!)….

Captain Loona reading some trash. <3

A world of you kicking ass…

Kaitlyn Marie doing her aikido rank test.

A world of friendship forever…

Nina Burns and her two best friends she’s known since she was 5.

Before you do anything else…you need to see all of the wild, adventurous, beautiful and candid photos posted in the comments last week. 

The world is small and we are big.  Together.

This is definitely happening again.  It was just too good not to do again.

But for now….drum roll please…..

The winner…chosen by random.org is:

Congrats to Ariadne! Here is Eunice and Ariadne giving out the free hugs.

Which is fitting because I want to hug all of you until you can’t breathe.

“Do you mind if I give you my number?”

That was a question our waiter asked at Ruby Tuesday last night. Yeah. Ruby Tuesday. For the salad bar. I was wearing dirty blue jeans, too. What?

Anyway, the waiter asked that question because he overheard my guy friends talking about their television production work in our conversation. I could tell by the way he asked, he mustered up some serious courage to do it. He asked if they were in television and when they said yes, he said he was an actor, and was looking for new opportunities and if it was okay – he wanted to give us his number.

All of us were impressed with him by the way he asked. He was genuine about his dream and what he’d like to do, he wasn’t pushy about it, there was no games involved with it. He just simply and kindly asked and 3 people at the table took his number just in case a job came up that he could be called for.

I don’t know, honestly, if I would have the guts to do what he did. Sometimes I might. But there are plenty of times in my life that I look back on moments where I could have talked to idols of mine, or possibly been able to be able to make an awesome friend or dream connection, and I didn’t act on it because I was afraid to.

The interaction with the waiter sparked a conversation with my friends about ways to overcome shyness. It’s a process, of course. It’s not going to be all solved by our fucking three easy tips or whatever…but this is what we came up with – Jeff, Burke, Paul, Jordan and I – at 2am this morning. We all perceive ourselves at different levels of shy/bold, and here are some tips that we thought might help you out a bit:

Hiding behind a camera.  Photo by Fatboyslimgirl

Tip #1: Make “How Are You?” Be a Real Interaction. Think about it. You probably get asked how you are in causal conversation at least once a day. If you want to take it to the next interesting step above and beyond just mindlessly muttering, “Fine. You?” – this tip is for you. The question “How are you?” is a key to conversation, a verbal foot in the door. Slay your shyness by answering this with enthusiasm or interest because almost no one does.

Here’s what you do: The next time anyone asks you: “How Are You?” – make sure to answer in 3 complete sentences. Make those 3 sentences true and interesting things about what you are doing, working on, etc. Your fourth sentence should be “How are things going with you?”

Example: A girl who is a regular at the coffeehouse I go to, makes room for me to sit on the bench and automatically says, “Hey, how are you?” I think she’s cool and seems interesting and could possibly be a friend – so I say: “Today I’m trying to be productive. I’m working on writing a chapter in my book and then I’ve got this dance thing I’m going to later. So it’s going to be busy, but awesome, hopefully. How are you doing?”

Replying like the way I did to her question will encourage her to give me more information about her life and her day and both of our replies can be great hooks for deeper conversation like: “Oh! You’re a writer? What are you working on?”

Conversation started. Shyness lost.

Tip #2: Practice being Badass and Bold on People in the Service Industry. I’m talking about waiters, the guy behind the counter in the deli, the girl who cuts your hair, the guy who makes a mean cup of coffee for you in the morning….because, let’s face it, part of their job is be nice to you, so this is good practice ground.

The first year I landed in New York, I was a waitress. People rarely engaged me in any kind of meaningful or interesting conversation. In fact, they rarely looked me in the eye when they ordered. They would bark out their order looking down at the menu and then shove the menu at me to take while continuing the conversation with their friend. It was like serving a bunch of zombies.

I had to be there for an 8 hour shift. And trust me when I say this, I would have been really happy to have a genuine interaction or a friendly human exchange somewhere in there. I would have welcomed it wholeheartedly.

So practice a short conversation on your waiter or your morning barista. Even if it’s a simple “Hello, how’s your day going?” or another question like “Hey, what do you think is the best coffee here?” Make eye contact. Smile. Ask one question.

Making eye contact and acknowledging another human being is half the battle. We’re all freaked out. We all get stressed and shy. There is no such thing as 100% superhero self-confidence. It doesn’t exist. Everyone on this earth is here working out some bullshit. Trust me on this. Don’t ever think that everyone else is okay and you’re the only one struggling with this. They are probably more freaked out and struggling and worried what you’ll think about them! So shake it off. And dive in.

Tip #3: Channel Your Inner International Spy. Fuck being seen as shy! Turn that into being “mysterious” or “the silent type”. Observe and ask them questions. Put the pressure on them to carry a conversation. People love talking about themselves and their interests. So if you are one of the more “mysterious” type, you might have trouble figuring out what to say. Instead of planning it out awkwardly or stressing about generating a conversation… simply take a minute to observe them and ask a genuine question. Like: “Where’d you get that scarf?” or “I see you’re on a bike…you know any good places to ride around here? I just got a bike myself.”

Do you have any other tips to share? Hit us. Start a conversation in the comments.

Don’t be shy….*wink*

So I wish on the brightest thing in the sky:

My love affair with the Empire State Building started long before I moved here. Regal, gleaming silver, art deco structure in the sky…lighting up the way for me to find my home.

It uprooted me – 1,300 miles away from the heat and the ocean where I lived and drew me in with its light.

It’s a beacon of unspoken promise.

The promise of dreams coming true, of taking a chance, of wild risks and even wilder life…

and I said “Yes.”

And I still do. And will until the day I die.

Photo by Treasure Booth

I wake up with the the sunrise reflecting off the Empire State Building’s side like solid gold beams.

After being away from the city on tour or on adventures, I search for the Empire State Building out of plane windows. It always reaches up to me in the sky, to welcome me home.

I walk along the river at night with Niney, and make wishes on it.

On a night walk….me and the Blue Lady.

For as long as I’ve been having this affair with The Empire State Building, her lights would shut off at midnight.

She would officially close out the day for me.

I started a game long ago, where I would make wishes right before midnight and make sure I was wishing right before the light went out. That way, she could take my wishes with her, before going dark into the night.

The view from my roof on my birthday. From L to R: The Empire State Building, my favorite water tower and the Chrysler Building.

Five minutes before midnight, on my actual birthday, I found myself on a rooftop with my tarot cards and a blanket. A brand new magic city ritual occurred to me right then and there…

The Empire State Building, stood, lit in front of me.

She stood like a gigantic candle on top of the most lovely cake of New York City. Seconds before midnight, I would say my wishes and at the strike of midnight, on a rooftop in Brooklyn, I would take all the air into my lungs and blow the lights of the Empire State Building out.

The church bells rang in the distance, chiming twelve times to start the new day.

I had spoken my wishes out loud and started to blow on the wind – waiting for the Empire State Building to go out.

And I blew.

And I blew.

She was still shining white lights on the city.

And I looked at my watch.

And it was 5 minutes after midnight.

And I blew more.

And then it was 10 minutes after midnight.

And I realized that sometimes things change.

And I passed out, knowing that my wishes were definitely attached to that gorgeous old building and she would let the lights go out and deem wishes true whenever she damn well pleased.

———
She got an upgrade.

A fancy new light system debuted on New Years Eve like I wrote about here. But what I didn’t know, was that she now stays lit until 2am.

I was determined to try this again. I looked up the schedule for her lights and found something better.

At midnight, SHE was turning 82.