Penoptic

Once upon a time, in a strange city called Washington , a young woman wandered out on a sunny morning to catch a bus to an airport called Dulles. Being a smart, careful woman with lots of common sense, she took her single suitcase, carry-on sized of course, and her laptop bag, and left more than three hours before her United flight was scheduled to take off. After all, she didn't want to be late. So she waited for the bus , which was scheduled to come pick her up at 10:10 But the 10:10 bus never came. The 10:30 bus never came. The 10:55 bus came -- at 11:05. The young woman began to worry when the bus didn't arrive at the airport until nearly noon. It turned out that her fears were well-founded. The evil airline would not let her board her flight, even though she arrived half an hour in advance. So she picked up the phone and talked to customer service, who told her there was nothing they could do and that she should call the booking agent. ...

The June Vogue beautiful photographs of Sarah Jessica Parker and her silver screen beau Chris Noth, photographed by Annie Liebovitz in some of the most beautiful dresses I've seen in a long time. All photos from Vogue. Look at that gold and black Lanvin silk dress. The way it folds and bends makes what could be a quite dull pattern of extremely wide stripes into something mysterious and elegant. And of course, the Louboutin pumps don't hurt, either. The Louis Vuitton luggage could easily steal attention away from Parker's beautiful Chanel suit that looks as chic and posh as if it were Audrey Hepburn wearing it. But for some reason my eye keeps wandering to the sparkling silver of the Chrysler building in the background. The blue-ish, sea green of that Nina Ricci dress is incandescent. I feel like I could drown in it! Raquel Laneri mentioned on her blog the "bondage criss-crossing" on this dress, and while that certainly draws your eye, what I love about it is r...

Summer is, was and will always be my favorite time of year. Something about the feel of the sun warming my hair just reaches down into my soul and makes me smile. Yes. I have a smiling soul. In California, summer can be measured in two ways - hot and hotter. There's 85 degrees hot, there's 95 degrees hot, and there's 105 degrees hot. Head out to Palm Springs or Lake Havasu, AZ, and you get 115 degrees hot. Sunscreen is a necessity, but there's nothing like it. For me, it's almost like the feeling I get when I'm sitting with a cup of my mom's fresh hot chocolate in front of the fireplace, watching the orange and red flames in their glowing dance. But there's one big difference between the two. Feeling the fire warming my skin and hair makes me feel like an old soul; even when I was seven or eight years old, I felt as if I'd been sitting watching fires for a thousand years (in the most non-pyro way possible). Getting that same feeling from the sun, tho...

I never realize exactly how settled I am in a place until I move from it. Suddenly, the small things I've bought out of convenience - the tool kit, the set of dishes, the photo albums, the filing cabinet - suddenly I have to put it all into neat little boxes, label them and send them off to some other place. It's only then that I realize that I have five sets of shelves than four feet high - for the kitchen, the laundry room, DVD and video storage, and two for books. This on top of the bookcase that's covered in books (six feet high, six feet long, one foot wide) and the small shelves that sit on top of my desk to provide extra storage space. It's only at this crucial moment that I actually realize exactly how many pairs of shoes I own. Only then that I see that buying endless picture frames from Ikea in an effort to get rid of the boxes of loose photos probably wasn't a very good idea, since the bubble wrap to pack them in will end up costing more than the frames t...

Confession time once again. I went with some friends to see the 'Sex and the City' movie on opening day. I am not ashamed. I am, as ever, insanely jealous of the wardrobe and accessories those four women get to enjoy. And of course, I certainly am jealous of those hunky, hunky men. Out of a crowd of about 30 at the 3:15 showing at the Carousel Center in Syracuse, a whopping three, by my count, were men. When we left the theater, people were already lining up for the next showing. Easily 70 people, most of them women, and most of the women in their fancy cocktail dresses, with perfect hair and make-up, and of course, really beautiful shoes. Like out of a show from Fashion Week. This show was sold out. The line trailed around the escalators and back to the ticket office - a good 50 yards at least. This show was clearly sold out. Only one man was in the line. His girlfriend stood next to him, looking around to see if they would open up the theater soon. The man met my gaze as I wa...