Sideline of Yours Truly. Putting together girls and attendants on their nupday. That would be yet another Perfect word to add to the epinw lexicon - nupday, n., wedding day. Dig.
So I'm tying sashes, sashaying from room to room solving minor crises like double-sided-taping Mom into her dress, clasping on necklaces, pinning on flowers, etc. when I do note at some point two jewelry boxes, white, somewhere. Remember this fact.
Depart and go to find the boys, who I don't usually have to help construct, at church demarcated as the place, the venue for The Magic, the Transfiguration. Boys are not in the room where boys hang when they're about to be transmogrified and I ask the woman whatever she is - deacon/beacon/harbinger/priest/priestess - Where. Oh, to find the rings, she says. They are missing and they have scattered to look at the apartment where I was just helping with gusseying and at boutique hotel. The rings, platinum, were stolen out of the groom's bag at the boutique hotel and this was a first in all these couple of decades of shooting nupdays. They had a radio-advertising jeweler drive frenetically to deliver some stand-ins in 20 minutes.
Will be pleased to report to Jon that his creation atop my head was met with rave reviews, as in reviews or revues that happen at all-night dance parties.
At the wedding there was much discussion of the Gripping the Podium shot and the groom had me recreate the shot with him standing in for Hill, a surprise for his nouvelle bride.
Perfect Enthusiasm, so beloved.

Beloved Love.

Apparently one of Hillary Clinton's Middling City interns quit her gig due to my "gripping the podium" image of the senator. One Laura of longness and leanness, who was once a friendly to Yours Truly, was calling for my head, wanted to sue the Buffalo News. I mean really. So Nicole, the aforementioned indentured servant/intern, quit, screaming of the first amendment all the way down the stairs. I sent her a jpeg of her, the other MC interns and Hill last night and today she sent me this small tale. She advises me to Let it all in one ear and out the other. Like so right on, Nicole.
Off to speak to suburban teens about the highlights, lowlights, shenanigans and pratfalls of being a journalist and artist.
Think I'll skip the part about grad school.
As Beth Dearest pointed out last night I do have a new skill - a more keen x-acto blade to slice through the requisite/hazinglike readings's flotsams, jetsoms to get to the juicey bits, to analyze them in a compelling manner and not in a wind-baggy one such as one X (one duplicitous prof) who tirelessly traipses on and on and on with the facts, wringing every ref, every possible allusion past and present - theoretical and novelistic - to a satsfying ending.
On that note I end, gather up my important docs and such scattered about the home of Kenergy and forge on to the suburbs, edification and elucidation on each shoulder.

Shouldering Love.

As is my wont, my annual quest to know, just simply know, who in hell Saint Valentine is, I did a little research for Your edification and can add some new Fun Facts to the puzzle that is Valentine on this puzzling holiday.
If you want to "see your future mate (tonight) in your dreams" go running now to your spice rack as, according to lore, pinning bay leaves to your pillow today will yield such results. The scent of bay leaves, according to aromatherapy, is said to have calming effects so if one is calm in dreaming and sees one's mate and it's not the one expected then perhaps this scented leaf on pillow helps.
Also.
As we know from past Valentine-related posts on epinw, Valentine the Man is a hodge-podge, a collage of perhaps a triad of men - all martyrs, all perhaps beheaded and here I propose that's where the expression to lose one's head in love comes from.
Also.
Valentine's Day, a patron saint day, is really honouring the Feast of Lupercalia, pagan love fest full of wine and more wine and champagne and fancy schmancy dinners and little nosegays and smooching and a chocolate truffle or two.
So, let us forget the gruesome end of the Valentines and stick to the pagan focus.
Happy Lupercal, kisses.
Everyone is loved and love is in the air, always, like wi-fi molecules, like air itself, like vibes of life.

Air Full of Love.

Helpful advice and note to Self:
when cutting atomic red chilis do not forget to wear gloves or you will for rest of evening feel a burning yearning earning deep inside them, as that bitch Diana Ross once sang.
So my Red Dinner happened and the food, clothes, desserts, beverages were all that. Happy to report that nothing spontaneously combusted, there are but a smattering of leftovers, nothing was broken and there were no punchouts. Just smiley heart-shaped high times with a crush of available favoured ones.
Turned many on to kir royales, what I lovingly refer to as the French version of a shot and a beer = a splash of cassis and a whole lot of champagne. Suddenly I realized that Brucey was addicting to them.
It is now with a procrastinating heart and heavy hands that signing off is imminent in order for me to turn all of my wavering attentions to readings, homework, deep grad student thought and posting. Exactly in that order.
Happy Eve of the Saint Day, the Saint who nobody really remembers, a possible amalgamation of several.

Eve Love.