It's been almost two years since my last post... I've decided to write once a week. I'm busy now, with my time filled up by so much non-stuff, like work and make-work, kill-the-boredom, creative making, which seems like so much fun and is so involving while I'm doing it, but then later seems empty. I suppose this means that I'm more of a process rather than an outcome person. Luckily this seems to apply mostly to physical things- my own life is more metaphysical and is a work-in-progress and thus the growth process seems warm and exciting and filled with light... when I can concentrate on it.
Anyway I've decided that every week, I'm going to declare something or someone the New Hotness. Much like fashionistas will declare something the new black, I will declare something interesting that I've read, some gadget, some new film, or someone, for instance a new SG whose set I've seen that week, as the New Hotness.
However, for the launch of this series, I am declaring my friend R the New Hotness. She will always be the New Hotness, unlike other upcoming New Hotnesses, which will last about a week. She is the New Hotness today and after (and of course before) for a variety of reasons. Partly, it is because she is unaware that she is the New Hotness, and that makes her eternally hot. However, if she should ever become aware of it, not merely of the fact that I think she is the New Hotness (which is passe) but also aware of her own hotness, then she'll go supernova and I'll have to recreate my scale. At that point, it can go one of two ways- either she becomes aware of her hotness and gets a big head about it, in which case, I'll still think she's the New Hotness, but she'll implode, or ... she'll take it in her stride and do all the things that I've always wished for her. She'll stop putting up with crap from her boyfriends and exboyfriends, she'll believe in herself, she'll dream again (I'm assuming that she once did) and she'll see what so many others (including myself) see in her. This is the path I think she should take. To be a bright shining star.
But it is also more than her blithe ignorance of her own hotness that makes R the new Hotness. She is, of course, hot. She is petite, lithe and blonde, with a beautiful body that she seems almost at home in. She is accomplished, perservering and easily, the smartest American that I know, having gained two master's degrees in the time it took me to earn a single PhD. She is somehow both sarcastic and caring towards others (though not often either of these to me, which seems wierd, but that's another story). She is complex and inscrutable, but also has simple tastes and seems to enjoy life in an uncomplicated fashion. My last night in her company, we drove back from dinner with friends and she changed stations on my radio every other song as we sang along to the radio. I wanted to keep on driving so that the simple pleasure of that night never ended.
She reminds me of the beach, though we have a different relationship with the water. I'm there for the surf, for the endless and inscrutable ocean. She's there to lie out, but she still reminds me of summer, the sand, the surf and the sun. Especially the sun, baking down on my dark-bronze shoulders and her lightly-bronzed skin and sun-bleached hair. There's an Old Navy summer ad running now, with girls in bikinis and I can't help but think about her every time I see her. Maybe she is summer to me- not a force of nature, which seems too aggressive, but rather a calm and enduring season.
I phone her sometimes, and it seems difficult to get her to talk now that we don't live together, until someone else pointed it out to me- all of her other friends seem to phone and talk endlessly to her, about their own lives, and she feels comfortable giving them advice on whatever is going on in their lives. She talks less about herself, as if she thinks that her life isn't that interesting, but I still try and ask her about what's going on in her day.
Anyway, here's the first installment, dedicated of course, to the New Hotness- R
Anyway I've decided that every week, I'm going to declare something or someone the New Hotness. Much like fashionistas will declare something the new black, I will declare something interesting that I've read, some gadget, some new film, or someone, for instance a new SG whose set I've seen that week, as the New Hotness.
However, for the launch of this series, I am declaring my friend R the New Hotness. She will always be the New Hotness, unlike other upcoming New Hotnesses, which will last about a week. She is the New Hotness today and after (and of course before) for a variety of reasons. Partly, it is because she is unaware that she is the New Hotness, and that makes her eternally hot. However, if she should ever become aware of it, not merely of the fact that I think she is the New Hotness (which is passe) but also aware of her own hotness, then she'll go supernova and I'll have to recreate my scale. At that point, it can go one of two ways- either she becomes aware of her hotness and gets a big head about it, in which case, I'll still think she's the New Hotness, but she'll implode, or ... she'll take it in her stride and do all the things that I've always wished for her. She'll stop putting up with crap from her boyfriends and exboyfriends, she'll believe in herself, she'll dream again (I'm assuming that she once did) and she'll see what so many others (including myself) see in her. This is the path I think she should take. To be a bright shining star.
But it is also more than her blithe ignorance of her own hotness that makes R the new Hotness. She is, of course, hot. She is petite, lithe and blonde, with a beautiful body that she seems almost at home in. She is accomplished, perservering and easily, the smartest American that I know, having gained two master's degrees in the time it took me to earn a single PhD. She is somehow both sarcastic and caring towards others (though not often either of these to me, which seems wierd, but that's another story). She is complex and inscrutable, but also has simple tastes and seems to enjoy life in an uncomplicated fashion. My last night in her company, we drove back from dinner with friends and she changed stations on my radio every other song as we sang along to the radio. I wanted to keep on driving so that the simple pleasure of that night never ended.
She reminds me of the beach, though we have a different relationship with the water. I'm there for the surf, for the endless and inscrutable ocean. She's there to lie out, but she still reminds me of summer, the sand, the surf and the sun. Especially the sun, baking down on my dark-bronze shoulders and her lightly-bronzed skin and sun-bleached hair. There's an Old Navy summer ad running now, with girls in bikinis and I can't help but think about her every time I see her. Maybe she is summer to me- not a force of nature, which seems too aggressive, but rather a calm and enduring season.
I phone her sometimes, and it seems difficult to get her to talk now that we don't live together, until someone else pointed it out to me- all of her other friends seem to phone and talk endlessly to her, about their own lives, and she feels comfortable giving them advice on whatever is going on in their lives. She talks less about herself, as if she thinks that her life isn't that interesting, but I still try and ask her about what's going on in her day.
Anyway, here's the first installment, dedicated of course, to the New Hotness- R