our four legged friends: pirates of the soul

Well, now my Gigi is sick and I am heartsick about it. She’ been lying about more than usual, very rag doll-esque and not eating much. At first I thought it was just that I wasn’t used to having her sleep so close during the day (I placed a pillow on the kitchen table for […]


karma row: vintage street sale

I just did a street-trunk sale for my Etsy shop, romanlovesgigi, selling a buttload of mostly clothes, some hung on a rack, others in large apple baskets, and loved it! This gorgeous Fall weather didn’t hurt. There were shoes; a couple of tables I’m getting rid of, one small lucite table with a curved edge, […]


artschmart: olympia + iris

It occurred to me that this image/still of Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver, 1976, did for the 20th century what Manet’s Olympia, 1863, did for the 19th: confront society with its ultimate sham-muse; the idealized whore. Or courtesan no-more. Manet did it by attacking art history’s tradition of the reclining nude, and showing what a sham all […]


our four-legged friends: venting about vets

So my vet tells me that he had one cat do chemo for intestinal lymphoma, and live 3 more years, and another die 3 days later. We don’t know if that’s what it is, he goes on, but an insanely expensive test would help us confirm. I don’t think so, I reply. I’ll go with the […]


rock my world: ironing board sam

I just discovered Ironing Board Sam via this amazing 1960s live music program, Night Train, produced and filmed in Nashville, TN, that featured all kinds of great talent. This episode, done in my birthday year, 1965 (yes, I’m turning 50), features one of the first recordings of Jimi Hendrix playing back up in  this performance […]


karma row: gay marriage and anti-assimilationists

I was a little bothered by those raining on this year’s historic gay pride (in the US). All these anti-rainbow, anti-assimilationist posts, which I respect, but find disheartening. I’ve identified culturally as queer for 30 years, since my women’s studies days, and I’m quite partial to the anti-assimilationist position. I generally feed what grows in […]