I’ve decided to give myself the best birthday present, ever. A Roman Holiday! For over a week in December, I’ll pack my bags and head for Rome, with day trips to Pompeii, Tuscany and Naples. I can’t wait for the art and the gelato, gelato, gelato (who gives a fig that it’s winter – [...]

I adore autumn in New York. Fall is quite possibly my favorite season: the days darken, nubby wool sweaters are fluffed and worn, the terracotta leaves crunch underfoot. And of course, of course! autumn ushers in the cozy oven and the smells of seasoned apples, pumpkins and banana nut breads. Over the next few [...]

Congrats to the lovely and amazing Summer for scoring her long-awaited and well-deserved book deal. Snaps and two Bob cupcakes won’t you please?
Also, I’d like to call to your attention Summer’s chicken bag. Clearly, everyone should own a rubber chicken bag.
Snapped by me, today, at my favorite cupcake eatery: Sugar, Sweet, Sunshine in [...]

Desperately Seeking: I’m mad for Alice Temperley’s smartly cut blazers & intricately embellished dresses, finished with Temperley’s exclusively designed beading, embroidery and lace, so when I spied her new handbag collection in this month’s InStyle magazine, I nearly passed out. Although the Metallic Gigi Small Tote isn’t necessarily what I’d call an “essential” bag, [...]

I’ve been in a book slump for months. There was a time when I would clip through a book a week, ah the good old days. Blame it on the panic in the financial markets, which has me tied to CNN (I also get my political fix here as well – so I find [...]

Congratulations to my beautiful, dear friend, Summer Pierre. Her book The Artist In the Office: Living the Dream with a Day Job will be published by Perigee (Penguin) books in February 2010! I’ve been gifting Summer’s calendars – remarkable works of art – to my friends since she’s been selling them, and I’m thrilled, thrilled, [...]

My weekends are finally, thankfully, blissfully mine. If only for a short time. This weekend will be spent catching up with my best friend over homemade baked goods, reading Nabokov’s Glory in the park, and toasting my friend’s two-book deal with cupcakes. Yet I know work will weave its way in. It always does.
I’ve been [...]

Obsessed, obsessed with horror films, I was thrilled to recently discover Roman Polanski’s (who paves the way for one of my all-time favorite movies, Rosemary’s Baby) Repulsion. From the Amazon.com review: “The young Catherine Deneuve plays a Belgian girl stranded in ’60s London, a shy beauty with no social skills. When her sister leaves their [...]

In 2006, I was honored to have the famed photographer Marion Ettlinger take my author photo. You go to Marion for iconic images, for old-school literary lore – she’s photographed Truman Capote!! – and I was privileged to be in such auspicious company. Not only is she a true artisan with a camera, she’s [...]

This weekend I fell in love…with two children. I fled the city to Connecticut – a wooded, verdant town where sightings of deer, fox and wild turkey are the norm – to spend time with Liz, my very dear college friend, and her family. This is no easy feat, as people who know me [...]

I’m having a Heidi Merrick moment, and isn’t it simply delicious that she has a blog? I’m trying to avoid the ubiquitous palpitations (paging the Ativan refill!), but Merrick’s sweet, flirty designs are not only effortlessly chic and impeccable tailored, they’re rich with lush, vibrant color. Seriously. Could you not just die (apologies for [...]

“It wasn’t as if she were falling but the ground beneath her was rising up at an alarming speed.” – from Jean-Luc Godard’s Notre Musique. Click here to buy the flick.

On iPod repeat: The Raveonettes’ Lust Lust Lust. For immediate download: “Aly, Walk With Me.” It bears repeating that I can’t commit words to paper until I hear Film School’s haunting, atmospherically charged, “He’s a Deep, Deep Lake.”
Compulsively Reading: “I thought you might enjoy this Adorno quote: “The unreality of children’s games gives notices [...]

I present my trimmer (yes! she has lost weight! even though she still looks Rubenesque!) little minx. I mean, SERIOUSLY. Who would deny her??! Who could? But in the insane chance that Sophie doesn’t rock your proverbial world, do check out this feline, who is sporting the most delicious accessory ever: BACON.

I’m lying on my couch, taking some private time, reading Rivka Galchen’s novel when I spy VH1’s Top 100 hip hop songs and I literally roll off my couch. If you’ve ever met me, you’d never peg me for a hip hop fan, but from growing up listening to jazz and soul and living [...]