WHEN GAY PRIDE DAY WAS MY FAVORITE HOLIDAY

Throughout the 80s, there was one day every year that was filled with nothing but love and friendship.  I usually spent it on Phoebe Zeeman's roof which was the best party in town.  We would play music and Phoebe would supply endless amounts of food and we'd have cocktails and laugh and hug and celebrate a day meant for our beloved friends.  

MY LAST GAY PRIDE DAY

Over time, we lost many, at first rapidly.  And then a slow trickle until those with HIV no longer automatically became symptomatic.  It was a hard loss that felt intimate, as it seemed as if it was only happening to those we loved.  Afternoons spent in the sun drinking wine were replaced by visits to the hospital.  Parties were replaced by memorial services.

During that time, I slowly became more involved with my work and eventually married and became more and more a member of the straight world.  No longer was Wigstock in my backyard.  Gay Pride parades were less attended.  No more sunday night gay parties at the clubs.

I kept all my friendships which only grew stronger over time, especially as the numbers had diminished to a precious clan of those of us who had lived through the silent war.  Daily conversations were replaced by weekly, by monthly, sometimes by yearly, without skipping a beat.

In the early 2000s my husband and I started a non-gender bath and body line, and naturally, our launch party was at Beige - Eric Conrad and Edwige Belmore's Tuesday night party.  During that time, more friendships were forged with gay men and women, and for a short period of a few years, their numbers swelled in my phone book.  The party was back. Sunday nights were spent at Lincoln's, where a group of us had dinner and watched Sex in the City.  I was often the in house chef, and loved serving food to a room of happy campers.  My friend Boden was chief in charge of taking me out to the clubs when my husband knew I needed a night of dancing with the boys.  Steph became the brother I had sorely missed.  Until he one day returned home to Berlin when his modeling contracts ran out.

That time ended as adulthood once again pulled us all away into our various relationships and responsibilities.

I remember Gay Pride Day every year as it seems to fall right around the weekend of my husband's birthday.  The day is often spent with family and birthday cakes, once again another year no longer spent at the joyous parade, or Phoebe's roof, having the love fest that we once all so adored.  

It's been many years since we celebrated together, a happy family of artists and writers, designers and photographers, misfits and miscreants.  It is still my favorite holiday.

IN MEMORIAM. [2 of the many friends lost to AIDS.  I miss them still.]

SCOTT MACPHEE

HAOUI MONTAUG

THE SKY IS WIDE OPEN

People are flying again.

It was inevitable, that we'd all finally get so sick of staying indoors, that we'd fly anywhere.  Some states are still on lockdown, or at least relatively so, and some countries still have mandatory 2 week lockdown for all visitors, but masks on, some wearing gloves, planes are filling up with anxious flyers, desperate to see something besides their own 4 walls.

Who can blame them.  The sky is wide open...

NO END.

We keep talking about when we are on the other side of this - when it will end - when we will be able to go back to a new normal.

Truth.  There will be no great delineation between today and tomorrow.  We will never feel an official “end”, even though clearly there are powers that be who want to say it is over.  There will be no “over”.  Things will very slowly change.  An opening here, and opening there.  Perhaps only temporarily as the virus re-attacks in a different strain at some point.  Or many different strains.  [Icelandic scientists identified 40 versions of corona virus, and that was weeks ago.]. 

It’s only my opinion, but I think we need to recreate our own sense of what life will be for us.  Not just for tomorrow, but for now.  

People are cooking who have never cooked.  Most of all, people are baking.  There is a huge comfort in baking, and it isn’t an easy thing.  But everywhere you look online there are recipes and photos of baked goods.  People are gardening.  If you have a space in which to grow something, do.  Whether vegetables and herbs to eat, or flowers for the bees, grow something.  People are adopting dogs.  I hope they keep them.  They become family.  They depend entirely on us for food, exercise, love.  Mostly love.  Some people are moving out of the cities.  I asked a moving van driver the other day if people were moving in or moving out of NYC.  He said there are a few moving in, mostly moving out.  And mostly putting things in storage.  That was telling…

There will be pros and cons, no different from any other time in history.  But this is just a time in history. Our grandparents lived through 2 world wars, the Spanish flu, the depression, the dustbowl, the Korean War and Vietnam.  That should put a few things in perspective.  

Right now we have the luxury of time.  Picture yourself with nothing left.  What would you do, where would you go, what would you have to say about it?  It’s an exercise in self discovery.  I’d bet my dwindling 401K that a lot of our decisions will be based in autonomy.  And maybe it’s about time.

THE LONGEST APRIL

I'm still working.  But with the airlines flying so few flights, there are far less to work, and far more days now spent at home filling my days with well... the same things so many others are.

All of my clothing drawers are perfectly organized, short sleeve tee shirts, tank tops, long sleeve tees, turtlenecks, light weight sweaters, beachwear, sleepwear, underwear, socks... everything is in it's perfect place, and with so much more time on my hands, little chance for me to misplace a favorite top or pair of pants.  There is a box by the front door with a few clothing items in it, waiting to get shipped out to the Real Real.  It's been years since I wore that pair of Dries Van Noten sandals, or the Alexander Wang sweater I was never really sure of... and the Gucci skirt purchased during Tom Ford's final days... I'm not sure it will ever fit my lifestyle again as it's been ages since I was out socially on the level of a Tom Ford outfit, anyway.

 Bergdorf Goodman sent me a letter a couple of months ago saying that since I hadn't used my credit card in 3 years that they were going to cancel it by a certain date.  I called to say please no, I'd rather keep it open in case I'm ever in need of an emergency lady outfit.  I no longer foresee that as necessary and with Neiman Marcus declaring bankruptcy, I may never need it again.  I've already put away my Barney's card as a keepsake.

Then there are all the little stores... the ones I visit often, just to window shop, and occasionally to buy something from a young designer or artist, just because.  They are all closed... some already papered for closure.  Some have websites, so I visit them to see if they have still survived in some form or another, knowing that this is a last hurrah for many; local shops, once full of information and gossip and that sort of community conversation that keeps a neighborhood, a neighborhood.

But I still take walks, though the sound effects have changed.  I hear more birds now.  I saw a bluejay the other day.  And there is a nest of Robins in front of my building who sing every morning to wake me up.  It's them or Alexa, though the latter is getting on my nerves ever since she learned my name.  And without so many cars, there are more squirrels on the street; even a feral cat who I caught digging in my garden the other night.  It won't be long now before the Central Park Raccoon population comes out to visit the trash on garbage night.  They seem to travel in twos...

I run into people on my block a few times a day when I sit on my stoop for a smoke.  Those in masks take long sweeping steps far away from me, as smokers are still a common evil.  And those without masks just pass by chatting on their phones and staring at their masked counterparts with disdain.  I'm still on the fence about it all.  Masks still needed to protect us with equal need to get back to work.  It's all very confusing to me... maybe because I've never stopped working.  I still take the subway to JFK a few times a month to work a flight, or two, or three.  The rules change constantly.  Today's email from my employer with the latest covid19 rules... boarding and deplaning in small groups, customary temperature taking before passengers hit the gate...  Tomorrow there will be something else.  A new announcement, a new way of gate checking bags, a new way for passengers to be seated.  It's a constantly changing feast of rules and regulations.  By now, the planes should be 10 times cleaner than anybody's homes or public spaces...

It has been a time to finally take care of certain projects that have been sitting around gathering dust.  I have about 45,000 aerial and landscape shots that needed editing and locations added.  It's a bear.  But I'm almost through the first 20,000.  Seems I'll have plenty of time to finish it.  I wonder what other people's projects are... projects waiting for a rainy day.  Or many rainy days.  It's been April for ages.

And then there is the food... I admit, when the first hints of self containment occurred we bought a mini freezer for the kitchen so we could stock up on some essentials.  Most of all, to have room to freeze food for the leaner days that might occur.

My husband and I both cook.  He came from a foodie family... I didn't which was all the more reason to learn to cook as soon as I was on my own.  We filled the little freezer with homemade artisinal breads and lamb and beef stews, soups and cut up fresh corn and veggies, bagged and marked, wasabi salmon burgers and breaded tilapia.  I became my grandmother who still had a shelter in her basement from the days of WWII.  She made jams and pickled vegetables, canned fruit and chutneys.  I made marmalades, pink grapefruit with pomegrante, and date and apricot scones.  We bought extra meat and butter.  We have enough freshly made foods for a dinner party or six, but nobody to serve it to.  I've put on a couple of pounds - just enough to help fill that box by the front door for the clothing I'll never wear again.

I miss my friends. I miss hugging someone hello whom I haven't seen in a while.  I miss having a random conversation with a stranger that ends with an introduction and a handshake.  I miss buying a morning coffee and smiling at the barista as she spells my name wrong.  I miss chatting with the UPS guy and our mail carrier about who is moving out of the neighborhood, and who is moving in.  I miss having a cocktail with my co-workers after a long day of flying in bad weather.  I miss people.  We all do.

But this too shall pass.  And there's always murder hornets...

WALK ON THE NINJA SIDE

One more day off before I return to flying, so I went out for a morning walk to CVS for a few needed items.  Raining.  Put on my black fenty sweatshirt and pea coat, tall black boots, black mask.  Of course once I put up my hoody I looked like a cat burglar... maybe a ninja.  As I walk the silent streets disobeying the traffic signs since there is no traffic, I run into the occasional other in black mask and hoody.  The street has been taken over by ninja warriors, or so it would seem not knowing otherwise.  It's NYC's version of coyotes on the roads of Los Angeles.

I pass a woman in a pink mask walking her dog and she smirks at me.  Maybe she is intimidated by the warrior sect... or just suspicious of all other humans possible lack of a decent immune system.  Either way I walk the 6' approximated space around her and continue on my way.

Nothing I need left at CVS.

On the way home I check out my garden... I've put a sign up to fend off the evil dog walking shit stainer.  I'm pretty sure I'll get reamed by somebody who thinks I'm being selfish by not letting a dog walk over the dirt... or politically incorrect somehow [not sure which racism clause I'd be offending, but I'm sure there is one out there]... or rude for using a bad word on the sign.  Corruption of children et al.  And the request to the coop board to purchase a low iron fence for the front of the garden has brought on controversy for not having found one without sharp edges.  Children might maim themselves on it.  Not sure there have been mane reports of death by self infliction on a city fence, but if it is possible, there is a lawsuit somewhere to support it.

I digress.

This is really about the Ninja warriors of NYC.  Maybe Ninja gardeners too.

THE UPSIDE

We are all making less money, sometimes no money... prevented from going out anywhere past our local supermarket or pharmacy... unable to socialize with the people we love.  However there have been some amazing upsides to these dark days.

People are learning to cook.  Those who were used to calling out for delivery for dinner each day, ordering in lunch at work, stopping by Starbucks in the morning, are using ovens that have never seen the light of day.  Especially in the cities, where food has always been a phonecall and 20 minutes away, people are ordering in ingredients that are fresh.  Even my husband has learned to bake bread.  And those who were already foodies are posting new recipes online and showing off their culinary delights.  It reminds me of a time when there wasn't such a glut of delivery - a time when mom would cook up a dinner and we all sat down to eat it.  When we are finally allowed out into the world again to see our friends and families, dinner parties might become even more popular than ever before.

c.2019 Sally Randall Brunger

People are making phone calls.  Without face to face visits, at least the sound of another's voice is reassurance that we are not alone.  So whether on facetime, or zoom, or simply audio, people are calling each other and having real conversations.

You can't keep a person out of the garden.  For those who have a patch of green, even here in NYC, there is great solace in growing things.  Fortunately, this all happened as the weather inevitably is turning warm, just in time to plant seeds, prune, bushes, grow onions in jars and herbs in tiny planters, at times to be replanted outside.  The new victory garden may not be far behind.

People are adopting pets.  I've seen several posts and articles about pet rescues that have given almost all their unwanted pets to either adoption or fostering.  This is huge.  Pets are important.  They bring out our nurturing side, our need to love, our desire to take care of others.  Having a pet makes us human.

People are housecleaning, reorganizing, rethinking their stuff.  Especially stuff that has no particular purpose for survival.  Does it mean that we no longer care about a beautiful piece of clothing?  A beautifully bound book?  A perfectly designed side cabinet?  No.  We will always love beautiful things.  They hold memories and dreams.  We can never lose that.  However, we are prioritizing what we own so that the temporary lusts give way to the real loves.  After all, we have too much stuff.  When this is all over, a few visits to Housing Works will be on the schedule.

This is also a time when people are showing their true colors.  There will always be those who no matter what is happening around them, will only see their own shadow.  Like the person who lets their dog jump up on our brownstone's front garden to relieve themselves, killing all the flower buds along the way.  Was that person on their phone?  Texting?  Just ignoring and walking away feeling that it is beneath them to clean up dog shit?  Or the couple I saw sitting on a bench talking about how proud they were about their contributions to one of the local hospitals, while yelling at an old woman on a walker to move away as she wasn't 6' from them.  Did it occur to them that they should get up and move instead of screaming at an 85 year old with motion issues?  You would think that at a time like this with so much time to think, that we'd all might consider those around us.  I guess not for everyone.  But this too is an upside, as those who are hypocrites are now so easily revealed.

My friend Kate messaged me this morning that she has sent out some masks that she made for me.  She sells them online, but for each one she sells, she donates one to an essential worker/first responder.  She told me that since I'm one, she was not going to charge me for it.  She even made one a little bigger for my husband.  True colors.  She would never let her dog pee on my flowers, or yell at an old person.  I've always adored her, but at moments like this, it reminds me why.

Oh yes, and what about me?  My clothing drawers have never been better organized, I have been cooking up a storm, my garden is [partially] perfect, my dog is groomed, and as soon as my hair dye comes in I will be doing my own roots.  Now I just need to call Mila back.

xo

DAY IN THE LIFE

I'm a fight attendant.

I don't talk about it much as it is a bit of a screw-you to a design and art world that became too competitive and too corporate to be in the slightest bit interesting to me.  So I answered an ad on Indeed that said, "become a flight attendant!"

I always loved to fly and adored airports for the air of excitement and anticipation in every person you passed.  Everyone going somewhere... even when I was a kid and would stay at my grandmother's apartment in "the city" and the sound of cars passing her building at night kept me up wondering where they were all going.

So I'm a flight attendant.  In the world of Covid-19.

I don't get to stay home to quarantine.  Several times a month, I wake up at the crack of dawn, down my coffee with a slice of toast, check my crew bags to make sure I have enough food for the trip and nylon gloves.  ID?  check.  Passport?  check.  Required items?  check.  Slide my black scarf up over my nose, don my gloves, and slip out into the morning, trying not to wake the neighbors with the crack of the door closing.

It's dead quiet on the sidewalk.  No cars drive by, no people walking to the subway to work, and no tourists starting their day of site seeing.  Just me.  Maybe a runner... maybe a truck drives by on the avenue...


I get to my subway and I'm alone.  15 minutes to the next A train.  I slide my scarf down and check my phone for any flight delays or cancellations.  They can come at any time these days.  The subway arrives and it is packed... with sleeping homeless people.  Mostly men.  The floor is sticky with spilled soda and urine.  I hopscotch around the puddles to find a seat that seems relatively clean, my scarf back up over my nose for more than just exposure to the virus, but now to try and avoid the smell that will accompany me for the next 70-80 minutes.  Sometimes I see someone else, also trying to dodge the sights and smells for a seat.  We look at each other for a brief moment, expressionless beneath our facial coverings, but acknowledging that we both have a reason for being here.  They are also an essential worker... another first responder.

I arrive at Howard Beach, my one faceless companion long gone, and I cart my crew bags up the escalator to an empty Air Train.  Some other workers stand there, far more than 6 feet away, and we all 3 or 4 enter the train to an abbreviated list of terminals, Terminal 2 no longer accessible and closed for the time being.  We pass empty long term parking, and empty lots where once stood long lines of hotel shuttles.  Maybe one person gets on or off.  Nobody looks at anybody else.  I check my phone again, this time for the gate.  I check the manifest and it says 11 people, no children, infants, wheelchairs.  Mostly deadheading pilots and other flight attendants headed to other airports to sit and wait to work a flight out.  There are no excited tourists, or anticipatory business people en route to meetings in some far flung location.

I get to my terminal and with a slight delay in the flight I head outside to slide my scarf down and breathe some fresh air for a moment.  There are almost no cars, only 2 or 3 cabs, and very occasionally a transfer bus, so the air is quiet except for the sound of birds and wind, rarely broken by jet engines.  It used to be that this moment to myself was all I might get all day.  Today and most days now, it is commonplace to be outside alone somewhere, waiting.

Atlanta Terminal D, rush hour.

I pass empty shops and gated newstands near my gate, with the exception of a Dunkin Donuts, the only refuge for a coffee.  No line.  It's the same at every airport.  I arrive at my gate and there are only 3 passengers after all.  One is a Jet Blue pilot heading home.  The other crew members are in various degrees of mask, gloves, and hand sanitizer, all waiting for the plane to be fogged for germs.  It takes some time these days, but with only 3 passengers, boarding isn't exactly a time consumer.  I watch from the gate as the rampers load some boxes into the cargo hold.  It's medical supplies.  A few have rather telling labels on them.  That must be blood.  The other day I watched them load in a coffin.  We all board and set up the plane for flight: check all the safety equipment mostly.  There is no service anymore, so catering loads sanitized baggies with water and snacks on the plane for the passengers.  We don't even have coffee supplies to make it for ourselves.  [Thus Dunkin Donuts].




Everyone is boarded... we do the announcements, even though some of what we are required to say now makes little sense.  We close the main cabin door, alert the pilots that the plane is secure for take off, and do our demo.  All 3 passengers are sitting in first class... without anybody in the main cabin the aft flight attendant looks at me with a shrug and puts her demo equipment down.  I smile and nod that she might as well not.  There is nobody there to do it for.

There is nothing really to do now on board... we walk through the cabin every 10 or 15 minutes in case anybody needs anything, but no, they all know there is nothing to ask for.  So we all smile at each other - unseen except for a slight lift of people's eyes and mask that is the telltale sign that their lips are curled up at the edges... and sometimes have a conversation about where they are going, why they are flying, or how they would just rather sleep until we land.  The stories are varied but all center on the virus.  Some are flying home having not been able to get out sooner... some are leaving to take care of family members, some are medical and emergency workers... none are there for pleasure, all are worried, and all spend a lot of time cleaning the seats and tray tables with their treasured clorox wipes.  We do the announcement about how the airline is cleaning each plane, when and of course, how to best be safe on the flight.  We know it is redundant, but we do it anyway.

We keep a close eye on the flight boards.  They are virtually empty.  With 90-95% of all flights cancelled, there are very few flight going in and out of the airports.  Many of our flight schedules start early in the morning, but without the usual schedule, often we sit in airports or are given a day room at a hotel for 5-8 hours to sit and wait for the next flight we are working on.  When we finish our days, we end up in hotels in other cities where there are no restaurants open, and only a few places to deliver if at all.  Bringing your own food is more important than ever before.  Most of what we pack in our crew bags, is food.  Sometimes we stay there for a long night into an afternoon -- sometimes we have to be at the airport at 5 or 6 in the morning, for another long sit between flights.

The other people staying in the hotels are also pilots and flight attendants.  So we pass each other in the hallways, knowing what each other's days are like.

Through all of this, we have to constantly sanitize everything we touch, gloves or not.

For the first time since I've been flying, people do occasionally say, thank you.  Many forget that we are on the front lines, in narrowly spaced metal tubes, constantly facing the public.  Yes, there are those who are impolite or quick to judge a passenger, but most of us are well trained, feel responsible for the lives of everyone on board, and wouldn't be in the job if we didn't like people and care about them.  We've all been given the choice to take a voluntary leave of absence.  However for some of us, this is what we do.

This is my job.

Stay safe.

LADY CORONA

Mother nature has taken her revenge.

For whatever reason, we are living with a pandemic that is more threatening than lethal at this moment... a moment that can change on a dime, or not at all.  A warning perhaps?

Mother has managed to clean up the air and water in certain places as a result of her virus.  Was that the point?  To tell us to get our act together and stop wasting her beautiful resources?  To remind us that we are as fragile as the land she gave us to live upon?  To tell us to forget all the extraneous things that we think we need, in lieu of that which we really do?

For now, we have to live with this and make some hard choices.  
So I dub thee, Lady Corona.

THE CANALS OF VENICE, BLUE INSTEAD OF BROWN.

I had a second image here which was censored and removed.  Interesting.  It was images of THE AIR OVER CHINA, BEFORE AND AFTER COVID-19.