Yesterday, on the ride home, a well-dressed young woman sat on the opposite bench on the train. She put her large, fashionable bag and her trendy trench coat on the seat beside her. Then she spread a couple of paper napkins on her lap and opened the little cardboard box which contained her dinner, a slice of pizza. She ate it delicately, wiped her lips and tucked the box under her seat. She made a few calls on her cell phone. At South Miami, she collected her bag and coat and prepared to exit the train.

“Don’t forget your garbage,” I chirped, loudly. “There’s a can right on the platform.” She smiled at me with just a touch of condescension and shame, and picked up her trash. Whether she actually put it in the can or just tossed it on the platform seating, I couldn’t see.

AND ANOTHER THING

Look, if you want to call me names, and tell me my blog is stupid, you have every right. I, of course, as proprietor of the site, have the right to delete any such crap. If you want me, in all fairness, to leave your comments up, then try using a real e-mail address and a real or even imaginary name, but not a jumble of letters. Another tip? Use correct spelling and grammar, and try to be a little bit brighter than a refrigerator bulb in your insults.

Miz Shoes is off for the next couple of days, swanning around, drinking by the hotel pool, arranging for a massage and generally acting the princess. BRB.

Arrowmont was fabulous. The women in my class were (are) fabulous. My instructor rawked. The food at art camp was spotty, but the morning oatmeal was fabulous. After the snow on Monday, the daffodils and jonquils and narcissus and wood violets and forsythia and wisteria bloomed. I saw a single tufted titmouse. I love them, and they don’t venture south to Miami. However. Gatlinburg itself is scary. If Niagara Falls had butt sex with the cheap end of International Drive in Orlando, and the resulting love child was birthed by Las Vegas, that love child would be Gatlinburg proper.

It is a single long road, bordered on two sides by Elvis impersonator shows, haunted houses, museums dedicated to the automobiles of dead celebrities, chain restaurants, themed miniature golf courses, taffy and fudge shoppes, multiple offerings of “vintage” photography studios (the kind where you dress up like old west hookers or gun slingers and get a sepia toned 5x7 for $45), multiple iterations of Ripley’s Believe it or Not “museums”, a Hard Rock Cafe, an aquarium of some repute (“Hah. Fish in tanks.” says my friend Diana) a scattering of nutjobs preaching the Word from atop bus benches, tacky tee shirt and tchatcke shops,  windows with ticket hawkers reminiscent of hookers in Amsterdam, and the random banjo player looking for hat change. And then there are the tourists who find all that a desirable destination. Good lord. If I hadn’t already had a drink, I would have needed one.

And yet, turn left at the Hard Rock, go up a shallow hill, and you are in an art school. A fine craft wonderland. I’ll go back, and I might even wander down to the joint where we had some great micro-brews and amazingly good pizza. Just, please, don’t make me go back down the gantlet to get there. I don’t know if I’ll be able to say no to the vintage photography set ups.

Oh, nertz. I left my notes at home. And I can’t remember anything except Claire finally got the axe. Lauren flailed around and managed to stay, but not before Paulina called her Frankenstein. The judges are getting particularly nasty about Dominique-inique-inique and Fatima. Whitney is a size 10, which in the model universe is fattyboombafatty.

So I give you this, instead of a recap:

I had been sure that Lauren reminded me of some vintage blonde starlet, but I just couldn’t remember which one. And then, in a moment of serendipty, she appeared in some random story or another on TMZ… a where are they now thing. AHA! Lauren was separated at birth from Martha Plimpton!

Look, I tried. Really I did. I joined Blogging 365, and I wrote entries and I tried to keep up. But then.

I went to Arrowmont*, and despite the promises of wifi, the only place I could get a signal was outside the dining hall or in my studio. The entries slacked off. They were all there in my head, just waiting to be set to pixels and the publish button pushed. Really. Then the long ride home from Tennessee to Miami. Sixteen hours, more or less, during which time, I felt the first tickle. Sure enough, by the time we got home, I had a nascent bronchial infection. A-fucking-gain. Enough. I’m not even a smoker.

Last week saw me back on antibiotics, and nasal sprays and reflux inhibitors and steroid inhalators and who knows what else. Since I’d been out of the office for a week, there was crap piled up to the ceiling waiting for me to sort and answer and deal. The weekend was spent trying to find a cocktail dress for a woman of a certain age (me) who has not had plastic surgery or spent every waking hour in a gym for the past few years. I was offered tacky, mother of the bride wear, or ho-wear or totally, ridiculously over-priced baby doll micro minis. I explained, sometimes patiently, and sometimes not, that I am just a poor but honest working girl who had the good fortune to be named employee of the year, and therefor had to spend money I do not have (and which, unfortunately) is not part of the award, to buy a dress to wear to the event. I foolishly believed that I had shoes in my closet that could work with any dress I was able to buy. Needless to say, despite being Miz Shoes, and despite the better part of my closet being devoted to shoes, there wasn’t a pair in there that worked.

I was subjected to endless advice on the glory that is Spanx. Here’s an idea, people: instead of trying to cram my Rubenesque curves into a skin-tight sheath, why don’t you show me something with a full skirt? Non? OK, fine. I’ll just slip on that spandex sausage casing that goes from knee to under my bra (by design, I may add) and try on the shiny, stretchy things you throw in the dressing room. Here’s another tip: I AM beige. Do not give me a beige dress and tell me it’ll be fabulous. It will not. Nor will the newly popular yellow do my skin any favors. It will, in fact, make me look recently disinterred. Not a good look for anyone, and certainly not for someone being feted by hospice.

Finally, after throwing myself on the mercy of the snappiest dressed gay clerk I could find, I had my dress. Chiffon, print, floaty, snug in the bust, covers the shoulder tat and a multitude of other sins, and does not require Spanx. I then went downstairs to the shoe department. A young man with attitude showed me the shoes he thought would look good with my dress. What was apparent, but unstated, was that he also thought I was older than dirt and unable to hold my brittle bones upright in a pair of stilletos. He showed me a low, chunky heel with narrow little straps in pastel patent leather. I looked at him. He smiled sweetly at me and then at the shoes. They’d be perfect, he said. You’re right. They would be perfect, I said, IF I were playing bingo with Blanche Devereaux and the rest of the Golden Girls at the fellowship hall.

Very clever, he sneered and left me to wait on someone more fabulous and less clever. I found another salesman, one who rolled his eyes at the granny flats and sighed, Oh, puh-leeze gurl. Then he led me over to a pair of purple satin pumps with a pink/multi lizard trim around the instep. Fabu! I exclaimed. And bought them and a pair of magenta ombre patent leather spiked heel fuck me pumps. Just because I can.

Anyway, I’m sorry that I’m not keeping you amused in my usual style. Deal with it.

Day two at Arrowmont. It snowed off and on all day yesterday. Big fat, feathery flakes that didn’t stick. Except for about half an hour. Yesterday I made balls and disks and beads and tablet shapes and a cube. Today we learn how to merge elements and incorporate found (or otherwise acquired) objects in our felt objects. Here’s my work station, and a shot of the snow.