Suzy Says

Man. No sooner are the interminable Olympics over than the Republican convention starts. It’s like a tag team of tediousness!

Leave me alone for five minutes, and I go to sleep. Just watch:

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~nap!~

Narcolepsy? Neurosis? The advent of old age? An exponential increase in my pathological laziness? A complete lack of interest in reality? You decide. But don’t wake me up. Just leave me a note.

I haven’t followed my father into oblivion – at least, not yet. I have been (pre)occupied with grown-up things (translation: dull, yet stressful) mostly, but still found a way to have a little bit of fun.

Brought to you by the letter “O” and other letters that just sound like it, the little bit of fun:

– The Turner, Whistler, Monet exhibit at the AGO: Perfection. A visual feast. Extra credit: first time I had looked at Turner’s paintings without my father and I didn’t cry. Go, Me!

– Wilco, live and in person. An unforgettable evening. Jeff Tweedy is so geeky in real life – he looks like a substitute English professor at a community college – that he’s utterly charming. And his voice is magic. Hearing him sing “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart” live is a dream come true.

– The Cocteau exhibit: Almost an assault on the senses, film sculpture, drawings, music, poetry. Beautifully arranged, no expense spared, and lit low, so you felt as if you were in a dream – the best way to appreciate the works.

Now back to faux grown-up, real reality.

PS Will the Olympics ever be over?

For my father:

“the total emptiness for ever,
The sure extinction that we travel to
And shall be lost in always. Not to be
here,
Not to be anywhere,
And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing
more true.”

— Philip Larkin, Aubade

Suzy’s Hamptons Diary, Part IV

All good things must come to an end. Today, we’ll say farewell to the playground of the rich and in/famous and Suzy.

Heard in the Hamptons:

WLIU, a great jazz radio station, including lots of gems and rarities and DJ’s with a passion. If you can’t make it to the Hamptons, you can listen to it (live stream button on the left of the page).

On the beach:

“So I was doing a bikini wax, and I noticed the client had a huge gold ring. Down there.” (pause) “And I don’t usually look.”

“Everyone has spray tans now. No-one has sun tans.”

Seen:

Beach Hut;

Love Shack, baby;

Boats;

Swimming pools (but no movie stars); and

The last word.

Suzy?s Hamptons Diary, Part III

Where there?s Vacation Suzy, there?s food?n?wine. Even more than usual. I hadn?t been in the Hamptons more than 2 hours before making the wonderful discovery that the island is packed with as many wineries as the Napa Valley, making great wine that doesn?t cost an arm or a leg. My personal favorite was Pindar Winery?s Autumn Gold ? one of the most delicious wines I have ever tasted. Even Paul, who doesn?t drink, was unable to resists its delightfulness. I brought a bottle home, but I really wanted to bring a case. Curse the inconvenience of flying without a sommelier (or someone to carry a case of wine through Laguardia for a cute and helpless girl and make sure it arrives unscathed).

It looks a lot like New England there, and I was able to immerse myself in the old favorites from childhood summers spent on another island, off the coast of Maine. Steamers (clams steamed in white wine and herbs, served with garlic butter ? Paul found two “pearls” in his and gave them to me); lobster roll, chunky lobster and celery and mayonnaise, on the classic white bun; fried clams; calamari; exquisite, fresh-caught local flounder; and local scallops crusted with almonds and served with citrus beurre blanc. Not to mention the fabulous blueberry pancakes, positively purple with tiny wild blueberries, at Dave?s Bun”N”Burger* in Westhampton.

*Dave?s punctuation, not mine. I swear. (Frequently)

Suzy’s Hamptons Diary, Part II

Welcome to New York State!

Paul, my guide to the Hamptons. Great friend, raconteur, caterer to the stars.

The Westhampton jitney stop. Everything’s fancy in the Hamptons – they call a plain old bus a jitney. Doesn’t it sound classier that way?

It’s very patriotic there.

Even the pinwheels…

…and the cereal.

And the school is, of course, drug-free.

Suzy’s Hamptons Diary*, Part I

Thanks to my fabulous friend K, who introduced me to her original and absorbing pastime of deciding whether random girls walking down the street have butts that are bigger or smaller than ours, I have become as avid an ass appraiser as the gayest denizen of the Castro. And almost as critical! Try it, it’s addictive (though it can also be very, very depressing, depending on where the game takes place).

No girl in the Hamptons has a butt bigger than mine, whether she’s famous, infamous, or just plain wealthy and privileged. It’s an indefinable quality that the rich, especially old money, have. They can be wearing shorts, t-shirts, and sandals with no jewelry, but something about them just says (in a refined tone of voice, of course) money and high society.

Other than the Guatamalan day laborers milling around outside the Seven-Eleven, hoping to get a day’s work, I was the poorest person for miles around. Even living in San Francisco couldn’t prepare me for the level of power and money in the Hamptons. I’m talking $17 million estates, people with private planes or helicopters to get them to the city once a week or so to check up on the little people, or the po’ folks who have a share in a beach house for $150,000 a summer.

*Not the real Hamptons Diary, which appears in the irresistibly and delightfully trashy New York Post. And yes, I read the Post every single day I was in the Empire State, sometimes while wearing the pink wig. I’m delightfully trashy myself at times.