#TextsFromHisRoyalRyness

After spending the day revisiting the extraordinary correspondence that has been my exquisite reality since Good Friday 2012, I'd like to share a few of my favorites.

 HRR on The National Gallery:

HRR on *Old* Orleans:

HRR on His Nome de Guerre:

"His Ryness works just as well.  It will attract my fellow Great Pink Sharks like a caviar-laden, chum-line."

HRR on Big Ang:

HRR on Wake Up Calls:

HRR on Chagrin, Hope, & Tenacity:

"I am tired of this cruel heat, ignorant politics, and lack of both cultural investment and human decency, these days here."

"After waking up on another Tuesday 9-11 with the exact same conditions of one 11 years ago, when I was an inhouse hooker at 111 Wall, I am reminded that I can survive anything."

HRR on Wishmaking:

HRR on Star Gazing:

"I spent all afternoon with Dylan at a Ralph Rocks benefit in Montauk and she is like her "Candy Bar," spun-sugar heaven.  I have the cutest shirt from her store that says "Ken isn't the only sugar in my Barbie town!" And on the back, "I got my fix at Dylan's"  I think she thought I was a bit chunky as I was given an XXL.  I'll wear it out to Coney.  With some Balenciaga gaucho pants and some Yohji slides... And of course... Ochialli by the one and only, Mr. Valentino!!!!" 

HRR on The Proper Gift For A Lady:

HRR on his entourage bribing a postal plane to fly them in to St. Barts after spotting little white crosses as far as the eye could care to roam:

"Oh BRILLIANT!"

HRR on Our Spot:

HRR on Pullin' Some Shade:

"Benihana: Which must mean *TRAGIC, overpriced fast-food, tourist-trap, themey-dump* in Japanese"

HRR on How To REALLY Love A Girl:

"Fontana di Trevi.  The Trevi Fountain.  No picture could do it justice!  None.  Annie Leibovitz might get them to close it to traffic, both people & cars for a clearer shot, but like some mythical creature, it's true beauty & essence defy any one dimensional capture.  I am reliable for some colorful imagery on occassion.  Why I loved you so, is because you never mistook my need for self-expression as simple, futile, pretension for ego's sake.  I am a Walden Pond poet, trapped in a Glamazon Magpie's shell.  So as far as "mythological creatures go... it takes one to know one!  Salu Bellisima."

I am loved.  A love that draws comparison to A True North, A Safe Harbor, A Soft Place To Fall.  Somebody gets me.  Adds another place setting at, what has for so long been, the table-for-one that is my brand of "peculiar."  Speaks my antiquated language.  

My gratitude for this gift is something that I fear will always escape my talent as a writer.  But perhaps this post will set the stage for giving all of you a peek behind the curtain.  This is why my heart skips a beat when the telltale multiple text melody resounds from my telephone.  On one particular day, he made it skip twice.

"Are you familiar with Matt Chambers, the New Orleans litigator who left his practice to found Confederate Motorcycles?"

It was the very first time that he had ever been fascinated by someone to the point of suggesting that I investigate.  I was absolutely paralyzed... with the most intoxicating curiosity!

An Afternoon Peep Show

Meet "I'd Make A Good Boyfriend."  Part geek, part goddess, all kinds of fun!  You can find her at Sax.  I, once upon a time, found her on Twitter.  On the Easter Sunday in question, I found her delightfully receptive to my suggestion that we attend Sunrise Service.

And that is how we were lucky enough to see this:

and this ....

and (later on) this.

And then we got this!

"You bunnies Sunk My Battleship, with those insanely brilliant, PEEPS Easter S'MORES!!!  Simply divine.  As were you all, and that very special afternoon delight.  A Holiday, indeed, from the more traditional, manufactured, less fabulous affairs.  Thank You, so very much!  Molto Amore Darlings. <3"

From . . . I'll give you three guesses.  

You should have an idea of what to do with the first two.

xxx, a

Good Friday Indeed

I knew in an instant that not one thing would ever be as it was, before, ever again.

So when I added him to my phone at the end of the evening, reluctant to see him leave at all, I tapped out the letters M, c, B, e, s, t, i, and e. And we made plans to see each other at high noon on Easter Sunday.

That conversation proceeded as follows:

"PPSS: perhaps I will feature my Philip Treacy trilby hat, with an Andy Warhol Liz silk screened on it, tomorrow. For it is hand painted in this dazzling array of sherbet hues that speak to an Easter color palate, frankly. I haven't taken it out for a walk in years. Since Paris Hilton was photographed in it and near ruined the magic of that brilliant chapeau, for me. Time to dig in the accessories vault!"

* * *

"Dig baby dig! Andy and Liz are counting on you. They were just as horrified by the aforementioned snapshot as you were. I know this because I talk to Liz whilst I bubble bathe."

* * *

"LADY, then hop in that tub right now and tell Dame Liz that 'I LOVE & MISS HER!!! And how dare she leave this world without allowing me an afternoon's lunch of Lobster Cobb Salad, al fresco at The Hotel Bel Air!!!' I will be out there next month & will pay my respects at THBA, in Her Majesty's absentia!!!"

Glorious Technicolor! He was my Herbert Kalmus. The Edward Raymond Turner of my fishbowl.

I was going to need a hat!  Some peeps.  Graham crackers.  Chocolate bunnies.  And something to hack them to pieces with.  Good thing I had an accomplice.

Stay tuned for the peep show!

If I Ever Write . . .

"If I ever write the story of my life

Don't be surprised if you're where it begins"

Kim Williams, Marty Dodson & Danny Wells

I get my stitches out today.

The last time I had stitches, I missed my second class at Trapeze school in New York.  When I mentioned this to a friend recently, the detail shed a particularly awestruck light in my direction.  And, dashing off to lunch, I left a trail of "did you know that Ashley..." in my wake.

There was a time when that was my life.  From trapeze school in New York to moonlit swims in the Berkshires, I kept the days between adventures down to something I could manage with two hands.

But that hasn't always been the case.

There was also a time when I tuned that world out.  A time that sweet Jessica began to call me Edie.  A time when I wondered who my real friends were.  A time when I learned the answer to that question.  "The gift of desperation," as I heard Doctor Eben Alexander refer to it recently, was my cocoon.  

But as it turns out, I'm a pretty tough cookie.  So I finally opened the drapes, washed the grey out of my hair, and booked a flight or two.  I was back.  Wasn't I?

Jill Rogers once taught me something that I've never forgotten.  She taught me that when someone is so lost that you don't even recognize them, the most loving thing that you can say is "you've forgotten who you are.  But I will remember for you.  Until you can remember again, I will remember for you."

I didn't even know that I had forgotten.

I was traveling.  I was making new, albeit more carefully vetted, friends.  I was cooking.  And I was writing.  And I had no idea that I was doing all of those things in shades of black and white.  Until a tall, devastatingly handsome, and exquisitely costumed man walked into the District and through the door... and remembered for me.

"Who is this creature!?!"

he exclaimed.

And just like that, I began to remember again.  If I ever write the story of my life, don't be surprised... if he is where it begins.