shamash says...

Rome: Prosecco, Espresso, Caffe Greco

We are not Caesar, and we avoided the Forum, so I can say with confidence that The Ides of March was by far our best day in Rome. After days of clouds and rain, the sun and the moon both showed their faces. We couldn’t seem to tear ourselves away from the Piazza de España and by dusk, we were still there, drinking prosecco at a café under moon clouds.

“How do we rearrange our lives to live in this magnificent city?” we ask ourselves. There’s something about Rome at night, especially under a waxing moon, that causes me to think that reinventing my life and steering it against all the plans that drive me forward is the most natural thing in the world to do. Here, in this city of fallen empires and lovers on Vespas, going against the current of one’s well-planned life seems possible, even wise. The words of Keats, once an expatriate in Rome,

A Woman Should Have...

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE…
A set of screwdrivers,
a cordless drill, and
a black lace bra...

She's Hot, He's Not

 

(image_by John Hersey)

These days, conversations about relationships, sexual attraction, and the woes of modern dating are never-ending, no matter what your age or gender.

The Retrosexual Beats the Metrosexual, Hands Down

"Shamash gets all hot under the collar when a retrosexual in his tight Wranglers walks by, even if he is a die-hard Replublican, and even if he likes to handle guns. Compare the hair-geled metrosexual who loves to shop to the retrosexual in scuffed shoes who just opened the door for you, and the retrosexual scores, hands down."

All Hail the Retrosexuals, and the knights in shining armor who protect the damsels in distress.

(image via Geek Culture)

The Retrosexual Code

"A Retrosexual man can chop down a tree and make it land where he wants. Wherever it lands is where he wanted it to land."

- from Grau Magus in his anti-metrosexual manifesto, The Retrosexual Code

Want a good laugh? Want a real man? Read on, dear readers. Read on.

(image via Laura Smith Art)

Ode to Happy Hour

Happy hour is an cross-cultural experience, no matter what your time zone.

image via Anne Taintor, Inc.

Check out more of her fun stationary, and support her.

Why?

Because Shamash says so.

That's why.

In Praise of Women over 40

"A woman over 40 will never wake you in the middle of the night to ask, "What are you thinking?"

She doesn't care what you think."

“Chase the Moon Across America”

I love that bitter-sweet feeling when a film moves you at the core, and it ends, and you’re left all full of the weight of truth and the an unbearable longing, and you just want to hug the playwright, the directors, and the actors, because it all comes together into one, great, big masterpiece.

And that’s when you hate that you saw it alone, because you want to talk about it, and you can’t.

Here are some great lines from Angels in

America

by Tony Kushner.

"Warning"

"When I am an old woman

I shall wear purple

With a red hat which doesn't go,

and doesn't suit me."

- Jenny Joseph

"Sex and the City" Shoes

Bluest Eyes wore her black strappy ones, and I slipped on the silk ones that I bought in Saigon last March. Carrie Bradshaw would have been proud, even though they weren't Prada.

(The shoes, resting at the edge of the rooftop bar "Distil." As a former parachutist, I was tempted to BASE jump.)