Today It Begins!

January 2, 2026 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

I spent a good chunk of yesterday taking down all the Christmas stuff, packing it up and putting it back in the storage closet.

So the holidays are officially complete around here! (And even though those few days between Christmas and New Year’s ended up being really challenging for me emotionally — see the end of yesterday’s post — it still was one of the happiest Christmases I’d had in a long, long time.)

At the end of the day yesterday, I chatted with Sandra for about an hour and we decided that today, after my shift, we BEGIN!!

Meaning — we begin working on all 3 of the huge projects we have on our plates right now. “The Guide to Being Fabulous” going to Off-Broadway; getting the original TV-screenplay version of “Tell My Bones: The Helen LaFrance Story” packaged for streamer TV; and then tackling the enormously time-consuming task of packaging the proposal for our new TV project for a producer who is waiting for it in Atlanta.

(The screenplay version of “The Guide to Being Fabulous” that we have already written Act One of and submitted to a producer at HBO (which could be Netflix now?), is on the back burner because we have, you know, way too much fucking stuff to do! Plus, we don’t want to move forward with the movie version until the play actually opens Off-Broadway.)

Anyway.

All 3 projects star Sandra, so the chances that all 3 projects will move forward at the very same time are actually sort of high, gang. So Sandra very compassionately and tactfully told me yesterday that even though I have decided not to cut back any of my caregiving shifts, so that I don’t stress about money, I need to switch my focus from now on and put my writing first and the emotional attachments to my caregiving clients second.

She is correct. So today I begin that, too. Which means I no longer have the luxury of coming home emotionally burnt out after a job because I need to be able to focus on the writing after my shifts.

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I’ve also decided to switch up my Saturday evenings now to include washing and doing my hair! Because I am really hoping that I am going to like this new church that is 3 minutes from my house and that I will be attending it every Sunday morning from now on! (Not that Jesus cares what my hair looks like but I do!!)

Here’s hoping I like it, gang. I will be going there for the first time this coming Sunday morning and I am really looking forward to it.

What the church will look like once all the neighborhood cats discover that I’m going there…

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And I have not lost sight of the fact that I have a NEW NOVEL coming out this year!! Yay! And I will need to participate in PR stuff for that, which will involve travelling.

Plus, I have that memoir that I really, really, really want to get started on, too. And that 12th Street Project I started on recently.

So I’m doing that thing where I turn over Time Management to the Universe and just let everything flow….

And maybe some coffee.

I’ll keep you posted!

Me, flowing that energy without it dramatically enhancing the power of my tits in any way whatsoever!!

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Okay, here’s this!

WAYNE! Getting the punch ready for the New Year’s Day brunch yesterday at the Union Club in NYC!

If you’re new to the blog — for many, many, MANY years, Wayne was a professional actor in NYC. Mostly live theater. A ton of Shakespeare, downtown. And, yes, I did spend many, many years hearing him say around the apartment: “Sire, hear me butt speak!!” Followed, perhaps, by the passing of the occasional gas…

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All righty!!

Ronnie Wood is offering 20% off all his art, site wide!!

Visit HERE!

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Okay, today I head back to my favorite 95-year-old Japanese man’s house.

We were planning on going out for sashimi & sake today. It is very cold but very sunny with no wind at all!

However, if his back porch is covered with snow and ice from Wednesday night, I don’t think we will be able to go out today. (He has a wooden leg, a cane, and, well, he’s 95.)

I’m hoping that some sort of miracle took place yesterday and that someone shoveled his back porch, and that we can still go out. We shall soon see. (His neighbors are really nice, so it could have happened.)

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Other than that —

After my shift today, I come straight home to another phone call with Sandra, as we begin the undertaking of the beautiful insanity.

Enjoy your Friday, wherever you are in the world, gang.

Thanks for visiting!

I love you guys. See ya!

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Let’s leave with this today.

Yesterday was the anniversary of Hank Williams’ death. (Someone on Instagram even posted a photo of his open casket back in 1953, which I’d never seen before, but it was creepy so I’m not reposting it.)

“Hank Williams’ official cause of death was a heart attack, but it was heavily influenced by his chronic pain from spina bifida occulta, severe alcoholism, and drug use, including morphine and chloral hydrate, which combined to create a deadly mix, leading to his collapse in a car on New Year’s Day, 1953, at age 29. “

I have always loved Hank Williams’ music. So let’s depart with this. I know I posted it recently, but here it is again!

The original demo from “Long Gone Train,” a song I wrote about Hanks Williams in 1992. Just me and my guitar in my room back then. Enjoy, gang.

LONG GONE TRAIN
(for Hank Williams)

There are men who were doomed to the legend
Of their own despair
Who linger like an echoed moaning
On a cold black air
They were lean high-rollers in the shadow
Of a ball and chain
Who were beckoned to their call to glory
From a long gone train.

Men who had railed at the virtue of their own reward
Who smothered in the lonesome comfort 
Of a long black Ford
And the Sheriff who was called to the scene
In a driving rain
Sent the body home on the rails
Of a long gone train.

CHORUS:
Cold as the steal rail line that delivered him to fame
Beaten by the hustler’s dream that had robbed his name
Driven by the fury in a heart that was real as rain
It all disappears in the slow procession
Of a long gone train.

They were men who concealed their condition
From the broad daylight
Who would rage it wild and reckless
At the cruel limelight
And while the sane bystanders at the apron of the stage complained
How they wept at the mournful passing
Of a long gone train.

REPEAT CHORUS

There are men who will rail at the virtue of their own reward
Who will smother in the lonesome comfort of a long black Ford
And the Sheriff who is called to the scene in a driving rain
Will send the body home on the rails
Of a long gone train.

REPEAT CHORUS

© 1992 Marilyn Jaye Lewis
FIRST OF MAY SONGS, BMI

What A Difference a Day Makes!

January 1, 2026 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

Happy 2026 everybody!!

I am having the best New Year’s Day, so far.

I slept in until 5AM. Got up to find more powdery snow all over the world outside my windows. Yet the black skies were completely clear — brilliant stars for as far as my wee bonny eye could see.

The cats got special yummies for breakfast — many thanks to Johnny, for buying them a type of yummy cat food for Christmas (beef with gravy) that I rarely let them eat!! They were sort of in cat ecstasy this morning.

Oh, and when I opened the kitchen door to let Kon Tiki in for her breakfast, she wasn’t there but in trotted a totally different cat! We all sort of stopped and stared at her, but since she was in, I fed her beef with gravy, too! And then let her right back out…

And then I decided to take my own breakfast upstairs with me, got back in bed in the dark, and as fate would have it — I felt like listening to an Abraham Hicks video while I had my breakfast in bed, and lo! & behold!, this one was in the top of my list!

Ignore the title — it’s click bait. But it has to do with allowing the Universe to manage Time for you, so that you can get everything done without stressing!! One of the top things that’s been on my mind, regarding continuing to work the caregiving jobs, and trying to get all the writing projects done (15 mins):

And then, after that, when the sun finally came up, here was the view from my bed:

And this — across from my bed!! I always bring the spider plants indoors for the winter, and this one is just doing crazy-good!

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Okay.

Probably the best New Year’s Eve photo I saw yesterday.

Warren Ellis, apparently channeling the NY Dolls circa, like, 1973!

And here’s the song that goes with the post — from my wee bonny 13-year-old girlhood!! “Personality Crisis” by the NY Dolls (performing live on The Midnight Special — a TV show I watched religiously back then, much to the chagrin of every adult in my extended family!! And probably my Rabbi, too, if he’d known I was watching it…):

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Okay.

Let’s tone it down a little!

Keith by the fire!!

And the Stones in LA, in 1965:

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I thought you might like this.

The one and only time I saw Mink DeVille perform live, it was in the mid-1980s, at the incredible Lone Star Cafe.

The Lone Star is long gone now, but it was a great club. And it was on E.13th and 5th Ave, just around the corner from where I lived on E. 12th Street. (And for the record, gang, Mink DeVille performing live blew me away!! God, he was good.)

The NYC clubs back then were just so cool, gang. You could usually get so close to the performers. And all that energy was just aimed right at you.

I saw Johnny Cash at The (new) Ritz in midtown, and I was in tears through most of the show — he was so close; he was right there, you know? I could not believe it.

Ditto with Dwight Yoakam, although the first time I saw him was at the old Ritz, downtown, and it was truly one of the most amazing live shows I ever saw. He burst onstage in all those spotlights, wearing that sparkly, rhinestone Nudie suit, and singing “Guitars, Cadillacs & Hillbilly Music”. It was like a version of heaven I could never have even imagined.

And the first time I saw Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, it was also at the old Ritz (on E.11th Street — again, right around the corner from where I lived). It was kind of staggering. The audience was probably the most frightening audience I had ever gotten stuck in. It was full of what we called Neo-Nazis, back then. Really violent white guys. But when Nick came on the stage, I could not believe how fucking tall he was!! And his energy was just insane — it exploded. It is a moment that is absolutely seared into my memory forever.

Anyway.

There were some incredible clubs all over NYC back then.

(Oh and Susie Cave had a really fun video on Instagram of Nick Cave’s New Year’s Eve celebration last night, but I can’t re-post Instagram videos here. But there was nary a Neo-Nazi in sight!!)

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Okay.

Speaking of things being seared into my brain forever–

I forgot to mention that, very early Tuesday morning, when I was heading to my (final) 10-hr shift, I stopped in at the Rural King to buy cat food. It was maybe 8AM (?) and what to my wondering eyes should appear???

You remember that guy who sometimes works the check-out that I privately call “Wild Thing” because — yes!!– he makes my heart sing!?!? And I am old enough to be his grandmother but he flirts with me anyway??

There he was — all that long dark hair, and all skinny and tall and looking like absolutely nothing but trouble. And there was, like, one other customer in the check-out lane. And then it was my turn!! And, yes, he flirted with me again!! And I felt about 14… in the best way, that is.

I just love that guy.

(And I love this version of that song! I think it’s better than the original.)

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Okay.

I’ll close this New Year’s post with this.

I am in an absolutely incredibly good space, gang. But the past several days were just hit or miss for me. It was very rough.

I have posted here about how, when my (adoptive) dad died a year and a half ago, he and I were in a really good place. Just the best it had ever been in our entire relationship. But from, like, 1975 up until that final year (2023-24), my relationship with my dad was usually extremely rocky. He could be really nice, and then, when you’d least expect it, he could be unbelievably mean.

But during that last year, he told me a lot of stuff about his private life during my teen years that I had known nothing about. And it caused me to privately forgive him for absolutely everything that he had ever done to me in the difficult decades that had followed that.

And then, a few months ago, when the Trustee of my dad’s Estate finally gave me access to all of my dad’s financial stuff, his Will, etc. (there were hundreds and hundreds of pages), it became apparent that he had left me a small fortune that I’d known nothing about. By way of a Family Trust fund.

However, last week, right after Christmas, when the Estate was completely probated and closed and the checks were sent out —

Well, long story very, very short — it turned out my dad had changed his Will and I had not yet seen that final version. And he left the entire Family Trust — 100% of it — to his step kids instead. And taken me completely out of it.

There were residuary funds that I got, instead. I am not complaining. I will be okay, and he also took very good care of me that final year he was alive.

But seeing, in print, what he had done with that Trust, gang — it devastated me. It was just so like the old him to do something like that. And I didn’t want to un-forgive him. How could I do that?? I don’t know how to un-forgive.

My adoptive mother did a similar thing to me — I was heir to $30 million dollars, that upon her death, she ended up giving, in its entirety, to one of my cousins instead. Although, during the final years of her life, my mother gave me many advances on my inheritance, which helped me enormously when all of my publishers, except for one, went out of business during the financial crash of 2008.

However. It’s that process, you know? Going to the expense and time to actually change your Will in order to exclude someone before it’s too late and you’re dead. What the fuck is that, right?

Anyway.

I had been in such a good place with my dad when he died, and I didn’t want to lose that feeling. Especially since I am preparing to write that memoir of my father-figures in the 1970s. I don’t want to go into that memoir with a headspace of trying to manage so much heartbreaking cruelty and alienation.

And even though I can no longer comfortably retire at this point, well miraculously — I mean that literally — after a lot of prayer and Source/God alignment, I awoke this morning in the best mental and psychological place. And I am right back to feeling just really grateful for everything my dad did for me during that last year of his life.

I actually just feel like a stronger person than I’ve been in a long time, and I am really looking forward to all the writing projects ahead of me in 2026.

So let’s get started with that, okay??

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Have a terrific 2026, wherever you are in the world.

Thanks for visiting!

I love you guys. See ya!

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I think I’ll leave you with this!

Dennis sent it over to me this morning, as part of his Happy New Year text!

I had not seen this video of this song before. I really loved it.

Norman Greenbaum – “Spirit In The Sky” (1970). Enjoy, gang!!