Tag Archives: Bunny

Some Awesome Memories!!

October 23, 2020 marilyn jaye lewis 2 Comments

Today is the 4th anniversary of Bunny’s passing — she was such a sweet cat. I swear that I still miss her every day.

I went looking for some old photos of her to post to the blog, and I serendipitously (which I don’t think is actually a word) discovered a bunch of photos that I forgot I had.

So it’s Memory Day again, here in Marilyn’s Room!!

First of all, I found a wonderful photo of Paul at Christmas, 1996. Paul was my best friend who died, whom I blogged about yesterday.

He was already really sick here, but you can see that even while he was dying, he was just such a good-natured human being.

Here are two photos of Bunny right after I rescued her and her brother, Buster, from a NYC cat shelter in Times Square. They were a few months old already when I adopted them. Bunny is the larger cat, Buster, was the grey and white cat. I loved both of them so much, it was almost unbelievable.

Bunny and Buster on the dining room table on West End Avenue, NYC.

Wayne was not happy that I adopted two cats to replace Kitty after she died. But the rescue place wanted me to have this brother & sister pair, even though I had gone in to adopt a different cat. They insisted that I have these two instead and they wound up being such a joy to me.

When Wayne and I thought we were having a baby, we decorated the nursery. But no babies came, so it eventually turned into my office. So my office on West End Avenue was half-nursery. This is right after Bunny & Buster were adopted.

I could not believe I found this photo!! This is the house my family lived in from 1964-1966, in Cleveland. I took the photo decades after we lived there, but this was our house! I have so many memories from this house. I could write an entire book just about that. I found out years later that both of my parents disliked this house, but my dad bought it because it was really close to the school — just down the block. And both me and my older brother started school when we lived here.

The house Mikey Rivera and I lived in together.

I did not even remember that I had this photo!! Mikey Rivera and I were going to buy this house in Easton, Pennsylvania. It was owned by a priest who rented it out. We were “renting to own” when my mom got sick and we wound up moving back to Ohio. We lived in it for 6 months.

This was my office in that house. The house was really old — well over 100 years old. I edited a couple of anthologies in this office and wrote a few short stories, but didn’t live there long enough to write much more than that.

My office in the apartment in Pennsylvania.

This was my “office” in the apartment Mikey & I rented when we left NYC together, before we moved into that house above. We rented a small one-bedroom apartment in an old Victorian house that was on the Delaware River in Pennsylvania, in the foothills of the Pocono Mountains. We were less than 2 hours from NYC, so it was an ideal location. I could easily go back & forth to Manhattan to meet with publishers and other writers, etc., and Mikey could go visit his son, who was only about 6 years old (!!) at the time. (He’s now well out of college…).

My “office” was in a corner of the living room. He and I lived there for 3 years. I wrote 3 novels in that little corner — including Freak Parade, which I wrote about Mikey Rivera. I also wrote three novellas and many, many short stories in that little corner. I also edited 4 fiction anthologies. All in that little corner. I was extremely creative there.

Naturally, Mikey and I shared the tiny apartment with Buster & Bunny! And according to my lease, I was only allowed to have one cat. So we always had to hide Buster from the landlord. Luckily, the two cats looked enough alike, that if one would sit in the front window, you couldn’t really tell if it was a different cat. The only problem was to never let both cats sit in the front window at the same time. The landlord only lived a couple blocks away, so I was constantly worrying that he was going to see both cats at the same time. Luckily, my little desk was not far from the window, because I mean it was a constant chore to keep both of them out of that window at the same time. (It was a beautiful bay window, looking out over the river.)

Okay! That’s my little trip down Memory Lane for today.

Well, the podcast recording went very well yesterday, although I barely even mentioned The Guitar Hero Goes Home! We talked about a bunch of other stuff, instead. Mostly the state of the erotica publishing industry now compared with its heyday, when we all first met. (Me, M. Christian, and Ralph Greco, Jr.) I will let you know when you can listen to it on YouTube.

And today, I am feeling better all the way around. The bruise on my thigh is a hideous mass of vibrant colors now, but almost all the pain is completely gone. And this evening, I’m meeting Kevin, the director of my play, for dinner, so I’m really looking forward to a chance to get out and socialize again. Yay!! And we’ll be discussing all the things that are going on with my play, so I’m very eager to hear about all that.

Nick Cave’s official web site sent out an email this morning, announcing the screening dates for the extended film version of Idiot Prayer – Nick Cave Alone at Alexandra Palace. To purchase tickets, you can locate your area here. (I think. I might have just given you the link that says you can’t yet buy tickets to see the film in Crazeysburg, but I’ve been assured the film is coming here soon!) (Just kidding, of course. Nothing comes to Crazeysburg!!)

Okay, that’s it!! Have a terrific Friday, wherever you are in the world. Thanks for visiting, gang. I leave you with “Euthanasia,” the new song by Nick Cave, which is in that film mentioned above. Enjoy. I love you guys. See ya!

Requiem for a Comet

August 9, 2017 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

Gang, I simply cannot believe that Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812 is being forced to close Labor Day weekend.

Loyal readers of this lofty blog know just how excited I’ve been about getting into NYC to see this show. I had not even had time to post here yet that I had indeed managed to get a ticket for the Sept. 19th show (with much help from my ex-husband, Wayne Lewis) when I go briefly to NYC for Sandra’s opening in Charm, at the MCC Theater.

I had my prized ticket all of 24 hours before they announced that the show would indeed close.

I will not go into why the show has to close. If you are not already aware of everything that coalesced to bring this sudden ending to an unbelievable production, you can google it.

So sad. So disheartening.

The thing about theater, especially the amazing production of a Broadway show — once it closes there is simply no recapturing it. It’s not like a movie, or a TV show or anything you can stream forever.

All right.

If you are a writer, or an artist of any kind, you should head over to the Copyright Alliance website, where I answer 5 questions about the importance of copyrights and my long, illustrious writing career! I did the Q&A several months ago, so I don’t really remember what I said, but I’m guessing it was super lofty!

Seriously, though, if you are a creator, you need to understand the importance of protecting your copyrights, so check it out.

I am almost done with the rewrites of my Untitled Cleveland Drama TV Pilot. I alerted the head of production in L.A. that I should have the new draft to him by the end of this week! (I’m not sure if I’m crazy or not, but I feel pretty sure that I can actually achieve what I’ve promised. By Friday, we’ll all know for certain.)

And did you see that full moon last night??!! Wasn’t it spectacular? I was participating in a world-wide guided meditation last night (online), because there was an auspicious alignment of the star Sirius, the Orion constellation, and the forming of a Lion’s Gate over the pyramids at Giza in Egypt, along with the full moon and a lunar eclipse. It was quite an amazing meditation. (You can google 888 Lion’s Gate Meditation for all the various events that went on and what it meant.)

I have to say, it really was an incredibly powerful meditation for me. Or should I say, I was very deeply into it? And when the meditation was coming to a close, what to my wondering ears should appear, but the loudest train whistle ever. It felt like the train was getting ready to pass through my bedroom! Loyal readers of this lofty blog know how much I love trains and the sound of train whistles. So I took this as a sign that the Universe was chiming in on that amazing meditation.

My cats, however…. Man. At the absolute very moment the meditation was beginning, they got into a truly horrific cat fight. They have never done that before. It was not only alarming, but they brought it right into my bedroom, under the bed I was beginning the meditation on. It was really too weird. But eventually they settled down.

On other somewhat disturbing fronts… Turns out, I have to move again. This house I’m renting is going up for sale and I cannot afford to buy it. (That is putting it really, really mildly!) I’m going to stay here in the Hinterlands, though, because I love it here! I have been so happy, for the first time in my life. I mean, really, really peacefully happy. (Except of course for Bunny dying the moment I got here…)

I’m trying to look on the upcoming move as an incredible new adventure. Finally, I will be able to settle down and unpack all the boxes that contain 95% of my life…

Okay. Gotta scoot. I have a ton of re-writes to do around here today!! (Although, I must add that I am really, really happy with how it is all turning out.)

Have a wonderful Wednesday, wherever you are. Let’s close with this, okay, gang? Watch it — it only lasts about 1 minute. You will be amazed that this spectacular show is actually closing, in less than 1 year on Broadway and after 12 Tony nominations. Okay. Thanks for visiting. See ya.

These Days

December 22, 2016 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

I still can’t complain! Life in the hinterlands continues to delight me. That said, though, I pretty much made up my mind yesterday that I’ll hang out here in this rental house as long as it remains feasible, and then finally move back to New York.

Loyal readers of this lofty blog no doubt recall that for nearly 3 years, I was planning to move to Rhinebeck, NY, as soon as the developers decided when, exactly, they were going to tear down my old house.

That prospect was going to drag on for another 5 years, at the least, and so this past September, I sold my old house and now I’m renting a friend’s house in the amazing hinterlands of Ohio, while I focus on the TV pilots, and on a couple of books I’m writing (and, now, I’ve added writing the one-man play about Caiaphas into that mix), and try to figure out what the heck I want to do with the next half of my life.

So, yesterday, I decided.

Not only do I love Rhinebeck, but I have a couple of good friends who live there, and Manhattan is only a commuter train ride away, where most of the rest of my friends still reside. So that’s that.

This morning, like every morning these days, I awoke about 6 am, terribly missing my cats. Not just the 2 who recently died, but Buster, as well, who died in September of ’13. They were “my babies,” and now it seems like it is only a heartbeat later and all 3 of them are gone.

Even though Christmas is my favorite time of year, I’m not really celebrating this year. All my many, many boxes of Christmas stuff are in storage about 20 miles from here. I’m okay with where my life is at right now, even though it’s in a kind of limbo, still, I couldn’t help remembering all the many joyous past Christmases when my cats were still with me. For instance:

And I couldn’t help wondering, yet again, what life is all about.

The more I study for my ministry (which is, basically, 24/7), the more convinced I am that the “here & now” is all that exists in physical terms and that that only just barely exists. Meaning, I believe “here & now” is a construct of the physical senses that only exists for as far as our 5 senses can detect and that most of physical reality is just something we think is there, extending beyond us. The past was just a fleeting construct that somehow felt so intensely real, we can barely fight off the allure of it; and the future is a construct we imagine we will experience but never do because it’s really all just “here & now.”

I believe that immediately beyond what our 5 physical senses can detect lies the non-physical, which takes up Eternity. That we only perceive things here in the physical when we actually focus on perceiving them. Wallace Stevens described a similar idea in his famous poem “July Mountain” many years ago.

I believe we all have inner beings that have inner beings, who have inner beings, who have inner beings, who have inner beings, like a truly endless Matryoshka doll. And because of that, I feel that God truly is an unknowable, distant “Being” that is like some sort of “dream machine,” constantly, eternally, unfathomably dreaming every single solitary thing, idea, thought, person, creature, into its own “being-ness”. This is partly why my ministry is called The Edge of God Ministry — because I believe we “exist” here at the farthest edge of God, a God that never ceases creating, while we evolve into deliberate creators, learning how to dream our own thoughts into “being” until we become an inner being of someone else.

Until we all finally learn that everything is joyful and sacred and that everything, all across the board, exists because it chooses to. Eternally. And then we leave the physical realm and focus non-physically.

Even while I can’t prove any of this, it’s still what I believe. And for me, it adds a heightened element of sanctity to all these things that mean so much to me in the physical, and that brings me joy. And it doesn’t lessen the profundity of anything else that anyone else chooses to take joy in and bring into existence. We each define what matters to us. It’s all sacred.

And so I believe my cats choose to be here as much as I choose to have them in my life, and that only makes them all the more dear to me now that they’ve chosen to leave it.

I try to imagine how this distant “dream machine” called God could create so much love and create such an intensity of “being here” in the physical, and I remain in awe of God. And in awe of everyone and everything who chooses to come here and “Be” for awhile, multiplied by however many aeons it’s been going on.

As the sky became almost imperceptibly lighter, I knew it was time to stop missing “my babies,” get out of bed, and go to the kitchen and get a cup of coffee. Which I did. Only to bring the cup of coffee back to bed so I could continue marveling at creation.

Today, I am going to be working on my one-man play about Caiaphas, also continuing to re-learn Biblical Hebrew, while also continuing to listen to the lectures on “Jesus and His Jewish Influences,” by Jodi Magness, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania; lectures which are absolutely astounding in their depth of knowledge of the Hebrew Bible and the Jewish Apocrypha and the uncanny degree to which 1st Century Jewish Christians continued to carefully craft stories of Jesus to fit prophecy from the Hebrew Scriptures.

But it doesn’t make me love Jesus any less. To me, he grows more and more profound. What the heck was he really teaching back then that scared so many Jews and Romans, and that could make so many other Jews and Gnostics and Pagans cherish him so dearly that they were committed to making his name live forever?

I keep feeling as if I am on the verge of finding out…

So, there I sat as the sun came up, enjoying my coffee and the thoughts in my head, keenly missing my cats but treasuring them just the same, when Daddycakes jumped up on the bed and stared at me so lovingly. He’s not tame, he’s feral; now semi-feral as he is really starting to trust me — after 4 1/2 years. He is such a beautiful cat, and so compassionate. When Bunny died so suddenly, the morning after we moved here, Daddycakes cuddled up against her lifeless body; he was clearly in mourning, saying goodbye. These cats are so dear.

Remembering all this made me think of John Rutter’s lovely arrangement of All Things Bright and Beautiful, so I played it, over & over & over again, and eventually I got out of bed and resumed my participation in creating a really sacred day!

Christmas is almost here, gang! I hope you’re enjoying the lovely season. Thanks, as always, for visiting!

Yes, I’m Happy

November 10, 2016 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

We’re adjusting to life without Bunny and Fluffy and finding that life does, indeed, go on.

The shrine to Bunny, Fluffy, and Buster on top of my dresser.

And we are adjusting to a much smaller living space (discovering that we actually like the smaller space better!) and adjusting to the endless, endless, ENDLESS driving in order to get anywhere.

In case I wasn’t clear before — I am only renting this faraway house until I find a townhouse I want to buy back in “town,” as it were. So the endless driving won’t go on forever.

I am in the process of trying to streamline my schedule in order to settle back into writing again. I’m still a bit discombobulated by the many changes in my life — all during the last several months. The fact that I will have to move again in the not-too-distant future keeps me from really feeling settled in, but we’re getting there.

Also, just FYI, by “we” I mean myself and 8 cats… (The cats who will soon be earning their keep by being featured prominently in my upcoming mystery book, The Miracle Cats and the Case of the Purloined Passport.)

So. Speaking of mysteries…Two of my favorite worlds are colliding! Johnny Depp is slated to appear in yet another remake of Agatha Christy‘s Murder on the Orient Express!!

I’m guessing that with both Oscar-winning Judi Dench and oft-nominated-though-never-Oscar-winning Johnny Depp in the cast, their budget for creating a really splendid re-creation of the Orient Express train will undoubtedly be through the roof!! (YES! Diagram that sentence if you feel foolhardy enough!)

Also, at least in the tabloid gossip, Johnny Depp is rumored to be re-attached to his ex-common-law-wife, Vanessa Paradis. I have no idea of this is even partially true, gang, but I, for one, think it would be so great if it were true! For reasons I cannot reveal here, I am a Certified Expert on the number of times Johnny Depp has smiled in his entire life — the number is 5, by the way. And 4 of those times occurred while he was with Vanessa.

(Do you recall this photo?? This was the 2nd known time he smiled in his entire life…)

2nd known time Johnny Depp smiled in his entire life

We shall see, right, gang? Meanwhile, life goes on… Have a terrific November 10th wherever you are, whatever you’re doing — and, most importantly these days, to wherever you might be driving!!

See ya, folks, and thanks for visiting!

Nothing pithy or enlightening today

November 4, 2016 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

Just saying hi and letting everyone know I’m adjusting to the new house and to the loss of Bunny, so close on the heels of the loss of Fluffy.

The other cats have adjusted just fine and enjoy gamboling across the wide hardwood floors…(at all hours) (but particularly in the middle of the night)

I love living out here in the bucolic rolling tree-filled hills of non-urban, non-suburban Ohio. I’m not sure my beloved 2001 Mercury Sable LS Premium Sedan is as happy as I am, though. I’ve already had about $1500 worth of work done on the car in 2 weeks and also need to invest this coming week in a set of brand new tires… But I’m hoping that will be that for a while and that the car will be around for a lot longer. I’m racking up hundreds of miles on this poor car, really quickly. It wasn’t really meant for this kind of tootling around. But so far, so good.

I’m trying to get back on track with my various writing projects. The one-woman musical (Hiding in Plain Sight) with the actress in NY (Sandra Caldwell) is going superbly!! We are both verging on getting giddy about it. I’ve said it here before and I’ll say it again — man, these revisions and re-writes and re-focusing stuff takes FOREVER. But… it is worth it.

Next, I get back on track with The Miracle Cats and the Case of the Purloined Passport, illustrated by my friend, Val, in Brooklyn. There have really been a lot of intense challenges in both our lives this whole year, but we are finally feeling able to tackle this project again. I will work on that while I await revision suggestions on the two TV projects I’m tackling with folks in L.A.

Yes, life is good.

Okay, I leave you with what Ive been listening to in my car lately!! Remember Lou Bega? He’s still around. I love Lou Bega. And I love this old song of his from the 90s: I’ve Got A Girlfriend Everywhere. Give it a listen — preferably at top volume, while you’re driving around! And, as always, thanks for visiting, gang!!

See ya!!

R.I.P. Bunny

October 24, 2016 marilyn jaye lewis 6 Comments

bunny-with-buster — Bunny in the foreground

My beloved cat, Bunny, died yesterday morning. Bunny has been grieving the loss of Fluffy, my cat who died several weeks ago from cancer. Bunny never got over it. She stopped eating, for the most part — living on cat’s milk and chicken stock — but seemed to be improving over the past few days. The move on Saturday to the new house was stressful on all the cats (to put it mildly), but especially so on Bunny. She had a heart attack yesterday morning, around 10 o’clock.

I will miss her so very much.

Above, she is pictured with her brother, Buster, who left us 3 years ago. I know they are frolicking together again — with Fluffy, too! I am so lonely right now for all of them. I can’t believe the old gang is gone, now. Bunny was almost 15. They had all been with me since they were kittens.

A selfie of me and Bunny. I can't remember which one of us snapped the candid shot! Probably me, since Bunny almost never had her phone with her. — A selfie of me and Bunny. I can’t remember which one of us snapped the candid shot! Probably me, since Bunny almost never had her phone with her.

Saint-Exupery was Righter than I Knew!

August 25, 2014 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

Yesterday afternoon, I took a break in my homework and went down to the kitchen. I filled the watering can and opened the kitchen door, went out on the stoop to water the herbs and the geraniums, came directly back inside, and in that short time, somehow Brad managed to be out in plain sight, dashing across the kitchen floor with my cat, Bunny, in shocked pursuit.

At first, I screamed. I screamed because an enormous spider was suddenly dashing across my kitchen floor!

Next, I screamed. I screamed because I immediately recognized it as Brad and I didn’t want Bunny to kill him!

Like some lunatic, I screamed, “Bunny, no! It’s Brad! It’s Brad!”

Oddly enough, both Bunny and Brad froze in their tracks. Bunny froze because she was stunned that I was so suddenly screaming. Brad froze because I think he was stunned that anyone in the kitchen knew him by his Christian name…

I grabbed the kitchen broom, thinking I would sweep Brad out the kitchen door to the outside world. But instead he climbed right on to the whisks and I was able to simply carry him and calmly deposit him outside into the garden right outside the kitchen door.

It only took a handful of nano-seconds for the whole thing to transpire, but after it was over, and Brad was safely back in the wilds, I thought to myself, OMG, how weird! I actually recognized a spider. Saint-Exupery was right! When you name something, you tame it, and it becomes familiar to you; you recognize it as distinct from all the others in the world that are just like it.

So Brad came into my life not just to terrify me and teach me about taming my fears, but also to teach me about — well, I don’t know; I’m not sure what. But it has something to do with naming, claiming, taming and how it leads to caring and recognition.

Well, all right! How’s that for a great way to start a Monday morning? It should be an okay week here. I actually got an email from the ScriptPipeline Contest people. I had entered my TV Pilot, Cleveland’s Burning, in their TV Pilot contest earlier this year. I was not among the finalists, but it turns out I was a writer that “showed promise”, so they want to have a free phone consultation with me this week about Cleveland’s Burning; about how it’s going, how it’s progressing, what my plans are. I’m guessing that they also want me to invest in their company again in some way, but that could just be jadedness talking. We’ll see. I told the producers working with me on the pilot right now that this phone consultation was going to happen, and they were pleased, but also, you know — “well, we’ll be very interested to hear what they have to tell you.” (Meaning (I think): don’t take this to other producers.)

I have to say, life is really looking good on all fronts. I hope it’s looking pretty good wherever you are, too, gang! Have a terrific Monday. Thanks for visiting! See ya.