Happy New Year one and all.

The city offers many hidden treasures, not the least of which is this gorgeous pocket in uptown Central Park. I didn't know its name — The Conservatory Gardens — until I found a recent blurb about it but I have been amazed by its beauty for several years now. It looks just like this photo. You feel as if you are momentarily living in a place like Versailles. You become an instant poet just by visiting. It's on 104th Street and 5th avenue but don't tell anyone. It's our secret.

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Season's greetings to everyone — Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah and all other bounteous celebrations in which you may partake this holiday season.

Here's me, my brother Alex and our friends Chris and Julie at our bash yesterday. Alex kept digging out ancient bottles of delicious intoxicating elixirs. Twas fun.

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Gallo Nero means black rooster, the name of a wine bar on 44th street off 9th avenue with a huge assortment of wines. And speaking of color, the red of the Pinot Noir we had — deep and bright both — reminded me of an art film where a main focus is on a certain red that keeps appearing.

Offering a refined rustic atmosphere, the food menu is amazing. I had thickly piled masses of vegetables and cheese on thick crusty bread that they called bruschetta but which is unlike any you've had before — and a beautiful salad. The service was superb.

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Unassuming on the outside, enchanting on the inside, La Paella in the East Village features a tapas menu to make your mouth water. 

The food is pretty much perfect. I love the decor, down to the menu design, which has a beautifully distressed thick cover on it. The place is small and intimate, perfect for a date. 

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Good things come in twos. More evidence of the sublime evolution of my cat household, which was once a scary zone if these two were near each other. Now, there's a place for everything and everything in its place.

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My kitty Autumn has started using the stairs and loft I put up originally for my other kitty Cassandra over a year ago — and loving it.

Naturally, I had to paint the stairs in a cool color to coordinate with my office. The stairs and loft are by my web client, Kitty Cat Loft. I loved them as soon as I saw them. Cassandra has not taken to them, however. I think I might have spaced the spiral carpeted stairs too closely. Autumn is very light so bounding up the stairs is easy for her. Cassandra is 11 pounds, which isn't heavy but she is voluptuous and maybe the stairs are too close for comfort. Still, Autumn has been with me for a year and has only just started using this awesome piece of cat furniture. She hangs out on the loft and has appropriated it.

The stairs are extremely space efficient, taking up only 14" of floor space. They fit in any corner or the middle of a wall. The loft sits over any doorway. I think you could put it over a window too.

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The Allure of Empty Space

Lace with an edge — the allure of empty or cutout space is a feature often overlooked. But not by savvy artists and designers, whether they work with music, writing or fashion.

Two examples of cutouts used beautifully are above, in a skirt by Robert Rodriguez and boots by Luichiny. The cutouts have a sort of inside out lace effect. Fill these beautiful empty spaces with your imagination. To me, they conjur romance and possibility. Like a night sky at twilight as street lights start to go on, shadows emerge and a great event awaits.

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Chestnuts have started showing up this time of year. They are so delicious, with their steaming insides. They are so stubborn too, with their thick shells that defy opening unless you are willing to endure some finger pain (worth it). I've had them from New York street vendors forever and also had them from a Paris street vendor — equally wonderful. They are one of those small things that make the changing of seasons fun.

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In keeping with the super cool current trend that allows consumers to "design" their own sneakers (choose unique color combinations anyway), Pantone has partnered with Seavees to create Pantone-colored sneakers.

For non-designers out there, The Pantone Color Matching System is the most commonly used color reference system for graphic designers. It allows you to communicate better about color to printers, clients and anyone working on a project. Such a system is needed because monitors, papers, printers and all sorts of variables mean that the purple or green you are expecting might turn out very different in a finished product if you don't have a common referral point. A few competing system exist, such as TruMatch but Pantone is the most widely used.

When you use Pantone for years, you come to "know" certain colors like you know your daily possessions or friends. Ketchup can look very 186 (bright but deep red). A sky could look quite 300 (sky blue) or more 312 (turquoise). I love the colors I use a lot and it's also fun to "shop" for new hues.

Being able to tint your own sneakers is a great idea. I would like this idea carried over into clothing. I'd like to be able to get my favorite JBrand jeans in any Pantone shade. That would make me really excited and boy would I buy a lot of them. I'd probably even start to buy outfits for other people since my way of combining colors makes people happy. Listen up, apparel manufacturers; this is a great trend.

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Hugely successful and hilarious relationship advice book “He's Just Not That Into You” might not be what you would expect from the no-punches pulled title. Even Autumn (the kitty) loved it, as you can see, although like many of us females, you can tell she found the information thought-provoking, in some ways distressing and also illuminating.

The essence of the book is that women deserve better treatment than what they are often getting in modern relationships, primarily while dating but also applied to lackluster marriages. Comedian author Greg Behrendt and co-author Liz Tuccillo wrote for Sex and the City, which had an episode that spawned this book. The book is laugh out loud funny and written in a great style. But the serious message is not to accept less than you know you deserve and that if you do, you are keeping yourself from the greatness that waits for you. It's a very pro-female book. And while women might sometimes treat men badly too in relationships, it is a uniquely female trait to be overly solicitous to men who have not earned that honor.

Countless examples that most women will relate to of guys who say one thing and do another are given, such as a guy saying "Oh, wow, we really have to hang out," and then never calling or only calling last minute etc. etc. The book says not to give this guy another thought but just to move on whereas lots of women will ponder and agonize over why he would have said he was interested and then not act on it. This book is like having a blunt parent who adores you telling you, "Honey, that is just not what you deserve. And don't you already really know it too?" Once you pick up on the concept, it truly is freeing and you do feel empowered to only have great relationships in your life. Some traditional dating beliefs are espoused, such as that men need to pursue women and not vice versa. Almost all relationship experts agree on this point, powerful modern free-thinking women notwithstanding. This is great reading for any women you care about who aren't in fantastic relationships.

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Super popular series MadMen focuses on a Madison Avenue ad agency and its inhabitants in the year 1960. I don't have TV but rented the first season on DVD. The plots bring up many interesting social, cultural and psychological issues, set in a period that is our current time's roots.

Good writing and acting and a stylish design aside, what has riveted me to the series' story lines is that this time in history is our current time's immediate predecessor. It's so far away and yet just beyond the door. It informs much of what we don't think about. So much has changed since then, it's almost unbelievable. In this time, men work and women are almost all wives or secretaries. There are three maverick female characters who most modern women will relate to, myself included. They are the wealthy and commanding dazzling leader of a Jewish department store, a free spirited unmarried commercial artist living in the Village and a (scandalous) divorcee who moves into the lead characters' suburban community with her two young children and the other mothers can't figure out how or what she's about.

These societal questions have me thinking more deeply than usual about what adulthood is, what adult roles are and what I myself want out of life, relationships, work and love. I've never seen this period portrayed in a way that made me realize what it was like to live in it as a young adult unless it's just hitting me this way because of my own time when watching it.

In keeping with these thoughts, the other day I thought about the Joni Mitchell lyrics from her song Court and Spark:

“It seemed like he read my mind
He saw me mistrusting him
And still acting kind
He saw how I worried sometimes
I worry sometimes”

Like MadMen and other stories and art, there are moments when meaning pops out and talks directly to us. I heard these lyrics differently than I had heard them before and it made me think about Joni Mitchell writing them and feeling them as an adult. When I first heard them, I thought of them at face value. Now I feel that “adult worry” and the worry in a relationship too is such a deep and troubling thing and I get so much more from what she is saying. I guess you never stop growing up in life, if you're lucky, that is.

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