I am a lifelong Springsteen fan. No one has generated the volume of quality music as The Boss. But this album, my opinion, is by far his best. His best given the message, his best given the intention, his best given when he did it. I LOVE Darkness on The Edge of Town, The River and obviously Born to Run and Born in the USA are iconic. But this album, to me, means more. And this particular song is life affirming.
Back to present day, what did we do this day? Ask her…
July 25, 2026, I was invited to a surprise birthday party for my friend Darlene who owns Darlafoxx Bridal. I took advantage of the summer to wear this cute outfit!
The party was lovely, I was very happy to be there, and Dar was clearly touched by the gathering and the surprise. I then hit the nearby 55th Street Marina, had a few, chatted up a few patrons and watched a cover band on a spectacular evening, at almost sunset. Good day, all in all!
Here is an older post, but again, something that still means something.
Rising From The Ashes
Or better yet, moving forward from a pandemic.
No complaining here. No one in my immediate family missed a paycheck. I have a wife and two adult daughters, only one of which got COVID. She’s fine. But what the pandemic did was it forced me to rethink what it meant to be Kandi and HOW to be Kandi. [Brief update: After this was written, my wife got COVID and as a result, she is 100% deaf in one ear. Something known as Sudden Hearing Loss. It is viral, COVID happened to be the virus here. Ironically, I know at least two other women who had the same issue. While we move forward, it has reshaped how we navigate the world. Hearing loss like that creates equilibrium issues. Not cancer or anything, but a game changer, as we as human beings all deal with various issues. It has caused my wife to be much, much more of a homebody.]
This essay will serve the dual purpose of discussing where I see myself and how I move forward as well as being a public service announcement for volunteering, which I will address first.
This world never gets any better if we do not make the effort to improve it. Some have the reach, resources and the platform to make large scale changes. Others, like myself, can only do so one person at a time. And we have no right to complain if we do not do our part. Recently, I was involved with The American Heart Association’s STEM Goes Red for Girls event on the campus of Cleveland State University. There, classes of young women came and spent a few hours learning how STEM (science-technology-engineering-mathematics) can help them make a difference in the world. I was completely accepted and a valued part of the day. And I was honored to be there.
I sat with a retired teacher, whom I got to know, and I talked about the responsibility I feel, to be an example and how I feel that (forgive the third person here) Kandi is special. She exists for a reason, and it is my obligation to allow her to flourish in whatever way she was meant to (still haven’t figured that one out). People are drawn to me in a way that I find quite remarkable.
If you want a way to go out, to be accepted, to be part of the mainstream, then volunteer. Give your time. Any charity for which you might work wants help. They will welcome that help and they will welcome you! You will get the opportunity to interact with others on your terms, generally without concern about being accepted. How do I know this? Because I have done it, lived it and used it to make myself almost completely accepted wherever I go. I have worked with over 25 principally mainstream charities and/or theaters. People now seek me out because they got to know me and want to be a friend, all because I simply gave my time and for me, I did it in a dress (or a skirt, you get the point!).
So as the restrictions of the pandemic have been eased recently, live events are back. And I have worked a few. It has helped me more forward. And with the downtime we all had, I remade myself. I have become a model, published in three, soon to be four, magazines and having walked three fashion shows, including New York Fashion Week. I have been in now five movies [now over 20], one of which was a big budget Netflix movie. And I have taken improv classes and performed a few times in public.
Don’t settle. Find a way. There is always a way. The world simply is not an excuse to be yourself!
Lost track of how far I′ve gone
How far I′ve gone, how high I’ve climbed
On my back′s a sixty pound stone
On my shoulder, half mile of line
