All of my friends from New York know Jill Skelly. Jill is one of my oldest friends, like a big sister I never had. Her folks are my folks next door neighbors and when I was in high school Jill had moved back in temporarily with her baby daughter and we started hanging out a lot and going to Grateful Dead shows, art exhibitions, readings, restaurants and all things cultural. Jill is crazy in the greatest sense of the word, was very influential in my formative years artistically, provided me a free art studio behind her house when I moved back to NY until coming out to LA, taught me much of what I know about cooking and has always been so awesome and generous to me. I often come home to great mailings with articles, artworks and packages from her on my doorstep.. In fact just yesterday I received a cheese-making kit and some cheese recipe cookbooks from her, and a copy of Animal Vegetable, Mineral. Some other chart-topping gifts from Jill: A collection of about 150 live Grateful Dead tapes and easily 15 Dead t-shirts, all from the 80's (the most incredible treasure for a 16-year old Deadhead), a completely full toolbox to take to art school for my HS graduation, a Marc Jacobs handbag for college graduation (which is gorgeous and Yellow and I still have it), my LeCrueset for my 30th birthday, and a DeWalt drill for Christmas last year, coincidentally, also yellow and gorgeous. This is gift-giving at it's most outrageous, people. I am always beside myself with magnificent amounts of appreciation.
