The deep pain that is felt at the death of every friendly soul arises from the feeling that there is in every individual something which is inexpressible, peculiar to him alone, and is, therefore, absolutely and irretrievably lost.
(Schopenhauer.)
I’ve been mourning the loss of a very close childhood friend. She was very literally the first friend I ever had. Because we moved quite far apart, in the last several years, our contact has been social networking and phone calls on each other’s birthdays (my lucky number, 22, is owing to her birthday of February 22nd). I do have to give her a wry thumbs-up because it was very clever to die of breast cancer in October so that we’d all remember every year to donate and walk and light candles and the like, but I can’t say I have been much of a fan of the actual passing.
In any man who dies there dies with him
his first snow and kiss and fight….
Not people die but worlds die in them.
(Yevgeny Yevtushenko, People.)
My friend had time to say goodbye to her sons, her husband, her sister and her parents, and to all of the rest of us who loved her. But what I have been struggling with is the loss of that world inside her: a world whose first gasps I was lucky enough to share with her, a world whose confident, feet-found orbit was still only just beginning. I feel so bitter and helpless about it. I didn’t realize how badly I’d been repressing it until I went to her funeral at our old church several hours away (alone, which was a terrible mistake). I didn’t weep or make a spectacle, but I didn’t stop crying. It was like I couldn’t.
Afterward, a very nice, very short woman came up and began gently asking me about my friend, and I explained that we’d known each other since we were very, very young, and had even gone to school together off and on. Turns out the woman was one of my kindergarten teachers. The nice one. Still nice, after all these years. I’ll explain that another day.
The point is — horrible. Bitterness. Anger. Grief. But not so much anger that I wish to assuage it by some sort of strike back; that would not at all comfort me, because I’m not down to facts just yet. I’m not ready to slap on a pink-ribboned tank top and run any marathons to make things better for others, because I don’t give a shit about all that yet. That is for sure.
I feel like a lost and selfish monster, surrounded by all this breast cancer awareness promotional material and not even up to the point of resentment of the disease; ergo, mystified by the idea of embracing that activism to trump my grief. I don’t like to feel that way. And I like to do all kinds of charity malarkey. I really do. I’ve donated this month already in the name of another friend’s mother, who beat it two years ago.
But this new thing — I am just not ready to even think of my friend’s death in terms of what killed her. That seems objective to the point of frightening. But I should strive for it? Right? How do you get to there?
No, you take tuberculosis. My smoking does not go over at all.
Destroying something beautiful: sometimes Marla feels like doing it, too. I can say I mean to quit smoking cigarettes, I can say I know I should, I can say I don’t know how, and that everyone should have a vice and I’m banking on them discovering a cure for cancer by the time I get it, and a million other excuses or clever deflections, but it’s all lies, and worst of all to myself. I just don’t want to. I’m not ready.
So I guess that’s what I’ll tell my lungs when they decide to try and fail me, too. Sorry, guys — I wasn’t ready to quit.
From her name and slyly amused, distinctly un-cheesecakey pose and expressions, I figured that the lovely and talented Linné Nanette Ahlstrand would be that rare beast, the international Playmate.
I love nearly all of the shots in this pictorial, but this one here is tippy toppy favorite.
Color me all wrong. Ms. Ahlstrand was actually born in Chicago, Illinois, the hometown of Playboy and a city from which a substantial number of early and heyday Playmates hailed. The text which accompanied Ms. Ahlstrand’s pictorial alluded to having discovered her on the beach in Los Angeles but it is rich with malarkey and does not even bother to feature an interview with her, so I have my doubts.
The title of her write-up was “The Laziest Girl in Town,” which also lead me to expect to find her of some German or Swedish extraction. The title comes from the song “The Laziest Gal in Town” a Cole Porter tune, which was a longtime staple of Marlene Dietrich’s performing repertoire.
Adore the color in this shot — bathing suit, lips, parasol. (kissy-finger-pop gesture) Amazing.
Ms. Dietrich was a famously German-American international treasure who kept on ticking unlike her early celebrity companions such as Joan Crawford and the great Garbo and she had begun to tour live around this time (1958) in addition to continuing to appear in movies.
As an example, she made her biggest pictures after age 35, something like an early model of Meryl Streep. Witness for the Prosecution, Judgment at Nuremberg, and Alfred Hitchcock’s Stage Fright were all made when Marlene was over 40 years old. That is nothing to sneeze at. I have an album on which she sings “The Laziest Girl in Town” and she still has such a wonderful husky strong accent that it sounds like “lay-zeh-est gell een tone.” Love it.
With that in mind, I figured they were establishing with the title of Ms. Ahlstrand’s article a link to Marlene and particularly one of her former screen characters to parallel Ms. Ahlstrand bieng of foreign extraction and languishing in the Western sun. See, Dietrich played diverse roles in her youngest years under Josef von Sternberg but became indelibly known by larger and more modern audiences for portraying a sexy bargirl in the Old West named Frenchy — despite her outrageously strong German accent — in the sweeping frontier film Destry Rides Again (George Marshall, 1939).
The posters for the film claimed that it had “Corralled the greatest cast in cinema history!” Dietrich’s career-making part in Destry Rides Again was parodied by Madeline Kahn, departed queen of all that’s wonderful, in the 1974 Mel Brooks satire Blazing Saddles as the saloon singer Lili Von Schtupp (R.I.P., MK).
Of course all this conjecture came to nothing, like I said, when I realized that Ms. Ahlstrand was from Chicago and not of any exotic blonde overseas extraction. She moved from Chicago to New York to pursue modeling when she was younger, then out to L.A. and environs to dig in to acting in film and television.
Though Linné was best known by audiences for her work in television as a dispatcher on the program Highway Rescue, she was also in several films throughout the late 50’s and early 60’s, including Senior Prom, Beast from Haunted Cave, and Holiday for Lovers. Her most substantial big screen role was in Herschell Gordon Lewis’s Living Venus, in which she played Diane.
Unlike the gory funfests for which Lewis later became known, Living Venus is more of a biopic. Related to this post, the subject of Living Venus‘s rise-and-fall story is a publisher very much like Hugh Hefner. Jack Norwall, the fictionalized Hef played by Bill Kerwin, starts a magazine called Pagan.
Pagan’s success leads him to leave his loving fiancee and take up with his lovely and talented model, a waitress he discovered while hatching the idea for the magazine. Ms. Ahlstrand does not play the model, but rather the jilted good girl. The model ends up leaving him and killing herself as he becomes increasingly arrogant and tyrannical due to his success, and Norwall comes to realize that being on top was not all he cracked it up to be. But too late, as he has lost for good his fiancee, best friend, and soul.
I’d like to point out that in my opinion the only part of Living Venus that really parallels Hef is Jack Norwall starting a successful nudie mag. Hef did not leave his wife for another woman; quite the opposite actually. So, no.
A little looker, Ms. Ahlstrand was 5’2″ at the time of her appearance in Playboy, which I believe puts her on an equal footing with Kai Brendlinger (bleah) for shortest Playmate until feisty pocket rocket Joni Mattis’s famously not-nude appearance (love her forever) and eventual eclipsement by Sue Williams who at 4’11” at the time of her appearance in 1965 is the pocketiest rocket of them all, aww — that we know of. It’s tough to say for sure because, prior to September of 1959, the Playmates were not required to complete a data sheet. So unless their height came up in the article or their contemporaneous stats appeared in parallel work elsewhere, the math is fuzzy.
Click below for scans of the original article.
Tragically Ms. Ahlstrand died of cancer in January of 1967. She was only 30 years old and had been married less than a year and a half. R.I.P. to such a young talent.
Voice of the Internet: Hello, E. I am the Voice of the Internet and I am here to judge your journal.
Good Ol’ E: Fuck a bunch of Voice of the Internet. You’re not going to make me apologize for anything.
VOI: We’ll see. Let’s start: Your blog lacks a strong male figure.
GO’E: Your mom lacks a strong male figure.
Look out: Jessica Rabbit will hit you with a purse, next three miles.
VOI: Yes, and I have often wondered if this is part of what lead her to abandon me and be a drug-shooting hooker who is not one of the ones with a heart of gold at all. So thanks for reminding me, Miss Apology-Not McInsensitivepants.
GO’E: Shit. Okay, well, still I must say that is a totally forced insult name, even with allowances for being made up on the fly and under duress.
VOI: I have difficulty making up insult names, on the fly or otherwise, because I have short-term memory loss as a result of a head injury from being dropped as a baby.
GO’E: That explains a lot.
Ir♥sh boy Gabriel Byrne for the priest picture because why not?
VOI: Oh? It happened when my grandmother dropped me upon hearing the news of my underground-decommissioned-firetruck-racing father’s accidental decapitation when he was saying Mass because he was also a priest on top of racing. Though I was only a few weeks old, my grandmother was holding me since, as I have just mentioned, my mother is a drug-addicted hooker who abandoned me. Does that “explain a lot”?
GO’E: Okay, actually no, because what the mothership was a bedamned underground-decommissioned-firetruck-racing priest even doing with a drug-addicted hooker? And how do you race a firetruck?
VOI: He accompanied a negotiator to a police standoff with my mother in a motel room, a standoff which was over of course drugs and hooking, and my father succumbed to Stockholm Syndrome and I was conceived. I don’t know how you race a firetruck* because my father it seems was the only one and the knowledge died with him that awful day in Mass when he was decapitated by accident.
GO’E: If he was the only one, then was it like a beat-your-own-best-time thing or else who did he firetruck-race against?
VOI: We don’t know. They have never come forward despite the reward.
GO’E: I am getting straight up interested despite my own damned self. What reward?
Just pretend Gabriel Byrne is behind the wheel in the cab.
VOI: My grandmother has posted the offer of a reward to anyone with information about my father’s firetruck-racing, as we did not know about the secret racing life he led until after his death, when we discovered an embroidered “Four-time Underground-decommissioned-firetruck-race Winner” robe** in his effects. When she passes on, which will be soon because she has recently been diagnosed with cataracts —
GO’E: Not typically fatal.
VOI: — plus liver, stomach, and ovarian cancer —
GO’E: Shit. Sorry.
VOI: — then in accordance with her wishes, I will add to the reward fund with any leftover money after we settle up the estate. I anticipate that the reward will go as high as about $3500.
GO’E: Huh. I need to say: for being the Voice of the Internet, you are awfully fucking pretty specific.
VOI: You really say cusses a lot.
GO’E: What the what? After all this shit, you’re going to try to bring me down with some motherfucking ridiculous chump change criticism like that? “You really say cusses a lot.” Like, dude, how even old are you?
VOI: I am ten and I can’t say I am appreciating your king-size cusses.
GO’E: Oh, effing cheezits. This is going all kinds of not well. Heck. Know what? I’m sorry.
VOI: So the Voice of the Internet wins? Against you?
GO’E: Dude. The Voice of the Internet wins the whole dad-blessed thing against Good Ol’ E for alwaystimes, okay?
And……..scene.
*for the record you underground race decommissioned firetrucks the way you race regular cars ‘cept you do it a-way out in the country at this quarry behind my friend’s stepfather’s ranch and you better believe you run the sirens THE WHOLE TIME it is the fucking shit sorry kid but only a king-size cuss will do for how much of the fucking shit firetruck-racing is: all of the fucking shit okay so pass it on but try to keep it underground.
**He actually won five times but they don’t know it because he left that robe in a truck stop in Tulsa. Total bummer cause he loved that thing.
This entry was originally posted on November 3, 2009 at 3:57 pm. It’s been slightly altered, but not much.
Gilda Radner. Love. Patron saint. Heroine. Gar. I can’t talk about it.
Gilda as Roseanne Rosannadanna, the colorful news anchor with aggressive speech patterns.
If the name only faintly rings a bell for you, Gilda is the late great funny lady who was the queen of comedy in the early years of SNL. She was the first Not Quite Ready For Primetime player officially cast on the show. Noteworthy character creations that have had lasting cultural impact were Roseanne Rosannadanna and Emily Litella.
With Chevy Chase in her Emily “Nevermind” Litella character, who had comic malapropisms and bad hearing.
This Music Moment comes from her 1979 special “Gilda Live!,” a one-woman Broadway musical and comedy revue. Song starts around :35, because it was the opening number and she gets such a huge standing o that she can’t even calm people down enough to be heard until then.
A rooster says, “Good morning”
With a, “Cock-a-doodle-doo” – “Good morning!”
A horse’s neigh is just his way
Of saying, “How are you?”
A lion growls, “Hello!”
And owls ask “Why?” and “Where?” and “Who?”
May I suggest you get undressed
And show them your wazoo? – Ohhhh,
The animals, the animals,
Let’s talk dirty to the animals.
Fuck you, Mister Bunny.
Eat shit, Mister Bear.
If they don’t love it, they can shove it.
Frankly, I don’t care! – Ohhhhh,
The animals, the animals,
Let’s talk dirty to the animals.
Up yours, Mister Hippo!
Piss off, Mister Fox.
Go tell a chicken, “Suck my dick,” and
Give him chicken pox. – Ohhhhhh,
The animals, the animals,
Let’s talk dirty to the animals
From birds in the treetops
To snakes in the grass – But,
Never tell an alligator, “Bite my…” (No!)
Never tell an alligator, “Bite my…” (Yes!)
Never tell an alligator, “Bite my snatch!”
“I’m not so funny. Gilda was funny. I’m funny on camera sometimes. In life, once in a while. Once in a while. But she was funny.” — Gene Wilder
Official site of Gilda’s Club, a “community meeting place for people living with cancer, their families and friends. There are 22 open clubhouses and nine in development in North America. Gilda’s Club was founded by Joanna Bull, Gilda Radner’s cancer psychotherapist during the time she had cancer; Radner’s husband, Gene Wilder; and broadcaster Joel Siegel. … The organization takes its name from Radner’s comment that cancer gave her ‘membership to an elite club I’d rather not belong to’ ” (the wiki).
You can make financial donations into an earmarked fund so people have a place to stay while their loved ones are getting treated, or you could send blankets and books and toys for kids to play with in the waiting room. Maybe old ipods and stuff, even, actually. Or think about donating time and creativity. Draw a comic book, cross-stitch “I’m sorry your wife is going to be bald for a while” on a tea towel with a sad face; you know, do something Gilda would approve of. Think outside the box!
“It is so hard for us little human beings to accept this deal that we get. It’s really crazy, isn’t it? We get to live, then we have to die. What we put into every moment is all we have.” — Gilda.
I feel like I may have got a little down here and there on that last gal, what with my none-too-pleased remarks alluding to what I consider to be her lamentable decades-long trail of desperation, so here’s one of those Playmates who makes me proud to be a Playboy defender.
Gloria Root, the lovely and talented Miss December 1969, is proof that beauty often does come with brains.
Photographed by Pompeo Posar
It is Gloria’s conviction that a major upheaval is both necessary and inevitable in the United States. “We’ve managed to narrow down all the freedoms we take pride in. We’ve created a political aristocracy that we didn’t want, and too many of us are hopelessly trapped in that tired old business of getting an ‘education’ and a job that doesn’t mean anything.” Gloria believes that American society today contains a “hard-core revolutionary middle” that bridges economic, racial and generational gaps — “not just a radical rabble, as the politicians would have us believe.”
“Individuals who have used hallucinogens or pot can experience life in more subtle ways and accept each other more readily than people who haven’t.” And unorthodox costumes, according to Gloria, serve to remind orthodox citizens “that there are other ways to live than what happens to be considered ‘normal’ here and now. If more people cared enough to expand their viewpoints by studying history or anthropology, they’d realize how many different life styles are natural and they’d be more tolerant. Young people aren’t pushing any particular life style — just the freedom to choose. And the youth revolution bridges all boundaries.” (“Revolutionary Discovery,” Playboy, December 1969.)
[Gloria] graduated from Rhode Island School of Design with degrees in fine arts and architecture. She then took a Master’s Degree in City Planning and a Master’s of Architecture at the University of California, Berkeley.
In 1980, she opened her own planning firm, Planning Analysis and Development, in San Francisco. She headed the firm until 1998, when she relocated to New York. While in New York, Root headed the strategic planning services division of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. She returned to San Francisco in 2002 to a job as a project manager for Auberge Resorts. She later took a senior position with RBF Consulting.
From 1990 to 1998, Root was a board member of San Francisco Urban Planning + Research Association, a public-policy think-tank promoting good government and sustainable urban planning. (the wiki)
Gloria died of cancer in January, 2006.
When not grappling with environmental and growth issues, Gloria was both an avid fan of professional football and an aficionado of the performing and cinematic arts. She was a world traveler, which contributed to her distinctive savoir faire. Long before it became fashionable, Gloria deserved to be called a “foodie” wowing her chums with her culinary delights. Dancer, skier, runner, Gloria was gifted with an exceptional physical grace. Of all her accomplishments, however, the power of Gloria’s mind was the most remarkable. Few possessed her ability to probe and debate current events with such intellectual horsepower and insight. When Gloria’s flame burned, it burned bright. (Obituary in the San Francisco Chronicle.)
I think Gloria Root is a woman who was definitely quite a total package. Beauty, brains, compassion, “different-ness,” and drive. RIP.
The other day Jan-Han, who is going through chemo and has mentioned how sick she is of being Brave Little Cancer Girl, brought up the quote, “It’s not about waiting for the storm to pass; it’s about learning to dance in the rain.”
Magnetic Fields – Nothing Matters When We’re Dancing
I think she hit the nail on the head of how to age into greater and greater love, your whole life. An attitude of patient acceptance and seeking of enjoyment in all things, natural and emotional. Abandoning expectations, not letting them poison your outlook and lead you to choose disappointment over delight. I think this is true of all the long-time together and happily-married couples I know. I think they have figured that out. How to dance together, in balance.
I am honestly not ready to continue thinking about it. It puts grace and hope in my heart, but it also makes me feel bittersweet and sad, and fearful for the future. But this song is just as beautiful and deceptively simple as that original idea, and it makes me feel the same as that train of thought did, so I will let it say the rest for me.
Dance with me my old friend
once before we go
Let’s pretend this song won’t end
and we never have to go home
and we’ll dance among the chandeliers
And nothing matters when we’re dancing
In tattered tatters you’re entrancing
Be we in Paris or in Lansing
nothing matters when we’re dancing
nothing matters when we’re dancing
You’ve never been more beautiful
your eyes like two full moons
As here in this poor old dance hall
among the dreadful tunes
the awful songs we don’t even hear…
And nothing matters when we’re dancing
In tattered tatters you’re entrancing
Be we in Paris or in Lansing
nothing matters when we’re dancing
nothing matters when we’re dancing
Today some quickies from Drew on humility, being true to oneself, and having a good self-image.
“I definitely don’t think that I’m hot doo-doo. I don’t.”
“I used to look in the mirror and feel shame, I look in the mirror now and I absolutely love myself.”
“There’s something liberating about not pretending. Dare to embarrass yourself. Risk.”
Today, I am trying to put together something spectacular for the Chili Cookoff that Paolo and Miss D are hosting tomorrow. Everyone is going to be there, and they’ve all snatched up the available sides: Miss D is doing cornbread and I think apple pie; Jonohs is of course on cheesecake duty (“legendary”); the LBC is making one of her amazing dips so she has that and chips nailed down already; Corinnette is bringing beverages; Geo, Paolo, and the Gentleman have all opted to enter top secret chili recipes; Jan-Han grabbed pasta salad right out from under my nose for which I do not begrudge her (like I am going to tell my oldest friend’s recently cancer-surviving mom who I adore that pasta salad is my signature dish, and I dare you to suggest I ought); I feel like all that’s left is brats and fancy sauces and rolls, but that feels super-unoriginal. If you have ideas, please throw them my way!
Meanwhile, as I get kind of shady and nervous about large social gatherings, I’ll be keeping the lovely and talented DB’s advice in mind today and work on inner peace. Today, inner peace: tomorrow, a chili cookoff. See, when I write it out like that, my goals are not only miniscule but almost embarassingly easy to achieve. Hurray!
“It’s the Muppet Show! With our very special guest star, Twiggy!”
“The Muppet Show,” Season 1, Episode 21: Twiggy, aka Lesley Lawson, nee Lesley Hornby, sings “In My Life,” (Lennon/McCartney, 1965) with a very simple, beautifully arranged wind and string orchestra backing her. Original air date December 19, 1976.
The picture montage that accompanies Twiggy’s lovely cover of this wonderful song is surprisingly moving. She was an icon during a time when beautiful people actually cared about life beyond their own pretty noses: yeah, they were high as kites most of the time, but you know what? They really wanted to make this planet a better place, they dreamed big about equality and freedom, and not just record sales and cheap retail clothing lines and scoring points with the press.
The scenes evoked by the images in the montage and the people featured in them are even better when you consider how much more she could include in such a montage now, having continued to enrich the world with her acting, singing, modeling, and dancing (she has won Golden Globes, released hit albums, performed for charity, toured the world, the works).
Twiggy stayed a genuine Model Citizen, not only remaining active on the fashion, stage, screen, and music scenes, but also in continuing to care for others in word and deed. Visit Breakthrough Breast Cancer if you want to be cool like Twiggy, because if you are reading this and care about looking good, you clearly have some free time to be pretty on the inside, too.
Anyway. This video would be truly perfect, if only I could get rid of the bug in the bottom left (the transparent logo of the Mouse Who Sold the World). But on the bright side, dig her groovy still-mod eyelashes and stovepipe arms in that faboosh red tux, am I right?? Everything old is new again: she could step on stage today and rock that shit, and be perfectly in style.
Gilda. Love. Patron saint. Heroine. Gar. I can’t talk about it. If the name only faintly rings a bell for you, she is the late great funny lady who was the queen of comedy in the early years of SNL. She was the first Not Quite Ready For Primetime player officially cast on the show. Noteworthy character creations that have had lasting cultural impact were Roseanne Rosannadanna and Emily Litella.
Roseanne Rosannadanna
Emily “Nevermind” Litella
This Music Moment comes from her 1979 special “Gilda Live!”. a one-woman Broadway musical and comedy revue. Song starts around :35, because it was the opening number and she gets such a huge standing o that she can’t even calm people down enough to be heard until then.
A rooster says, “Good morning”
With a, “Cock-a-doodle-doo” – “Good morning!”
A horse’s neigh is just his way
Of saying, “How are you?”
A lion growls, “Hello!”
And owls ask “Why?” and “Where?” and “Who?”
May I suggest you get undressed
And show them your wazoo? – Ohhhh,
The animals, the animals,
Let’s talk dirty to the animals.
Fuck you, Mister Bunny.
Eat shit, Mister Bear.
If they don’t love it, they can shove it.
Frankly, I don’t care! – Ohhhhh,
The animals, the animals,
Let’s talk dirty to the animals.
Up yours, Mister Hippo!
Piss off, Mister Fox.
Go tell a chicken, “Suck my dick,” and
Give him chicken pox. – Ohhhhhh,
The animals, the animals,
Let’s talk dirty to the animals
From birds in the treetops
To snakes in the grass – But,
Never tell an alligator, “Bite my…” (No!)
Never tell an alligator, “Bite my…” (Yes!)
Never tell an alligator, “Bite my snatch!”
“I’m not so funny. Gilda was funny. I’m funny on camera sometimes. In life, once in a while. Once in a while. But she was funny.” — Gene Wilder
Official site of Gilda’s Club, a “community meeting place for people living with cancer, their families and friends. There are 22 open clubhouses and nine in development in North America. Gilda’s Club was founded by Joanna Bull, Gilda Radner’s cancer psychotherapist during the time she had cancer; Radner’s husband, Gene Wilder; and broadcaster Joel Siegel. … The organization takes its name from Radner’s comment that cancer gave her ‘membership to an elite club I’d rather not belong to’ ” (the wiki).
You can make financial donations into an earmarked fund so people have a place to stay while their loved ones are getting treated, or you could send blankets and books and toys for kids to play with in the waiting room. Maybe old ipods and stuff, even, actually. Or think about donating time and creativity. Draw a comic book, cross-stitch “I’m sorry your wife is going to be bald for a while” on a tea towel with a sad face; you know, do something Gilda would approve of. Think outside the box!
“It is so hard for us little human beings to accept this deal that we get. It’s really crazy, isn’t it? We get to live, then we have to die. What we put into every moment is all we have.” — Gilda.
I adore my guy friends, but I vowed recently to work harder on my special female friendships, and so far I am really loving it. And I recently had a very shocking experience that brought painfully home to me how much I need to work on this issue of judging women based on their appearances. I will get to that in a moment. Really knocked me out. Let me get to it in a proper order. This may take a few posts strung out over several days because I got a lot of dogs in the fire these next few days, stanimal. (Totally pointless Frisky Dingo reference.)
First things first!, my breasts wanted to let you know that there is a girl named Panda Eraser and she makes things all crafty style and has a blog, and that is kind of a big deal, mmkay?
That night was an adventure, eh, madame? By the way. Be Nice or Else. (This is legitimately one of the slogans at the not-to-be-named cosmetology school through which Panda Eraser is slogging with admirable style and elan despite their attempts to drag her down; e.g. ‘Whoa, how do you make purple? Mix red and blue? Are you serious?’ and a poster which said ‘Your Amazing’. Don’t let the turkeys grind you down, Virgo Vixen — with god, Guinness, and Ekitty as your copilot, you will triumph.)
The morning after I took that picture, Miss D and I had a hotty boom botty date to pick out the flowers for her and Paolo’s wedding (t minus: TEN DAYS eeeek). I was reading a Lally Weymouth article in Newsweek before she pulled up, and, as I climbed in the car, after a hug and greeting, my opening salvo was, “Man, I was reading this interview with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and they asked him how could he deny the Holocaust. I have to say, his answers were really surprising.”
Aren’t I just the socially smoothest? Like, “Hello and oh, I’m very excited to be part of picking the flowers for the happiest day of your and Paolo’s lives, and we just got over worrying about P’s mom’s recovery from freaking double masectomy possibly conflicting with the wedding day (surgery was postponed), and we’re taking care of thousands of details this week for this important step in the path of your life’s journey together but, hey, can I take a moment of your time to talk about Iranian holocaust deniers? That’s cool, right?” Like, way to stomp on the beautiful shiny optimism of the morning, Elizabeth.
Thank god she is a woman of intellect as well as heart. Not missing a beat, Miss D said, “What did he say? I’m curious.” We agreed we’d only heard ignorant American perspectives on Holocaust denial, but nothing from a Middle Eastern politician. Because that is all normal ladies’ behavior of a Wednesday morning on your way to get wedding flowers. Actually, he did have interesting responses, interesting in the sense of I-had-not-heard-of-that, but it is the same old anti-Semitism you can find in any country with jerks in it which is to say humans in it (total bullshit). Obviously he has a unique perspective because of Iran’s relationship with Palestine and he was positioning himself very diplomatically based on that, but he was saying disgraceful and inexcusable things about Israel, Judaism, and the behavior of Jews in Germany during WWII, to my mind, but that is neither here nor there. (Read the interview online here at the Newsweek website.)
Anyway, having discussed international politics and effectively hammered that shit out, we turned our attention back to the domestic front and went and got the flower situation all nailed down, is the point. Although at first we are pretty sure they thought we were marrying each other, and while watching them stammer to be PC and glance back and forth between us constantly was fun, I eventually clarified, “She is the bride. I’m just a friend who’s helping.” When I told Christo this, he suggested we should have kept them going and tried to muscle a discount from their obvious discomfort. Central Valley’s nearly benignly generic homophobia = just peaches and cream.
Shoot, I need to go for right now. Got to smog my car. I’ll schedule this to post for later and hopefully I’ll be able to turn right back around and finish up. I have more to say, it involves big hair and blondes and me being a terrible reverse discriminator who needs to step down off my aren’t-I-so-cool-for-not-being-cool high horse before the altitude makes me ill in the Bad Way.
The Thought Experiment 