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March 23: Once I Had a Secret Love
They are trying to make it seem sordid and dirty. Those scandalmongers in the press, those Eastern seaboard elitist pinheads, are desperate for a statement from me. They want me to provide them with more nails for their cross, that cross upon which they would hang the man who taught me what it is to love and be loved. Sure, it’s easy now to judge. “You’re the victim,” they simper with false sympathy, microphones cleverly disguised in the floral arrangement on the hotel restaurant table. I’m on to you, Washington Post. You don’t fool me, Boston Globe. Because my love was forbidden does not make it any less sacred and beautiful. I remember it as though it were yesterday, those halcyon summer days underneath the shadowy bowers off the main path of the parkway. We murmured sweet nothings to each other, talked of eternity, and kissed with an ardor I have yet to feel again in these, the autumn years of my existence. How can you make of this an ugly, unseemly story for your unwashed readership, inkstained wretches? He called me “bella,” “sweetness itself,” “my best girl.” I called him “my cherished one,” “dearest,” “Monsignor.”
Oh, there you go. You have a problem with that, don’t you? Well, try and contain your jerking knee, gentle reader. There are two sides to every story, and I haven’t even gotten to Side A, so zip it. We met cute, like Harry met Sally. I was standing in line nervously with my other classmates, waiting to utter those few words that would seal my fate as a soldier of Christ. The presiding bishop was darling, 87 years young and full of vim, vinegar and brandy. My future lover stood at his side, steadying Bishop Fitzlonegan’s charming sailor-on-shoreleave gait. I didn’t notice him at first, as I was a bit woozy from the bishop’s inadvertent force as he administered the ceremonial slap to enshrine me into Jesus’ elite commandos. Then he stepped forward and touched my hand, as I rubbed my cheek in shock. “You okay there, little missy?” he said. I’ll never forget the tenderness of his smooth palm cradling my tiny fingers, the dulcet baritone in which he uttered those comforting words.
It was only a matter of time after that. I haunted the CYO mixers with some regularity from that moment on, hoping for a glimpse of this man who dominated my imagination. Sure, I’d pretend to dance the dirty boogie with Patrick Murphy (always leaving room for the Holy Spirit, of course), but my insides were roiliing with desire for a real man. Eventually we met again at the punch bowl, almost as I had given up hope. I was drowning my sorrows in watered down Sunny D as usual, but I looked up from the ladle and there he was. “Hey, kitten,” he said as he tilted his head roguishly, “Is your face all better now?”
Oh yes, it was all better then. As I gazed deeply upon his visage, taking in his chiseled chin, his tousled, slightly-greying hair, the way the light glinted off that white plastic bit on his collar, I was stupefied. I felt hot and wanton. Various passages from the Old Testament, particularly the Song of Solomon, coursed through my fevered brain. “Uh, yeah, yes, uh-huh,” I stammered. I don’t remember the rest of the evening, but it was magical.
I don’t want to get down to brass tacks. That would suit you to a tee, wouldn’t it, gossip hounds? Suffice it to say that things progressed in the normal fashion, if you don’t know the drill then I feel sorry for you. He was a man of God and in love for the first time in his life with something other than a passage of scripture. I was a woman in love and in the ninth grade. Do I need to draw you a picture, freaks?
It ended the way these things often do. My mother noticed that I was spending an inordinate amount of time putting on my make-up and getting dressed up for Wednesday confession. The parish housekeeper found a pair of my panties bookmarking a page in “Summa Theologica.” Eventually the archdiocese got involved and the only man I’ve ever loved got reassigned to a ministry in Burkina Faso. For all I know, he remains there still.
If you have never known the love of clergy, I know you will misunderstand all of the above. All’s I can tell you is, sure, there’s bad priests. There’s bad everybody. And I certainly don't sanction messing about with unwilling altarboys. But if you’re going to break a vow, if you’re going to deny a sacred covenant you’ve made with God, I’m your girl. Me go to Hell? You go to Hell.
03/23/02
March 22: Born Under Ponchos
I am a connoisseur of horrific fashion. Perhaps it was one too many childhood exposures to Pucci print pants combined with handmade dashiki as sported by a blonde suburban matron that created this particular passion of mine, but I’m not complaining. For years I have subscribed to the bible of the rich and gullible, W. I didn’t just leap into the deep end of the pool, mind. I came up through the ranks of Seventeen, switched to Mademoiselle and then Vogue before getting a “professional discount” subscription to my sweet W. I admit guiltily to once trying all the recommended products, to having exfoliated with oatmeal and plain yogurt, to having bought an Epilady (recommended by three out of four Latin American juntas as being the most effective information-gathering tool available for three low payments of $14.99!), and to having spent way too much time gathering future carcinogenic skin cells while bathed in baby oil in the backyard. But, even though I am normally strictly an Applied Math gal, I have now chosen to relegate fashion to the higher ground of theory. From a remove, it is the best show in town.
Right now, the big thing, the new thing, the hot thing, is exactly the same thing that haunts my mother’s closet (a repository of style which will someday spark a massive bidding war between the Metropolitan and the Getty). And that thing is the silk print hiphugger capri. Now ladies, I love the moxie that the designers have brought to the marketplace this time. Here’s a pant made of a fabric that neither breathes well nor cleans up nice. My dry cleaner prices this item at $7.50 a pop, so please refrain from sweating or menstruating while encased therein. Oh, and please don’t inhale abruptly. And since hiphugging style negates that great benefit of female anatomy, the hip-to-waist ratio, try not to tug noticeably as your beautiful garment slides haplessly ‘neath your buttcrack. I’m not even going to mention what a gaudy floral print does to the perceived size of one’s thighs and buttocks, as I’m sure that’s no concern of my readership. Wear and be well, beloved fashionista!
Now I just wear black in a sensible cut, with the occasional forays into low-key plaids and solid primary colored jackets (combined with black). My shoes are chosen for their superior arch support, with an occasional nod to vanity in that perhaps they should attempt to mask the vastness of my size 11 tootsies. But paramount is my desire to move quickly and comfortably during my daily journey through the municipal public transportation system. But like St. Augustine, I was not always thus. Yea verily, just as I tried all the various beautifying potions once promised me by glossy pages, I had many and myriad darlings sold to me by the glossy pages’ best friend, those able garment pimps. Particularly when I had the ideal model physique, i.e., before I turned fifteen. My Confessions, in list form:
1. The electric blue velvet Huggy Bear beret: Worn to my brother’s first Holy Communion. With matching electric blue/ hot pink flower print polyester mini dress. Prematurely hootchie? Not with those knee high cotton socks I wasn’t. I knew I was in the House of the Lord from the patellas down at least.
2. On a similar theme, the blue suede shoes. With wavy soles. Brand-name wavy soles, now, none of those fake Famolares for me. And yes, we can tell the fakes, Famolare patented their waviness, you know.
3. The bright red crocheted poncho: my aunt is a needlecraft fool. She made it for me in Japan and sent it all the way to California, to my trendsetting delight. Sadly, my fourth grade class didn’t see the practicality of wearing a bright blanket with a hole for your head as clearly as I did. Sad for THEM, that is.
4. Authentic Mexican peasant blouse with striped tube top underneath: nothing says “I will someday surrender my virtue in a Camaro parked at the Stop-n-Go” better.
5. Mood ring with matching puka shell choker: Discovered that, due to congenital poor circulation, any mood ring worn by me will convey the message “I am dead” to the onlooker. Discovered that, due to congenital peasant ancestry, I don’t have enough neck to wear a choker without, in fact, choking.
6. Perry Ellis white side button sailor pants: White. Side button. Sailor pants. ‘Nuff said. On the positive side, I did get my first glimpse of sacred Mormon underwear in the Loehmann’s dressing room while trying them on.
7. The original Norma Kamali pillow ticking dress: Oh, it was imitated, sometimes well. But only one, the original, had the regulation NFL shoulder pads combined with a tight, smocked fit on that tres flattering area between waist and the broadest part of the hip. With a snap front collar that came up to your nose if you did it all the way up. I warm myself on your burning envy from here.
8. The original Norma Kamali bright orange lab coat: I’m nearly 5’ 10” tall, and that thing hangs to my ankles. Lost the shoulder pads, which isn’t terribly noticeable, since I actually possess regulation NFL shoulders. Did I mention bright orange? Sometimes I swan around in it still at smart cocktail parties I host chez moi. My friend Clay calls it my Golden Girls ensemble. I don’t like my friend Clay much.
9. Lord & Taylor army nurse suit: Back when I was trying to purchase credibility in the workplace. Worn with pointy-toed stilettoes. Credibility cannot be purchased if one is falling on one’s keister upon arrival to the power breakfast.
10. Wild, swingin’ London black and white op-art print jacket: Does it make me feel vindicated that this jacket later turned up on Edina on “Absolutely Fabulous?” Absolutely not.
Learn from me, my sisters and cross-dressing brothers. Let loose the dogs of fashion upon your closet and ye will reap the whirlwind of photographic evidence of your stupidity. Enjoy it as a pageant, as an out-there performance art best practiced by masters like Karen Finley or Gwyneth Paltrow, and ye will live a long and happy life. Snicker on the sidelines, it’s cheaper that way anyhow.
03/22/02
March 21: On To Genesis
Greetings hoot, Female-That-Is-Mine. How fared you at foraging today?
Return greetings hoot, Male-That-Is-Mine, very well indeed, I have stockpiled many berries and roots, as well as medicinal herbs with which to ease my swollen belly and your bad knees. That took from sun-near-Earth to sun-high. Then I drew some rude caricatures of fat females on the walls with the Cackling Crone for awhile, that was pretty cool. And you, how went the Great Hunt which lasted from the moon in fullness until it became crescent?
Eh, comme-ci, comme-ca gesture. We went on and on because Hairy Leader kept indicating he smelled the spore of a very young mammoth lost out on its own, but between you, me and the cave entrance, I think he was faking it. He’s been standing awfully close to the fire when we run out of dry wood and are forced to use those strange leaves that make us woozy to keep warm. He couldn’t even smell his own spore, but believe me, the rest of us knew he that dealt it. Whew. He’s not getting any younger either, is Hairy Leader. Young Big Arms was fingering his club with intent a couple times. Bagged a few deer in the end is all. Shrug, exhalation of breath slowly through teeth.
Touch arm gesture. You look, I don’t know, Male-That-Is-Mine, this face of yours is new to me. It is a face that is some strange combination of your large fear eyes, your submission grimace and...is that...your kill brow?
You know me so well, Female-That-Is-Mine, it’s like you’re inside my sagittal crest sometimes. I am greatly afraid that this, this, this hunting, this gathering, this sitting by the fire comparing scars and then going to our dwellings to lie with our females, I’m greatly afraid that this all is meaningless. And I’m submissive to the will of the Hairy Leader because that is what everybody else is doing, who am I to hoot derisively? But mostly, I want to kill.
Now I wear my fear face. What kill? Who kill? Are they out of dry wood again that you talk so strangely?
I want to kill...The Overseeing Spirit. I want to split open the sky and see Its face and ask It why, why do you permit this to be, this endless repetition with only breaks for the pain of loss of friends and kinship bonds. Why did you make it so that we must follow the Hairy Leader, even though he’s fat from taking more than his share of meat and increasingly slow, plus everyone knows he’s just Leader because his father was Slopebacked Leader before him. I will wait for It to answer, but It won’t. Oh, It won’t. Because It either doesn’t know or doesn’t care. And then I will smash It into bits with my bare hands! Or-
-Emphatic stop arm extension!
-OR, I will crack open the clouds, I will fight my way through and I will see, I will see, I will see....that I am alone. And then I will roar like THIS!
Ayiiii! You must not roar like that ever again, or I will not be your female any more, for I will know you are mad.
Oh, but I am not mad. You see, the hunt was hard, I slept hardly at all. And since Hairy Leader was in one of his moods, he forbade any gesturing or calls. So I had a lot of time on my hands to think. And it came to me. If I decide this, I am free.
Decide what? And what is this strange noise, “free?”
If I decide to kill the Overseeing Spirit, or prove It a story just told our little ones to keep them following the Leader, I no longer have to go on the hunt, if I choose not to. I no longer have to live in my kinship dwelling with a single female of mine, I can get out and spread it around a bit. I realize that I am not tied in my body, look, my limbs move freely. But inside of this body, I have tied myself up with obligations and false beliefs. I am going to untie myself. That is what it is to be free.
You’ll die if you’re alone. Everyone knows that, we all must do our share of labors so that we can live. And what do you mean, “spread it around a bit?” You’re lucky I don’t have a rock.
Sharp exhalation of breath indicating frustration. You just don’t get me, Female-of-Mine. You stay around here all day with the Cackling Crone, gathering berries and picking lice off our young, secure in the knowledge that this is the way it has always been and always must be. I’m on a journey here, baby.
Well, all’s I know is, you’ve got bad knees and would be reduced to eating grass and bark if it weren’t for me and the others. I’m going to pretend that you’re very tired and are crazed with fever. Here, have some mushroom broth while I lick you clean in celebration of your return. Stop hooting and sit still.
But this life is slavery. This life is unbearable.
Sip your broth. This life is fine.
You don’t know the things I’ve seen. You don’t know the visions that have come to me. Free...
I know plenty. Mostly I know what keeps me warm and fed. What keeps you warm and fed. Let me untie your leggings. Get under this fur with me.
You’re keeping me tied to the miserable Earth. You’re keeping me wretched.
Shhhh. Does that or does that not feel good, the warmth and the food and the licking?
One of these days, Female-That-Is-Mine. Playful violence gesture. To the moon, I tell you! Oh, right there, by my ear.
03/21/02
March 16: Think broken.
So I reboxed the iMac, after exhausting the condescending resources of Apple telephone support, and took it on over to the fancy-named service depot. "Don't tell me," says the fairhaired, blue-shirted geekboy manning the front desk. "You just got the machine, it won't start, and Apple Support sent you straight over here."
"Nooooh," I reply in my sternest I-am-not-some-dumb-chick manner. "It was hunky-dory for a month, with the exception of two glitches and, oh yeah, the CD drive would only rapidly open and close when I pressed the button. But I already did the whole reset drill --"
"You took off the bottom and hit the reset button? Hmmph, at least for once Apple Support saw fit to tell you that before sending you over here. Sounds like a bad logic board, which is not good. I've been waiting two weeks for the last logic board I ordered. I'll place the order today, which Apple will totally ignore it till Monday. Do you have your case ID number? Good, give that to me. Also, you should start calling them Tuesday and be really displeased."
"Oh, I already have my whole aria ready. Seduced and abandoned, I was lured over from the PC Camp by a pretty face and sweet promises, and now I'm so disillusioned I'm gonna kiss Bill Gates square on the mouth when I see him."
Fairhaired geekboy laughs. Guy carrying G4 standing behind me in line laughs. So there's that, but I know these guys are Apple brand loyalists and will wait forever patiently, whereas I'm kind of pissed by the cavalier attitude of Apple Customer Support. I'm sure Steve Jobs is reading this and is VERY CONCERNED. So Steve, get to gettin', as my dad used to tell his Little League teams. Make hay while the sun shines. Send the pretentiously named service depot my motherfucking logic board ASAP. Please and thank you.
I'm in a cafe typing this in my well-known speedy and accurate fashion. On the previous generation of iMac, which seems very reliable. I understand they retail for about $699 currently. Maybe I should have gone for the less-flashy brother. Maybe I should have stayed in the Hewlett-Packard unspeakably ugly tower. Meanwhile, please excuse the sparing nature of my wordly communiques and know that I am loving you and yours from wherever I am, mwah.
03/16/02
March 13th: The One Where I Run Out of Steam
I'm not fit for polite society today, plus I been worked like a rented mule by The Man, so I'm just gonna ramble a spell. There's not going to be much content of any interest, but please note that I am an extremely fast and accurate typist, and I am typing this directly into my log, look Ma, no offline time! That's gotta mean something. A little? Man, you guys are worse than the East German judges.
I am always being told I should write for television, usually sitcoms. It's somewhat upsetting. I have been known to attend serious writers' seminars and take notes. I read heavy-hitters, really I do, weighty tomes. Big, scary volumes of history, philosophical inquiry, ethical debate, classic novels in the original French for goodness sake, line my bookshelves, of which I have several. Okay, there's also a lot of true crime books too, I give you that. For flavor, for spice. But I still say and write stuff that makes people, people who like me in the main, say "You know what? You should totally write for 'Friends.'"
Why this should be insulting to me is simple: I'm kind of a big snob, always have been. Sure, I watch television, a lot of television, but even as a kid I knew there was way more snob salon cred in sticking to the PBS stations and eschewing "Dynasty," at least until I discovered the joys of camp.
It's not like I wouldn't be thrilled to hold down a big bucks gig writing for television, particularly a quality product such as "Malcolm in the Middle," which is consistently entertaining, or (dream on) anything touched by the misanthropic hands of Groening. One of my favorite playwrights of all time, Eric Overmyer both wrote for, and eventually became a producer, of "Homicide, Life on the Street." I mean, that show was better than any number of supposedly meaningful theatregoing experiences I've been through, I should be so lucky.
And that's it, really. To write for television is not ignoble, it's just a medium after all, it's value-neutral. But that's not what people mean when they say "you should write for television." I think they mean you are a hoot, you have a facility with words and you come up with funny things to say quickly, all of which are swell. But it seems to imply that you're also a bit of a featherweight in the deep thoughts department.
So next time, instead of cracking wise or being pithy, I'm gonna quote Schopenhauer. I'm gonna do it in a silly Margaret Dumont voice, but baby steps, people. Baby steps.
03/13/02
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