Spring hit my town earlier in the week, smacked it right upside the head. I've spent the past four days or so outside, airing my lily-white self, trying to pick up a little color. Though my ancestors hail from cool and cloudy climes, I revel in warmth - I love hot, tropical, steamy weather - and I tend to get a little depressed in the wintertime. Thus, the first days of sunny, seventy-degree weather are days I pine for, all throughout the cold seasons.
Today: pounding, lashing thunderstorms all morning long. I took my youngest child, for whom there is no bus, to school - a forty-five minute venture, 2.7 miles round trip. I mean, it was a veritable deluge out there, Noah's Own Flood. When I returned home, though - drenched to the bone and spitting nickels from the traffic - I stripped off my wet things, slipped into a laundry-crisp cotton nightie, and crawled back in the bed with Mister MacFarland.
It was heavenly. All the windows in our second-storey bedroom open to the sounds of the storm, ceiling fan whirring lazily above our heads, Mac and I stole a delicious few hours of uninterrupted slumber, stretched out flat and hand-in-hand on the king size, which you may recall that I outfitted with luxury high thread-count linens before I lost my job. God, it was grand, and all the more delightful because we felt like we were getting away with something, playing hooky, even though neither of us really had anywhere to be. Stress and tension leaked from my body, I tell you.
If you have not curled up with someone you trust lately, and slept a deep sleep in a thunderstorm, I highly recommend it. I promise you, it does a world of good for the spirits. Worth its weight in Prozac.
It was a damn good thing, too, because on my to-do list for the day was the onerous task of cleaning out the fridge. Yuck. It was fucking foul; science-experiment territory, I shit you not. But the blissful morning, shared with a fellow I like and respect, helped me gird up my loins like a (wo)man and get the job done. And not just the fridge, either - oh, no - a full kitchen scrubdown took place. Walls and doors were washed. Moldings were scrubbed of dust. Cabinets were rearranged. Pantry? Cleaned up. Laundry room? You could eat off the floor. Or the washer. Or the dryer. Take your pick, if eating off major appliances turns your crank. That shit is clean.
More storms on the radar for the next day or so. I can dig it.
I have always been something of an aesthete; earlier in my life, the combination of disappointment in love, rampant open-mindedness, and heavy substance abuse convinced me that I was a true bisexual. I appreciate the female form, far more so than I appreciate the masculine, truth be told, and I figured this artistic preference could effectively help me cut men - those bastards! - out of my life forever.
You and I, of course, being grown-ups, have probably come to understand that this is not necessarily the way sexuality works, but don't try and tell stubborn Queenie that, especially when she's twenty-one or so and thinks she knows it all. No, as per usual, I had to put my hand on the white-hot burner, just to make sure nobody was lying to me, I had to smell the shit, to make sure it stunk good and proper - not just once, but over and over again. Typical.
I am also a sucker for a pretty face; remind me, one day, to tell you the story of my brief affair with one St. John, the ultimate illustrative story of my subscription to the aphorism. When I was a younger woman, more interested in others, less set in my ways, I was impressionable - more than impressionable - I blew hot on whatever struck my fancy, regardless of external or internal prohibition, until I lost interest and dumped it cold. I'm still like that to a certain extent, unfortunately, but these days, I am far more sedate. I can say, at least, that I learned from my errors in judgment.
I remember one night back in...oh, say 1991. I was still in college, but on my Spring Break I drove over to Atlanta to spend some time with my friend Andre, who had finished a graduate program at my school the previous year. Andre, poor lad, was having a terrible time finding work outside the food-service industry, graduate degree and all, and currently found himself, in his words, "just your stereotypical overeducated black gay bartender". After checking in to my hotel (my own hotel room! in Atlanta - the big city! God, I was so young) I took a taxi over to the bistro where Andre worked, and parked myself at the bar until his shift was over.
A whole gang of Andre's restaurant buddies were going out after the close, and we made plans to join them. Andre and I hugged and cooed at each other, like old friends do, and went down the street for a coffee, to catch up. After leaving the café and smoking an illicit bowl in the car, we joined the rest of Andre's crew at Blake's, a venerated old institution among Atlanta's gay bars.
Blake's was a good time, although when I think back on my cocktail choices in those days, I want to gag. I got friendly with Andre's co-workers over such libations as B-52 shooters, Lemon Drops, Kamikazes, Zombies, and the dreaded Cuervo Gold. How my stomach held that nasty mess as long as it did I'll never know, but it certainly held long enough to almost get me in some serious trouble.
Andre was pursuing a young man, and was therefore a little less than attentive to his out-of-town visitor, content to let me make friends on my own. Particularly friendly among Andre's crowd was one Carmen, a Cubana of dark and drawn beauty. Deep chestnut hair, skin like a café con leche, thick ruby lips, and a figure that would stop a clock, Carmen professed to be thirty, though she looked a bit older, and we sat together talking about her job, my school, her husband, my boyfriend, the whole nine yards. I was largely mesmerized by this chic and urbane lady, and spoke to her in her own language as best I could. I speak decent conversational Spanish for a gringita, and was eager to hear Carmen rattle on in her native language. I was a little disappointed, since a Cuban accent in Spanish was one of the few that my untutored ears were yet able to detect, and Carmen's Spanish was decidedly not Cuban-sounding.
The night wore on, and the drunker we got, the closer mine and Carmen's bar-stools became. I found her beautiful, and she was drunk and horny, so when the call was made by the group to stagger down Piedmont to The Armory (another venerable Atlanta gay nightspot), Carmen and I walked arm in arm.
The nice man at the door thought that Carmen and I were so cute a couple - and such an unexpected one, being women in a mostly-male environment, he let us in for free. Hooray! Viva el bouncer, no? Si! And in this vein we glided to the bar, where the diminutive and bespectacled barman was also charmed, so much so that our first round was on the house. Viva el camarero, no? Si!
We drank. My head was a carnival, a Tilt-a-Whirl, a gigglebox turned over. We danced, wildly and feverishly, and to some sad George Michael remix, Carmen clasped me to her, and kissed me hard and deep. Her mouth was sweet and cold and tasted, still, of Lemon Drop. We stood there, in the middle of the floor, making out, much to the delight of the rest of the dancers. Aww. How cute.
Eventually, we made our way back to the group table, stopping to order a pitcher of beer. As we sat together, the black leatherette of the banquette sticking to my sweaty back, something in my drunken brain prompted me to ask Carmen about her Spanish, about her accent. Just making conversation, really.
"You know, you don't sound very Cubana. I mean, oh, hell - I'm not even fluent - but most of the Cubans I know don't sound like you do."
She smiled indulgently. "Tha's because I didn't learn Spanish in Cuba, or even from Cubans. I'm adopted. I grew up with WASPs like you."
"Wow! So I was right! I'm amazed - I'm never right about shit like that. So where did you learn Spanish?"
Carmen leaned in to my mouth, and kissed me on it. She breathed into my ear, "en el carcel...en Colombia..."
It took me a minute, drunk as I was, to find "carcel" in my mental Spanish-English dictionary, and realize that this woman was telling me she'd learned her Spanish in a Colombian prison. I laughed, weakly, hoping to look up and see a joking, bemused, expression...but I didn't.
"Ha...ha...how...como...did you come to find yourself in...um...there?" I stammered, hoping she was too drunk to notice that I found her revelation seriously off-putting.
Still giving me the smouldering, come-hither gaze, I actually started to get a little scared when she said, "...corriendo drogas y armas, para los combatientes, en las montañas, con mi esposo..."
Carmen's teeth suddenly started to look really, really sharp, and I was barely paying attention while she told me about the men she had killed in the jungles of South America, about the woman she beat nearly to death for "coming on" to her husband. I began to sober up, quickly. When Carmen's conversation reverted to romance, telling me that she was taking me home with her tonight, that I was a little white doll, that she and her husband would ply me with cocaine and both fuck the shit out of my body by the moonlight, I frantically planned my exit strategy. Colombian prison? Drugs and guns? For the rebels in the mountains? What the fuck? And shit on this husband idea...who invited him?
Excusing myself from Carmen's embrace, I headed towards the ladies' room, an oft-ignored chamber in this temple of manhood. I wasn't actually planning to pee, I just headed for the ladies' room - so that I could make a switchback into the dance floor area, where I grabbed Andre, dragging his ass away from his intended and into the ladies' room with me.
"Andre! Dude! You got to get me out of this!"
He looked at me with a flat expression. "What? You look like you're having a ball."
"Dude! She's...she's..."
"She's what? Crazy? Dangerous? Fucking batshit insane for a thousand, Alex? If I were you, I would avoid meeting her husband any time soon. You think she's bad? He makes her look like Mother Teresa!"
I gulped, wiping away a bead of sweat making its way towards my mouth. . "Okay. Okay. You go back to the dance floor. After five minutes, come in here looking for me. I won't be here, but go back to Carmen, tell her I got really sick, and that you put me in a cab. Play dumb. Please? Come on, man. I really don't want to piss this chick off in person..."
Andre complied, laughingly, and told me I needed to be careful, in future, what throats I chose to shove my tongue down. I think I said something like, "This, from Mister Glory Hole?" as I cautiously opened the bathroom door and made my way to the exit.
I got in that cab. I went back to my motel. I smoked a pin-joint, and vomited streams of nasty-mixed up liquor and café-latte residue until the sun came up, sleeping only fitfully until time to meet Andre for brunch.
See? Impressionable. Sucker for a pretty face. But I didn't learn once and for all that I belonged squarely in the camp of heterosex until about four years later, in Los Angeles, with another Latina woman who'd gleefully knife me if she knew how to find me, even today. That's the story Circa Bellum really wants to hear...but that's another story, for another day.
Despite the fact that blogger-on-blogger interviews seem to be all the rage these days - and you know how I hate to be trendy - I've decided to answer five of seven questions that Circa Bellum has put to me. Why? Why five out of seven? Why Circa Bellum? One, because I'm an attention-seeking whore, not unlike most of the rest of the participant bloggers (ha! ha!) and, well, it looked fun. Two, seeing as how this blog is all about a certain level of secrecy and anonymity, I was reluctant to pledge myself to answering just any old five questions. Circa Bellum gave me a selection to pick from. Why Circa Bellum? Because he's the kind of guy who'd give a squeamishly shy Queenie a selection to pick from. Oh, and because he tells a mean story.
Part of this whole deal is that I have to offer to interview the first five people who ask in my comments, who then in turn have to pledge to do the same. You know, like the old shampoo commercial? "And so on, and so on, and so on..." Well, I'm offering - but beware: I'm not as nice as dear Circa. If I pick through your archives, I'm out for meat.
Without further ado...
[CB] Since leaving the crappy, small apartment with the scary copulating neighbors, you’ve resorted to the internet for that sort of entertainment. What sort of porn sites do you look at when you’re surfin’ the nasty?
[QMcF] Oooh, I hate to lead with this question, because my answer is going to give you nothing but disappointment. The only time I see porn on the internet is when I open a mail from Catfish - who, by the way, runs the filthiest, most pussy-laden joke-of-the-day service on the internet. Run, don't walk, to get on his e-mail list. If you have broadband, that is. Some of his files are big enough to choke a goat.
Back to the topic at hand, though: perhaps I am yet to find the specific variety of porn that would appeal to a woman of my proclivities. Honestly, it just doesn't do it for me. Porn, that is. Look, I waited tables in a titty bar in my younger days. I was also, for a time, in a segment of the entertainment media industry that is rife with folks who have been in porn. I guess, having had these experiences, the people in most mainstream porn are just a little too real for me, therefore outside the realm of my fantasies - which are, by their very nature, idyllic. I've seen porn stars pick their noses. I've listened to them narrate too many life-dramas involving Jerry Springer and the DEA, I've heard them try to reason on things like the electoral college. In general? No, thank you. And I don't think I'd be interested in niche porn, not the internet variety, anyway. I have no bellybutton fetish. I do not wish to be fucked by a goat, nor do I rub stuffed animals on my private parts. Not that I'd ever seek to judge...
No, the fact that I eschew pornography for my own personal use should not be taken as a judgment on those adults who do enjoy it, nor should it be taken as any indication that I have anything other than a rich, erm, inner landscape of sensuality. Yeah.
Next?
[CB] We once touched on the notion that you have an interest in history. What era would you belong in if you weren’t in this one?
[QMcF] Aha! Good question! Yes, I have an immense interest in history, in how human reason is shaped through our understanding and knowledge - or lack thereof - of the past. Did you know that one of the things that made The Dark Ages so Dark, from a historiographical perspective, was the almost complete lack of any historical sense on the part of the populace? It's true - people just didn't think in terms of history, of precedents, of patterns that might repeat themselves. Primary source material from that era is just, like, devoid of what we would call historical references. People stayed where they were born, listened to their priest - or shaman, in some instances - and died, in droves, from simple things like tooth decay. Any popular historical transmission was oral, education dealt with languages, mathematics, and God, religion - the ascendant educational, scholarly, and artistic force at the time - was patently ignoring the sinful pagan past of ancient Greece and Rome, and Kings were Kings, conquering and killing and having parades, as kings are wont to do.
That's why the Renaissance has its name - new birth - a rediscovery of the humanities, a new willingness to explore human things, to admit that people and their history have value, even when held up against Heaven.
All that said - phew - I would not want to live in the Dark Ages. Moreover, I am so thank-you-God cognizant of my incredible luck to be born an American in an age of comfort and ease, happy that I'm in a place where my vagina does not automatically assign me to the status of chattel, that I would be reluctant to leave it. Besides, these are exciting times. Me, hot-tempered, all-girl Queenie, would have had her throat slit in most of the eras I can think of. Unless I were a Queen or something. Even so, I'd really, really miss antibiotics, and weed.
If I could be a man, though, and wealthy...make me an Englishman, any time between 1850 right up until about 1930. I think I'd have a flair for Empire.
[CB] You once stated that you would never blog about political stuff on this site, but 3 Terri Schiavo stories in a week? No offense, but when can we hear about more debauchery?
[QMcF] I know, I know! I'm kicking myself, too - totally out of character. Look, in "real life", Queenie is a highly political animal. I live and die for the shit. I read more news than Carter's has little Pills, and I have an opinion on everything. I started this blog to be all about my self - my apolitical self, my inner-sanctum self - but every once in a while, something leaks through. The Schiavo case is one such example. It's such a Big Fucking Deal - I mean, come on, these judicial processes have the potential to impact my life and the lives of those I love. Besides, I've written so many party-hearty posts that, every once in a while, I think it's useful to demonstrate that, no, my brain is not yet leaking out of my ears. Yet. Despite my best efforts, and a substantial bankroll for the project.
As for debauchery, baby? Well...you've come to the right place. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I have known some of the funniest, most fucked-up crazy people in this fair nation, and I have a ton of stories. BUT - and this is a big but - you may or may not have noticed that I have been extremely depressed since I lost my job. It's not rational, no, but there are details about the situation that I simply cannot reveal here, and frankly, it's hard to write fun stories when you want to pull the covers over your head and never come out.
I'm getting better, though. Can't you tell?
[CB] You mentioned a snippet about your second temptation into the lesbian scene in Los Angeles. Said it was a story for another night. Well, us guys love a little hot girl-on-girl action. What night will you tell it?
[QMcF] Oh, I don't know. I suspect I'll get around to it sometime. It wasn't super hot, though the action was girl-on-girl. For a few weeks, a month, I actually had a girlfriend. I will tell you this: she was lovely, nubile, not of my race, and dumb as a box of hammers. With an IQ to match. It was a voyage of self-discovery, leading me to uncover the deep, hidden truth that I am a sucker for a pretty face. And, as I found, a boring, vanilla-flavored heterosexual.
I think perhaps I detect an urge for some schadenfreude, sir? You know it ended badly...
[CB] Some of us aren’t smart enough to figure out your alter blog identities. Since we already know about the wild side, would you tell us where we can read the other ones? If we swear not to tell?
[QMcF] Sure I will. All of my blog alter-egos are available on the internet, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
Dude...you think this is my wild side? Sheesh!
Thank you, Circa Bellum, for giving me a good reason to write a post about something I know very well - the inside of my head. And remember, I'll take the first five that bite on the return interview...if any dare...mwahahahah...
Have you seen this new television commercial for America Online, the one in which the two guys are going through the lunch line together? No? Lemme 'splain:
These two guys are in a lunchroom line; one guy is short, and holds a tray containing a sandwich, the other is a tall guy who has his sandwich on a plate in his hand. Short guy tells tall guy that he still doesn't understand why he needs AOL on top of his broadband connection. Tall guy looks at him, puts his plate down on short guy's tray, and covers it with a plate-warmer. Now that tall guy has both hands free, he tells short guy that the sandwiches on the tray are computers - short guy's naked sandwich is a computer without AOL, and the other sandwich is his computer covered up by the plate warmer, which - wait for it - symbolizes AOL. The tall guy then begins dumping chili and desserts all over the tray, saying things like, "imagine these are computer viruses!" and "look, a pop-up ad!". He then invites short guy to compare and contrast the two sandwiches after the dumping - the one with the cover, of course, being untouched and the one without a nasty pile of ham, bread, chili, jello, and cake. He then asks short guy which one he'd want...
Which is bullshit! False goddam advertising if I ever saw it. Yes, AOL provides a sort of virus protection to its members, and blocks pop-ups...that is, it blocks the pop-ups and viruses it recognizes, just like any other privacy/protection software setup. Now, traditionally AOL is a service for the internet beginner or novice, or someone interested in strict family controls - I realize this doesn't apply in every case, there are some advanced users who prefer AOL - but in general, their own marketing suggests a target on the ass of people who don't know the internet all that well. And what does this commercial tell 'em, the poor things? That with AOL, they will be totally safe! They can go anywhere - click on anything - it's okay, because their hard drive is under a plate warmer!
Yeah. And try getting customer service from AOL when you get a virus. Which you will, because without a little basic knowledge of what to avoid, what not to open, etc., all the virus protection the technology currently provides cannot help you. Dammit, AOL is just downright lying to the public about its capabilities. Fuckers.
Oh, and while we're on the subject of commercials: would someone please stifle that woman who does the television ads for Overstock-dot-com? The O? God in heaven. I don't think she could be more annoying if she tried. "It's all about the O..", in her breathy whisper, as she shakes her ratty-ass looking hair down out of that ponytail...woman, how 'bout, "It's all about the knuckle sandwich..." in my hoarse half-scream? Huh? Huh?
PMS, or just a mite touchy today? Ahh. The feminine mystique.
Updated.
The Supreme Court has just refused to interfere in the Schiavo case, for the fifth time. The whole thing, part and parcel, goes back to Florida, where Jeb Bush has promised to do "everything in his power" to keep Terri alive, and the case lands back on the desk of Judge Greer.
Twenty court rulings have sided with Michael Schiavo over the last seven years. The Florida Department of Children and Families under Governor Jeb Bush now has a doctor who, on petitioned examination of Terri's medical records (but not Terri herself) says that Terri is not in a persistent vegetative state, but is, instead, in a state of minimal consciousness, very different from PVS. Additionally, the Florida DCF is alleging thirty counts of abuse and or neglect against Mike Schiavo, in light of what the Schindler's lawyer calls "shocking new developments". Schiavo himself has, as of yet, no comment.
God, what a mess. I can honestly say that I have no idea who's telling the truth in this situation. Does the husband want to murder his wife? Is he an evil prick? Are the parents simply emotionally overwrought and clinging, against the patient's wishes, to the damaged shell of a being who wanted to be at one with her Maker a long time ago?
I'm happily, easily asserting that I don't know.
UPDATED: Governor of Florida Jeb Bush has filed a request to take custody of Terri Schiavo.
And, another note - what the hell is it with Florida and the courts, man?
A bunch of roofers are scrambing all over my house, even as I type. We need a new roof, bad, but holy shit, it's loud...this sucks, this bites this big one, this is higher-decibel and sounds worse than my first all-girl metal band. And that's saying something.
Anybody know how long it takes to do this kind of thing? Mac's the one who got all the information on this job, and I'm clueless. I can tell you right now, though, that if I have to listen to this godawful racket day in and day out for more than a couple of days, repressed Evil Cunt characteristics in my personality are going to surge to the fore. No more delicious little unemployed-person late-morning naps. No more peaceful, solitary hours of reflection while my children are in school. And what's the etiquette, here, with the roofers? Do I feed them lunch? Are they expecting Cokes? Beers? What? What about peeing - do I man the front door and let these jokers in every time someone needs to take a leak? I've never had my very own roofers to host, so I don't know.
This is awful. I'm tempted to pack up and go to the ATL for the weekend.
FUCK! They're banging so hard that shit is falling off the walls. Tiny pieces of plaster are falling off the ceiling. My keyboard is vibrating. It sounds like Armageddon. Make it stop!!
The Terri Schiavo case sparked some of the most interesting discussions I've seen in the blogosphere since before the three-year-nightmare that was the 2004 General Election. The case itself interests me less than the ethical and moral dilemmas it raises, which is fortuitous for me in that I can blog about it without feeling like I've tracked the dogshit of politics onto my Inner Sanctum.
Divorce yourself from the Schiavo case for a moment, and let me ask you this question: who is your legal guardian? Why is that person your legal guardian? If you are a married individual, your spouse is your default. If you are unmarried, your lot falls with your next of kin unless otherwise specified, as I understand it.
Think about that for a second - your legal guardian, your decisionmaker, effectively your owner in the event of your incapacity. Do you want your parents in this role? Your wife? Your sister, your brother, your uncle, who? Who knows you best? Who's going to take better care of you if you can't care for yourself - your husband, or your mother? Who do you trust more, and which is "just" your default?
When I married my husband, I did so under the laws of the United States and the auspices of the Presbyterian Church. That being the case, my husband and I are, legally and ecumenically, one flesh. One flesh. When I said "I do", I promised to cleave unto him until death - by all the laws of history and tradition I officially forsook my father's (and mother's) house forever, and became, quite literally, a part of him. By the laws of this country, I officially placed him in charge of my affairs in the event I expire, and vice-versa. Unless I were to divorce Mister MacFarland, this remains the case.
Say a bus hits me today, on the way to pick up a pack of Depends at the grocery. Say it reduces me to a state in which I can no longer care for myself, reliably evince awareness, speak, or communicate in any fashion. Mister MacFarland, as my guardian, would assume total responsibility for my care. That's the law. In the event I required outside intervention - breathing devices, feeding tubes, and the like - Mac would make all those decisions, up to and including the one to let me live or let me die, if it came to that.
After all, we're one flesh. We're married, a thing which is, I hear over and over, from states and from my President and from Congress and from various advocacy groups, sacred. After all, that's why we can't let "them gays" do it, right? Or am I missing something?
Remember, now, we're not talking about the Schiavo case. We're talking about me, and Mister MacFarland.
So, my mother - for whom nothing is ever Enough - comes to see me one day and I have stinky breath. "Mac!", she hollers, "you're not taking care of my little girl!" And say she had a hangnail that day, or Mac looked at her crooked. "You're a loser, you've always been a loser, you suck, I hate you, blah, blah, blah. I'm taking Queenie home where her Daddy and I can love on her and care for her properly!"
Does my mother have the right to interfere? Should she have the right? Should she and Daddy be able to pack me up and take me home with them, leaving Mac - with whom I am one flesh - high, dry, and vegetable-less? Should my mom be able to decide, "well, he's always been an asshole, and he doesn't love her, and she needs to come home?"
Again, we're not talking about the Schindlers and the Schiavos. We're talking about me. Does my mother have the right to pass judgment on my husband's standard of care, taking me away from him forever? And say mother really got on her High Horse, and took the matter to court. Say this hypothetical court finds that the quality of my care is more than adequate and that Mac gets to keep tending the 'tater patch that is my brain and body. What then? Does Mother give up?
Not my mother...
So she pursues it. And, bizarrely, succeeds in getting through to a Very High Court Indeed. And say, just for the purposes of hypothesis, that Washington is in right-wing mode at the moment, and the Culture of Life wins. Mom gets to take me home and brush my teeth.
What does this decision mean to your marriage? What if your mom isn't as nice as mine? What if YOUR mom wants to have your feeding tube pulled after you get hit by a bus on the way to buy some Depends so she can kill you off so you can't tell the police that she is the Unabomber, and your wife knows that you wouldn't want to die that way? What if your mom sues, in 2010, and Washington is in a left-wing frenzy when she gets to A Very High Court Indeed, and the "Culture of Life" has been replaced by another culture altogether?
Well, then there's a previous, precedent-setting decision for them to look at, isn't there?
The point is that I think we're screwing with a very dangerous matter in the Schiavo case, one beyond the "right to life", and a precedent set could easily be a judicial slippery slope on which the words "one flesh" no longer have any meaning. It really doesn't matter if Mac, in the situation described above, is an asshole or not. As long as he's meeting legal standards of care, it doesn't matter if he's catting around with all and sundry. It doesn't fucking matter if he spends all my money on Lagavulin, which he might. We're one fucking flesh, dammit, and if I had a problem with all of that, I shouldn't have married him in the first place. When I said "I do," I consented to all of it, sex, lies, and videotape.
In a Christian marriage ceremony - still the most popular way for people to marry, despite what Mainstream Media would have you believe - I believe the words are "What God hath joined, let no man put asunder." By agreeing to marry and saying "I do,", every couple is signaling their tacit agreement to be sealed together in a bond the law isn't allowed to fuck around with (see Fifth Amendment), simultaneously legally signing custodial rights over to each other. Does the sacrament of marriage mean so little, then, that we'd let this modern-day notion of a "Culture of Life" come between a bond that God himself is supposed to have sealed? Is Congress above that Law?
Okay, now we're talking about the Schiavo case. Culture of Life, or Sanctity of Marriage? Which do you pick? Because you can't have it both ways, you know.
I would really love to hear your ideas on this, but please don't come to me trying to tell me that Mike Schiavo is a shithead, etc. It doesn't matter in this discussion - one flesh, or thou shalt not kill?
Update: Yes, I also understand that if my spouse, my one-flesh, fails to meet the minimum standard of care in the scenario described above, a court may very well place me in the care of someone else. That really isn't germane to the discussion, now is it? Remember - we've gone meta here - we're not just talking about the Schiavos.
Update Redux: NO - I will not argue with you via -email regarding Theresa Schiavo's standard of care, current medical condition, or any Ancient Chinese Secret that might cure her! I don't know if she's had enough brain scans or not! I don't know if there's a chance for her to recover, dammit...and neither do you! Are you a neurosurgeon specializing in recovery from massive brain injury? Have you personally seen and examined Theresa Schiavo? Are you somehow otherwise involved in her care as a licensed practitioner of some sort? No? Then cut it the fuck out with the e-mail already. I do know that many people far more qualified than either you or I provided medical information to the courts, in whom I have faith enough to believe them capable of adjudicating a dispute of this type. If the court rules to let her die, so be it. If the court rules to let her live, that's their province as well, and you and I have to live with either decision. In short, I fart in your general direction.
Trust me, folks. Sending me a hysterical e-mail, calling me part of the Culture of Evil, and not even having the courage to use a real reply-to address is not the way to foster a dialogue with me. All it will foster is me hollering at you online.
And this is my final update, I promise: I forgot to mention, in writing the above, that I do believe it is horrible to let Terri Schiavo starve to death. It's a miserable, cruel end that I would only wish on a very few, very evil people - Osama bin Ladin comes to mind. Rachel Lucas is right - we treat our dogs better. The fact that the only exit legally allowed to her is starvation is a whole 'nother "flaw" in the system entirely.
I slept late this morning. Mister MacFarland was kind enough to hustle the rug-rats through their Sunday activities and off to the park; I lolled in queenlike splendor throughout most of the morning. Right before I woke up - at least, it seemed to be right before I awoke - I had the strangest, most thoroughly irritating dream I've had in many a year.
My mother enrolled pushing-forty Queenie in a compulsory Summer Camp. That's what she called it, anyway, and for some reason, since it was my mother who signed me up, I had no option but to attend - like being committed to an institution. The summer camp itself was eerily like prison, or rehab, or perhaps the central brainwashing center for some exotic variety of religious cult. As soon as I arrived, all my clothes and personal effects were taken away, and I was issued a "Happy Camp Pack" - white cotton underthings, a red tee-shirt with the words "Get Happy!" emblazoned upon it in white lettering, a pair of athletic shorts, also white. Some flip-flops. A towel, washcloth, toothbrush, and comb. My "driving privileges" were suspended until I was deemed to be a trustworthy Happy Camper. My cell phone was removed from my person at the door and would not be returned until I successfully completed a full rotation of Happy Camper activities, like making a fired-clay ashtray and proving I could pitch a tent. It was awful.
Far worse, if you can believe it, than all of the above torments was my roommate, this totally evil cunt named Karen. For some unknown reason, Karen hated me like cramps. My dream evolved as a series of nasty things Karen did to me - sabotaging my "Happy Camper" project, the one that would have gotten me my car back, pulling my credit report and circulating it around camp, breaking in to the camp office and ruining all my "outside clothes", informing on my myriad escape attempts, and burning my youngest child's blankie (to which he has a Linus-like attachment). What I was doing with the blankie in the first place, I couldn't tell you. My kids weren't even in this dream.
A fortuitous event helped hasten my escape. In the tent I shared with Karen was a large cabinet-type piece of furniture. She and her boyfriend regularly hid out in that cabinet to fuck, thereby eluding the prying eyes of our Happy Camper Counselors, to whom fucking was anathema. These counselors were like Moonies or something, with their creepy sing-song voices, rolling eyes, and flowing robes... But I digress: in my dream, I came upon Karen and her illicit beau hard at it - I came a'knockin' when the cabinet was rockin' - and, quick as lightening, I stuck a broom through the outside handles of the structure, effectively trapping them. I hustled out of the tent, snuck into the main office, liberated my keys and my phone - fuck this Happy Camp noise! - and ran like sixty, straight for the parking lot.
I had a hard time finding my car - they'd moved it, the bastards, and fucked up the seat settings and the radio-station - but as soon as I got behind the wheel I drove like a bat out of hell, screeching down the gravel road that lead from the middle of nowhere back to some sort of civilization.
I called my mom from the road.
"Mom, it's me. I got out of that crazy camp and I'm on the way home."
"Queenie? Honey? What are you doing calling me? Did you complete your Happy Camp rotation already? Your father will be so proud!"
"No, mom, listen. That place is a fucking asylum. I'm outta there. I got my phone and keys and left."
"Now you listen here, young lady," mom says, getting her "firm" tone on, "I want you to turn that car right back around and get your butt back to that camp! I paid damned good money for a full two months, and I'm not letting you waste it like this. Now, you go back, you hear me?!"
"No way in hell, mom. I love you, but those people are crazy. I'm not going back."
'Now, honey. What's the real trouble? Were the other girls mean to you?"
"Mom...in case you forgot, I'm thirty-seven years old now. "Girls" are not "mean" to me. It...oh, crap, don't sidetrack me. The point is, I am a grown woman and I'm not going back and that's the end of it."
"Young lady! Who do you think you are speaking to in that tone? How dare you? Have you lost your mind?"
And so it went, arguing with someone who thought I was sixteen, until I woke up. Evil camp, nasty bitch, fight with mom. I woke up spitting-nails mad, too. I don't think I calmed down at all until the middle of my second latte. And I did not call my mother today. I'm not superstitious, but if that kind of dream isn't a potential omen I don't know what the fuck is.
What? Yes, I have issues. This surprises you somehow?
One Starbucks patron to another, narrating an interaction:
"I said, 'Don't fucking tag me, sister, 'cause I'm not bloody playing.'"
I wish I could have heard that whole story.
I just want to make one thing very clear, before God and everybody: if ever I am reduced to a persistent vegetative state, like Terri Shiavo - if my cerebral cortex is dead as a doornail and never coming back - pull the fucking plug on my sorry ass, please? Don't let me be a burden to my children. Really. That's my nightmare, as a mother - let them remember The Crazy Mama That Was instead of living with the Drooling Carrot in the Corner for God knows how many years. Let the man that I love have a chance to live and be happy again. He deserves nothing less, if only for putting up with my egregious shit for all these years.
Bear in mind, I'm passing no judgments on the Schiavo case per se. I'm very conflicted about that whole media circus; I feel for the parents, who don't want to see their little girl die, and I feel for the husband, who seems very firm in his conviction that Terri would not have wanted to live like that. I do think it odd that a basic medical test like an MRI has never been performed on Terri, but what the hell do I know? I'm not a medical doctor. I do know that court after court saw fit to let Terri die, and I know that her husband turned down a cool ten million to drop his suit to have Terri's tube removed...but the whole thing is just too tangled, and the medical stuff is unfamiliar territory for me. I haven't seen all the evidence, I'm not qualified to judge, and thank God I don't have to. I don't envy the folks on any of the various legal teams.
Back to myself, I know absolutely what I would want to happen in the event that I ended up like Terri. I'd want to die. But I don't want to starve to death, either. So, in the event of my brain death, I'd like my blogfather and uncle to throw my last party, Cat to act as my, erm, anesthesiologist, and Key to hold my hand. With a group like that, surely we should have one volunteer man enough to shoot me. Perhaps Eric would slit my throat? I feel certain some arrangement could be made.
No, seriously. If ever my legal wishes regarding the removal of life support are subverted, denied, or just plain ignored, somebody print this for the judge.
Mister MacFarland and I are in Hawaii on vacation. We're at the front desk of our hotel in Waikiki, checking in, and the clerk informs us that we're Shark Level guests - room 341, mahalo. We turn towards the elevators, rolling our bags along on a rather rickety carrier, and I take stock of the place as we walk.
The hotel is a four-story open square; one side of the square is the beach, the ocean. The others enclose a swimming pool area chock full of water-features - a floating bar, a faux waterfall, a slide apparatus disguised as a rock outcropping, a diving board shaped like a surfboard. There are little astro-turf "islands" in the pool, on which stand plastic flamingoes and coconuts carved into little tikis. The decor, the building - everything has this kitschy nineteen-fifties feel, this sort of Space-Age Does Hawayah! ambience that makes me feel as if I'm in a Polynesian version of one of James Lileks's decorating books.
Mister MacFarland and I repair to Shark Level, which, we shortly discover, is really only a tarted-up way of saying "third floor". Our room, while clean and tidy, is something on the order of the room that I stayed in while vacationing with my parents in Daytona Beach in 1973. Thin, tropical-patterned poly-cotton bedspreads, unraveling rattan chairs, a battered but serviceable desk with the hotel's literature in a naugahyde binder and containing, no doubt, a Gideon's Bible. The all-glass "front" of the room, facing the pool and the ocean, is bordered on the bottom by a cheap-motel air-conditioner, and heavy drapes of an unnervingly dissimilar tropical pattern and color from the bedspread hang on a slide rod, ready to shut out the view - and the neighbors - with the pull of a cord with a plastic tassel shaped like a pineapple.
We set down our luggage. I pee, while Mister MacFarland shuffles through his things for his cigars. He finds one, I change clothes, and we go out to explore.
I wake up.
Now I know why I got sick last night! It was neither the five-pepper chili I had for dinner, stoked with Fritos and sour cream and sharp cheddar, nor was it the four canned beverages I washed it down with, nor was it the icing-drenched cinnamon roll I had for dessert - and the three gulps of Pepto-Bismol I downed before bedtime certainly was not culpable. Look, you: It was the earthquake!
Laugh all you want - I am an earthquake sensitive of proven abilities. I got my first true migraine living in Los Angeles, about a month after I arrived. A couple of weeks later, Friday afternoon rush hour, and bang! another migraine, just as radio reports of a semi-notable offshore temblor began to filter in. As the months went by, though, my roommate Leticia - an L.A. correspondant for Mexican Vogue, walking the Telemundo beat - noted that every time I felt ill in the slightest, there was a corresponding earthquake within twelve hours or so, sometimes before, sometimes just after. A tiny little tremor? Vomiting, diarrhea. Something in the four-point to five-point range? Migraine headache.
As soon as I moved back to the South, my migraines ceased, abruptly. I've had only five or six migraines in the nearly ten years that I've been home from the left coast, and every one (with only one exception) has heralded a tremor in someplace like Buttfuck, Alabama or Dogbed, Louisiana.
I've been lucky enough never to experience a truly significant earthquake, never been anywhere near one. And thank the lord for it, really - if a little tremor makes me puke and turns my bowels to water, and a fair-to-middlin' ground-shake puts me in bed with a sick headache, I dread to think of what might happen if I were to be in the proximity of a major earthquake. What then? Grand-mal seizures?
Yeah, it might have been the chili...but I'm sayin' it was the earthquake.
Well, it's been over three months since last I vomited, so I guess I was due. Picture the scene, if you will: middle of the night - peace and quiet rules the MacFarland house. Mister Mac and I, curled together in the middle of the king-size, the dog snuggling my rump and the cat draped above Mister Mac's head, over his pillow. Not a sound to be heard save the gentle susurrus of the ceiling fan and the occasional snork, issuing forth from my husband's fair nostrils. Suddenly, I awake, glancing at the clock (4:26), gripped by a band of pain stretching from my mons venus all the way up to the inside of my mouth. I struggle, against both the pain and the covers, which - pinned under limbs both human and animal, tie me to the mattress. Finally, after viciously nudging my sleeping dog in the ribs, I am able to sit erect, and the pain morphs into two distinct balls - one rushing towards the open air around my lips, one, like the Titanic, sinking swiftly towards the, erm, bottom.
Well, you can guess at the rest: poop and vomit, poop and vomit, poop and vomit, all night long. I had to holler at the top of my lungs to wake the hubby, begging Mister MacFarland, in my trying-not-to-spew voice, to run bring me a receptacle of some sort, so that I could, in fact, relieve both the symptoms at once. I think you take my meaning.
Alas, Mac was too late; I puked the Puke of the Ages, all over myself and the bathroom floor. The tee-shirt I was wearing? Straight into the garbage, along with the panties and socks that got in the way of the deluge. Five in the morning saw me swaying under a hot shower, ten after saw me on my knees with a bucket and some bleach, wiping away the chunky evidence of my gastrointestinal upset.
Yuck. I still feel like shit. Weak, you know? Low fever, and I'm scared to eat solid food quite yet, because while the vomiting has subsided, the Ring of Fire is with me even now. I feel like Uncle Robert, God bless 'im, a day or so after he's eaten a pizza.
TMI?
Blogging will not be light due to my illness; I intend to limp my way through mommying my children until dinner-time, at which point I will lock myself in my room, play video games, read books, and blog. After all, if an all-night puke-and-poop session isn't enough to earn some "me" time, I don't know what is.
Until then.
People, we cannot allow her to keep us dangling like this! You have all the classic elements of the best southern fiction -
"Only one other person I’ve ever known to of maintained that level of nasty is my brother, Biscuit-Butt.
That’s my nickname for him, Biscuit-Butt. The man has one of the largest butts known to all mankind. Considering his body is normal in most other ways, his butt is kind of a stand out. It’s like two huge rounded loafs of bread, the biggest loafs you ever saw side by side.
Everyone calls him Biscuit-Butt; I call it to his face, the rest behind his back.
Biscuit-Butt is a well-to-do lawyer, has all his clothes altered to minimize his massive behind. I love it, simply love it, I gave that complex to him, for me to know that I am responsible for him obsessing about his butt thrills me no end.
Anyways, as we talked he asked if I have any regrets. I told him not about anything I’ve ever done, just what I haven’t done.
I know what he wants to hear, Biscuit-Butt always want to know if I’m sorry I shot him when I was a kid, if I regret it..."
This is a story I must hear. Miss BeeBee, please. Have a heart. Write about the day you shot Biscuit-Butt. I have a feeling that the world needs this piece of text. Do it for Literature. Do it for the chilllllldren!
Rain and wind bring spring;
I ponder my blogfather.
Ancestor worship?
Black midget walks, snap -
blog sasquatch captured on film!
Velocinasty!
Awright, Intrepids!
Kith and kin know his secret.
Me? I'd shoot somebody.
Where the wild hairs grow
is that a double entendre?
or just a golf thing?
Rain and wind; night falls
Paterfamilas, dawg
Drinking one for you.
The sad thing is, I usually talk a lot like this. And she knows it. It's a major stretch for me to successfully complete an entire piece of text without popping a cap in someone's bitch ass, or smacking a ho, or something. Hmm. Is she calling me out? Or am I being hypersensitive?
Yo, b. Is you tryin' to front, or be u dissin'? It hardly matters. My inamorata she remains.
I'm not much of a television person. On average, there are perhaps two shows a week that I will watch with any devotion, and these only in season - I don't do repeats. I get my entertainment from other sources, generally, these being the computer, books, and watching my lunatic across-the-street neighbors cavort in their deranged Snopesian trashiness. I do watch some cable news programming, though - CNN, Fox, etc. - and I adore The Weather Channel with a hot passion.
Every year, I understand, this country goes nuts for American Idol. I've never been a fan, I admit, and I've never followed the show at all. Oh, yeah, in the past, I'd seen an episode or two; I was at a girlfriend's house getting ready for a Ladies' Night Out when Reuben beat Clay, and was browbeaten into watching the finale show in its entirety over cocktails. Yawn. I saw one episode from last year, concluded that all the singers sucked, and turned the television off. What can I say? It did nothing for me.
I had to watch this year, though. Mister MacFarland and I actually know one of the contestants, not at all intimately, and were begged to watch American Idol and vote for him/her by his/her friends and family. We caved to the pressure, of course, although we didn't watch the first few shows - Mister MacFarland can't stand the "open call" parts where all the really horrid people come out to play. He doesn't think it's funny (I sure do) because all those poor people (poor, my ass - overinflated egos that need a popping, bad) must be so embarrassed to see how horrible they are on national television (yeah, right - you know they love it). As soon as the real business of American Idol began, though, we watched. We giggled at ourselves for feeling so furtive about it, but we watched. And you know what? I like it.
Oh, sure - Ryan Seacrest is irritating, Randy says, "Dawg!" a lot, Paula is high, and Simon is...Simon. I hate how they drag out the elimination shows, and I'd like to slap the shit out of Constantine Maroulis, just to get that smirk off his greasy mug. All in all, though, it's very entertaining.
Our personal angle on the Idol is long gone (seriously underqualified to be there), but I'm still watching. Some of those kids have talent. Bo Bice? Yep. Nadia Turner? Yep, even though some of her facial expressions make me nervous. Carrie Underwood? Yep - if she can stop acting like a block of wood on stage. Anwar Robinson? Yep, but I don't think he has a chance unless he stops picking songs like a musician and starts picking for the lowest common denominator. After all, this is a contest for pop stars. The people want bubblegum, dammit.
Do you watch this show? Do you feel guilty about it? Who do you like for the top spot? Why?
...create a subtitle? Permanently, I mean - I'd like the code to create an automatic subtitle on each post, perhaps inserting an extra field into my MT "new entry" form? You know, like Steve at Hog on Ice and Rachel at Blue-Eyed Infidel? I think it looks good, adds panache to the opening of a post, and dammit, I want one.
Yeah, I'll google for it. But I thought I'd ask you first. Just in case.
You know...speaking of the aforelinked, I think they're damn fine people. Why, if I were not already happily married, totally committed, and all stretched-out with bearing another man's children - I mean, were it 1994, and me still single and childless and fancy-free, I think I would be seriously interested in Mr. Hog-on-Ice. Come on, ladies - you know you'd hit that...the piano, the cooking, the politics...if I were a character in a fifties sitcom, I'd call him dreamy. But I'm not, so I won't. I'm just sayin', though. You single ladies need to investigate further, is all.
Steve, if I knew a worthy chick I'd send her to Miami. All my friends, though, have husbands. Or underarm hair, a strong fondness for The Indigo Girls, and a fanatic devotion to yearly attendance at the LPGA Dinah Shore Major Classic. Well, that's not entirely true, come to think of it. I do have two single, straight girlfriends, but one's a communist - no, really, card-carrying; total moonbat, God love her - and the other is shaped much like your piano.
I am many things, but a matchmaker I am not. Sorry!
Fresh from the mailbag: a mis-spelled and poorly-constructed e-missive that asks, in picaresque style, just exactly what the fuck I have against blind people and illiterates, and why I think they should not be allowed to eat at McDonald's like everyone else. No, really. I'm not kidding. It's...it's so ridiculously funny that I find myself opening the mail again and again, just to make sure it's really there. I called Mister MacFarland and read it to him at work. Solid-gold blog comedy. The whole thing is so funny that, were the author one jot less enraged with me, I'd be inclined to think that it was one of y'all having me on.
Yes...the force of the criticism overwhelms me...I admit it...I just hate blind people...always have. They're always out there showing off their, um, blind stuff, like those, um, dogs. And that damn Braille. Work of the Devil. Oh, and don't get me started on illiterates, with their Illiterate Agenda, pushed by Hollywood and The Media...they want to eat your brains, you know, and the brains of your babies. Illiterates, I mean. Braaaaains.
/sarcasm
Now that I've had a little time to think about it, my reaction to that piece of e-mail fluctuates. I've gone from pissing-the-chair laughter to a sort of cold, tight, fear. What if the author of it breeds? And shit...do you think they let him have a driver's license? The mind boggles. Bloggles.
I took my youngest to McDonald's over the weekend - drawn there not for the cardboard food, but for the immense climbing-structure-cum-play-area they maintain in the front of the store. On my way in, I made casual note of a sign on the door that read "Braille and Picture Menus Available". That bugged me all weekend. Think about it. What the fuck good are signs announcing the availability of menus for the blind and the illiterate? They can't read 'em...and McDonalds actually spent money on that...?
These things bother me.
Jeeezus. This time, they've gone too far. Toe of the week, indeed. More like toerag of the week...my subtle opinion, of course.
Hey, is that Viggo Mortensen? Say it ain't so!
Wife to husband: "You are too bipolar. I never know who I'm getting. You're like, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. You're a fucking psycho sometimes."
"What do you mean, I'm a psycho? I am not a psycho!"
"Hello? Do you even know what bipolar means? It means you're a fucking psycho!"
People say the damndest things...
The job search continues apace, though I am yet to have any luck. My dear friend Key thinks my pool of potential employers is slow to respond because I am, in general, applying for the kinds of jobs I've usually supervised in the past - secretarial, administrative, reception - and that potential employers take one look at my resumé and assume that I want too much money. I don't, though - I want to redirect my professional life away from the ambitious, and I understand that this comes with a commensurate cut in pay. I don't want a managerial position anymore, and I don't want to go back to the road-warrior grind of consultancy. I don't want the responsibility. I want to answer the phone, order office supplies, greet visitors, file, create forms, type letters, etc. - administrative work, all of which I am well qualified to do. I'm not burying my head in the sand, here - administrative work is no sinecure and I know it - just ask those who have done it. I do, though, want the kind of job that I don't have to take home with me at night. I want to be a decent mother to my children - and when I'm worried about whether or not my organization will make payroll every month, I'm distracted, perfunctory, and grouchier than the little angels (ahem) deserve.
All my wants aside, I need a job, any job, just to keep a little money in my coffers. While Mister MacFarland's salary takes care of all our immediate needs (the roof over our heads, the utilities, the groceries, the car-payments and the like), my salary has always provided things like car insurance, a cushion of savings for catastrophic car-issues or bereavement travel, vacations, new clothes, tech-toys, manicures, restaurants, liquor, and the like. We do like our luxuries at the MacFarland house, and a few of the necessary items I pay for (like the abovementioned car insurance) are coming due pretty soon; The Almighty Dollar calls, an irresistible song.
So - as an alternative to wiping asses at the local daycare center for next-to-nothing an hour, I went down to the local outlet of the Great Coffee Overlord today and submitted an application. I wouldn't mind being a barista, not a bit. Or a cashier. Or whatever. I also dropped by a local dentist's office, just to introduce myself. My daughter's teacher told me that they were looking for a receptionist, so I stopped in with a resumé; turns out that they had just hired the girl at the front desk who initially took my curriculum vitae from me, but the office manager was right there and snatched my resumé away from the girl for her own perusal. I think the office manager watched me leave with a measure of regret, as it was obvious that I'd caught them in the middle of an accounting problem in the computer, and with my recent and extensive experience with both computers and accounting systems and practices, the buck-toothed high-schooler she had manning the phones wasn't looking too helpful. I could be wrong, though.
I have always believed that if you are flexible and reasonable and really want to work, it is impossible, in this day and time, to remain unemployed in the United States of America. I mean, as long as you ain't crazy or anything, or a thief with a record or something, somebody out there needs you to man a post doing something. I still believe that; I am not weird-looking, I don't suffer from halitosis, I conduct myself - I behave, and dress, and speak (in person) - in a professional manner, I am not covered with tattoos, nor do I have a ring in every flap of skin in my head, just one in each lobe - pretty standard. I smell nice, too. I know I will find a damn job, and soon. It's just...harder than it was the last time I was unemployed, five or six years ago.
A few more weeks of this and I'm resorting to voudou. No shit. I'm calling Maman Angelique down in the bayou and getting some chicken fat and graveyard dirt goin' on. I need a job, man. Either that, or I'll be joining my eldest son, bagging groceries down at the Piggly Wiggly.
Well, that was interesting...a trip to the Big City, several job interviews, a hip night out with the girls, a dip in the Mutant Pool, and I'm back and ready for action. First I have to thank Velociman for reincarnating me in prose as the One Ring To Rule Them All, and, presumably, in the darkness bind them (which would be okay by me provided the other two rings are Key and Kelley.) Slurp. My Velocifather is, though, far too kind. I was merely the bumpkin to Kelley's urbanity, the pock-mark to Key's unblemished beauty. And, the unmitigated horker-down of Velociman's proferrments of alcohol and red meat. We had a ball. I salute you, my friends.
I also salute Miss Elva Smith. Consider this blog's flag at half-staff for the duration; a man that I am coming to consider a friend lost his mother early this morning, a fine, upstanding Christian woman, of the old school, by all accounts a remarkable cook, a shrewd crossword puzzler, a lover of children and digging in the red earth she made her home. Miss Elva's funeral is on Monday morning, and Rob asks that donations be made in her name in lieu of flowers.
Requiescat in pace. Rob, my thoughts and prayers are with you and your brother.
Coincidence is a wonderful thing, serendipitous convergence beautiful. Thus it was Tuesday. Queenie had read my post on breakfast with Sonny Perdue, and knew I would be in Atlanta, and as she was traveling to the ATL for job interviews she dropped me an e-mail, and suggested we meet for dinner.
I accepted with a modicum of reserve (great haste, actually) and so she set the thing: a beer in Virginia-Highlands at Moe's and Joe's, and dinner across the street at the Highland Tap. I was already impressed, because, although we have e-mailed, I'd never met Queenie, and the V-H suggestion was brilliant. I used to live two miles from the Highlands, and it was great stomping grounds, but that was a quarter century ago, and so I arrived and vainly searched for landmarks. The Eating Place? Gone. The Dessert Place? Gone. But there was Moe's and Joe's with it's distinctive Pabst Blue Ribbon sign. When the Holocaust comes, and when nuclear winter subsides, the only survivors will be cockroaches and Moe's and Joe's.
I approached, querelous, not knowing what, or whom, to expect inside. Courage, Velociman. That's what Dan Rather told me. Courage.
I needn't have been concerned, of course. In her sense of depraved humour, Queenie had also sent email invites to a few mutual chums, so she was easy to recognize. There, ensconsed on bar stools, were Queenie, Kelley, and Key. It was a conflation of Hefner's Grotto and Pancho's Happy Bottom Riding Club at Muroc Field, for those of The Right Stuff bent.
I wasn't expecting Kelley and Key, so this was the bitch. Listen:
These are three incredibly beautiful, sexy women. To escort any one of them to dinner makes one a stud hoss of incalculable game. To escort all three to dinner made me feel like Marcus Aurelius, with laurel wreath upon my head, and Nubian in tow holding my grapes. Or Huggy Bear. Although it was quite obvious I was the kept person here. The boy toy.
Queenie? Dying to know, aren't you? Raven hair, heart-shattering green eyes. Think Wonder Woman meets Xena Warrior Princess meets Lara Croft meets Scarlett O'Hara's eighteen-inch waist. Good lord. The V Man obviously likes the V shape, and Queenie has the V down. I don't know how that tiny waist supports those, ah, healthy assets. Sir Isaac Newton would be flummoxed.
Anyhow, the Tap. Awesome. Huge bloody steaks washed down with Merlot (and Grey Goose for me, of course). Piping hot coffee for dessert.
Queenie rules. Kelley and Key are not what one would call inhibited lassies, they are freaking goddesses, but good christ.
She never divulged her former blog, I did not ask. I don't want to know. I had to vanish at eleven, because I had to be up at six to see the governor, and I wear that sense of responsibility with shame, because I'm thinking they slathered the town red after I booked, and broke many hearts. I'm also thinking the ATL will never be the same. Olympics? Super Bowl? Pshaw. These girls were seismic. I felt tectonic plates shift as I was going to bed.
Bonus? Queenie gave me a brief access to her site. "Keep it fresh, boy," she said. "I'll be up here a few days. And, hey: don't fuck it up. Mr. MacFarland strops his straight razor every day, and he hasn't had a suitable victim in weeks."
Which is to say I hang my hide on the line here, posting this, and I may be alto in the Vienna Boys Choir tomorrow. Anyone have a safe house?