I just picked up the Christmas issue of O Magazine. Just in case there is someone living under a rock…

O stands for Oprah.

Now don’t get me wrong, I like Oprah Winfrey. Ever since her Sofia, in 1982, blasted through the film, The Color Purple I’ve liked her. She’s a force, a meteor that keeps circling the earth…over and over and over again. She does great things…gives away lots of money, promotes writers, singers and motivational speakers.

She’s tight with Deepak.

She can make or break someone with one interview.

Oprah can take a book and in one afternoon turn it into a bestseller with merely a nod.

But I have to say, there might be just a little too much O, in O.

I love nothing more than to to lie in bed, chocolates to my left, Chianti to my right while devouring a good, juicy periodical. Girls will be girls after all, and what’s better than a good, mindless magazine?

Who said a man?

It doesn’t bother me that Oprah’s on the cover since I’m so used to seeing her wink and coo from the rack at my drugstore. Her covers are always cheerful, covered with bylines like, Show Your Closet Who’s Boss and Tell Him You Love Him 75 Different Ways, With Arugula.

Oprah will show you how.

I capitulated buying Hershey Kisses and the bright red issue with her in a Gone With The Wind Dress looking like three Scarletts, dashing home to don my PJs to eat up all she had to say.

As I got comfy nestled beneath my quilt, I couldn’t help noticing how many Oprahs appeared on the page…25, give or take, and let me say, for me, was one too many Oprahs.

I asked myself, what’s that about? Why the need of multiple Os? It’s not as if we could ever forget her. I’m actually waiting for Oprah to be added to Mount Rushmore next to Teddy and George. I just don’t quite understand why she needs to be on every other page of her magazine.

I’d like to see more of anybody else.

ANYBODY!

If I sound critical, good. Ego is something I particularly take umbrage with. Hers is the size of a regulation basketball.

Oh come on, could there be any other explanation?

Oprah, I want you to listen to me….are you listening?

We love you, we do. Like I said earlier, you’re a force upon nature. But we don’t need to see you in the kitchen, the living room and behind the scenes getting sewn into your dress. Is this your way of saying Stedman needs to pay more attention to you? Is he brain dead after all this time? Because if he doesn’t get it by now, I think that ship has sailed.

If I were you I’d enjoy my life more by letting others entertain me for a change.

You’ve done enough, and that red ball gown…may I make a suggestion?

Take it the fuck…

OFF!

SB

So Thanksgiving is upon us, the Big Daddy of Appreciation Day.

It’s when we gather together to hear the Lord’s blessing…at least according to the song.

Going back into my Day of Gratitude archives, I pull one out of my hat.

I was with the Flying Dutchman back in 2005, and we went to East Hampton to have Thanksgiving lunch with an artist friend of his.

Sounds sweet, right? A nice long bus ride aboard the fancy Hampton Jitney…bags and bags of gifts and offerings since Thorn could never just graciously accept an invitation. He had what I call an Igor Complex. He rarely felt welcomed anywhere so he always had to show up laden with, over consumption, as if he were one of the not so wise Wise Men:

Myrrh, frankincense…

Dean and Deluca Basil and Lime Sauce feeds 18.

For me it was an awful lot of trouble to go eat.

I liked staying close to home. At that time, still spinning my rosary, I’d go to mass, pray…say thanks…then pop a bird in the oven.

But Thorn, who felt that was much too dull, insisted we go see Janet, I’ll call her, out at the beach.

Little back story:

She’s famous. I don’t know if you’d know her, but in the 80s she was one of the hottest modern painters around. She was right up there with De Kooning, Stella, Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns all hanging majestically side by side in the Museum of Modern Art.

Of course now, this is well over 20 years later and she’s no longer a household word which let’s say, has made her not the most congenial person to spend a day with.

She drinks. From the time she gets up till she eventually passes out with a Tiffany wineglass in her tinted hand. She still paints and lives on her many European royalties, but she’s basically now a 60 something year-old drunk who only talks of the good old days. It’s very sad, but once you get passed that part…and you do very quickly…it’s maddening.

Rather then truly being her guest, you’re more or less grandly, rudely received.

In other words…you’re allowed to kiss her paintbrush.

So we get there. Thorn of course, who also belongs in rehab, starts playing houseboy. Such an attractive role to see your boyfriend in. Oh yes, it really makes you want to rip his clothes off to give him a great big…

SLAP…

“More wine Janet?”

More wine? Just plug her into an IV of Merlot why don’t you.

“Susannah, do you mind peeling a few turnips?”

“Yes.”

I didn’t come here to pare, dice and slice, but there I am with a beach towel wrapped around my pretty, new Agnes B. dress wielding a William Sonoma potato peeler.

I’M A FUCKING GUEST.

Sorry, that slipped out.

Suddenly all these people, much smarter than us, show up right when dinner is served. The table is now packed while Thorn and I are the designated servers. How the fuck did this happen?

Janet is holding court like a tipsy Catherine de Medicis saying things like, “Susannah dear, don’t forget the chutney.”

Chutney? I don’t even know what that is. I’m Italian.

Thorn, who I’m about to kill, is now so drunk that he’s sitting down no longer doing a thing to help. I am basically on my own.

Furious but from Connecticut, I continue to serve everyone…like being on the turnpike and not being able to turn around.

Hazel, just call me Hazel.

At the conclusion of this Waspy, bullshit meal, our hostess gets up disappearing into her bedroom before her parting remark of, “Susannah, tell me when you have the dishes cleared and dessert’s on the table.”

Ma, Ma…I need you…

NOW!

“Janet, before you go…

it was very nice of you to invite me to your home and studio, but you know what, if I went to Sing Sing for lunch, they would have treated me better. So…let’s just say, I won’t be here when you emerge from your next…

STUPOR.“

Thanks Ma…knew I could count on you.

I took my beach towel, snapped and flung it across the table making sure it landed on Thorn, whose head was dangling in his plate like a very badly done beheading…grabbed my coat, and a turkey leg wrapped in one of her Porthos napkins that I still have since they’re 50 bucks apiece, and walked the two miles…not one but two, to take the next Jitney home.

Thorn and I didn’t speak for a good long while after that…we eventually did dragging out the inevitable for another four agonizing years.

And from then on, on every Thanksgiving, and this one will be no different I say…

Thank-you God…thank-you for giving me the strength to run no longer having a Thorn in my side.

I don’t serve drunks and addicts chutney anymore.

Them days are over.

Happy Thanksgiving to all…be happy…

no matter what.

SB

It’s Black Friday.

I’m with my friends, Joanne and Camille ready to embark on a serious shopping spree. Joanne always thought Black Friday meant that any minute a minstrel show was about to commence. I shouldn’t laugh since I assumed it had something to do with weather.

Of course Camille, our professor in all matters concerning cloth and markdowns, educated us fast on what it means to suit up for the consumer’s most important day of the calender year.

Frankly I don’t understand why the National Guard isn’t called in to check us all for concealed weapons. I mean the stuff you encounter at Saks and Bloomingdales I believe is what inspired the crazy powers that be to make the film, The Hunger Games.

Joanne had a slip pulled right from beneath her when she sneaked out from the dressing room to get a smaller size. A woman, the length of Julie Newmar, looked at her half Hanro dangling below her waist and said, “That doesn’t fit you…it’s huge…but it would fit me,” quickly yanking it clean almost knocking poor Joanne off her feet. How cute she looked in her polka-dotted thong standing between postnatal nippers and Spanx.

It’s certainly not my favorite day of the year since I don’t shop like I’m on a reconnaissance mission for cruise wear. Yes, you do get substantial deals, no question, but at a price…pun always intended.

See, I just wanted to go drink. I spent Thanksgiving primarily alone with Anne Lamott reading her new book, Stitches, and no, it’s not humorous leaving one by its name. It actually was so serious I wept from three to five. It’s a quick ninety-six page read that makes you want to go to the mirror and genuflect to yourself…but this is a whole other essay, isn’t it?

I wanted to loll at Bemelmans with a silo of Cabernet watching the world go by on its way to the bathroom.

Camille and Joanne, however, wait for this day all year, so I was outnumbered.

“We’ll get there, eventually,” Camille said, “and boy, will we need it.”

Now that was an understatement, especially after Joanne got hit in the head with a Birkin bag. Why it’s always her who seems to get sartorially accosted is a mystery. We were at Bergdorf coming out of wallets, Camille just buying a new Fendi billfold that was reduced to practically nothing. Not that she needed one but as she put it, “Now I’ll never need one, now having one in the wings.” Yes, she said that.

Joanne had stopped to peruse the world’s most expensive purse that I think is so bulky not to mention ugly, when a lady came up behind her, grabbed it, slamming it over her head as she beelined it to the nearest register. Oh yes, by all means, drop a cool three thou, why don’t you, while our poor pal hemorrhages to death. I mean Joanne really got hit.

Camille, the Joan of Arc of accessories, ran after her. “Hey, you stupid bitch, look what you did…you hurt our friend.”

Don’t hold back Camille, whatever you do.

The woman, who really looked crazed, like she was on Thorazine, crack and Dewars Black Label while watching The Shining, bought that Birkin so fast running out to 57th Street as if she had a getaway car waiting.

“ICE,” Camille screamed, “CAN SOMEONE GET US SOME ICE.” I finally, after being in shock, spoke…saying something oh so useful.

“You know Camille, we’re not at a deli.”

Oddly enough, a security guard came with some ice cubes in a paper cup we held to Joanne’s head that was actually bleeding. The Birkin’s clasp must have graced her forehead as it flew by like a blue lizard Frisbee.

“Come on,” snapped Camille, “you need a stitch.”

There’s that word again…Oh Anne Lamott, how you do get around.

After spending three hours at Lenox Hill Hospital Emergency which rivals hell or at least The Department of Motor Vehicles with decor that could easily blind you, we finally made it to our beloved Carlyle, and did I want to kiss its walls.

Joanne, with a striking bandage on her head, looking as if she just made it back from Gettysburg while Camille, bless her, splurged on a bottle of Moet, made me feel all fuzzy inside.

“It’s so pricey Camille…what are you doing?”

“What am I doing? I’m about to toast my two best friends…one on the disabled list, the other who should be, since you’re so nuts Susannah.”

“I take that as a great compliment Camille, especially coming from you, although it would help if you’d be more specific.”

“What’s in your bag?”

“My bag?”

Camille bent down pulling out a chipped framed picture of the very first Lenox Hill Hospital emergency room dated I don’t know, 1960?…from my Saks shopping bag. It annoyed me in all its ugliness as we sat there for far too long. So I put it out of its misery, or at least the wall it now no longer graces.

“Oh that.”

“Besides, I saved so much money on the wallet I don’t need that I can afford this.”

“Joanne, how you doin babes,” I said.

“Do you think you could both shut-up and just open that goddamned bottle?”

“Thank God she’s feeling better.”

Camille nodded as she threatened Eddie the bartender, if he didn’t get over to our table…

NOW!

So concludes another Black Friday.

SB

Nature will never cease to amaze me. Between the baby upstairs and Carmela the basset hound I’m all agog.

We’ll start with Carmela. Well she is a puppy no more. This morning coming back from running I notice a dog who resembles tubular pasta with floppy ears sitting patiently in front of the cafe below my house staring at me. I think, hmm…have we met? She looks familiar, realizing it’s Carmela. Her parents have been away so I haven’t seen her in a couple of weeks, not since we were discussing my new autumn color palette, see up and coming post...Minutes From A New York Writer’s Workshop – December…on the steps of her house.

I couldn’t quite get over how much she had grown. One could say she has lost her puppy fat. Gone was that svelte, slinky speckled form you could wrap your arms around like a playful palomino. The more mature Carmela, brays a sedateness not present before…like an aunt you played catch with who now sits on the sidelines to watch the game.

I suppose this was inevitable, but still it took me by surprise.

Then we have Randolph, the new baby upstairs, who just a few short weeks ago made his debut on the planet…see Baby Makes Three : http://athingirl.com/2013/11/18/baby-makes-three/…He too was loitering in front of the house in his state of the art stroller that I swear had a GPS. Suddenly I heard…go left on Fifth Avenue eight blocks, turn right entering zoo…seals 30 feet from entrance.

Millicent, his mother, held him up like a loving cup for me to behold. Well, he’s tripled in size. Whereas before he was a medium size loaf of Asian pumpernickel, now he’s a large, wearing mini Keds looking as if they should be dangling keys and a flashlight.

“Hi Randolph,” I cooed, hoping he wasn’t bi-lingual quite as yet since I’ve been remiss practicing my Japanese. He did look a little bored by my baby talk. According to his father he’s already showing signs of being avidly interested in sports. I made a mental note: have all scores and game results on hand for baby, I mean Randolph’s, cameo appearance.

“You want hold him?” Millicent sweetly asked? I’m not one to pass up an offer such as this. “Are you kidding?” I said, my baby light blinking like a yield sign, “you can just hand that loaf right over thank you very much.”

He weighed a ton. Is he carrying an M-16? Why is this child so heavy? Solid, would be the right word. I had scary visions of sumo wrestling above me while plaster puckered off the ceiling. After giving him back because my back began to hurt, I thanked his mother for being so kind. I mean it’s not often one gets to work her lat muscles on her way back from getting her nails done.

When they left to fill their apparent zoo needs, I became quite wistful. Why can’t things ever just stay the same?

I felt like one of the Lost Boys Wendy takes to Neverland so they never have to grow up.

I then saw me, Randolph and Carmela at the Darling’s window ready for take off. Carm was still slim and Randolph so small as we took flight…

straight on till morning…

SB

I have two good friends who have moved to Florida, or the Land of No Socks, as I prefer to call it, never understanding, till quite recently, why anyone would want to do that.

New York winter, that’s why.

I grew up in New England where you wore snow suits and sledded down steep hills on big round pizza pans. Our dog, Schultz, would hop on my lap in his little Shetland sweater my Auntie Ida knitted him and off we’d go.

And it was freezing.

There I’d be with cheeks like cherries and frozen hair unable to feel my ass, numb straight through, from the icy aluminum.

We had snow days when school was closed where we’d stay in our pajamas and watch Shari Lewis and Captain Kangaroo (yes Schultz had pajamas…haven’t you ever heard of doggie Dr. Dentons?) I’d see the snow pile up beneath the windows knowing I’d be home tomorrow too.

It was how I grew up never dawning on me milder weather even remotely existed.

Now that I’m prancing through my fifties at the speed of light, I see why birds, Jews and Peter and Andrew all went south. And boy, do I dread what’s coming.

My friend Hank emailed saying he was spending Sunday putting on his snow tires. “We’re gonna have a very cold, snowy winter,” he said.

“We are?”

Do I need snow tires? How bout a little Antifreeze in my tank (not a bad idea)?

This declaration made me nervous. Should I be checking out cheap fares for February and March? Shall I begin dropping not so subtle hints hoping for an invitation?

When I was with The Flying Dutchman we went to Palm Beach every year. Think of heaven with sun, room service and golf as far as the eye can see. The minute one lands you know you’re not in Kansas anymore, the whole city glistening as if George Seurat just gave it a fresh coat of paint. 

If I miss anything about that addled, sick relationship, it’s that week in March when we’d call a truce twirling our tennis rackets donning overpriced swimwear. If I concentrate, I can still hear the ice tinkling in our scotch sour glasses. I don’t even like scotch, yet in Florida, sipped it like Orange Crush.

We’d eat sushi till we grew gills and enough gelato to make us poster kids for the Diabetic Foundation. But what I remember most was the warmth. How the sun quietly accompanied you every place you went, like an old aunt or Red Cross worker.

I’d slip into my vintage Fiorucci shorts sewn in eleven different places proving I still had game (at least to a porter or elevator operator), bra top and flip flops to walk the beach like a drunken mermaid forgetting that next week at this time I’d be back in swaddling sweaters sweating it out till spring.

I now know why Andrew and Peter defected down south…why when I say, “Aren’t you ever coming back?” they suddenly get another call.

Perhaps one day I too will migrate to The mighty Promised Land of No Socks where I can shed all of my L.L Bean winter wear for good, never having to layer, bundle, wrap or swaddle ever again.

“Ahhh,” said the Thin girl, “we can only hope.”

or at age 19 at least…now this is what I call layering.

Susannah photo: Hank Gans….other two: Google Images

SB

Where I come from, this is a standard humdrum question. In Connecticut, the cocktail capital of the word, we drink.

I still drink, not quite like that, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say it was in my DNA.

Growing up around alcohol made it seem run of the mill. I had a grandfather who made wine in the cellar and a dad who put rum in his prune juice. My mother’s blender worked overtime mixing daiquiris and Singapore slings starting at eight in the morning.

It was not out of the question to be asked, “What would you like Susannah, OJ, milk or a Bloody Mary?”

“Hmm, I’ll start with orange juice if you don’t mind, but a Bloody might be nice with my eggs.”

No I’m not kidding. We all drank, and my mother, as long as it came in beautiful stemware, truly felt there was nothing wrong with that. Presentation, I learned early on, was everything. Packaging, how it all looked. And believe me, we looked great.

My pal Camille likes to say it sounds right out of a Philip Barry play. He wrote Holiday and The Philadelphia Story, and yes, that certainly tints it with glamor. But when I think my dad died of alcoholism at the tender age of 42, and my mother’s mind deteriorated where I couldn’t see her anymore, that glamor quickly reverts to rust.

That said…I still like to drink. I’m not a drunk by any means, but as you know going out for cocktails is as common for me as a standard manicure or a spin around a good department store. To loll on a Bemelmans banquette, as far as I’m concerned, is the perfect way to while away the afternoon.

Yet I will admit, I don’t care to be around others who drink excessively, men especially. I left my last long-term relationship because he drank much too much. He had his arms around the bottle, as thy say, while I had my arms around him. I had to go, and thanks to Al-Anon, a 12 Step program for those with active alcoholism in their lives, emerged gratefully in one solid piece.

I also don’t like those who don’t drink at all. That’s become another red flag. It’s too harsh, cold and rigid. If one’s eyebrows dart up because I’m sipping wine at lunch the next two words you’ll hear are…check please.

Wrapping this up I realize how grateful I am, that even with my slippery history where alcoholism is concerned, I’m not an addict. They say it skips a generation, so I know, in my heart, how lucky I am it skipped me.

As Camille and I make our way to a good hotel and she says, “So what are you drinking today Toots,” I can safely say, “I don’t know, but it better be nice and cold and comin real soon to a theater near you.”

SB

Wish I could say he was a frisky fella I’ve just met, but no such luck. He’s a huge store that has moved in across the street the size of a city block with racks and racks of low priced items that would make your head, and wallet, do the Watusi.

Camille and Joanne, along with yours truly, were there the day they opened to get our complimentary pair of cashmere knee socks. For free socks, I would have slept on the pavement if need be. Now here’s the fly in the cheap sartorial ointment..they were eight ply.

Why do things always look better on the other side of the fence, or in this case, Avenue?

Joe Fresh’s line of dresses and pants, jeans, jackets and an array of shoes, that from a few feet away, look top of the line… up close display something quite different.

Think Rocky Horror Show on white, faceless mannequins.

“Look at this drek,” Camille said in her best Yiddish that’s pretty bad, “are they kidding?”

Joanne, who was determined to feel good over black corduroy jeans for 19.95 said, “Oh Camille, you’re just too fussy,” as the pair she tried on split up the middle.

“Hmm,” was all I could say.

I do believe in the old wives’ tale, you truly get what you pay for.  As I told Joanne, who was so crestfallen her thong, once again, was exposed to the world, “After two washings or a couple of trips to the cleaners which naturally defeats the purpose of getting a deal, you’ll have corduroy napkins…at best.”

But you should have see the pandemonium going on, in particular, in women’s sportswear. Was that a pleather parka that just landed at my feet? How did I know it wasn’t real leather? Because you could apply lipstick by gazing into its sleeve.

The other thing I couldn’t help wondering was, where is all this drek made? Are there little kids, way past their lunch, working a foot pedal 16 hours a day somewhere? 

One did not smell a Union Label.

And the other thing that really didn’t sit well with me was their faux fur department. May we define that please? When I asked Juan, the assistant manager, he winked and said, “Dun’t e-veen go dar mommy, da-ust me,” which made me reach for my cell…

Calling the Humane Society, calling the Humane Society, come in please.

Camille actually had, what was being touted as faux raccoon, on her head.

“What does it feel like Camille, is it soft at least?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say it feels like anything exceptional, but it does have an odd odor…like ham that’s been overcooked.”

“OMIGOD!”

I had visions of pigs on a spit soon to be toupee-ed

Never say die, or dye…we moseyed over to shoes perusing them thoughtfully.

“They’re certainly economical,” Joanne said. “I mean where else could you get a little pair of black flats for 50 bucks.”

“Resale,” Camille and I said in unison.

“Why are we standing here with pleather pigs and torn crotches?” I said, hoping I wasn’t  holding back.

“You’re right,” said Camille as if she just emerged from a trance. She then grabbed Joanne by the hand like a truant ten year old.

“Let’s go..”

Second Ave. and 81st please,” Camile said after we jumped in a cab.

Designer Resale, here we come.

and Joe, please lose our number because we have just lost yours…

FRESH!

SB

Carmela, my friend the basset hound, and I were in a deep discussion over shoes. I’ve been looking for a pair of cocoa brown spectator pumps the same shade as her ears and for the life of me, cannot find them. If only I could just take her to Bergdorf’s like a big swatch, but apparently Carmela’s fall schedule is pretty well booked.

While I took a snapshot or two in lieu of her, a little boy…no more than five..popped by with his father.

He was a sweet little thing dressed in jeans and a hoodie, mini Chuck Taylors gracing two frisky feet. Why they noticed us, I really can’t say. I mean, haven’t they ever seen a five foot eight woman draped on a sidewalk asking a hound dog if she could turn to her left before?

Carm and I shook our heads as if to say, they just must be out-of-towners. Perhaps this sort of thing doesn’t occur in Duluth.

I knew the kid had been around animals the way he romped over but didn’t lunge after Carmela. He gently opened his palm to let her make the first move, which naturally she did like any other woman who loves having her paw kissed. As a matter of fact, the way she wiggled and rolled her eyes was making me quite ill. I mean really Carmella, I finally had to say, “Get hold of yourself.”

Why is it when a man, or in this case two, pays a woman the least bit of attention she turns into Bette Davis?  

Anyway…

After petting Carmela for a good couple of minutes…scratching her ears…rubbing her head…watching her swoon and sway like a tipsy cannon, he turned to his father and said…

“Wow dad…this is one big Beagle.”     I’ll say!

SB

I’m here in bed with a hot water bottle and no, I’m not wearing lingerie. Rolaids are on the bedside table along with ginger-ale and a cup of cold camomile tea.

Camille and I went to our first Christmas cocktail party that may have been my last. Oh my…did I take the wrong culinary left somewhere.

It was one if those corporate shindigs always catered by a company called something like, Wall Street Wizards or Gastronomical Delights. The waiters wear slick navy suits looking more like traders than servers.

The two of us snappily suited up hopping a cab that cut into our dinner money. See, I would have opted for the express…seven stops and you’re on Wall Street twenty-minutes later, but Madam simply wouldn’t hear of it.

“I am not taking the train in my best Armani Susannah, I mean really.”

And of it course the taxi turtled its way down Park at the height of rush hour. I could have walked alongside, it crept that slowly.

When we got to the old J.P.Morgan building which for me is always exciting, he being such a historic figure and all (1837-1913…American king of finance, banker, philanthropist, art collector), we were greeted by a hat-check boy named Polonius. No, I did not make that up…my mind at this hour, which is 8 a.m. on a Sunday, is still rolling over.

As we went in, the space which is cavernous, seemed to eat everyone up…a good thing since elbow to elbow cocktailing is not my idea of a good time. We drifted in, Camille in her vintage LBD (little black dress), and me in my short winter white Theory skirt with one too many buttons left open. We both had on sexy black textured tights making us look right out of Cabaret.

Wilkommen… 

A tray of flutes went by championing champagne, error number one. I’m not saying it was the worst champagne, but guaranteed, it wasn’t the best either. But who could say no to those glasses, the Audreys of stemware.

Next came the parade of hors d’oeuvres that get a 10 and you could dance to them (an old American Bandstand reference). Mushrooms stuffed with crab, smoked salmon wrapped around celery for dear life, Brie nestled in sun-dried tomatoes all served by men who could have graced the cover of Italian and French Vogue…smiling I might add.

I couldn’t help noticing how they all wear such nice watches. Go figure.

So, if nothing else, we were aptly fed and more than a little entertained. The women alone were like a sideshow all preening vying for a dinner invitation. That’s the great thing about being old, you prefer to dine a’ la carte. Even Camille says, one’s better off the beaten path someplace after a couple hours of corporate canoodling since it’s downright exhausting.

“So what firm are you with?” Muffy number twelve, who looks 12, will idly ask. I always say Lockhart/Gardner. “I’ve heard of it,”  she’ll say in her best Cosmo/Marie Claire voice.

Of course you have you addled cow, or calf, I’ll give you that. It’s from the TV show, The Good Wife.

Camille and I laugh at how dim these little girls with scrolls up the wazoo are. How bout rather than framing one of those, you frame your brain.

Just a thought.

Cut to – two hours later. We never make it to dinner since I start hurling tuna tartare in the taxi coming back uptown to Mr. Muhammed’s chagrin behind the wheel.

Camille, at one point, when he was yelling at us through the rear-view mirror in between calls to Iran said, “It’s not like it smelled too good back here to begin with,” which was more than a little true.

Rolling out of the cab, I demur when Camille offers to come in to hold my hair back as I barf in the privacy of my own home.

I do so have hair.

I’m from Connecticut remember, where illness is private never letting them see you sweat, or vomit up little fancy fins that cost you your dignity…and when did I, pray tell, ingest a toothpick?

So that’s why I’m perched in bed like a sick moose my throat feeling like the sound stage of Lawrence of Arabia.

I just looked up to see my Sally Bowles stockings twisted around my desk chair like a big black armband.

How apt.

Uh-oh…will you excuse me?

Here comes Charlie Tuna for one more curtain call…Yeah you know what? I think it may have been Star-Kist.

SB

I’m sad.

Why?

I’m not quite sure, though I could list a few possibilities.

I’m coming off medication again so my body is a little under siege.

How little?

As if it’s being hurled out of a twelve-story window.

Though I grip and gird my loins, it’s still never an easy process.

Then we have Christmas that is in full Manhattan swing with all its own, not so great splendor. Pressure rules as stores, already on sale, bulge with irate, hysterical shoppers making you ask…with attitudes like these…what is the point?

I literally tripped over a kid having a tantrum in Bloomigdales because his father refused to buy him a dirt bike. He was three.

I’ve been trying to rally opting for cheerful ways to brighten myself so I don’t succumb, or become, like that little kid expecting the impossible to come down my chimney, so to speak.

See if I were him, I’d start low, like asking for a hot dog, because let’s face it, if Santa can’t manage that, where are we exactly?

I reread David Sedaris’s, Holiday On Ice, laughing in spite of myself when he was an elf at Macy’s.

I bought new socks at Uniglo throwing out a dozen oldies with holes the size of Swiss cheese.

I even brought home sprays of evergreen to strew across the window sills…let me tell you, this was big.

But the thing that rallied me more than all three of those worthwhile acts were the Google Images I found when I typed in sweet animals.

I realize I did this a week or so ago.

Just view it as an encore.

Do ya think I could get a little scotch with my ice?

This is what happens when you’re a freshman.

Don’t you hate it when it snows  and the kids have to stay home and play?

I believe in going early to get a good seat.

Hey, playing Santa’s putting me through school…you got a problem with that?

Where is my Fresh Direct?

Ya think I’m dry?

Do you think he’s single?

Uncle!

I’m just not in the mood tonight honey…maybe tomorrow.

 Did I ever tell you how I met your father?

When opportunity knocks.

So do you live around here?

The pillbox just didn’t fit.

Lord, I was born a ramblin man…tryin’ to make a livin’ and doin’ the best I can…

an understatement if I’ve ever heard one.

Ho-hum

SB

It’s awful when you can’t sleep, unless of course you’re an owl or raccoon…or cocaine addict who prefers it that way.

From taking so much Prednisone for my ongoing hearing issues, my whole being is out of whack. I sleep like an infant, waking up to eat…reading myself back to sleep.

This will explain why I’m posting at midnight. I’m up, so why the hell not?

Since I always try to look at the positive, there is something awfully special being awake at this hour. It’s just you and the moon holding hands when no one else is watching.

I make sure to be in a great pair of pajamas so I feel like Myrna Loy in the Thin Man  pretending any minute William Powell and Asta the dog will sweep in.

Instead I get the girl next door coming home at 3 with her latest catch…oh, oh..yeah…yeah..ooh, ooh, yeah. Not exactly Dash Hammett is it? More like Trash Hammett, porn reporter.

I switch on my trusty noise machine so it rains sheets drowning out all that suggested joy under them, but alas, I can still hear the occasional AH that makes me and the moon blush like a pot of Revlon rouge.

My reading is certainly up….three books a week at least. Right now I’m enthralled with still another on Jackie written in 2004 called, Jacqueline Kennedy: First Lady of the New Frontier by, Barbara A. Perry…all about her poignant days as first lady.

Before that we had, Anything That Moves, by Dana Goodyear, a staff writer at The New Yorker about bottom feeder food eaters, that was more than a little illuminating. Hardcore foodies who actually prefer a C rating in a restaurant’s window who will eat anything on a dare.

3) Stars In Their Courses, a compelling account of the Battle of Gettysburg…1863 by, the late, great Shelby Foote.

4) The Girl, author Samantha Geimes who, at 13,  was raped in 1982 by director Roman Polanski…the reason he can’t return to the United States.

5) Manhunt, James Swanson…the two week chase to capture actor and murderer, John Wilkes Booth, Lincoln’s handsome, infamous killer.

6) Stitches, Anne Lamont…a short, uplifting shot in the arm on the fabric of one’s life.

7) Bully Pulpit, Doris Kearns Goodwin’s UNANIMOUS WIN on the relationship between U.S Presidents, William Howard Taft and Theodore Roosevelt that…you’ve heard it here first folks, will no doubt win The Pulitzer Prize for American History.

8) A Story Lately Told, the first installment of actress Angelica Huston’s two-part memoir about her distinguished parents and the opulence of growing up in their light as well as their shadow.

9) Asylum…Simon Doonan, Barney’s longtime, funny, eccentric window dresser that had me on the floor.

10) And last but certainly not least, Dallas, 1963…a well documented, scary expose by, Bill Minutaglio and Steven L Davis of why JFK never should have made that fatal trip to the Lone Star State, let alone its city that made no secret of loathing our 35th Catholic President making him a lamb going in for slaughter.

On that cheerful note…

one can see, there is always an upside. My mind is replete with great stories to canoodle with beneath the stars.

Not everyone can say they’ve read aloud to the moon wearing silk, pinstriped pajamas while a certain young lady howls to it on the other side of the wall.

I’m just saying.

SB

I love this expression. I believe I heard it first on a West Wing episode when Leo Mc Garry, the White House Chief of Staff played majestically by the late, great John Spencer, had to simmer some senator down never to boil over again.

That’s the point of it. To alert someone to your strength when they’re behaving badly.

A friend of mine recently had cause to do this where she works. A colleague was acting way out of line so she quietly, but firmly, declared herself. It’s key to do it eye to eye, but with class and grace. The other person has little choice but to reel themselves in since you’re all calm and poised while they’re unhinging like a lunatic.

My friend was a bit apprehensive afterwards fearing possible recriminations, but I know that elbow did the appropriate trick to smooth out those wacky wrinkles in her what should be, a safe work place.

I did it with a fellow writer who was acting rude, inconsiderate and just a tad too grand. My pal Mazzilli said, “Bianchi, maybe you shouldn’t have done that. She’s an editor who you work with…what if she gets pissed?”

“What if she does? Sometimes you need to say to the world…I deserve respect and expect it, it doesn’t matter from whom, whether it be the butcher, the baker or the hot shot editor.”

Her response? A dignified apology on the heels of better behavior.

My pal Peter in Florida just had his water turned off because the check failed to arrive on time. He’s never been late, has great credit with the water company yet one day he came home to no water.

When he called, they put him on hold without apologizing for making such a rash error…seems they just didn’t care one way or the other that he had to wash-up at a neighbors. He lives in this lovely town by the way, not the Ozarks, so let’s do the math.

What’s the water company’s problem? Did it have a bad day? Low and behold, our rusty though trusty postal service sent back his check sliced in half like ham pleading mea culpa unlike the water people, so now at least he can prove he was telling the truth, hence, no late fees to pay.

My reaction…toss them an elbow so they never do it again. Get a manager on the phone…be outraged at the temerity to arbitrarily shut off someone’s water without as much as a warning. This is America Florida Water, not Beirut. Another fact we should always remember…how fortunate we are to have clean, running water, but that’s another essay, isn’t it?

I feel standing up for oneself in all walks of life is mandatory, as long as it’s laced with tact and civility.

Like Leo said on The West Wing, “Toss that elbow once, and you never have to do it again.”

Hear Hear!

Thank-you Aaron Sorkin.

PS   I loved John Spencer

December 20, 1946 – December 16, 2005

SB

Love Bats Last resonates because I know how true it is. I don’t care what anyone says.

My shrink so disagrees with this…wonders where my need to be so nice stems from? He sweetly calls me a people pleaser…a do-gooder…an Uncle Tom (he’s black) and on occasion, even a martyr.

That makes me laugh. A martyr, really? Just because I send birthday cards?

He wants me to be tougher on the world, and I’ve asked him, why would he think I was anything but? I’m tough, have a Teflon finish I don pretty much whenever I’m out in a world he describes as mean and uncaring.

Alright, so I spring a leak once in a while, but still more or less hold my ground.

But what I’ve truly learned, in trial and error, if you don’t at least try to choose love as the antidote, then there is really no hope for change.

Nelson Mandela, who I proudly share a birthday with, passed away last week. When you think of a light extinguished, that part of the world has just had a major blackout.

After being incarcerated for 27 years, his heart remained open. One can only ask, how could that be?

Because he opted for love, that’s why. It’s a conscious choice we can make over revenge and retaliation. Is there suffering involved along with frustration not to leave out the humiliation when time and time again your efforts are thwarted and rejected?

Absolutely…like banging your head against that old proverbial wall.

But it’s also the only chance of causing a shift in the collective consciousness.

Aggression on aggression escalates what already is…like bumping head on into someone on the street…you bounce off one another with tremendous force feeling stunned and addled.

But if you lend kindness in its stead…extend a hand…show that you’re not out for blood and warfare…you can actually hear the planet sigh as if to say…finally, I can put down my sword because frankly I’m fucking exhausted.

Hating, for the record, takes a lot of energy.

I love the beginning of the novel Les Miserables (Victor Hugo, 1862), when the priest pretends he gave Jean Valjean the candelabra he stole so he wouldn’t be sent back to jail. This act of kindness opens Jean’s heart, tweaking the reader’s, displaying the example.

I’ve often compared myself to a raw nerve hurting so easily I’m no challenge. I’m the doe running in the woods the hunter kills because I paused to ask if he required directions.

Next thing you know I’m strapped to the roof of a jeep bleeding all along the Hudson River Parkway…

but look…the stadium.

It’s the bottom of the ninth, 3 men on base and the Stalwarts are losing…but alas…here comes LOVE up to bat…

LAST…

CAN SHE DO IT… PULL A BABE RUTH RESTORING FAITH TO THE MASSES BLEEDING SO BADLY IN THOSE COLD-HEARTED BLEACHERS?

WE HOLD OUR BREATH AS WE WATCH HER EFFORTLESSLY HIT IT ONCE AGAIN, RIGHT OUT OF THE PARK…

WONDERING HOW WE EVER DOUBTED HER?

SB

Bill Hicks would have been 52 years-old today.

For those of you who don’t know, he was a stand-up comic and gifted writer who passed away on February 26th, 1994 of pancreatic cancer at the age of 32.

And, he was my boyfriend.

I don’t talk of our intimate relationship very often though I’ve written about him in the past…see Falling Star…but to be quite honest, Bill was the love of my life.

When he left the planet, rather suddenly, he took my innocence along with him…swiped it like a favorite scarf or sweater never to be seen again. Gone was the happy, perky gal from Connecticut with her hope chest filled with dreams and dish towels, silver that came in detergent boxes and stemware her mother had stolen, just for her, from only the best restaurants. Did I mention my shrimp fork collection for seventy-five?

I had taken this big, 12 ply cardboard storage box I harbored for years leaving it out on the curb in the pouring rain the night of Bill’s funeral. With tears streaming down my face, I knew I wouldn’t be needing it anytime soon.

I no longer cared about cutlery and Pyrex casserole containers dreaming of making delicious dishes in, for my beloved who loved when I did.

It was one of the nicest traits Bill had having no problem accepting gifts or care that came especially in way of food. I’d always bring a big box of Dunkin Donuts whenever I flew to see him. It was why he’d pick me up with coffee for two, so we could get right down to the glazed nitty-gritty, his favorite, right there in the Avis rent-a-car.

Some men don’t cotton well to presents. It’s as if we’re trying to bribe them into love…manipulate their affection. Bill’s attitude was always, bribe on bay-ba.

He was from Texas so he had that sexy twang a Texan never makes excuses for. It’s embedded deep in their DNA like the heels on their boots and the way their jeans, without apology, hug their hips and hindquarters.

Hicks wasn’t a handsome man by any means, but was he hot. Girls, to my chagrin, would line up like half-naked geishas cooing their wares hoping to catch his eye. He’d always, like any good showman, reward them with a mere wink and smile, at least when I was there. My jealousy would rear its ugly head many a night causing fireworks followed by some of the best make-up sex any thirty-eight year old could ever set claim to.

My explanation was simple.

I loved him.

To this day, twenty-one years later, I still can’t bring myself to watch him or even see a photo of that famous face I so want to add to this essay. That means when I Google him, he’ll show up in spades…picture after picture gracing every stage many when I was proudly perched in the audience preening for my guy. Can I do that? Finally be a grown-up and face him after all this time? The jury’s still out.

When I wrote Falling Star back in 2011, my friend Amy added a snippet of him I’ve never seen. It’s still there like a phantom film clip holding its little cinematic ground.

There’s the box of love letters way in back of the closet with the last rose he gave me solemnly gracing its lid. I tell myself, if I go near it, it will turn to dust so best I leave it be,  and what it graciously guards like a grave no one bothers to visit anymore.

But the truth is…he, nor it, is even remotely forgotten. A day doesn’t go by that I don’t think of him; see something I know he’d love hearing him chuckle alongside me.

What people don’t know about the tough Texan Mr. Hicks is, how absolutely ridiculous he could sometimes be. He was so revered by his peers and public, they never bothered to glimpse that side of him. He was a clown first and foremost, clad in leather and cowboy boy boots I’ll admit, but as he so aptly put it, “I’m a comedienne bay-ba…first…it’s who I am…and don’t you fur-get it.”

How could I?

All the other stuff…the bad boy persona…the long, laconic strut onto the stage. The way a mere look could go right through you making you feel naked and shy like never before.

I always say, I never felt quite as girlie as when I was with Hicks, his manners flush treating me as if I needed to be protected at all costs. He’d take my hand when crossing a street and my arm as we strolled. The smell of him, the coolness of his worn leather jacket (if it could only talk) against my cheek shielding me from the wind.

“Like the sound of them high heels lay-da,” he’d croon as they happily tap-danced on the pavement.

Yes…I was so, so happy back then.

One can’t help to wonder where a force like Bill Hicks ends up when he departs the planet for another realm yet to conquer. I remember a few days after he died having a dream seeing him beyond the clouds in concert with a big sign that said…SOLD OUT.

I felt so much better upon awakening, knowing he was working…entertaining the saints, if you will…because he was never so happy as when he graced a stage.

On this day Bill, the 16th of December, 2013, we’re all thinking of you…and wherever you are, always know, you’ll live in my heart forever.

Love,

Susannah

December 16, 1961 – February 26, 1994

Oh my…Christmas is looming like a runaway train and on top of that, it’s on sale.

Yes, Christmas is 40 % off ten days away in case you didn’t hear.

I can’t help thinking about the Three Wise Men who you know paid retail. The Magi, who with the exception of possibly Peter Paul and Mary, are the most famous trio ever.

There was no…get your coupon online…back in BC. They had to come up with hard money to buy that myrrh and aromatic frankincense. When you think of what Tom Ford charges nowadays for his fragrance…fahgetaboudit

To be quite frank, I have a problem with Christmas being in the bargain bin. When I was a kid, my mother, who fancied herself Mrs. Claus, never looked for deals. It was always more about the perfect gift, not what one could get for less.

The only cheap gift I ever got was a cat from the pound in a Santa hat, and we sure didn’t mind that one bit, did we Fluffy, wherever you are.

Mew.

My stocking was always award winning. Mom would never be so trite as to actually fill a red sock. Instead, she’d find something to put things in, like a wastepaper basket or tote bag. I still do that. As we speak I have a stocking for a friend that’s a pair of J Crew PJs packed with goodies in its pockets and pant legs. Might be a bit scary when she opens it since it looks as if someone occupies them, but it’s much more fun than the old red sock.

Legacies…how they range.

Another thing I did was stuff a laptop bag for someone I loved. Boy, did I have a ball    doing that. I asked myself, what would he have in his so called computer bag, say if he went someplace overnight? He’s a practical fellow, efficient and terribly neat. But he’s also a tad naughty which is why I sneaked minibar bottles of Jameson in its little covert fabric covered compartments.

He also has a spare pair of flannel L.L. Bean boxers and a turtleneck if the temps drop along with socks, a toothbrush and a book of Hebrew psalms in case he needs a little inspiration. And yes, he’s of Jewish persuasion he keeps under wraps like an asthma inhaler or wooden leg. One’s faith is personal remember, and it’s one of the things I like best about him…but that’s another theme entirely…and as far as expense goes, I began the project in July so it’s already paid for.

Italian Cancers are very practical as well.

I’m not kidding when I say, what a good time I had stuffing this particular stocking, and not once did I think about deals and holiday steals.

That said…

a girl I know asked what I was doing for Christmas.

Her brows shot up when I say nothing.

Nothing is something I look forward to every year, when I can legitimately hole up with a mountain of books, food of my choice in the fridge with nothing pressing to do. With a family long gone and no beau to burn that Yuletide log with, it’s just me…Decking the Halls, Coming Upon a Midnight Clear knowing better than anyone, We Need a Little Christmas...right this very minute.

The season, at least its sacred spirit, has no business being on sale.

There was no room at the inn remember, no discounted suites to be had, yet he was perfectly happy Away in a Manger with myrrh and frankincense offered at full price.

I’m with him, and he, if you discount Good Friday that let’s face it, was a really bad day, didn’t fare too badly.

We still celebrate him every year on a Silent Night as we Come All Ye Faithful singing Joy To the World along with The Angels Up On High.    Now that’s what I call a legacy.

SB

Let’s cover three events that occurred in the same day.

First up: I’m at the track on a glorious December morning not too cold…muscles intact…sun streaming down. There’s a guy I see often. He’s a big, burly fellow who runs and always wears the brightest shade of orange. He looks like a big pumpkin, with biceps. The other memorable thing about him is his face. It’s all scrunched up, like one of the Lollipop Kids in The Wizard of Oz. Think boyish with a permanent scowl.

Today, rather than running, he was walking with his dog held tightly in his arms. A little speckled Bichon Frise he clutched protectively.

I of course had to stop. “Is he okay? “I said, genuinely concerned, “is he hurt?”

He looked at me up and down with maximum scrunch and said, ‘NO, HE’S JUST TIRED.”

Second thing: As I tooled around the track after deciding to change directions, a woman…50ish, blonde…vera BOCA RA-TON…was coming the opposite way. As we were about to pass one another like spandexed ships in the night, or day rather, she screamed, ‘Ya goin the wrong way…it’s counta clack-woise.”

OOPS..

“Yeah, and who the fuck are you, the traffic police?” Yes, I did. She woke my mother. “You gotta car parked…you gonna give me a ticket?”

She ran away. Good, I scared her. Where does she get off telling me that? If you were up there riding a horse pulling a circus trailer I’d never say a word. I’d simply run around you.

Then, as I’m coming off the track preparing to stretch on the bridge that leads you back to the street, there’s a couple having a huge fight. I attempt tp ignore them positioning myself at the far end. But it starts to get really out of hand. They were in their late 40s I’d say…clearly married the way they were speaking to one another. I say that, because I believe if you’re legally bound to the other, all bets are off verbal abuse wise.

“You infuriate me,” she  kept saying. “No one Charlie pisses me off more than you, and I’m sick of it.”

“Yeah, well not as much as I am. I give you every fucking thing you want in the world and you’re still never fucking happy.”

Ho-hum

“Well if you don’t like it, move the fuck out. I’ll even pack for ya.”

“YOU WILL…YOU WILL…GOOD..THEN TODAY’S THE DAY!”

Omigod, I’m thinking. They’re breaking up, right in front of me. No…what can I do..God put me here for a reason..I need to help.

“Excuse me,” I say like a sweaty Mother Teresa, “excuse me.” They both look at me like I have three heads.

“I don’t mean to butt in, but you’re just being so mean to one another. Couldn’t we backpedal a little?”

“Who the fuck are you,” the wife said, “Oprah?” Yes, she really said that, and I had to really stuff it so not to laugh.

“I’m no one really, I just can’t help feeling sorry you’re about to break up. If you don’t mind me asking, how long have you been together?”

“Are you writin a story?” the woman said (actually yes).

“Don’t talk to her like that. She’s just trying to be nice,” the guy said.

“You know Charlie…you and Oprah here can both go fuck yourselves.”

OMIGOD!

“Now now..please, the last thing I want to do is offend. It’s just, love and affection are so hard to find…take it from me…and none of us are perfect…and all I’m really suggesting is that maybe, along with what’s not so great, toss in what might be a little good.”

I got their attention.

I decided to address Attila The Hun. “Can you count on him if something is really wrong? I’m not talking the dish washer backing up, I mean something really upsetting. Do you have children?”

“Three,” the guy said.

“If something happens to one of them does he come rushing home?”

She doesn’t answer, but looks at him.

“And for all her alleged whining, does she take care of you say, when you’re sick…do you have nice clean shirts hanging on your side of the closet? Does she go to bat for you if you’re criticized?”

See, I knew all these answers already. No couple who fights that passionately hasn’t been through the mill with each other.

Just not possible.

That’s all I said. I returned to my end of the bridge like a good little troll, finished my last set of back push-ups and left.

Central Park…who knew.              Let’s do lunch…call me

SB

I recently put athingirl.com on Facebook, something I said I’d never do. I figured, she had a heartbeat of her own that had zip to do with Susannah becoming my justification in doing so.

The site itself remains foreign. I go to my ubiquitous homepage that comes up if I merely blow on it whenever I post, to add the link and a teensy blurb hoping to catch a new reader or two. Has it made a difference? I can’t see much of one since my numbers relatively stay the same. I’m sure, the fact I do this at midnight doesn’t help the cause not being the most propitious time to alert the cyberly inclined.

So far I have 35 LIKES initially making me think, that’s pretty good, until my friend Mary told me she had close t0 2000. Despite my chagrin it made me laugh like hell.

You see, I just want to write. All this self-promoting, preening on the proverbial page is quite time consuming and takes one away from one’s art. Looky here at me just seems like one big bore.

HOWEVER…since any moment I’ll be launching an eBook on Amazon it just seemed like a good idea.

Being the Rainman of cyberspace, I find Facebook along with Twitter, something else I’ve tried, very much like having a second job. Tweeting especially drove me insane. I know people who Tweet every ten minutes…what they’re doing, what they’re eating…what they think about everything from soup to nuts…and that’s exactly what they are…

NUTS.

I will try, however, to improve my skills. My friend Alex, a wizard on the net, continues to mentor me which simply means, doing what I’m told. www.BlaisePhoto.com

I link, blurb and LIKE when I can find the button on someone else’s page when my own allows it. I never knew a page could be so competitive and bossy. Like an obsessive parent, it doesn’t want me to land anywhere but home.

We need a sit-down Page and me. She needs to understand we hail from Connecticut where manners mind their own. If someone LIKES me I need to LIKE in return or at least send a thank-you note if cyberly can manage it.

Alrighty, 32 Tiffany notes coming up.

But wait a minute, when will I find time to write?

See, that’s the problem…LIKES be damned.

Will you excuse me while I pen essay number 742?

That’s what I really hope you’ll LIKE, not something that isn’t even here yet…like Christmas and New Years.

SB

I used to have a much bigger life, first as a decently paid model then as the girlfriend of a well-to-do man. I traveled, attended parties and charity events along with eating out every night. It explains why I never feel that I’m missing out on a thing now that my life has gotten what I like to think of as more contained.

Part of this is because I enjoy simple things.

“You have no needs,” my friend Camille is always saying, but that’s not true. I’ve just learned and I’ll borrow a phrase, to bloom where I’m planted. It also doesn’t hurt to like your own company.

To be quite frank, I’d rather be with yours truly than anyone else.

Less for me as always been more even when I was younger. I’d be the only girl living at the Principessa Clotilde Residence in Milan who’d stay in to read rather than go to dinner. I remember Wilhelmina, my agent at the time, calling from New York to lecture me on the mores of Milano. “You need to socialize Bianchi, it’s how they do business in Italy.” Yes Ma’am,” I’d say, anxious to get back to my book.

When I think about the demands of my former relationship I wonder how I hung in there for so long. How many events did he drag me to when I just wanted to stay home and be.

One of the advantages of being on your own is being able to choose what you’d like to do when you’d like to do it. Today I’m thinking of going to The Metropolitan Museum of Art to see their annual Christmas tree. Now this appeals to me, the quality of quietly observing tradition. An hour at a museum is much more enriching than another cocktail party with the same fulla shit people, I can tell you that.

Of course none of my friends agree with me. According to Hal I should be out looking for a husband and Camille thinks I’m tooling into early senility.

Even Trudy, my intrusive neighbor I’d like to pelt with rotten eggs, voices her disapproval as if I’m wasting away at the library with David Sedaris and Anne Lamott.

She hated my essays on them (Anne Lamott /David Sedaris Blows), said I sounded like an old, washed up woman who just sits around and reads all the time.

I wouldn’t exactly say I’m washed up however I do sit around and read a lot. I find it more satisfying these days, what can I say? Besides, some of my best friends read so I feel I’m in good company.  

I think I’ll throw on some jeans and tool on over to the Met. Or better yet, don a pretty dress on behalf of Father Christmas who if I play my cards right might buy me a drink.

We’ll sit on the terrace overlooking the Great Hall listening to a little chamber music.

When I told Trudy this she hung up on me.

Was I mad?’

Hardly…now I know how to get rid of her.

SB

I love Pamela Anderson.

I know, such a strange, surprise declaration from a Thin Girl, but I always say, if I looked like her, I’d own the world not to mention the rest of the solar system.

For me she’s right up there with Yosemite and the Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls and the chicken soup at Little Nectar. On my Richter scale, and make no mistake, she has the magnitude of an 8.9 quake. Miss Pamela Anderson is the ninth wonder of the western world easily, even if assembly was required.

One can’t help but to admire her pluck as in guts, not chickens or nose hairs, the way she proudly parades around in all her plastic splendor. For a Connecticut girl like me who only shows skin in post-op, she’s more than a hero.

She’s the Eleanor Roosevelt of tits and ass.

I hear she may be leaving herself to science or The Smithsonian, who would stuff her, though redundant, and put her on permanent display at the Air and Space Museum, right next to Lucky Lindbergh’s Spirit of St Louis or possibly even perched in its cockpit which I’m all in favor of.

Imagine going there seeing her in one of her Bay Watch bathing suits about to give CPR. waving from above. Tell me that wouldn’t inspire or change the voice of a twelve-year-old.

We’d have a fresh crop of young astronauts begging to go into space, or at least as high as that ceiling.

All kidding aside (well I’ll try), Pam bleats confidence and courage, aplomb and poise positively self-possessed.

Who said just possessed?

Is that fair?

I’ll let you in on a little secret…sometimes I go to Nina’s Wig Shop in Brooklyn where I don’t know anybody to try on Pam wigs. She sells a lot of them, mostly to hookers who have Pam requests, and to be quite honest, I don’t look half bad as a banged blonde, as it were. Well, providing you don’t look at the rest of me. Even with my Victoria Secret secret pusher-upper that make my boobs look like folded pieces of pressed ham, I couldn’t come close to Your Royal Highness of soft, fuzzy porn. And those lips, even if you were to start your lip-line below your nose, is still not the same since, one does resemble a paint-by-number when using a number two Bobby Brown eyebrow pencil.

I so wish she’d write a how-to book. Not how to spend thousands of dollars at a surgeon’s in Beverly Hills to come out looking like an action figure, but to have the swagger and strut to do so.

I’d be the first to sign up once I got Camille, Joanne and Jimmy the super at 920 Park out of the way first.

I’d have to go early, possibly even sleep on a blanket the night before as if it were Shakespeare in the Park.

Now there’s an idea. Pam as Portia or better yet, Henry V. Imagine her on horseback in all that armor amidst a sea of binoculars.

It would look like an erotic art installation with diction.

Of course, she has reinvented herself in 2013 swapping her big boobs for little French ones…see photo the size of Cleveland…but call me crazy since I prefer the vavavoom one… 

As Mobb Depp, the legendary hip-hopper once said, but I think Pam may have said it first…

“Watch my fronts, I got your back.”

Excuse me…time for my meds.

SB

Well, it’s Christmas Eve and it appears I’m on my own.

Camille is spending the evening with Malcolm, her new Belgian beau who’s in for the holiday reveling at having a date. She did messenger over a bottle of Moet and a large box of Oreos, along with a great pair of Wolford tights I had my eye on but couldn’t bring myself to buy since I could have bought a dress at that price. Now that’s what I call a pal. For those of you who don’t know, Wolfor\jhgfd is the Cartier of hose as they blatantly hose you overcharging for every textured seam.

I have them on with Prada heels and a big T-shirt that says...If Yoko can live without John, I can live without you, another Camille gift of yore. It was the only one that was clean and pressed. Can’t look wrinkled on Christmas Eve, now can we?

There’s a pile of books on the nightstand including David Sedaris’s Holidays on Ice, along with the old time classic, The Night Before Christmas. Yes I do, it’s nice to read it, especially when you’re drunk. It comes under the heading of light reading since anything anymore complicated could cause a massive brain hemorrhage. David’s SantaLand Diaries, being the exception of course when he was an elf called Crumpet at Macys way back when. I highly recommend them to everyone since the absurdity of it all will pick up your spirits possibly even faster than a martini.

My friend Joanne, who’s in Missouri visiting her Aunt Doe, called crying since Auntie, a lifelong teetotaler, has not one drop of liquor in the house. This is why we need to invest in personalized flasks in the New Year, I told her. Of course this didn’t do much to help presently, but she did like the idea. I also suggested getting them for friends so we might get a better price buying in bulk.

The Italian cancer from Connecticut is always thinking.

My horny next-door neighbor is having a cocktail party that she’s invited me to. I’m thinking maybe I’ll pop over, but then again, the thought of meeting all her orgasms face to face has little appeal, and let’s face it, my reputation will proceed me. “Hey it’s her, the one who bangs her head against the wall.”

Yes, might be wiser to sit this particular party out.

So, it’s me and David, Moet Chandon, Nabisco and, Twas the night before Christmas when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. Well there better not be.

I can deal with the brothel next door a lot easier than a rodent showing up uninvited for a little holiday Brie.

Maybe Clarence the cat in 9 is home…I could request a visit…his parents, who I’m relatively friendly with, might like an evening to themselves.

I could read to him.

Where is my Cat In The Hat anyway? Or better yet, we could watch Cat On A Hot Tin Roof since that might be more his style haling from the Bronx and all.

Yes, my Christmas Eve is certainly shaping up.

SB