wishbone clover

Glasses Are Cool. Except When They Aren't.

My very stylish friend Sassafrass Jess got new glasses and wrote a really sweet, insightful post using them as a metaphor. Because she's smart like that. For comparison, she posted a photo of herself back in the 80s, with her "Sally Jessy Raphae-hell" frames.

I don't have any clever stories on hand, but somehow (oh yeah, call it a procrastination tactic, you're right) I feel compelled to share my own faux Victorian mutton-chop-sleeve blouse -- and feathered hair -- version of bad 80's glasses:

Cathy in the 7th grade

Also, it takes a truly discerning eye to see, but I'm wearing about eight pounds of navy blue eyeliner, too.

Oh, junior high. Bad fashion. Good times.

I think that Jess and I turned out ok, despite our transgressions in the 80s!

Blood, Amalgam, Horror: Awkward Date Proposals

Saturday afternoon I visited the dentist to get my fangs ship-shape before I take off for Asia.

"Wow," the dentist mused."You sure have cute teeth!"

My sensors, already primed, went into red alert. "JESUS," I thought. "Am I going to have to find another dentist?"

"My kids have cute teeth too," he continued. "Now sit up and spit."

Disaster averted.

That Heroin Boyfriend

You get a bunch of women together, and pretty soon we start comparing notes on life. We have a breathtaking willingness to share even our most painful or embarrassing anecdotes. In fact, the worse the story, the better it feels to tell it. 

As a lapsed Catholic and veteran of years of therapy, I'm always fascinated by the cathartic power of admitting the worst and watching it drift away, powerless to hurt you any more.

Even though shitty situations are like assholes (we all have one) and snowflakes (different every time), I noticed one surprisingly common flavor of experience: That Heroin Boyfriend.

It seems like everyone has one! And by everyone, I mean wicked smart, educated, gorgeous, young women who are clearly hot prizes on the market. As fetching as they are, these women always seem to pick the (admittedly frequently stealth) junkie over the squeaky clean captain of the swim team (granted, he's a different, totally gay problem, and a separate post: That Gay Boyfriend.)

My personal Heroin Boyfriend drama level was relatively low. The whole memory has a greasy, sort of 70's glamor to it, like an old TV show I watched late at night, half asleep. While drunk. Which is mortifyingly accurate.

"Robert" was older, sort of dark and euro-trashy. He smoked and drank a lot, and at the time so did I. In hindsight, I'm sure he was also doing coke in bathrooms (certainly with other women, probably off their cokewhore-asses) which was likely the source of his manic, appealing energy.

The Ex-Girlfriend Report Card

Ah, boyfriends.

The good, the bad, and the ugly. Each of them the product of so many sources: the finicky mom who made him scrub tiles with his toothbrush; the older brother who redeemed bottles to buy his first sax.

Mostly at this stage in the game, they're a product of their ex-girlfriends. The slag, the psychopath, the sweetheart who took off for law school: those are the ladies who formed the man you see before you today.

The Break-Up Skirt

We have those scraps of clothing so redolent of time and place we can't dispose of them: a high-school jean skirt marked with Sharpie stars and unicorns, the jacket of your first official power suit, the blouse you wore when your future husband tripped and spilled a drink on you at the bar where you met.

I've got this ugly skirt.

My Invented Boyfriend

Back when I worked back with Cat and cheapgirl in a corporate marketing department, our coworkers were exclusively women and a couple of gay dudes. The only harassment was sartorial: no one would dare make a pass at you, but you might hear disapproving groans if you walked down the hallway in jeans or, god forbid, Crocs. Hiss!

Live it, Learn it: Fuck You Money

Several years ago, a scandalously beautiful (yet somehow relatable) actress appeared on Oprah and tearfully recounted the tale of a relationship gone sour. That I remember this is remarkable for two reasons, one being that I never watch Oprah, and the other that when I thought "beautiful, relatable...who?" I knew it must be Halle Berry.

Anyhow, Halle Berry (I think) was telling Opes how she had lived with the low-down fool who treated her badly and beat her up, but she stayed anyhow. She was a struggling actress at the time and the man paid her bills. The lesson she learned was that a lady should always have a little fuck you money socked away.

The audience's shared brow crinkled in disbelief: what fool would do Halle Berry wrong? Who? Bring that motherfucker on stage, we'll rip his plugs out!

In Praise of Gentleman Callers

"I don't text," said Greg, my friend Aimee's boyfriend, as we sat around the kitchen. "It makes me feel like a coward."

And I thought: exactly. Texting has been bothering me lately. As a young lady living in a big city, I get a barrage of texts on a daily basis. Some from friends, some from suitors. 

A fair amount are informational ("I'll be 5 minutes late" or "Where is the restaurant?") but some are conversations with worse grammar and less context than fits in an email. The latter tends to be the case with dudes.

Inappropriate Love Objects

Don't say you haven't had one. Your neighbor's husband? The pastor? Whatevs.

Sure, I've got the usual celebrity crush objects. Clive Owen? Christian Bale? Albert Finney? Sizzle.

Yet since I was a youngin' I've had crushes on inappropriate people. Such as:

Does Rosanna Arquette's Poo Smell Like Cinnamon French Toast?

She seems wicked nice, don't get me wrong. She directed that cool documentary Searching for Debra Winger, and her whole family gives off the kooky and kind vibe. But it is inexplicable to me that this slightly horsey looking, buck-toothed lady is such a muse to musicians. What makes her so inspriring? Uh, besides the obvious (see above.)

She was the ladyfriend of Toto's Steve Pocaro. Admit it. You know every word to Rosanna and it's going through your head right this minute.

Then Peter Gabriel famously wrote In Your Eyes for her. That means, without Rosanna Arquette, there is no Lloyd Dobler, and subsequently no Joan Cusack. What a bleak world that would be.

Rosanna was also married to two(!) composers who are probably famous to people who care about stuff like that.

Now the rumor is that she's dating Sir Paul McCartney, about whom I'm rather protective. After all, he's still recovering from the living hell that was marriage to that filthy whore, Heather Mills.

Unless...maybe Sir Paul is just shtupping her so he can squeeze out one last hit song. Maybe he's using her!

I hope not. It would be much better if she really is the nicest lady in the world, and she's satisfying him in ways he never dreamed existed.

And if that inspires some new love song that will be played at every prom and wedding for the next twenty years, well I hope she gets a piece of the residuals this time. She earned it.