Author: The Fat Lady Sings

Just what is the equivalence of a pat on the head complete with lollipop?  Is it the left-handed compliment – `well, pretty good, considering you don’t focus solely on politics’.  `What a nice little blog!’  `There’s always room for your sort of thing.’  `I’m sure some people will find the information useful.’  Makes you wish they’d not bothered in the first, place, doesn’t it?  Make my lollipop cherry, please.  Or is it more of a `seen but not heard’ kind of thing?  `If we ignore her long enough, maybe she’ll just go away – we don’t have enough marshmallows to go around, you see.’  `She can’t play – she’s a girl!’  `Da da da da da da da da da da da – (has she gone yet?) da da da da da da (OK – it’s safe to take your fingers out of your ears, guys – she shut up’).
Of course – one can stake out a niche in the world of feminine and feminist bloggers – women’s issues (lower case, to most of the `boys’) are very much in vogue these days, especially those issue’s that have a political flavor.  Great to be sure; a generous leavening of the political blogs out there are run by women (and I think the best), but the classification becomes inaccurate if your subject matter strays toward the personal or rhetorical on occasion.  And there is the world of diary blogging – chronicling you or your family’s life and times – all worthy to be sure – and all summarily dismissed by `the guys’ as not weighty enough; you know what I mean – along with all family related issues diary blogs are usually labeled as lacking in `fiber’.  Oh, they rarely come right out and say it.  Hence employment of the above strategies.  But you will get the point – of that you may be sure.  Without declaring yourself openly and avowedly political in nature, you might as well pack up your dictionary and go home.  Unless you like lollipops, of course; in that case there are plenty to go around (though they’re out of cherry, I’m afraid).

So what’s a girl to do?  Smile sweetly and hold some guy’s jacket while he and the `boys’ kick around that metaphorical football?  Not for me, sister.  I’ve never accepted anyone’s labels, and I don’t intend on starting this late in the game. Go marginalize someone else.   Think you can pigeonhole me as Mensa-light?  I don’t think so.  And if you do, then you’ve got another thing coming.  There actually are a few men out there who prefer their meals spiced; maybe not enough to keep me in cookbooks – well, not yet anyway.  But there are lots of hungry women though – chefs in their own right, capable of sustaining me and mine till hell freezes over, if need be – though I really don’t think it will take that long.  In the meantime I will craft my work for me – you’re welcome to the table bucko – but one crack about how I prepared the meal, and I’ll send you on your way, lollipop and all!    

I came across this wonderful little document some time back, and have been saving it for the proverbial rainy day.  Well – we had a very wet October!  Enjoy.
Hello there, Maxine here.  The Bush administrations constant attempts to interfere with my, and everyone else’s life prompted me to write this.  Let’s just say I’m royally pissed off.  Trust me – when I’m this mad – you really don’t want to fuck with me.  

To Whom It May Concern

I, being of sound mind and body, do not wish to be kept alive indefinitely by artificial means.

Under no circumstances should my fate be put in the hands of peckerhead politicians who couldn’t pass ninth-grade biology if their lives depended on it.

If a reasonable amount of time passes and I fail to sit up and ask for a piece of chocolate, it should be presumed that I won’t do so ever again.  When such a determination is reached, I hereby instruct my spouse, children and attending physicians to pull the plug, reel in the tubes and call it a day.

UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES shall any politicians butt into this case.  I don’t care how many fundamentalist votes they’re trying to scrounge for their run for the Presidency in 2008 – it is my wish that they play politics with someone else’s life and leave me the hell alone to die in peace.

I couldn’t care less if a hundred religious zealots send emails to legislators in which they pretend to care about me.  I don’t know these people, and I certainly haven’t authorized them to preach and/or crusade on my behalf.  They should mind their own damn business, too.

If any of my family goes against my wishes and turns my case into a political cause – I hereby promise to come back from the grave and make their existence a living hell.  So help me God!

This marvelous little soufflé was sent to me by my friend Elaine.  Elaine has always been a veritable fountain of the odd and obscure.  Whatever she sends, however, is always gold-stamp guaranteed to produce a smile.  As I live in a confederate state, she thought I might find it amusing.  I did.  So will you.
Someone once noted that a Southerner can get away with the most awful kind of insult just as long as it’s prefaced with the words, “Bless her heart” or “Bless his heart,” as in, “Bless his heart, if they put his brain on the head of a pin, it’d roll around like a BB on a six-lane highway.”

I was thinking about this the other day when a friend was telling about her new transplanted northern friend who was upset because her toddler is just beginning to talk and he has a southern accent. My friend, who is very kind and, bless her heart, cannot do a thing about those thighs of hers, was justifiably miffed about this. After all, this woman had CHOSEN to move to the South a couple of years ago. Can you believe it?” said her friend, “A child of mine is going to be “taaaallllkkin liiiike thiiiissss.”

Now, don’t get me wrong. Some of my dearest friends are from the North, bless their hearts. I welcome their perspective, their friendships, and their recipes for authentic Northern Italian food. I’ve even gotten past their endless complaints that you can’t find good bread down here. And the heathens, bless their hearts, don’t like cornbread!

We’ve already lost too much. I was raised to say “swayya,” not swear, but you hardly ever hear anyone say that anymore, I swayya you don’t. And I’ve caught myself thinking twice before saying something is “right much,” “right close,” or “right good” because non-natives think this is right funny indeed.

I have a friend from Bawston, bless her heart, who thinks it’s hilarious when I say I’ve got to “carry” my daughter to the doctor or “cut off” the light. She also gets a giggle every time I am “fixin'” to do something. And, bless their hearts, they don’t even know where “over yonder” is, or what “I reckon” means!

My personal favorite was my aunt, saying, “Bless her heart, she can’t help being ugly, but she could’ve stayed home.”

Southern girls know bad manners when they see them:

1. Drinking straight out of a can.
2. Not sending thank you notes.
3. Velvet after February.
4. White shoes before Memorial Day or after Labor Day

Southern girls always say:

1. “Yes, ma’am.”
2. “Yes, sir.”

Southern girls have a distinct way with fond expressions:

1. “Y’all come back now, ya heaah.”
2. “Well, bless your heart.”
3. “Drop by when you can.”
4. “How’s your mama?”
5. “Love your hair.”

Southern girls know their three R’s:

1. Rich
2. Richer
3. Richest

Southern girls know everybody’s first name:

1. Honey
2. Darlin’
3. Shugah

Southern girls know the movies that speak to their hearts:

1. “Gone With the Wind”
2. “Fried Green Tomatoes”
3. “Driving Miss Daisy”
4. “Steel Magnolias”

Southern girls know their cities dripping with Southern charm:

1. Hotlanta or Adlanna (Atlanta as outsiders say)
2. Richmon
3. Challston
4. S’vannah
5. Birminham
6. Nawlins’
7. Oh! and that city in Alabama ? It’s pronounced MUNTGUMRY!

Southern girls know the three deadly sins:

1. Bad hair
2. Bad manners
3. Bad blind dates

G. R. I. T. S. = Girls Raised in The South!

Now you run along, Shugah, and send this to someone else Raised In The South, i. e., Southern Belles, or ANY females aspiring to be GRITS. Even the northern ones, “Bless Their Hearts”.

That reminds me. I have a rubber stamp that says “Just because your children were born in the South, that does not make them Southerners. After all, if a cat had kittens in the oven, that wouldn’t make them biscuits.”

Save the earth. It’s the only planet with chocolate.

I consider language to be the richest gift we as humans enjoy.  It goes way beyond simple communication.  Words themselves possess a certain power – they can transform the emotional landscape – create, destroy, caress – or pound someone senseless with the accumulated muscle of a thousand fists.  We treat words carelessly in American society.  Words and their applications are often considered trite and disposable, less human necessity and more French fry. The richness – the pure sensual pleasure that can derive from language craft has been demoted – kicked to the curb along with music as an unnecessary art – not essential to the continuation and promulgation of narrowly defined and increasingly jingoistic American standards and ideals.

Is it that we no longer read for pleasure anymore?

Frankly, I don’t understand any of this.  Language and books are for me inextricably linked.  From the moment I learned to read, I haunted my local library like a revenant, decimating the children’s section in no time, reading and re-reading favorite passages and books, hungry for much more than the knowledge they provided.  It was the words themselves that held me rapt – the sensuous glide of alliteration, the tingling suspense and pride of accomplishment ferreting out definitions provided – letter after letter lining up to create images that filled my mind with a kind of song – blotting out the emotional carnage that composed my everyday life.

I was blessed with a librarian who guided me through those books usually reserved for an adult audience – Wibberly and his fantastical Duchy of Grand Fenwick, Lawrence’s poetical visions of snakes and light, Pope Julius and his contentious relationship with the genius that was Michelangelo, Asimov’s R. Daneel Olivaw and his proto-historical theorems.  I was floating in a sea filled with the light of human thought, and I didn’t want to leave.  At home, whatever I was reading would have to be taken out of my hand and the lamp turned off.  Books equaled heaven, you see; or at least what I imagined heaven to be.  It was the words – plump and purple like plums – thick, sweet and satisfying – hell – sometimes I would forget to eat!  And the smell!  Oh God, I loved it – musty and ancient – like summertime dust.  I would run my fingers over the spine while I read, doodling in the margins with my fingernail, rubbing the thick pages over the ridges in my fingers so I could feel the slight nap from broken fibers. Reading was a thoroughly visceral experience.

Imagine a table covered with food, rich and diverse, there for the taking should any so desire.  That’s how I see words and language – full, bold, spicy – scented with everything our world has to offer.  So why, in God’s name, do so many people prefer the partially digested?  It is ennui?  Or are they so bloody lazy that, like Frank Herbert’s Harkonen bogymen, they prefer filters rather than gaining it for themselves?  Why let some other person tell you what something says, or how to interpret it?  Why not just open the damn thing and read it for yourself?  Try it sometime – you just might like it!  We judge books in this society, you know – parse them out – assign labels like supermarket vegetables.  Sometimes those labels are tacked on due to the author’s penchant for press: Bushnell = chick-lit; or ability to attract unwanted attention: Rushdie = controversy.  Sometimes the label describes: Rowling = empire; King = scary.  Mostly, we condense our literature into comfortably digestible bits and pieces, cliff-note slim and instantly ready for that all-important close-up with Mr. DeMile.  Whatever it has morphed into, reading has long since ceased to be about the words.  

And it should be!  Words lend color to emotion – it isn’t just vocabulary – it’s the ability to fully communicate with our fellow human beings.  Think about it.  Think about how you use language.  How important being concisely understood is to you.  A child uses the basics – hot, cold, angry, hurt; as we grow so does our ability to distinguish between fine emotions.  We need words to help us convey those important, distinguishable, slivers of thought.  That language, the very letters and words we select come from exposure.  You can’t know what `essential’ means, if you have no context for it. Reading provides that elemental link between thought and language.  You know, I am afraid we are stepping back toward a strictly oral tradition.  People parroting only what they hear – no originality, no interest or ability to craft thought using only letters and imagination.  There was a time when the world was viewed as flat, like blank paper – if you weren’t careful, you could easily roll off.  Today I think it’s the people who are flat – and the world that keeps rolling away from them.