Paradise, Sugar, summer, and X-ness

The time was gone when we'd actually sit in someone's family room and watch MTV, but Paradise City's images still made up a big part of listening to that song. We knew Axl was a jerk, but the *song* was still summertime. That was the year we cruised DMV drive.

Val had taken me to Grace Street before, and I was used to venues, dating my rock star at college, going to gig after gig with him and all our musician friends. So cruising really seemed pointless to me, just driving around a wide block, traffic at a standstill, and only one stretch of it really populated. It was usually impossible to get a spot on that stretch; so you'd crawl through the crowded, merc-lit street, and then it was half an hour around a boring circuit to get back again. If you *could* get a spot, though ... it was a fun way to blow an hour before actually going somewhere.

That year, it was Paradise City - Axl in his white jeans; the ageless avatar of Slash stripped out of black and hat, actually sexy under there - and Pour Some Sugar On Me. Every idiot with a too-large spoiler and giant speakers rigged in a hatchback serenaded the entirety of the cruising audience, and I can't remember a single other track that dominated. Those two songs were THAT. SUMMER.

Valerie died to the strains of Paradise City. And Def Leppard was her favorite band.

It is my punishment, and my poignancy, that Axl's damned white jeans will make me cry forevermore.

I miss my girl. She was my sister. Her husband, now - I guess he's my brother.


The orangey light outside the huge HQ building for the Division of Motor Vehicles. Me and Val being cute and using fake names. I was Sabrina because I'd liked that cartoon as a kid, and the name seemed exotic to me. Valerie used Penelope.

Sometimes, now, loving on my dog Penelope, it's not just her I am hugging. She's my girl too.

I never did know why she used Penelope - just, it amused her. It was so unlikely. And boys. Boys trying anything will believe anything. I mean - Sabrina? We both dared 'em to disbelieve. They never bothered to; honesty beside the point, when you are cruising.

Pour Some Sugar On Me.

Both the songs are anthemic, and impossibly catchy. Cryin' is playing at me right now - and we loved us some Aerosmith. (Val had a story about being a groupie and chewing gum.) But Sugar and Paradise, that was all anyone ever heard. When your car was inching forward, and the heated dark breeze of a Richmond summer night carried the distant strains of either of those songs back to us on the long slog through the boring 75% of the circuit - that was the promise. "You're almost there." Almost to the relevant part. The part that is lit, and full of people (boys) and music. The interesting bit.

Scent of hot asphalt hanging in the air, and not a little exhaust, including diesel. Voices, shouting, unrestrained singing. That kid on the skateboard, the first person I ever TOLD I was named Sabrina.

Valerie's laughter.

My girl.

We'd make a few turns. Or park, if we could. Then the lateral move, more parking, more crowded blocks, and The Jade Elephant, or Newgate Prison (hilariously, a dive bar unbeloved by Virginia Commonwealth University Police - now their headquarters - I guess they won). Dirt Woman sitting on his porch. "You can get the dirt off Donnie, but you can't get Donnie off the Dirt!" The Lee X theater, I think defunct already by the early 90s. Grassy scrub lots. The 7-11, maybe convenient for some, but impossibly distant and useless for those of us in heels.

That guy who made his friends drive him around in an old limo. He was cute. He'd give us rides to our cars. Every boy Val ever dated, or was thinking about it. The night I brought The Elfin One, and she laughs to this day about how I zeroed in on someone and said, "I want THAT one" and got his attention. It's all in the wrist - you just pick the one who appeals and is most likely *to* pay you some attention. He was tall. Dilliest smile you ever saw. He was ... unfortunate. Sigh.

My Val.

It's funny. Since she died, I talk to her - "Vally" I call her. I NEVER called her this in life. Some part of it is necessary now, and some part of it almost offends me for being unprecedented. Too cutesy, perhaps. But she's so dear. She was so damned small, in her hospital beds. I miss her.

Summer nights.

Right now, it's so humid in Richmond you just feel WET. Even walking the dog at 6:45 a.m., the humiture is intense. Even at ten o'clock at night, letting her out for the last time, dark - maybe even breezy - it is HOT outside.

Summer used to be what my dad called "soft" nights. Oh, it was still warm, even back then. But it didn't seem punishing. Maybe nothing does when you're half the age I am now, healthy, and ignorant of the future. Not that our future was bad. Val found the best husband she ever could have had. She had joy and SO much love. She and he knew what could come, and agreed.

No regrets.

That summer. Not regrettable. Not even a guilty-pleasure memory. I'm not ashamed we were hair-band chicks, into that kind of guy, brash, loud, laughing. As much as Val's laugh still rings, I never ever faded beside her. Neither of us ever did second-fiddle. We were the Cinderella twins from their old videos. We were catty, and open, and good in our skin, and interested and interesting. We were the 80s. We were the 90s. We were good with it all (and, no - neither of us was ever into the big-hair thing for *ourselves*).

The one time V ever faded into the background around me.

She was with me when I met Mr. X. It actually took about a year or two, that meeting.

It was the crack of the new millennium, and as an 80s throwback we went up to a bar in Springfield, to see the Bullet Boys, who sucked and had ZERO crowd. It wasn't even any fun for making fun of those who'd never gotten the memo that the 80s were over, because almost nobody was there. One other table - us two girls, maybe three guys. I don't remember most of them, because a *CLICK* happened. Mike. It wasn't sexual, but I've rarely experienced chemistry like that. He was fun to talk to, we stayed in touch on email and by phone, tried dating ever so briefly, then he met his wonderful, gorgeous, immensely generous wife.

November, 2002. I've just broken up with the "should be good on paper" guy with the SOUL PATCH (good grief, I though I was getting old at 34, and shouldn't be "picky"), and Mike's band is playing that same club, opening for - I think - Blind Guardian. The line this time wrapped around the building, and it. was. cold. Val and I get out of the car and end up in an alley around back, walking by hundreds along our way, wondering why the doors haven't opened, and hearing lots of grumbles. Only one attractive guy in the whole lot, and he's probably way too young. We take our places. And wait. And wait. I actually sent her back to the car at one point, to get my big wool coat. I hadn't wanted to wear it in the bar, but out here, waiting interminably, a little plastic jacket is not doing the job. The cold stabs from below. Val and I are shivering, miserable.

It turns out, BG's equipment was not compatible with American electrical systems. Which one might have thought could have been solved before several hundred people ended up stranded in the cold, but so-eth these things go-eth. Once we are inside, I go to touch up my face, and find the blackberry lipgloss in frozen shards, bleeding, and recalcitrant about remediation. I feel annoyed and Of Constrained Attractiveness for the rest of the night. And just as well, for the most part I can't find that hot guy anyway. We hang with Mike and the lovely (seriously - she gave me a FOOT MASSAGE, that wonderful woman) Mrs. Mike, and the night ends up being a lot of fun. Good company goes a long way.

At the end, coming out of the venue itself, there is an outer bar. Pool tables, flourescent lighting for my already not-so-flossy-feeling self, and ...Val pulls on me, "Diane, get a load" - and it's that guy. Definitely too young.

I dither and linger, Val takes a bathroom break, I'm on my own by some pool table, make eye contact, smile. He still doesn't come over. When she comes back, I grab her and make a beeline because it is late and we've got a hundred miles to go.

And, not being but so selfish, I leave the opportunities (between chicks hitting on him) open. "We just have to know. Are you single?"

"Sure!" he says.

And, Val told me, she might as well not have been there. "He lit up." "He was only looking at you."

I got his email and we booked it.

That's how I met Mr. X. Who turned out not to be 25 after all. What his age *was*, relative to my 34 at that time, we shall not discuss, because he's a coy one. But I won't say I wasn't glad he wasn't a baby.



Ahh, my Vally.

She was fun.

I miss ... and therein lies everything

I miss her. She and I weren't truly close until our twenties, but we knew each other from the age of twelve. In high school, we shared that certain world of boys we liked (I have never been famed for liking the same boys as everybody else, so this actually does have specific meaning). She seemed brave to me, more daring. Once we got out of school, and were together because we wanted to be, we were daring together - more and more often, until she was my sister.

Sister.

She's in my DNA. And she is gone. And I hate that. Even practicing gratitude, even counting the blessing that she was - that she IS, dammit. Even being glad I got to love that girl, and was loved by her. Nope. It's not enough, because I was only good enough on my own schedule. I was too little, and too late, and we both did that, but the last too-late was mine.

She's left us all to deal with these scurrying circles. She, bless all of her ashen bones, is at peace, I pray.

Today, I listen to old music, and Dokken seems to be transforming to make me think of her. Alone Again and Heaven Sent, no longer cis/het/sexual love songs, but longing strains of my lost friend.

I miss her.

She was SO alive.


***


I miss him.

Even in a dream, all I have left is "that you ARE" - telling myself in a dreaming brain, that it is enough only knowing he exists, and telling myself that by way of "telling" a chimera of him: "just knowing you exist."

It *is* enough - knowing whom I have loved, knowing I was loved. But distance. Depression. Distortion. They make it hard. He's a Daemon of air and darkness, and I miss him. It's all we have, to make life bearable.

If only he could be alive as she was. I pray it for him. Never sure if it does any good.

He's in my heart and head and soul. He isn't "gone" - not dead; only curved into himself; too distant. I can't even know whether to love that or hate it. The wall I am pressed against is blank.

Scurrying circles. Small ones. Vicious.

I shift to Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here - and it is nothing like him. And its drawn-out softness, its langour and melancholy and desolate gorgeousness transform me. And I am quiet.

I miss him.


***


I miss writing.

It means so much, and it means nothing. Gets me through, and on the other side of "through" I find nowhere.

Even so.

I miss writing.

Collection

#TFW a "Housewife" begins to discuss any treatment she has discovered for any possible ailment, real or imagined or self-inflicted ... (No, this isn't as clickbait sketchy as some of those "gawk at vintage advertising stories you see on Teh Intarwebs.)

Brain scans on rappers ... discovered that during freestyle rapping, brain activity increased in the brain areas that engage motivation, language, mood, and action.

This piece is a wistful one for me, as a writer who knows what I CANNOT do; I do not have the chops. But man would I love to read this story from the perspective of the kids whose world this already was.

NSFW ... since about 1600 (science-ing the what out of what?). Ahhh, I love it when The Arrant Pedant gives us glorious etymology. Enjoy!

Call Me Mueller

Guess who’s got the White House’s
Teeth all chatterin’ about
Flynn and Cohen and their doin’s,
Individual 1 and the im-puh-lications
Gentlemen sweatin’
It’s time across the board, with no doubt
Donny’s like WOW!
Punchin’ like he is drunk,
Fingers all pointin’ him straight to hell.
Could be criminal.
Makes sense for a snitch to take him down POW.
Rocked the House
What is that sound?
Watch me drop, drop, drop him to the ground.
Wait for the four, drop to the floor,
Add up evidence to get the score.
I been the WITCH, yes I gave no drama,
Stealthy, intelligent Special Counsel.
Not the Clintons or the Obamas,
It’s that sexist racist, now gonna CALL ME MUELLER.
Shady politics, I gave no drama,
Stealthy intelligent Special Counsel.
Not the Clintons or the Obamas,
It’s that sexist racist who’s gonna call ...
    Me …
    MUELLER …

"I mean ..."

Yet more reasons we call him "Beloved" Ex

He shared this with me, and the love is sensational. It's way out.

Enjoy.

The click beyond? Shine on You Crazy Diamond. Which is just worth it for SYCD, because seventies progressive trippy music is impossibly, irreplaceably magnificent. Memory, memories. Yes.

Just this for now ...

Independence Day

I'm an American.

American dreams are built on words we dare not say.

Are you at liberty today? Remember those who are not; maybe help them out.

If you are American, are you one of the (shamefully few) who vote? This right is under attack. We can fight that.

Are you enjoying Teh Intarwebs? Do you believe all media should be controlled by one party? Is a free press worthy of protection? Defend it.

Be well today - and every day. Be safe. And let's hope we get through this holiday without that uniquely American institution, the mass shooting.

Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels - men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.
--Eisenhower

Nope, still not posting ...

... still not writing either. Sigh.

But tonight, I pulled up Over the Edge to watch, and this woke up one of the happier memory parts of my brain.

Cheap Trick is OSUM, man.



But (... for now ...) that is all.

See you some time soon though, fella babies. I can't stay shut up for but so long.

I always listen to Eubie Blake on his birthday

Collection

Well, apparently the year I was born was important enough to commemorate. Some of the tidbits The Atlantic has archived here are pretty interesting; stay tuned for more, no doubt I'll come back to this well more than once this year.

Plant lore! I love so many aspects of this story - not merely the nerd who looked at a lock and understood its symbolism, but the images of a centuries-old trunk and its archives, and simply the word "hutch" - thanks again, History Blog, for a multi-layered read and look at an unusual collection of artifacts and facts. Moonwort. Heh.

Random note - in opening this new post window, I was listening to a 70s music mix, and "Moonlight Feels Right" by Starbuck happened to be playing. Yep: marimba solos happened in 1976. The times of my life (redux).

Map nerdlery! CityLab has thirteen maps to help make some sense (or at least get a view of) the year 2017. Some of it is interesting, some even amusing - some of it is dark (literally, and spiritually). From marches to regions to events within them, take a *look* at the year that was.

Katyaboggled

Great Zot in drag Heaven. Katya is Annie Lennox.

(Go to 1:00 below for the Lady Herself)

And now, if you'll excuse me, I really, REALLY need some purple eyeshadow and matching lipstick.

More Space Nerding

Played this for my mom yesterday, we had a little fun. I am grateful, fortunate, and so glad my parents raised me with constant interest in nature and science, as well as art and people.

And here we have almost all of that, wrapped up in one clip.

Also: any questions why I love Star Trek?

Voyager's Golden Record

Have you ever heard it?

Because talk about a click beyond. Please take this trip.

It is record of the gloriousness of our very planet, and the finest accomplishment of which humanity is capable. Not merely the sounds - all of which share some piece of Earth's magnificence - but the Voyagers, the record, the images. Sharing life.

Here, the official tracks, courtesy of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory archive (not created by JPL).





Also, we need to make t-shirts that say, "Out there, our concepts of velocity become provincial." (Meanwhile, every sound on the record is provincial! Though some might disagree about The Laughing Man.)

Here is MIT's unofficial copy; for those of you who know what HiFi means, it brings with it the enjoyable pops and cracks of the albums we played on those. Which has an Earthling charm of its own.

PBS's as-usual wonderful special on the 40-year-old Voyager twins.

Collection

On the likelihood Henry VIII called Anne Boleyn a trollop when he was courting her - the messages within the song Greensleeves, and who probably would *not* have written such a song.

Multi-layered nerd link! James Marsters' Trek audition. Worth a click beyond for a bit of Tom Hardy, too.

For everyone who EVER didn't want to admit loving a show ...




SNL Drag Race from Nicola Mari on Vimeo.

A wee lexicon for your edifictation: "fish" is feminine beauty - beating your face means doing your makeup well - "beat for filth" is doing it so well you end up giving fishy realness, Erica Jane is a completely synthetic Housewife who also records club music, and Kenan Thompson just watching the competition here is hilarical. Enjoy!

It turns out that the poor often know much better than outside experts how to improve their own condition.

Sigh. When this ↑ is radical thinking, no wonder we don't act in the immediate. On charity versus philanthropy. You know what? A bandage is a good idea when someone is bleeding.

"I don't live by the river"

Editing at the top to add this curious note. One of the people at this concert dropped into my brother's life briefly, pretty much at the moment I was inspired to write this post. I hadn't gotten around to posting it yet when he told me about the encounter, days later.

Curious thing, life.

Should've worn the Chris Crafts.

But, I mean, it was a concert. It was The Clash. The little Asian cotton Maryjanes were the thing. I wore The Thing. And my nerdy jeans and beige socks, yeah. But then the cool top, it was kind of new wave. Vivid turquoise stripes, cool puffed sleeves.

As cool as *I* got in 1982.


I was fifteen.

My brother asked me to go to a concert with him. It was weird, but with his girlfriend's little sister going, maybe he kind of had to. Or maybe he was just being cool with me. It was about this period in our lives that sort of thing began to happen here and there.

Whether he had to bring me, or wanted to ... Didn't matter. We were excited. I remember us spotting other cars as we got closer to Williamsburg, "Bet they're going." Seeking shared anticipation.

Fortunately, for a change: not seeking boys. This isn't because I was with my brother, though usually he terrified any boys I might find interesting, event he other punks. No, it was because Joe Strummer with a mohawk looked too much like my big brother.

So I enjoyed the whole show without dreary old sex interfering mentally, and actually experienced the concert.


That unique smell - of The Reagan Years ... of the ozone-crackled electricity that was the music itself (mountains of speakers and amps) ... of that much youth packed into a venue. The incredible, the ineffable scent and sensation and sight of youth, in the early 80s. Angry youth, but exultant too.


The crush was intense at the front. I was with the other kid sister, against the barricade; barely more than a child.  Some guy saw me (us?) and got concerned. Or maybe he just wanted my spot. But ... it was after ... Maybe he really was scared for me. He signaled the roadies, they pulled me out of my cherry position. My memory has failed, in 35 years, as to her being pulled up to, but probably so. Dragged up onto the stage, shooed off it, shepherded around - and ended up out of the crush. I was annoyed.

Where my brother and his girlfriend were, who knew - I didn't care, there was nothing to be afraid of. Not even death by general admission. Safe. Wherever the older sibs were, they were never farther than the walls of the venue. Nobody in the crowd was out to hurt us. There was a show to go on.

And so, I wormed my way BACK up to the front, once again causing annoyance, but this time to the guy who had ordered us "saved" from the crowd. Maybe the other kid sister and I did this together. I just remember I was there.

I latched onto the barricade like a tick.

The Clash. Front row. Sea of kids, strange adulation and imperative demand. It was sensational.

At some point, we pulled ourselves back out - noise-fatigue, or the desire to find the others, or maybe they found us. I have some recollection of standing on the seats, scream-singing, bopping.

I had lost one of my flimsy cotton shoes, either in the dragging moment of my salvation, or stomped off during the second round, surrounded by combat boots. Stuck the other shoe in my back pocket - heaven knows why. Maybe I thought I'd find the lost one after the show. Maybe I even did. History and memory have failed in this detail.

Standing on a seat, beer-sopped socks, the muck of spit and sweat and beer and cigarettes. Just a few hours of a life; a meeting of four people. Of thousands.

Then a drive home, on an autumnal night. Ears ringing.


"Rock the Casbah" was the big deal that year, and it was pretty great. But even today, I maintain that "London Calling" is one of the great tracks in recording history. It echoes in a way beyond the mere sonic definition.


The weekend before that concert, The Clash appeared on SNL. Little Opie Cunningham was the host (this was before he disappeared completely *behind* cameras). He drank a beer live on camera, protested his Little Opie Cunningham-ness, and got ribbed by Eddie Murphy.



The ineffable scent of the 80s. The sound of soaring, roaring, echoing, raw music. GOOD music, but raw in a way that's really only synthesized anymore.

I really did see all the good concerts.

Collection

Even apart from the fact that I am a writer, words have always meant a great deal to me. They are more than stories, more than communication, they are avatars for what me must express as human beings. Today, I learned a new word. It is meaningful to me. How about you?

How to keep cool in eighteenth-century summer clothes - American Duchess provides such interesting background (yes, silk IS the worst in summertime in Virginia!). Observations from experience, some of them unexpected. (And, inauthentic or not, an icepack in the bonnet does sound pretty good to me ...)

Aww ... I shall recuse myself from entering Janet's latest caption contest, but it's about my boy again! Also, I already won a book this week, so someone else deserves this win. I deserve just to enjoy the entries!

Notes to entrants: Kate Larkindale, Gossamer used to RUN under that door when I first adopted him! And kathy joyce, a draft sock didn't even stop him. I used to pull a DRAWER out of my chest of drawers and put it at the crack to keep him from careening in and out all night long. He was so wee. I love Melanie Sue Bowles's caption, and BJ Muntain's, and got such a laugh out of Mark Ellis's and Colin's and Donna's and Elissa M's and Craig F's. Note to Brian Schwarz - I have a pic of him on my cube wall at work - all giant eyeballs and curious whiskers. On it is pasted, in about 24 pt. bold font, the question, "Didja ever get the feelin' ... ... you was bein' WATCHED?"

My theory? He was remembering when he used to bolt under that door, and reminiscing about being so small he could do that ... and then fall asleep on my neck with my chin for a pillow. And how he used to knead on my head so I got such INTERESTING hairdos. (Because: Gossamer.)

Editing to add another link - Donna Everhart is going to start her first-sentence Fridays feature again, now for her new novel, The Road to Bittersweet. In celebration, a clip of great music and dacing - one of those things it is a joy to see digitized online, real people in a real place and a real time, in joy and creativity and community. What a wonderful document, and a fine way for Donna to celebrate.

Music and Fashion - Not Always the Passion

Not long ago, I took in a long-ago recorded documentary some may recall, The Decline of Western Civilization Part 2 - The Metal Years. Apart from Chris Holmes' notoriously bleak, drunken turn before the camera, a great deal of this outing was devoted to poking fun at glam metal even while having a little bit of fun in the scene. The fashion is RIGHT out front, and is presented precisely as many of us saw it even at the time - pretty much ridiculous.

Let it be known, by 1988, I was dating a guy in a band (the eventual, inimitable Beloved Ex, in fact), and I had a few run-ins with spandex myself. The only lipstick in my repertoire for probably the entire stretch from 1985-1993 was a sturdy magenta that went with everything: black. On rare occasion, I will admit - I wore white minidresses and white spike heels. But mostly just black. I had a couple spiral perms, of varying burned-out 80s-osity. I had this great HAT. I wore that hat to my office job sometimes. I owned and took out of my closet more than one bolero, over the pink suede bustier I was able to afford because it had a broken snap. Indeed, I had several hats. I was remembered for one of them by a colleague of my dad's (I worked at his University on my college breaks) for decades.

Yeah, so I committed 80s fashions. I was NOT much for big hair; I never have been much for doing a lot of styling with my hair - but I just recognized how ugly it was. And damaging (though, again: spiral perms). I once got sneered at by a girl who wanted very much to scam on my husband, "I wish I could wear my hair FLAT like yours!" I brightly replied to her all the hairspray in our town seemed to have sold out after she hit the drugstore. *Shrug*

Over the top fashion does not have a way of ageing well. See also: the would-be Victorian polyester bridal fashions of the early 1970s - complete with giant floppy (matching pastel) hats. See also: 1960s Nehru jackets (the faddishness of which actually I think is a shame; men's tailoring in the West has been stagnated for nearly TWO HUNDRED years now - across three centuries, and a millennial divide!).

So, this morning, when I had nothing of this sort on my mind whatsoever, and I turned on a Grace Jones mix to accompany my work, it took a couple of hours before I began regarding her fashion extremity and remembering that other extremity, and comparing them.

Jones is iconic. She is still, also, unabashed in her presentation. It's something beyond fashion - her headdresses and makeup and her very hair are more than clothing, or style choices. She is living performance art. Confrontational and beautiful, powerful, visually stunning, dazzling.

Why is it Grace Jones' headdresses and cutout appliques to her face, her stripped-down gorgeousness and her sumptuous, presentational costumes have not become ridiculous, like the extensive array of hair and makeup and pleather donnings of the kids and performers of Western Civ?

Even the other two Decline documentaries, both of them focused on punk rock in different ways, feature looks which still are dominant today, in certain subcultures, and even on runways. My old punk brother and I sometimes get a grin realizing kids are still rocking mohawks like they're new and shocking. To us, it's actually adorable. "Aww. You're rocking your granddaddy's rebellion. You're EDGY!"

Punk has influenced fashion since the 1970s, but its widest evolved callback is probably the many Goth looks still prominent in subcultural scenes and on runways.

Grace, of course, is entirely her own. Even when she's not "trying" to be visually arresting - all but nude, or wearing a suit - her art pared to nothing - she is visually arresting. There's no such thing as minimalism with her, because anything she dons is automatically endowed with Grace.

And Grace does not go out of style. Which is rather astonishing. She's either enclosed or encompassing - either way, she bears fashion well outside of fashion itself.

As I have maintained since high school, and she embodies: there is a difference between fashion and style. (And I'd rather have the latter.) Or, as my punk-turned-old-dude of a bro once gleefully laughed about my saying, "Nerdliness is next to youthfulness." Perhaps agelessness.



My theory: the glam fashion was adhered to its connection with youth. Five years on - never mind all these decades down the road since then - if it survived at all, it was not prettily. Some things have very short half lives. Because Grace goes outside concerns like that, she survives, her outrageousness doesn't pall, because she's not acting like a fifteen-year-old. Sixty-eight years of age and OWNING that sh*t, it's not like she's rocking Baby Jane's pinafore and curls. What she started with wasn't anchored to its age. And so she gets to keep her own age, now. And keep the style she brung with her.

Happy R Day!

Find out what it means to me!

Literate Celebrations

Happy birthday to Eddie Izzard, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Sinclair Lewis, Gay Talese, James Spader, Charles Dickens, and Eubie Blake.

I mean, how stupendous is Mr. Blake?

Also on this day ... (still loving Dena's dedication to this daily treat!) Here are the notable lists from Wikipedia. Ooh, Pete Postlethwaite!