You know how hard it is to get good service nowadays. Chivalry is a corpse, discretion is unheard of, and elegance—elegance is currently defined by advertisements for discount furniture.
A wellbred woman might spend her entire maturity never once hearing the words "May I be of service to you?"—although she may spend her life waiting on others, particularly children and men. Such a predicament could make strong women weep and gnash their teeth, but when the going gets tough, the tough throw a party. A very unusual party.
It all started when I received an invitation to attend a salon of women artists. We were offered an occasion to read aloud, sketch, and indulge ourselves in a proper High Tea. Most intriguing of all, the invitation promised we would be served our scones and punch by naked slaveboys who would not speak unless spoken to. The aspect of social nudity was of course titillating, but would ordinary men actually keep their lips buttoned for an approximately five-hour affair? That had to be seen to be believed. I wouldn't have missed it for the world.
Upon arrival, I was indeed greeted by a nude doorman who took my coat. Alas, he was the only servant in sight, and in the meantime, guests were arriving by the score. What a delightful group of invitees they were, too. If I had been able to get a simple cup of hot Earl Grey, my afternoon would have been complete.
But unfortunately, although the company was sublime and the concept impeccable, only two slaveboys were on hand to provide services, and despite their best intentions, I don't think either of them had ever so much as poured a cup of decaf.
The guests were uneducated in the fine art of being served. Though a couple of us were dressed in literary salon frocks, some came in sweatpants. One lovely woman offered to get up and fetch me a scone, and when I gently reminded her she was a guest, she pleaded with me, "It doesn't matter, I'm a bottom in real life." Ah yes, but real life was what we were trying to escape.
The ultimate affront was the vision, midway through the party, of an attractive girl on her knees, giving a "slaveboy" a neck massage!
I departed with my friend, Laura. We reviewed the afternoon and agreed it had been a wonderful, yet insufficient, experience. Wouldn't it be perfect to have a party like that in a grand mansion, with slaveboys who looked like Greek gods and served like altar boys?
"I'll dream of it," I told her as we parted, but Laura wasted no time in wistfulness.
The very next day, she called me. "My friend Amy Wallace has a beautiful home in the Berkeley hills, and she would love to hostess the kind of tea party we have in mind. The living room is Byronic, and there are even special servants' quarters."
I blinked. The first hurdle, getting out of our filthy, tiny, crime-ridden neighborhood apartments, had been overcome in the twinkling of a phone call. Now where on earth would we find the slaveboys?
Laura was an editor of local weekly paper at the time, where personal ads of all persuasions abounded. She agreed to place an ad for four weeks, but I had my doubts about getting much of a response to anything so bizarre. I was more confident that in my Rolodex I would find lots of liberated men who would love to serve us tea.
Little did I know the raw nerves our search would scratch. I got my first glimpse of the reaction during a trip to my mechanic. "Look what I'm up to," I said, pulling into the garage and waving my carefully typed personal ad:
Genteel and Bohemian gathering of women writers requires comely slaveboys to serve at our tea party. You will serve nude and will not speak unless spoken to. Standards are high. Food and beverage experience a must. No sex. Please send photo and qualifications to Madam Tea Party.
"What the fuck do I want with waiting on a bunch of broads?" asked Tom, leaning against his desk. "You're not paying anything for this? No way."
Some little lost feminist emotion in me snapped. "Women have been waiting on you from the time you were born," I said. "And you can't imagine switching sides for a couple of hours?"
The next week, I saw Tom again, and he asked how my search was going. The ad had not yet appeared, and I was getting nowhere.
My gay friends said they wouldn't have any fun waiting on women. "Why not?" I asked. "Whatever happened to your sense of classic theater? This isn't a pickup scene, it's the tea to end all teas!"
My straight friends, even the most sympathetic, went into a panic about penis size and fantasized far more permanent humiliation than anything I had in mind.
All my reassurances were in vain. But fate was about to turn her head. The Wednesday paper hit the streets...
As you know, I am a diehard fan of the rigorous movie quizzes devised by Dennis Cozzalio at his swoon-worthy filmblog, Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule.
I am posting my answers on his blog, along with everyone else who's playing... but here's an extended version, with film clips and photos. Come over and post your answers, it's sooooo fun; more like an interview than an exam.
Let me stretch my cold blue hands from their keyboard coffin and begin:
1) Favorite Vincent Price/American International Pictures release.
My earnest favorite is the “The House of Usher.” I like to think Price truly drank the Poe Kool-Aid and gave himself to that role.
I also gasp at “Raven” for the debut of that handsome, full-head-of-hair jackanape, Jack Nicholson.
2) What horror classic (or non-classic) that has not yet been remade would you like to see upgraded for modern audiences?
I have a longtime answer to this question.
I edited a lesbian magazine in the 1980s called On Our Backs. I discovered an erotic short story in our slush pile that was terrific, a sci-fi suspense-thriller featuring two amazing lovers/adversaries: Ripley and Vasquez.
I called the author on the phone, exclaiming over her inspiring characters. Wow, what originals! She was quiet on the other end of the line.
That’s how I came to rent the whole series. Nevertheless, I wrote back to my author, “I still wish your story was the movie; I love it the best.”
That was my introduction to slash fiction— I’ve read a lot of it now, much of it script-worthy!
3) Jonathan Frid or Thayer David?
Barney Barney Barney! I wasn't supposed to watch “Dark Shadows,” and it was the only soap I was interested in as a child. Frid's character and those pretty ladies’ décolletage are what stayed with me.
4) Name the one horror movie you need to see that has so far eluded you.
My glaring omission isThe Exorcist. I read the book in broad daylight at fourteen and scared myself so badly I couldn’t sleep. I remember seeing the lines of people waiting for its debut at the movie theater in Westwood, and I thought, “No, I can’t take it, I can’t.”
5) Favorite film director most closely associated with the horror genre.
David Cronenberg.
But my favorite "horror" director not especially connected with horror is Roman Polanski.
6) Ingrid Pitt or Barbara Steele?
Barbara’s face is so memorable, that British porcelain in Italian camp. She worked with Fellini, right? You have to love a Felliniesque horror vamp.
I lean toward attractive monsters, sexy monsters, French monsters.
The one who touches my heart the most is the Beast in Cocteau’s La Belle et le Bête. I would never leave him!
However, in the course of preparing my answer to this question, I stumbled upon something I simply MUST watch tonight: Nazi zombies, in Dead Snow. Norwegian!
13) Favorite Mario Bava movie.
Need you ask? Diabolik! He robs from the rich to give to the girls. No horror, just pure pre-Bond awesomeness.
14) Favorite horror actor and actress.
My boyfriend right now is "Eric" in True Blood, played by Alexander Skarsgard. He and the Nazi Zombies can HAVE me.
Boris Karloff is my classic favorite, and my mother’s as well.
Their Dark Shadows moments were just one little twinkle on great careers from start to finish.
17) When did you realize that you were a fan of the horror genre? And if you’re not, when did you realize you weren’t?
I was raised quite obediently as girly-girl— I thought horror was for boys, along with mathematics and sports. I said horror movies were dumb— or frightful— and as I was “protected” from them as a child, I had no idea what I was missing. Occasionally I’d hear some chick screaming from a monster-rape reel, and I’d grimace. Stupid, stupid victim.
In the 80s, around the time I got the Ripley/Vasquez manuscript, I confided my horror-contempt to one of my colleagues, book critic Laura Miller.
She surprised me; she told me I was a fool to be missing out on some truly great movies. Laura seemed to know what would turn the key for me… and suggested an early Cronenberg: Brood. It’s psychiatric! It’s sexual! It’s Canadian! I was enraptured.
I always liked fantasy and fairy tales for their romance and cruelty, I just hadn’t figured out where to find those themes in horror. I also hadn’t yet discovered my horror heroines, women who make things happen.
I suppose it's old hat now, but Clover’s writing about "The Final Girl" gave me a way into horror, to see beyond the shrieking raped-wretch. Women get to “do more stuff” in horror than just about any genre. In horror, once you start listening between the lines, gender is a tossed salad.
18) Favorite Bert I. Gordon (B.I.G.) movie.
I fail once again. I guess I know what I'm doing this Halloween.
19) Name an obscure horror favorite that you wish more people knew about.
The People Under The Stairs… it’s so bad it’s delicious.
Rabid… oh, Marilyn.
20) The Human Centipede-- yes or no?
Oh yes! YES! YES! This is exactly where the toilet flukeworm in X-Files was heading.
21) And while we’re in the neighborhood, is there a horror film you can think of that you felt “went too far”?
“Going too far,” for me, is a desired mental destination. If something affects me, it’s done its magic, and my reaction says more about “me” than it does about the supposed line it crossed.
A favorite movie that pushed my buttons this way was I Spit on Your Grave.The ultimate in Old Testament Medieval Revenge. Camille Keaton is beyond The Final Girl— she is: The Rapture.
The first half of the film, her character is humiliated, raped, broken— left for dead. I could barely sit through it. No wonder this film was targeted by feminist picket lines and boycotts.
But had any of the protestors watched the SECOND half? What Keaton does to her rapists is TWICE as sick— and cold as ice. All one can do is applaud. Or laugh, evilly.
22) Name a film that is technically outside the horror genre that you might still feel comfortable describing as a horror film.
Recently, The Debt. Anything on a gynecologist’s table with a Nazi: Horror movie.
23) Lara Parker or Kathryn Leigh Scott?
Lara Parker, by a hair— but I'm not really into either of these girls.
24) If you’re a horror fan, at some point in your past your dad, grandmother, teacher or some other disgusted figure of authority probably wagged their finger at you and said, “Why do you insist on watching all this morbid horror junk?” How did you reply?
“Can I watch just two more minutes?”
And if that reply fell short somehow, how would you have liked to have replied?
“When I grow up, I’m going to do whatever I want and you won’t be able to stop me.” —
That’s what I was thinking all the time.
But I never would have said that, because the “violence” that would have ensued would make any horror movie look like a walk in the park!
25) Name the critic or Web site you most enjoy reading on the subject of the horror genre.
I'm a neophyte. Tell me and I'll follow.
26) Most frightening image you’ve ever taken away from a horror movie.
How about the most frightening image I DIDN’T take away? There’s nothing like anticipating a shock, which you’ve been told your whole life is “beyond the pale”... only to find out it’s a con.
Snuff fooled so many people. What an advertising campaign! What a rout! It managed to get banned in several cities, become a centerpiece of feminist outrage for a good decade… and it was all a big NOTHING.
The movie’s tag line was, “Made in South America, Where Life is Cheap!”
In fact, the “snuff” ending was shot in Hell’s Kitchen, where the film distributor was so cheap that he heated up a little Chef-Boy-R-Dee for the FX shot of the "victim’s" intestines. The dead actress couldn’t lay still.
The things they got away with, before the Internet...
But to answer your original question, the image that's never left me more haunted is Catherine Deneuve going nuts in Repulsion, which critic Kim Morgan outlines beautifully here:
27) Your favorite memory associated with watching a horror movie.
Staying up by myself, watching vampire movies after mom went to bed.
28) What would you say is the most important/significant horror movie of the past twenty years (1992-2012)? Why?
30) You are programming an all-night Halloween horror-thon for your favorite old movie palace. What five movies make up your schedule?
Just for a kick, how about a horror fest based on The Bechdel Test?
The Bechdel Test requires a movie to pass three questions: 1) It has to have at least two women in it, 2) Who talk to each other, 3) About something besides a man.
Lesbians are known for noble anger— the righteous, unimpeachable rage that shows the rest of the world just what it takes to fight for social justice.
Behind every struggle for the underdog, the dispossessed, you'll find a cadre of sleepless dykes who will not rest until the cruel world changes its tune.
And then there's the not-so-awesome part.
Dyed-in-the-wool Amazons know something else: the big issues of late-stage capitalism and degenerate patriarchy may inspire us, but it's the small shit that drives us over the edge.
Scratch our animal-rescue cards, and you'll find just as many petty grudges, vicious digs, and decidedly wasteful prejudices as any junior high school clique.
Are dykes ever angry, bitter, small-minded? OH YEAH! Face it--we burned up more energy being pissed at "pornography" than we ever did when the Equal Rights Amendment went down in flames. If we weren't so sensitive and vulnerable, I'm sure we'd be ashamed of ourselves.
What follows is an annotated list of the major groups inside and outside the lesbian community who have caused most dykes to rend their garments at one time or another.
As with any typical lesbian gathering, consensus could not be reached on which group deserves the biggest ass-kicking:
Straight Men
a. Mom always liked you better.
b. Whoever has the most toys wins, right?
c. This is our competition-- and look who got hit by the ugly stick!
d. Marshmallow dick.
Gay Men
a. Mom always liked you better, too.
b. One more crack about "fish" and we're starting in on your bleeding piles.
c. You are NOT amusing.
d. You think you invented martyrdom? We have the patent.
Straight Women
a. Haven't found out you have a cunt yet.
b. Think you're being heroic when you bust us in the bathroom.
c. Don't even start on how "attractive" we'd be with just a little lipstick.
d. After you thank us for every single thing feminism has ever achieved, don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.
Bisexuals
a. Cheaters, whiners, quitters.
b. A little less philosophy of life, a little more practice eating pussy.
c. Think you're being honest when you send the wedding invitation.
d. Go Away Little College Girl.
Butches
a. Here, let me help you carry that chip on your shoulder.
b. Hoarding your whitey-tighties in a fireproof envelope for the apocalypse.
c. Worse mid-life crisis than any straight guy.
d. Daddy's on the warpath.
Femmes
a. Legs-in-the-air is only cute for the first two weeks.
b. Think you are so fucking smart.
c. So smart you spent the Gross National Product on shoes last year.
d. A little cocksucking never hurt a girl's career, now did it?
Separatists
a. The last line of defense against pre-pubescent boys.
b. It's not just a lifestyle, it's a Canadian mullet.
c. Fucking would do wonders for your mood.
d. Food Nazis.
Leather Dykes
a. Your safe word is: Fashion Victim.
b. Why not just be a fag and get it over with?
c. Fell fast asleep at your dungeon party.
d. Your dogma ran over my endorphins.
Wymyn-Identified-Wymyn
a. When I am Old, I Shall Wear Pyrple.
b. Is this a phase all the O-Magazine girls go through?
a. Enough foundation to repel a Plutonium cloud. b. Leave your male privilege at the door. c. More Woman Than Thou. d. Mom liked you best.
Bi-Hatin; Dykewomyn, submitted by the scurrilous Cathy D Thomas
a. Like you never sucked a dick. b. Like you never wore a dick. c. Like you never jacked off to dicks, and d. Like you *aren't* a dick.
Transmen
a. Oh fuck it, Mom liked you better too?
b. Chas Bono
c. Old Lady Stole Your T-Cream
d. How can you get a perfectly good clit and cunt for under 10K but working dicks are unavailable at any price?
This was first published in the Stranger, when Dan Savage asked seven writers to tackle the Seven Deadly Sins, for Pride Week, without any pride whatsoever, let alone fear of favor. I poured a tall glass of courage and let it rip.
Graphic: Our beloved Hothead Paisan, Homocidal Lesbian Terrorist, by Diane Di Massa
Hells' Bells! A new app for the iPhone allows sinners to make an instant confession. The *official* Catholic Church asks the hard questions; you spill the beans.
Using their examination criteria, here's my confession, the first one I've made in 43 years:
1st Commandment: I am the LORD your God. Thou shalt not have strange Gods before me.
Do I not give God time every day in prayer? I do not.
Do I not seek to love Him with my whole heart?
I do not. I am an atheist, a lapsed Irish Roman Catholic brought up in the American church of the 1960s when we protested the war and the nuns took their habits off and the priests ran away to become gay liberationists. I named my life story Big Sex Little Death, which is definitely for Catholic tastes.
Have I been involved in superstitious practices? No.
Do I not seek to surrender myself to God's Word? No.
Have I ever received Communion in a state of Mortal sin?
The last time I went to confession I was nine years old and the most tearful sin I had on my conscience was my silent anger at my mother and her rules. I also loved the Beatles and I knew our parish didn't approve.
Have I ever deliberately told a lie in confession or withheld a mortal sin?
No. I won't start here, either.
2nd Commandment: Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord your God in Vain
Have I used God's name in vain? Yes.
Have I been angry with God?
Is that like being angry with your imaginary friend?
Have I wished evil upon another person?
Towards unholy dictators and figureheads, I guess so. I would call this wish, "hostility on public figures who are bad actors."
Have I wished evil upon another person? Evil is imaginary, like God.
Have I insulted a sacred person or abused a sacred object?
Does a giant rosary hanging amusingly from my bedroom wall count?
3rd Commandment: Remember to keep holy the Lord's Day
Have I deliberatly missed Mass on Sunday? Yes!
Have I tried to observe Sunday as a family day and day of rest?
I sure try.
Do I do needless work on Sunday? Lamentably, I do.
4th Commandment: Honor thy father and mother
Have I neglected my duteis to my husband and children? No.
Have I not given my family good religious example?
I think my religious education efforts have been exemplary.
Do I try not to bring peace to my family life?
On the contrary, I try a lot. I like peace.
Do I not care for my aged and infirm relatives?
I care, and am there, and it is heartbreaking.
5th Commandment: Thou shalt not kill
Have I had an abortion or encouraged anyone to have an abortion?
Yes, Yes.
I can't believe this is the FIRST question on a 5th Commandment list!
Have I physically harmed anyone? No.
Have I abused alcohol or drugs?
As in "killing" someone? Jesus, what is this doing in the 5th? A hangover question? However, my Polly Purebred answer is still no. Drugs aren't my weakness.
Did I give scandal to anyone, leading them into sin?
By your insinuation, I hope so.
Have I been angry or resentful?
Yes. You got me. I'm taking years off my life with it, too.
Have I harbored hatred in my heart?
I hate to admit this. Yes. Finally, the one question in this entire examination that causes me guilt and pain.
Have I mutilated myself through sterilzation?
What's with the language here? I have made it impossible for my uterus to get pregnant, yes. I don't regard that as mutilation.
Have I encouraged sterilization or condoned it? Of course.
6th Commandment: Thou shalt not commit adultery
Have I been fiathful to my marriage in thought and action?
I'm loyal, but monogamy is not our litmus test.
Have I been guilty of any homosexual activity? Yes.
Have I used any method of contraception? All of them!
Have the sexual acts in my mariage always been open to the transmission of new life?
'Fraid not!
Have I been guilty of masturbation? As charged.
Have I not sought to control my thoughts? Not the sexual ones, no.
Have I not respected all members of the opposite sex— or have I thought of other people as objects?
I have respected everyone's dignity and humanity, regardless of gender. I don't think we're so "opposite."
What's with the Dworkinite postcript on this? The notion of "people as objects" is inane; it isn't biblical. I would be a lunatic to confuse you with a chair, for example.
I guess this phrase means, "Have I ever gazed upon an image of someone and had a sexual fantasy about them?" Yes, and it is the most human thing in the world.
Do I seek to be chaste? Certainly not.
Am I not careful to dress modestly?
I take care to dress with great impact.
7th Commandment: Thou shalt not steal
Have I stolen what is not mine?
No. Okay, so I still have your cute earrings. But you know that.
Have I not returned or avoided making restitituion for what I have stolen? N/A
Do I waste time at work, school, or home? Yes. Time Bandit!
Do I gamble excessively?
Not at all. I didn't realize it was okay to gamble "a little"! But it's not my thing.
Do I avoid paying my debts promptly?
I wish I could avoid them entirely, but I am intimidated.
Do I not seek to share what I have with the poor?
I'm a big sharer. It's the most "Roman Catholic" part of me. I'm impressed that the app-priests remembered to put this at the very END of their list. It should be at the top.
8th Commandment: Thou shalt not bear false witness against your neighbor
Have I lied? It's unavoidable. But I'm telling the truth here.
Have I gossiped? Playfully.
Have I spoken behind someone's back? To my confidants, yes.
Am I insincere in my dealings with others? No. Terrible at faking that.
Am I critical, negative, or uncharitable in my thoughts of others?
In a bratty way, yes. But in serious terms, I more the empathetic type.
Do I keep secret what should be kept confidential? Yes.
9th Commandment: Thou shalt not covet your neighbor's wife
Have I consented to impure thoughts? The very best kind!
Have I caused them by impure reading, movies, conversations, or curiousity?
What is this, my job description?
Do I allow myself to lose control of my imagination?
WOW. I *live* to lose control of my imagination.
Do I avoid prayer to banish impure thoughts and tempataions?
I relish poetry to improve them.
(But what about "my neighbor's wife"? The priests forgot to ask! I do covet her. Her name is Lindsay. She is awesome).
10th Commandment: Thou shalt not covet your neighbor's goods
Am I jealous of what other people have?
Well, darn it, yes. But it passes quickly.
Do I envy the families or possessions of others?
When I am feeling sorry for myself, yes.
Am I greedy or selfish? Greedy, no. Selfish, yes.
Are material possessions the purpose of my life?
No. But that was never a source of esteem in my family.
Do I not trust in God will care for all my material and spiritual needs?
I didn't know this was an option! Please forward His address so I can mail the bills and my grocery list!
"Spiritually," I'm ready for my fork.
Photo: This is the actual day of my First Confession, in 1965. My mother took the snap.
I was very excited, in queue for my First Communion here. I was so psyched to have Jesus placed in my mouth and have a big private talk with him. I was let down and worried when "nothing" happened except the wafer stuck to the roof of my mouth.
I was frighened by the priest in the confession booth, who gave me five Hail Mary's, one Apostles' Creed, ten Our Fathers... this was for the sin of "thinking bad thoughts about my mother's discipline and not truly wanting to do all the dishes."
You see that nun in the background with the aviator shades? She used to hit us across the face. Time for confession, maybe?
When I think about what the Church does to young children, it makes me sick.
Withhosts Elissa Bassist and Todd Zuniga, fellow judges Brian Boitano and Daniel Handler, and author contestants Beth Lisick, Daniel Alarcón, Jillian Lauren, and Taylor Mali. It really was as fun as it looks.
For dessert, I sunk my teeth into one of April's "Poison Cupcakes." I was flummoxed by the delicious— yet bizarre— taste sensation.
As Chef April told me her recipe, I nearly blew my cupcake out my nose. A Masterpiece of Taboo Culinary Arts! I offer it here, with her kind permission:
Make the red velvet cupcakes according to a recipe that will yield two dozen. A normal cake recipe should suffice.
Once they have cooled, smear the tops with rose syrup.
Cream the butter and cream cheese together until well-blended.
Add 4 cups of the powdered sugar and the vanilla extract.
Set aside some of the frosting for decorating the tops of the cupcakse.
Add the black food coloring to a portion of the frosting, and set aside enough to frost the tops of the cupcakes. You'll half mostly black and a little white frosting for your design. (See photo above).
Add the Campari and the rest of the powdered sugar to your original butter/cream cheese/sugar mixture. It will be liquid-y, but add more sugar if it gets too runny.
Spoon the poison filling into a plastic bag fitted with a clean anal douche pipe. (e.g., enema or douche bag).
Use the pipe to inject the cupcakes with the poison filling. (See photo at left).
You make need to poke several holes, but be careful not to fill the new holes too quickly or the frosting may blort out the preexisting ones.
Once the cupcakes are sufficiently "poisoned," frost and decorate as desired.
When your guests have complimented your cupcakes, be sure to let them know how they were made. Enjoy the priceless entertainment.
New Year's Eve, we were at our neighbor friend's house, M. & R.'s.
Everyone went outside to admire the blue moon. We lit a fire. Talking, drinking, smoking, a little music-making, very mellow. You could have easily fallen into a snooze on one of the patio chairs.
I got up to refill my cup and an explosion, like a grenade, rings out into the night as a flaming piece—what?— shrapnel?— comes sailing over the next door neighbor's fence and lands just a couple yards away from us.
My ears were ringing!
Smoke hung in the air. M. goes running over to see whatever's left of the "molotov cocktail."
"It's... it's... BARBIE!" she calls out.
She holds up one leg of a Barbie Doll, singed by fire at the thigh, but still as recognizable as ever.
As you know, this year we're celebrating the third anniversary of the Golden Duke Awards. The Dukes honor excellence in public corruption, betrayals of the public trust, and generally shameless behavior.
Every year I get inspired by a book or two. Inspired, as in, "If I only had one life to live..." inspired. I usually buy a whole carton and hand them out to my friends. Sometimes I know the author; sometimes I have to look them up on wikipedia and wonder what I've been missing all these years. But I know one thing: it's rare that authors hear from anyone, besides prisoner requests, about the effect their work is having. So I always write a letter, too.
I've never had the same author shatter my literary coma two years in a row. But Alison Bechdel did it. She's an old colleague of mine from the days when queers only had secret underground lairs to publish in. I thought she was just like me, one of our talented gang of rabble-rousers. She's not— she's a genius.
I contacted Alison and proposed that I could make her a tailored men's shirt, as an homage to her greatness. Then I realized I couldn't pull that off without demanding she come in for multiple fittings while I wrestled with my seamstress inadequacies. She lives in Vermont but even if she lived next door to me in California, I think she'd go crazy with my methods.
So I said, "How about flannel pajamas?"
She liked that idea. She picked out the grizzly bear print from some samples I sent her.
And then.... a YEAR went by. I guess I'm not the world's greatest fan, after all. But this September, I did it— and mailed them after the Labor Day weekend. Alison emailed me to say they arrived... on her birthday. Magic is in the air!
And they fit. And they're cozy. And she's grizz-tastic.
