Something to talk about

I asked a friend of mine a simple question the other day and by way of an answer she launched into a 10-minute saga about some ex-boyfriend and some new girlfriend and who knew what about whom and how they found out and what that meant in the grand scheme of her world. When she was through I said, "so, did you want to come to dinner tomorrow night or not," whereupon she realized she'd gone wa-a-ay off topic and apologized for the soap opera.

I said,"honey, if we didn't talk about folks, what would we talk about?" I mean seriously, I live for other people's drama, it's totally fascinating. I realized during my pageant days that, try as I might, I just did not have enough personal drama to keep things interesting. Had I a single relative in jail or rehab I might have stood a chance at a crown. The closest I've come is a brother asking for bail money for peeing in public, one swipe of a credit card and that was all over, didn't even get to visit him in lock-up.


Thank God I have such a large family, they provide hours of conversation...when they're not around of course. But since most of them have been behaving recently I've been nearly without gossip. Hell, if Britney Spears ever gets her act together I don't think I can go on living. I have dedicated my Internet existence to talkin' about folks, what else would I discuss...Politics? To be sure there's nothing of interest there and what little there is will be beaten to death in Congress. Religion? Y'all know I'm still attending The Church of St. Mattress so I can't really expound on more than thread count. Myself? Well now there's a topic on which I'm truly an expert but I've found that at a certain point perfection needs no further discussion;-)

I say all this because I think some of you out there may think talkin about folks behind their backs in unkind, but honey you can be sure they're talkin about you behind yours. That's why talkin was invented. It's not nasty, it's natural, scientific even, to observe the world around you and report back on your findings. You'd be a poor student of life if you returned close-lipped.

And don't worry that talking about folks you know makes you a bad person. The oldest and strongest friendships of my life are centered around the idea that talking about each other makes us superior to the others and a concerned friend simultaneously...an illusion which somehow keeps us all on speak terms.

It's like I always say..."if you can't say anything nice, come sit by me." Gossip has created more friendships than it's ended, and hell, if it ends a friendship that's just something more to talk about!