For my Mother...The NAG

My lord if that woman won't get off my behind! It's a good thing my backside has spread enough to accommodate my mother and her incessant nagging. She has been on me like a rat on a Cheeto to blog and I just can't take it anymore! Of course this is why she continues to "remind", for the rare moments when one of her children are actually nagged into submission. My brothers, having developed male-pattern deafness at a remarkably early age, are never at risk of caving to any requests, no matter how often repeated. My sister is lost in a cloud of teenage-dom that basically requires disobedience to any direct request. Leaving me, the farthest away and yet the only one who occasionally listens. One more instance of my overall perfection... but I digress.

So I know I'm neglecting y'all, and I'm real sorry but it simply can't be helped. Apparently when folks pay you to work for them, there is an expectation that you will use your hours of employ to accomplish tasks related to said folks. As the beginning of my auspicious career consisted mainly of finding ways to amuse myself on the Internet in between manicures, you can imagine the shock my system received when I realized I was runnin' the damn place and had a nigh-on a full day's work to do! Let me tell you, my fingernails are in a sad state and I fear my cuticles may never recover.

It's not that I don't think of you often. In fact, every morning on the subway I encounter some fashion tragedy, social retardation, or general stupidity and I think, "Queenie, you've got to post 'fore these fools get out of hand." And yet everyday between the subject of my disdain and power button of my computer lies a passel of problems so pressing I can't hardly check my horoscope before I gotta start savin' the world.

I do have lots to tell y'all and of course my list of complaints is miles long at this point- sufficed to say that no folks be actin right, including my damn dog who now sleeps with her head on the pillow between us like a full-out human. My hubby still puts the "sweet" in Sweetpotato, but lorda mercy if he can't find the laundry hamper with both hands and a flashlight! Someone has deemed the empire waist so last season I can't hardly find anything to cover my ass, and football has once again ruined my park-strolling plans for fall. It is a wonder I even get out of bed in the morning.

So here you are Mother.... 6 months to think and not a single nice thing to say. I might be worried about my psyche, if I could be bothered.

Cupcake Fairy

So yesterday I was just in the most foul mood, reasons unclear but hardly important anyways. And just as I'm explaining to someone how I'm on the brink of really havin' a meltdown, the clouds part, the office door opens, and there stands a delivery man holding a half-dozen cupcakes with my name on them! And suddenly, all is right with the world.

I just can't express the mood elevation powers of a well-baked cupcake with perfectly swirled icing on top. It used to be just chocolate, but now any sweet treat can just shut off my bitch switch in a second (Sweetpotato wishes someone had explained this to him 4 years ago, poor spud).

Who is this mysterious Cupcake Fairy? That it's a woman goes without saying right? I mean a Y-chromosome could never pull off such a clever trick, nor do the Y's fully appreciate how a sugar rush can change the course of your existence. I mean, there's just about nothin' the right combination of sugar and lard can't cure.

Now the truly remarkable thing about this Cupcake Fairy, is that she's British, which means that she managed to have my favorite cupcakes from my favorite bakery delivered at just the moment I was about to snap off someone's head, and she did it all from another continent! And yet, I can't get my Chinese food delivered with a pair of chopsticks from 5 blocks away. This only proves that most people are morons, but the Cupcake Fairy is a genius.

So the lesson we've learned today kids? Cupcakes cure many ills, and if you have a particularly foul-mooded co-worker, I'd say a session in the kitchen is in order. Of course my favorite recipe remains Strawberry Cake (which of course makes perfect Strawberry cupcakes), and you can find it in my lil recipe book. And if by some miracle you don't have any bitchy co-workers, most likely indicating that you work from home, take this time to practice these cupcakes for any upcoming birthdays. Someone might be havin' one in 5 days and 45 minutes and 30 seconds...approximately.

And thank you, Cupcake Fairy...you may have saved my life yesterday-- or atleast that of my computer screen. (okay, so the "saved my life" part was a tad dramatic, but the computer screen was in serious jeopardy)

Back from the Beach!

Have you missed me? Sorry darlins, but I was off on vacation with my Sweetpotato to beautiful Puerto Rico! Being a beach girl, I can just lay in the sun for hours, readin my book, sippin my cocktail and generally ignoring the world around me. My poor hubby, well he turned into a Sweetpotato French Fry inside 2 hours and had to abort the beach mission in search of shade. I can't say I really noticed he'd gone ;-)

Now the thing about taking a beach va-ca before it's summer in your hometown, is that you have to try on all your sunning outfits while in your winter skin. I tell you, this little trip was a much better idea before I had to strip in the Lord & Taylor dressing room in March! Word of advice: Never go into a dressing room with double mirrors. If God had meant for us to see our asses, he'da put eyes in the back of ours heads!! Honey, some things are just better left undiscovered. For example: I did not need to discover that the width of my ass can no longer be contained by any one swimsuit (not even a Large size). I have always been a Medium, looks like those days have gone the way of my career on The Broadway...not gonna work out. I have always considered the Large bathing suit one step away from wearing shorts and a tee shirt to the beach. Of course now that I am a Large I will have to amend that idea to assuage my cognitive dissonance so that I can continue to wear a bikini.

I really was dealing with this whole expansion quite well until I got home and flipping through my US Weekly, found this picture of Heather Locklear, taken last week. She is Forty-Six-Freakin-Years-Old! It's simply against nature. I don't know who she sold her soul to, but I want his number.

So this is where I give up, I mean from the lounge chair no one can even see my backside, and if I keep my legs slightly bent in that sexy come hither manner you see on tv, then no one can really see the full spread of my thighs anyway. I position my book directly over my gut and if the glare from the sun hits you just right and you're forced to squint, I look just like this!

The Bachelorette Party

So this weekend will be filled with boas, cocktails, and stripper poles...yes friends, I'm attending a bachelorette party!

Bachelorette parties in New York are a tad different than they are down South...for example, brides don't wear Life-Saver-covered tee-shirts reading "A Buck A Suck," praise God. Up here we don't try to make our party expenses back by whoring out the bride. Not that it's all that much more sophisticated...there are still plenty of humiliating bar "tasks" and of course the bride must distinguish herself with a veil of the cheapest fishnet quality. And in any region of the country, the evening will inevitably end with falling down, throwing up, tantrum having, drunken dialing - or some such combination of regrettable behavior.

Often the party attendees get roped into the trashy dress code and poor behavior, and while I cannot promise that I won't over serve myself, I have made it abundantly clear that under no circumstances will I don any trashy bachelorette attire. To put it simply: I am too old for puffy paint. Also, I do not wear wife-beaters in public.

And this is not a smug-married thing, really. Do you see how ridiculous these poor folks look? This is supposed to be your last hoo-rah, and you want to spend it in an oversized tee-shirt with condoms taped to your head and penises hanging from your neck...I can't think of anything sexier. I have never purposely gone in public looking like as asshole (that short stint in the pageant circuit not withstanding), and I will not do it on someone else's behalf! I just don't feel that you have any more fun in a bar when you look stupid. Sure, the bride needs to be recognized in some way, but the rest of the party members should look like regular bar patrons (or in the case of this weekend, a little better than regular bar patrons;-)

Of course that finds me once again in the struggle to look fabulous and hide my fat arms at the same time. It's my own fault I guess for breaking the cardinal rule of friendships and surrounding myself with people smaller than me. I mean not a damn one of em is bigger than a size 4...which I haven't worn since I was 3. Not to worry though, a little arm flab has never stopped my fabulocity (though I do need to invest in some sort of tanning situation because white flab is the worst). I would post pictures, but as you know- what happens at a bachelorette party, stays at a bachelorette party (men are confused enough as it is!)

Caution: Falling Names

I mean I can't hardly watch American Idol this season for all the name-dropping! Every time Randy Jackson opens his mouth it's a shower of celebs, and now Paula's joining in too. Um, being the assistant to the choreographer of the music video of the original artist has absolutely nothing to do with how well a song was performed by the 20-year-old farm boy in front of you. Why do you feel the need to tell us? Do you think your opinion has more weight because you taught a pop star how to step-touch while lip-syncing 20 years ago?

Randy is the WORST though. Every damn song is, "Journey, good band...I played with them," or, "That's a tough song, I worked with Whitney on that." Okay, maybe the first season when nobody knew who the hell you were, you felt like you needed to prove you actually knew something about the music industry, but at this point, what are we 7 years later, WE GET IT! Not only do we get that you've worked with some pretty major artists, we also get that every name you drop is during 80's Week, so basically, these artists haven't been relevant in 20 years! In fact, we don't hear much from Steve Perry these days because he realized he was old and rode his multi-platinum ass off into the sunset, which is exactly what you should do. But no, you spent too many years just outside the spotlight, didn't you? Now that you're recognizable you're gonna wear your ridiculous jewelry and make your asinine comments until they wheel you out on a gurney!

Randy and Paula may know all these famous folks, they may even have their numbers in they cell phones, but does anyone answer when they call? Doubtful.

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!

And the award for worst dressed goes to...

Dear First-Time Academy Award Attendees,

Perhaps you have been so busy producing your Oscar-nominated masterpieces that you have been unable to process anything going on in the rest of the world, but for your information, the Academy Awards are a dress-up event! The Brits were of course the worst offenders, they almost always are (something about the constant rain must turn the fashion-conscious side of the brain into complete mush).

Poor Marketa Irglova (winner of best song along with Glen Hansard). You're speech was precious and we're all very delighted that your dreams have come true...yadda, yadda. Um, did you forget to tell the person doing your hair that you were attending the Oscars and not your 4th grade piano recital? I know you were an unknown, sitting in the back, nobody interviewing you, but could you maybe have mentioned to whichever highland cousin was getting you dressed that you were actually performing on stage in front of 1 billion people?!? Surely such exposure warrants a touch more than a few twists of a curling iron that fell out 3 hours before. Some hairspray perhaps? Clearly you and Glen didn't get the memo about the last-minute venue change from McDougal's Pub to the Kodak Theatre. I know y'all are on a shoe-string budget, but you do realize in this country you can rent a tux for $80...I'm nearly certain the producers would have loaned you the cash.




Dear Tilda Swinton,

What the hell is wrong with you?! You have shown up to the most glamorous night in Hollywood wearing nary a stitch of mascara! You are not an attractive woman, your skin is positively translucent, your teeth crooked, and your eyes bugged- you are not the person to go au naturale to an internationally televised event. I know in your native land pasty is a way of life, but even your side of the pond has bronzer. And what's with the Kool-ade orange hair? I really don't understand, is the goal here to make yourself look as unattractive as possible, because if so...congratulations!!




Also, maybe the next time you're nominated for an Oscar you might mention that to your stylist so that she holds some gowns for you and you don't end up grabbing a trash bag as you run out the door, throwing it hap-hazardly about your frame in the limo. Who am I kidding, you drove yourself over in an MG Midget, hence the wrinkled mass of fabric. Again, if you would mention to someone that you are not only nominated but sitting in the front of the auditorium, perhaps they could find you something better than a Hefty bag, or at least take an iron to the damn thing!


The rest of you are off the hook for the moment, so distraught am I over the above offenders. If I recover later today I'll take the hachet to the rest of you.

Time for a refresher course kids?

Okay, did I not make myself clear cause we got some confusion goin' on. So I'm walking behind a woman today, the coldest day in February, the dead of winter- mind you. And she's wearing some really horrific pants. I mean they are too small and poorly tailored such that they look like they've been ruched up the inseam toward the ass crack, which I might add, was clearly defined against the thin fabric.

So fine, the pants were too small and ill-fitting, big deal, happens every day. Oh, did I fail to mention that they were WHITE?

Come on now kids, we know the rules about white. Do I not point out every year on Labor Day that the white pant season is over? And even though I occasionally bend for the warmer part of September, there is really no excuse for this. I give y'all an inch and you take 3 yards of fabric and wrap them around your ass.

So lest you be confused any longer - the white pant season ends at Labor Day and though we might extend until October for unseasonably warm weather, the white-less season extends through the entire winter until Memorial Day (or whenever summer begins in your climate) Since I don't think I have any readers in Australia that means FEBRUARY is NEVER an acceptable month in which to wear white cotton pants.


The lesson here kids? Try to avoid being fat in bad clothes. If you must be fat (cause let's face it, it happens) and you must wear bad clothes (cause let's face it, it happens everyday) then for the love of god do it in dark colors!

Pageant Amendment

Okay, so about that last essay... I may have gone a bit overboard with the factual liberties. Basically, I wrote that years ago, back when I had aspirations of a book about a hap-hazard aspiring young actress trying to make it in the big city and the witty, inspirational tales of her tragedies and triumphs. And while that idea has not been fully abandoned, it has certainly been pushed to the back of the line for more substantial goals like getting the dog to stop walking me!


Anyway, the essay is definitely about your old pal Queenie, but before she was a character of reality.

Bottom line: I do not now, nor will I ever, have breast implants!!

I did employ duct tape and padding may times during my theatrical career and while rather uncomfortable, I have never been interested in a permanent fix to my flat-chested problems. On top of the fact that fake boobs always look fake, I have found that an inflated chest just accentuates my inflated upper arms, making me look rounder all around, and trust me friends, I don't need any help.

Everything else in the essay is absolutely true....tragically so in fact. My poor friends forced to fill seats in those unair-conditioned auditoriums can attest to every gory detail.

Pageants

In honor of this past weekend's festivities (Congrats to Miss Michigan), I present for you an essay on my own pageant experiences (factual liberties taken at random). Some of you have read this before, but for the humiliation alone it's worth a second pass, don't ya think? Had I the time to look for the photos I might even post a few images of the debacle, perhaps if Queen Mum ever gets her scanner working she can do you the favor of posting pictures of the hot pink cupcake dress...


I hate standing waiting in line for auditions. It’s like being in the wings watching the contestant before you do her talent program-- you just know you’re better than her, but it still makes you nervous to watch, you never know with those judges. I mean I was by far the best contestant in not one, but two preliminary pageants in the Miss North Carolina system, yet I managed to lose with flying colors. No seriously, I had the best talent, you can ask any one of my friends, and I was the smartest one there too- you tell me who else can use the word ‘existential’ to answer an unrehearsed question? No one, of course. But did the judges care—not in the least. Did that stop them from crowning a heifer with a bad dress—no it did not. All told, I suppose those pageants did help prepare me for my career, I mean you have to get used to judgement and rejection in New York, and I've been getting judged and rejected since age 3, and in a leotard and tights no less.

How do you know when it is time to get out of pageants? If you have stuffed yourself into a lavender one-piece bathing suit and rubber-cemented it to your behind, your shiny sausage thighs parading around on a stage six feet off the ground, and just as you turn around and reveal your ass in all it’s cellulite-glory to God and everyone, the music in the elementary school auditorium finally cues up, drowning out the obligatory hoots from your friends and family who are just trying to fill dead air (God bless ‘em) and the song is none other than The Backstreet Boys, “Larger Than Life,” This is the exact moment you know it’s time to get off the stage. Now there is a hierarchy in the talent category that goes unspoken in the pageant community: at the top are opera singers and classical violinists, followed by other instrumentalists, followed by belters, followed by ballerinas, and then the catch-all category comprised of cloggers, baton-twirlers, gymnasts and the other talent-disabled. Now make sure to note that the actual ability-level of the performers is not nearly as important as the category in which they perform, so a mediocre opera singer will trump a fabulous Broadway belter every time. So of course there was an opera singer in that pageant- end of story.

Now I am not stupid, by now I could see that these pageants weren’t working for me, but I knew I had to get out of the pageant business after the next one. Here I am in my hot pink chiffon dress looking for all the world like a rhinestone studded cupcake, singing my face off to “Nobody Does It Like Me,” and I bet they all thank God for that in the end, surrounded by the most hair sprayed, duct-taped, bra-padded bunch of over-grown homecoming queens you’ve ever seen, and never wanted to. Now, about the time we’re all lined-up on the stage and the local dance-teacher-turned-pageant-coordinator is announcing the runner-up, I look around and realize that they’ve called almost all the other girls for the runner-up prizes. They called the girl who sang her entire song in the key of B(e glad you weren’t there). They called the girl whose acrobatic ‘feat’ was not wearing a sports bra and then trying not to give herself a black eye while tumbling. Hell, the first runner-up was the girl who spent the first 30 seconds of her two-minute routine with interpretive glances, followed by hopping backwards across the stage on one toe-shoe.

Anyway, here I am on the back line with a girl who should be doing ‘before’ pictures for Jenny Craig and a tap dancer whose speech was about preventing eating disorders, though as her head was still too big for her body, I don’t think hers was quite licked. So, of course I’m looking around thinking, hey it’s just me, fatty and binge-purge over here, obviously I’ve won this thing, I mean really. So when fatty starts shrieking and crying and hugging everybody, I am a bit confused. Of course by this time, I am so over this whole pageant thing that I am off the stage and in my car on the way to some fried foods before Fatty’s even finished taking pictures. I know every loser,excuse me, runner-up says they crowned the wrong girl, but this time they actually did, and I mean they chased Fatty into the parking lot and snatched that crown right off that bitch’s head. It turns out that Miss Bulimia had won all along, which is not surprising as those sharing their own "triumph over adversity to better the lives of other young women" always have a leg up. It’s like there’s some special scoring system where extra points are awarded based on the severity of your hardship. Eating Disorder—add two points; Dead parent---four points; Bad nose job—half a point. If I had been at Miss America the year that deaf girl won, I would have just gone home from the get-go, because it is clear to me that I just do not have enough personal tragedy to win a pageant (an unfortunate choice in a purple lamee gown not withstanding).

As I peeled the duct tape off my breasts that night and put my push-up pads in a drawer, two things became very clear to me: 1) I was destined for greater things than cutting ribbons at every Wal-Mart grand opening in the tri-county area, and 2) I had to buy some boobs.

So, I packed up my tap shoes and my best sequined gowns and moved to the City. My neighbors thought I was crazy lugging all those dresses up the stairs, but they were worth their weight in silicone, after I hawked them, along with all my costume jewelry, a stereo and a VCR. But these babies were worth every penny. Everybody’s got their gimmick up here, some people have talent, I have tattahs. I am just certain they are going to push me to the front of the line, so far they’ve gotten me pushed in to the back of a few cabs, some bathroom stalls and a futon, but we’re still adjusting…I’ve only had them a few weeks.