I'm Back! And Thinner than Ever (You're Welcome)

Hello Honey! It has been so long and we have SO MUCH to talk about that I fear this will be quite rambling. Please forgive my lack of tact, brevity, and concern for your time.

It has been so long, I know. If I knew you were going to be so interested in me affirming that I'm still alive through things like "communication," "keeping up with communication," and "responding to requests for communication," I wouldn't have started becoming "friends" with you in the first place. As if I trust that such interest in me as a human being could sustain! As if I actually believe that you care. As if I'd trust that you'd come if I called you before I ended up on the floor in the corner AGAIN. As if I'd tell you what I THOUGHT about THAT and DID with an ABALONE KNIFE. Honey, that's what Xanax and cable is for. And yet, you ask me, "where are how are you?" Congratulations on being a human being you goddamn bleeding heart.

                                            Oh, you got me. I kid. Really. Just joking.

 

Now, let's move away from your fickle interest in our friendship and get back to MY interest in not our friendship and substance friends. Today is Sunday, Honey. You know that is hard for me. Let's look at what my elegant home looks like on a late Sunday morning.

Elegant? Yes. Innocuous? No. My camera seems to be an optimist, as the amount of light it's showing you does not accurately reflect the amount of darkness my house is in. The $10,000 Roberto Cavalli curtains are closed. And that's the thing about being so rich, Honey: sometimes if you want to show off what you have, you have to highlight what you never will, i.e., the sun. But my, those curtains do look elegant as they close me into my safety.

And that's real gift of wealth, Honey. It hides the parts of you that are the poorest. I can't remember the last time I didn't have a conversation with myself on a Sunday that went like, well, you could hang yourself from the beams on your front porch so as to feel the sun on your face, and suddenly the forced survival lessons in the woods with timed rope-tying sessions your father implemented makes sense!

...but wait, you'd have to go outside to do that. Out of the question. Well, you could run the bed knife along your arms and lean backward...but of course you'd never be found because you go days without anyone checking in and the cat would eat you.

DO NOT DEPRESS YOUR DOG, TOO,

...but a lady learns to never inflict trauma on another creature that is rightfully her own. The trauma, not the animal. And then I'm like, well, this damn cat is still alive and clearly needs your help. Who else would change her diapers? Conversely, who else would she let change her diapers? Why do I have an animal with diapers?

Oh wait. I'm still asleep in my nightly dream, Honey. Sorry. Let me wake up from it and move on.

Ok, I'm awake from my nightmare because CLEARLY I think I'm too important to die anyway. I mean, I'M RICH AND FAMOUS! I've slept with men WHO OWN BOATS! I HAVE A SPECIAL SPECIES OF CAT FOR CHRIST'S SAKE! And then you forget that you were having a conversation about your suicide idealization because you're like, goddamn Manx cat what are you doing now? Where did you get that pedestal?

I mean, really, what love one can be reminded of, and that is the sublime element of the earth that makes me shake. Seriously, if you move an animal inch by inch to stay in a sun spot, you are truly taken. And Honey, now that the morning Vicodin and Grey Goose Bailey's Silk Nog VITAMIN MIX shake is kicking in, I can tell you that this is what I try to do for you, my friends. I would drag your tired body through the sun until the freaky space star took off for the day. And then, again.

this bitch.

 The conclusion, Honey, is that, like that personality-less Carrie that every rich man in Manhattan wants to bed (AHEM WHITE MANHATTAN), "I wondered, did suicide require a level of sobriety that I was unable to meet?"

"It was then that I realized, did my blue eyeshadow make me blue, or is it my own blueness blah blah pun"

I mean, I've just started my semi-precious stone furniture collection! Who else, alone in the dark, will sit upon my mother of pearl stool, the coolness and hardness of which I covet? To be luminescent and full, all angles and reflection. To sit upon this is as if to be stable because the suchness of you is made through your primordial history. The stability of the rock does not decline.

And lo, Honey, if you don't mind me saying so, who would put their head inside of my abalone square? To feel that surrounding one's head, the same head that has had its share of injury and should probably be checked out for aenurisms, etc but as decided not to until one learns how to spell aenurism, etc the luminescent coolness of the sea, a family history made of ashtrays and forced dives off of cliffs, a way to not see beyond the glare. What then becomes of this?

Let's move on from this melodramatic stuff and get to ALL THE OTHER THINGS I have to talk to you about. I mean, it has been a long time, and FINALLY that Vicodin has set in so I can consider our friendship again. I'll move through the list, and hope that this list reminds me that I really need to get back to updating this internet exchange more often.

I had my vagina removed! You might think, oh that sounds dreadful, the vagina is such a great thing yatta yatta feminism embodiment empowerment rediscovery after rape intelligence calm spectrum of yatta yatta good life blah. But really, after the fucking classy man, I just can't with it. And she couldn't with me. So, she's moved on down the road.

every vagina has the prerogative to be a hobo

And I, Honey, AM THINNER THAN EVER! Aren't you so happy? You really would not know how much weight that little lady brings into the equation. She really has a no joke history that adds the pounds.

 

so judgmental about the history!

So here I am, thinner than ever, i.e. HAPPIER THAN I COULD POSSIBLY BE EVER AGAIN UNLESS I GREW ANOTHER VAGINA AND REMOVED IT AGAIN AND SENT THAT HOBO DOWN THE ROAD. So, that means, triumphantly, I can consume and become a state of safety and calm.

Oh, it was so lovely to not have her around for the holidays. I mean, at a lovely charity ball where one sees the old lovers around the champagne fountain, and one GETS A TEXT FROM AN EX WHO IS STANDING ACROSS THE ROOM that says "I wish this were different," what does a lady do? Shrug.  Without a vagina around reality becomes so clear: I mean OBVIOUSLY a man could not have acted differently in the past, nor could he change the present, and is only empowered enough to WISH that "this"--and not a particular person's behavior--might be, well, "different." I mean, the ol' vagina might say, how about apologizing, dude? How about recognizing that you aren't powerless in the history of personal exchanges? How about just being a human being? But now that I don't have a vagina, I see the truth: how could a mere white man who has had a good life ever assert power in the first place? Clearly it's the vagina's fault.

how else would this dude happen?

 

 Oh, and what about THE OTHER ONE? Of course when I STILL HAD MY VAGINA I drove 4 hours to a dinner with an ex and his new girlfriend and sister. And he was an hour late, and OF COURSE we sat and drank in the same restaurant--same table--that 8 years before he had yelled at me at. Which he did not remember, and I did, as I was so in love with him and willing to go anywhere for him. As his new girlfriend sweetly tried to explain to me the intellectual pursuits I had dedicated my life to by explaining jouissance, I believe IT WAS MY VAGINA that suggested we explore what that actually means as I guided us into my car to listen to Elvis's "Only The Strong Survive" while he and his lady held a 19th century poster of verbs in a river that I placed on them and I passed around a bottle of the perfume I was wearing for us each to smell. I believe it was my vagina who said, SEE THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE SUBLIME AND JOUISSANCE? 

And it was my vagina who steered the wheel all those hours home in the dark while I cried and listened to Elvis. Clearly only a vagina allows for such female problems. And clearly it is only because of my vagina that I will probably be known as the crazy ex-girlfriend. For I have nothing to do with it.

at a local Costco, obviously

I guess now is the time where I have to admit that I still have la vhagzine. And I, consumed with jealousy, can't believe that women pop up out of the ground like out of some cute girl hole and get with all the men I know whenever they want. I am jealous that I have never found some hole in this town that I live in. Before I got here I was vibrant, humorous, and actually had admirers. And now, now? I think my body has gone dormant. It does not suggest nor detect any desire connected to it. Well, I guess I'm lucky that I all I think about when I think about love, sex, and human connection is:  NEVER AGAIN. It's a gift, really. For the first time in my life a desire to connect physically and emotionally comes in second to a desire to never do that ever again.

welcome to the jungle: never again

So what instead remains? Well, Honey, I am now the proud attender of prisoner parole hearings. The strangest thing happened. I was writing in my memoir and it occurred to me that as a child raised by a very rich and prestigious man who died in a hail of golden coins, my father's bad investments corresponded to his brother's murder. His brother, a famous and rich spy working with the Soviet Union, had died in a battle to the death. The men who murdered him are now in prison, and since my father has now died and gone to rich man heaven, I realized that it is me who can attend these men's parole hearings and speak for my father. What this means is something I will have a separate post about, but needless to say, my lofty and wishwashy thoughts of suicide have to take a back seat to speaking for, dare I say AS, a rich man who has lost a rich brother. I have a voice of authority to speak, and I will. My new hobby at the California Department of Correction awaits. And the new wardrobe I must purchase as the widow of justice is undeniable.

hats!

It is good to be so wealthy, Darling. It is so good. It keeps you busy, doesn't it? It keeps you here for the moment. It keeps you hidden from the world in HATS.

Well, the morning pills and booze combo has produced a headache that requires my attention, aka my passing out into hopefully a dreamless sleep. I will write more in the next few days, and as I slide back into this internet world, the posts will become better at being poignant and interesting. This one was obviously boring except for the SEMI-PRECIOUS STONE FURNITURE. Oh, so much more interesting stuff to share. But alas, I must depart for the moment into the world of Roberto Cavalli dreams and Alexander McQueen nightmares. As only a rich woman can. Ta ta, Love.

Champers on me!
Daggy

Elegant, Anxious Mornings

Ingredients for this My Time: Trader Joe's organic LIGHT whipped cream cheese, frozen bagels, 2 mg Xanax, iced kombucha tea.

Oh, Honey, I love the mornings. I am such a morning person.

It's like, I wake up with so much on my mind, so much to do, so much to see in the world! I get so excited that it's hard to tell what I'm feeling, so I simply have to settle on either 1. incredible depression, or 2. incredible hangover. And every morning lately it's been a toss up. Who knows, I think excitedly! What is it today?!?!

As I prepare my morning banquet of HALF a bagel with LIGHT whipped cream cheese or nothing till 2 pm, hands shaky with--what is it exactly? Vim? Vigor? Nervousness? Debilitating anxiety? Heartbreak? Mistrust of the world? Anticipation?--I think of all the things on my full social schedule for the day.

There's always a few hours of work on my project that needs to be done,

there's the WORKING OUT UNTIL I'M LESS UGLY of the day

and there's the ability to avoid it all with a glass of champs and 2mg of Xanax until all my EXCITEMENT FOR LIFE is calmed down to a reasonable, dignified level. Ah, the mornings. It's when you crawl out of bed while casually considering suicide, and stumble toward your television and find out that there's a show called "Love Handles: Couples in Crisis." Hahaha you think, distracted from your own demise. But wait, Darling, you only have one part of that equation, and not the other. BOOM, thinks your television back to you: BOOM.

Honey, being a rich, rich woman in the Midwestern country is a complicated thing and one can, if one must--and she must sometimes--indulge too much in order to sublimate the confusion that comes along with this culture, and with being a living creature in general, and with being grossed out by being alive with this body and these orifices. Being a woman in this DAY AND AGE means having SO MUCH to do, and finishing something 5-years in the making, like the charity project I'm working on, is just so taxing on the soul. I mean, I don't have a soul or feelings or morality, but you know, it's so taxing on the prescription pad. It's almost like you think, wait a minute, is that a feeling? Am I feeling TOO MUCH? AM I FREAKING OUT? As you turn to your elegant social group to remark on what you might be FEELING and you watch them politely shudder away into a "Hi how are you? Fine? I'm fine. We're all fine forever" part of the charity ball, you are reminded that, indeed, people of our social class do not feel.

You drink alcohol. Sometimes you freak out and eyes are adverted, and other times, everyone is perfectly, richly, JUST FINE. I mean, of course, Honey, we know we're all not. How can we be? We've been working for years on artistic projects and academic degrees that come without love, affirmation, a future, or even collegiality. For those of us in PRE-DIVORCES who are settled into a lovely exchange of legalize, silence, and affairs, I wonder--what keeps us in? What moves our mornings? One might hope that it is, indeed, love

and not the crippling, cliche silence that not communicating about the depression our silencing relationships have wrought has landed us in. And for those of us IN-BETWEEN marriages, well, we vacillate, especially in the mornings, about how lovely it is to finally see oneself looking back, how you didn't seek your desires out with the fervent passion that leads to such drunken exhaustion of getting a PhD, and how sleeping with this knife, with this selenite orb, with this body that you can fuck up how ever you want, well there's something settling about that. I mean, in the upper echelons of society, Honey, I can't tell you how many times someone is willing to fucking kill themselves to finish work with an uncertain future, yet how incapable the same person is of asking someone on a date, or for affirmation, or to speak to their spouse about the incredible sadness that led to so many transgressions. But that degree or tenure line or charity planning--that could get the weight of one's heart. Simple, easier to fulfill, beautiful, sessy desires, not so much.

On the other hand, those of us IN-BETWEEN marriages think, a marriage presumes love, commitment, later alimony, and empathy, doesn't it? And isn't that something to be jealous of? How do we get there? Will once again, one day, we too see a naked body? And ALIMONY? Will it be like our previous times or will we be able to get there through a frank accounting of our desires, needs, and a willingness to communicate openly despite fear of rejection, thus landing us with a more suitable, and courageous, mate? That is what we hope, Honey, 'tis. Until then, there are these hard mornings where no matter the heat, the familiar cold moves through your shaking insides.

But like my favorite "gay husband "from The Real Housewives series (this one: Vancouver) reminds us, "Maybe you've had a hard life. But you don't need to show it here. No one needs to see that on your face."

So the best thing about being IN-BETWEEN marriages is that your mornings are yours. And later, when you go out to prepare for another tragic morning, your freedom is knowing that when you contemplate suicide, it's yours. When you have your HEALTHY morning kombucha tea with a Xanax floater, no one needs to know how it smooths the sadness away from your pursed lips, and really, Darling, bouncing back and forth from the complete bottom to the very top of SOCIETY has made you incredibly stable. You can contemplate suicide and communication and your own shaky hands, but you have been and will be strong enough to live day-to-day with your testimony. Which is to say, Honey, Dagmar always asks out the gorgeous men, even when she knows they'll say "no," and feels fabulous more than anxious about doing so. Which is to say, Honey, there is no ladder we can't climb if we are our desire, and we speak frankly about what we want, and what we're never willing to put up with again. Everyone presumes you're too intense, crazy, and own a trampy mouth anyway if you speak your mind without reserve for gentile politeness, so why not??

"I was married to 2 very irritating men. I deserve the money."

And that is what makes it possible for me to lounge through the morning until the later possibilities of the day. Of course, Sundays are the worst, so double everything in the My Time recipe to taste.

Champs on me, later, Honey, and maybe I'll propose, too:
Dagmar Ottenham

The Truths About Elegant Women

Ingredients for this My Time: Innuendo, listing, a Puglian red.

Honey, you know it's true. A lady on the verge of summer, and experiencing the hours of lights down there, likes a few choice things:

1. Ladies like innuendo. Give them some. Then deliver.

2. They also like gifts that express YOUR FEELINGS. But, they don't like it when you present such gifts then try to be like "cool, whatever, I have a penis, doh-duh-doh" about them.

3. Halter dresses with boob support, botch.

4. A summer of spankings!

5. Ladies like when you order food for the table with the word "stuffed" in it. Ladies do not like you not knowing they do not like to point these food items out and/or order them themselves.

6. A lady always starts a meal with a cocktail before she can bare to look at the dinner menu. AND SNACKS.

7. Ladies like foreign travel, and foreign intrigue.

8. Ladies do not like your ironic pants.

9. An elegant lady always has a strand of real pearls, and can wear a "pearl necklace."

10. No, don't do that. Whatever you're thinking of doing for some "effect" you've identified, just stop.

11. No, seriously. Stop.

12. Drinking before 5 pm is the new black.

13. An educated swarthy man always orders the lady an moderately priced bottle of champers ($100-$60) to not be a show off and to also presume that a lady has had fine things, but might come from less fine things, OKAY?

14. We want to join your stupid band and harmonize up the yin yang.

15. A man told me once "You think differently from anyone I've met, and I love it." Let's examine how this is the right move. 1. He didn't say the typical, "wow, I think you might be smarter than me..." and he didn't compare me to other women, but other people. Re-examine number 9.

16. We want to have sex, like anyone else. But an elegant woman has no problem packing it in at the dinner table. So plan to have an hour ahead of time where you get it on. We'll thank you for it later, before we pass out after a bottle of reasonably priced champers and creme brulee.

17. I once had 3 creme brulees in one week. An elegant woman will present this fact to you without comment.

18. We've seen men, once they get comfortable, jump up and down to show how their items down there can flop up and down. So you don't need to show us again.

19. An elegant woman loses her shit. This is a sign that she has a ferocious heart. It's terrifying. It's crazy. It's hard. It's not fun. It's arousing. It's a woman who can speak her needs. It's right.

20. An elegant lady celebrates the anniversaries of the men she has lost. An elegant woman embraces ritual and magic and love and loss. 

he was Will Oldham before Will Oldham, and DUH, so much more

The best you can do is proceed, willingly and gracefully. Grace is something the elegant woman still might be learning.

Ah, The Lovely Mornings of God

Ingredients for this My Time: Taco Bell, Netflix account, your owned damned body

Oh Honey, it's OK, no one knows. No one is here except you and your cat. BECAUSE YOU'RE ALONE, YOU DISGUSTING WENCH. Ahem, I mean, because you are a feminist and don't need anyone except strong shoulder pads!

So when you wake up and realize that Taco Bell bits are scattered in your bed, and beside you sits the evidence bag and a bottle of hot sauce, just throw them away, worry about the sheets later, and climb back into bed. Clearly you had a long night after running into a recent-past lover while you were drinking tequila alone at the rock show where he excused himself to "bring drinks to friends" and you screamed (on the inside) "I HAVE FRIENDS, TOO"

so give yourself a break. You DESERVE IT. You can clean your 5,600 count cotton sheets and not-yet-released Macbook 17 (with beans on it) streaming Law and Order reruns later.

If you don't remember eating it, clearly the calories don't count, do they?! Go back to sleep. You still have your mascara and lip stain on, so you look fabulous--if you died right now upon passing out--I mean, falling back asleep--you'd be a specimen of perplexing feminist perfection. Just your naked body with shoulder pads attached, and your gorgeous, never-a-bean-did-smear-lipstick painted, dead face.

(btw, google predicted that after I typed "beautiful dead" that the next word I would type would be "woman," and just so you know, apparently everyone and their maid wants to see "beautiful dead women" because not only do you get thousands of real photos of these women--clearly of the lower classes and grade D celebrity kind, but you get thousands of alive women posing dead with perfect lipstick on. Isn't technology amazing?! We're all so lucky to live in this world we've created!)

It's My Time. And It's Your Time, Too. Welcome to Us.

This blog has been created to encourage what we all need a little more of: My Time. As a decadent lady who was raised in the upper echelons of society in Manhattan, Barcelona, and Tallinna, I learned a long time ago that being a woman in and of society isn't easy. Sometimes it's enough to not rip off your control top stockings and throw them at your doorman as he wishes you a good morning.

Recently, my husband, Astor, a virologist (for those of you not raised around such professions, a "virologist" is someone who invents new viruses to combat creatures that wish to overtake humanity, such as badgers and mosquitos and Muslims. Or something like that. Anyway), received the Mel Gibsoner Grant in the Sciences to study the creatures that populate a state in America I had never heard of before, "Missouri," and gracefully destroy the lesser creatures of the world that aim to take control of our planet. Ever heard of a "cave cricket?"

No? I hadn't either. Astor told me it's like the women of the southern states who kill their children slowly through something called "beauty pageants." Hilarious, I told him, over a glass of red blend from Campagnia. I just love it when mothers are willing to ruin their "gateways to pleasure" by spawning and only afterward punishing their children for such bodily abuse. Why even start? That's why we adopted. I like to think of our family as a rainbow of beige with two triumphant white clouds on the ends (that's me and Astor).

Anyway, so I'm in Missouri for perhaps 2 years. It is more important than ever to enjoy My Time. Lesson Number One to All You: When Consuela takes your children out to enjoy something called "fried catfish" while you sleep off one of "mommy's colds," this is the perfect moment for My Time. So for our first lesson on such an occasion, simply follow these instructions: Look in your mirror, hopefully a long, long mirror, as to accentuate the thinnest moment you'll have all day (the morning), and repeat 23 times, "I deserve this." Because you do. You deserve this. You deserve this. And a martini is your morning reward. Low in calories and high in sacred geometry, "you deserve this." And I should know, my husband is a scientolomagist.

To begin this important journalism endeavor I need to know what you think. How do you spend My Time in the early hours before sunset? I want to know what is most important to you, so I can in turn learn, like every good woman does, how to become a chameleon to meet your needs and then secretly practice My Time.