muffy bolding

The Seven Deadly Sins

Day 1 — Pride. Seven awesome things about yourself:

1) I’m a HUGE belly laugher – and I can and do belly laugh at ANYTHING…even tragedy and horror. In fact, belly laughing is how I survive tragedy and horror.

2) I possess an absolutely inhuman ability to improvise, adapt, and overcome. I am like a ruthless, belly laughing cockroach in a black dress and red lipstick.

3) I can keep secrets like a motherfucker. LIKE A MOTHERFUCKER.

4) To those who are worthy of my devotion, I AM LOYAL TO THE DEATH.

5) I am an uncanny judge of character. Give me just five minutes — and I GOTCHA.

6) If you are my friend, I can absolutely guarantee that you will never, ever, ever experience any drama with me. When it comes to relationships, I am COMPLETELY drama-free. I like it like BUTTAH.

7) I fuck on the first date.

I just gotta say that I LOATHE how we have commodified and fetishized babies and motherhood in this culture. Just the thought of it makes my flesh crawl. It’s time to move past the $300 diaper bags with hand-embroidered bluebirds of happiness on a chocolate brown organic cotton background, and the vintage, Mid-Century, original Calder mobiles hanging above their motherloving reclaimed old forest growth Danish-design blond cribs that cost twice what my parents paid for their first house.

We need to get back to the ways of my Sicilian grandmothers: Squat and push it out it in the vineyard, strap it to your chest, pop your nipple in its mouth, love it with all your heart…AND GET THE FUCK ON WITH IT, BITCHES.

My youngest daughter, Anne, and I were hanging out this afternoon, belly laughing and reciting lines from “Bridesmaids”…and at some point we touched on the subject of fear — and I told her, “If I could give you only one gift of wisdom from all my years spent on this planet, it would be this, Young Baby Goat: Fear is WORTHLESS. It’s a waste of time. FEAR NOTHING. FEAR NO ONE. KNOW HOW POWERFUL AND ASTONISHING YOU TRULY ARE. NO ONE knows any more than you do. Go after ANYTHING YOU WANT — because you can have it. MOVE THROUGH THIS FUCKING WORLD AS IF YOU OWN IT — BECAUSE YOU DO. IT’S ALL YOURS FOR THE TAKING, sister — ALL OF IT.”

She beamed that amazing Baby Goat smile at me and said, “I already know that, Mommy — because you taught me.”

At 20 years of age, this delightful little creature already gets what it took me a goddamned lifetime to learn. She TOTALLY gets it.

If I dropped dead right this second…I would do so knowing that my life was an utter success.

There is no more telling statement on America’s attitude toward aging than this:

If given a choice and the necessary resources, otherwise rational, intelligent women in the culture in which I, my daughters, my sisters, and my girlfriends exist…WOULD RATHER LOOK LIKE MOTHERFUCKING MONSTERS THAN TO LOOK OLD. This has GOT to change. We can run away as far and as fast as we are able — but in the end, Age has its way with us all, baby.

My way of dealing with it? I look Age right in the crepey bastard eye, throw back my greying head, grab my jiggling gunt, and BELLY LAUGH.

I DON’T GIVE A FUCK.

Let’s see…my most favorite memory from our wedding day was not just that I finally finally finally got to marry My One True Love…but that right after I became her son’s lawfully wedded wife, my new mother-in-law handed us an envelope that contained a very generous wedding check — an envelope across whose front she had accidentally written, “Greg and Marla”, i.e., Gregory’s lovely, talented, long-term ex-girlfriend. When he laughed and pointed the mistake out to her, my MIL was ABSOLUTELY MORTIFIED — and for the rest of the day, could NOT stop apologizing for her gaffe.

Being the perpetually-bemused, wry, old hooker that I am, I, of course, LOVED the inadvertent error…and even saved it to be framed and hung in a place of great honor in our home.

In the sacred spirit of Christmas and of being grateful and counting one’s blessings for all that is good in one’s life, I have even come up with a way to be thankful for My Dread Disease: This malar rash is saving me A GODDAMNED FORTUNE IN ROUGE.

Merry, Merry, Mein Poppets!

To all you generous, thoughtful, and enthusiastic holiday bakers out there, a small, but meaningful, Christmas gift from me — a gift of THE TRUTH:

You can spin it however you want and festoon that shit with ribbons, sprinkles, and Christmas tins from Wal-Mart aplenty…but the truth is, my friend, that FRESHLY CUT PERSIMMONS SMELL JUST LIKE LOAD. Therefore, you can bake ALL the gottdamned persimmon cookies you want, motherfucker, but I AIN’T EATIN’ NONE O’ DAT SHIT.

Dat is all.