17 | muffy bolding

I was tagged by my FABULOUS friend and colleague — the BRILLIANT writer and actress, Miss Erin Chandler — to list several random facts about myself (I did 17! My favorite number! Do however many you want!)…and to then nominate three others to do the same. However, I don’t tag. So, do it if you want — and if not…FUCK OFF, LADY.

1) I come from a New York Sicilian family with a pronounced and well-documented carnival and vaudevillian background. Oh, and a strong East Coast “family” background — if you know what I’m saying, and I think just maybe that you you do. Leave the gun. Take the cannoli.

2) Every time I read about all the controversy that continuously swirls around this whole “pink/no pink” issue, all I can think of is: CHRIST, ANOTHER BULLSHIT BUSY-WORK FIRST-WORLD DISTRACTION. Enough already. Who really gives a fuck? Dress your kid however you want to dress them — pink, purple, black, blue, yellow, flowing diaphanous burlap: WHATEVER — and then just teach them that people can be whatever and whoever the fuck they want to be NO MATTER WHAT COLOR THEY WEAR. As a female, to have my choices limited to just pink is fucked up — but to CHOOSE PINK IN THE FIRST PLACE JUST BECAUSE I LIKE IT, despite the fact that annoying busy-body pricks are constantly yammering in my ear that choosing pink is some raging political statement as opposed to merely an aesthetic preference, is BUTCH…and god knows, I’M NOTHING, IF NOT BUTCH.

My two FIERCE, feminist daughters — who are now 23 and 27— both LIVED for pink EVERYTHING when they were little. Hell, the older one — in between inking her arms, piercing her face, dying her spiky hair NEON GREEN and YELLOW, and moving through this world as a BONAFIDE FASHIONISTA PUNK GODDESS — STILL worships at the altar of the pink and the sparkly…and I DEFY YOU to fuck with either of them, my friend. Go ahead — though I have no idea how on earth you’ll manage to eat your annual 4th of July corn on the cob WITH NO FUCKIN’ TEETH.

3) Every night, I sleep surrounded by a king’s ransom worth of fine pillows. In fact, my husband and all three of my children do, as well. I decided a long time ago — even when I was poor, poor, poor as a churchmouse — that soft, luxurious, high-end bedding was a necessary splurge. Even in their cribs, my babies have slept on/been surrounded by down and feather pillows and irrationally high-thread-count sheets at all times. What decadent pigs we be.

4) My favorite ethnic food is either Mediterranean or Korean; I can never, ever make up my mind. Oh, and Ethiopian. And Afghani. And corn dogs with lots of mustard eaten under the lights of a carnival midway. Never mind. I can’t decide. Suffice it to say…FATTIE LIKES FLAVOR.

5) A few years ago, I banged around with my husband, Gregory, in the downstairs bathroom of the Seattle-Bainbridge Island Ferry whilst it was in transit across Puget Sound. I got no shame.

6) I own legions of plain black t-shirts, as well as black dresses, jumpers, sweaters, skirts, and other assorted articles of clothing. If you peer into my closet, so much is it a vast sea of solid black…that a friend of mine actually commented that it looks like my husband is married to a nun — at which point I just threw back my head and BELLY LAUGHED AT THE IRONY.

7) My favorite car when I was little was a Nash Metropolitan. I was completely obsessed with them, and used to have recurring dreams that I was driving one through the air high over the English countryside. My Grandma Marge had a little aqua and white one that I used to sit and play in for hours when she came to visit. She later sold it to an Ethiopian foreign exchange student for $60. I have never forgiven her for it.

8) I have never been lonely for one second of my life; I don’t even understand the concept.

9) I have never been shy for one second of my life; I don’t even understand the concept.

10) I am positively obsessed with left-handed men; if you are male and left-handed, you’ve definitely got my attention. If you’re male, left-handed, and hung like a Clydesdale…please tell the concierge to have you shaved down and brought to my room.

11) I perpetually, mercilessly, and without shame or hesitation…steal magazines and pens from doctor’s offices; I am incorrigible. And speaking of heisted pens — my latest fave writing instruments are the little red, clickety-click, logoed company pens used by the wait staff at Buca di Beppo Restaurants. I like how they write and how they feel in my hand and I have zero dignity about stopping in whenever I am in the vicinity to beg a few from a usually befuddled yet amused front hostess.

12) A couple years ago, I came into my bedroom and found my teenaged son, Hunter, sitting all by himself at the computer and weeping at the beauty of Aaron Copland’s, ”Fanfare for the Common Man.” Oh, yes, he is my son.

13) I have never, ever been bitten by a mosquito. I don’t really know what the deal is, but apparently they just don’t like the taste of my fatass. Pity. With a little gravy and a shot of Boodles gin neat, I think I’m actually quite savory.

14) When it comes to fork usage, I prefer the type with long, elegant European tines.

15) In college, my husband’s roommate was THIS BROAD:

16) My theory on why the icons so popular in folk art and interior design right now (owls, birds, strawberries, mushrooms) are so ubiquitous is because the majority of people currently creating homecrafted art and buying hip housewares from places like Urban Outfitters, were surrounded by these specific images as children –- their mother’s kitchens, bathrooms, and laundry rooms were filled with them! Of course, I am going to have to wait a few more years for my further theory to be unequivocally proven –- when both culture and time move on…and we start seeing the French blue country geese motif, suffered by those children born in the 80s, appearing on ironic t-shirts, futon bedding, wedding invitations, and tattoo flash from Williamsburg to Silver Lake.

Remember…you heard it here first, kids.