muffy bolding

Hey, kids, it’s the Paranoia Meme — gather ’round the guillotine and sing with the family!

1) You are one of the most hopeful and resilient people I have ever encountered. You wake up every fucking day and just completely reinvent yourself. No matter what happens, no matter what you are dealt, you never give up — and for that, I am glad. Goodness and light such as yours is much-needed in this world — I can feel it on my face from here. Never stop doing what you do.

2) I honestly think you may be one of the most dangerously imbalanced people I have ever had the displeasure of knowing. Your very touch is venom. Why you spawned is beyond me. Fuck off.

3) You are one of the people on lj that I would like to know a lot better — both online and in real life. I think we would be great friends! Those who do count you amongst their comrades speak highly of you because you live your life with such courage and vision and determination. I admire you and your work and your mothering very much. Perhaps the next time I am in your presence, I will come up and introduce myself instead of just being a geek and beating it for the door.

4) You found true love at last! Good! Now run for office, you miserably brilliant political strategist cocksucker that I love. This country needs more minds — and hearts! — like yours running it. I am being serious. Run…or face the Wrath of Muff. As an added bonus, if you do run and win, I give you my solemn promise to be your official speechwriter — PRO BONO! Imagine the thrill of using the word “motherfucker” in your inaugural speech. I say it’s high time we incorporated profanity into the general public discourse — and you can lead the way. All joking aside, please consider throwing your hat into the ring at some level, at some point; we need leaders like you now more than ever before.

5) Your oldest child is clearly gay — and I am concerned that you do not/will not see it in time to be there for them when they may need you the very most. You are a most excellent mother — I just hope that you can open your eyes and your heart to the truths of your own child. I have every faith that you will.

6) You need to ditch that worthless, pain-in-the-ass, high-maintenance, baggage-heavy significant other of yours. You deserve FAR better, and you know it. That person is a feces-encrusted anvil tied to your soul — you need to get out of the goddamned kitchen and cut that motherfucker LOOSE. Yes, I am talking to YOU.

7) You are an extraordinarily kind person — with mountains of integrity and conviction. I would trust you with my very life…even though I have never actually met you; you are THAT kind of person. Quite rare. You are also an amazing mother and activist. I hope to meet you in person someday.

8) You have such a gorgeous body — lush and zaftig and curvy…not at all the skinny little gamine I originally assumed. You are a wonderful mother and your daughter is fortunate to have you as her guide through this world. I stand in awe of your talent and the bold, imaginative way in which you conduct your life. I envy the gypsy in you like you cannot imagine.

9) I want to see you succeed more than anything. I have actually meditated on ways to help you get there. The world needs more hearts and minds like yours. I love reading about your cozy life; it makes me want to hang out at your house, eat soup, watch old movies, and nap. You are extraordinarily principled and always stand up for the weak and the downtrodden, no matter what the personal cost to you, and I respect and admire you for that. You will provide a powerful voice for many who don’t have one of their own. And, oh, yeah…we look like sisters.

10) I would love nothing more than to AXE you from my friends list — you bore the living fuck out of me and I loathe your whiny, self-centered horseshit. And the worst part of all is that you continuously commit the most unpardonable sin of all in my eyes: you are uninteresting. I am begging you to fuck off.

11) You have a funny face. It makes me chuckle and I like it — and you. You are filled with natural grace and good humor — and now, as we are all discovering, a ferocious strength, as well. Hold fast, my friend — and we shall see you on the other side…and so will he.

12) I think you could be doing so much more with your life. You are so talented and intelligent and culture-wise, you have THE COLD EYE, baby. The books in your bookcase surprised me — in a good way. Why do you not use these gifts to benefit your life and your soul? You limit yourself because of your lack of confidence. Get over it and get on with it. You and your yummy bath products rule.

13) I think you have one of the best marriages I have ever encountered in the online world. Your significant other is brilliant and an absolute joy and I simply could not do without him. He makes my world a more interesting place here in the online ethers…as in BEST LINKS EVER. Oh, and best of luck on your newest endeavor.

14) Oh, sweet jesus…you are the very fucking worst bastard on my entire friends list. I have not read your posts for months, because everytime I do, your bitter, relentless whining drives me completely mad. It makes me want to gouge my fucking eyes out with a poison-tipped shillelagh. It makes me want to play squat-hop-in-the-asparagus-patch in a Serbian minefield. In fact, I have never ever ever read a single post of yours where you were not complaining about something. You are the consummate Debbie Downer of livejournal. The mere sight of your font alone makes me want to take my own life with a rusty machete and a fistful of percodan. How your significant other stands you is absolutely beyond me. I would silently cut your drivelous throat in the night. Just thinking about you makes my butt hurt.

15) You have such an odd face and an odd gait and an odd way of looking at the world. When I read your posts, I always feel like it’s raining on red bricks somewhere in the world. You are a walking poem…and unique in every way. Your time is coming, honey — you just gotta trust me on this one.

16) Just simply…WHY? Making frequent, inflated statements that it’s a deliberate political choice doesn’t cut the mustard with me, toots. You are SO fucking intelligent and eloquent. You need to be writing and public speaking and sharing that brain with others.

17) Enough already. Trust me, NOBODY CARES.

18) You and I have a strange, inexplicable, deeply-felt connection — and I don’t even necessarily know why that is. But IT IS. When I hugged you in person, and looked into your eyes, I felt it…and still feel it. So odd, but also somehow comforting. You have great taste in books. I feel like you may have been my little sister in a past life. Keep speaking the truth, don’t ever stop — because that truth is not just your own…it belongs to all women who struggle with an inner world that doesn’t meet society’s strictly horseshit standards. Your words give voice to us all. You are the most courageous person on my friends list.

19) Others may find you amusing and intelligent. I find you desperate, manic, and clamoring. Simma down now.

20) You are brilliant and talented and darling and have the best life ever — and you don’t even know it…but you will someday. Your life has a sort of mythical quality to it. Also, your zine is one of my all-time favorites.

21) If I had to choose one person on my friends list to sleep with — it’d be you, hands down. You make me laugh like hell and I absolutely insist that we meet in person at some point in the future. You are one of my most favorite people on lj — we’d probably be like best friends in real life. Just thinking about you now, and all the crazy shit you write, makes me belly laugh out loud. You are fearless with your candor, which is one of the main reasons I adore you. Your spirit reminds me of someone from another time — perhaps the 1920’s. I also think that you’ll be quite famous someday. You are one lusty bitch — but who isn’t after a few cocktails?

22) I used to think your offspring was rather funny looking. Now I think said child is absolutely beautiful — and getting moreso everyday.

23) I think you are the sexiest bitch on my friends list — and smart as a gottdamned whip, too. Your grasp of the language is a thing of constant beauty. And, despite your almost total and complete lack of exposure to popular culture whilst growing up, you are still consistently one of the most interesting people around these parts. I don’t give a fuck if you aren’t aware of the subtle comedic complexities between Keith and Danny Partridge — I adore you no end, and you are my husband’s number one choice to bang around with on my friends list…no small honor, I must say.

24) You are impressive…imperious…impervious…and improbable.

25) You just never stop, do you? You are one of the most ambitious and persistent dames I have ever met, hands down; that virtue will serve you well in your career of choice. You are not just intelligent — you have the extra added bonus of self-awareness, as well as a wry take on things, which I appreciate no end. You will succeed because you wouldn’t have it any other way…and neither would I. See you around the table with the big boys, toots.

26) I think your children are gorgeous. I think you are an extraordinary photographer. I think you are an outstanding mother. I think you are a wicked, wicked wife — and I mean that in the best possible way. I think that most people in the real world have NO MOTHERFUCKING IDEA who and what you are — and would be positively FLOORED if they got the chance to see the person that we see here on lj. I’m glad you share your inner life with us — it is rich and barbed and delightfully sarcastic. You are smart. I like you.

27) Yours is the most tragic story on my friends list — my heart breaks a little more every time I read your journal. I wish you peace and healing.

28) Your fine and delicate face always reminds me of a pilgrim face — so pure, so patrician, so genteel…which makes it all the funnier when I read the posts about your harmless extramarital lusting after young boys in coffeehouses. You incorrigible flirt! Also, I love hearing about your sisterly bond with miss so and so — you two absolutely belong together. And so shall you be. Your mama would definitely approve.

30) You have the most beautiful child of us all — thanks for sharing.

31) You are the VERY ESSENCE of what you are, baby — imbued with extreme character by the day on which you were born. I frequently laugh out loud when I read your journal, even when there is drama (which there is much of, by the way!) not because I enjoy watching you struggle and squirm, but because I know very well that this too shall pass and you will come out smelling like a San Antonio rose. You always do, you know. You remind me heartily of my oldest daughter, so I feel very maternal towards you. You are quite young and have already accomplished so much in your life — enjoy it, goddamnit, and don’t sweat the stuff that doesn’t matter. You are living your life well — and this shows through most nobly in the greatest art you will ever create: him.

32) I’m not one prone to jealousy or envy…never have been. However, I must admit to being mighty covetous regarding the most recent acquisition to your collection. Intrigued, I followed the link and had my breath verily taken away by what I found there. You got the best one, you know. Yeah…you know. I want one, goddamnit.

33) You are the greatest motherfucking writer on livejournal PERIOD. Every single gottdamned day, my husband and I violently kick, poke, claw and scratch the living shit out of each other to get to the computer first to read the latest sheer, caustic brilliance that has exploded from your wicked, wicked cortex. Your writing is actually a part of our daily lives, a part of the joy and intellect and discourse that is our marriage. We sit in bed at night and discuss your take on the world. We LIVE for your every word. We fear you. We adore you. We deconstruct you. We worship you. We invoke you. In short, you are the patron saint of this household, motherfucker — NO LIE. Keep it coming — and when you write your first book, we are FIRST IN LINE to purchase it. All Hail!

34) You remind me of Emily Dickinson — so sad all the time, so fragile…yet, so powerful and so self-aware. You run deeper than just about anyone on my friends list, it seems…your grasp of the nuances of humanity is staggering. I must admit that oftentimes I don’t understand why it is that you seem so unhappy — when I look at you, I see this gorgeous, intelligent, well-read, passionate, TALENTED woman, who is SUCH a good mother and wife and friend..,which is obviously so different from how you view yourself. I don’t even attempt to understand what has happened in your life to make you doubt yourself for even one second, but I will tell you this: There is at least one person out here in the great world beyond the pixels who thinks you are fascinating and lovely and brilliant and intriguing…and who absolutely insists that you find another venue for that voice of yours…quite literally. Also, you give the best quote on lj, hands down. My quote file is filled to the brim with bon mots I have shamelessly ganked from your journal — I was just thinking the other day as I ganked the most recent one, “These quotes of hers are so specific to what moves me, that sometimes I think this dame and I have the same brain.” I am honored to share grey matter with a person like you.

35) I know your most secretest secret — You are a fake and a wanna-be and a NO-talent meathook. But, don’t worry, cupcake…I won’t tell anybody. Eventually, they’ll figure it out all on their own: The Empress isn’t wearing any clothes.

I was just cleaning up and digging through some various writing files of mine and I stumbled upon that lj “Paranoid Meme” thing I did like two months ago. You know which one I am talking about — the one where you write a cluster of anonymous messages to people on your friends list, telling them the unvarnished truth about how you feel — both good and bad. The one that shocks and horrifies and makes you question your very sanity when you read a message that just might be directed at you. The same one that I read on someone else’s journal a few months ago that very nearly drove me into analysis because I was just sure it was aimed directly at my NO-talent meathook self. The one that I still hear echoing in my worst nightmares before it jars me from my peaceful slumber, sweating profusely and bleeding from the eyesockets. The one that leaves me reeling with the knowledge that an insult like that to someone like me is epic…EVEN IN HELL.

Yeah…THAT ONE.

Anyway, I did it late one Saturday night when I was bored with the endless political drivel over at Kos’ clubhouse and knew that all the industry skullduggery at IMDB wouldn’t be updated until Monday morning. I had run out of self-entertainment options and I just HAD to do it, kids. I had no choice. And much to my surprise, I found that I rather enjoyed it. I smelled the cheap, roadhouse whiskey on its breath, and it pawed at my dirty pillas and I let it take me right then and there, and I liked it, goddamnit..I LIKED IT.

So, my query to you is this: yay or nay to posting it? My good friend, , has already publicly stated that I should be bold and just let the bastard rip (but then, she’s Traci Jean Burns, and she fucking RULES THE SCHOOL and knows no fear whatsoever beyond having her buggy ganked at the supermarket, but that’s a different story entirely.)

So, what’re your thoughts on the subject? Remember, it contains some really fun and loving stuff, as well as some intermittent moments of sheer harrowing terror. I would employ one of those polls I am always seeing you guys use, but I am completely oafish when it comes to such matters and have no idea how to go about doing it. I am but a poor and humble technological imbecile — pity me…and then tell me whether or not I should post this bastardo. Thank you.

I am currently doing an interview for the darling, glorious, and persistent …whilst kickin’ it with my 13 year-old daughter’s pink ipod. Much to my surprise, it is absolutely loaded with Journey and The Cure. My heart is full and soaring with love and gratitiude for the unstoppable passage of time…and its perpetual and relentless return to all that is good in the world.

Umm…guess whose fatass will be sitting fifth row fucking center for this unbelievably historic shin-dig?

Yeah, that’s right. My fatass.

Oh, lawdie, sometimes this little Sicilian dame’s life is so fucking good, she can scarcely stand it.

And the light dims just a little more…

The Man Who Fought for the Forgotten
Peter Benenson 1921-2005 Founder of Amnesty International

by Antony Barnett

There are not many newspaper articles that can genuinely claim to have changed the world for the better. But on Sunday, 28 May 1961, The Observer published a campaigning piece on the front of its Weekend Review section.

The article was entitled ‘The Forgotten Prisoners’ and it was by Peter Benenson, a 33-year old Eton-educated London lawyer.

Benenson had been angered after learning about two Portuguese students who had been arrested and imprisoned for seven years after drinking a toast to liberty in a Lisbon cafe during the Salazar dictatorship.

As Benenson later said: ‘That so enraged me that I walked up the steps of St Martin-in-the-Fields, out of the Underground, and went in to see what could really be done effectively to mobilise world opinion.’

His solution seemed simple: to bombard the Portuguese regime with written protests. As Martin Ennals, a future Amnesty secretary-general observed later, it was ‘an amazing contention that prisoners of conscience could be released by writing letters to governments’.

But rather than have just one campaign for one country, why not draw public attention to the plight of political and religious prisoners throughout the world? This was the basis of his Observer article, which took the shape of a series of letters published as an ‘Appeal for Amnesty’.

His article began: ‘Open your newspaper – any day of the week – and you will find a report from somewhere in the world of someone being imprisoned, tortured or executed because his opinions or religion are unacceptable to his government. The newspaper reader feels a sickening sense of impotence. Yet if these feelings of disgust all over the world could be united into common action, something effective could be done.’

He could not have predicted how right he has proved to be. Benenson had intended his campaign to run for a year, but the response to his article was overwhelming.

The term ‘prisoner of conscience’, which he coined, soon became common currency and the movement’s logo, a candle surrounded by barbed wire, became a worldwide symbol of hope.

Amnesty’s campaigns have saved countless prisoners from torture or death. From South Africa, Chile and Uganda to Iraq, Burma and China, Amnesty’s work has helped secure the release of political prisoners and highlighted human rights violations. Closer to home Amnesty has also been critical of policies of the former prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, and more recently Tony Blair’s anti-terrorist legislation.

Irene Khan, its present secretary general, said yesterday: ‘His vision gave birth to human rights activism. Peter Benenson’s life was a courageous testament to his visionary commitment to fight injustice around the world. He brought light into the darkness of prisons, the horror of torture chambers and tragedy of death camps around the world.

‘This was a man whose conscience shone in a cruel and terrifying world, who believed in the power of ordinary people to bring about extraordinary change and, by creating Amnesty International, he gave each of us the opportunity to make a difference.’

The Leader of the House of Commons, Peter Hain, a long-time campaigner against the former apartheid regime in South Africa, led the political tributes last night.

‘He lit a torch for human rights which Amnesty International has kept burning across the world in being constantly vigilant about abuses,’ Hain said.

In Amnesty’s first few years Benenson’s energy was vital to its success. He provided much of its funding and was involved in all aspects of the organisation. ‘At that time we were still putting our toes in the water and learning as we went on,’ he later said.

‘We tried every technique of publicity and we were very grateful for the widespread help of journalists and television crews throughout the world who not only sent us information about the names of prisoners but also, whenever they could, gave space to stories about prisoners.’

Amnesty’s membership is now more than a million, with supporters in more than 160 countries and territories. It has dealt with the cases of 47,000 prisoners of conscience and other victims of human rights violation. More than 45,000 of these are now closed. In 1977 Amnesty International was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for its tireless fight against injustice.

Former prisoner of conscience Julio de Pena Valdez, a trade union leader in the Dominican Republic, has spoken of the impact of an Amnesty letter-writing campaign. ‘When the 200 letters came, the guards gave me back my clothes. Then the next 200 letters came and the prison director came to see me. When the next pile of letters arrived, the director got in touch with his superior. The letters kept coming and coming – 3,000 of them. The president was informed.

‘The letters still kept arriving and the president called the prison and told them to let me go.’

Benenson was born on 31 July 1921, the grandson of the Russian-Jewish banker Grigori Benenson. He later converted to Catholicism. He was tutored privately by WH Auden, then went to Eton and Oxford, where he studied history.

His flair for controversy emerged early, when his complaint to the headmaster of Eton about the poor quality of the school’s food prompted a letter to his mother warning of her son’s ‘revolutionary tendencies. At age 16, he launched his first campaign: to get school support, during the Spanish Civil War, for the newly-formed Spanish Relief Committee which was helping Republican war orphans. He himself ‘adopted’ one of the babies, helping to pay for its support.

His concern about political imprisonment and mistreatment was inspired by Arthur Koestler’s Spanish Testament, which described the horrors of imprisonment and threatened execution by the Fascists. It was this concern that led to his next campaign – the plight of Jews who had fled from Hitler’s Germany. Despite some opposition, he succeeded in getting his school friends and their families to raise £4,000 to bring two young German Jews to Britain.

After leaving Eton, he helped his politically committed mother find homes in various countries for refugee children who arrived in London.

The Trades Union Congress sent him to Spain as its observer at the trials of trade unionists in the early Fifties. He was appalled by what he saw in the courtrooms and in the prisons. In one instance he was so outraged by the proceedings that he drew up a list of complaints with which he confronted the trial judge over dinner. The trial ended with acquittals, a rarity in fascist Spain.

Benenson, who had been ill for some time, died on Friday evening at the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford.

Lighting a candle in St Martin-in-the Fields church to mark the twentieth anniversary of Amnesty, he said: ‘I have lit this candle, in the words of Shakespeare, ‘against oblivion’ – so that the forgotten prisoners should always be remembered. We work in Amnesty against oblivion.’

“No matter how beautiful she may be, there is somebody somewhere who is tired of her shit.”

— A decal seen on the back window of a new Ford Mustang in San Diego, California, February, 2005

When my first marriage ended, it was not with a bang…but with a very civil whimper. There was no bickering, no haggling, no attorneys. There was not a single material possession over which my ex-husband and I argued.

With one very notable exception: Our complete collection of Hunter S. Thompson books.

They lived in a place of great honor on our night table, and were the only things we collectively possessed that caused us pause whilst we literally and metaphorically “split the sheets.” I can still see us both standing there amongst the mountains of packing boxes…pensively looking at the melange of well-worn volumes on our nightstand, and then directly at each other. Oddly enough, those books pretty much represented, in toto, all that he and I had in common culturally. I am a Ted Hughes/Robert Lowell/Doug Kenney kind of dame; He is a Wayne Gretzky/Mark Martin/Jimmy Buffet kind of guy. Dr. Thompson, and his screeching legions of drug-induced dive-bombing bats and salt-shakers half-full of cocaine, was the lone cultural ground on which we both stood. To this day, Thompson’s essay, “The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved” remains one of my all time favorite pieces of writing. When he describes the drunken, writhing mass of humanity down on the infield, the green mint julep vomit oozing down the white suits of normally impeccable southern colonels, as well as his desire to blast a load of mace into the governor’s box, I lose my fucking mind with sheer delight.

As a writer, Thompson was profoundly meaningful in both of the very divergent worlds my husband and I each occupied — meaningful enough, I might add, that we chose to name our only son Hunter, in homage to his brilliance. As a small, 4 1/2 pound preemie in his clear-plastic bassinet in the neonatal intensive care unit at Valley Children’s Hospital in Fresno, California, our boy’s first companion and playmate was a 6 inch action figure of Uncle Duke from Doonesbury, whom, as you probably know, was based on the good doctor. For three weeks, the small, plastic avatar of Hunter Thompson kept vigil over our tiny son when we were not able to be there with him ourselves. The best part is, I truly believed that at the time…and took great comfort in it.

So, it is with much affection that I bid farewell to Hunter Thompson today. It may very well be a cliche, but he lived — and died — exactly how the fuck he wanted to. Even in death, he continues to stagger and stun…and take my breath away. And to all those driveling on about him being a coward by taking his own life…remember this: “Withdrawing in disgust is not the same thing as apathy.” My guess is that Hunter S. Thompson chose to withdraw from this world not out of fear, but out of loathing…and it was ultimately his choice to do so.

Now, piss off.

PS) Hubby got the books. I got the babies. Good trade.

Why Hunter S. Thompson was, is, and always will be…a god.

1) …for the love of christ, email me. I am your humble and rueful servant and interviewee — if you’ll still have me.

2) …when you are in San Diego next month to visit UCSD, I absolutely insist on buying you dinner at the yummy chow house of your choice. That offer is good for , as well. I say we hang, ladies, and hang TOUGH. I also absolutely insist that you CHOOSE UCSD for your graduate studies, Miss Angela. Sandy Eggo needs more brilliant dames like you sauntering about the place.

3) …I WORSHIP your choice of an author’s photo for the new book — and agree with James that you look like an extraterrestrial mermaid. Of course, that’s probably because you ARE an extraterrestrial mermaid — but that’s coming from someone who shared a bathtub with you for ten days and saw your fabulous fins firsthand. Miss Bee is absolutely iridescent, kids — don’t let her Saturnine self tell you any different.

4) …Hey, toots, I had a grand time stalking you and your family through the outer fringes of the Fry’s parking lot last weekend. I must admit that that’s a first for me. Your babies — all three of them — are gorgeous.

5) About a month ago, I was up really late one night and randomly did one of those memes you see floating around lj every so often — you know, the one where you anonymously address certain people on your friends list and tell them what you really think of them, without naming them specifically. It’s intended to make everyone all fucking unsettled and paranoid — except all the people to whom you send messages of love and adoration, of course. My husband thinks it’s hysterical and keeps begging me to post it — but I am not so sure. I read one of these on someone’s journal a few months ago and almost took my own life because I was just SURE they were baggin’ on MY no-talent ass.

6) One teenager lost her cell-phone this week (huge pain in my ass), and the other broke a bracket on her braces (not her fault, but STILL a huge pain in my ass), got her very first sewing machine (design school, here she comes!), went to the Bob Marley Fest with a whole flock of other darling, artsy girlfriends (she’s there even as we speak, in fact), and ordered her gottdamned graduation announcements for June. What I would like to know is how on earth I can have a child graduating from high school…when I am still 17 myself.

7) Okay, so the truth of the matter is that the underwear I am currently wearing are older than 17…but I’m just sayin’.

“I’ve been too fucking busy and vice versa.”
— Dorothy Parker

I tell you true, I don’t like it. When it’s all rainy and gloomy and blustery like this, I like stacking pillows and blankets on the couch and watching Oprah and Lord of the Rings dvds and eating popcorn and drinking mugful after mugful of hot coffee and wearing the same sweats until they smell like a catbox.

But I have just been too gottdamned busy to do ANYTHING lately…besides work and travel and laundry, of course. But fuck all that, ya’ll. All work and no play makes Muffy a dull debutante. I mean, christ — I need to write, but this living like a cloistered monk is not good for the soul. I need to dance, gottdamnit. And you can quote me on that.

So, I am back. Email communication and lj posting to re-commence. Look for me in your in-boxes and in your dreams. I shall be the one being trailed by legions of felines who gotta pee. And, now…I really must go and change these sweatpants.

Lines from “The Large Predatory Feline In The Coldest Season Of The Year”

Prince Geoffrey: “You fool. As if it matters how a man falls.”

Prince Richard: “When the fall is all that’s left, it matters a great deal.”