“My story isn’t pleasant, it’s not sweet and harmonious like the invented stories; it tastes of folly and bewilderment, of madness and dream, like the life of all people who no longer want to lie to themselves.” — Hermann Hesse, Demian
Our fierce, fabulous Baby Goat and her Delta Gamma sorority sister, Wedge, went to the big game yesterday at The Rose Bowl with a bunch of other friends — and they had the MOTHERLOVING TIME OF THEIR LIVES. None of them had any real stake in the game, but had all decided, nonetheless, to root for Florida State…because, after all, who doesn’t love APPROPRIATING THE NAME, CULTURE, MUSIC, and SACRED IMAGERY of an entire tribe of ancient peoples whilst WILDLY CHANTING and TOMAHAWK CHOPPING along with 90,000 other drunk motherfuckers in feathered head-dresses and warpaint?
Uh, you know, like my fatass TOTALLY would have done had I been there. FSU’s hypnotic fucking Seminole war chant IS MY GROOVE.
But, I digress.
Anyway, to BRAVELY get into the GREAT SPIRIT of the game (you see how I did that there?), before all the EPIC TAILGATE RAGERS started, they went into Old Town Pasadena to get t-shirts. They then texted me this photo…and when I saw it, the VERY FIRST thing I thought of was this:
BCS National Championship Game ticket: $200
Parking at The Rose Bowl for The BCS National Championship Game: $50
Copious Amounts of Pabst Blue Ribbon in the can: $40
Commemorative BCS 2014 T-shirt: $20
Standing At The T-shirt Kiosk And Changing Your Team Allegiance Without The Bat Of A Fucking Eye After Realizing That You Look FAR Better In Navy Blue Than You Do In Garnet & Gold: PRICELESS
GODDAMN, I LOVE THESE BABIES!
In my felonious family…we laugh at everything. EVERYTHING. It is, in fact, the only reason most of us are still alive.
Most of us.
For example, when my GORGEOUS, GLAMOROUS little sister, Julia, tragically died from a drug overdose nearly seven years ago, she had been dead for several days before she was found. Obviously, in that situation, she did not retain the pulchritude in death that she SO famously enjoyed in life. Alive? She was STUNNING. In death? SHE LOOKED LIKE SHREK.
During the HORRIFIC and UNIMAGINABLE week that followed for myself and my family…the first joke was made right around day three — and it was made by ME.
I announced to my over half a dozen shell-shocked siblings, who were all gathered on the floor of a huge walk-in closet at another sister’s house — draped all over each other in a massive, wailing, weeping, cabal/puppy pile of grief and booze and prescription drugs — “Jesus Christ, if Julia knew how MOTHERFUCKING BLOATED, GREEN, and HIDEOUS she looked right now all laid out on that goddamned coroner’s slab, SHE’D FUCKING KILL HERSELF ALL OVER AGAIN.”
You CANNOT IMAGINE THE MAGNIFICENT PEALS OF BELLY LAUGHTER that followed. The relief. The release. The TRUTH.
It really was glorious.
SHE was glorious.
And had she been there…she would have belly laughed harder than any of us.
https://muffybolding.com/2007/02/25/julia/
Muffy’s Year End Best Of List, 2013:
The very best book I read this year (and trust me, I read a LOT of books) is — CLAWS FUCKING DOWN — “The End of Eve” by my friend, the unfathomably brilliant writer, Ariel Gore. It was absolutely breathtaking. You know how you always hear people say they picked up a book and could NOT put it down for anything? YEAH. This is that book. I was intoxicated with it while reading it, and absolutely DRUNK with it for weeks after I was done. I read it whilst playing official house mama for a night at the Baby Goat’s sorority house — and I kept pausing and reflecting on how a sorority house is probably the LAST place on the planet that one would read such a book, yet there I was, and it was PERFECT. The best part? This is a memoir about a woman taking care of her difficult, dying mother…and what I am about to say is not hyperbole in the least:
There are parts in it where I have NEVER, EVER, EVER laughed so hard in my entire life whilst reading a book. EVER. Explosive, trying not to wake my slumbering daughter lying next to me, BELLY SCREAMING OUT LOUD kind of laughter. In a memoir about death. Now, that is GREAT WRITING.
It has been described as “Terms of Endearment” meets “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane.”
AND, FUCKING HOW.
“The End of Eve” is a memoir about Ariel’s END OF TIMES with her STUNNINGLY BEAUTIFUL, NARCISSISTIC, EPIC, MYTHICAL, MISBEHAVING, MEDUSA OF A MOTHER…and how Ariel stepped up as reluctant caregiver for her while she was dying of lung cancer a couple of years ago, despite people telling her, “Are you OUT OF YOUR GOTTDAMNED MIND? You don’t owe that crazy, abusive old biotch SHIT.” My favorite quote of Ariel’s regarding her very ethical and decent decision to play deathbed nursemaid to the woman who — when Ariel came out to her many years ago…proceeded to fill her daughter’s Christmas stocking with nothing but photographs of her boyfriend’s penis, and then shrieked in the light of morning like she’d done it by mistake — is:
“I may have raised myself. But, I raised myself right.”
And, boy, did she. This is SOME book and Ariel Gore is SOME broad and SOME writer.
Apparently, “The End of Eve” is not widely available until March…but you can preorder NOW. And in the meantime, visit her website, buy her other books, and join me in supporting the relaunch of the groundbreaking, game-changing publication that she created, “Hip Mama: The Parenting Zine” — covering the culture and politics of alternative parenting. Get this: The magazine is widely credited with launching the contemporary mothers’ movement. Yes. This is THAT Ariel Gore.
In closing, I will now give this book the absolute highest, grandest, truest accolade that one writer can give to another:
Goddamnit, I wish I’d written that.
http://hawthornebooks.com/catalogue/the-end-of-eve
Gosh. A most lovely and unexpected gift…dropped at my bejeweled, clawed, crimson talons on the last day of 2013 by the darling Evan L Smith. You just made my fucking YEAR with this quote, Herr Smith. THANK YOU FOR THE LOVE and SUPPORT. It means MORE than you could ever know, sir. Happy New Year. xoxo
“Glamour, that trans-human aura or power to attract imitation, is a kind of vessel into which dreams are poured, and some vessels are simply worthier than others. A beautiful woman can turn heads, but real glamour has a deeper pull…Glamour [is] the power to rearrange people’s emotions, which, in effect, is the power to control one’s environment.”
— Arthur Miller
Inane Cluster of Existential Pissings #1222:
1) I have never seen a single episode of Seinfeld. Ever.
2) I am religion adverse. I believe that extreme, devout religiosity suggests a profound lack of imagination. I DO, however, believe in gods: I believe we are ALL gods.
3) If a person tells me that that they are Anti-Choice and do not believe that a woman should have ABSOLUTE sovereignty over her own mind, body, and reproductive destiny…there is not another goddamned thing that person has to say that holds any weight with me. NOTHING. I am cordial, as always — but they will never have my heart nor my respect.
4) Aside from anything tragic befalling my children, my husband, my family, or my friends…my greatest personal fear is being a burden IN ANY WAY on those I love and care about. My second greatest terror is becoming bodily incapacitated, yet having my lucid mind go on. To be trapped in a body that no longer functions nor allows me to communicate with others and to be conscious underneath it all — that is MY own special level of hell.
5) I have only been knowingly, purposefully mean and hurtful to another human being a single time in my entire life — and I still think about the look of hurt and bewilderment on his face. I was 14, from Fresno, California. He was 19, and from Moses Lake, Washington. It is one of my greatest regrets and I would give almost anything to go back in time and get a do-over. He was an awesome person, undeserving of my cruelty and disdain. STUPID FUCKING TEENAGE BIOTECH.
6) Aside from Louis CK, George Carlin, and Sam Kinison — who are all geniuses in my estimation — I find that most of the comedians who make me scream with belly laughter are black.
7) I am Bi-Polar ll. My capacity for both ecstacy and despair are legendary — EVEN IN HELL.
The first great love of my life was Gomez Addams. Ever after, I would search for him to be My One True Love. Gregory Babior is my Gomez Addams.
9) Oddly enough, despite being an ardent and devoted Feminist, STAUNCH supporter of The Sisterhood, and fierce champion of all those with the BAGINE…aside from my two daughters, most of the people I am closest to in my life…tend to be men. The wild and divergent theories on why this is so are also epic…EVEN IN HELL.
10) As a sensitive, artistic, rebellious girl growing up in Fresno, it is not an overstatement in any way to say that the music videos for The Go Gos’, “Our Lips Are Sealed” and Cindy Lauper’s, “Girls Just Want To Have Fun” both changed my life and saved my life. They showed me that I had a tribe out there in the great somewhere, and that there was definitely a place in the world for girls like me. I just had to find it. Boy, did I ever.
11) I had all three of my children via C-Section — though not for lack of determined effort. My first baby was profoundly breech and never turned — automatic C-Section. For my second baby, I was bound and determined to have a vaginal delivery with her. After 12 hours of PUSHING and no progress — automatic C-Section. It wasn’t discovered until a standard monthly check-up during my pregnancy with my third and last child that I have a malformed pelvis. If you were to strip all of the meat off my skeleton and stare down through my pelvis…whereas the pelvic clearance on the average woman is an opening the size of a tea saucer (coincidentally, the approximate size of a newborn human head), the clearance on my own mutant pelvis is the size of the indentation where the teacup itself fits. In other words, I wasn’t just a labor failure-to-progress because of an influx of pitocin or a lack of delivery room support. I would have absolutely been one of those women who died in childbirth biting down on a calico rag in the back of a conestoga wagon somewhere out on the prairie. It is mathematically and geometrically impossible for a baby to make it outta my cooter the ol’ school way. So, despite my disappointment at necessary surgical interventions at all three births, science and technology actually did save my life. On the bright side…MY VAGINA IS GOLDEN.
12) I treat every young waiter and waitress who serves me exactly as if they were my own son or daughter. I extend to them every courtesy, every generosity, every care, and every affection that I would if it were my very own child bringing me a Diet Coke and a bowl of piping hot vegetable soup.
13) Robert DeNiro in “Taxi Driver” and Christopher Walken in “The Deer Hunter” can SUCK IT. I think the most daring, fearless, DGAF performance EVER committed to film…is Sandra Bernhard in “The King Of Comedy”. She was 27 years old gettin’ all up in that arrogant, condescending, old asshole’s shit with her FIERCE SELF. FUCK JERRY LEWIS.
ALL HAIL SANDY BERNHARD!
We all know who gets TOP BILLING on Muffy’s Christmas Altar.
That’s right. She who knits awesome Doctor Who scarves, covertly sneaks into the toy shop and reconfigures the LUDICROUS, INSULTING, UNREALISTIC hip-to-waist ratio on Barbie dolls when no one’s looking, kicks drunken, insolent elf ass when necessary, and gives Santa hot-toddies and semi-enthusiastic handies before sending him out in his sleigh on Christmas Eve to bring treats and trinkets to all the good little girls and boys all over the world.
ALL HAIL MS. KRINGLE!
“In your status line, list 10 books that have stayed with you in some way. Don’t take more than a few minutes and don’t think too hard — they don’t have to be “right” or “great” works, just the ones that have touched you. Tag 10 friends, including me, so I’ll see your list.”
Tagged by the awesome Miss Ayun Halliday!
1) “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret” by Judy Blume
2) “A Wrinkle In Time” by Madeline L’Engle
3) “The Hundred Dresses” by Eleanor Estes
4) “The Chronicles of Narnia” by CS Lewis
5) “The Catcher In The Rye” by JD Salinger
6) “Valley of the Dolls” by Jacqueline Susann
7) “The Collected Works of Ted Hughes”, along with “Ted Hughes: The Life of a Poet” by Elaine Feinstein
8) “The Complete Poems of Anne Sexton”, along with “Anne Sexton: A Biography” by Diane Wood Middlebrook
9) “The Collected Works of Sylvia Plath”, along with “The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath”
10) “The Portable Dorothy Parker”, along with her biography, “Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell Is This?” By Marion Meade
11) “Everybody Was So Young” by Amanda Vaill
12) “Capote” by Gerald Clarke
13) “Zelda: The Tragic, Meticulously Researched Biography of the Jazz Age’s High Priestess” by Sally Cline
I fully realize that there are far more than ten books listed here…but what can I say? FATTIE LIKES FLAVOR — and a LOT OF IT. Frankly, I count The Chronicles of Narnia as merely one epic story with seven distinctive parts, anyway, so FUCK OFF. Also, for the record, the first time I read them all the way through at age 10, I had the very good fortune of having done it PURE — with absolutely NO awareness of the Christian theological concepts woven throughout. THANK CHRIST. In addition, for me, there is no separating a writer/poet from their life…hence, the collected works are listed WITH either their biography, memoir, diary, or letters. Also, I am WELL AWARE that, for a writer of my generation, including “The Catcher in the Rye” in the top ten most influential books of one’s life is UTTERLY CLICHE…but I DON’T GIVE A FUCK. It’s the TRUTH. When I first read it as a rapt teenage girl from a working class family in Fresno, California…the earth shifted on its axis. For the first time ever, I read the work of a writer whose voice on the page matched, EXACTLY, the voice inside of my head. After meeting Holden, nothing was ever quite the same for me. Holden is one of the reasons I am a writer. Many of my other reasons are included in the list above. Parse it down…and YOU GOT ME.
PS) Though I had already read pretty much every word previously written about Zelda, #13 COMPLETELY DESTROYED ME. I read it in an airplane hurtling through the air high above the Pacific Ocean…and then proceeded to have a MOTHERFUCKING FULL ON NERVOUS BREAKDOWN AT 35,000 FEET. Gregory had to talk me down. I was inconsolable. If #5 gave me my voice…#13 shattered my heart. Forever.
Anyway, my fatass don’t tag. So, you know the drill. Either do it…or FUCK OFF, LADY.
I am a cultural and ethnic mongrel — but, make no mistake…we pound puppies are a hale, hearty lot. We generally hail from felonious, deplorable, difficult origins, and I am no exception. We are scrappers and survivors. We birth babies in bathtubs, vineyards, and cardboard boxes. What might prove dangerous or even lethal to others barely registers with my kind. Nothing slows us down or stops us; we thrive on adversity, deprivation, exclusion, and jungle fucking. Go ahead…tell me I can’t do something — and then step the fuck back and watch me do it.
Gosh. I am blown away by all the love. Wow.
So, the truth is I have been away dealing with some health issues and have been off the grid, holed up at home, knitting, reading Anne Sexton, taking twice-daily hot baths, having torrid love affairs with numerous daktari, and, when I am able, writing my motherloving book — and I sincerely apologize for worrying so many of you, as that was honestly not my intent. Good god, y’all…it seems even in affliction I am a SCANDALOUS FUCKING TROUBLEMAKER.
At any rate, thankfully, none of what I am dealing with will force me to exit-stage-left anytime soon — like the old theatre whore that I am — but it could impact how I maneuver my fatass through this world. We shall see.
Anyway, lots to take in, lots to muddle through, lots to corner, lots to clobber. Some days are definitely more challenging than others, and the doctors, hospitals, medications, tests, questions, and befuddling symptoms never seem to end. But know that I definitely consider myself one of the lucky ones. Along with my challenges, I also have an EXTRAORDINARY Husband/Advocate/Champion/Best Friend who saves me every day in ALL the ways that one human CAN save another; a MAGNIFICENT Gusband who loves me and lunches me, even when I am a SPUN, BLUBBERING, NUTTY CUNT; a Writing Partner/Deranged Twin Brother/BFF who is MY FAVORITE PERSON ON THE ENTIRE PLANET with whom to spend my days writing words, dreaming dreams, kicking ass, and BELLY LAUGHING HARDER THAN I HAVE EVER BELLY LAUGHED IN MY ENTIRE FUCKING LIFE — at worlds which are WELL-KNOWN TO HIM; an astonishing support system of brilliant, amazing, loving Framily and Friends; and the luxury of access to the very best medical specialists, facilities, and health insurance available. Knitter PLEASE.
So, I beg of you, Mein Poppets…do NOT worry. You KNOW my fatass. I am a SERIOUSLY STAUNCH OLD TROLLOP.
I SHALL PERSEVERE.
Cockroaches in black dresses and red lipstick ALWAYS DO.
With that said, I am ashamed to admit that even amid the profound privilege of my world, a particularly grueling stretch a couple of weeks ago left me feeling a little sorry for myself. I woke up a couple of mornings later, however, having gotten completely over my bad self by way of a most fascinating and unprecedented dream. In it, I appeared to be some sort of a Warrior…riding a giant chestnut horse hard and fast over a vast wasteland, through freezing wind and rain, easily outrunning the legion of dank, faceless marauders who dared attempt to subdue me.
The most interesting part of the dream is that I started my ride clothed in some type of armor — leather and metal and ancient, it looked — but as I pushed on, pieces of it kept coming loose and flying off my body, like scales off a dragon, until, at last, I was wearing nothing at all.
But here’s the thing: Instead of feeling vulnerable and exposed, the more naked I became, THE MORE POWERFUL I FELT. When I woke up I could still feel the icy wind against my cheeks, the warmth of the horse gripped between my bare thighs, the exhilaration of stealth, flight, and evasion still coursing through me. I was free. I opened my eyes smiling, in clear recognition of the fact that this dream is where I am in my life right now:
Determined. Fearless. Exhilarated. Unbowed. Unashamed. Stripped bare.
By choice.
I shall ride on, harder, faster…truths flying off my body, like scales off a dragon.
This old hooker will be just fine.
xoxo
Muffy
PS) Again, thank you SO much for all the texts, messages, and emails of love and concern. I am belly crying. It is absolutely overwhelming. I return it back to you all in both particles AND waves. I adore you with all my fat, black, wicked Sicilian heart.
muffy bolding 