We Could Not Find Our Jackets

A friend of mine who spent a considerable amount of time creating sacriligious performance art had a boyfriend who liked to dress as a woman and kept begging her to lose more weight. She looked like walking death by anyone's standards, but he continued to buy her clothes a few sizes too small as "encouragement." By their second Christmas together, things were not pretty. She'd already crucified herself dressed in a corset twice that season at some basement theater. This performance utilized the dulcet tunes of Marilyn Manson, a bucket of fake blood, and unaccountably a small poodle named Vito. After the performance, we all (the group of friends who had endured this debacle needed a drink or five) retired to their house to exchange Christmas gifts -- she'd bought him a drum set; he bought her two hundred dollars' worth of very small lingerie. She threw the Victoria Secret gift box in his face. "This is a gift for you asshole." Nobody said a word, but we all went out into the night with great rapidity. Their fights were public and legendary, and we could not find our jackets soon enough.

Which brings us to the Christmas gift-giving dilemma to one's beloved. I have never minded the gift of lingerie, but some women I know find it to be cause for hanging around this time of year. And what to give someone you just started dating or would like to date or have dated and don't date anymore?! I spent a lot of time cruising around the wretched mini-mall in Denton with Hank amongst the dogs playing poker art series and clowns on black velvet, looking for the perfect thing for our love objects, friends, and family. We rarely got out of it in less than two hours, seldom with anything good. "Do you think fill in the blank with new love would like fill in the blank with ugly terrible gift?" Hank would ask. "Better than lingerie," I'd say, making us cast back to the night of the mock crucifixion that was followed by a real one, a party, as Lenny Bruce would say, that got really out of hand.


Michelle's Spell of the Day
"Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time." Thomas Merton

Cocktail Hour
Drinking music suggestion: Contemplating The Engine Room Mike Watt

Benedictions and Maledictions
Happy Friday!