There is a TV show I must see on Thursdays, and no I don't have a TiVO, Miss Big Bucks. I am not sure what channel this show is on, but probably one of the pubic television stations. It's an anthropological study of womyn on an island on the east coast of the northern hemisphere in modern times, and it really delves into their social mores, their dress, their interactions. It's fascinating. You should really check it out. At 9 p.m. they show you the prior week's episode, which I was sad to have missed last week, then at 10:00 they show you a new episode.
It's called The Real Housewives of New York. So intellectually stimulating. I can't tell you. Then earlier in the season, they have a complementary program that features womyn (how bad do you want to stick a hot poker up my arse for writing "womyn" at this point?) on the west coast of North America called The Real Housewives of Orange County which is apparently a region where women are unable to have three-digit IQs.
Anyway, I was having a marvelous time at my friend's house, getting all hopped up on the coffee, when she said, "Oh, hey, it's 20 to 8:00, we'd all better go."
Okay, wait, what?
"We're all going to the art gallery. Kim has an opening. Didn't anyone tell you we were doing that?"
Okay, first of all, I hope Kim has many openings, because otherwise how could she eat and breathe and stuff. But yeah, NO, I did NOT know this, nor did the person next to me who said, "OH CRAP!" as she had spent the entire afternoon with her horse and was decked out in a tank top, shorts and large boots.
"No way I'm going to a gallery in my horse clothes," she said. "Oh, come in your horse clothes, you'll make me look good," I said, as I was wearing a baby blue t-shirt, jeans, and silver flip-flops. I had basically worked all day, brushed my teeth and gotten in the car to come there. I didn't know I had to look cute. I hadn't registered that everyone else was dressed to the nines. I was thinking they had all come from their real jobs.
Horse woman refused to go, but I relented because you know what gallery it was? The gallery from a few months back where my painting is. The painting of the little girl in the forest. The painting I like so much. At least I could go look at my painting.
The gallery was nowhere near the house we were in, and we all got into our own cars, as none of us lived near this house, nor near the gallery. We were all spread out into the six corners of Greensboro, and I realize that sentence was geometrically impossible.
The whole trip was earth-unfriendly, is what I'm saying. We lead each other there in an entire caravan. And why is everyone's car white now? Is your car white? Is this a Southern thing? My car is not white. It is yellow. I was in the middle of the caravan, and we were lined up precisely like an egg, which once again is geometrically impossible.
As I was headed to my car, I was thinking, It's only 20 to 8:00. Why is the sky dark? As I buckled my seat belt, I saw a flash in the sky. Did a transformer just go off? I thought. Because you know what? I am quick. That is why I spend my time watching The Real Housewives. Because, smart?
And here is what happens in the South. Rain does not start in a teensy introductory trickle. Hi, I'm rain. I'm going to be your server. No. It's like the props department is standing on the roof of your car tossing full buckets of water on your roof over and over again, immediately. As soon as it commences to rain. Which is what it did as soon as I got in the egg formation.
Oh, it rained. It was a scary rain. And did I ever mention my astigmatism? Which means my eye is shaped like a football which for some reason means I can't see? I mean, maybe it's the stitching or the brown opaque material, I don't know. All I know is that was the harrowingest drive to a gallery I had no intention of going to, ever.
Finally the egg got there, and that gallery was jumpin'. There was NO PARKING ANYWHERE. Of course. So we all parked in Tibet. Naturally, since everyone else is always prepared, they all knew that rain was expected. I saw them all in their white cars, getting their rain coats and UMbrellas (that's how they pronounce it here) and rain bonnets and Purple Rain soundtracks and all I could do was just get out of my car and slog through that mess.
It was the longest walk ever. And the props department just threw bucket after bucket of water on me.
I whipped open that gallery door, and everything went silent. The entire gallery. They all ceased talking to stare at me. It was like I was E.F. Hutton, but I was more Peed On Myself Hutton.
I had entered a wet baby-blue t-shirt contest. And my jeans. Hello, gallery. Allow me to introduce my camel and its toe. And won't you enjoy my ground-control-to-Major-Tom silver flip-flops, which are sqooshing all over your trendy bamboo floor?
So you know what I did? I'll tell you what I did. I threw back my hair. My you-don't-even-want-to-know-what-my-hair-was-doing-in-that-storm-hair and walked right through that astonished crowd, which quickly parted, and acted like I owned the place. I strutted right down the middle of that floor, my tin-foil-looking flip-flops going, "sploosh-splish, sploosh-splish" sploinking out little jets of water as I walked.
I acted like EVERYBODY in Paris was wearing baby-blue t-shirts to gallery openings these days, and I headed right for the cheese table that I know is always at the back of the room, had myself a big old blue-cheese cracker, migraine be damned.
My friend Kim came right up to me like she wasn't ashamed. "You came out in this rain to see me?" she said, hugging me and ruining the delicate lace thing she had on over her dress. "Yes, and I had no idea we were coming or I'd never have worn this," I told her.
"You look DARLING," she said, as though she had spotted Kate Winslett wearing a baby-blue t-shirt at the Oscars.
I ended up staying till close, getting home just in time for my anthropological television program.
Can you believe how mean that Jill is to Bethanny? And did you see the preview for next week, with Ramonna's googly eyes on the catwalk? It is SUCH an intellectual show.
