Tuesday, November 3, 2009

The Real 35th Tuesday/Julie Newmar & Unfinished Projects

Good Morning Readers,

I did not go to the gym last night. Nope. An opportunity knocked and I answered. Ok? I know you don't judge me and if you do, I'd never know since Dear Reader Mail has never taken off.

Like everyone else in the world I have a Yahoo account. The standard signature on all of my outgoing mail is a quote from a movie, television show or song. I don't know how long I've done the quotes, but in the beginning I would change it frequently so that the recipient of the email would have a little bonus at the end. This is just that type of person I am. heh. Anyhow, I wanted to change my quote today to something from the Swayze movie when he plays Vida, the drag queen. You've probably seen the movie, To Wong Foo With Love, Julie Newmar.

I find all my movie quotes at Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com). I'm not on their payroll, but I strongly suggest you check it out. Just please check it out at home, because if you check while at work, you will NOT GET A THING DONE. After I found my quote, I read through some of the trivia regarding the movie, which led me to look up the actress Julie Newmar. Two of her quotes, caused me to look up her fan site:

I'm magnificent! I'm 5'11" and I weigh 135 pounds, and I look like a racehorse.

Tell me I'm beautiful, it's nothing. Tell me I'm intellectual - I know it. Tell me I'm funny and it's the greatest compliment in the world anyone could give me.

Alright. Dear Readers, Julie Newmar if you don't know (I didn't) was the Catwoman in 1966's Batman. Oh hell..she was fine then and she is fine now. She is in her 70's now and I would gladly trade my curves for hers. Now, don't get me wrong-I have no desire to look like a racehorse, but I'm just saying. I'm nearly 5'11" and at my smallest (yes smallest)my fighting weight (I love that expression) was 158lbs. At 158lbs I looked like I was one missed breakfast from a praying mantis. Everyone has their own personal Julie Newmar, by my definition your own personal Julie Newmar is where you reach that KA-POW status.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a brick house, its just that some of my rooms are too packed with furniture, and I'm not as svelte as I'd like to be. My personal Julie Newmar is 165lbs. That's where I want to be.

As far as her second quote, I feel the same way. I've come a long way from my ugly duckling status. I've always been intelligent. I love being funny. I love that I crack myself up. I love that I don't need anyone to laugh for me to feel good. I don't try to be funny, but I am. A guy on Facebook whom I know from school said that the hardest thing about being the "funny guy" is that people are always waiting for the punchline. Those are not his exact words, but I don't really care because I have better chance of Ellen reading this to Portia as she twitters it, than that random guy from school seeing it.

That reminds me, my daughter McKinley was shocked that there are other celebrity lesbian actresses besides Helen (Ellen) and her famous girlfriend. Am I being lax as a lesbian mom? Maybe I should give her a list of prominent gays in America. I know I was pressured when McKinley and Patterson were young to educate them on prominent Blacks and Latinos. Did I say too much? Listen, my way of educating McKinley was to make sure all of her dolls looked like her. I also tried to push That's So Raven on her instead of Hannah Montana. As far as Patterson, one afternoon in the employee cafe I was showing off pictures of him and someone asked me how I planned on raising my Black son to be a Black man. Wot? Does this story need to be punctuate by the fact that the woman who asked is a Black woman who was always angry about something? She was the Angry Black Girl character from all the Real World shows. I asked her what she meant and she told me that since I can "pass", what was I going to teach him about his color?

Dear Readers, I am charged with raising children of Black and Latino descent on my own as a Black Latino Lesbian...do you know how much that is, a real mouthful. Don't get me wrong, my story is no longer, nor more important than anyone else's, but its mine-therefore important to me, at least.

I do the best that I can. As a woman, I have to teach my daughter to be a strong woman and teach my son to be a strong man. Both have to have some sort of cultural influence...I'm not big on organized religion so I can be easy on that. I know that there will never be a picture of the Last Supper in my home..not the blond blue-eyed version, nor the wooly-haired version. What am I supposed to do? Hang a picture of Martin Luther King next to Ellen Degeneres next to Edwin Torres? Should I have flash cards? OMG..the thought of it is overwhelming, even more overwhelming is that this blog was supposed to be lighthearted and about a pin-up queen and now LOOK. Gosh.

I wear myself out. I wonder how you, Dear Readers, positively influence your children. I bought my son a Cabbage Patch Doll and everyone in my family was mortified. I thought it was a great gift. When my daughter was about 3, she was looking at pictures of herself in the presence of my sister. McKinley was pointing out how pretty she looked in a picture and said that she looked so pretty, just like a lesbian. I'm surprised my sister did not stuff her in a duffel and run away with her.

Ugh. There is responsibility calling...I don't feel right ending this blog like this. I hate that I start projects and never end them..although hating it does not prevent me from repeating the behavior.

That being said, this blog will be considered unfinished business until it comes up again.

You get me, that's why I love you.

Lola

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