hat fancy

Good Morning,

Thank you to those who gave me input on my wedding outfit last week. I have added to my list of options "gold sari" and knickers (they're like blousy pants!).

There's been strong support for the kilt (with hiking boots) and mixed reviews on the pink bow dress.

So...this week i've been looking into accessories. word has it that it's the lady's purse that completes the outfit? i said noooo way what about a hat!

Attached are my Project Photoshop Runaway attempts at arriving at just the right wedding "lid" (i.e., hat) for Dad & Judy's wedding. please enjoy : )

Happy Monday,

Amanda

p.s. i created the 3rd look myself! although i think it might attract bees.

a dress for dad' wedding?

Good Morning,

In addition to a stopover at the "Morning Dad" Bed & Breakfast, I enjoyed the glider rocker at my grandparent's over Easter weekend.

As I sat taking in the smooth back and forth motion of a new lounge chair, I watched all 86 years and 82 lbs of my grandma wrestle with a very large drink coaster. With apologies and no assistance, she managed to snap the adult-sized TV tray into place atop of which i sat my refreshment, a baby-sized can of Diet Pepsi.

I could no more have stopped this behavior than the question that was soon to follow. My dad's wedding is this summer (June 27th). As elderly ladies are wont to do, Grandma, thanks to my shopping savvy aunts, already has her dress. Naturally, as our conversation lulled into painful silence, my grandma turned to me and asked "Do you have your dress?"

I did not have the heart to tell her no Grandma I do not. The “IF-THEN” decision tree for wedding dresses is still barren inside my brain.

Instead I tried, "no i don't [have a dress] you know Judy [the bride] might have me wear something special…"

My Aunt Sara chimed in "well I know Judy loves to wear pink!"

Before I could reassure Grandma that I would/could maybe wear pink, a truer thought slipped out

Grandma I have not only not thought about my wedding dress I have blocked it so solidly out of my memory...then, you know, something about the sun not shining.

which spoken aloud sounds like:

"uhhhh..."

Sooo, i do not have a dress yet (or ever). with the help of Photoshop, I've been trying on some wedding outfits. attached are my top two choices so far...


just let me know if you're already wearing it. : )


Happy Monday,

Amanda

Lionel Richie- the definitive collection revisited

Good Morning,

I hope you enjoyed the Easter weekend. me? i went home...i'm happy to report the Morning Dad B&B (Bed and Breakfast) is undergoing some changes. It is evolving from stylish bachelor pad into happy home. There are now edible food items in most the cupboards and a curious gold angel statuette sitting atop a stack of decorative hat boxes in my old room.

I slept pretty well...but I do/did find it difficult to relax completely with the angel's outstretched arm pointing at me...(i imagined a zapping delivered for racy dreams!).

thankfully, to keep the peace, i did not hide the cherub or rearrange the placement of my bed. i have returned to Columbus unscathed.

had the large winged golden messenger spirit...accessed my inner being this weekend she would not have found thoughts of the risen Lord. (i would have been zapped). here's what she (he?) would have found.

[a brief history]

The Commodores

In 1981, I enjoyed these 3 things: riding my bike, my cat Whiskers, and picking out records. Wednesday afternoons as my dad took care of his work around the house, I appointed myself the DJ of our tunes. There was a host of great music to choose from (and dance to)...Conway Twitty, Willie Nelson, the Eagles, Saturday Night Fever, but the album art that spoke to me was a snap shot photo of 6 black men tucked at an angle in the back pocket of some apple-bottomed woman's dark denim jeans. the effect was as if she was holding the object of affection in the palm of her hand (or actually her butt).

Is this a double entendre?

this same pocket that held the photo was also branded in bold GOLD designer stitching with the word COMMODORES!

anyway,

These 6 men became etched in my mind through their outstanding characteristics…

the black man with really white teeth, the black man with funny dark shaded glasses...triangle hair, the black man who looked like a woman in purple framed glasses.

I knew Lionel Richie as triangle hair until 1984 when i purchased my first cassette tape "Can't Slow Down." then i knew him as the man with the silky smooth voice and jheri curl mullet...

Lionel Richie.

Lionel Richie grew up in Tuskegee Alabama the same small southern town where immoral scientists famously infected black men with Syphilis and home to the Tuskegee airmen! (first group of African American military fighter pilots!).

In addition to dance moves, Lionel was gifted with athletic talent. So adept on the tennis court he played on scholarship at the collegiate level before returning home to complete his degree at MIT Tuskegee. It’s here where he hooked up with friends to form the group the Jays which later became the Commodores.

This past week I downloaded Lionel Richie: The Definitive Collection. I have been listening non-stop to 20 of his greatest hits…as a Commodore and solo artist.

What follows are my thoughts that first began in the wee hours (no pee pun intended) of the morning when i started asking What am I listening to? Does it fit?

In short, the Definitive Collection revisited.

The Review

Released in 2003, Lionel's 20 track complete and authoritative body of work is well worth the iTunes gift card purchase. For only $7.99 you are almost certain to have your mojo working every night of the week All Night Long!...

Although complete in that every smooth smoldering note leaves you again with those unapologetic aching yearning "funny" feelings...the definitive collection still leaves plenty of questions unanswered...

"Oooh what a feeling!/when we're Dancing on the Ceiling!"...how is this possible?

anyone visually-spatially aware knows this is just plain...not possible.

"You're once, twice, three times a lady..." What does it mean to be Three Times a Lady? In this song, Lionel (and the Commodores) have come to the end of the rainbow and...

i want to say, Lionel it is very seductive to be needed so much but I have no idea what you need from me. please speak...

I've discovered i am not alone in my unmoving assessment. In a 1988 Rolling Stones article, Lionel was panned for perhaps even dipping the toe of his white boot into a pool of self-absorption.

It is said, Lionel sings about women to show us how HE feels...

(In contrast today's "it" man Jamie Foxx--latest Top 10 hit Alcohol--wants to know what she be feelin! : ).

True, in 20 songs, Lionel never really shows an interest in how Ballerina Girl or Penny Lover feel...he worships from afar and agonizes over his love for them. the lack of processing in this "me man. you womanish" relationship is glaring.

Do it to Me (One More Time)?- Forgive me for being so blunt but as a woman i know we really don’t have a cap on this…a sensitive lady's man would never say this. the song would be "I'll do ya til you're done."

In another light, the number of times a woman will forgive a transgression and work on “us” with genuine sincerity is probably limitless. maybe just a new title? "That's okay we're just getting even."

Hello-This song is still particularly memorable for the line "Hello, is it me you're looking for?" More notably, in an interview broadcast in the UK, Richie said he had been thanked by a large number of normally tongue-tied men who had proposed marriage after a slow dance to this song.

Hello? hello? hello?- i'm happy for these men but to the woman "Hello" revisited can be considered downright stalkerish.

the plodding piano, the synthesizer accents...it creates a Psycho feel made spookier by the backstory. the eriee video that Lionel made for this song tells the story of a music professor's unrequited love for his student. not that this means anything specific but...she's also blind.

i've seen you pass outside my door
in my dreams i've kissed your lips a thousand times...
i wonder where you are
i wonder what you do?
hello is it me you're looking for?

LIONEL SHE'S BLIND! and you're a CREEP!

and yes, it's a catchy song...

So, what's left? It is a song you can sing with windows up in the privacy of your own car to entertain your love.

I recommend. "Just to be Close to You"

It includes the always entertaining timely use of the hand held percussive over a smoldering spoken intro.

just to be close to you...girl

we'll live and love forever
we'll live our lives together


Happy Monday,

Amanda

Guiding Light is out

Good Morning,

I have a confession to make. It’s a habit that formed way before college and I feel certain grew out of my mother’s refusal to let her kids watch Love Connection or the Newlywed Game. I watch a Soap Opera…there I said it.

It started the summer my mom finally let me be my own babysitter and I joined a bike gang. My best friends and I would furiously pedal down to Hook’s Drug store to load up on candy and then zoom back just in time to watch the giant beam of the lighthouse twirl and the announcer boom- THIS IS GUIDING LIGHT…

We were maybe 12 years old and thrilled to have this invitation and forbidden insight into the adult world.

As young girls, we learned such important lessons as…

It can take well over a week to deliver a baby, a murder trial can go on into infinity, and your wedding day will take over two weeks.

At the age of 16, I was perhaps most surprised to learn that paralysis can be cured in the course of a single sweeps month. I lay in the hospital bed with my very own spinal cord injury and could find none of the enjoyable drama in it. They never showed the beautiful people rolling off the bedpan or clenching their jaw in fear as a nimble fingered nurse gloved up and said, “It’s time for your suppository!”

Oh dashes and dratted this crummy storyline!

But still somehow through all of this my love for my soap survived. After returning to school, there was always homework to do or some therapy to attend but modern technology would not leave me behind.

Thanks to the arrival of the cell phone I could catch a 20 minute segment any day of the week and learn most of what I needed to know. Now instead of the awkward recap given to the new girl in town on a Friday…the cell phone taken everywhere provided running commentary or instant updates I could follow…

“This is Lizzie and I think I’m being kidnapped! I’ve fallen into a big pit…here I will hold the phone up…do you recognize his voice?”

(Oh yes. Lizzie is being kidnapped by Grady. Where’s Bill?)

“Hi Bill this is your father calling. Are you still at the hospital recovering from your amnesia?"

(Why does Bill have amnesia?)

“Hello Bill’s Dad, this is Frank the cop at the accident scene. We’ve found the wreckage and your empty scotch bottle in it. We need you to come down to the station for questioning."

Anyway! these days, again, I am called home by the Light…

The Guiding Light- The longest running and lowest rated in daytime. It takes place in the fictional Midwestern town of Springfield. It tells the stories of love, loss, triumph, and revenge of three families.

All three families interact on a daily basis and are at least facile with their cell phones…

Still, no ones heard of Match dot Com or eHarmony because with a staunch commitment to first and forever loves these folks keep dating within the inner circle…

Storyline coverage has included almost every imaginable love angle.

Boy meets girl. Girl goes blind. Girl dates his father.

Boy meets girl. Boy loses girl. Girl marries her cousin.

but,

Boy meets girl. They fall in love. Girl falls in love with another girl?

What? I almost fell off the elliptical machine in mid-stride…Someone must have seen and knows i'm watching!

While there is still the preponderance of men doing heroic driving to stop weddings, this program (first aired as a radio program in 1932 as a means to sell soap to housewives…) is telling the story of Olivia and Natalia daytimes hottest new lesbian couple!

Two women who have been heterosexual all their lives find themselves living together out of necessity. Olivia needed someone to help take care of her after major surgery and to help look after her young daughter. Natalia needed a place to stay after her husband’s sudden and unexpected death and Olivia’s powerful influence to help get her son out of prison.

You know typical stuff.

A romantic relationship was not in the show creators plans. The intent was to show an alternative to the Joneses (i.e. traditional American family) or maybe even develop an old-fashioned best friend story like Lucy and Ethel. An unlikely pairing was supposed to resolve in intense friendship, self-discovery and each woman finding a new course and direction…with men.

However, they did not factor in a largely positive fan base giving a boost to ratings and asking for more "Otalia!"

My viewership never completely waning has been instantly invigorated with the new possibilities!

As a writer, I would enjoy seeing "Otalia" go through a coming out into the community phase…where they embrace some of the cultural artifacts on which a shared identity can be built...rainbow flags, chunky watches and thumb rings.

There might also be a phase when the wardrobe department is completely confused. Fewer blouses with capped sleeves, sequined ballroom dresses, sheer scarves…Instead, cargo shorts, message t-s, and during the winter months? Flannel.

Hair and makeup could also come into its own as a new friend “Bev” arrives in town wearing her hair in a tight mullet and offering lines like "I feel like a clown in this lipstick."

For what this show might lack in depth and sophistication, I have every confidence the Guiding Light's team of writers will get it right in the end.

Unlike the L Word where main characters often arrived ready to step into a new fully formed identity as soon as they could slip out of their underwear, “Otalia” promises to evolve. In closer to real time, five days a week we will watch this new couple struggle to come out to themselves and then each other.

but for now...

I am emboldened thinking about what good this show could do…

In Springfield a small anywhere Midwestern city, one can easily imagine that no civil unions or gay marriage exist.

The Guiding Light could shine its light on the platform of Social Awareness/Advocacy. How will we handle problems with Olivia’s failing health? How will we feel if the sweet Natalia is shut out of the care decisions that must be made for her partner at the end of life? What if Natalia has no rights to parenting Olivia’s daughter?...a child they are raising together and who proudly writes essays such as “My Two Mommies.”

Oh dratted how will it all end? (well for one thing the show will air its last episode September 18th...)

So, what I’m trying to say is in the middle of a bustling world my soap's my small town entertainment. It’s my ride bikes around the neighborhood, and maybe stop to catch crawdads in a creek moment

In its lack of complexity in the middle of an increasingly complicated world, shine on Otalia until the Guiding Light is out.


Happy Monday,

Amanda "Michelle Hawthorne" (aka my soap name)