Monday, February 13, 2012

Whitney and Emily

I had one goal for the weekend.

Write a five page essay for my American Literature class. This quest started with abandon when I jumped out of bed on Saturday morning texting an all-points bulletin to everyone I knew asking to go to breakfast. I would have a little pancake action, and then sit down to write five stunning pages on Angie Dickinson… or Emily…. I confuse the two all the time.

My breakfast plan quickly changed to lunch after I slid through a round-a-boot/traffic circle and smashed into the very hard curb. I spent the remains of the morning doing my best Chrissy Snow impersonation as my friend and hero, Mike the gracious mechanic replaced my bent outer tie-rod So… really, I couldn’t write about Angie or Emily in a dealership’s alignment bay?

After a thank you lunch for Mike, a quick trip to Old Navy…. and a trip to another friend’s house to re-tell my story of tragic icy roads, it was time to write. After a nap.

Upon waking I heard a twitter buzz--when Whitney died--

I sat in a coffee shop reading the works of Emily Dickinson (because there isn’t a lot of literature on Police Woman) thinking about the tragic life of Whitney Houston. She was my first gay boy dance diva crush. The first record I ever bought. As my cassette tapes of her music were worn out, I bought them again on CD. I purchased Whitney’s albums again when iTunes started selling downloadable music. We started, as I started to like music.

Emily’s fascination with dying and death creped from the page. I found myself wanting to don all black Victorian garb. I wrote a five page critique of Emily Dickenson, yet it was really about my love of an aging pop star.



Because She could not stop for coke—
It kindly stopped for her—
The hotel held but just our idol—
And Immortality.


I would have been better off writing about Angie Dickenson's role on Police Woman.



1 comment:

  1. If you ever want to borrow my leather-bound complete works of Pepper Anderson, just let me know.

    ReplyDelete

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