The bad, brave and beautiful

            Flipping through the colorful pages of my passport, imagining a smattering of inky stamps in place of the empty spaces before me, I could almost picture one particular word pressed boldly on the first clean page of the little blue book in my hand–Italy. The boot shaped peninsula of a country has been a magical place in my mind for so many years I can't remember a time that it wasn't. Nearly seven years ago to date, I can remember myself in this same position, holding this same little book in one hand and a crisp new twenty Euro bill that my grandmother had just shoved in the other, so I could spend on my first venture to Italy. I was about a month away from going on that long awaited journey, when I decided to visit my family in Massachusetts the weekend of my twenty-sixth birthday. While my parents were at work and I was home with my grandmother, she experienced a severe stroke that I had failed to identify in the signs until it was too late to make a difference. After watching her slowly fade away in a hospital over the course of a month, she eventually died of starvation because her body didn't know how to breakdown and digest food anymore. Just like that, the woman who was as much a mother to me as the mother who gave birth to me was gone from my life forever. Italy was the last thing on my mind that summer. I just took that twenty Euro bill, neatly folded it in half and pressed it between the empty pages of my passport where it has remained for the last seven years.

            This weekend I drove home to spend a few days with my parents before attempting another turn at visiting Italy this Friday. I never like to leave for a long trip without a fresh image of my smiling loved ones imprinted in my mind to take with me for the road. As I drove past the Massachusetts state line, mere hours after the marathon bomber had been caught in the neighboring city of Watertown, I noticed high definition electric billboards ablaze along the highway and posters declaring "Boston Strong" hanging on overpasses like crumbs on a trail to guide my way home. In the wake of the events that have happened in Boston this past week, it seems that it has triggered sympathy pains in me and my mind has been taking me back to the pain I felt with the loss of my grandmother. Since her passing I've relived the events of that day over and over in my mind so many times since then, but every time, the pain is just as much there, as it was the day it happened. I wonder...how will these families ever be able to file those gruesome moments away in a healthy place and not let it clutter the spaces of their lives for the rest of time. It would, indeed, have to take a strong person and a strong city to keep moving forward in the same way. People from all walks of life and throughout all of human history have experienced some form of tragedy at one time or another, but I suppose it's a matter of not letting these horrors repeat themselves and learning from them that we can soften these blows and those that are bound to come creeping up on us in the future.

            Through my own tragedy, I've learned a few things that have put my life into perspective. Since I lost my grandmother, I've learned to spend more time with my family, show them every time that I see them that I love them dearly. I've learned to hug my friends more, when I see they need one or just because I want them to know that I'm grateful for having them in my life. I try harder to do what I say I will do and keep all the promises that I make. I've taken the time to appreciate what I have, let go of the things that I don't necessarily need and look for even the tiniest grain of hope, inspiration or optimism in every hurt, wrong turn and pitfall along my journey. In the words that I've written throughout this year, my hope is–if anything else–to touch someone's life in a positive way, even if it's only a single person. If I can or have done that already, I call my life a success. With one month left of my thirty-second year I've decided to finally make that trip to Italy that for so long I've wished to take. I'll visit that ancient Coliseum in Rome, toast a glass of wine under the Tuscan sun, lap up a gelato while fighting off seagulls at Venice's Piazza San Marco, and finally spend that twenty Euro bill I've saved in my passport all these years in my grandmother's name. Then, when I've had my fill of Roman men, (if that can even be possible) I'll jump over to Greece to set my sights on the Parthenon and learn where the civilized world grew its roots. And, at the end, to top it all off, I will fly back to my brave homeland of the United States of America, give my chubby cat Gizmo and good friend Dina a big hug and jump on another plane to spend the last days of my thirty-second year with my fabulous friends who joined me in New Orleans earlier this year. Together we will celebrate and soak up some sun on the beaches of Fort Lauderdale and Miami. And if God wills me to live another day, year, decade...if I survive this thirty-second year of my life...to my mother and father's arms I will go to rejoice and spend the first day of my thirty-third year. All I have to do now is wait patiently to board that plane bound for Roma on Friday and pray that no tragedy falls on me until then.

Tatas for now

            I once went on a vacation to Vegas with my parents when I was at an age when most people stop hanging out with their parents and are more than old enough to be on their own. I, however, have always loved going on vacations with the folks because they're just as adventurous and wide-eyed about the world as I am, so it's exciting to take in another aspect of a new setting through their eyes, as well as my own. However, when you're in Vegas and someone at a casino gives you free tickets to a topless cabaret show, you're likely not to go with the people who raised you. But, when you're in Vegas, all that proper etiquette usually seems to go right out the window and if you hand anything to my mother and say, "it's free," she's going to take it no matter what it is. We knew full well what we were getting ourselves into when we walked into the venue, but it still felt very strange to be sitting in front of a stage while topless woman in skimpy bottoms danced just a few feet from our faces. For the first ten minutes we sat at our table awkwardly looking at the girls, seeing nothing else but the differences of their breast size as they bounced around the stage. My mother and I giggled like schoolgirls throughout the first act but after we got the awkward fidgets out of our system it became as natural as watching a Broadway production of Peter and the Starcatcher.

            Just before St. Patrick's Day, my friend Dina and I were invited by a mutual friend to watch one of her burlesque performances on the Lower East Side. Before this I had only been to that one show with my parents in Vegas and that was not the same thing. This was more like going to a strip club with a cabaret twist in a setting that made me think of the speakeasies from the twenties. I hadn't spent time with our friend Rosie Cheeks since we used to work together a few years ago. We managed to stay connected through our friend Dina who works with her at her full-time job. I knew Rosie to be quiet and reserved, acting and doing musical theater gigs when she could get the work. When I found out through Dina that she was doing burlesque on the side, I think I did a double take and I questioned whether it was the same Rosie I knew and worked with those few years ago. Yup, it was the very same Rosie. I had to see this with my own eyes.

            Walking into the cramped little space at Nurse Bettie, inspired by the legendary pin-up star Bettie Page, I thought for a moment that we were just in the first part of the club and in the back we would find a big stage with tables and chairs to sit on to watch this show, but ten paces into the space we were standing in front of the stage that was as big as a changing room at Macy's. This ought to be fascinating enough just to watch the girls manage a performance in this tiny space. At the end of the L-shaped bar we found our acquaintances and sat ourselves down on the stools next to them. While waiting for the show to begin we ordered drinks when just around the corner, who but "Rosie Cheeks" comes around in her elegant satin green dress, matching opera length gloves and her sparkling red lips to greet us. I couldn't help but admire her cool demeanor and nonchalant sense of self-confidence. I would have been in a dark corner somewhere, shaking like a leaf or throwing up in someone's double D bra if I was about to strip in front of a crowd. I think I'll stick to writing.

            Before the show came to an official start, a voluptuous woman donning a tiny green leprechaun hat and a corset tied snuggly around her waist that sent her large breasts hovering just beneath her chin came out to announce the night's lineup. In an accent that fluctuated between the regions of Northern Ireland, Britain or Jamaica, Shelly, the Singing Siren, was able to incite laughter and excitement from the libidos of wanting men (and possibly, some women) as easily as though she were among a small group of her close personal friends. The room, now completely crammed at the front of the stage like a crowd at a zoo watching lions pace in their cage, was so tightly packed I could begin to smell the evidence of everyone's day on the people circling around my stool. In front of me, a tall, attractive man who looked somewhere in his late thirties, suddenly didn't seem so attractive when I got a whiff of his french fry oil scented clothes, which I'm certain he acquired from his part-time job at Burger King before he rushed over to catch the show. Sitting on the stool to my right I picked up the aroma of fresh garbage from this strange woman with a choppy haircut beside me. It was a potent as if she had rolled around the pile of refuse sitting outside at the edge of the sidewalk before she came in. Then, when a man in a gray hoodie, who looked like a fifteen-year-old boy from his profile, reached over me to grab a drink from the bar, I got blasted with the stench of the dinner he must have shoveled into his mouth just before he showed up. It could have very well been a whopper the other guy grilled from the scent of onions that still lingered in the air around my face after he walked back to the front of the stage. Sheesh, what happened to practicing good hygiene when you went out? Did that die with chivalry too?

            When Shelly the Singing Siren wrapped up her introductions, the first act of the night came waltzing into the room with the same elegance as Grace Kelly and looked remarkably like a young Elizabeth Taylor, which was exactly what she was going for. I couldn't help but watch in fascination at her performance, yet I was wracked with nerves for the girl and her inevitable strip down not far into the performance. Apparently, the first acts to go on were the novices and more like an opening act before a concert. So, I'm sure this was just as nerve wracking for Miss Taylor and my heart went out to her. I assume these girls enjoy doing this because they wouldn't be doing it otherwise. The acting part of the performance is without a doubt, something they must all love about it, but I wonder, beside the fact, do they all feel the same way about the stripping aspect of the show?

            Before intermission began, our very own Rosie Cheeks stepped onto the stage in her lovely green form fitted dress and an unusual bulge in her crotch area that I hadn't noticed before. What is THAT? When Rosie was down to just one item of clothing left to strip down to, leaving her with only underwear and some pasties over her nipples, off came the satin green dress revealing the tiniest plastic cauldron she made into underwear and seductively dug into the cauldron and pulled out gold-foiled chocolate coins and tossed them to the crowd. Nice touch Rosie. That's one way to reach the girls–give them chocolate. One bounce off the top of my head but I never managed to actually catch one. Thankfully Dina caught three and was nice enough to share with her UNdexterous friend.

            Each act that followed brought another unique performance that was not only interesting and alluring but funny as well. I was more intrigued by their humor, confidence and sass than what they were trying to arouse from the crowd, and the crowd was just as fun to watch as the girls. The slack jawed men looked just like puppies in a pet store, with their drooping eyes looking up at the girls on stage while the women in the crowd, if not allured, assessed and quietly compared their body to those they observed before them. This is not where you want to find yourself if you already have self esteem issues or a bad perception of your own body image. Being here only makes you want to starve for a week and take up pole dancing lessons for the next three months to get some semblance of what these girls bring to the stage.

            During intermission, I sat on my stool like a wallflower sipping my Pimm's cup in reminiscence of my latest trip to New Orleans, where I tried one of these for the first time. From my position, I happened to notice grease fry guy talking to the sassy second act at the end of the bar. What on earth could this guy have to say that was of any interest? He was cute to look at but that was all he had on him. He was a fumbling awkward man who stunk of day old French fries. Poor girl. There was no escaping the likes of him, or his cologne. At some point he ended up sitting in the stool next to me while he continued to try to reel in his prospect. This did not sit well with our friend Rene because he happened to have taken her seat when she went to the bathroom. When she returned to find him sitting there she not only picked that moment to accidently jab him in the back, blaming it on the tight space, but also picked up on his scent with a wrinkle of her nose. Like a hound dog hot on a trail, she proceeded to sniff him out from the back of his head and as far down as his rear end to pin point where exactly he was giving off this smell. Her face was so close to him I'm certain the hairs on his neck detected her presence and he turned to look over his shoulder. The girl he was trying to pick up questioned Rene's sobriety with a look of mild amusement, and then seized the moment to retreat back to the other girls and fry oil took off for another hunt.

            Before the final acts wrapped up the show, Shelly decided to play a round of trivia where she picked three contestants out of the crowd and brought them onto the stage for questioning. At the end of the battle, it just so happened that the tiniest and most timid of the three contestants, an Asian girl about five feet tall, had to pull out one of Shelly's colossal breasts from its hiding spot for answering a question incorrectly. From the entanglement of her shirt and the bondage of the corset she had wrapped underneath them, the little thing managed to awkwardly pull one out and bare it for the crowd while the she continued with her stand-up. I think those were the biggest breasts I had ever seen in my life. Unfortunately, I happened to take after my father in that regard, so unless I decide to insert some silicone into my chest I'm stuck with the lumps I was blessed with. I don't know how I've managed to find myself in these social settings lately, faced with looking at tatas wherever I go. But, here I was, after spending Mardi Gras in New Orleans for a week, at a burlesque show–surrounded by boobies once again. I think I need more male friends in my life. I'm beginning to feel inadequate.