ruling trash

we don't come from good stock. at least not by white trash standards.

i know that sounds like an oxymoron: "white trash" and "standards". but even we have our own form of pedigree.

for instance, my uncle C-Bob married a Starling. and anyone who ever grew up poor in the south or watched "silence of the lambs" knows how high up on the trailer park starlings rank. to marry one is to marry fortune. what competes for fortune can be scandalous and beastly to consider.
like when my uncle C-Bob announced that his new "finance" was a starling, my father said, "yep. you can tell she's a starling. all the womens got hair betwixt their breasts." (it is a peculiarity of ours that we use the word "betwixt", a quaint, nearly religious sounding word with a hint of romance. my father, a preacher, used it both in the pulpit and when saying really inappropriate and outrageous thing to us young'uns like: there has been no sex betwixt your mother and i because you kids are wearing her out!") and indeed my aunt S-jean does have hair betwxit her breasts. why that is a glory for a starling i can only surmise. perhaps it ensured healthy off-spring, who would be sure to find excellent purchase on that aristocratic tuft of hair while they nursed and felt the specialness of their mother.

i am but a pretender to trailer park nobility.

seven seas of the politically incorrect

i have been to mexico.

i have climbed mayan ruins and learned to sing happy birthday in the native tongue of indonesia.

i have been to sea and yet all i learned and saw was not enough.

and it was too much.

a cruise ship is a floating vessel for the seven deadly sins. i committed all of them. more than once.

i knew avarice, playing the slots like a crack-whore with a mary kay make-over and a fetish for ten dollar bills. i won. i lost. in the end, at fifty bucks ahead, i kicked the habit.
i had other fixes that needed attention.

gluttony called. i was late and dinner was on the table. i was at once in her thrall, held fast with a chocolate buffet and a warm glass of milk.
i am so easy.
and so obvious.

after that, self control held no sway and i roared through the rest of my iniquities with a ease that made me gasp in disbelief.

being me, on board that ship, was not for the faint-hearted. i tend to have the subtlety of a hip-hop remix of an ethel merman show tune.
i consumed in the best american fashion and squandered plenty like a republican with a budget surplus.

i knew no shame then.
i know it now.
but some of us wear it better than others,
like certain shades of red or spectator pumps.
the trick is knowing when to take them off.

i will take it off, eventually. but right now, i like how it looks on me.
i think that is what they mean by
"hussy".
and for now, that is just what i will remain:
a lipsticked, spectator pump wearing HUSSY.