Elizabeth Taylor

I just want to take a moment to express my thanks to Elizabeth Taylor for all that she WAS and DID. There isn't another one like her and never will be. Actresses everywhere owe her a great deal of appreciation, her work for AIDS relief was incredible, and she helped usher in a new kind of freedom for women.

This is a the trailer from Suddenly Last Summer, starring her and Kate. I can only imagine what Kate would have said about her (I think there's a quote in Kate Remembered about how she was the ultimate movie star and we don't have any more like her, but I can't find it for the life of me).

Thanks, Elizabeth Taylor.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEtxxpohPtU

Paris, a Bloody Lip, and 52 Rules From a Real-Life Katharine Hepburn

I know a kind of Katharine Hepburn in real-life. She's disciplined, efficient, ballsy, elegant, principled, practical, and (as I continue to say, somewhat cheesily) sucks all the meat of life's bones. She is so COMPLETELY all these things, that it's difficult to articulate.

We'll call her Ethel, and Ethel could probably save the world if she had a mind to it, but she's happy doing her job well and flying to Paris on the weekends.

Currently, Ethel is a major part of my life for two reasons: her 52 rules, and the fact that she's taking me to Paris for the first time in April.

The Paris part is just awesome. That needs no explanation. The 52 rules are more complicated.

It's a running joke with Ethel that she has 52 rules, but we've never stated what all of them are. She always says "rule number 52:" followed by some maxim or principle of hers. It's always number 52. I've always been curious to see what all 52 rules were, and suspected there were actually MORE than 52...

Ethel and I got shit-drunk recently off Beaujolais and Veuve Cliquot. This was a special occasion. Though Ethel does have a pricey house wine that she orders in cases and stores in the basement, the Veuve doesn't flow like water at her place...although wouldn't that be nice?

I started asking her about the 52 rules. They've been on my mind during this blog, as I try and eke out what Hepburn's rules may have been.

"Weewlk," said Ethel (translated into Sober, that means "Well"), "Let's fgre tout!" (Translation: Figure it out).

And thus we began working through the 52 rules.

It took us about three hours, during which I lit a cigarette backwards and upon inhaling the rotten fumes, dropped my cigarette into a glass of wine, then forgot about the cigarette and took a long sip of the glass of wine, which caused me to gag, run to the sink to spit it out, but I vomited a little (and once you open up the vomit comet, its difficult to stop, so I vomited some more), then when Ethel tried to get maternal about it (which she ain't great at) she ended up burning a whole in my sweater with HER cigarette and I didn't even notice until the cigarette got through to the flesh, at which point I jerked my head up, smacked Ethel in the jaw, and made her lip bleed...

I wish I could say I was stealing that from a Will Ferrell movie...but I'm not.

So here they are. We literally bled, suffered, and vomited to get these 52 rules to you. They're a part of Ethel, a part of me, and I'll be bringing them to Paris with me, most definitely.

1. Never put a napkin directly on your plate at the end of a meal unless it’s paper – totally rude and uncivilized.
2. Know how long things take – this is the key to efficiency.
3. Over-estimate cost and under-estimate profit – things will always cost more than you think.
4. Challenge yourself – it’s good for you.
5. Never make excuses for yourself – an excuse is just a poor man’s apology.
6. Old people and babies come first.
7. The best defense is a good offense – and a good offense is being well-read.
8. There is no such thing as useless information.
9. “Curiosity killed the cat” is a stupid saying – curiosity is, in fact, what makes for interesting people.
10. Know ALL the interesting people you can – even if they’re strange/mean/unsettling.
11. Never forget a face/name/phone number – you never know who can be useful.
12. If you want something, there’s no reason for it not to happen – making things happen is simpler than you think.
13. Always say please and thank you.
14. The little things mean a lot – it takes two seconds to write a post card but makes someone’s entire day.
15.  If you want to have an opinion about something, you have to have read it/watched it/heard it/been to it. So read/watch/listen to/go to everything you can.
16. Always live somewhere walking distance from The New York Times, a litre of milk, and a flower shop (the latter I don't give a good goddamn about).
17. It’s really noticeable if you dress like a homeless lady, but doesn’t take a lot to dress well.
18. The simple things in life are brilliant – soft towels, pretty colors, a well-tied ribbon.
19. Eat seasonally – it’s not difficult and so worth it.
20. Dogs and babies are a serious life choice – you better be damn well ready for them.
21. You’re not drinking if it’s WHITE wine.
22. Do the simple math when funding a project– i.e. how much money do you want to raise divided by cost divided by number of people in attendance, etc…
23. Learn to entertain yourself – no one should be expected to do it for you.
24. Learn to take care of yourself – past a certain age, no one should be expected to do it for you. Then you reach a certain age when you hope others love you enough to do it for you...
25. Know the sale days – be patient and wait for them (after a bad day, if you feel Shop Therapy coming on, stop and think for a second about when the next sale day is. Do you really need to buy that bra right this very moment?)
26. You’re never too good to cut coupons.
27. Even if it’s Value Village, stop and ask if you’re actually going to wear it.
28. If you haven’t worn it in a month, you probably won't again.
29. When it comes to fancy dress, ask friends –if you’re only going to wear it once, do you really need to go out and buy a new outfit?
30. Drink lots of water!
31. Every time you see a word you don’t know, look it up – how else does a vocabulary grow?
32. TV should only be watched when there is something worth watching – channel surfing is just a waste of precious minutes.
33. Katharine Hepburn is God.
34. Travel.
35. Plan ahead – if you plan day-by-day, you’ll be sorely disappointed when you realize the rest of the world doesn’t operate that way.
36. Keep a journal.
37. Lipstick and sunglasses – always remember lipstick and sunglasses.
38. Fear is really quite useless – a second glance will often reveal how pointless it is.
39. When serving others, always make sure they have a drink at least, even if it’s water.
40. Festive doesn’t have to be tacky – “festive” can be delightful and charming.
41. You don’t need a whole chocolate cake to be satisfied – a few bites of a good chocolate cake is so worth the calories.
42. Surround yourself with people who are smarter than you – it’s the only way to learn. 
43. A reasonable tip is twenty per cent, not fifteen. 
44. Take care of your fingers and toes - your feet carry you, and no one wants to eat in public with someone with dirty fingers.
45. Have mentors, as many as you can. 
46. Only become a mentor when you're ready. 
47. Get to know your wines and cheeses - you may not be a wonderful chef, but if you know your wines and cheeses, at least you can entertain 
48. Bags and shoes really don't have to match. 
49. The King's Speech is a real movie (I disagree with this. I think Wanted, Gnomeo and Juliet, and all those cheap thrill films are just as valid)
50. Get to know your parents and grandparents - they might not go partying with you on a Saturday night, but they have great stories, oodles of history, and (hopefully) would do anything for you
51. If/when you go traveling, hang with the locals - skip the tourist stuff. You can watch it on YouTube. 
52. Hope is not a strategy.

With a smile,

Moise

Hepburn Reads a Letter She Wrote to Spence

Immediately after I published the previous post, I remembered one of the moments when I really started to connect to Hep. I was researching women of the 40s for a project I was working on, and stumbled upon Hepburn's speech to HUAC on YouTube. In the related videos section was one titled "Katharine Hepburn Reads a Letter She Wrote to Spencer Tracy." I didn't even know who Spencer Tracy was, but I liked that it would be Hepburn being herself, and not a character in a film.

I wept uncontrollably for 20 minutes...

It is an extraordinary thing to witness, and I beg you all to watch it. It is a privilege to be allowed to hear one woman speak of all the guilt, regret, anger, and confusion that existed within her life's major relationship, but also of the awesome love that made it all worthwhile. The care. The giving.

Enjoy. Please enjoy.

And don't weep too much.

With a smile,

Moise

A Really Unfortunate Foursome Starring Peter Gallagher

I don't know if it was the scotch or that my brain was awake with all the blogging, but I had a serious warning sign of a dream last night.

I know for a fact it came between 7 a.m. and 11 a.m. because I woke at seven and watched about three minutes of the sun rising just behind the skyline. I wondered what name Hepburn would have given the purplish light - "amaranthine" or "heliotrope" or something that feels better in your mouth than just "purple".

I turned over in bed, fell back to sleep. And dreamed...ugh, I hate even typing it...this weird sexual sequence in which I got fucked (and I don't use the word lightly. Fucked. Like the true sleazy meaning of the word) by James (my ex-lover from post #1), my ex-ex (who had sexual problems in real life, so his cameo in this scene was awkward at best), and Peter Gallagher (????!!!). We all have sexual dreams, fine. They can be fun, they can be intense, they can be awkward, whatever. But this sequence stuck in my gut all day, because in this dream I was whoring myself out physically AND emotionally. And the emotional whoring didn't feel too off-base. It felt a little too...familiar, I guess. A little too plausible. 

It's something that runs deeper than just James. But James drags it to the surface. I think many women have a James. 

There are two James' that exist to me.

James the Tender. The man who, on our second night together (and first sober one), waited outside his apartment for me to make sure I found the place. The one who then took me upstairs, hung my coat, kissed me well. Dropped to his knees and undid my jeans. Who paid attention. Afterward he made us drinks in the nude, strutting about like a man perfectly free. Who described a song to me as "a part of who I am". Who joked, held me, smelled good, and when he had to leave for work in the morning, left me a pot of coffee, breakfast and a towel to shower with. James the One Who Cares.

James the Consummate Game-Player. The game-player who is so skilled at BEING a game-player, he has avoided developing a reputation as one. The man who calls on me when it's convenient. Who is SO good at paying JUST enough attention to me to keep me on the hook, but never enough to promise anything. Who has fine-tuned his wit to match my tastes, and throws a laser of focus on me whenever he senses that mine is wandering. Who flirts shamelessly with others. Who speaks in non-committal phrases.

It's tricky to reconcile my head and my heart on this matter, when I can't quite settle on WHO the matter is...

But back to emotional whoring...

I got a text from him a few nights ago. Nothing too important. Just a response to a professional email I had sent him earlier. I was with a friend, and seeing the big J-A-M-E-S flash across my phone, I excused myself to the bathroom for the "world's longest pee". Really, I just sat on the toilet and worked EVER so hard at articulating the perfect response. Detached, but witty. Promising, but not too promising. A little feminine, a little irreverent. You would have thought I was trying to write a goddamn blog post!

It's little details like that. I didn't bang him in the basement, true. Bully for me. I'm not giving myself away in ACTION. But in thought? In feeling? I've been giving all of that to a man who, I'm almost absolutely sure, just wants to take it, use it, and run.

I SHOULD be cutting off all ties from James. It honestly makes me sick, to think that I continue to toss the beautiful energy of affection - a wonderful, precious part of who we are - at NOTHING. But haven't we all been there? Addicted to someone that you know is unhealthy, but for the life of you, you just can't find the tool strong enough to sever all ties? Where is this tool?? Is it in me? If it is, it must be in my toes - that's the only place I haven't looked.

Is it Distance? That hasn't been helping. He's been gone for weeks. Time, maybe?

Likely. And time is my least favorite tool. Time as a healer is undetermined and passive, like a little IV tube stuck in your heart that drains the problem away one frustratingly tiny drop at a time. Leaving things to time gives you no control....and that's so very Un-Hepburn.

But then again, how much control do we really have in these things?

Similarly to how I think that if you don't vote, you can't complain: if you LET your day be controlled by complicated men, you can't bitch. You simply lose the right to whine if you spend all day staring at your phone, waiting for him to text. You aren't allowed to moan about it if you text him a bazillion times a day. And you definitely lose the right to bitch if you let him fuck you in a basement, knowing full well that's ALL he intends. This should be beneath us.

But if you happen to see someone on the street who reminds you of him, well...that can't be helped.

That is what I gleaned from Kate today. I realized that her quote about love ("It's about what you give - which is everything") does NOT apply to everyone you sleep with. It applies to the proven and the worthy, and not just lovers. It applies to family, to friends. The people who, when you do give everything to them, will give back to you in the form of companionship, trust, and longevity. Yes, give everything! I encourage you to give, and give, and give! Sending love out into the world can never be a bad thing! And what a glorious feeling! But only give everything when the love is deep, and true, and real.

When it comes to James: I know the circumstances I am describing are not uncommon. I know because the minute I found myself in them they summoned memories of a million books, plays, songs...it's a shared experience, I think. And that, right now, can give me enormous comfort.

Except for the fact maybe that he's a close-to-middle-age, half-deaf, balding guy with a thick paunch. I'm prettier. I win. :)

With a smile,

Moise

moise.whittaker@yahoo.com

I Hate Daisies, and What That Realization Meant to Me

Listening to the Ditty Bops. If you haven't heard them, check them out (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DRKzqISgrs). It's good, folksy, chick music with this sort of Parisienne underbelly - think Feist meets The Triplets of Belleville. I take that back...don't think. Just listen.

I've been having a devil of a time with this blog post, but a WONDERFULLY supportive reader (you know who you are!) suggested I just go with my gut. So I have a scotch in one hand to lubricate the gut spillage, and a cigarette in the other out of mere habit...divine! This seems simpler already.

There's a wicked Ani Difranco quote that has seemed quite appropriate this week: Art imitates life. But life imitates TV.

As I've been trying to walk in Hepburn's shoes - or rather, walk her path in my own flashy but affordable kicks - I've realized it's an empty exercise if I merely try to BE her. If I try to tailor my attitude to match hers, or squander away my own set of principles (that I've delicately been building for 26 years) in favor of Hep's. This exercise is only full and exciting if I have the kahunas to say, "nope. That part of Hepburn doesn't work for me. I don't really give a damn about fresh-cut flowers." Because it means I'm taking ownership. I'm not a third-rate Katharine clone. I'm asserting something about me.

Okay, that was my little self-help rant. Ew.

Back to the Ani quote and the story behind it...

A friend and I went to the market on Saturday. She normally calls me up on Friday nights and asks if I "need to market" (love turning 'market' into a verb). We grab a coffee and a greasy deli sandwich and plan our route: mustard lady on the first floor, the Italian fruits and veggies stand in the basement, the bulk food place with aisles so narrow that my hips knock over cans of peanuts EVERY FREAKING TIME. We differ about which is the best cheese guy. I like the dude with the smokin' hot sons and the really cheap olives. She likes the guy who carries a certain type of French brie and always hits on her.

I love the market, I really do. Who can say "No" to sexy cheese men and buckets full of olives for a steal. But here's the thing...

Every time I go to the market, I work SO hard at enjoying it. Too hard. Unnaturally hard. I try to meander, smell all the smells, take in every sight. I try to be the romantic lead in a European film - you know, where the girl always has baguette sticking out of her bag, and a bouquet of daisies under her arm, and she's probably just come away from a fantastic morning fuck with her delicious lover and is on her way back home to eat that baguette off his naked chest. But I'm just NOT. I hate the families with strollers taking their sweet time, and having to press up against strange bodies on my way to the mustard lady. I want to GET to the mustard lady, BUY my mustard, and get home to EAT my mustard. Done and done.

Art imitates life, but life imitates TV. Art imitates life, but I go to the market and imitate Zooey Deschanel.

So what about Hepburn and appreciating the details in life?

Well perhaps the market just isn't my detail.

So what is?

Gnomeo and Juliet. Don't judge me. Or if you must judge me, at least consider the following.

I went to see it with a friend today. We were both sporting really deep and dirty hangovers. Ninety minutes of James McAvoy's liquid voice and a bunch of garden gnomes seemed appropriately brainless. And it was. I'm not claiming it's the greatest film; a few moments/characters in it border on "cheap". But we were in an audience full of kids, listening to them react exuberantly to Shakespeare jokes! And bad Shakespeare jokes at that.

My personal favorite: Juliet is trying to close a door on a ferocious dog.

JULIET: Out! Out!

DOG'S OWNER (from a distance): Damn Spot....Here, boy!

It had Elton John's music, Patrick Stewart as Shakespeare himself...these are my details. These are the things I can quietly appreciate. And I am not ashamed to say...I'm totally buying it on DVD when it comes out.

This is what the first weekend of the Hepburn experiment has taught me. I don't have to like daisies and baguette to be a full and wonderful woman.

Please please please let me know if you have a similar experience! I'd MORE than LOVE to hear it. You can always email me at moise.whittaker@yahoo.com.

I raise my glass to you all.

With a smile,

Moise

Coitus Interruptus in a Basement and How It Started This Blog

Hello bloggers!

I've been sitting at my computer for an entire afternoon, chain smoking and drinking a litre of Diet Coke straight from the bottle. I haven't a clue how to start this blog. What's the first thing you need to know? How do I set this up to allow you to get anything at all out of my story? Is my story even worth telling??!

I just ran out for a fresh pack of smokes - which I can't technically afford - and the Diet Coke is almost gone. I just need to say something. Anything. Hepburn wouldn't flinch.

I got the idea for this blog the night that my casual lover and I went to screw in the basement of our workplace (Yep. Not exactly the classiest beginning to my story). We had spirited away from our friends and coworkers into a dingy back locker room where we only hoped we would be uninterrupted. His pants were down around his ankles when something acidic rose up in me. I said:

"Look, as much as I would love to do this right now, I don't think it's good for me anymore."

"Okay..." he said. He looked a little confused. I couldn't tell if he was hurt.

"Okay." I said.

He hugged me. I avoided eye contact. I peeled myself away from him like a bundle of wet clothes. Walking back upstairs was tricky; my footing seemed unsteady. I wondered if he was watching my ass as I walked away.

I ended it in that moment because I was in love with him and couldn't bear the thought of just being his lazy screw, available to get naked at his convenience. 

I took myself outside, I breathed in the cold air. "Yes, Moise," I said out loud. "Yes. You called the shots. You protected yourself. You did it. You reclaimed your dignity, you showed self-respect! You don't need a relationship, especially not a half-baked one, to feel complete! Woman power! Lady strength! Spice Girls! Katharine Hepburn!!"

The thing is, I missed him terribly and instantly. I hurt, and the further away I got from that farcical moment in the basement, the hurt spread to different physical places. My heart, my head. Then it was in my knees. Then in my shoulders. Then it was behind my eyes, until I was sore all over from his absence. I wanted to be sore all over from getting laid in the basement!

So that's when the battle started. The battle of my womanhood. Between the hard and soft. The independent and the codependent. The lover and the warrior. The head and the heart. I went out and got roaring drunk...yay coping mechanisms!

Sometime that night I had the fleeting idea for my own weird little social experiment - take the principles and practices of the Hepburn approach and see how they help or hinder my own life. When I lost my job the next morning (to which my response was "Really?? REALLY??") I was more than settled.

Hepburn walked such a fine line between masculine and feminine. She handled problems practically and efficiently, she called a spade a spade. She was disciplined. She commanded attention and respect. She sucked all the meat of life's bones every single time she had the chance - and when she didn't have the chance she MADE the chance. But she was also a woman - fragile and vulnerable and precariously in love. This is a blog about being a woman, full of fragility and foibles, but finding the strength and power within that.

My life is horribly (pronounced "HARibly", not "WHOREibly" - Kate wouldn't have any of that) normal. I don't presume to have a more interesting day-to-day agenda than you. I'm a city girl, working as an actress (well, not currently), I play my guitar, I shop a hell of a lot, I like scotch and good clothes, books and music, sex and men. I have a non-traditional family of step-moms and ex-step moms and ex-step grandparents. I've got good and whacky friends. I try and navigate being a woman and a professional in a big city just like every other professional woman in a big city. But let's see what happens if I up my game. Let's see what happens if I attack the world Hepburn-style. I don't know...could be fun.

I'm going to try my damndest to share everything with you candidly, and to not skimp on all the juicy, sordid details - because we all like a bit of dirt. And I'd love if you all shared with me, too!

For a detailed account of my battle strategy, head to the page appropriately titled BATTLE STRATEGY. :)

I raise my glass to you.

With a smile,

Moise