Summer Frivolity

 

By C.S Gilbert

 

If we’re going to be silly, summer is a good time for it. In attempting to slay the beast of clutter that too-often creeps into my home, I unearthed a small packet of pages from a daily calendar note pad, bound with a rusty paper clip, each headed “Wild Words from Wild Women” and each printed with a pithy saying attributed to a famous woman, or slightly famous woman (all were identified as noted). For reasons now unfathomable, I collected a number of them dated Jan. 2 to Feb. 11. On rereading, all made me smile; many made me laugh out loud. Thus, I offer them to you.

 

 

“Our marriage license turned out to be a learner’s permit.” — Joan Rivers, the doyenne of dish.

 

 

“Some guys make love like they were the only ones in the room, which I think is a holdover from when they were.” — Diane Nichols, comedian.

 

 

“I hate flowers — I paint them because they’re cheaper than models and they don’t move.” — Georgia O’Keefe, productive painter into her 90s.

 

 

“I’d like to get married again, but I’m afraid of that marital commitment — we’re talking two, three years of my life.” — Laura Kennedy, a singular comic.

 

 

“If sex is so personal, why are we expected to share it with someone else? — Lily Tomlin, grande dame of good humor.

 

 

“I’ve made so many movies playing a hooker that they don’t pay me in the regular way anymore. They leave it on the dresser. — Shirley MacLaine, seasoned film star.

 

 

“Biological possibility and desire are not the same as biological need. Women have childbearing equipment. For them to choose not to use the equipment is no more blocking what is instinctive than it is for a man who, muscles or no, chooses not to be a weightlifter.”

  • Betty Rollins, journalist

 

 

“‘I love you’ is always a quotation. You did not say it first and neither did I, yet when you say it and when I say it we speak like savages who have found three words and worship them.” — Jeanette Winterson, edgy experimental writer (writer’s note: brilliant lesbian novelist).

 

 

“Only dead fish swim with the stream all the time.” — Linda Ellerbee, broadcast journalist.

 

 

“Men should be like Kleenex, soft, strong and disposable.” — Cher, the eternal entertainer.

 

 

“Love won’t be tampered with, love won’t go away. Push it to one side and it creeps to the other.” — Louise Erdrich, Native American novelist.

 

 

“Love and marriage go together like angel cake and anthrax.” — Julie Burchill, British journalist.

 

 

“Some men admit they avoid confrontation [about breaking up] because they’re afraid we’ll cry. Of course, we’ll cry; we cry at Hallmark commercials. What they don’t understand is that we’re not crying because of them, we’re crying because now we have to get naked in front of someone else.” — Cindy Chupack, TV writer.

 

 

“I am nearly as keen on divorce as I am on shopping.” — India Knight, chick lit creator.

 

 

“The more I see of men, the more I like dogs.” — Clara Bow, randy vamp of the Roaring ‘20s.

 

 

Bow’s quip was a popular bumper sticker during the heady, early swell of the modern women’s rights movement. There is no year given on these calendar pages, but from the tone I suspect they are relics of a time when much of feminist popular culture had not yet realized that men could be feminists, and powerful allies, too.

 

 

More seriously: Remember that the 4th annual Key West Art Garden is still running at the Tropical Forest and Botanical Garden on College Road. The exhibit of the work of local sculptors, which is dedicated to the memory of the late, beloved Lois Giffen (her “Dragon Family” is the first work one sees upon entering the front gate to the greeters’ complex), runs through July.

 

 

On the topic of motherhood: On Sunday, July 13, at the One Island Family Unitarian Universalist Congregation at 801 Georgia St., the service will include a panel on different choices women have made about mothering. It begins at 11 a.m. and all are welcome.

 

 

That’s it for now. Gotta fly!

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