Today I bought, rather, my beloved bought an 18" strand of lovely rosy cultured pearls for me for Valentine's Day. Only he doesn't know it yet. He'll notice them eventually, at some point before Valentine's Day and I'll tell him that's what he got me and gosh, aren't they beautiful, and doesn't he have fabulous taste, and aren't they just what I wanted? He's so smart. I love him for letting me do this thing over and over again.
But, so it IS Julia Child's fault, all of this. The pearls, I mean. Yup. I just yesterday watched "Julie & Julia" and there she was with her pearls, and then Julie Powell had to get pearls. Well, then I had to get pearls. It's all very logical.
I love the way they grace my collar bone, skimming my neck line, and make me fall in love with my truest Self again after such a long absence of hardly recognizing I even exist. I realize, once again, that I'm no grunge babe, no hippie maven, and goth ain't never been my thang. I've always been the kind of girl - - who'm I kidding, I'm nearly 47 - - I'm a string-of-pearls-kind-of-woman.
Any one of you who really know me would agree. Of course, I swear like a pirate, I work at a dirty job as a landscaper, and I can throw back booze with the best of the louts. But at my core, at the end of the day, no one considers me one of the guys or even one of the "gals" probably. Sadly.
I not long ago related a story to an old, dear friend of mine where I'd sworn viciously in front of my new co-workers and how they'd been so shocked and how my boss had laughed so hard, seemingly in shock, tickled to death that I'd said something so vulgar. My friend replied, "Well, Toni, it was like the princess swore." I felt frankly stunned when he said that.
I chalk this "princess" estimation up to not having enough intuition or his bullshit-o-meter being on the fritz. It makes me think of a story I heard a while ago about Mary Travers of Peter, Paul & Mary. Peter spoke in an interview about her, saying how a review spoke of her cat-like movements on stage while she performed and that she had read that and laughed out loud about it. He went on to explain how nervous she was on stage, giving her these twitchy habits and making her move jerkily when she sang that others misread as "cat-like." She was glad, however, that the reviewer found her cat-like movements appealing, even sexy, but it was utterly by mistake that they occurred at all. It gave her credibility where she felt vulnerability.
My "princess" personna? It, too, is false, but I daresay it has afforded me more protection and credibility than I could adequately measure over these many years.
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