I heard around the middle of this morning that Elizabeth Taylor had died. The cause was congestive heart failure, for which she had been hospitalized in Los Angeles.
About two weeks ago, I read she was in the hospital. I said to myself then: Well, that's is for her. She is suffering from heart failure and it's just a matter of time before she goes.
I had posted two pictures of Taylor as cheesecake. If you want to see them, please click here and here.
A third one, obviously, is at the top of this post. It's in color to best show her beauty -- especially her "violet eyes to die for," as a former co-worker said in the early 1980s, quoting a line from Doonesbury in 1979.
Of course, Taylor was known for her beauty. But she had the acting chops. Many film critics praised her performances in National Velvet, Butterfield 8, and Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?
Some people remember her performances in A Place In The Sun, Giant, and Suddenly Last Summer. And some people might also remember the wretched excess that was Cleopatra.
Her health problems and romantic entanglements -- the overall messiness of her personal life -- made her not just the queen of the tabloids, but their empress. And she had a long reign; she died at age 79 and had been in the public eye since she was a teenager.
That life, along with her friendship with closeted gay actors like Montgomery Clift, Rock Hudson, and Roddy McDowell, made her a gay icon.
So I wrote this brief note of a life that was amazing and interesting. RIP, Miss Taylor.
As Alanna sat on the bed, she thought:
Why is my marriage over? How? What exactly did I do to cause him to walk out?
She felt dejected and sad enough to cry when she felt a heavy, furry thing on her shoulder.
She turned and saw Teddy, aka Theodore T. Urso, her imaginary friend from her childhood
"Teddy!" she exclaimed.
"Alanna," he said to her calmly, the way he always talked with her. "Do you remember when you were five years old?"
"I...uh...barely," she said. "Oh, sorry about the pun, Teddy!"
"No problem," he said. "Now if you don't remember, I do. Your family had moved into a hew house in a new neighborhood across town. Few children your age in the neighborhood wanted to play with you. Your older sister hated you because you had taken all the attention away from her. Your older brother ignored you. And sometimes your parents didn't pay the best attention to you because they were busy.
"I came to you then. I became your friend. I helped you get through those sad, bad times.
"I am truly sorry about your marriage. Now that you need some friendship, I've returned. Because I never left you. I'm a part of you. And if I helped you through some bad times when you were a girl and knew nothing, I sure can help you now because you're an adult and you know more...and better."
Alanna put her hand on his paw and sniffled. "Thanks, Teddy. You're a good bear."
"You're welcome," the bear said. "And when you get over this guy and you might be looking for a new romance, I'd recommend that you get a dog. Project your love onto him or her and he or she will return it. They are truly man's best friend. And I won't be jealous. I'll be happy that my friend has a good buddy.
"Though I've learned this through the years...men sure w0uld love to be our friends in real life. I think it's because we're big but cute."
A woman has a close male friend.
This means he is probably interested in her, which is why he hangs around her. She sees him strictly as a friend. This always starts out when she says, "You're a great guy, but I don't like you in that way."
This is the equivalent of the guy who goes to a job interview and the personnel manager tells him:
"You have all the qualifications we are looking for, but we're not going to hire you. We will, however, use your resume as the basis for comparison for all other applicants. We're going to hire somebody who is far less qualified and is probably an alcoholic. And if he doesn't work out, we'll hire somebody else. But we still won't hire you. In fact, we will never hire you. But we will call you from time to time to complain about the person that we hired."
And this one reason why platonic relations between men and women rarely work.
(Reworded from a joke found at the qdb site c/o bash.org)
