Cast of Characters

The other day, when I was searching the Menopausal Stoners archives for a reference to Velvet's old buddy Hawkeye, I noticed that I posted my first post in the fall of 2007.  That's five years of Menopausal Stoners which just goes to show you that time flies whether you're having fun or not.  For the most part, it's been fun.  Velvet makes my head explode sometimes, but that's just kids.

Here are three posts from that illustrate how Velvet keeps me on my toes as a mother:
Mom's Hand-Me-Down Weed Facilitates World Peace (Stonerdate 04.12.08)
 The Drunk Girl in the Bathroom (Stonerdate 08.20.08), and The Militia of Love (Stonerdate 04.05.10) which included this infamous shot:

The reason I had trouble finding references to Hawkeye, which I knew were there, is because for a time I called him Big Bear.  Big Bear is fitting because he really is a big bear of a fellow in that he's a large young man who seems tough but is really a softie.  Hawkeye suits him better, though.  He and Velvet met at Hippy Dippy Quaker Camp the summer after our dishwasher spontaneously combusted - the incident which led to my divorce from Buzz Kill.

I mentioned Gigi in an addendum to the same post, and Ellen Abbot, who writes Stuff from Ellen's Head, asked in the comments if Velvet had a sister - since I often refer to Gigi as Velvet's sister even though it's not a bit true.  Velvet started calling her his sister when she was going to grad school in Chicago and stayed at our place when she was in town -- about five years ago, as a matter of fact. Velvet says that Gigi is the one who started the sister story.  Frankly, I can't remember.  Shortly thereafter, however, when we were out together, people started asking if I was her mother.  It started at the nail salon, but waiters and waitresses, the porters at Gigi's building and miscellaneous others often ask the same question.

At first, it bothered me that I must look old enough to have a daughter as old as Gigi, but then I started to enjoy calling her my daughter the pole dancing quadroon since she's mixed race and studied pole dancing as part of her thesis project on dance and women's sexuality.  She's abandoned that topic in favor of dance therapy as treatment for eating disorders, so I don't call her a pole dancing quadroon anymore.  She's more into yoga these days anyway.

Gigi's most notable early appearance on the blog involved the mystery of the pink thong:  Are These Your Panties? or What is it with Underwear in my House? (Stonerdate 10.15.08).  She was part of my life long before the inception of the blog, however.  She around for the episode with Gayle the Hillbilly Hustler (Gayle's Panties, Stonerdate 02.16.08), and she met The Narcissist once or twice.  Gigi and I worked together the summer I got thrown off the horse, too.

Here's Velvet and Gigi at Cafe Luxembourg about 18 months ago:

They really do resemble each other.  Here they are at Velvet's graduation from high school in 2009:

At that graduation, my father enthusiastically embraced the story that Gigi was his granddaughter.  He didn't corroborate any details, but we could tell that Buzz Kill was wondering if it could possibly be true.  Velvet and Gigi like to say that The Man from San Antone is Gigi's father, which leads to the question of whose family has the black blood - mine or The Man's.

For the record, my father's family has an entire black side up in the middle of NoFuckingWhere, East Texas.  I'm sorry to say that my great-great-great grandfather really was known as Big Daddy.  When he died, he left land to all his offspring - black and white alike.  It's just that the white ones kept control of the mineral rights because that's what white people do.  A couple of years ago, the family was making a bit of money off of natural gas leases - or at least the white side of the family in Beaumont was making money.

That brings us to my Uncle Jenifer:

Years ago, not long after my MeeMee (the pitbull in pink) died, word came from the family in Beaumont that Jenifer had a website devoted to being a Transperson.  It's gone now, but on that website, Jenifer said something about being a female inside ever since he was a little boy.  I never believed that for an instant.  I still believe he became a woman because in his mind, it erased all the shit he pulled as a man.  He was never prosecuted for anything, although his mother left him in jail overnight once when his girlfriend called the cops after he'd beaten her up.  I reckon he's stopped molesting children now that he's a woman, but from the stories coming out of Houston, s/he's still crazy as hell.

These things will happen down in the Sabine River Valley.  Crazy shit happens everywhere.  Just look at this outfit Vagina Dentata used to wear all the time:

Vagina Dentata is the name I chose for Buzz Kill's mother because for all practical purposes, she ruined her son.  Buzz Kill was about the age Velvet is now when Vagina Dentata asked him to move home from Ohio, where he was happily working in a sporting goods store since quitting school - although no one can say for sure whether Buzz Kill left college voluntarily or not.  Nevertheless, he was climbing frozen waterfalls and following parts of Lewis & Clark's trail across Wyoming in the winter.  Buzz Kill was totally into winter sports.

Buzz Kill was 13 when his dad went into the hospital with ALS, and 15 when he finally died.  Initially, Vagina Dentata fell back on her theatrical skills to make money.  She was a chanteuse in the Poconos when she met her husband - a career military man - and before that she had been on a TV show much like Dialing for Dollars.  After her husband died, she went on the soaps.  Eventually, she wound up importing straw bags from Kenya which was a good business for a while. But there were unscrupulous business partners and other reversals, so she asked Buzz Kill to move home and take care of her.  His sister told him not to because she knew that Vagina Dentata would always land on her feet.  Sadly, Buzz Kill moved home and the rest is history.

There were many reasons for our divorce, but his relationship with Vagina Dentata was a key component.  They were business partners, and she was irresponsible and intrusive, so he hid all the money from her as part of their ongoing dysfunction.  I think our marriage was collateral damage - but he was a fully grown man when he made the choice to nurture his dysfunction instead of our marriage.

Throughout the marriage, Vagina Dentata was taking car services while I was digging in the sofa for bus change - but what's done is done.  These days, she's in assisted living, and Buzz Kill's younger sister the robber baron is footing the bill.  Buzz Kill has the rent stabilized Classic Six on Central Park West with the view of the reservoir, and I'm happily settled in Harlem.  No matter what, though, Vagina Dentata loves Velvet to pieces and Velvet loves her just as much.  As it happens, she's in the hospital right now with a perforated colon.  Yesterday, they thought she might die, but she didn't.  Her own mother lived to be 101, and Vagina Dentata is just about 86.  This could go on for years, or she could die next week.

The same could be said of us all, I suppose.

To be continued . . .