Mamma didn’t know what to think about my Friday appearance on Gawker…

“Are they sayin’ you’re a lesbian?!”

The early fall thunderstorm raged on, rain slipping down the red bricks of my building, sliding off the windows, pooling around my cheap patio furniture outside. What was I supposed to do? Thursday night and I knew that I had to get out of the apartment—I’d been cooped up all day with my computer and Indian takeout. My studio apartment smelled like curry and I looked like Eileen Wurnos (the Florida serial killer as played by Charlize Theron in “Monster”) in flannel pyjamas.

Someone to cheer me up… someone with a sharp wit and a love of wine…someone to be my partner in crime … Mimi!

Mimi (of Mimi New York blog fame) and I decided to finally meet face-to-face and go out for a few glasses of vino and a plate of antipasti. She’s a tough-as-nails broad from England and I’m a sugary sweet girl from the South—or so we thought on our respective taxi rides over to the restaurant. Once we’d had a glass of wine and discussed the New York media scene, men and rent below 14th Street, though, we laughed at how different we were in person than on our sites. Yes, some of the preconceived notions were true. But, who’d have known that Mimi speaks in such a soft, sweet tone that I had to lean into her glass of Pinot Grigio to hear her latest disastrous dating story? Or, that her big, blue eyes would gently encourage me to talk about my life when surely her travails as a stripper were much more interesting cocktail fodder?

Four hours later, and I couldn’t afford any more Sauvignon Blanc. I had to go home even if I wanted to tuck into another bar, order a dirty martini. But, I have a feeling we’ll be going out again. After all of our terrible evenings with Manhattan men, I think Mimi and I deserve some fabulous nights on the town—just us girls.

“Damn Clinton and his privates!” Mamma declared in a rage. “The Arabs wouldn’t have had a chance in hell if our President—the leader of the free world—had behaved like a diplomat instead of a sex-crazed Sigma Alpha Epsilon brother. He’s up there in the Oval Orifice with a Cheshire cat grin smeared across his face concentrating on his willard instead of on national security and foreign policy.” She had vented—a pearl of sweat forming on her brow line in the process—but it had been brief, a mere moment of undignified behavior. Mamma quickly collected herself, adjusting the starched collar of her pink Lacoste tennis dress, tweaking her gold earrings for reassurance.

“I think you’ve gotta thing for ol’ Clinton and you’re just afraid to admit it,” I teased, glancing at her over the top of my People magazine. Mamma was poised on the divan by the picture window, engaged in one of her favorite pastimes, right-wing website surfing. The absurdity of her sleek, silver Dell laptop amidst the antique furnishings of her Alexandra Mauve sitting room was lost on Mamma. Our decorator had gone to great pains to duplicate the Czarina’s wall color for her—the last Russian Czar, Nicholas II, and his wife Alexandra were her obsession. Something about their tragic demise enthralled her. Really, the fall of anything captivated Mamma’s imagination—her Confederate Complex, I called it. As a member of the landed, Southern bourgeoisie, Mamma used to cite the War of Northern Aggression (never, ever referred to as the Civil War) as the most disastrous moment in our nation’s history. Then, along came Clinton.

“Really, Mamma,” I pressed on, trying to get her riled up, “the way you get so agitated… Are you sure you don’t have a crush on Slick Willie?”

Motionless, she sat there amid her purple, pondering the ruin of her country at my hands. Mamma was predisposed to hyperbole, dramatics—ruinous thoughts—all the while sitting perfectly still, a gorgeous smile spread across her face. Such theatrics didn’t make her disingenuous—quite the contrary—she was the most real, 55 year-old child I had ever known.

“Oh, come on now,” I continued, “he was happy as a pig in slop during his two terms—let it be.” My absurd statement wasn’t any fun unless she blushed, scratched the side of her neck in discomfort. “We inherited a damn fine economy on account of him and his so-called depraved, left-wing policies. Does it really matter who he slept with?”

“I never thought I’d raise a child with such loose morals,” Mamma said, her jaw tensing, jamming down the space bar with her long index fingernail. Her vein, our vein—from brow to hairline, smack in the middle of the forehead—pulsated quick and blue, the one feature we shared. We were in a race to the finish, blue blood pounding away.

“Rush warned us that the liberal media machine would infect our youth. Cancer, he called it—one big, fat malignant tumor teeming with Yankee talking heads. They’re going to get you Belle, ravage you with their idealistic rhetoric until you’ve elected another gonorrhea-riddled, cocaine-snortin’ Democrat into office.”

Our household revolved around conservative talk radio and internet. Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Matt Drudge were the golden trifecta, beguiling Mamma for at least six hours a day. George Will and his musings entered the picture at night—the Fabio of her political fantasies. Mamma had plenty of right-wing love to go around.

“Here’s an idea,” I said, thickening and elongating every vowel, extracting consonants. The accent always deepened when I spoke to mother on important issues. “Why don’t we resume this conversation in two years when Little Dubya’s first term is over? You know, take a step back, evaluate the two men and their presidential legacies.”

“Game on,” she said, for a moment sounding like one of those Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity brothers. “If my George’s legacy beats Clinton’s, you’ll go and work for the media outlet of my choosing—”

“And, if I win,” I said, cutting her off, “I’ll quit pushing paper for Granddaddy and do whatever the hell I want—in New York City.”

She touched her neck, her gold earrings and resumed trolling the internet for proof that all was right within her conservative world.

Was too preoccupied being in love down South to post blog entries… very sorry. My musings will recommence tomorrow morning!

Flying back down South for a weekend wedding… The invitation reads:

Five o’clock at Brierfield Farm
Little River Road
Brierfield, Alabama
Meander to the barn afterward for the reception

Dinner the previous night is at the Birmingham Country Club. Sunday is a polo match. This all feels very horsey, like I’m going to run across Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles and Wills of Wales somewhere in the church pews. I take back what I said about the South being a bastardized version of 18th century Gallic society. Maybe we Southerners are just trying to capture a little piece of England, the Mother Country, that place we originally came from. No wonder I try to create a little piece of Alabama up here in the Big Apple. It’s a survival skill of some sort; I convince myself that I’m back home, but the best version of “home”—a home with tolerance, poetry readings, Barney’s, diversity, the Film Forum, chaos, Cipriani’s, skyscrapers, roof-top gardens, symphony in the Park, a chance to reinvent myself.

Of course, what I really want, is to share this new home of mine with someone I love. Southern Boy, where are you?

I keep dreaming about Paris—St. Germain, really. The Left Bank and Café de Flore… a nicoise and a pernod in the shadow of the eglise…A cliché—yes. But, I’m all right with that. The fantasy is of me and an older man…

“You have a princess neck,” he says, trying to roll his tongue around the “r’s,” soften them up to suit my American ear.

“I do?” I demur, trying for a moment to be the good Southern girl of years past. At present, I’m very busy being maudlin and analyzing my big city life across the pond.

“One meant for a string of diamonds. Pearls on Sundays.” A slow sip of the Calvados and he continues staring.

It is some weeknight in October and I am stroking the blonde hairs on my neck and the old, tanned Frenchman next to me is thankful for the breeze off the Seine and his Cubano cigar and the forgiving light cast by Flore’s awning. The golden hue takes ten years off and he knows it. Without a pause, he asks me to write my phone number on his crisp, linen kerchief.

“Ahh, but you won’t answer your phone,” he says, suddenly coy.

“Of course I will.”

The Frenchman and I continue exchanging lies.

Why not? Joan Didion told me that, “I could stay up all night and make mistakes and none of it would count.”

Paris begs for mistakes… and then for all to be forgotten over a café au lait and croissant in the morning.