a fairly insightful article in which margaret cho bums out the entire teenaged female and gay male population of the united states—except me. apparently i’m the only person who thinks gwen stefani isn’t a pop genius.
i do loves me some man fighting. i’ll be the one sitting on a fire escape along the sidelines wearing my jammies and a big shit-eating grin. i’ll have pennants reading “go hipsters!” to share with anyone who needs.
oh, like you’ve never told a crappy joke.
not even retouching works on the poor old thing any more. so sad.
bye, mimi. thanks.
mimi’s full obituary, from my hometown newspaper today:
Eula Reeser Ernst, 84, passed away Wednesday (Nov. 30, 2005) at Wexford House following a lengthy illness.Born in Greene County, she had resided most of her life in Kingsport. She was a member of First Broad Street United Methodist Church where she had been active in the United Methodist Women.
Eula’s smiles and humor we will keep with us always, a fire for life that will not be forgotten, her love and caring ways will forever keep our memories warm.
Her husband, Phil Ernst; two sisters, Ina McDonald and Kathryn Stonecypher; and one brother, Kenneth Reeser preceded her in death.
Surviving are her daughter, Judith E. King, Kingsport; three sons, Rev. Phil Ernst III and wife Jeree, Abingdon, Va., Kenneth Ernst and wife Judy, Midlothian, Va., and Doug Ernst and wife Mary Pat, Bristol, Tenn.; 13 grandchildren; 14 great-grandchildren; one sister, Faun Johnston and husband Ralph, Greeneville; several nieces and nephews.
for those of you who don’t know her, eula was my grandmother. she’d been in declining health from a nasty case of alzheimer’s for about a decade. my mother took care of her until her death.
mimi was essentially a second mother to me as i grew up; mom and i moved in with her upon her divorce when i was three.
contrary to the polite eulogy above, mimi was a lot more than a smiling face, and absolutely never a doting granny. mimi was a drill sergeant. she kicked my ass completely into shape when mom couldn’t. she absolutely forced me to pay attention to everything around me.
i wasn’t allowed to read on long car trips, depending upon her mood. “look out the window,” she’d bark. “you’ll miss something and then you’ll regret not seeing it.” i never fucking knew what that meant until i got older. and god, she was infuriating. but she was completely right.
mimi was unrepentantly opinionated and judgmental. she saw peoples’ most honorable and basest qualities immediately. she judged personality on an instinctual level, and she was almost always right. she was visibly disappointed in people when they fell short of their potential, and she told them. to their faces. i got my share.
this wasn’t one of her more endearing characteristics; it alienated her from a lot of people–most notably, two of her sons. she wasn’t afraid to be disliked. but the most important thing i learned from that: the truth is power. she didn’t care who saw it. she didn’t care what they thought of her. she insisted everyone be honorable, to be proud of what they were.
mimi and i were in a fairly constant state of battle until i was around 20. sometime after that, we became intensely close friends for about ten years, until she started forgetting things. she was my confidante. no gloss–she could hear anything and not flip out. she’d tell me exactly what she thought.
the characteristics she pounded into me as a child—one of whom she didn’t initially approve, since i was the product of a marriage she hated—are difficult to possess. i hate those parts of me sometimes. but the drill sergeant she put in me keeps me alive when it’s hardest. they keep the matriarch’s legacy alive even as she dies.
bye, mimi. i love you so much.
