8/3/96 - Viva Cont'd

8/3/96 - 1810 Chapala (cont'd)

Serena had wanted to check out Chameleon, but I begged off, pleading fatigue. I slept 'til 9:30 this morning, and am still feeling little inclination to climb out of bed at 11:15.

So, Matt. I'm a little worried that I'm going to hurt him. [I needn't have; turns out "donna e mobile," like all the rest.] I've been starving to pour affection on someone, and I thought that was going to be James, but no.

I feel pretty vindicated about James (read, not guilty). He was kissing some guy (Jesse. There's a connection to Matt there. [Never found out what it was.]) on Thursday, and I didn't really care. He did make a comment about trying to contact me at work one day this week. He knew that all it would take is a glance at the back of his medical ID card, or look in the phone book, or CALL ME AT HOME. What a dork. [What a dork was I, for letting this go one for so long?]

But Matt is different. He seems to understand the rudiments of telephone technology and etiquette, and he's AWARE of the world. I feel like I'm finally digging myself out of this rabbit hole I fell into when I started dating Bill. [The one who left me puking on my birthday in 1993, lest we forget.] All these men with so little awareness of politics, history, art, etc. Thank God for Max (and a few other friends), or my brain would have decayed from having to work on the level of these people. [Yeeee-haw! Go get 'em, inferiority complex!]

It's not just Matt, of course. Robbie was pretty sharp, and Serena and Max and Susanna are all making me feel I can go ahead and be smart without seeming elitist. [Seems pretty elitist to me.] It's refreshing.

So, strategy with Matt should go something like: relax and enjoy the romance. Don't make any promises you can't keep. Be loving and attentive, but keep the facts on the table. [If you're so smart, why can't you write in anything but cliches?] AND WATCH THE DRINKING!!!

[I promised two entries ago my Huffington family story, so here goes. As anyone watching the conventions now gracing our television screens should know, there is a "shadow convention" being put on by several pundits and comedians, addressing political issues the duopolitan Republicrats are ignoring. One of the leading lights of the shadow conv. is a political writer named Arianna Huffington. She calls herself a "recovering Republican," and she is SLOWLY earning my grudging respect.]

[When I moved to Santa Barbara in 1987, the area had been represented in the House by the same, boring, Republican fuddy duddy for some 15 years, and he was pretty invulnerable to any Democratic challenger. In 1992, a Texas oil millionaire named Michael Huffington moved to town, grabbed the Republican nomination from the fuddy-duddy, and served precisely one two-year term in Congress. During his two years "in" Santa Barbara, he and his Greek-born wife Arianna Stassinopoulos H. (who was marginally famous for writing a scathing book which was later made into the movie Surviving Picasso) tried to pass themselves off as locals. He appeared in cowboy boots at Fiesta, she pretended to mingle with the crowds at the Greek Festival, etc.]

[In 1994, believing that no Republican had a chance of unseating Dianne Feinstein in her re-election to the Senate, the state GOP nominated Michael to challenge her. Michael had many people around him (including Arianna, whose transparent goal was to be First Lady someday) who convinced him he could win, if he spent enough of his own money. He proceeded to spend some obscene amount, and it was actually close. Feinstein prevailed, and the Huffingtons left Santa Barbara as quickly and quietly as they came.]

[My Republican friend Karen (I know, I know, but my grandma belongs to the GOP, too. Mental illness is no reason not to care about someone.) worked on Huffington's House campaign, and my apolitical friends Jessica and Moira even helped stuff flyers, etc. They were privy to the Huffingtons' Montecito mansion on several occasions, and used to tell weird stories about Arianna's mother, who lived with them and behaved eccentrically. So it was funny that Serena knew what she looked like at the Biltmore, and I always had this vision of the Huffingtons speeding out of town, leaving poor Mrs. Stassinopoulos in some assisted-living facility in Goleta, or something. ("OK, Mrs. S, we'll take you for some grappa at the Biltmore if you eat your scalloped potatoes.")]

[My last Huffington note is the most scandalous. When he won the nomination, Karen invited Jessica and me to the after-rally party in some hired hall downtown. I was wearing (rather defiantly, I thought) a T-shirt from an Earl's Court gay bar that Sean had brought back from London. Karen introduced me to Huff, he shook my hand, read my shirt, and said something along the lines of "Oh, I used to hang out in Earl's Court when I was in college." Several years after the failed Senate contest, who should come reluctantly out of the closet but Michael Huffington, former REPUBLICAN candidate from California! He and Arianna have divorced...but, was my married Congressman-to-be HITTING ON ME AT HIS OWN RALLY?!]

["So why do you cry/When you think about Earl's Court?/Do you cry when think of all the battles you fought and lost?" Morrissey, again.]

Previously Next