A Slippery Slope

I have a love/hate relationship with Drew Barrymore.

Well, it's not so much a relationship, really. It's more that I think it is great that someone so interesting looking can be considered beautiful by so many. But I think the way she talks needs to be outlawed.

Why is she so weird?

We were watching her on Lettermen the other night when I voiced my "weird" opinion of her. To which my husband quickly replied, "She's hot."

Really? Really?

Okay, if you like people who talk out of the sides of their mouths, I guess she's okay. But she has seriously sparked my interest in Grey Gardens.

Grey Gardens is one of the many popular gay culture things that I had no clue about. I heard it mentioned a thousand times, but never asked what it was about, assuming that I should already know.

Now, I'm fascinated by the story. And that of the Collyer brothers in Harlem.

Recently my parents demolished the life long home of my father's two deceased spinster aunts (one of whom always spoke with a British accent for no apparent reason) because it was too dangerous to even try to clean it out.

Since I was little I had heard stories about how the sisters had money stashed away in every nook and cranny because they didn't trusts the banks. They used to babysit me when I was very little and I remember their house seeming like a magical collection of player pianos and antique toys.

In the end, after the last sister died last year, my brother braved the decades of trash and decay to case the place for dead bodies and easily accessible cash. When he found nothing, they razed the house and sold the land to a developer.

How do you let things go so far?

You see, I'm asking, because I can understand it all too well.

I'm a little afraid to watch Grey Gardens because I'm afraid I'll see myself too clearly in the Beale women. I'd like to watch the documentary before the HBO movie, but I'm reticent.

I can easily see letting myself get to that point someday. When my husband is gone, and my children are gone...

There is such a small degree of separation between eccentricity and tragedy.