The Weekly Walk With Me

 Four things that gave me life this week...

4.  I don't care about cars.  What kind you drive, how much it cost, how it corners--I don't even know what that means...  But I do love to drive.  And I will drive a car until the axle just breaks in half and the wheels fall off.  For the first time in 10 years, I've put myself in a new car.  So now where to?  I will entertain all suggestions here, because I'll be driving this car till I'm 50.

3.  The CMAs.  I know, I know.  Everyone shit their pants over Chris Stapleton and Justin Timberlake. I didn't know these two knew each other, which is awkward since they are both my boyfriends, but that was the only surprising thing about their performance for me. What I really lived for was all the preening and block heels and tight pants.  And I'm talking about the men, not Reba McEntire.  The only thing more All- American homoerotic than today's country music industry (and the word industry has never been more appropriate) is professional football.  The only place I've seen better chain wallet and hanky game is twink night at a daddy bar. If Keith Urban weren't already a lesbian track coach, I'd say he'd be a perfect match for Kenny Chesney's power bottom. Go get 'em boys!

2.  Some things happened on Twitter this week that made me feel like it's OK to just lay down and die now.  My love for Anne Murray is no secret.  I carried her around with me in my portable cassette player/turntable every day, every hour, every minute for a good portion of my early childhood.  And this week ANNE MURRAY RETWEETED ME!  This means Anne Murray knows, or knew for at least a second, that I exist.  And Anne, if you're reading this, please know  I only put Barbara Mandrell in that portable turntable a handful of times.  I saw right through all that Aquanet and her skanky sisters.  It's you, Anne.  It's always been you.
AND Siedah Garrett followed me. I mean.  I. can't. even.  My work here is done...

1.  Willie Anne Wright.  Just hours after I made a cognitive decision to go full on into midlife crisis mode before even turning 40, I attended a gallery opening showing Willie Anne Wright's Direct Positive project for the first time. What's amazing about this artist is that she is 90.  This is obviously not her first show, but the first time this particular work has been shown. These photos were taken in the late seventies--when she was in her 50s.  Just a few years prior to this she discovered pinhole photography, and her medium would change forever, or at least for the next 40-ish years. These and her other photographs are some of the most fascinating images I've ever seen.  Her work skews dark, but she is joyful, and chic, and gracious.   And I'm winded and pissed at 38.  I could learn a lot from Willie Anne.