January 3 – Missy Elliot – Miss E…so addictive

Now we might just be on to something here.

I was in the Housing Works in Brooklyn Heights recently. They have a nice little music and literature alcove, and their album collection has expanded to include more than Barbra Streisand and show tunes, however anything I would have been interested in I already have. But the CDs offered more promise and at a dollar each allow me to explore music I don’t have from genres I haven’t much familiarity with. Such is the case with Missy Elliot. I have found her to be entertaining, unlike most hip hop acts I’ve experienced in some way, and do like her song “The Rain.” That’s not on this CD, but I confess I recognized song #5 “Get Ur Freak On.”

For those of you who don’t normally read the entirety of my blog posts, there’s a little spice at the end of this one. Yes, old spice, but hey, I’ve never really treated you to any real details of my love life, or lack thereof.

The size 10s have been a bit snug of late, which is totally my fault and I make no excuses, but tis the season and people keep sending me stuff – to my home. Well, okay one person sent me too much stuff that I shouldn’t be eating and I made these fabulous cookies I haven’t made in 20 years, plus my famous bourbon balls, which were a big hit this year and mighty potent. If you recall, I am neither cook nor baker, but do have my specialties like the bourbon balls for which there is no baking involved, and the chocolate, chocolate chip cookies that include other ingredients because I seem to need to color outside the lines. I can also make duck and bake bread though I haven’t done either in some time.

To explain this particular problem, I refer back to my article “Why I Can No Longer Feed the Squirrels” (June 3, 2014) about my strange addictive behavior in which I address my inability to keep tempting items in the home like cigarettes (3 ½ years smoke free), pistachio nuts (I will allow myself to purchase ½ pound a weekend knowing that I can consume all in one sitting), hard alcohol (I bought the ex a bottle of Jameson Caskmates and it accidently got opened and consumed, while the beer and wine I’ve had about remains untouched), sweets (and I’m not even a big sweet eater), and bread.

Having the cookies and balls in the home was dangerous but could have been worse if my need for praise had not managed to curtail further damage. I got a couple of batches of both mailed off and pleased many of my coworkers. I received many compliments, which makes me happy, and less weighty.

The issue of addiction and the title of Missy Elliot’s 2001 CD Miss E… so addictive is a total coincidence. I only noticed the title after I wrote the previous paragraphs, I swear. Of the CDs I brought home from the thrift store, this one got me up and moving, really moving. The image of a 60 year old white woman dancing around to hip hop remains between me and Max, but I was really getting my freak on, even if after a while Missy “Misdemeanor” Elliot’s songs got a little tiresome. Song #5 has been added to my workout routine after Linda Ronstadt and before “Smooth.”

Speaking of getting my freak on, I had an interesting interlude at Housing Works, something that surely does not happen to me with the frequency it used to. While I was in that music and literature alcove at Housing Works, I heard a man ask me if I was planning on leaving the alcove soon. He stood by a shelf of CDs by its entrance and explained that he was now going to squat down to view the bottom shelf and it may take him a while to stand if I needed to get by any time soon. Though I am both nearsighted and farsighted, I am not blind nor dead in any sense of the word, and determined the pre-squatting man was a bit older than I, slim, and kind of attractive. His was not only a good opening line, it was relevant to me as I can relate to the perils of squatting. We did the dance, that conversation that delves slightly deeper into the small talk one would have with a stranger. I find you attractive, you find me attractive, let’s see where this goes… He likes classical music I quickly learned, I like rock and roll, and while I can expand my tastes to different genres (except opera), I have found the classical music aficionados I have met to be a bit snobby. But we pressed on. He mentioned something or somebody of which I had no knowledge, and when I mentioned recently getting into Billy Joel’s classical compositions, he admitted to having heard of Billy Joel. He told me of his experience as a boy, wanting to listen to the Yankees game on the car radio (I can speak fluent Yankees from the late 70s, early 80s), but his father insisting on putting on the classical station, thus first exposing him to the music genre he loved. I told him about my mother being a 20 something year old mother and housewife in the 1950s suburbs and my asking her why she never got into rock and roll, which she seemed to appreciate after she sobered up and I was in my 20s. “It just wasn’t done,” was her reply. In her defense, she was right about the norms placed on women, plus she had been a bobby-soxer screaming over Frank Sinatra.

I moved around the man so I would not have to request that he rise from his squat prematurely, and he said that he hoped to bump into me again. “Even though you like classical and I like rock ‘n roll,” I laughed. His last two girlfriends, he noted, were into other forms of music and didn’t seem to be an issue. We continued the conversation a bit more as he started to explain his thoughts on the music hierarchy, which I wasn’t grasping, especially when he started to compare it to religions. Now I don’t know much about the different protestant religions, but when someone says that Episcopalians are on a low rung but nothing is lower than Baptists, I can recognize bigotry. And that’s where I draw the line. The presence of pheromones and endorphins alike ceased immediately. Perhaps my rings, of which I wear four and are all types of bands, though none of the wedding variety, might have made him think I was otherwise engaged, so to speak, or maybe it was the perplexed look I may have given him after his out of left field comment only a snob could make, as I am well aware I do not have a poker face, that allowed me to exit gracefully, just saying that it was nice to have met him, thus ending the interlude. Sorry, that was the extent of it, granted not even medium spicy, but I was glad to be able to utilize my talents for flirtatious intelligent conversation, at least to a point.

Btw – I wish a happy new year to all, and would like to add that I like Ludacris, who sings with Missy Elliot on “One Minute Man.” He was really good in Hustle and Flow.