Welcome
to The Spinster's Compass, I am The Gigi. Come on in and
sit you for a spell. There’s tea brewing, biscotti on the table, and a
beautiful black cat with mystical green eyes in here who is checking you
out while in stealth mode.
Who is The Gigi and what is contained in her manifesto thus far? I am
someone who always has something to say about something. I have a wide
variety of interests, perhaps some of my interests will intersect with
yours and you will want to follow along. You like to hear yourself write,
said my ninth grade English teacher—and then I won a Scholastic writing
award about a post Civil War era spinster who is driven crazy when her
beau never returns from the war. Miss Mamie Walton meets Miss
Havisham..and there it is. I am a post Civil War spinster (after a
fashion) as it turns out, who also was an introverted, intuitive,
feeling, perceiving little Bean in the ninth grade, too. These things
have not changed.
I have writing and books cred going back to age 13 when I wrote an intensive review of Mary Queen of Scots,
by Antonia Frasier and then delivered a 30 minute presentation on the
review. I was enthralled by both the writing and being on stage.
Everyone else, including my teacher, marked me as a brown-haired, glasses
wearing, nerdy nerd, chubby girl. I got an A on the paper and the
presentation, but I wonder if the cost was a bit too much. Let’s just
say that children are cruel. Children from small western PA steel towns
with a football fetish and a dislike for those persons not born at the
local hospital (we moved there when I was 8) are exquisitely cruel. This
is not the last you will hear on this topic, be assured. Silence will
end on what I saw, heard, and experienced growing up and attending my
public school system. I grew up to become a writer and a teacher to right some wrongs, shall we say.
To counteract the trauma of the public school system, I researched and discovered a woman centered, centered women’s college where I attended to read literature, write,
and study history in peace. No, seriously, that is exactly why I went to college--and some notion of wanting to be a writer and see the world. More important still, I went to college so as to no
longer deal with a boy centered, centered boy system of public
education. That college ceased to exist in the late 80s when it began
admitting men. A few years later, it became a university, got a football
team (the horror), and also lacrosse, tennis, and of course basketball.
Gah. There is much to be said about a woman centered, centered woman
college run by nuns and former nuns. My writing is of course informed by
that experience.
Academically, I missed the last thirty years of literary “Theory, big T”,
as they say. However, when I finally went back to study for my Master’s degree a
few years ago, I was thrown into it head first. I felt like Sleeping
Beauty, awakening to a changed world. It was strange, it was surprising,
it was enchanting, it was addictive. In short, I loved it. So I wrote a paper about it. The
experience was most excellent—all due to a wonderful group of women
professors who really have it going on up there in the English
Department and a smart, sharp, great group of persons reading and writing papers along with me for the degree! Delightful!
Politically, I am a fiscal conservative. This means I am pro social
programs as long as they are in the budget and can be paid for without
huge amounts of money currently being printed in the basement of the Fed
and debt passed on to my young nephews. Unsecured personal and
governmental debt will be the downfall of this country. I also believe
social programs of the Great Society need to be reviewed line by line
for costs v. effectiveness. Then we can jettison them out of the airlock
once we see that they are worthless except to ensure politicians a
secure a voting base. I believe that we could do without the IRS, NASA,
the NEA, the EPA, Head Start, and the Education Department. All
education should be administered locally. The military? Yes, as much as
we can afford, because there are bad guys out there who mean to do us
harm.
I believe in many things over which my Liberal friends blow a vein in
their foreheads when I post on Facebook. The feeling is mutual. I’m not
sure how we got on opposite sides of that aisle, we didn’t seem to start
that way. However, to paraphrase my least favorite American president,
there is more that unites us than divides us, right? In case they forget, I will list what unites us: books, tea, GandT, writing, talking, talking, talking,shopping, spending four years in nuns' cells while not actually being nuns, breaking international maritime law, drinking, debauchery, witnessing each others troubles and trouble making...well, for a long time now...thirty years, actually...and the stories, of course. There are so many stories as one might imagine there being--all tucked up on top of a hill in a turn of the century former ladies only college that resembles to this day a turn of the century insane asylum.
I believe in God and am a Catholic and have been indoctrinated as such, but like that great line from Lost Boys, a fabulous 80s vampire flick: The one thing I hate about Santa Carla, is all the damn vampires;
the one thing I hate about the Catholic Church is all the damn
pedophiles. And the con men. And the power hungry people in and out of clerics. I believe in
the dogma, most of the doctrine. I adore the ritual and the bell, book,
and candle. I’m all old school liturgy in Latin. Unfortunately, due to a
run in with the pedophiles, the con men, the power hungry in and out of clerics, and most especially
their lawyers, I have been on the outside looking in for more than a
decade or so. Again, the Catholic thing in all its pomps and all its
empty promises sometimes informs my writing, as does that Jesus guy (as
my friend Mamie, the atheist, would say), his mother, Our Lady, and of
course, St. Joan of Arc. I have been feeling rather sentimental about the old place (as it were)--because Catholicism is a place, too, as well as a practice. It is also a culture. A way. A journey. See? Just when I think I am out...
I am a Kennedy Conspiracy Theorist. I am one of the founders and card
carrying members of the Dead Fathers Society, age three upon
membership. I wonder if we really landed men on the moon when I was
six. False flag events? An alarming rise in those. Aliens? Yes.
Religions that intersect with aliens, their planets and their technologies? No. Second amendment? You betcha.
History? Yes. Lots of that and stuff we are doomed to repeat if we don’t
turn it around.
I am all about tradition. I was born in the wrong time and in the
wrong place. I like simple elegance in design, with a dash of Alice in
Wonderland. Mid century Modern (MCM) and the 70s—I lived through it survived it.
Meh. I’m all about Arts and Crafts…anything built before 1925 in
furniture and architecture. I like the idea of pretty hats and gloves.
Anything people wore at the time of King Edward VII going forward to the
Titanic (but not the undergarments—yikes!). Slap the Union Jack on it
and you’re good to go. Shrine building all over the place--no longer Catholic in theme, but literary. An icon here or there from the Oriental side of the Church. The
apartments of Sherlock Holmes meets Downtown Abbey, meets Auntie
Carmella’s house on a good day. My house is a museum to me and things
that comfort me—that is when I have a house. I am currently in exile.
Alas.
What will The Gigi be explaining to you? Life, memories, experiences,
moments, religion, history, garments, food, taxes, politics, and
people. That encompasses a lot of stuff. Things that irk me, strike me
as being wrong, ridiculous, noble, perverse, fabulous, intriguing,
chaotic and entropic will probably end up here, as well. And zombies.
And, of course, vampires.
