LJ

In my first post I said that I was going to try and focus on enjoying the delightful parts of The South and mock the rest. My focus here has been the mockery, but now’s where I make good and describe something I enjoy greatly (other than pork barbeque): my friend LJ.

I’ve heard it said that “eccentric” means weird with money. There’s truth to that, but I think LJ might be an exception.  LJ is a delightful mix of whimsy and Southern practicality. Her name is really Lila Jane; she says it’s a hick name but I think it matches her old-fashioned feminine looks. She’s got long chocolate curls, large hazel-flecked eyes, white skin, and a curvaceous (__!__). Her toenails are always painted and she has a high-pitched girlish giggle. I met her years ago at Mother’s Milk, where she thought I was a bitch and I thought she was a ding-a-ling. We later found that to be a match made in heaven, and cemented the friendship by exchanging endless emails of faux Harlequin romance excerpts.

Carissa quivered as Drake strode manfully toward her, his glistening chest muscles rippling with tension...

LJ bakes muffins and cakes and cookies, is afraid of high fructose corn syrup and the “bad” side of Splendaville, drinks Evan Williams whiskey, and says “fuck” a lot but is extremely offended by the term “goddamn”. She works off the cake and cookies by riding her kid’s Razor scooter around the neighborhood while singing. She doesn’t care what her neighbor thinks because she knows that neighbor has more kids than seatbelts, so what’s she gonna do?

When I was housebound with Saint JM awaiting surgery, LJ came over to keep me company. She arrived with a basket full of homemade biscuits and gravy, pumpkin scones, and peach moonshine. You’ve got to admire a friend like that. LJ perched on my sofa for several hours while we made elaborate plans for post-surgery tea parties and repainting a chest of drawers. We haven’t done those things, but it sure helped get through the winter, which I think is really the point.

Now, LJ has particular annoyances. One is people whose eyebrows have no arch. LJ’s brows arch delightfully, and when I told her about Brunhilde and the chin hairs, (goll-EE I'm having fun linking today) she said she plucks her eyebrows in the rearview mirror, but that public chin hair plucking is flat-out wrong. I assume the eyebrow grooming only happens when her car is stationary, since she’s also afraid of the interstate and breaks out in a glisten if she’s not home before dark.

Another vehicular annoyance of LJ’s is when people drive while eating chicken drumsticks. Really, any bone-in fowl. It’s OK to eat a sandwich or several Cadbury crème eggs, I'm told, but LJ says gnawing on chicken bone (particularly KFC ones, not sure why) while driving is “unseemly”. She’s seen people do it, which is why she knows.

LJ is fickle. She’s extremely supportive of friends. If I complain about being fat, she says with sweet sincerity that I DID just have a baby. Six years ago. Yet she keeps forgetting her appointments with one particular doctor because his nose bothers her. (I’ve seen it; it is pretty big.) She has great guilt about not getting regular religion, but she knows her stripper name is Frappity Bubbles.

She’s got to be one of the best things south of the Mason Dixon line, pork barbeque included. I think of her when I hear this song: Feist - Mushaboom