Dear Joe...

This is a public service announcement. Brought to you by the makers of Christina, and Christina's heart. Supplying the world with pure joy since 1981. When I get ready to go out there are a few things that happen. Step One is usually digging through my closet, desperately trying to find an outfit that makes me look: smart, skinny yet big-bootied, sexy but not slutty, stylish but not trendy, approachable but not accessible. It's too much. THen comes the hair. 180 degree heat to straighten it. Resulting in horrible burns when the iron slips. Dry split ends. Bathroom smellin like burnt hair. Perfume..make-up... drinks. drinks drinks drinks. Because everything looks better in my mirror after at least 3 grey goose and cranberrys. i go out. I see everyone else who went through the same exact steps. Looking fabulous. Putting their best foot forward. It's easy to be amazing for one night. It's easy to be that girl who's happy. Who flirts just enough, smiles just enough. Lau...

So I'm at a family BBQ. End of summer. Sitting with my aunts and uncles. No one under the age of 70. And I look around in amazement at the lives that are around me. Just the pure LIFE. I mean, these are people who have lived through wars. Plural. Depressions, endless political administrations. Decades upon decades of music, fashion, technology, and of course love. Endless love. Love affairs, unrequited love, lost love, regretful love, all the kinds of love on this earth. And in the corner of the balcony stood my Aunt Brownie. 78 years old. Never married. Lives in Vegas. She was wearing leopard print heels, and taking swigs of some kind of ginger brandy out of a flask. And yes I know it sounds like a character in a novel, but this is a real life person. And me, somewhat buzzed off of the 86 miller lites my family mistakenly thinks is the grand puba of all beers, I ask her the question I've been meaning to ask her my whole life. "Why were you never married. Aren't you lo...