Marion Roach Smith’s alternate sisterly reality, with Margaret Roach.
WHAT’S A REDHEAD to do? We try to behave. Really we do. And we try to calm our tempers. But it’s no good, as little good as trying not to feel the sting of the pain at the dentist, or letting ourselves go under at the anesthesiologist; asking us to behave is like asking us well, it’s like asking a redhead not to blush. It’s just not going to happen, now is it? And why would it, when yet another American icon has gone and reinforced the idea that redheads are–how shall we say—hot?
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OSCAR HAIR. C’MON, you know you want some. How many people do you think contribute to pre-Oscar lifting and spraying, mussing and fussing, and, more to the point, how do we get us some of that slavish attention? I can picture me now after just a bit of it: scrubbing out the slow cooker while looking ever so much more like Julianne Moore; appearing in front of my front-load clothes dryer with just a smidgen of Streep-like casual-ness to my coif. Are you in, sisters?
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I LOVE THIS SONG BY RICHARD THOMPSON, called “1952 Vincent Black Lightning” after the bike model, and every time I hear it, I think of my red-haired sister, Marion. I don’t even know if she knows the song (or Richard Thompson, or his ex-wife, Linda Thompson, or their son, Teddy Thompson, glorious musicians all). Do you, Marion? But as Richard’s cult hit says…Red hair and black leather, my favorite color scheme… [click to continue…]
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AS SOMEONE WHO HAS PREVIOUSLY purchased Aristotle, you might like…” Thus began a recent email from Amazon.com. I’m thinking of printing it out and pinning it to my dress to wear while I watch The Simpsons, the combo of the two influences really kind of summing me up. Or does it? I’m not sure. Who am I, again? (Singalong now: “Who are you? Who, who, who who?”) Shall I ask Google, or ? [click to continue…]
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REDHEADS IN THE KITCHEN could be what Milton had in mind when he coined the phrase “adding fuel to the flame,” or perhaps what Shakespeare was pondering when penning “add flame to the fire.” Inviting a redhead into the kitchen certainly does add heat to the place, as well as color. I’ve always known that, though if you need confirmation, you have only to look at the online redheads in the kitchen to see what I mean. [click to continue…]
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PEOPLE ARE JEALOUS OF REDHEADS. Even the drinks named for us reflect a certain envy, as they should, of course. I mean who would agree to a mere Rusty Nail, when you can sip on a Redhead in Bed?
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WHO CROSSED YOUR PATH FIRST on New Year’s Day? If it was a redhead, you may need to fasten your seat belt for a bumpy 2010, since at least one beginning-of-the-year tradition holds that the person first crossing your threshold in the new year decides the luck you’ll have for the next 365 days. [click to continue…]
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I TOLD THEM, AND I TOLD THEM, and I told them again. And still the doctors did not listen. I awakened during procedures; worse, I never fell asleep. Then, finally, science backed me up and I had something to show my doctors before they brushed away my claims of both needing more anesthesia and feeling more pain than most people. Turns out that I am one of a rare breed of mutants who does. Are you? [click to continue…]
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I THOUGHT THIS WAS ME. So did Margaret. Despite the fact that it’s a boy, it looks exactly as I did at the age that I began my happy days at P.S. 94 in Little Neck, Queens. And the attitude. Yup. Same. I actually stopped and stared at it, wondering how that could be. Has this happened to you on the Internet, running across something deeply, weirdly familiar? It just happened to me.
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Me, at about the age of those precious school-bus years w/Andy Hattenrash.
WHEN WE LEFT OUR HEROINES, one was standing in our parents’ bedroom, holding a photo in her 9-year-old hand. She just wanted ice cream and, as a result of that hunger, came away with a whole lot more than she was after. It would take her little sister—me—14 years to come to the same conclusion that Margaret did in that instant: that our mother was having an affair. [click to continue…]
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LITTLE SISTER, BIG SISTER: A digital moment, today.
First time here? Here's the idea: The Sister Project is a network of blogs about the many facets of the word sister, and the concept of sisterhood. A sisterhood of sister blogs, you could say. Whatever sister means to you, from identical twin to sister-in-law (or in friendship or in feminism), we’ll make room to listen in about it or express it on TSP. Like the slogan up top on our homepage says, “Don’t you have something to say to your sister?” We've got galleries of art and literature by and about sisters, and a Sisterpedia of sisterly trivia...but now we're getting ahead of ourselves. The quick study: Learn more about TSP, and how to find your way around. And oh—a giant, sisterly welcome.