COLUMNISTS

Deidre Dare

I am probably the only person this happens to, but sometimes I get in a Dorothy Parker Mood.

One of the founders of the Algonquin Round Table, Dorothy Parker was a sparkling wit and a writer who often penned light verse. The last time I was in such a mood, I wrote my own light verses in Parker-esque rhyming couplets, including this little ditty:

The mistress life is very hard You live on the edge of a quick discard.

I knew what I was talking about because I've been a "mistress" on a number of occasions.

The first time I ever got involved with a married man was at the tender age of 17. As I recall, the gentleman in question was 37.

He'd invited me to lunch at a hotel in mid-town Manhattan. At that time, I had a flair for the dramatic and a penchant for watching b&w movies from the 1940s, so what stands out most in my mind about that encounter are my sartorial choices.

Though I hate to have to admit it, I showed up at the hotel garbed in a little veiled hat, elbow-length white kid skin gloves and actually smoking through a long cigarette holder. Obviously, at the time, my idea of a mistress was somehow connected to Greta Garbo.

I also remember being surprised that "lunch" did not, in the end, include food...

I've learned a lot since those days, but still, when I hear the word "mistress," I can't help but picture myself being kept in a luxurious apartment, drinking champagne and lounging around in a corset. I also picture a rich and powerful man who has a key to said luxurious accommodation and who pops by every now and then for great sex and then pays my bills quietly on the side.

Sadly, that is not what being a mistress involves these days. Rather, it involves falling madly in love with a less than happily married man whose wife finally figures it out and demands that you be discarded, which is what promptly occurs.

Then, you fall into a deep depression for a while and read Dorothy Parker to see if she can cheer you up. She does a little, so you finally get out of bed and proceed to get very drunk and write poetry, inspired by Parker's easy style.

So, for instance, the night I wrote the above couplet, I also wrote a poem titled "An Observation", which went: "It is amazing how quickly the hot tomato can become the hot potato!" and the following:

Inventory (after Mrs. Parker)

Three things I am feeling right now:

Drunk, alone and fat as a cow.

Three things that I wish I could be:

Twenty-five, dumb and quite happy.

One thing that strikes me at once:

How much thinking I do with my cunt.

Pretty quickly, you move to a different country or meet someone else (married or not) - or both - and get on with your life. It's at that point that things get interesting. 

I mean, really, why else would a girl move from the USA to London then to Sydney then back to London then to Singapore then to Russia, if not because of Serious Boy Trouble?

During my interview for my job in Moscow, when I was asked the question why I had made so many different moves, I answered, "love affairs". Maybe not the best answer to give during an interview, but for all it lacked in discretion, it at least had the merit of honesty.

When I was asked, ‘Why Moscow?' I explained that this particular love affair's ending had been extremely painful and that it was only in a place like Russia, with all its attendant difficulties, that I could distract myself enough to "get over it".

Well, today, I am not at all in a Dorothy Parker Mood.

I am writing this in New York and therefore feeling an affinity with my Brooklyn roots. With my 'hood and my peeps. My bling and my homies. I'd describe my disposition as a "Gangsta Mood".

So, how do things get interesting once you've gotten on with your life? I'll tell you:

The mistress life is pretty whack Once you move on, the bro come back.

xxoo

DD