pink pajama mama

The first time I met Rufus Wainwright, he was naked. Well, he started out dressed, but it was only a matter of minutes before he was dancing naked in front of our table at a dingy nightclub in LA called The Garage. Let me back up a little.I was out on the town with my girlfriend, Pleasant. She knew Rufus, and I’m not sure how he got it into his head to take off his clothes for us, but he did. He started to strip for us and we encouraged him with cheers and catcalls. I didn’t think he’d really do the full monty as we were in a public place with loads of people around, but I was wrong. He did! And he was wild, flinging his moppish hair around, dancing. He was talking to us later (with his clothes on now) and telling Pleasant how he had done a gig the night before at the Universal Amphitheatre and had gotten kicked out of his hotel room. I naturally assumed he must have been working as a professional stripper. Later, Pleasant told me our stripper’s name was Rufus Wainwright, Loudon’s son, and one of the first acts signed by Dreamworks and he’d been doing a concert at the Universal Amphitheatre the night before. Oh.We went to see him play piano and sing at a tiny little place on Fairfax the following week. He was entrancing. The rawness of his talent, his heartrending voice, he was incredible.A while later, I was having a glass of wine with Pleasant and Kina at La Pubelle when we ran into Rufus again. He invited us (Pleasant, Kina, and I–the GoGo belly dance group) on a walk down Franklin to this incredible old historic building. I’d always wanted to enter this building. We knocked on one of the doors and it was answered by a man with yellow hair and a matching yellow coat with coattails–a kind of marching band coat. His house was a shrine to music. It was wallpapered with classical sheet music. Every nook and cranny was decoupaged with pictures of classical composers. In the middle of the living room was a grand piano complete with lit candelabra. The yellow-haired man flicked out his tails and sat down and played a haunting classical piece for us.Rufus was up next, and he sat down and played for at least an hour, all kinds of incredibly beautiful music. He would occasionally shout out the composer he was playing “Shubert! Debussy! Bach!” but he didn’t stop. He hunched over the piano, his wild hair flying in all directions, his shoulders rocking back and forth. We were swept away by this unexpected ending to our evening out. Kina said, “I want a Rufus! I want to take him out whenever I get bored.” That was one of the last times I saw Rufus. Now I just listen to him.

I invited Cathy, my photographer friend who lived on the ashram for 7 years on a shopping trip with me.
“Cathy, do you want to come with me on a commando cowgirl shopping trip where we plow through a few favorite stores as fast as possible?” (I can never leave the kids for long.)
“Absolutely!” she said.
She’s my yes girl. Whenever I ask her to do anything, she says yes or absolutely, my favorite words after “Can you bake me some warm chocolate chip oatmeal cookies?” (My favorite thing to bake to fulfill my baking addiction.)
“But I think commando means we don’t wear underwear,” she said.
“Fine,” I replied. “Underwear is overrated anyway.”
We left on our trip (non-commando) and started at Trashy Diva, a store that could have been named after us, the original trashy divas. We ended up staying there and not even making it to another store, because Trashy Diva is tres dreamy! They were playing Sinatra, which immediately immerses me in this beautiful romantic world with no hard edges. The clothes are all gorgeous vintage styles, made with modern day fabrics and cuts, and I tried on the most amazing dresses. I’m kind of like a trying-on cowgirl, meaning I can try on clothes faster than you can say “another glass of champagne darling?”. I was trying to find a dress to match my exquisite cream and black velvet Garbo coat, so that meant ivory silk.
I sashayed out of my dressing room in an amazing Rita Hayworth gown, that dragged on the floor. It had buttons down the back and flowy sleeves and I couldn’t decide if I looked like Rita in Gilda or the ghost of Willoughby Hall or a southern gal sitting on her big ol’ porch sipping mint juleps and entertaining her gentleman callers. Blanche Dubois at her craziest. Cathy was sitting outside the dressing room clutching a cashmere wrap she loved, trying to decide how much she loved it. “Oh yes!” she exclaimed upon seeing me. “I love it! I love the buttons down the back.”
“Well, that cashmere is divine! You have to get it!” (This is what we do, encourage each other to buy yummies.)
I was trying on my next ensemble when I heard Cathy calling out, “Lucy! You have some explaining to do!” I came out swishing in a slinky champagne silk Jean Harlow gown and Cathy was wearing a polka dotted silk robe over her jeans and sneakers, swinging her arms and kicking her foot ala Buster Keaton. “This robe is GREAT!” she shouted, impersonating a cross between Ricky Ricardo and Charlie Chaplin. “I’m having a ball out here. Maybe I should buy something so I look more like a girl and less like a truckdriver.”
(Mind you, Cathy doesn’t look like a truckdriver. She’s tiny and slender and beautiful with a radiant smile and a bouncing blonde ponytail.)
Our fun ended when the husband called to see where I was. This being a top secret mission to see if there was anything out there I couldn’t live without, I hadn’t told him what I was doing (he disapproves of shopping). He was very suspicious, to say the least, and thought I might be having an affair. Ha! Darling, I’m not having an affair, but just look at the fabulous ivory silk Marilyn Monroe in the Seven Year Itch halter dress I bought! It swishes against my skin like whipped cream silk. It will be perfect for mojitos on the porch at The Columns hotel listening to New Orleans jazz, or whirling around the dance floor at the grand hotel on Christmas Eve.
Ahhh, the trashy diva strikes again.