I Am Leslie Lange

Tail of a Lizard

Lying in bed with Pontifica this morning, I receive a call from Brian on my cell. He sounds frantic, but that isn't necessarily unusual. "There's a lizard outside our window," he says. "And I think it's dead...at least it isn't moving."
"A big lizard?" I say.
"Yeah, pretty big...looks like it's almost a foot long."
"Do you want to maybe put it in a box?"
"Well...."
"That's OK, Brian. I'm on my way home and I'm not squeamish at all about these things. I'll dispose of the dead lizard. Maybe I'll even give it a funeral."
"Thank you."

So, I get home and I stride over to the window where Brian said the lizard would be. I stride because I'm all full of myself that I can deal with this lizard situation when my housemate, a grown man, an actual handyman cannot. I'm expecting a small green-grey thing, a foot long from head to end of tail, but I don't see anything. Guess it wasn't dead, I muse. And then I see this:

and this, as you can see, is just its freakin' tail.

Brian, the freakin' tail is longer than a foot, OK?

Desert Hot Springs: I Love You

I’ve realized that in the interest of what I thought was humor, I was perhaps a bit unfair to my own beloved town of Desert Hot Springs. And as a sort of New Year’s apology, I would like to offer this short paean:

Ah, Desert Hot Springs!
Home of a hundred great white herons,
sailing incongruously above stretches
of scrubby bush and cactus!
Ah, Desert Hot Springs!
Home of a thousand great white windmills,
spinning against the rust-sky of sunset!
Ah, Desert Hot Springs!
Home of a wide black night,
holding meteor shower parties amid
jaw-dropping star-scapes!
Ah, Desert Hot Springs!
Home to lots of spayed and neutered doggies,
behaving well and hence unnoticed
as they trot by on leashes, their fat rumps bouncing

Palm Springs Pride: out, proud, and drama-free

Visit Leslie Lange (me) sporting her new almost-mullet this Saturday at Palm Springs Pride, where she'll be signing copies of Dyke Drama: your guide to getting out alive. November 3rd. at 2 p.m.

Mullified

Whoa! Lots of stuff's been going down in Los Angeles lately: Fires, poor air quality, a pending writers' strike (always a writers' strike, never an authors' strike), my favorite Dia de los Muertos celebration at the Hollywood cemetery, and the Murakami exhibit opening at MOCA.

But I'm going to talk about my hair.

I went to my stylist, Viva, in Palm Springs, sipping decaf while enduring the application of numerous highlights, then skimming a whole stack of fluff magazines as my scalp baked in the surround-swelter of 3 discoid radiant heat lamps. Then Viva took up her shears and razor and commenced doing what she always does, which is chop through my thatch of Bushman-like locks, giving it her best shot to produce something akin to "texture" so that I don't look like I'm wearing a brown bike helmet all day.

"I think I'm going to try something new," Viva said, gesturing across the top of my head. "I'm going to cut it short-to-long over here, and long-to-short over here."
"Cool," I said. "Go for it. Make salad."
"Oh, and what about this?" she said, pulling on the wisps at the nape of my neck.
"Um," I said. "I like those."
"Good, because everyone always wants me to cut them off, but they're my favorite."
"OK, leave 'em."

When I got home that night, Pontifica--on her way to kiss me--stopped dead in her tracks.
I found myself unwilling to register her expression. "What?"
Pontifica took me by the shoulders, and made very grave eye contact. "I'm sorry, honey, but that is darn close to a mullet."

I ran to the mirror, turned to look at my profile, and...AAAK! Indeed it was...darn close to a mullet.

But was it still an attractive sort of mullet? Or even better, a subtle, pushing-the-boundaries sort of naughty self-referencing wink, maybe, to the mullet, without actually being one? God, I hoped so.

Help me decide, please! Come visit my table at Palm Springs Pride, November 3rd at 2 p.m., where I'll be signing copies of Dyke Drama: your guide to getting out alive, a book I wrote in my pre-mullet days.

Buy Dyke Drama!