there was a girl at school we secretly used to call "la dolce gilda." she had lovely dark brown hair that swooped nicely over one eye, and once i told her she had pretty hair and she said "thank you, babycakes" and winked. or maybe she blinked, i couldn't really tell with that one eye covered. she had a boyfriend who looked like nick drake and once i saw the two of them armwrestling, and she had a red heart tattooed on her bicep and she was wearing stilettos. i think she won. she was the sort of girl everyone would like to walk beside, but she was a cocktail waitress at the hotel metro and i was spending friday nights at the clubhouse pouring beer for the harley league. la dolce was a dream, and we imagined she did things like lean seductively on a piano in the velvet room, or maybe invent things. it was all ruined one day when emily saw her hunched over a table at pizza shuttle stuffing her pretty face with spaghetti and meatballs, a black bear raspberry soda pop and a dish of almond custard, smoking newports. her hair was in a ponytail and she was wearing a grey hoodie and a faded pair of blue jeans. it was all very sad, and not unlike the episode of the wonder years where a pair of tube socks flies out of that poor cheerleader's bra during a football game and the boys are all heartbroken with disappointment. it's sometimes better not to know the truth. ...which is exactly why i have chosen to ignore those anti- tobacco "truth" ads on television. at the beginning of the month, i had designated the 16th of august as my day to quit the cigs, and here it is the 17th and i'm still puffing away like thomas the train engine. i quit for awhile by chewing lots of bubblegum, but that's bad for the jaw, and i know because my flatmate lindsay used to chew too much gum and she got something like TMJ and the doctor was suspicious that her jaw had been overworked in *other* ways and this all resulted in some anger and embarassment leading to lindsay and her boy getting in a shouting match in the kitchen. i'll stick with the smokes, i think. xoxo kirsten with a k as sharp as the devil himself Care2 make the world greener! http://www.care2.com - Get your Free e-mail account that helps save Wildlife! +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister +-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+ +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "peculiarly deranged fanbase" +-+ +-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+ +-+ "frighteningly named Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+ +-+ "sick posse of f**ked in the head psycho-fans" - NME June 2001 +-+ +-+ Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+