Hello, Gorgeous

So I'm walking down the waterfront today, near the Maritime Museum, with my uncles D and El Capitan and with my Tia L when a guy (who looked suspiciously like Danny Glover, who does live around here) arranging the aluminum cans on the back of his bike turns and says to me, "Hello, Gorgeous."

Thank you, I replied, because well... what do you say to that?

Tia L walks up behind me and asks, "Are you flirting with men these days?"

"Yeah," El Capitan says, "look at you pulling the compliments!"

Well, yeah, I do seem to have a following among homeless guys, especially the drunk ones.

"Hey," El Capitan says, "I count *every single compliment* that comes my way. Life doesn't dish 'em up often enough."

So true.

And then I'm reminded of that SNL skit from last spring when Julia Louis-Dreyfus was with a group of friends who each had been complimented and leered at and been the recipients of all manner of sexual innuendo from this one gnarly homeless guy. But he simply would *not* flirt with Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

She got a little perturbed by this, wondering what was so wrong with her that a stinky drunk would ogle her friends but refuse to give her so much as a sideways glance.

Eventually, her friends had to pay the homeless dude to many some rank sexual comments to her so she would feel better.

Yeah, I was walking on the waterfont, thinking of that. And I suddenly felt grateful because I knew my relatives hadn't had the opportunity to pay this guy to dish up a compliment. And you know, the dude didn't even look at my Tia L.

So OK. El Capitan has a point. Take the compliments offered to you.

And that goes for the rest of you, too.

To my fearless readers, then, I say to you each, Hello, Gorgeous. (And you should just pretend you can't smell the wine on my breath, OK?)