The Refridgerator

We moved into Two-A thirteen years ago. OH! Heavens. I completely forgot our anniversary. It was Sunday. HaHa. We moved in on October 1st. I guess I should run out and get a belated anniversary present--not one for Pat, not even one for me. I should get an anniversary present for the apartment. It's been thirteen years. What do you get for a thirteenth anniversary? Hmm. I know what I would LIKE to get... but, alas, that ain't gonna happen.

I want a new fridge.

We sort of got a new fridge this year. But it isn't new. It's just new to Two-A. It came out of storage for the building. I imagine it belonged to someone else....now it is ours. It's better than the last one we had. Poor thing. It was a wreck. Well...it wasn't new when we moved in. Imagine what it was like twelve years later. The light didn't work, not once; the crisper drawer was off its' runner, the shelves were crooked, it never smelled clean--even after I scrubbed it. But it kept the food cold..until the end.

I think the worst thing was that it was just. so. ugly. It was so old that the stains on the outside would not scrub off; and what did scrub off uncovered rust beneath it. It was an eyesore and we lived with it forfreakinever.

One day, though, several years ago, I remembered something Lee Roy Reems said on JERRY HERMAN AT THE HOLLYWOOD BOWL. He came out in a tux and a red feather boa and said;

"If you can't hide it....

DECORATE IT!!!"

So, after that, I decorated the refridgerator.

The freezer door being closest to eye level had to have a purpose, as well as being pretty. So I covered it with photos of the men who had the bodies to which I aspired having, myself. In the middle of the collage I made was a home-made sign that reminded me to stay on my diet. Together the photos and the sign were meant to remind me: anyone can have inner beauty. To have outer beauty, you must agonize, whether it be the agony of diet or the agony of exercise.

The door to the fridge, though, was not pics of hot guys to remind me to put the food back...

While we called the top door THE DIET DOOR, we called the bottom door THE DIVA DOOR and I covered it with photos of the divas of our life. The women Pat and I (and many gay men) love so much. Some are the standards: Liza, Ms LuPone, Kate the Great, Ann-Margret, Miss Peters and Gwen Verdon. There were, though, our PERSONAL divas.... Pat's beloved Kate Mulgrew, Queen Latifah and Phoebe Cates. For me, Marie France Pisier, Alexis Smith and Lee Remick. We HAD to have Jodie, Julianne, Geena, Angelica and Goldie, not to mention Misses Pfeiffer, Rosselini, Zellwegger and Zeta-Jones. Our redheads had to be there--Nicole and Mimi. And, of course, Donna Murphy. An astute observer will even find the tiniest photos of Julia Murney and Stefanie Powers up in one corner....

We ran out of room for Leann Hunley, Carol Burnett and Bibi Besch but that didn't matter because there are photos of us WITH THEM in frames in the living room. Oh. And Jude. That's Dame Judi to you...

That was the front of the fridge. Off to one side was more hot guys--my favourite being the Equinox ad of the boxer with the black eye and the saying IT'S NOT FITNESS, IT'S LIFE. And the other side of the fridge, which remained, forever, unfinished was to be photos from coffee table books of photographers who inspired me.

It was a sad, pathetic little fridge but it got the job done. And it looked good, all decorated like a Christmas tree. But its life on this planet had to end at some point and just this last winter, as the days were beginning to get their coldest, it died during the night. We awoke to find all our frozen foods thawing and the floor of the kitchen covered in water. We were lucky, though; it had snowed that night and we just put everything out onto the fire escape, in the snow, to keep cold for two days while the superintendant found us a new fridge. And you know what?

When they came to take our fridge away.....when I saw it on the street, waiting to be taken away by the trash collectors.... I got a little sad. I got a little misty eyed. I had to say goodbye to my fridge....

Sigh.

You should see the new one. It's covered with photos of Matthew McConaghey.