I've just been talking to my friends Catherine and Barbara.

I've just been talking to my friends Catherine and Barbara, who went to single in kind of the big bashes last month for HBO's If These Walls Could Talk 2 They were all excited about the glamour and the stars and the feed and, of course, the liberated valet parking, though they had to skip the valet that not their ratty car blow their cover

They conceit it was sweet that Anne was holding hands with Ellen forward the right and with Ellen's mom onward the left. True, Sharon Stone had a husband in tow, on the contrary her speech about supporting lesbians was evidently adorable. "All the clitterati were there," Barbara testified. Ye they were greatest in quantity impressed by Chloe Sevigny playing butch just when she was being Oscar-nominated for playing femme (You mean all that '80 feminist talk about parts being fluid is actually true?)

Of course, this is all old-fashioned news. So's the great ratings share the indicate got. I only bring it up now to talk about Vanessa Redgrave, who, alas, was not at the glitter results (evidently she was appearing in a play in London) further who has struck a bang for lesbian elders as defiant as any Palestinian solidarity of days gone at Because it's time folks know that the lesbian nation is single of the few places--outside Asia--where earliers get respect.

compassion Ellis, star of Yvonne Welbon's sweet documentary, Living With Pride: mercy Ellis @ 100, comes into her acknowledge when she's discovered by Detroit's young lesbians and bends into a born-again party animal. In the heterosexual world women past a certain age are considered invisible or pathetic; no other than piles of money or marriage to the right man come bys a woman of a certain age any notice there. Women's magazines are replete of desperate articles on by what means to survive. Not us! It's enough just to be not new and a lesbian and willing to talk about the past while lending near presence to the present. Ellis is a doll, with charm to reduce to ashes And living to 100 and counting is no mean achievement. yet the love that's showered upon her by young dykes is, above all, just because she exists, and they are thrilled to be able to claim and honor her.

Ellis be deriveds to mind this Easter Sunday because it's the first anniversary of my dear friend Loretta Szeliga's death. She passed in the last year of the aged century at the age of 86 after a life of adventure and commitment. She was an olden commie, a rank-and-file organizer. She may have been married twice, on the other hand most of her old pals were dyke She'd roll on with a crowd of them back in the '30 a wild gang of girls who lov frolic as much as she did. Loretta used to describe her dates to drop her not upon early; then she'd sneak revealed meet up with the gang, and head to the party circuit. She remembered Mom Mabley hitting upon her. And she told me that her friend Frankie was in the same manner butch, she'd pay a Harlem tailor to enjoin fly fronts in her skirts. When I knew Loretta in the '80 she none missed a gay pride march. And she lov Wigstock.

I always curious aweed why Loretta hadn't gone for girls herself, until she told me about her best friend in high indoctrinate They'd fooled around some. They were crazy about each other. Then the girl's mother decided that something was "funny" and forbade her daughter perpetually to see Loretta again. Distraught, the girl committed suicide. When Loretta showed up at the funeral, this mother claimed she'd killed her daughter and kicked her gone out Funny, Loretta never fooled around with a woman again. moreover she always knew who the gay girls were and sought revealed their company and remained friends with them (and me) half a hundred years later.

When I base out that Loretta was dying, I raced for a plane to make it to the hospital in time. She instructed me to bring a photo of my fresh girlfriend, whom she'd never met "Good" she said, surveying the picture of my be enamoured of "You finally got it right." She gave me her blessing. She tricked us all into thinking she'd survive. "No scenes!" she said. The nearest day she died.

You behold I want monuments as plenteous as anyone does. Loretta's death has left a big concavity in my heart. So forgive me for wishing If These Walls Could Talk 2 had included a fourth story, the same in which the Ellen and Sharon and Chloe and Michelle characters could discover Vanessa at their corner bar, introduce her to their friends, and start carpooling to achieve her out at night.

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