Here's an interesting article about late-in-life career transition.  Of course, I know all about those.  When Ronnie finished being President, I transitioned from being First Lady/Queen of America to being just a beloved celebrity icon.

In OTHER news, I'm staying active and trying to keep in touch with friends, including President Obama (I found a picture of us standing in front of a picture of me -- the college beatniks of today would call this postmodern).  He's about to get inaugurated for the second time, so I called him with some advice -- DON'T TRUST ANYONE EXCEPT MICHELLE!

I feel sorry for those two, because they were never in show business, and I'm not really sure how people can be President and First Lady/American Royalty without any training in show business.

When I was in the White House, every day I would use my show business training -- once in show biz, always in show biz.  I remember one day when a charming troupe of Girl Scouts came to visit me so I could teach them not to do crack cocaine.  One of the poor girls threw up all over the silk upholstery on the chairs in the blue room.  I leaned over to her and said, "Don't worry, Rossalyn Carter picked out that fabric -- I never liked it, and now I get to change it!"

That's called comic timing!  Everyone laughed, the little Girl Scout was put at ease, and not one of the members of her troupe became addicted to crack cocaine or anything else except for achievement!

So, there you go -- good luck, Barack and Michelle.  If you ever need any show business advice, you know my number!

Well, this was sent to me by my dear friend, Cherry Jones. You people will know Cherry from her years on the television show 24 Hours -- she played the President opposite bad-boy Kiefer Sutherland. I first met Cherry when she was on Broadway in a play called "The Heiress." I was in New York at the time exploring the possibility of a broadway engagement playing Aunt Eller in a re-mount of "Oklahoma!" That sort of fizzled because while Aunt Eller is a sort of plain prairie homebody, I'm a very glamorous former First Lady/Queen of America. I would have loved to have done Broadway, but you know -- type casting.

Anyway, the Miles Davis article. I remember that night well. I really didn't know much about Miles, as Ronnie and I weren't big jazz fans. We liked to keep up with the times, so we were more into the wonderful new stadium concert rock music of the 1980's. It had been forever since I had even listened to my favorite Dizzy Gillespie albums, so it made total sense that I didn't recognize Miles and asked him what he had done.

When he said to me, "Well, I've changed the course of music five or six times. What have you done except fuck the president?" I of course did what any First Lady would do -- I smiled and pretended he had said, "I'm flattered to be here," and I said, "Of course you are!"

Miles looked very confused and was at a loss for rejoinder, and so I took the opportunity to move on to say hello to the very lovely Shirley Jones (pictured above).

I learned this non-sequitur defense from Judith Martin, Miss Manners of the Washington Post. It certainly worked on Miles who, after writing me a lovely 3 page apology on his personal stationary, was later invited to play his jazz trumpet at a private party for Ron Jr's very next birthday.

I like to win!

Poor Catherine Zeta!

Well, I only read People Magazine when I'm visiting my dear friend Kathy Griffin -- usually, I try to read Backstage or Variety so I can keep up with the showbiz news. Or, I'll plow through the Economist so that when one of my political friends calls me to get an endorsement or advice on dresses, I can be up on the issues.

But with Kathy, it's People and US Weekly and all the other trashy tabloid star magazines. She has such a wicked sense of humor -- luckily, we have an agreement that I won't ever be in her act, and in return, I won't have my Secret Service agents kill her! (ha ha, of course they won't do that -- they're such nice boys! But, what Kathy doesn't know. . .)

Anyhow, we're over at Kathy's house, and she's reading US Weekly, and I'm paging through People, and my goodness if I don't see that poor Catherine Zeta Jones has checked herself into a lunatic asylum, or whatever they're calling them these days.

Well, it was inevitable. You don't take a dirty little Welsh peasant and turn her into a movie star without there being some sort of consequences. I think we proved that with Vivian Leigh!

I'm rooting for Catherine. I had a cocktail party for her and Michael when they got married -- just a small affair, although I remember that Shannon Doherty and Bob Dole got into an argument about NAFTA, and I had to send them out to the garage with Larry King, who is wonderful at getting people to apologize to one another.

Anyhow, even then Catherine Zeta seemed wounded, but up for anything. Catherine, if you're reading this, remember -- being famous is better than being crazy, so get well and get back to work on the studio lot!

RIP Liz Taylor

I just had to post about the death of my dearest friend, Liz Taylor. We grew apart in later years, mostly because she was getting so fat. It's hard for fat women to be friends with attractive women like me. I remember watching Liz at the wrap party for "Whose Afraid of Virginia Wolf," downing one velvety ham sandwich after another, drinking a milkshake out of Rock Hudson's shoe, and pretending like the world would love her forever. That was 1966, the year that Ronnie was elected Governor of California. I remember looking at Liz and thinking, "This may be the peak of your showbiz career, Liz, but it's just the beginning of mine!"

Ronnie and Liz stopped talking because of the whole AIDS business. I like to think that despite that, Liz and I stayed friends to the end. Every year, on her birthday, I had a gallon of Haagen Daz shipped to her in dry ice. Because I loved her, I would always include a note: "Eat just a little bit at a time, Liz! There's LOTS of servings in here!! NO NEED TO EAT THE WHOLE GALLON ALL At ONCE!!!"

I like the picture I have here. It reminds me that even as Liz was getting fat, people still didn't mind being around her and showing her a good time.

Well, here it is November and I haven't posted anything since I made my New Year's Resolution to post more. Well, you can guess the kind of year I've been having! It all started when JD Salinger died in late January. He and I were, as you can guess, close friends. During my White House years I would often sneak away to his home in Cornish, New Hampshire to talk about books and Hinduism. JD had been such a student of celebrity, and it was always interesting to get his take on fame -- famous people often need to talk to other famous people about being famous -- to make sense of it all.

After JD died, I felt just an inch closer to being all alone in the world. So, I did what show business people always do when we feel lonely -- I started working on a show! Of course, I can't really ever doing anything for the public -- Once you've been Queen of America, there isn't really an act that can follow that. But, every once in a while, I get together with some of my Hollywood friends and we put on a little review for some of the seniors at the old folks home. We sing songs, we tell funny homosexual stories about Rock Hudson, and we do a really cute little thing where we get one of the nurses to do a blood pressure test on Don Rickles -- it kills every time!

The cast is always changing. This year, I was able to convince Joan Rivers to take over for Phyllis Diller. Phyllis was never Jewish, but you always thought of her as Jewish, because she was funny and sort of different looking. Joan actually is Jewish, so it's kind of an improvement!

Don was in it again, and his sort of mean humor was complimented by Jennifer Hudson's singing.

Of course, as usual, I was the skinniest and everyone's favorite. This year, the show was so popular that we just kept touring it all over California at different old folks homes -- we even bought an RV!

While we were going around, I got to see all of the different people campaigning in California, especially for the Senate and the Governor's office. Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina were always asking me for advice and help. I never gave it to them! I know, they were the Republicans, but I just couldn't see either of them winning in California. Californians want their Republicans to be the fun kind of Republicans, like Ronnie and I. Ronnie wanted to cut the budget, but he also wanted to go swimming in our pool in Los Angeles. Could you see Meg or Carly going swimming on their days off? No, you couldn't. It would be easier to imagine getting a jump start on balancing their checkbook, and that's not the kind of Republican that California likes!

And now we've got Jerry Brown. My lord, he was always throwing himself at me, trying to get me in bed. For years, he would corner me at Hollywood parties and tell me that I was the most beautiful woman in California, even when he was dating Linda Rondstadt. Poor Linda -- I am prettier than she is, but she can sing, and that sort of makes up for it.

Here's a picture of me as First Lady of California!

Is it too late to make a new year's resolution about my blog?

Well, I'm making a resolution to blog more. Just like last year, it's one of my two resolutions -- the other one is, as usual, to loose 10 pounds!

Haven't been up to much lately -- just the usual rounds of Hollywood parties with Hollywood people. I also joined a book club -- we're reading that new biography of Warren Beatty. Here's a picture of him at the White House. He brought Diane Keaton -- she's a weird one! I asked Warren to bring a girl, though, because I didn't want his visit to the White House to occasion any rumors about us -- Ronny did get jealous, even though he was always the only one for me!!!

It was funny, though, because right after this picture got taken of us talking, Warren put his arm around my waist. He was trying to make a move! But I said to him, "Warren, this is Washington, not Hollywood, and I'm married to the President. Now let's go look at the gingerbread White House in the State Dining Room! Come on, Diane!"

Summer Barbecue with All My Sister Friends!

Yikes! I haven't posted in quite a while. That's what happens in the summer, with all the attendant social commitments, mostly barbecues, most of them requiring you to get on a private jet to Lake Tahoe.

Now, I'm not a huge flying fan. Haven't been one since I was on my dear friend John Travolta's private jet and my dear friend Elizabeth Taylor got stuck in the doorway to the restroom. John heroically pried her out of the door frame, and she went flying across the cabin, hit the wall, and caused the jet to drop two hundred feet in a rush that was not unlike what Barbara Bush must have felt like the moment she realized poor George wouldn't win a second term.

Nonetheless, I've enjoyed the parties, especially the one I just returned from held by my dear friend Martina Navratilova. Every year, Martina throws a for-girls-only cookout/spa weekend in a secret location somewhere in the Bay Area. And I mean secret! She makes all of us girls meet at the airport, where we are greeted and shown on board a bus without windows -- very comfortably outfitted, but I always get a little stomach-upset because I can't see where we're going. It takes us to a private estate I don't know where. But boy, it's worth it! We all sit around in bathrobes laughing and chatting and eating spinach omelets, and then we go horseback riding! And the cast of characters is just wonderfully odd and fun -- Rosie O'Donnell, Billie Jean King, Ellen DeGeneres. . . . She used to bring that peculiar young woman, Anne Heche, but then the two of them had a falling out over something -- if I had to guess, I would guess it was over a man -- it always is! Anyway, we all chose Ellen over Anne. But then, didn't everyone?