Last Woman Standing

You know, I'm not going to write about Michael anymore. I was thinking about it yesterday, and I realized that Michael, Ronnie and I were the three 1980's icons who really mattered. And now there's only one of us left. And you know, it makes me lonely.

But I'm a Hollywood person, so I don't just sit and stew in my grief. I get out there and mix it up! That's why this afternoon, I'm going to go out with some young show business people. Drew Berrymore and Cameryn Manheim are on their way over right now and we're going to go see that new movie, Away With Me, and then go get cosmos!

Black People Loved Michael

At the public pool where I swim my laps, Michael's music was playing this morning and because it's a public pool most of the people there are black and a lot of them are children. And even though these children probably didn't grow up with Michael's music -- they probably grew up with rap and roll, not rock and roll like Michael sang -- the music seemed to mean so much to them -- they danced and sang along, and they seemed like such happy black children, which you don't always see, although you see it more nowadays thanks in small part to my Stop the Madness Say No To Drugs Campaign -- I'm sorry, I hate to brag, but all the studies say it's true.

Now, of course, the music meant a lot to me, but that's because I'm a famous person so I knew Michael. But that's not true for all white poeple, and it made me wonder. It really made me wonder.

(PS: a commenter asked if that picture of me with Michael was real. Of course it was real! I know I make a lot of collages, but I'm not that good! Michael came to the White House in 1984. . . I think Michael Deaver invited him so the young people would vote for Ronnie. It must have worked, because we won! Maybe Barbara Bush should have thought of something like that!)

(PPS: In case you are wondering, the photo in this post is real, too!)

Michael

Well, I guess you were all waiting for me to write something about Michael Jackson.

At first I didn't want to pile on, but. . . well, I did know Michael, and I'm also a Hollywood person, so I think I know a little bit about who he really was behind all of his celebrity.

I always thought of Michael as a mix of Judy Garland, Liberace and Sidney Poitier. Judy because they were both vulnerable and damaged, Liberace because they both wore such fabulous outfits, and Sidney because they were both black. But then Michael became less like Sidney Poitier and more like Omar Sharif. Sort of like a person who you look at and say, Oh, I remember you being browner than you are. I always said that about Omar, because I knew he was an Arab. I would go to dinner parties, thinking of Omar as probably three or four shades darker than he was, and I'd get there and he'd be white, just like Michael.

Anyway, Michael came to visit Ronnie and I in the White House. He was so nice and friendly, and we had lots of things in common. For instance, we were all Hollywood people, so we could talk about being famous stars. And Michael and Ronnie talked about monkeys, because after all Ronnie had been in a movie with a monkey, and Michael was already thinking about getting a monkey for a pet. Ronnie told him to go with it, because Bonzo had been such wonderful company, certainly a better co-star than Doris Day ever was*. It was only a year later that Michael adopted Bubbles.

I was always glad that Ronnie started getting forgetful around the same time when Michael was being accused of all those terrible things -- Ronnie would have been so angry, just like he got angry when the world made Mickey Rooney fat.

Well, goodbye Michael. Now I'm going to have to call my dear friend Liz Taylor. She is devastated I'm sure and probably knee deep in a gallon of ice cream.

* Doris was just about as smart as you would have thought! Let's put it this way, you never had to paint a line on the floor from the dressing room to the set so Bonzo could find his way around the studio!

(PS: I was going to make another photo collage because there are so many pictures of me and Michael, but then this one seemed appropriate because it's just the two of us and we both sort of look wistful and sort of like we're thinking, "We're both mega-celebrities I wonder what the future holds for us both?" I guess they're right, less can be more.)

Grocery Shopping

Well, Trader Joe's was hell, once again.

When this place used to be the Southern California that I romped all over with Ginger Rogers, whom we all used to call Troll before she gained all that weight and it became not so funny. . . anyway, during the golden years of Hollywood, big magical grapefruits and ham sandwiches so luscious you could use them to bribe a sultan just carpeted the tables and you could eat like a Maharani without even thinking twice about it. Of course, I never ate anything but the grapefruits, but even they were just as glorious and glamorous and red and sweet as anything you could ever hope would pass over your tongue. I remember a party at Mr. Mayer's house -- he had hired 75 young Oriental girls in Geisha dress to stand behind our chairs and spoon feed us the most incredible meal -- wild duck soup, imported Elephant steaks, something that Clark Gable told me was made of monkey -- all of it served on china that once belonged to a Tsar.

And now we have to just fight our way through the aisles of dirty little specialty groceries for a tiny crock of Greek yoghurt and a bag of turkey jurkey.

Of course, I blame myself, and I blame Ronnie. I think that when we left for Washington in 1980, we just up and took all the glamour with us, and it didn't survive in Washington, try as we might to keep it going.

(PS: That's a picture of me with the China I bought for the White House. They gave me hell for the expense even though what I found when I got there was a bunch of ticky-tacky-mismatch, and that'll give you an idea of how hard it was to live glamourously in Washington. It was like being given all the orchids in the hot house and being told to use them to decorate the ice-skating pond and keep them alive out there! I just thought of that metaphor, and boy, it is apt!)

Why Ronnie Never Slept Around

Well, I should think the answer is obvious! I never let myself get fat! We were Hollywood people, and so self-discipline was second nature to us. There was an unspoken agreement -- I didn't turn into a blimp like my dear friend Debbie Reynolds, and he didn't wander sexually. Sure, this meant that I've lived hungry for more than half my life, but Ronnie was worth every minute of it! I bet you Debbie would trade all those lonely nights snuggled up with a pint of Hagen Daz for the experience of having been first lady for the most stunningly attractive President this country has ever had!

I wish I could find the wife of this Governor Sanders and tell her what Billie Holiday once told me: "Lose some weight! You're a white woman, for God's sakes!"

(ps: look how BIG Debbie is!!!)

It was good being queen!

Well, Michelle Obama must be taking my advice! Here's a lovely story about her becoming friends with Queen Elizabeth. Now, Ronnie was always such good friends with Margaret Thatcher. Well, I thought Margaret Thatcher was about as charming as a mouthfull of Shirley McClain's bathwater, but it didn't really matter, because when we would go to England, I would just spend my time with her Majesty. I told Michelle that she had better do the same, because let me tell you, the Queen has been there and done that! She can tell you everything you need to know about being first lady, because let's face it, the first lady is the Queen of America. I've always thought that, but it's only now that no one pays attention to me that I can actually say it. Queen queen queen, I was the queen! If I could peel you like a grape, god himself would call it just -- that's from a movie about Eleanor of Aquataine. . . she wasn't a queen, but Katherine Hepburn played here in the film, and Katherine Hepburn was every bit as much of a queen as anyone else I ever knew. You know, I'm just a show biz person at heart!

So anyway, good job, Michelle!

(By the way, I made another collage! That's not really Ronnie and it's not really Mrs. Thatcher -- I found a picture of their wax statues! Isn't that a stitch!)

Going to a Hollywood Party

Well, tonight I'm going to a Hollywood party. You know, with people like Milton Berle, although he's dead. So he won't be there, But people like him will be. The person hosting it is Meg Ryan. I vaguely remember her from some frothy little film where she falls in and out of love with that nice Jewish comedian -- Billy something. I couldn't really follow the movie because it was the first year after Ronnie's presidency and I was absolutely obsessed with co-authoring my memoirs, "My Turn: The Memoirs of Nancy Reagan." Everything in every movie that I saw just made me think of something else I didn't want to leave out! Like when Meg Ryan did that scene where she pretended to have the orgasm in the ethnic deli, all I could think was, "Oh, Nancy, don't forget to write about the air traffic controllers' strike.

That's a picture of me with Cher. Maybe she'll be at the Party!