365 Days of Happy - Day 289

There was a time when I was obsessed with Lucille Ball. I asked for a complete set of I Love Lucy DVDs for Christmas one year (still have yet to receive them), I started wearing red lipstick like her, and I started obnoxiously yelling, 'Honey, I'm home!' to my boyfriend when I went over to his place, and I decided that I wanted to name one of my children Lucy. I even wrote about her in my creative writing class sophomore year. It's really stupid. Don't read it.

She’s adorable in a cartoon sort of way.  Her bright blue eyes are enormous, embellished with long, fake black eyelashes.  Her apple cheeks are rosy and shiny.  Her skin is enviable: smooth and clear like porcelain.  Her bubbly voice fills the air like music.  She is always either beaming or pouting, but in both cases her lips are always full and red.  I would imagine they are red, but she lives in a black and white world so her heart-shaped lips appear a dark grey.  I have never seen her hair down, not even when she goes dancing with her husband Ricky.  Her curly, feathery red hair is always pinned up, sometimes wrapped up beneath a patterned silk scarf.  She wears head wraps when she does house work.  Her hair is a reddish bronze color, a few shades lighter than the vibrant red lipstick she always wears. 

Sometimes she makes this face.  It’s a little ugly, which is incredible because how can a woman so beautiful make such an odd looking face?  Her eyes get really big and cartoonish and her mouth forms into this stern surprised pout, if you can imagine it, and she makes this face when she knows she has messed up, which is often.  Her life on screen is a joke and she can make any funny face you can think of.  A curious kind of comedienne.

In her prime, she had a slender body and slight hips.  Her arms and wrists are slim as well.  She usually doesn’t wear jewelry, or maybe I just don’t notice it when she does.  She wears her wedding ring and earrings and occasionally a necklace or bracelet but she likes to spend her money on other things she loves, such as chocolate or dresses.  She would sometimes go to the grocery store or the bank.  I’m sure the groceries in her bag were colorful and vibrant, but I could never tell because I only saw her life through a black and white filter.  She is a typical woman but she has spunk.  She is graceful but goofy at the same time.  She is hard headed but humble.  She is a stern business woman but a passionate lover.  She is a fascinating train wreck. 

It is true that men want to be with her, and women want to be her.

The first time I saw her was in the big black box that sat in the living room of my parent’s house.  There was a big, full heart, on it her curlicued heading, and then she appeared, sitting on the couch in the living room of her apartment.  I forgot about her for a few years but picked up interest a few weeks ago.  When I saw her again, I fell in love.  I loved her and I loved her life.  Her show was one of the most memorable to date, and she won four Emmy Awards and her face on a post stamp to prove it.

In the television, she lived in the 1950’s, so she was used to chivalrous men and shirt dresses that went down to the knee and low heeled pumps and just sitting on the davenport in her living room listening to rock and roll music.  She looked good in pearls and dresses with prominent collars and cuffs on the sleeves.  She lived in an apartment and had a milkman deliver her milk in glass bottles in a metal crate.  She had next door friends.  Her husband was at work most of the time so she had to fend for herself, being the clumsy housewife at home.  She was scatterbrained, which didn’t work the best for her.  Her frivolousness usually turned into a disaster and when her husband would return home from work she would cry, “Ricky!!” and he would come to her rescue like any good husband would do.  Those two.  They were madly in love.  They even got married in the year 1940 when she was 29.

She is beautiful.   She shines next to her husband Ricky, and that’s probably why they named the television show after her.  She is a doll.  She is a star.  She is hilarious when she tries to argue, adorable when she is herself, and admirable when she wins over everyone’s attention.  She is one tough cookie, and because of it she was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame.

She died from an aortic dissection, a tear in the wall of the aorta, which led to blood separating the aortic layers apart.  What a shame for such a beautiful, fiery red-haired woman to die.  Her big heart was the death of her.

She is rubies, she is roses.  She is Lucille Ball.