Salon.com > Sloane Crosley

My proud little Siamese freak show

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 00:25:00 +0000

My sister once told me that no one good was born on her birthday. She said this as casually as you and I might recite the last four digits of our Social Security numbers, as if it were an indisputable and long-standing fact. By "good" she meant "famous" because that was the nature of our conversation.

"That can't be true," I protested, in a mock effort to find fault with an argument that didn't matter either way.

"I think one of the guys from Chicago has my same birthday."

"Oh. That is desperate."

"Well," she sighed dramatically, "not all of us can have Martha."

Oh yes, that's right. The Queen of Crafts herself, Martha Stewart, and I have the same birthday. I prefer to think it's the glue-gun wielding, perfect-tart-producing Martha and not the copper pan-throwing, jail-going Martha. But I suppose if I am going to share a calendar square with some of Martha, I have to share it with all of Martha. Our immediate neighbors to the past and future are crafty as well (see also: Yves Saint Laurent, Andy Warhol). I'm not sure when God set aside those seven days to create the world, but from a decoration standpoint, it was probably the first week of August. But despite all this general creativity floating about, it is Martha and Martha alone in whose perfectly stenciled shadow I live my life. And my tributes to her have been, in a word, poor.

The best-laid plans

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 10:44:00 +0000

The second I was old enough to know what sex was, I knew I wanted to have a one-night stand. To me, it seemed the most deviant, cool, subversive and flat-out dirty thing there was. I wanted to do it immediately. Largely because I had no idea what it entailed. I figured a one-night stand happened when two people, one of whom was a woman, went to a man's apartment for martinis and stood on the bed the entire time, trying not to spill them. Sometimes they bounced on the bed until they hit their heads on the ceiling, and that's how the girl (a) passed out or (b) knew it was time to go home. This accounted for the sound of mattress springs creaking as well as any exhaustion the next morning. It was how hair became tousled. It also accounted for a very specific image I had, one of a woman in a silk teddy seen from behind. She's facing a window and it's probably nighttime. We zoom in on her hip, where she is resting her expensively manicured hand, with a pair of red sling-back stilettos hooked on her pinkie. Like a few notes of a song stuck in my head, that's all I got. I don't know who or where this woman is, only that between all the drinking and the bed bouncing and the near-concussion getting, the heels had come off. That explained why there was a lot of morning-after tiptoeing in movies and why no one ever had sex with their shoes on -- it would puncture the mattress and twist the ankle.

Lost in space

Thu, 09 Aug 2007 11:21:00 +0000

Things were better during my genius years. I was about 18 months old when my mother found me in the living room with a pile of building blocks -- counting and spelling as I stacked them. She called a medical professional. My mother told the doctor of my wunderkind rate of development and he suggested she bring me in immediately. Tests were done. Psychologists were consulted. Special schools were researched. Should I be put in genius kid school? Should I skip a grade? Two? Better wait six months and see if she "evens out," said the doctor.

He was right. While my parents continued to overzealously ply me with brain food and flash cards, a healthy case of the stupids kicked in, offsetting my projected brilliance. By age 6 I was just like every other kid. Maybe a little bright, but nothing to necessitate a lampshade. I also wet my bed and habitually banged my head so hard against the wall while I slept that my parents installed padding. I was out of the woods.