Dear Papillon,

Done shooting vid. for "Enchantress." Wiped. Woof!! Oh but you'd laugh. All the MTV standards: mansion, Lycra, spangles, fur, 25 ft anaconda. (HEAVY! 4 wranglers + massive tranquilizers, kept that creature doped!--SPCA would shit bricks.) Oh and 3 guys waxed/oiled (like sportscars!) to slipslide all over pretty me and pretend they want to eat me up. Funny they're all gayer than Liberace yet the Eyes of TV so easily believe. Amazing. We must be thankful for teens and middle-aged nurses and their lust for hetero glamour, which pays our precious phone bills, yes?

Speaking of phone bill, luvly Papillon-- let's cut it to 0. Honey you know what I mean: give up, come over, join me-- PLEASE! I miss you like Monsieur Mutt misses any kind of thrown ball. Minifridge is stocked with watercress, V8, your favorite reds, if appealing to your luvly belly will do any good.

YES I know, media schmedia, no privacy, my long hours, what the heck wd you do, etc. But we're the ones. We are. You know we are mansions, passion, glitter, all that but without cameras and fake oilyboys, AND we also eat tacos and fart and talk about nothing for hours and argue about old shit and get ancient together and love every minute. Remember Jersey Pier, remember you showed me everything real about life, remember the bugbites, remember I'm eternally grateful, remember we go so far back and so far down! Drop the distant royalty act Lady P., my love, fly your marvelous chest in its hi-buttoned Bean turtleneck sweater OVER HERE. Bring Mutt, bring a grudge, bring every one of your ridiculous tics and worries--you know I miss you. Don't call, don't write, just FLY.

YOURS--

LIA SHIVA

aka ole Jennine Parrish, your best girl

Greensleeves

Greensleeves was all my joy
Greensleeves was my delight,
Greensleeves was my heart of gold,
And who but my lady greensleeves.

Only she wore green, as did we, because of the siege. No fabric could come from the east or north, so we had but bolts and bolts of flags from the anniversary festival just past. My Polly's days were taken up, and her eyesight lost, in piecing that army of flags into jackets, trousers, and frocks. The dances beneath those flags of green stripe had been the last enjoyment for any of us, except the children, who played on through the siege, and of course my lord. Only a gilded heart, with gold-stopped eyes to match, would call her frocks a choice, a garland, a song.

My men were clothed all in green,
And they did ever wait on thee;
All this was gallant to be seen,
And yet thou wouldst not love me.

A golden heart he had, to be sure, but also I'd wager he loved the thing of her rather than the lady herself. The notion of love, of loving, of loving her. I've lost many a gamble, and so may be mistaken, but surely as moss and mold are that same blessed green, I know that his wasted love meant the loss of mine as well. Many a day my fellows and I spent fetching her this or that, and each of those days my fading Polly saw me not.