My Fair Lady

"My Aunt died of influenza, so they say," said the actress, who is not Audrey Hepburn and never will be, "but it is my belief that them she lived with done her in." You can't help but laugh, watching this girl slip into the character of Eliza Doolittle like a shoe (though the shoe doesn't fit the lady as well as it might, and her singing reminds me of nothing so much as a canary stuck in a vacuum cleaner -- a mixture of warbling and sucking air). "And what become of her new straw hat, which was to come to me?" Pregnant pause. "Somebody pinched it."

Daily Non-Sequitor: Has there ever been a more beautiful woman than Audrey Hepburn? Julie Andrews originated the role of Eliza Doolittle on Broadway, and fully expected to get the role when the smash hit musical was made into a movie -- she was seven different flavors of pissed off when they chose to give the role to young Audrey instead. Oh, how that must've rankled! Audrey Hepburn, who couldn't even sing, but had to mouth her musical numbers while a sort of pinch-voice subbed in (Marni Nixon, who had a career of providing the voice for tone deaf actresses during the golden age of musicals in Hollywood). I wonder if Julie Andrews asked the producers why they'd picked the dewy-eyed little twig over her, and what answer they gave. "Sorry, Miss Andrews, she's prettier than you are"?

Any relationship (romance-like or otherwise) is by necessity white space on a map, uncharted to those looking in from the outside. It needs to be that way -- the inside jokes are what makes it yours.

Thought: Maybe that's how we know relationships are truly dead, when we lose that white space. When whatever was between the two of you becomes common knowledge and fodder for the peanut gallery. I deleted a whole bunch of names off my buddy list last night, and all I felt was a casual disinterest as I did it -- one thing I've learned is that longing for people is most often longing for the past. You don't really want them, you want the you that used to be with them, the you that could be seen reflected in the mirror of their association.

Anyway, back on topic -- white space, inside jokes. A casual observer will notice that my mother and I are close, but how would they ever know that our favorite movie is My Fair Lady and that we fall into witchy cackles during the Ascot Races scene, when Eliza twists the usual small talk concerning weather and everybody's health into something darkly comic and hilarious? At Wolf Trap yesterday she and I spent the entire show trying not to burst into wild peals of laughter -- once or twice we even got shushed by the people in the box in front of us. Shushed. The indignity. My little sister was there with us, so it was three Reid women, dressed to the nines in skirts and fancy jewelry, sniggering like street urchins throughout the entire show.

Last night, for the first time, I was truly happy to be home.