05.04.01
I was surfing the channels on the big shiny box of love, when I stumbled across Biography: Martha Stewart. Oh, good lord jebus, I was transfixed.
Things I learned tonight:
1) Martha was in charge of her senior prom committee. That prom is still talked about to this day.
2) Martha dropped out of college at 19 to get married and be a housewife. She modeled to put her husband through school, and then continued to model to supplement their income while Andy was a novice lawyer.
3) I already knew that Martha was a hottie when she was younger, but DAMN, she was an ultra-hottie. She was modeling well up to her late 20's, when she had her daughter, Alexis.
4) Martha didn't go back to school until her mid-20's, and didn't have a career of any sort beyond modeling until she was 28, when she became a stockbroker. An ultra-ultra-successful stockbroker, pulling in a 6-figure income within a couple of years.
5) She and Andy gutted and restored the house on Turkey Hill that still maintains as a part-time residence.
6) She quit stockbroking when her husband got into publishing, so that she could be a full-time domestic goddess and mommy.
7) Martha catered the book launch for Brian Froud's Faeries. At this event, her husband's boss offered her a book deal. That's where the empire really began.
8) Her husband left her for her personal assistant, they had an exceptionally bitter divorce, and to this day they don't talk.
9) The only person in her family that she's really close to is her mother. Her sister actually cried on camera because she said that they really aren't close anymore, and she didn't think they'd ever regain the love and friendship that they used to share.
10) I don't think that she goes to bed at night feeling happy and loved. At the root of it all, she's one of those crazy old ladies living in a houseful of cats (and dogs, and chinchillas, and canaries, and chickens, and fish), because she's alienated everyone who might ever possibly give her the love she needs. Why else would she devote so much of her time to projecting the image of the consummate housekeeper, chef, craftsperson, and businesswoman?
Martha Stewart didn't get her shit together until she was my age, and she didn't really start meeting her lofty goals until she was close to my mom's age.
I don't feel so bad about being a college dropout that went back to school later than expected.
Sure, I'll graduate right before I turn 30, but at least I have my friends and family to love and support me.
Heck, I don't even own a fish, much less a small menagerie!
Perhaps there's still hope for me yet.
