Monday again, and we're all about the inappropriate

My ode to the fabulous Eddie Izzard triggered some interesting emails from folk asking if I am turned on by cross-dressing.

Nope. I don't "get" it emotionally, by which I mean I don't do it (or have it done, um, "near me") and it doesn't turn me on, but it doesn't flip me out. I'm one of those people, the boring, cheerful ones who don't have a freak flag to fly, but wave at you as you hoist yours.

Your flag, I mean.

I had a neighbor friend who was quite into - well, I don't know what to call it and I don't want you to make fun of me for not knowing what to call it, but it was a subset of S&M. It involved leather and pain clubs and stage performances and gender bending and there was some reference to faux vampirism and who knows what else. I only listened with one ear because the titillation factor is fun at first, but eventually other people's naughty stuff gets dull and any lingering interest quickly fades when you are up three times a night with the baby and have to go play "Thomas The Tank Engine" again Right now, Mommy and please come wipe my bum!

So. I was grousing to Fetish Barbie at the playground about being mildly bored and depressed (see: bum wiping) and needing to feel more awake somehow, and said Fetish Barbie responded with an offer to take me with her to the Boston Fetish Fair.

Well, duh.

So, off we went, with the tacit understanding that I was there simply as a Writer, by which I meant a Snoop. She attended a lecture about something involving straps and I sat in the upper lobby, just people watching. And, yes, folks stood out in their collars and leather bits, but I was the only person who raised eyebrows, in my Lands End fleece and mom jeans, because context, my friends, is everything. I wished I looked slightly more fierce as I sat outside the room where people were learning about pony play. And when my friend was done with her lecture, I went down the mezzanine to meet her and came face-to-face with my elderly grandma neighbor, who was wearing bifocals, a tasteful sweater and a quite thick, leather, double-ringed slave collar.

.

I ran home as quick as my little vanilla legs could carry me, because that was simply too juicy to keep to myself. And Oh! I thought. She must be so upset that I saw her! Our eyes had met and it was one of those zing! movie "eye meets," where we both froze and stared, agog, and then I pivoted left and she pivoted right. I said to Fetish Barbie later something along the lines of She must be worried I'll tell the neighborhood. And Fetish Barbie rightly pointed out that she saw me there and probably thought I, too, had been an enthusiastic attendee, albeit with some fleece-and-clog Issues.

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I did not know that one of the original sins was Sadness. Do you suppose people were depressed way back, or was the sin more of a general moping? We have no electric light. We have no antibiotics. I have ticks. Dude, the Dark Ages suck.

The Vatican has updated the list of sins to be avoided (instead of relentlessly pursued, I suppose), and the ones to skirt include extreme wealth, genetic modification and drug-taking. A shame, really, because I am all about snorting the down off of gold-plated, cloned ducklings and no one is taking that away from me.

This is why I am not Catholic.