Blue Rue (Or, And Then There Was One)

I know the world is about to be hit by a tidal wave of grief and remembrance for the passing of Rue McClanahan (otherwise known as Tropical Storm Blanche - a powerful, wild, and wetly luscious blue period originating in South Florida). I was lucky enough to see her up close and personal two years ago at a benefit for the Trevor Project. Rue vamped it up onstage, reading from her (then-forthcoming) autobiography My First Five Husbands...And the Ones That Got Away. She, like her alter-ego Blanche Devereaux, was a true broad.

One of my favorite Blanche ditties:

BLANCHE: Oh, the rain...it reminds me of my first kiss.

DOROTHY: Your first kiss was in the rain?

BLANCHE: No...it was in the shower.

Fuck Sex and the City and those perimenopausal wannabes. Here's to the memory of a woman (and a show) who sexualized the pants and panties off of senior citizenship at a time when our culture was mortified of sex in any form. If only each of us can grow old that vigorously.