In Which Vivienne Reveals Her Cougar Nature.

Listen: there are things I am not proud of.

The top things on my list is this: I have a crush on Paul Kevin Jonas the Second.

Look, I know that this is not right.  I know that this is not right at all, in any way.  But their music is just so catchy!  So upbeat!  Such a positive message for the kids these days, and the kids these days really do need a positive message, don’t they?  He has luscious curly hair!  He performed on So You Think You Can Dance! Cat Deely loved him!  Loved him!  And Cat Deely is eleven years older than he is, which means that if I am only seven years older than he is, that’s not bad!  That’s not bad!  Right?

Look, the other thing is this: Vivienne doesn’t know how she feels about this whole cougar thing.  Vivienne means by this that she is excited that the older woman/younger man dynamic is being celebrated and appreciated, in some sense, but Vivienne at the same time also doesn’t know how she feels about all of the Fuss about this.  Take, for instance, this fact: were Vivienne to realize her sweet sweet dream of meeting Kevin Jonas backstage at So You Think You Can Dance? and taking him into her arms and — well, what have you.  Were Vivienne to realize this sweet sweet dream and begin a long and exciting and glamorous and Of Course Scandalous affair with Kevin Jonas, Vivienne would be labeled A Cougar, as she is seven years older than he.  Now, look.  Here is a brief list of how many years older than her Vivienne’s last boyfriends have been (I’m leaving that sentence.  So there.  Do what you will with it): 7, 6, 7, and 14.  Were these men labeled as Cougars?  No!  Did anyone even mention this difference in age?  No!  So why must Vivienne receive a label just because she wants to buy a Kevin Jonas-printed pillow so that she may rest her weary head upon his glory every night?  Why does this make her any different — any worse — than the man who was 13 when she was 6?

And now, Vivienne must stop thinking of Kevin Jonas’ glory and perform her writing assignment, inspired by section 3 of Ulysses.  And maybe, a little bit, by the thought of running her fingers through Kevin Jonas’ curls.

Sitting bluefurred and her chair highwheeled, she the great guardian of good morals, spouting no wine but grape juice no drinking nor dancing no smoking on Sundays no laundrybasket emptied then re-filled with clean no hands in the dishsoap no bubblegloved forearms the treelights asparkle and from the far kitchen’s corner a clink hidden, Merlot splashed between glass globeside and globeside.  The cousins’ children on legs unsteadied running foreheaded against table tops, the gravy boat spitting.  Small wooden squares of death walled and captured, memento mori those who one draped legs over chair legs and cursed the potatoes, laying their outpushed teeth on the tablecloth freshlaundered and lavendar scent.  The dogcorner, the cousin knelt there with bluevein outsticking, rubber belt in the truckbed, needle and shine.