dolly

I just finished reading Dolly Parton’s autobiography written in 1994- My Life and Other Unfinished Business. Whoa! It was definitely written by her- as soon as you read the first sentence it’s like hearing her voice in your head. She’s so weird.  She says the three most important things in her life are God, Music and Sex, and she touches on all of them on almost every page. She isn’t explicit with the sex stuff- but talks about it in a more hardy har har-elbow nudging-you know what I mean kind of way. Okay Dolly, we get it, you’re kind of slutty. Or not. I don’t know! I’m so confused.

I’d always known who Dolly was, who doesn’t I guess, right?  It was in college that I was really bitten by the Dolly bug. I was listening to campus radio late one night while cleaning and they played  ’Jolene’, and it was the best damn shit I’d ever heard in my whole life. I went and bought an old Dolly Parton album like the next day and was immediately hooked!!! It had all sort of goodies on it like Coat of Many Colours, My Tennesee Mountain Home, The Bargain Store, Love is Like a Butterfly, Touch Your Woman, and of course Jolene. My poor roommates. I can sing that album front to back, I used to blast it and tap dance around in my powder pink heels with the hand drawn o.k. on the  toes, best shoes ever, btw.

I was lucky to see her in concert at the Molson Amphitheatre about 5 years ago. With one of my college roommates,  cause she was hooked too!  It was amaaaazing. Best concert I’ve ever been to! Everything was bedazzled with pink crystals. Everything. Of course, she was wearing a skin tight sparkly gown. Her little anecdotes and rambles between songs were the funniest, cutest little blips ever. This one time, a fly got stuck to her lip gloss, and then she had to pick it off, and she said something really funny. Oh my god, love her! I think she’s from a different planet. Her other worldliness peaked during a song where she lipsynched/fake played a weird sparkly little flute.  I think we smiled and giggled the whole concert.

It just so happened that Dolly was featured on ’18 Kids and Counting’ on TLC last night. What a random coincidence. I actually secretly like that show and the Dugger family. They’re just so. . . nice. Dolly and the Duggers- that’s enough niceness to make a person trip out. I have a habit of smiling at the t.v when I am tickled by something I’m watching, and I usually don’t realize it. Dom always catches me and teases me for it.  He was sleeping, so I got to dork out all I wanted.  The Duggers were visiting Dollywood. Really, it was a big promotional thing for the Smoky Mountains and Pigeon Forge. It worked, I must go there. I need to ride the spinning glasses of lemonade in Dollywood.

So if you like Dolly Parton then you should read this book.  If it had been written by anyone else I probably wouldn’t have finished it.  But if you’re like me and you get happy anytime you see her, or hear about her, or think about her then you will probably be equally as happy reading it.   She never really says anything remotely juicy or detailed about anything. She is pretty defensive and high roaded about any negative aspects of her story, and overly appreciative and gushy about everything else.  She always refers to herself, in seriousness, as a star. I thought that being called a star was like being described as couture, you aren’t supposed to put the label on yourself. Not Dolly. She’s from a different time. Her humour is the folksy-old man-Rachel Ray kind of thing that would make me feel uncomfortable if it wasn’t coming from her.  But it was, so I accepted it, even laughed and shook my head a few times, “Oh, that Dolly.” Gotta love her!

Okay?

still got em