A Day with Cookie

One year ago I saw a fabulous looking face on The AIDS Memorial account on Instagram (which is thee best IG account ever, but more on that in a later post). The woman's name was Cookie Mueller. I read her story and absolutely adored the last paragraph:

Reading this again I just feel a slight sense of relief, really. Everyone looks at death as something to be completely terrified of, when in truth, it's a freeness of all the material things and bullshit in the world that cause stress and worry. I often wonder what I would be like if I let go of my discontent with my weight, my face, my aging body, and just lived. I'd forgotten about this quote until a couple weeks ago when I was in Atomic Books in Baltimore and saw Chloé Griffin's Edgewise for sale. It was pricey (okay, it wasn't, it was just full price, as opposed to buying it discounted from Amazon) but I had to have it then and now. I ordered her book Walking Through Clear Water for myself for Christmas and it arrived today.

Today being November 10th, I woke up, reached for my phone, opened up Instagram and saw Miss Cookie's face again. This year's post came from her son and was honest and warm. Then before I got Zach I stopped to pick up my holds from the library and Multiple Maniacs had arrived. It was a full day of non-stop Cookie!

I don't know very much about her, but I'm looking forward to reading her book as well as Edgewise and learning a bit more about the woman behind the blonde tresses and fantastic eye makeup. I kinda get the feeling she was creative and outlandish and fun and maybe a little cray-cray. Definitely someone to which I can relate.

(if you are on Instagram, please check out @theaidsmemorial - it's a beautiful page.)