2003-09-28
12:21 p.m.

Broadmuda Triangle: Lila

Connect two points and you have a straight line. You can go from here to there, from A to B, from B to A. Ho hum�..built in predictability.

Add a third point and now you have something extraordinarily interesting. You have lines that bend, you have intersecting lines, and you have lines that enclose their own little three-sided universe. Connect three points and things get deliciously unpredictable.

I offer you my little three-sided universe for exploration. It turned out to be not so trim, but I took pains to accessorize it for you.

I sing in my car. Yes, I am one of those people. I even do a rockin� percussion accompaniment on the steering wheel. I love to sing. I need to sing. Sadly, I do not sing well. When I vocalize in NY, the dogs howl all the way to Pittsburgh. So the car is the only place I can sing out in full voice without suffering the winces, cringes, or cease and desist requests from others. My 5-speed is where I slide onto the leather, grab the stick and belt out the tunes that comprise the soundtrack of my life.

My memories past and future are, and always will be, punctuated by tunes and crooners. My affinity for words put to music started early. I can still sing all the words to the theme songs from Winky Dink, and Mighty Mouse, and the Buster Brown shoe commercial (�a boy and a dog and a foot in a shoe�) which were the first �pop� tunes I heard as a toddler. Then there is an odd hodgepodge of tan shoes with pink shoelaces, itsy bitsy yellow polka dot bikinis, one-eyed one-horned flying purple people-eaters and, for some reason, a little Besame Mucho. Surging adolescent hormones took me Up on the Roof and Under the Boardwalk.

In high school, I spent Friday nights with my girl friends crashing hot, sweaty college frat mixers (cain�t sing but I sho� can dance!) and acting like hussies to Devil With A Blue Dress On before taking the Soul Train to college with the Temptations, the Four Tops, Stevie Wonder�..and flying out of college having been waylaid and wasted by Cream, Vanilla Fudge, Jefferson Airplane (Aaaah, White Rabbit). My hips pistoned through graduate school with the Brothers Gibb, Maggie May and Abba before gliding down the aisle to Jefferson Starship�s Miracles (strange choice, I know, but we liked it).

And then there was some lovin� and losin� to tunes like Lovin� You (Minnie Riperton) and Midnight Blue (Melissa Manchester) among others.

And through the years, I could always set a mood with anything anytime with ma boys Johnny Mathis, Gene Pitney, Johnny Maestro, Dan Fogelberg, Willie Nelson and Bob Marley.

Fast forward to 2003 where I do more listening to NewsRadio in the car than singing.

Then one early spring night I�m puttering around with the TV on for background noise. It happened to be Seinfeld reruns on Fox5. I wasn�t really paying attention when Jerry and his cronies ended and the station segued into AI2. It was Caterwauling Kevin (you shoulda kept it in your car Kev!) that kept me from changing the channel. He was a hoot! And I really connected with his need to sing, even when you have a very bad voice.

Then a gorgeous gangly geek spilled like warm syrup onto the screen and sang his way into my life. A crooner. A man who could plumb passion all the way up from his 13 ��s (despite claims to the contrary, I�m not budging from that stat) and pour it into a song.

I could expound at length on Clay�s virtues, but I have to believe that if you are here reading this you can quote chapter and verse on his grace, generosity, intelligence, integrity, etc. So in the interest of keeping this triangle tight, I will just say that the more I saw of him the more I wanted to see.

Spring rolled into the Summer of Clay and my soundtrack for 2003 became all Clay, all the time, except for a little Shaggy now and then. Yep, it�s been me and that long swill of Southern Comfort gettin� it on and making beautiful music together in my car.

Each of the great lusts and loves of my life (so far) has been a lean, long-waisted man with a quick mind and a quicker tongue, salted with sarcasm. I have always had a weakness for a skinny man who can stir things up with his hipular motion and a snarky remark.

First there was *El*, my red-headed freckled high school swim team captain. His skin was so fair I swore I could see the fluids flowing through him. (Hey! All of you out there who have had a red-haired boy somewhere in your life, raise your hands!). Then there was *Eh* my first college beau- long torso, lean and snarky. He was followed by *Em* whose torso was several inches longer and who was quick with a quip. Oh, yeah, he was also a fancy dancer.

My first (and only other) searingly lecherous celebrity crush was the long-torsoed Frank Langella of 12 Chairs and Diary of a Mad Housewife vintage. When I saw him on Broadway in Dracula they needed solvent to separate me from the seat cushion.

Then of course, my Hubby - my RL Mr. Lova, the all time maestro of moan and sweat - who made me laugh, who let me sing, and who gleefully endorsed my lecherous nature until he left the corporal world way too early. The man was 6� tall, 145 lbs. Sound familiar?

And then along came long lean Clayton.

As he metamorphosed from talented geek to full bore Swivel-hipped Hotness, I transitioned from spontaneous smiling at the pleasure of hearing him sing to realizing I had moved into a different category of pleasure altogether. As the AI2 season progressed he showed me the salt & pepper of his sharp mind along with the sweetness of his soul. I started fantasizing. I started thinking hot, flushed thoughts.

By the time HRH sang �like a BOTW, I will lay me down�, my waters were, well, not exactly troubled but definitely agitated, and ready for bridging.

I took to the heretofore unexplored internet like a Pioneer Woman heading out into the Wilderness. I found His Royal Hotness� LWLHD demo CD on e-bay. My first e-bay experience ever. Now there were Clay tunes for the car�. and there were Oldies in there. He sang Oldies! Oldies! Oh my.

*CLICK* Points 1 and 2 connect. I am hooked.

Now I need to see SugarLipsClay in person, need to breathe the same air. Friends and family humor me, but they do not understand. Superfriend-M doesn�t �get� Clay but will support me in absolutely anything, so she agrees to go to an AI2 concert with me. Yay! By this time the shows at local venues have come and gone. But wait, there�s a concert in Albany in three days. M will drive to Albany with me. Yay! It�s Friday night. The show is Monday night. I find and win tickets on e-bay. Yippee! It�s Sunday night and since I am now doing daily Clay Aiken searches on e-bay I see front row seats pop up for the Albany concert. OMG!!! I �win� a second set of concert tickets (gulp!) because not getting those front row seats was never an option.

By post-concert Tuesday morning I am done to a turn. Cooked! Toasted, buttered and served on a plate. I am a sane successful mostly grown-up person. How can I be lusting after a boy? What�s wrong with me? I hitch up my Wilderness wagon and find downloads of all the other concerts. I burn CD�s with the birthday gift burner I insisted my brother get and install for me. I am learning how to save, manipulate and print pix from the internet. I start thinking I am mad, maybe an egg short of a dozen. And then I stumble across several references to Lecherous Broads for Clay Aiken. I even hear SugarLips mention them in an interview.

I do a search. There it is. I love the Main Page! Whoa! There�s another funny and smart Main Page the next day. I start clicking around the site and realize that the Guestbook is not someplace you register. It is a place where Wilderness wagons just like mine are circled! They even have a Ranch! It�s a place where the Broads are saying the things I am thinking and feeling but haven�t been focused enough to articulate. I read what is posted there and WHAM! I own it. I am not mad after all (well, let�s not nitpick). I AM A BROAD! I lurk for several weeks and am amazed and delighted by the humor, creativity, intelligence, generosity, lack of judgment, and copious amounts of love, lust and lechery that saturate the Purple Pages. I find my words and start posting.

*CLICK* Point three falls into place and I have entered The Broadmuda Triangle.

That is where I �live� now. I do not plan on relocating in the foreseeable future. I am proud to wear the Purple Tie Pin. My pilot light is on and I am ever-ready to heat things up. I have a bounce to my step and wear my lechery well. Men are smiling at me in elevators and at red lights. I am loving my Broadmuda Triangle, where the company is great and we Broads understand and value each other.

There is no way I, or anyone knowing me, would have predicted the journey I have taken these past months (is it really only seven?) with a crooner named Clayton. But I will tell you this. Since I now know I am not alone in enjoying Aiken-induced lechery, I predict that it won�t be long before men, a lot of men, will start sending thank-you notes to Mr. Clayton Holmes Aiken for turning up the home fires. The heat has only just begun to rise.

I have been thinking about maybe, just maybe, taking singing lessons so I can do justice to Clay when he and I drive around belting out the tunes that will continue the soundtrack of my life.

WATCH FOR ME, I'LL BE THE ONE PLAYING THE STEERING WHEEL.

-Broad Lila

To honor the rich history and tradition of LBFCA, a new series makes its way to our illustrious main page. "The Broadmuda Triangle" wants your Broadly (or Brudely) tale. Who are you? What makes YOU a Broad?

Send your story to Marie via email.