I love Prunella Porter, as well I should. I am she. She is me. Specifically, Prunella is one of my alter egos, my occasional avatar, a persona other than my usual day to day costume of personhood, my ninth or tenth me out of a range of possible masks to inhabit, one of my several faces of Eve. She is a spinster (she literally spins wool, among other things, including tales), she has a raucous though most often hidden sense of humor (unless you have very sharp ears, that is), she lives in New York City in a narrow, book filled railroad apartment that is rent-controlled (cheap!), whose previous occupant was a beloved if wildly eccentric aunt of hers (maybe, they might have made the blood connection up), she owns several cats she does not ever let outdoors onto the fire escape no matter how they howl and beg (nor should you), and she has a surprisingly (to you, dear reader, not to me) robust sex life, one that occasionally involves multiple other persons and the application of saran wrap.
PP is based on another fictional character, that of Jane Hathaway (remember her?), taken to a modern level, with a bunch of details (like sex parties and saran wrap) I have borrowed from the tidbits various persons have shared with me over the many years of my life, tidbits I stored up because can you believe this shit!! that woman right there goes to sex parties wrapped in saran wrap under her trench coat!!, and here we are getting it out of the memory bank finally and into the blogosphere, where such delicious details belong.
Prunella is a costume I wore for a time in New York City, when I worked mornings a couple of days a week for real money while writing part-time for part-time occasional speculative, fingers crossed money. Prunella was a tight-ass; Prunella got shit done. Although I suspect PP was in me from even before the time I played secretary as a child, a role I would vehemently refuse to play, ever, in real life (I would not, for example, apply myself in typing class because no, and fuck ever learning shorthand, are you kidding me, no, no, no), thus the adopted persona. Yet, Prunella was also informed by the many women I saw in that role, women who, not unlike Miss Hathaway, were smarter, more put together, and better at practically everything than their bosses and in this I am not referring to other TV shows, I am referring to real life. Miss Gavette, Mrs. Hyatt, Mrs. Lunn, Miss…You Name Her – you know her, if you think on it for a bit. You know her.
Prunella fully emerged, and was named, at Stockland-Martel shortly after I was hired to sub in for a friend who was doing the reception desk part-time. I was a landlord, already, and yes, writing, but having extra cash coming in was always a good thing, and why not? You never know who you might meet and what you might learn. It was a good fit for me at the time, the very late 1990s into the nascent 2000s; I liked and respected Bill Stockland and Maureen Martel, who were and I am sure still are funny, smart, good people in a crazy ass business in which they were both pros (just tried finding their website, no luck, hmmm). Looking at photographs a couple of half-days a week was also kinda great; I love me a good great photo, always have. Witnessing the occasional high- stakes high-jinks, listening in to agents advocating, cajoling, pushing, pulling, loving and hating on their talent and clients was highly entertaining. I am grateful I had the experience, and that Prunella was allowed to flower in a supportive environment (they didn’t know what the hell to make of me, quite frankly LOL). Being Prunella in that space allowed me some distance, and a lot of laughs, in my later thirties, from what I was doing to keep afloat, and where I was in my life; she also allowed me to ward off a few of the inevitably married male photogs who thought I would be grateful? Thrilled? Flattered? By their attentions. Not so much. They mistakenly assumed the phone voice belonged to an inexperienced twenty-something; coming into the office, they found a mah-toor woman who had been around the block, many times. Nope.
Ultimately, Bill and Mo fell in love with Prunella, and how can you blame them; she’s adorable! Plus, she was a finder of solutions to problems that they had to acknowledge no one else was willing to take on, for example: after a few months of watching and assisting with major mailings that went out to various ad agencies and the like, after which at least one third would come back, Prunella asked if she could puh-leeze clean up their grossly out-of-date, inaccurate mess of a database of agencies, names, and addresses, and they said oh, huh, good idea. Done.
Yet Prunella’s greatest triumph (other than simply existing, the fabulous creature) was perhaps even more mundane: the supply closet. The supply closet was a room, really, more than a closet, about twenty-five feet deep, and ten or more feet wide. Unfortunately, and much to Prunella’s dismay, one could only get into the supply closet to about three feet deep, at which point you were confronted by a hecking great obstacle course of boxes and other loose crap of varying sizes that went to great heights, having been dumped all over the place in a manner that was very much in the way, completely disorganized, and simply ridiculous. Ridiculous!! Mouth pursed, and buttocks clenched (not really but you get my drift), Prunella requested of Bill and Maureen that they please allow her to clean and clear out the supply closet as it was driving her absolutely nuts, and was an offense to her puritanical soul (puritanical in terms of organization, not the robust sex life). They said, yes, please, Prunella, do your thang, girl; an appropriate and wise response.
And so Pru got to work, and voila! It was beautiful. It was amazing. It was fun. We (Prunella requested and was given an intern as an assistant) found more than two dozen brand-new boxed staplers, multiple full, unopened cases of sugar and sugar substitute packets, thousands – literally thousands – of pens, pencils, and packaged notepads, too many post-it note packets to count and more and more and more of everything else in the needed to run a large busy office supply line. We also found old photo books and records that needed either to be stored in other and better spaces, or tossed. Soon, the room was ready for actual use; it was glorious, and it also saved money because they finally knew what they had on hand (a lot) instead of buying more of what they didn’t need. Not long after that, the company put it to even better use by turning the space into an office, creating monthly income. I always thought Prunella should’ve got a percentage of the rent on that space, but given she was not planning on being at S&M much longer, did she really want to be a part of the business beyond the superficial, to invest and commit, to get in on the action, to demand a piece? No, she did not. Still, I think of that room with pride, similar to having lanced a boil, I imagine, for the pimple popper doc, maybe (I watched that show once, but – way too gross for Miss Thing, way)?
One day a male intern at S&M asked Prunella Porter about children as they passed in the hallway; she was on her way to the bathroom, and he was being an impertinent little prick, asking her the question in this way: ‘you’re old, do you have kids?’ He was such a cute little smart-ass white boy, studying at SVA or NYU, in his early twenties, and of course I had an answer; one should always answer the questions of the young and necessarily dumb by virtue of their youth, no matter how impudent they’re being! ‘I don’t have kids, kid, but I’ve had two abortions; do you want to hear about those, because I’d be happy to tell you!?’ ‘What?! Ohmigod, no!!’ He ran away from me as if I had the plague, which I found both amusing and annoying, the little shite. Women, you see, are supposed to be ashamed of being both being sexual and of having abortions, which is nonsense, and Prunella isn’t having it, and nor should you. During those same years at S&M, which was located on Union Square, I was taking a writing workshop just a few blocks below 14th street, with a very hip chick I know to this day. Once, in a piece I wrote and read aloud to the group, I shared the story of skipping with joy down Second Avenue after having my first of two abortions, I was that happy, that relieved; hyperemesis gravidarum will do that to a girl. My still friend – a Harvard grad, professional writer, and sophisticated woman of the world – was horrified, shocked, ‘You skipped?! You skipped?’, ‘Well yes, yes I did’ – but again I was annoyed and amused. Please. Abortion is healthcare, period.
Prunella Porter – my friend, my ally, my other self, my possible better half – also appeared on a regular basis when I was a librarian because why not, she’s a hoot, and her stern, takes no bullshit approach came in handy at various points during that time, like with the stalker (crikey) and other miscreants, of which there are far too many in this broken, beautiful world. I don’t know if and when Prunella Porter will emerge once again, but how I love her, and if I need her, like a super power, she will be there. Her birthday is coming up; she’s a moody, volatile moon child like me (the photo below is really kinda dead on re: we wee Cancer babies); we might even have the same birth date!
