Dark Lady: Fulcrum, Fulminator, Fabulous

Every Southern town has at least one pink or lavender cinderblock house on the outskirts of town with a Psychic Reader sign in the front yard. As a licensed psychotherapist, I always figured that would be my retirement plan. Now, I've fulfilled the first requirement, the retirement part, but I'm struggling with reincarnation to teller of fortunes. I can't quite manage to fit my own colorful mental image of Dark Lady. I worry that my hair is wrong.

From my friend JES, a novel in the works...

…and (the “she” in this passage a “reader of palms, of cards, of signs and portents and mysterious coincidences”):

“Things are coming to pass,” she went on. “Destructive things, but also wonderful things — literally wonderful: things full of wonder. Remember that wonders need not all be nice, Wayne. Some can be quite terrible. A dark comet colliding with the Earth is as much a wonder as a brilliant one passing in the night sky, hundreds of thousands of miles distant. But things, yes, wonders long in the making are coming to pass.

“At the heart of these things coming to pass stands a woman — perhaps more than one woman. Each woman a fulcrum, you see? A hinge about which a particular problem can be seen to swing.”

She closed her eyes but continued to speak, as though hypnagogically.

“She — or you, under her influence — must find an unexpected opening and cut into and through the problem. The woman will not be easily pleased, she may not accept at first what you are trying to accomplish, or how. You must not let her decide for you — the fulcrum, you see? she is not the lever itself – but you must attend to her. To get to the wonder, you see?”

(JES, Seems to Fit)

Cocktail parties were a always a challenge for me. Any new person you meet at a cocktail party, if accidentally and awkwardly left alone with you, will ask you what you do. No one is as comfortable asking that question of a woman now as they were in the seventies, before feminism hit its early stride, but no one has come up with a better ice breaker that I know of, either. If I answered honestly--I am a psychotherapist--I either got an earful of how the field is bullpucky and didn't help the Ex one bit, or else I was expected to comp an endless consultation while standing and imbibing alcohol, ankles ever a-swell.

I learned to lie slightly about my job. I'd tell my new cocktail party best friend (short half-life) that I was a Seer. Not too far off. Therapists talk about needing to hurry back from lunch to "see a client." We'll say, "Oh, yes, I saw him for about six months before he defeated me, felt satisfied, and pronounced himself cured." So, to strangers who asked, I'd say, "I'm a seer," and I'd give him or her the Look.

Here's an example of the Look:

Next, my favorite fortune teller movie. Great cast: Cate Blanchett, Keanu Reaves, Giovanni Ribisi,  Hillary Swank and The Bride of Dianetics.



And, finally, I think this is the image of The Dark Lady that I hold up as my ideal. I fall only slightly short of it, but still....



All the dark ladies of my imagining have portentous hair. Absolutely none of them have really short, sorta brindle cat-colored hair and incipient chin wattles. And they don't wear as many neutrals as I do. I think earrings are essential, but I've let my pierced ears grow shut from sheer laziness. About the only quality I've got nailed is the languid part. And the dress in this video? I've got one just like it, but more in my color range; that one's never going to Goodwill while I'm alive.

 Image-wise, I've got some work to do. Maybe extensions would help.