Frilly Sanctum

What Does It Mean To Be FRILLY WITH TRUE GRIT?

Frilly Meditations

Dressing Frilly

How To Deal With Insects

Icons of Frilliness

What Does It Mean To Be FRILLY WITH TRUE GRIT?

Being frilly with true grit, or just "frilly" for short, is like being Scarlett O'Hara - or Rhett Butler, for that matter. This is not to say that frilliness is simply about being coy, helpless, shallow, superficial, irrelevant and impertinent. Rather, it's to say that frilliness is about being coy, helpless, shallow, superficial, irrelevant and impertinent while actually getting things done effectively at the very same time.

For you see, frilliness has everything to do with sitting around in big pouffy dresses and getting boys to fetch lemonade for you one moment, and then planting crops with your bare hands the next. Or saying insouciantly, but resoundingly meaningfully, "My pet, the world can forgive practically anything except people who mind their own business." (Margaret Mitchell's Rhett, FYI)

Another wonderful example of frilliness is Amy Heckerling's Cher in the film Clueless. Cher is prima. She wields the ordinary makeover like a weapon, using fashion sense and self-help books to positively transform the soul. She, by the way, refuses to mind her own business and makes appearance enhancements not only to herself but to others as well. Always lighthearted, Cher nevertheless pauses to savor the melodrama. She wears blush, but never applies it with a heavy hand.

Barbie^TM is also incredibly frilly and filled with true grit. She's a dentist, a pilot, an Olympic gymnast, a teacher...and she has a dream house, a dream car, and a huge dream wardrobe.

And, of course, there is always Nick Charles of the Thin Man films, who can hear the martini shaker from miles away but never fails to work out the murder mystery.

In summary, frilliness with true grit is about being the salt of the earth but not letting that get in the way of any truly pleasing fluffiness and apparently high-maintenance qualities. It is an enlightened state of being.

Frilly Meditations

The Frilly Meditations are for clearing the mind and heart, for lightening the soul. Or in other words, they are for creating an empty head.

How to Meditate

Repeat or contemplate the Meditations whenever, either silently or aloud.

The Frilly Meditations

• "I'll think about it tomorrow." - à la Scarlett O'Hara.

• "Frankly, Scarlett, I don't give a damn." - à la Rhett Butler. Or alternatively you can try, à la Honey Treetot, "I really just don't care."

• "I never did mind about the little things." - à la that Bridget Fonda character from the film where she plays a finishing school assassin.

• "Whatever." - à la Cher. When saying this, try making the W sign with your fingers also - gesture meditation!

• "Not my problem." - à la Honey Treetot.

And, finally, the Frilly Creed...

"It is better to be shallow and well-adjusted, than deeply pathetic."

Dressing Frilly

Some all-purpose tips for creating the right image:

• Don't wear trousers without having a matching jacket.
• Wear small, discreet, button earrings or "sleepers." Or really, anything but chandelier earrings during the daytime.
• If you are male, don't wear button earrings in both ears.
• If you are female, make sure all the jewelry you are wearing forms a matching set.
• Don't wear open-toe shoes in the office.
• Don't wear sleeveless in the office.
• If you are male, don't wear brown suits.
• Never wear t-shirts with big logos on them.
• If you are over age 12, don't wear caps - unless A) you are doing some athletic, physically laborious activity outside B) are a farmer and  your cap is a baseball cap that says "John Deere" or "Cat" on it, in which case you would probably be heavily involved in outside physical labor anyway.
• Don't wear hard plastic - unless it is a hard hat and you are on an industrial or construction site.
• Don't wear vinyl or rubber - unless the rubber is on the bottom of your athletic shoes or work boots.
• Don't wear fanny packs.
• Don't ever wear spandex - unless you are an Olympic athlete.

How To Deal With Insects

Your response to insects as a frilly person should really depend on the situation you are in. Following are the basic insect scenarios and the procedures for dealing with them.

1. You are female and you are with your brother:
   • Shriek.
   • Say in a high-pitched, frantic voice, "There's a bug! Take it away!"
2. You are male and you are with your sister:
   • Exclaim, "Good heavens! A bug! Something really ought to be done about this place."
   • Resume what you were doing.
3. You are male or female and you are with your sibling, who is of the same sex as you:
   • Say in an excited voice, "Hey! There's a bug! I think you should eat it!"
4. You are with your boss, a colleague, or an acquaintance whom you are not close friends with:
   • Take the bug away yourself, calmly.
5. You are with a close friend:
   • Shriek.
   • Say in a high-pitched, frantic voice, "There's a bug! Take it away!"
6. You are rich or are in a restaurant or are on an airplane:
   • Shriek.
   • Call for the servants, waiter/waitress, flight attendant.
   • Inform the attendant of the bug.
   • Confirm that you did not eat it.
   • Have the offending dish removed.

Icons of Frilliness

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