Ask Miss Gala

by Nikita Weymann on July 25th, 2015

AskMissGala
Galatea Monday resides corporeally in New Toulouse Bayou with her bulldog Al Capone, loads of books, and a few spirits. She also owns and operates the Haunted Jellyfish, New Toulouse’s premiere ghost gallery and studio.

Send your questions to Miss Gala by mailing or dropping a note into the mailbox at our headquarters.

Dear Miss Gala,

A girl of 15 is consulting you about something that seems very strange to her. We have boarders which are all good friends to us. The boys have learned me how to dance right here in my home. Now when I am a full-fledged dancer, I want to go out to private dances with my two big sisters, but my parents won’t let me.

Now, Miss Gala, don’t you think this is my parents’ mistake? When the boys were learning me, they never said anything, but now when I want to go to dances they won’t let me. They should have stopped me at first so I wouldn’t get the desire of going to dances. Don’t you think so? Now I love dancing and I can hardly keep away. So please send the answer as soon as you can. I will show it to them all whether you are on my side or not.

—Eager to Know

Dear Eager,

The great philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once said that “we should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once,” and who are we to argue?

Surely, if a great modernist like Fritz thinks dancing is crucial (and his life spanned the Victorian Age!), then how can it be denied?

All of the great thinkers have rhapsodized on the importance of dance! Even the great poet Baudelaire said that dance is “poetry with arms and legs.”

So just tell them that you do not wish to waste a day in which you are not creating poetry!

If that doesn’t work, just tell them you’re going to the library.

Bonne chance!
Miss Gala


Dear Miss Gala,

What is the correct way to wear perfume?

Signed,
Not a whore!

Dear Lady,

Scent not only can create heat, but it likes it too. So dab some on the warm spots of your wrists, behind your ears, between your breasts, and behind your knees.

And slap anyone who uses that nasty W-word.

Chaleureusement,

Miss Gala


Dear Miss Gala,

I am a young married woman. While I have the best of husbands and comforts that really make life worth while, I find it is a vary narrow existence. I am very fond of reading and I also find pleasure in writing; but still there seems a lingering vacancy. It has always been my hope to advance in this world, and being married seems to retard my progress. Why it should is more than I can understand. My husband is certainly not a detriment nor a drag in any way. I am not restricted, and the thought makes me very unhappy that possibly I am unappreciative. Whether the fault lies in my inability to grasp the situation is yet another question I ask myself over and over again. I am not a dreamer. I do not crave luxury in any form. The thing I would like most of all would come in the shape of advice or to have someone suggest the feature which is so sadly lacking. Surely there is some way of aiding a perfectly level head and an equally broad mind.

—Interested

Dear Interested,

This is a very common lament in our gender. The reason can be found in a metaphor that is unfortunately very common in Western painting: ladies with parrots. The parrot is an exotic and beautiful bird with many charms and gifts. She can be trained to speak in the way of her masters; she’s usually colorful and lovely to look at and play with, but she is a bird, and no matter how elaborate the cage and glimmering its gilded bars, that bird is still captive and unable to spread her wings and do what she does naturally and instinctively—fly.

There is no shame in longing to create a full and happy life for yourself. The shame is in the culture that demands that you are nothing more than a pretty parrot who should appreciate her bejeweled cage. It is clear that you do appreciate your home and your husband, and he sounds like a good, supportive man, as you describe him.

Many of our kind have explored these feelings, which led to ideas, which led to fulfillment and even adventure in some cases.

You said that you love to read and write. I will suggest Madame George Sand to you, then. Read her journals, and learn about her life. Also, the painter Rosa Bonheur. If you can travel, go to Paris and see her paintings. Explore the work of Mary Shelley and Jane Austen, George Elliot and the Sisters Brontë. Seek out the more obscure work of Artemisia Gentileschi and Maria Edgeworth. Read “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and by all means, indulge in the work of our own Kate Chopin.

I am confident that these sisters will help you find your way.

The most important thing you can do for yourself, in addition to all of that reading, is to seek out the counsel and friendship of other women and to be supportive of and true to one another. Not only is there comfort in true sorority, but there is also wisdom.

Ta soeur,
Galatea


Dear Miss Gala,

What is the best way to kill those dang zombies in Bayou? It’s getting so I can’t even garden without fear of being bitten!

Signed,
Zombie Hater

Dear Hater,

There are some sawed-off shotguns just for this purpose down at the Bayou train depot. Grab one, and make yourself a zombie shooting gallery. Just take care not to shoot your neighbors.

Chaleureusement,

Miss Gala

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