As a Christmas present this year, Emily and Megan carried Kitty and me to see “A John Waters’ Christmas” at Soundstage in Baltimore. We sat at the second row of tables by the stage. What a fine time we had at the feet of a genius! He was wonderful — smutty, perceptive, acidic — you know — warm in a Polyester/Hairspray sorta way.

I’m a John Waters fan from WAY back. That famous pencil-thin mustache is today at least partially pencilled as hair colors begin to senior out to white. At the beginning of the show he tossed two red pencils into the crowd. I thought a guy a table or two over caught the one coming in our direction. I even thought I heard something roll around on the floor, but spotted nothing when I looked down around my chair.

As we are gathering ourselves to leave, Kitty dropped her glasses. I scrunched under the table to get them and picked up the short pencil that lay beside them. Only a couple of minutes later do we realize that it’s a Velvet Black Maybelline eye pencil, not Kitty’s — but, John Waters’ standard carry — Velvet Black...

Gosh, I’m one lucky SOB...

Merry Christmas and all those other solstice celebrations cultures enjoy. It’s a lovely time of year.