Why Don't I Just Wear a Sign that Says, "Too Ugly to Live?"

You have done some good work, Dorothy. But, not enough people like you.

I've been in 7852 conversations about who the best Golden Girl is, who is the favorite golden girl , who is the wisest Golden Girl, etc. So many say Dorothy Zbornak. They say it because Dorothy's wit is acerbic and smart. Being in the blow back of a Dorothy insult feels alive and the recipient is ready to create their own Dorothy: their own blow back, and their own piece of the cheesecake - even if just for a moment in time while resuming back to their Rose or their Blanche.

But, no one actually likes all of Dorothy. Dorothy is the last to have the date. Dorothy looks like Fess Parker. Dorothy is the one that has the fewest friends and the most painful stories about love, risk and vulnerability. Dorothy is the one that is the butt of the jokes about everything - but intellect and morality (except for sleeping with that married guy. Even Dorothy gets the blues). She is the subject of ridicule in group therapy. She is the bulldog and the battleaxe that is fun for everyone else on their terms - because of what they can take from her and make their own. When the fun is over, she is back to being the annoying piece of logic and the bummer voice of reason.

Everyone needs Dorothy to feel safe and smart until they don't need her to ruin their good time. Even Sophia needs Dorothy - and we'd all like to think that Sophia's holds the tome of the wisdom of the ages in her straw handbag.

Dorothy is exhausting. And you know what? I'll bet Dorothy was exhausted to be Dorothy sometimes. The realities of Dorothy's life are daunting but she manages to find the things to risk herself for, the strength to deal with the inevitabilities of children, parents, siblings and friends and the poise to peek in with vulnerability. At least, Susan Harris makes it feel that way.

"Things happened"? You're damn right things happened. Thirty-eight years happened. Thirty-eight years of sharing and crying and dreaming and fighting and loving and children and diapers and...school plays and little league and worrying if you'd get through your gallbladder surgery and wondering if I'd get through another Sunday dinner at your mother's house. And the lean years when the business failed, and the good years and the happy Christmases. All those things happened Stanley and because they did I deserved better than a stinking phone call from my husband's legal representative. You had a choice Stanley and you took the easy way out and it was a rotten thing to do! But now you're here in front of me and you can't run away. And I finally get to have what you tried to cheat me out of. I finally get to say "Goodbye, Stanley".

Dorothy left the house in Miami when Bea Arthur saw the inevitability of The Golden Girls' longevity. The Golden Palace continued, but no one really felt the same level of cohesion or ease. After that, Dorothy was just the idea of Dorothy - away in Atlanta...having finally found the passionate love that felt so redemptive after the complicated life of Stanley Zbornak. There is happiness for Dorothy (even though the story lines feels like the writing "jumped the shark.") but it does not come without more sadness for ourselves at her absence and the innate knowing that what was magical is now mundane: there is such a thing as too much of a good time.

Every person of a certain age or possessing a modicum of queerness finds themselves posed with the question about what Golden Girl they embody. They find, as Lazlo the Hungarian sculptor did, that all of them have the something that becomes an essential piece of the ideal of the woman of a certain age. I can venture that those that resonate with Dorothy know that they do. It is my fondest wish, though, is that they understand the power they possess rather than just the level of imposed likeability they endure.

Being the linchpin is profound and magical in the best way.