Ginny's Birthday
This year in honor of Ginny's birthday, April 4th, 1992, I'd like to share a very personal piece that I wrote for my final college assignment, a cabaret number. I remember when I first received the assignment, I immediately knew what it had to be, a tribute to Virginia Anne McDougal. It was an honor to speak and sing about her, and a joy to share someone so beautiful with a group of beautiful, talented people. I'll never forget leaving the stage to take my seat again in the audience and seeing Drew Arisco looking at me. He was the only other one in the room who knew Ginny. That was a special moment we shared, and anyone fortunate enough to know Ginny (or even to know of her) will understand why she is so important and so special. To her family, her friends and all her fans I say on this special day, may Ginny live forever.
Here it is...
"Virginia Anne McDougal is the funniest person I know. At 13, she was the best comedian to be sidekick to, always starting funny chants in the cafeteria and doing crazy voices out of nowhere. One time, she put a French fry in each nostril and we all had a field day taking pictures. I gotta find that picture. Another time, Ginny was afraid of my dog, the sweetest dog on the planet, so she ran circles around my house for twenty minutes screaming at the top of her lungs. You can imagine why he was barking and chasing her.
But the funniest moments are the ones I have on camera, the truly unscripted, candid moments of outbursts and funny faces, Ginny staring into the camera like a psycho. Yet, on the last day of school she cried to the camera telling me how much she loved me. Those are the moments that allow her to live in me forever in the deepest places of my heart.
When Ginny died, she was 16, a freak scuba diving accident, and this was the time when we all had MySpace pages. She was a huge Billy Joel fan and the day she passed, the song that was left playing there eternally was 'Only the Good Die Young.' You know, 'Come out, Virginia, don't let me wait, you Catholic girls start much to late. Aw, but sooner or later it comes down to fate. And I might as well be the one.' Maybe she liked that one because her name was in it. Maybe she really understood that song. But I like to think Ginny had a psychic, cosmic, bittersweet sense of humor.
You know something; this month is her 23rd birthday.
(Music plays)
She can kill with a smile.
She can wound with her eyes.
She can ruin your faith with her casual lies.
And she only reveals what she wants you to see.
She hides like a child, but she's always a woman to me.
Oh, she takes care of herself, she can wait if she wants, she's ahead of her time.
Oh, and she never gives out and she never gives in, she just changes her mind.
And she'll promise you more than the garden of Eden.
Then she'll carelessly cut you and laugh while you're bleedin'.
But she brings out the best and the worst you can be.
Blame it all on yourself cause she's always a woman to me.
(Hum)"
The song was "She's Always A Woman" by Billy Joel.
This also happens to be the week in which I am reorganizing all the crap I've accumulated since the first time I got a camera and friends. And look what I found.
We were thirteen years old.
We all thought that nickname was hilarious. Ginny even helped to make this photo possible.
Oh, and middle school prom with the gehls. Haha.