Diane Laney Fitzpatrick

Writer, blogger, author and humorist

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Let It Be, And I’m Not Kidding Around

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Paul McCartney’s story about how he came up with the lyrics to Let It Be had everyone in the country in tears. As he told James Corden on Carpool Karaoke recently, he was worried about the future and during a fitful night’s sleep, he dreamed of his late mother, who told him to just let it be. Paul dropped that bombshell and then cracked a joke about wearing a mustache disguise. And that episode of Carpool Karaoke became an overnight sensation.

“I laughed!” everyone said.

“I cried!” other people said.

“I got a stress headache and my IBS flared up!” I said.

Aaaaand the room falls silent.

I’m not the only one who becomes anxious when hearing a song whose lyrics literally translate to Don’t Be Anxious. I am guessing the other members of the 1974 Hubbard High School A’ Capella Choir have the same reaction.

The choir director at my high school during my freshman and sophomore years was Mr. Pat. I’m not going to use his real, full name because I understand he owns a lot of guns now. But even when a conductor’s baton and a gradebook were his most lethal weapons, he was the scariest teacher we loved. [Read more…] about Let It Be, And I’m Not Kidding Around

A Life of Crime Is Not For Me

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My husband and I were in a hotel recently and I was forced into a life of crime, once again reminded that I would make a terrible bad guy.

Housekeeping forgot to replenish our shampoo and conditioner one morning, and we were running low. Making a request would have required a phone call down to the hotel desk, which I despise. Calling down to the desk makes me feel like Eloise’s mother. I am barely comfortable having other people make my bed; Being the lady who picks up the phone and says, “Hello, this is Mrs. Fitzpatrick in Room 712” may as well just continue with “I’d like my peeled grapes brought up immediately. And could James bring the Rolls around. I’m luncheoning with Cary Grant at 1. Thingyow.”

I spotted the housekeeping caravan in the hallway. It was unattended. The housekeeper was apparently in one of the nearby rooms with the door closed.

“Grab some shampoo and conditioner off that cart,” my husband said.

“But there’s no one with it. Shouldn’t I ask? Or at least explain why I’m taking it? I want them to know they didn’t give us any today. I don’t want them to think I’m stealing it.”

“Oh my god,” my husband said. “No one is looking. Just take it. And grab a couple extra waters while you’re at it.”

“Waters???” My chest started to tighten. This was all just too much. What did he think this was, a spree? [Read more…] about A Life of Crime Is Not For Me

Cover Up Your Legs, Princess! It’s Gown Season

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It’s that time of year again: when normally sensible, well dressed women throw all they know about fashion out the window and put on princess costumes to go out in public.

It’s floor-length gown season, bitches.

Which means it’s the twelfth time I’ll go against my own better judgement and half-heartedly walk out my front door looking like an evil stepsister.

I knew this was coming but I was still not prepared.

“I was not prepared for this,” I told a salesperson at Bloomingdale’s, who helpfully suggested a gown with a full-skirt that seemed to have been built  around a dog crate. I could have smuggled in a troop of dancing Nutcracker toddlers under it.

I put it on and she — chronically helpful now — came in to check on me and laughed nervously. “You could have it altered,” she said. “You know, have the hem taken up.”

Oh yes, let’s do talk about short girls and gowns. When covered in a gown, my legs appear to be 8 inches shorter than they are. I once tried on a shimmery pink gown, thinking I’d feel like Glenda the Good Witch and instead I felt like the lead female Munchkin. You know, the one with the hoop skirt and puffy sleeves. [Read more…] about Cover Up Your Legs, Princess! It’s Gown Season

Yankee Go Home, But Flush First

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Being an American these days is becoming more and more embarrassing. We look really bad to the rest of the world and I’m not talking about how we run our elections or our unwillingness to learn the metric system. We’re known globally as the race of people who don’t know how to flush their own poop.

When we travel abroad, it’s bad enough that we can’t speak the language, we’re picky eaters, and we stop to ask people where the closest Starbucks is. But we have become spoiled by toilets that automatically flush, sinks that spew water with a wave of a hand, and paper towels that are delivered right to your snapping fingers.

We’re not living in a sci-fi future, we’re in a Bewitched episode. [Read more…] about Yankee Go Home, But Flush First

Where’s My Coffee?

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I’m not a self-centered person. Really I’m not.

But that doesn’t mean that I didn’t blurt out, “Oh, come on!” when I found out the replacement coffee carafe I ordered was going to be slightly delayed because of a train derailment.

One day. The delay was one day. Because a train had a terrible accident.

Did I see the phrase train derailment and think what any human with a beating heart would think? You know, maybe: Were there any children hurt? Was there a resulting explosion that caused injury, death or dismemberment to anyone nearby? And what about the train conductor? How’s he doing?

No.

“If I have to go one more day drinking coffee from the ancillary backup coffee pot I’m going to kill myself,” I told my husband.

“Yeah, seriously, how much more can a person be expected to take?” he deadpanned. If I didn’t know better I’d think he was being sarcastic. [Read more…] about Where’s My Coffee?

Spicing Up Old Age

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They say that as you get older you are more likely to be a hoarder of at least one thing, and now that I’m (ahem) older, I can definitely see that happening. Not that I’m wading through mountains of on-sale collectible dolls and dirty Kleenex to get to the bucket next to the broken toilet every morning, but I’m entering a phase of life in which I can’t see the sense in throwing away something that is perfectly good. Combine that with compulsive buying of a specific thing and you’ve got me: Almost 60-years-old and the owner of more spices than hairs on my legs in winter.

I seriously don’t know what to do about my spices. They’re out of control. This is not surprising, since I love to cook and I get an almost orgasmic satisfaction out of reading a recipe, seeing some unpronounceable spice that would cause a lesser woman to turn the page and just make a tuna casserole, and realizing that I not only have it in the house, I might have three of them, one of them the Cajun version.

This spice hoarding goes unchecked because it’s only egged on by the other quirks taking hold as I age. Like being more and more okay with eating things that might be expired. Anyone who has ever opened the refrigerator in his grandmother’s house knows that the older you get the less you care about eating spoiled food. You never see a 25-year-old, no matter how near death from starvation, open up a Tupperware container, sniff it, wince, and then say, “I think it’s still good” and then serve it to loved ones. That trait definitely comes from reaching a certain age. When my mom was doing it, I thought it had something to do with her growing up in an orphanage and living through the Great Depression. But now I know that even Richie Rich grew up to cut the blue spots off the brie. [Read more…] about Spicing Up Old Age