Of Mice and, as usual, me.

I’ve had a rough week. This little lady is a hand-full.

I’m always poking around on the web. Lately, I’m looking for flapper-era fashion. I have a new character to dress. She’s a style-setter; she needs to look sharp.

She’s a mouse!

I created the character forty years ago. Gloria Swanson made this tasty remark in an interview: “They say you can’t be glamorous when you’re only five feet tall. I believe I’ve proven them wrong.”

Marcelline Mulot sprang to life, fully formed in my mind, at that moment. I rewrote that line on the spot: “They say you can’t be glamorous when you’re only five inches tall.” I wrote Maisie’s story, pulling equally wonderful passages out of my collection of twenties-thirties movie mags. Alas, those magazines are gone, I sold them when I needed money bad. (Which was continually.)

But, all is not lost, far from it, my friends. Far from it.

I do heavy research for my stories on the web. Sometimes I bop around, for the fun of it. A few days ago, I googled ‘flapper’ (something like that). I was rewarded with pages and pages of Oh-You-Kid-flavor images. And I stumbled across a series of designed sketches, chorus girls in out-there outfits, Erté-type beauties costumed . . . Ha! As a mushroom! As the moon. As a perfume bottle. As a lotus flower. A dozen-plus delightfully whacko depictions.

I’m in love with that mushroom get-up. My immediate idea was to turn the lady into a mouse, add the name Maisie Moulot in the same decorative script (each sketch has a title), and claim I’d found the item on Ebay. In other words, to pass it off as an authentic piece I’d unearthed, at a flea market maybe. When I jump back on Maisie’s biography, I want to be able to pepper the pages with the collateral material you’d see in any star bio.

I haven’t been able to make my mushroom-mouse work. An Erté-style mouse–a vamp–what would she look like? I have the body in OK shape, but my head doesn’t have the magic of the original. I’ve put that try aside.

I found a publicity photo from early Broadway–nobody in particular as far as I can tell–and worked my usual mix-and-match with it. Here’s Maisie pre- her Hollywood career, a chorus-cutie in one or another of the extravagant revues of the period.

I studied costume design in art school. I have a bookshelf of celebrity bios, heavy on early-era stars. I had originally based my mouse movie star on Louise Brooks. I sure hope nobody out there is saying . . . Who? Lulu In Hollywood, means nothing to you? She was a big, big star.

Studying costume design was a huge mistake. How many costume designers does the world need? It’s as competitive as being an actor. And we all know how that goes. Study acting, become a waitress. Study costume design (unless you’re incredibly lucky) ditto. I waited tables for a while. Then I went to work engineering costumes for strippers.

My husband says, you’re finally making use of your schooling. Yes, my chorus-line mouse and the fancy-pants animals that populate my other books are certainly making use of my useless education.

I call my genre ‘Animals-in-Pants. I can’t think of a thing I’ve written (over forty years) that didn’t have a critter in the lead role. These are not one-dimensional portrayals. My characters are as complex as I am, with good reason. I draw on my own life-experience to animate them. My goofballs (they’re all of ’em goofballs) are as goofy as I am.

How many jerks in my seventy-plus years have thought it the height of wit to spout at me, Earth to Mimi, Earth to Mimi, come in Mimi? I’m a kook, absolutely. I’m finally making it work for me, in my absurd adventure, that has been compared (in complexity of loopy world-building) to Jonathan Swift. Normal? Who needs it?

Yes, I’m odd. I’m also obsessive. I told you Maisie was created forty years ago. My typewritten manuscript was lost in one of my chaotic moves. I’m going to rebuild it. I’ve lost my yummy movie-mag reference material, but I have the web to rummage through. How did we get along without the web? The world at our fingertips!

I have a library like you wouldn’t believe. Theater, film, costume, illustration, collectibles, style in general, design, fine art, best-of-the-best children’s books, sixty years of book buying. How many thousands of dollars have I spent on my hundreds of books? I’m glad to have them, don’t get me wrong. But now I have the web, a miraculous resource.

This article is short on yuks, sorry. I’ll try to be funnier next time. Spending the better part of two days trying to turn a stunning deco-lady into an equally stunning deco-mushroom-wearing mouse, and failing miserably, has made me damn cranky. The image can’t be a joke. It has to be a plausible component of my over-the-cliff alternative reality.

When I get my mushroom-skirted mouse in hand, you’ll see her. (She has a mushroom hat also, and a snail on top of that.) I am in love with the idea of Maisie in her glam-mushroom outfit. I’ve got to make it work.

Then, I’m going to tackle Maisie-the-perfume-bottle.

Unless I think of something even better.