JOAN RIVERS

I saw her just the other night in a television show -- I don't know what show or which channel -- it was very late -- she and another woman were mixing cookie dough.

Joan grabbed a huge handful and patted it into a extra large cookie. The hostess who was telling them about ingredients, asked Joan to show her the cookie.

Joan came out from behind the table ... Good God -- she had nothing covering her butt. Two large, pretty -- pretty darn big buttocks were before our eyes ... Shocked, I gasped. I gulped and started laughing with the raucous guffaws from the studio audience until I realized ... it was not her butt -- she had a realistic pair of buns strapped onto her backside.

Oh my goodness gracious, Joan Rivers -- there is no one who has the nerve to do, what you do, sometimes.

Can we talk -- let's talk about the one and only, uniquely ballsy, outrageous, forever-young, aging Joan!

Star, comic, TV hostess, actress, saleslady. Late Show anchor, writer, fund-raiser, mother, wife/widow -- she's been in films, Broadway plays, shared the spotlight with famous and infamous fellow celebrities, and manufactured and sold jewelry, cosmetics, and women's fashions.

Does the younger generation know who she is? What about the younger, the youngest generation? Do kids growing up now know her name and what she's done?

She isn't a guru, or someone you'd professionally ask for advice. But she has practical, sensible, logical, strong opinions about life, health, love, sex, morality, pets, housework, clothes, and other celebrities that she bluntly, blithely proffers.

This woman is fearlessly opinionated. And she's there, focused on you. Even though she's in a studio miles away, she connects with you.

She is, for me, an example of "woman" -- fascinating, courageous -- the kind of woman I don't have the nerve to be.

I remember Joan Rivers tearing up toilet paper and laughing, making sassy, amusing comments, decorating everything around her on the television studio set, draping scallops of toilet paper everywhere -- letting her employer (NBC, and Johnny Carson) know she didn't like them, love them, bow to them, cater to them and accept the fact that she'd been fired.

What a reaction! I loved her nerve, her tone, and what she was saying with her actions.

I remember Joan Rivers on a one-night special -- I'm not sure what year. (It was after Carson fired her, after her daytime show was canceled, after we'd seen her with her daughter, and heard about her husband's suicide.)

Rivers was in a black glittering dress, cosmetically improved by a face-lift or was it was just her eyes? I don't remember specifics.. I just remember that she was funny, great-looking, ballsy, marvelous, as she described preparing for a big day for tomorrow, and pantomimed laying out her clothes. She pantomimed wriggling out of her under-wear, and then sniffed her panties.

Sniffed them? Yes! And I was shocked. Wow! Did America notice? Sure. Was it mentioned in the reviews? No. It wasn't anywhere.

No doubt about it -- the ballsy, outrageous, forever young-looking, great-looking, Joan Rivers inspired me -- continues to inspire me to be what I am, more so, and un-afraid.