For those of you still browsing amongst the hellish kaleidoscope of brand new Annanecromania, here’s a hidden rhinestone. Upon hearing news of Anna’s death, I suddenly and fondly remembered a story I read eight years ago, titled HUNGRY GIRL: The Potted Plant Lady’s Strange Tale of Sex, Money, and Feeding Anna Nicole Smith. The four-page piece was written by Randall Patterson, and was created by, in, and for Vickie Lynn Hogan’s own home state, as published in The Dallas Observer back in 1999. Exquisitely trashy, the journalistic excavation centers on one Sandy Powledge (pictured, right), and her claims that she is (one of) the lesbian lovers that Anna Nicole Smith left in the dust on her way to becoming an inevitable American icon. The muff-mucking news is hardly breaking, but the write-up is a little-known, fun read. Keep in mind that this was “Anna 1999,” and portrays the pre-reality show, but the post-Guess?, post-Playboy, post-Naked Gun 33 and 1/3 (but pre-Skyscraper), and also post-zillionare husband’s funeral Anna. This was a limbo period in her fame, right around the time her biggest exposure was as fodder for “you won’t believe how fat she is now” surveillance video footage on A Current Affair. An exemplary Texas tale from beginning to (unforeseeable) end …and I’ve never wanted a Colossus Burger more in my life.

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