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Happy All the Time

April 13, 2018 in Astro Matters, Book Matters, Cat Lady Matters, City Matters, Essays, Feminist Matters, Ruby Intuition

I’ve been putting all my energy into the book so haven’t had the bandwidth to check in here. But it occurs to me I’ve developed a nasty habit of only reporting the bad stuff, so I’m going to let you in on a little secret.

Lately, despite all the mishegos in our country and in the world, I feel incredibly grateful.

As soon as the sun pours into my bedroom every morning, I spring out of bed, a free man in Paris. Better yet: A free lady in Brooklyn. Yes, I run through my financial anxieties, my hanging cliffs of what-ifs. But then I leap into my routine. It goes something like this.

Turn on coffeemaker while Miss Gracie meows angrily. Pee while Miss Gracie meows angrily. Feed Miss Gracie to end said angry meowing. Settle back into bed with mug and remind Miss Grace with Pavlovian scratches and kisses that cuteness levels raise exponentially when angry meowing ceases. Ogle the last bit of sunrise, as well as (confession) Foster Kittens. Then put on grown-up lady bra, fetch a scallion-cheddar scone from the Italians next door (Piccione! they cry. Ask Grace why), and sashay down the street to my new writers’ space. Continue Reading →

Rose-Colored Wrecks, Edgy Angels

April 3, 2018 in Age Matters, Church Matters, City Matters, Essays, Past Matters, Snapshot, Spirit Matters

I dreamed a very generous friend took me on what was ostensibly a road trip but really a mission to Harvey Weinstein’s. She claimed to be counseling him in his “convalescence,” but I could see I was going to have to bite a hand that was feeding me, because fuck that shit. I was pissed I now knew the location of his secret lair, even more pissed I found it enviable with soaring ceilings, forest views, loads of pink light. I didn’t see Harvey–my friend was upstairs with the “client”–but my awareness of him was like someone had shoved a pile of shit beneath a million-dollar rug; you could smell but couldn’t see his rotting decadence. I wanted so much to write a whole novel on his enormous pale velvet couch but instead had to go. Of course being me I fled only to realize I’d left everything I needed behind. To wit:
Computer
Wallet
Phone
Keys Continue Reading →

‘Angels in America’ Saves Us All

March 29, 2018 in Astro Matters, City Matters, Country Matters, Reviews, Sabboytical, Theater Matters

Yesterday I did a full Angels in America immersion–10 hours in Midtown for Parts 1 and 2. I scored cheapo tickets on TDF.com and into the Neil Simon Theater I smuggled water, sliced apples, nuts, whiskey, and lavender water in case my neighbors had hygiene challenges. (They didn’t, but because they were tuna sandwich smugglers, the lavender water proved useful anyway.) Outside the theater the city was cloudy and cold and Mercury Retrogradey. Which is to say: there was nowhere I’d rather have been.

Put simply, it was the best theatrical experience of my life—timeless and timely, emboldened and emboldening, transcendent and holy fractured. The staging–neon boxes and steampunk lanterns and ladders sliding up and down, side to side– was extraordinary. Ditto for the performances—Nathan Lane, raw and raging and hilarious, was the best anyone’s ever seen, and even Andrew Garfield’s look-Ma-I’m-playing-gaaaaaay conceit was not appalling once he found his rage. And get this: every straight male role was played by a middle-aged lady wearing a doggedly bad wig!

But all that pales in contrast to the powerful joy of hearing Tony Kushner’s words uttered live for the first time. I honestly believe he is this greatest country’s finest voice. Even in a too-many-cooks-in-a-kitchen mess like “Lincoln,” through his cadences course everything–salt and blood and cum, stone and silt and copper. The sweat and tears of our country and our heavens, basically. As when I saw Hamilton, I felt connected to the groundlings taking in Shakespeare while he was still alive. Connected to all of time.

Yes, Mrs. Lincoln, everything, and I do mean everything, was vibrant and devastating in equal measures. By the time I walked out, my legs barely worked anymore, so it was a good thing I could fly with the play’s 1980s Jewish Mormon homosexual lady angel wings. As I soared, the Eustacia Vye phrase I’ve whispered since I was a teenager flashed like another sign on Broadway: “Send me great love from somewhere, else I shall die.” That great love never did show up for me in the mommy-daddy, one-on-one incarnation I expected. But in New York’s museums, galleries, kitchens, caverns, sidewalks, subways, and, o fuck, stages–all those “melting pots that never melted”–I feel it all the time. I guarantee you everyone in attendance at this play feels it too: great art, great truth-yes, great, great love. It comes in such finely feathered forms.

"All, everything I understand, I understand only because I love."
― Leo Tolstoy