Archive | City Matters
I am coming downstate tomorrow and am not yet willing to be conversant on the following topics: Trump, Olympics, Pokemon, Stranger Things, Kimye, #AllLivesMatter, the freaking heat, flying cockroaches, movies, gluten, the decline of NYC, more Trump. For weeks I haven’t worn a bra, haven’t honked my horn or bit my cuticles, haven’t made small talk. I have only eaten food from local farms, fallen asleep to crickets rather than honking cars, read musty paperbacks, combed yard sales and thrift stores, bicycled down quiet green roads, listened to old records, drunk rosé on a screened-in porch, talked to animals, and taken long tromps in the woods rather than gritting my teeth through prissy gym classes. I’ve got my color back. Heck, I’ve got my sense of humor back. So why am I returning to the alleged grid? Why, to see you, my pretties.Working Tween (#FirstSevenJobs)
I’d planned to ignore the #firstsevenjobs hashtag floating around. Then I realized I couldn’t even remember my first seven jobs because, a true Capricorn, I’d been working since before I hit double digits and had done everything from posing nude to working as a TV actor before I turned 20. Sorting out the list proved more entertaining than doing a crossword, so forgive the length and (nonhumble) brag. One thing’s for sure: I missed my calling. Given my early proclivities, you’d think I’d be a coke-addled billionaire by now.
1. Leaflet distributor. At age 9, sick of begging my parents for an allowance when it came straight out of my mother’s limited food budget, I decided to take matters into my own hands. I marched into all the local businesses in West Newton Square and asked if they wanted someone to distribute leaflets on their behalf. Two businesses bit, and, soon enough, I was slipping leaflets advertising a thrift shop and deli under all the car windshields and welcome mats in the area. Yes, I was that arsehole.
2. Babysitting entrepreneur. At age 11, I decided the leaflets weren’t cutting it—they only yielded five cents a page—so I started a mini-babysitting business in which I mined my leafletting skills to build my “company” from the ground up. In retrospect, it is appalling that so many Newton, Massachusetts parents entrusted their precious charges to a gum-snapping 11-year-old who did not like kids. When I could not handle all the work that came my way, I began to hand the jobs entailing too many boys (all those huge Boston Irish Catholic families!) over to Michael Anderson, who promptly poached most of my gigs permanently. Oh, Michael. Twenty years later, I was the best man in his Oregon wedding. Continue Reading →
New Sea Rising
Yesterday was all about the moon.
I woke at 3:40 am, which is when my highest self tugs me out of slumber when it has no other way of making contact. Lately, I’ve been waking at that time a lot. Seismic changes are afoot and because I keep my head down during the day, my guides have no other time to download information. No longer night, not yet day: 3:40 is soul time.
When I woke, I was awash in menstrual blood. It wasn’t an enormous surprise—my period was three days late—but nonetheless I felt a cold shock. Waking on fresh white sheets pooled with your blood will do that to you, I don’t care how many years you’ve been getting your period.
I should say at this point that menstruation is on the shortlist of topics that I—and most people—never discuss on page. Also on that list: shitting habits (which is too bad; the Crapicorn in me absolutely adores discussing shit) and the quality of sex with your partner. (People disclose quantity but never quality, which is a land from which you cannot return.) But it is a new moon, and mentioning the unmentionable is necessary in order to achieve my month’s goals. Continue Reading →