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A Good Kiss

July 19, 2017 in Age Matters, City Matters, Essays, Feminist Matters, Sabboytical

Recently, I shared a good kiss with someone I hadn’t considered attractive before. I’m pretty sure he hadn’t considered me attractive either. Don’t get excited, o ye who believes my “cheese stands alone” stance is by default rather than elective. This story doesn’t come with a happy ending–at least, not of the “happily ever after” variety.

That said, it was a very nice kiss, even if this gentleman lives somewhere sunnier and slower and neither of us are inclined to change a zip code on the grounds of a good kiss. Maybe when we were younger, though I highly doubt we’d have stuck to it–he’s not the sort to be seduced by the bigger mirror of New York and I’m eternally certain nothing tops a subway ride in which everyone’s an outsider. Continue Reading →

Second Chakra Ladies and Germs

July 18, 2017 in Age Matters, Astro Matters, Cat Lady Matters, City Matters, Essays, Feminist Matters, Ruby Intuition, Spirit Matters

I had a piece to write for money today and I wrote it. This is newsworthy only because I threw out my back on Friday and even a few years ago this would have incapacitated me for at least a week. These days, I know the drill, though not well enough to stop me from throwing out my back in the first place. The morning I’d done so, I’d been too busy to go to the gym or the dance studio so I’d gone running instead.

I called Beztie upon returning from the track. “I went running,” I said triumphantly.

“Dummy,” she said. “It always throws out your back.” I could hear her lighting a cigarette, and I smiled.

Then I went into spasm, and lay flat on the floor. After I stopped crying and permakitten Grace stopped licking my paws sympathetically, I took four Advil and did the stretches my old trainer Leslie taught me. My regular acupunk–the brilliant, elfin Tim–is abroad for the rest of the year, so I looked up C., his replacement. That’s when things got hairy.

C., as it turns out, was working out of a communal space, which was perfectly fine in theory but precarious for a radioactive witch like me. Continue Reading →

That Stranger Called My Life

June 23, 2017 in City Matters, Essays, Past Matters, Sabboytical, Spirit Matters

I just saw an old lover on the street. He didn’t see me or at least he pretended he didn’t, but I got a good eyeful. We were together off and on for many years and I hadn’t seen him in two. Recently he had a big birthday, so he’s been on my mind though our connection is too dangerous to reignite with a polite phone call or card. We live in the same neighborhood so it’s a wonder we don’t run into each other more often. I often think the Universe is protecting us by ensuring we don’t. We caused each other a lot of pain–more than the great pleasure we gave each other, even.

He was talking to someone–a friend, it looked like, though not a close one. Maybe a colleague. I watched him clap his big hand on that man’s shoulder, then make his way down the street in the opposite direction from me. My old lover seemed smaller and bigger, blurrier and more filled in. It was a shock to see him alive at all–still human, not just an animation of my many memories. Continue Reading →

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