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Little Women, Inner Children

December 10, 2019 in Age Matters, Book Matters, City Matters, Essays, Feminist Matters, Film Matters, Reviews, TV Matters

Yesterday we taped the first episode of Talking Pictures since my back went kablooey (and yes that’s the official medical diagnosis). To celebrate I got it into my head to decorate my head, and so wove into my triple-braided bun pine cones and branches, baby’s breath, and tiny bird. All in all it was an effect that raised more than a few eyebrows among the normally unflappable population of NYC.

Chalk it up to the fact that I was reviewing the most recent iteration of Little Women, which I had approached with great trepidation and from which I had floated with great elation.

There have many, many film, television, and stage adaptations of Louisa May Alcott’s Civil War-set saga about four Massachusetts sisters who are rich in love and poor in cash, but this is the most ravishing and the first that does not betray the intense feminism of its author. Directed by mumblemouth millennial Greta Gerwig (cue my trepidation), it boasts an intensely good cast including Soirse Ronan as stalwart Jo, Meryl Streep mugging to unusually good effect as drolly disapproving Aunt March, Timotheeee Chalomet very right if too slight as Laurie, and Florence Pugh, channeling the authentically big emotions of Midsommar to animate Amy, the most bedazzled and entitled of the March girls. (Laura Dern is too Modern Millie for the Marnie of my dreams, but I’m immune to her Lynchian charms.) Continue Reading →

No Room to Let (Dowager Chic)

November 22, 2019 in Age Matters, Book Matters, City Matters, Essays, Etiquette Matters, Feminist Matters, Past Matters

2002 me

This is a blunt story–which of mine are not?– and it probably deserves to live somewhere besides a blog post. But as is so often the case, I will begin writing it to the audience that exists in my head when I write here–namely, sensitive, smart, and roughly my generation, at least psychospiritually.

Four years ago I began a battle to establish my apartment’s rent stabilization. I’d moved into the building in 2002, a few months after September 11 had dashed my dreams of being a wife and a mother (a separate post; a separate book, really). There was a markedly different group of tenants  because back then third stop on the L Train did not mean hipster. It meant working-class families of mostly Italian, Dominican, and Puerto Rican descent. I was the only woman on the block living alone–definitely the only blond wannabe writer from Boston. Mostly I got along with everyone–oh, there was the time I got in a fight with a mafia princess over a parking space and her father came after me with a baseball bat screaming YOU FKING WHORE-but having grown up in Newton’s The Lake I knew how to hold my ground. Sort of. Continue Reading →

Astro PSA: Mercury Retrograde in Scorpio

October 31, 2019 in Astro Matters, Cat Lady Matters, City Matters, Essays, Feminist Matters, Spirit Matters

This retrograde is heavy, haunted pizza.

Mercury goes retrograde in Scorpio today, and the usual caveats apply. Back up your electronics, buy travel insurance, don’t sign on any dotted lines. But the truth, as I labor to remind myself, is this astrological aspect gets a bad rap. Really, it’s just an invitation to reflect on our lives and go deeper. Only when we fail to RSVP does it get forceful–AKA bust up the telecommunication and travel devices that keep us distracted.

This particular retrograde–which really doesn’t end until the end of old-soul November (11/20 officially)–is taking place in Scorpio, which confronts shadows and buried secrets, and begins on the eve of Samhain, which celebrates the end of harvest and temporarily banishes all binaries–including the one separating the dead from the living. During this month, expect ancestors from the other side, old pals, and lovers to show up, and a lot of unfinished business to be sealed and healed. Scorpio will go to any lengths to induce us to better express our true lives and light, and this retrograde will stop us in our tracks until we do.

In the interest of full transparency, I’ll admit I’ve already sustained a Mercury retrograde injury–a sprained back and broken toe from walking four miles in heels that I thought made me look fierce after someone was unkind about my appearance. Talk about getting stopped in my tracks, oy vey.

The heavens are asking me to heavy lifting around vanity and shame (two sides of the same coin). So as I ice my back and practice deeper self-love and compassion–this shit is fucking painful right now– I invite you to strap on your combat boots and coziest sweater and embrace whatever kerfuffle comes your way. This month is going to show us what we don’t need anymore. Better yet, it’s going to show us what to reclaim–starting with our highest selves.

Get in touch to schedule a reading during this powerful period of reflection. And feel free to send meals and magical carrier pigeons while I’m still laid up. We’re all on this retrograde raft together.

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