I spent the day at Metrograph rewatching OJ Simpson: Made in America in its entirety. Once again I found it stunning in its meticulously layered breakdown of how media, race, gender, violence, money, and injustice intersect in OJ’s rise and fall, in the history of the LAPD, and in the precarious construct of fame.
It’s shocking to realize it’s been more than two decades since all this occurred. I remember crushing out on OJ when I was a little girl; he was so damn fast, so fine, so fly. And those dimples! Also so damn funny in the Naked Gun movies (an echo you saw o shit when he infamously hamhanded the gloves in his double murder trial.) I remember crying at my kitchen table when the Rodney King verdict was delivered, crying again when LA burned afterward. I remember watching that white Bronco slide slo-mo down LA freeways with Julian and Michael (our 20something love triangle temporarily on hold while the 12 hours of this drama juicily eclipsed our own), and I remember the news suddenly being ALL OJ ALL THE WAY for the next year. Continue Reading →
Venus retrograde approaches; my dreams heat up. I won’t even get into the mixed messages I’m receiving in waking life from those I desire and those I do not. I’ll just ill-advisedly share the dream I was sent last night from my greatest long-lost lover, he whose spirit sends me a postcard in the dream world every four years or so. In real life we’ve not spoken since my thirtieth birthday when he said, I don’t know if I can live without you but I’m going to try, and I didn’t get up from the kitchen floor until long after he’d left the country. Last night’s visit was such a middle-aged fumbling–rusty, desperate, hot.Continue Reading →
It’s Samhain–the Pagan new year, Halloween to nonwitches–and there’s a new moon in Scorpio, the sign of death and rebirth. The veil is lifted and the dark goddesses are all around us, Lilith in full effect. For nearly a week I’ve been haunted by my highest spirit, in addition to everyone else’s. I’d complain except I know this is the universe’s not-so-subtle way of nudging me forward since I’ve been resisting all gentler hints for the last six, twelve, oh, thirty-six months. A friend reminded me this morning of the words of Chickasaw poet Linda Hogan: “Suddenly all my ancestors are behind me. Be still, they say. Watch and listen. You are the result of the love of thousands.” Tonight I feel that.
It was a quiet day–most of my Mondays are quiet, by design and default–and when I finished work I went to get my nails done. My manicurist’s name is Lisa too, and we’re the same age. She lives with no green card, three kids, and an “only half good” husband in a one-bedroom apartment. Still I see pity in her eyes as she cleans up the raw hamburger of my cuticles. “You’re strong,” she says. “You need someone nice.” She’s not wrong, though I’ve only recently admitted this. More than that, I can feel my great grandmother behind her eyes as she speaks–my grandfather, too. They’ve given up the idea of continuing their ancestral line but are still invested in healing it. Continue Reading →
I spent the day at Metrograph rewatching OJ Simpson: Made in America in its entirety. Once again I found it stunning in its meticulously layered breakdown of how media, race, gender, violence, money, and injustice intersect in OJ’s rise and fall, in the history of the LAPD, and in the precarious construct of fame.
Venus retrograde approaches; my dreams heat up. I won’t even get into the mixed messages I’m receiving in waking life from those I desire and those I do not. I’ll just ill-advisedly share the dream I was sent last night from my greatest long-lost lover, he whose spirit sends me a postcard in the dream world every four years or so. In real life we’ve not spoken since my thirtieth birthday when he said, I don’t know if I can live without you but I’m going to try, and I didn’t get up from the kitchen floor until long after he’d left the country. Last night’s visit was such a middle-aged fumbling–rusty, desperate, hot. Continue Reading →
It’s Samhain–the Pagan new year, Halloween to nonwitches–and there’s a new moon in Scorpio, the sign of death and rebirth. The veil is lifted and the dark goddesses are all around us, Lilith in full effect. For nearly a week I’ve been haunted by my highest spirit, in addition to everyone else’s. I’d complain except I know this is the universe’s not-so-subtle way of nudging me forward since I’ve been resisting all gentler hints for the last six, twelve, oh, thirty-six months. A friend reminded me this morning of the words of Chickasaw poet Linda Hogan: “Suddenly all my ancestors are behind me. Be still, they say. Watch and listen. You are the result of the love of thousands.” Tonight I feel that.