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MGM Musicals Are Always Fair Weather

December 11, 2018 in Film Matters, Listing, Style Matters

All I want to do this time of year is watch old movies and write new things. Today I’m doing both. The bubblegum glitter and waggish wit and general tail-wagging of these 10 MGM musicals always, always cheer me the fuck up. Not especially swellegant phrasing, but true just the same.

The Wizard of Oz (1939)
It’s hard for kids today to imagine the excitement we used to feel when this musical about a lost Kansas girl aired on CBS every November. But even the youngest skeptics are sure to candy-crush on this film’s whirlwind soundtrack, glorious Technicolor, and iconic cast, including a gingham-clad Judy Garland crooning mournfully of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” Continue Reading →

Astro PSA: Venus Retrograde Rage

October 6, 2018 in Astro Matters, Essays, Feminist Matters, Spirit Matters, Style Matters

For two days I dreamed that I caught a man in the act of stealing my wallet, phone, and keys—my identity, essentially— and that he was arrested and forced to return my possessions. These were triumphant, and triumphantly bald, dreams. Last night I dreamed someone stole my wallet—a pleasing, lemony yellow—and replaced it with a neon-green fannypack, neon green being one of the few shades I will never, ever embrace though I do in fact own such a horror. (It’s handy.) In the second part of the dream, I found a pair of denim jeans that elegantly nipped in my waist and made my ass a buttercup dream. I laid them aside for a pair of 90-style mom jeans that made my ass an endlessly flat expanse of Midwestern mall terrain.

Which is to say that, yes, Venus finally went retrograde yesterday. I’ve been whining about its shadow since early September, but only now is the planet really moving backward.  Lasting unofficially until the end of the year (officially it goes direct November 16), the retrograde is taking place in Scorpio, which imparts lessons about old wounds and hidden meanings, and Libra, which is ruled by Venus and thus a hot mess when mommy takes a breather. Continue Reading →

Sadly Morning

September 26, 2018 in Cat Lady Matters, City Matters, Essays, Style Matters

The mornings are the hardest.

During the day I’m fine. I wear myself out with long walks and writing sessions and chats so that by the time I cook dinner and clean up, I can barely read a page before sleep claims me. I’m grateful for how quickly and heavily it rises up, darkness encircling me like a security blanket—

like a lover’s caress.

But I wake very early. At that hour, the city is stripped of bravado, and so am I. And in that unarmored state, the full weight of loss lands on my chest. Before I can assemble all the very valid reasons we’re no longer together, I miss him. His scratchy voice and soft mouth and enthusiastically punctuated texts; his sweet, sad eyes belying the shtick that’s made him a legend in certain circles. I miss the depth of our connection, the hope we could be happier and more whole as a result. Continue Reading →

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