Archive | Style Matters

Schmucks of the Universe (Parenthetically Speaking)

Exhibit A: Gonzo spacecrone neckgear

So I’ve been having one of Those Weeks (years, but who’s counting?). Lots of luck but not all of it good. To wit, this week I am in Hudson (good) staying with Grace and Daisy the Dog (good) but still have this cruddy summer cold (bad).

Today I went out for sick-lady supplies and stopped at Salvation Army because the one up here is le bomb (good). In there for two dollars I find this absolutely gonzo gorgeous necklace–like, it looks like decorative weaponry for a space crone superheroine (good). I walk out on cloud 9 but as soon as I turn on my car the CHECK ENGINE light starts flashing and Minerva the Wonder Hyundai starts shaking (bad). God’ll get you for that, Walter, I thought, subbing in “vanity” for “Walter” (Maude reference) and nodding at the Legend (who loved that phrase). I run into the tire store down the road to ask where I should bring my car and instead one of the young fellas working there plugs a diagnostic tool into my car and announces (I shit you not), “Not all your cylinders are firing.” (All hail this metaphor called 2019 Lisa.)

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The June Swoon of Gemini’s New Moon

I never liked being called a chick. I certainly never liked “bitch” or “slut,” though some people embrace both terms. But I am and always will be a broad. I mention this because while we’re knee-deep in Gemini season, self-definition and redefinition is the name of the game.

You know what else is the name of the game? Collaboration and communion. Continue Reading →

Skinny and Number-Sixed: 2019 Orthorexia

Recently I was in a room of women who did not eat carbohydrates.

I am exaggerating, of course. I am sure they occasionally ate things like sprouted quinoa in bowls filled with other expensive elements meant to extend their lives by weeks or even months.

That is, if they didn’t choke on their own bile first.

Because these women were unhappy. They were rich women and they were white women and they were women my age. I kept having to remind myself they were my age, because they looked both older and younger than me. Their skin radiated a glow that mine only achieves about an hour after I work out–but really it was a sort of florescent, dangerous glow that spoke of misplaced determination. Their hair also spoke of that determination. It was very actively Not Grey, but not with the generic beige which less clever or moneyed women slap on grey hair. No, their hair was like a trip to the Grand Canyon or South Dakota’s Badlands–compelling flowing layers ranging from gold to burnt sienna–waves of sediment, not sea. Continue Reading →

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