Archive | TV Matters

Bye Bye, Burger

This could very well be the last hamburger I ever eat. Ever since my teen years, even when otherwise a vegan, I’ve had a burger once a month—and you know what time of the month I’m talking about. My menopause dovetailed with the pandemic—nothing like a hormonal shitstorm in an incubation tank—so this is the first burger I’ve needed in months. I celebrated with a whiskey and the premiere of And Just Like That, which leans as hard into the beautiful melancholy of middle age as I do.

I never thought I’d mourn menstruation but over the years I grew grateful for its regulated highs and lows, for a clock and calendar that was my very own. Bidding farewell to my period is bidding farewell to youth, once and for all. And that is proving way harder than I thought, because mortality has never loomed larger. (We’ve all been experiencing that lately.) I send every other middle-aged broad a bite of this burger. We fucking earned it just by sticking around in a world that rarely recognizes how beautiful we are.

This Bittersweet New Light

I was just about to head upstairs to post about tonight’s new moon/year when I heard of Michael K. Williams’ death. Now I am writing this on my stoop–in the same neighborhood where he lived and died– with huge tears running down my face.

I saw the brilliant actor, activist, dancer, and choreographer around a lot–sometimes at film events, sometimes just drinking coffee in the park–and he was always unwaveringly gracious and kind. That such a radiant light only got 54 years is beyond painful. As Roy Wood Jr tweeted today: “All I want is for black entertainers to be able to grow old.”

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Breakfast’s on Me, Mr. Reiner

Not everyone realizes that our astrology remains active after our deaths—so much so that departed public figures often surge back into the limelight during important transits in their charts. I mention this because I woke Saturday morning flashing on the great director, writer, comedian, and activist Carl Reiner, who died last summer at age 98—only a day after after his last big-hearted, big-brained Tweet and only a few months before Biden beat Trump, whom he loathed as much as he loved Mel Brooks. Before beginning the day’s vernal equinox intuition readings, I turned on Reiner’s HBO documentary—the brilliantly titled If You’re Not in the Obit, Eat Breakfast—and was immediately drawn into its overall message: “To stay alive, you must stay in love.” The whole film—really, his whole life—was about how finding and committing to passions was the way to survive and thrive. As I read for clients that day, I could sense Reiner’s delighted laugh and sharp gaze, and it added old-school razzmatazz to our sessions. Of course when I looked up his solar return, it was March 20—that very day. With that old soul and beginner’s mind, he was a true king of the Pisces-Aries cusp. Happy belated birthday, Mr. Reiner. We’re still learning from your love.

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