A Girl Called Joe, Part 2
Today’s rain is gorgeous, romantic, voluptuous. This is weather for journaling, dreaming, lolling against pillows, chewing on the end of your pencil, basking in black-and-white films. For listening to nature work hard outside your window, and for slowly, slowly sipping lavender-earl grey tea. It is a day for making love, for writing letters by hand, for choosing colors to paint your someday house. But because I am an alleged grownup and have far more rigorous activities scheduled today, I shall now pour a gallon of coffee down my gullet. IV administration may be advisable.
Sunshine Grit
Yellow, yellow, not so mellow. A friend snapped this picture of me yesterday as I was striding to meet her for brunch. I love it. It seems the quintessential image of Summer 2015, which is turning out to be chockablock with the kind of challenges that will define the rest of my decade for better and worse. Yellow is the color of the third chakra, which is all about gut instincts, personal transformation, will power, and grownup-lady warrior energy. Yes, yes, yes, yes.
The People We Choose
There’s nothing better than gussying up for a girl date, romantic or otherwise. Heck, all girl dates are romantic. At the very least, you know that those small flourishes have a good chance of being appreciated. Exhibit A: my dear friend Rachel and me. Last night, along with another sweet lady, we had midcentury prime rib and cocktails at Midtown’s Smith & Wollensky, the most midcentury steakhouse of them all. (We also ate creamed spinach, if you need a complete picture.) When I got home, I felt soothed rather than savaged, which reminded me of a favorite quote from the Los Angeles essayist Eve Babitz:
I had a collection of lovers to keep me warm and my friendships with women, who always fascinated me by their wit, bravery, and resourcefulness, and who never told you the same story twice. I mean, you can go places with a woman and come back just fine. As my agent, Erica, plowed right in and said: “You know when you have dinner with a girlfriend, you’re going to come back a whole human being.”
*Update: Part of me hesitated before putting up this post since it seems retrogressive in terms of its gender polarity. So, to be clear: I am talking about anyone who embraces womanhood–the whole spectrum, from transwomen to delicious butches who uphold their womanhood (just not their femininity, which to my mind is super different).