Guess what babes, I’m in Memphis and I’m feeling so many types of ways but mostly I’m just feeling…. good? Which, as I’m sure everyone who is used to feeling bad or complicated or “pass” understands, it’s hard to embrace feeling good! I’m working on it.
Personal updates: I’m still on tour, and it’s going really well. We just did a stint through Iowa City, Lawrence, Kansas, and Oklahoma City, and boy oh boy did I just have the best time in all of those places. One of these days I’ll fulfill my wish to categorize every american city I’ve been to into three categories: good, neutral, and bad. Strictly subjective! All three of those cities go in “good”. It was 70 and sunny in OKC, and I honestly felt like I was glowing. A few different people told me how happy I looked and seemed, and I got compliments on my outfit and my crowd management skills, so basically I was (and AM) crushing it. I’m trying to embrace just being happy when I can, instead of sitting with it and feeling like I’m missing something. No longer are the days of “I feel good, I must be missing something, let me reach into the crevices of my brain and pull out the worst thing I can find and focus on that instead”, now we’re choosing fun.
My sweet angel Daire who rightfully gets a shoutout in every newsletter sent me something about the angel number 222 today:
“222 is a message of hope, representative of balance, harmony, life choices, commitment, compromise, and trust. It’s a sign you can build on your current situation to achieve your goals and more… Take faith from this message, and trust your instincts going forward. You are on the right path, and you are headed toward fulfillment. It takes hard work, dedication, and faith, but so do all good things in life. Take steps forward in your light.”
Excuse me while I order a 222 necklace to wear with my “Mack” nameplate necklace. I’m ready to step into my light! I think it’s worth noting and really special that Daniel and I started the process of buying our house on 2/2/2022, I will always remember that. Real quick: 2 is associated with the moon, I am a Cancer which is ruled by the moon, and 2+2+2+2+2 in 2/2/2022 = 10 which is wholeness/fullness/abundance. Basically, I am ready for my watery little life to be full, whole, and abundant in our home :’)
Let’s talk tarot. This morning I approached the deck with two questions:
What should I release?
I pulled the Eight of Cups for this question, which is a card about avoidance. You can see in this card that 8 cups have been balanced in the foreground in such a way that highlights a missing piece, representing disappointment. But instead of sitting with that disappointment or focusing on the 8 cups that they do have, the figure in the card has turned their back on this arrangement and is walking away with their back turned to their reality. The moon is absolutely giving them the side eye because that is not higher self behavior.
There is a confrontation in my life that I’ve been avoiding for months, and it’s been looming heavier and darker recently. I took this as the sign I needed to finally open up this conversation, and while I do feel a sense of discomfort in anticipating the response to this opening up, I also feel a huge sense of relief that I’m looking directly at my cups (so to speak), instead of trying to slip away unnoticed. We aren’t always ready to take the plunge into harder conversations, but when the time comes it feels so much better to just do it (swoosh) than to continue sneaking around in your own life, that’s never going to do anything for you.
What should I invite in?
I pulled a reversed three of pentacles for this jawn, and I had to sit with that one for a minute. I don’t necessarily read reversals in the traditional way. I like to think of myself as a vessel when I’m reading tarot: when I pull a card upright I am allowing that energy to pour into me, and when I pull a card in reverse I am inviting that energy to flow out of me. So in a way by asking what should I invite in and pulling a reversal (flow out) I had to do a little mental contortion to make sense of it all. I had two reads on this, and Lucy had a third she threw into the pot. First though, let’s talk about what this card even means. The three of pentacles is about collaboration, and because it’s in the earth suit we’re usually talking in the realm of what grounds us and what sustains us, especially financially. So we’re talking jobs and creative projects that we make our money on.
My first read on this was thinking about my tendency to push my own ideas down for other people’s ideas. I’ve never tried to be a creator, I’ve always tried to be a facilitator. I like to keep most of my creative projects to myself for myself, and instead use a lot of my energy to help other people realize their vision. I don’t think this is bad, but I do know that there have been times I’ve been approached to be a part of something that would put me more front and center, collaborating more publicly and visibly, instead of staying behind the scenes, and I usually say “no thanks”. So perhaps this is an invitation to say yes or further consider those opportunities instead of sticking to the shadows. My second read was about this card sometimes being read as a signal for career change, and I did reach out to a friend about a job the other day, and there’s a chance that it might actually pan out, so I’m also considering this a sign that that was a good move, and I should try to follow that path if it does present itself.
Lucy’s read on this for me was about how she knows me to be a person who gets such satisfaction from overseeing a project myself from start to finish, and the fulfillment that having my hands on the work the entire time does give to me. She offered the suggestion that I seek out and follow through on personal projects, sort of pushing back on my tendency to collaborate on everything, and see my own capability for what it is. Thanks babe :’)
Now we get into media :~)
What have I been listening to?
“Strong Enough” by Cher — My friends and I are having a Cher-aissance of sorts, shoutout to my disco demons group chat. I think this song really hit for me when I saw Olivia Lux and Kandy Muse lip sync to it on RPDR13, those lip sync songs really get into your bloodstream. I was having a moment fully dancing in the trailer to this outside the venue the other day while pulling more blue hoodies. I would recommend getting into Cher at any and all moments.
I’ve been slowly nibbling on the new Big Thief and I think it’s really excellent. I keep trying to listen to this full record and then the band starts soundchecking and I can’t hear a damn thing, so I’m taking it a couple songs at a time.
I’ve also been nibbling on the new Black Country, New Road and feel like it’s 2022’s Welcome to the Black Parade, I love an unexpected rock opera vibe.
The four songs that Emily (our FOH) uses to check the venue PA every day: “Hurtin’ on the Bottle” by Margo Price, “War Pigs” by Black Sabbath, “Roll to Me” by Del Amitri, and “All Your Favorite Bands” by Dawes. These songs will haunt me for the rest of my life, in a good way I think.
What have I been reading?
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk
William Blake Poems, selected by Patti Smith
Poems and Songs by Leonard Cohen (Everyman’s Library)
Nobody is Ever Missing by Catherine Lacey
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I finished Drive Your Plow and it did everything for me that I expected it would, mainly that it was a much better realization of the same basic premise as Death in Her Hands, but with so much more meat on its bones (ha) and so many more strands in the web it wove. If you like good writing, Poland, astrology, a good mystery, and a rag tag collection of characters, please pick this one up, and read Flights by Olga as well if you have not, she’s so good!
While in Chicago I stopped by one of my favorite bookstores in the country: Pilsen Community Books. I picked up 7 books (pictured below), including the anthology of William Blake poems as selected by Patti Smith. I did this because the main character in Drive Your Plow is translating Blake into Polish with another character, and each chapter starts with a epigraph couplet from “Auguries of Innocence”. I try to always have one poetry book going in the rotation, but I rarely read classic(al) poetry so this is a new experience for me. I really like Blake’s horny nature poems, and I’m less psyched about the really Christian ones. But he is referenced a lot and it’s nice to read something to help fill in personal gaps of knowledge :-)
I also picked up the pocket Everyman’s Library collection of Leonard Cohen songs and poems while walking around OKC and he’s just so good, I’ve been having my Leonard Cohen phase for almost a year now, I love him. More horny poetry!!
Now, let’s talk about my girlie Catherine Lacey. I have a bad habit of reading five depression novels in a row and Nobody is Ever Missing unfortunately came at the final spot in my most recent string. This was my fourth Lacey book, and I did find parts of it really enticing, but in the final stretch I found myself pushing through just to finish, not really out of enjoyment of any kind.
Ms. Catherine has a tendency to explore character types that feel like slices of myself, character types that I have written and probably would write. I had the realization while reading this novel that I’m pretty harsh on her as a writer because it does in a way feel like reading something I would write, so that’s some projection right there, but I also historically enjoy reading her writing for the same reasons. This kinda circles me back to what I began with, in that I want to embrace feeling good and not just bog my brain down with full on existential dread and nihilism when I don’t need to constantly be doing that. This book lowkey made me want to die, in a passive way, and I just don’t NEED to indulge that part of myself.
Besides my complaints about the endless downward spiral into this depressed protagonist I also found the writing a bit sloppy, and got annoyed when she (the character) explicitly references how frequent and heavy handed her metaphors are because it unfortunately drew my attention to how true that is about her (the writer!). Lucy and I also stayed up late last night discussing that we did not love the Deus Ex Machina caricature trans bestie* who swoops in mid-story. She felt clunky, and while I understood what she was trying to do in drawing similarities between different experiences of feeling Othered, I don’t think she really executed it as well as she intended. I think that if I had read this novel when it came out (in 2014, ten days before my 19th birthday) it would have hit so different, but 26 year old me does not want to cultivate my darkness as a renewable personality resource.
*A note on “bestie”, on Lucy Dacus tour the amount of times I get called “bestie” at the merchtable every night is reaching Critical Levels!!
What have I been watching?
First and foremost: I finally (thank you Nicolay for applying the correct amount of pressure here) watched Phoenix (2014, Germany, dir. Christian Petzold) — holy shit. I’ve been thinking about it for days!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I cannot stress enough how hard this movie hit. I watched it on the full moon and started crying 7 minutes in and I just stopped and started over and over until the movie ended and I SCREAMED. I don’t really know how to talk about it yet, but what I can say is that the premise is absolutely off the wall devastating, the movie is beautiful and brilliant, the acting is incredible, and the way the tension and the story and the nuance play out is simply a masterclass in my humble opinion. Please watch it, it’s on the Criterion Channel.
I also watched The Woman Who Ran (2020, Korea, dir. Hong Sang-soo) — Everytime the prolific lovers Hong Sang-soo and Kim Min-hee collaborate I smile. Do you know about their lovers drama? I stayed up so late one time reading English-language Korean gossip columns about them and the gossip columns HATE them, but what matters is how much I love them. The short story is that they’re in love and he tried to leave his wife for her but his wife refuses to sign off on a divorce so they’re just publicly together and in love and she’s in all of his films and apparently they’re really really in love and happy together and that just makes me really happy.
I love that no Hong Sang-soo movie is over 80 minutes. I love that he does the perfect film thing that Rohmer does where people just sit in their apartments or in cafés and drink and cook and eat and talk about life, love, and philosophy, and that’s a movie. Sometimes they fight, that’s fun! Sometimes they watch a movie and you go, “hey, I’m doing that”. Just pleasant.
Dessert (aka what has brought me joy this week off the top of my head):
My nonbinary boys chat confessing that we’ve all had sex dreams about each other and then having a sweet and vulnerable conversation about our sex lives that lead to a genuine deepening of our bond :’)
Every nice person in the midwest I made friends with this week.
Giant cookies that Emily’s dad bought for us :)
This week’s episode of Untucked and cry cry crying with Lucy :’’’’)
The new “move, I’m gay” sticker I put on my water bottle
Recommendation: I’ve been taking SuperYou from Moon Juice for almost 2 months now and I really do think this adaptogenic blend is helping me regulate my hormones and cope with long term stress both internally and externally. It’s expensive, but worth it if you can swing it and are looking for a good supplement. While I’m here I will also recommend the Apocalypse Potion tincture from Dori Midnight in collaboration with adrienne maree brown if you can find it online or at a local apothecary, it’s so delicious and I take a dropper full in the morning and another if I’m feeling overwhelmed.
I say this out loud in my life enough that I feel like I would be remiss not to throw it in writing while I’m thinking about it but, Audre Lorde’s “The Uses of the Erotic” is something I read years ago and re-read from time to time that absolutely shaped me and changed my life. I am a deeply sensual person, and believe that there is pleasure to cultivate and behold in most situations. I love ritual and I love to craft a moment, I think it would do everyone good to read this and meditate on ways that you can make pleasure more present in your life, it doesn’t even have to be in an erotic or sexual way, just sensual as in the five senses. It’s so short and I linked a PDF, do yourself the favor if you have not yet.
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Okay that seems sufficient for today. I love spending most of an afternoon sitting down and reflecting to write these out, so thanks for reading 💜 I just ordered an oyster po’ boy and we’re gonna spend our night off watching Purple Rain 💜💜