10. Out of the black, into the blue.
"Get Free" by Lana Del Rey
I am not a Lana Girlie. I have never fucked a cop. I have never seen her live and don’t feel a need to. She knows why.1 I have never sampled coke or gotten one of those surgical douches that makes your vagina taste like Cherry Coke Zero. I have been to Venices Italy and Beach but would not classify myself to be as intimate with these locales as to call myself their bitch. I am not a featured performer on the Great Gatsby soundtrack. I could go on.
But. I saw this tweet and thought I’d tell you all why I put on rings engraved with a Lana lyric every time I leave the house.
In 2018, I left a seven-month relationship that decimated me. Seven months doesn’t seem like much. We didn’t hit every holiday. We weren’t together for either of our birthdays. But there was time entwined before and after, and I took tearstreaked leave four times before it stuck, and I was threatened, and made less of, was told I was irresistible for a mind and a spark and a brightness that was maligned and made gauzy and dim. And nearly snuffed out entirely.
There were two totems I clung to at this time, that saved me, that spared me. The first is Melissa Broder’s The Pisces, which I name as my favorite book anytime asked. I could and should write an essay about that book and another about Melissa’s next novel, Milk-Fed. But The Pisces made me sob and heave and remain resolute during and after and immediately before the very worst of it. The worst hour of it. I knew it crying onto those pages: I needed to go.
It all felt wrong. It felt wrong. It was wrong. It was so very wrong. It was not love, what I was living. It was not love, what I was being given: a fire scorching my palms, not passion. My throat being slit, a garroting, not an embrace from behind, not a spooning sway. It was not love, what I had to give back: CVS receipts with the prices for “but” and “you said” and “on this date” and “that’s not true” and “it’s okay, which I eventually started shopping for at Costco, where you could save fifty cents on every mollification if you bought six cases.
It was not who I was, who I had to become to love him, to protect him, and to best him in a chess match with my sanity nestled at the bottom of a gold trophy cup.
I won.
Of course I won.
Lana helped.
I want to include some of the lyrics below because I believe you all can quite easily understand how such an anthem, a “modern manifesto” as Lana calls it, would be a clarion call to safety for someone in and then leaving a toxic relationship with a middle-aged man (of course) whose patterns, proclivities, nigh kinks involved invalidating my reality.
This is my commitment, my modern manifesto
I'm doing it for all of us who never got the chance
For, and for
And all my birds of paradise
Who never got to fly at night
'Cause they were caught up in the dance
Sometimes it feels like I've got a war in my mind
I wanna get off, but I keep riding the ride
I never really noticed that I had to decide
To play someone's game, or live my own life
And now I do
I wanna move
Out of the black (out of the black)
Into the blue (into the blue)
Finally
Gone is the burden of the Crowley way of being
That comes from energies combined
Like my part was I
Was not discerning
And you, as we found out
Were not in your right mind
There's no more chasing rainbows and hoping for an end to them
Their arches are illusions, solid at first glance
But then you try to touch them
There's nothing to hold on to
The colors used to lure you in
And put you in a trance
When I left this person, the single oil slick-colored thread tying my soul to my insides decided it wouldn’t be a good idea to get a tattoo to commemorate the Houdini heist of my own body and essence. Thank goodness. The cognitive dissonance was still so heady for the months after I left, and I felt that not only would I never move on - spiritually, to a better life, a happy relationship, a happiness within myself - but also that I would never be able to let him go from my heart despite the damage he did. No Lifetime movie ever takes the time to describe how it is, likely more than money or “confidence",” cognitive dissonance that keeps you in an abusive situation. Looking back, a tattoo would have kept this man’s memory and his touch on my skin, something I couldn’t take off every night. There are some days that go by where I do not remember him at all. Some. Not many. But some. I’m proud of that choice, to allow myself the grace of forgetting.
Instead, I called upon a mantra from Lana that made my heart soar each time I listened: “Out of the black! Into the blue!” I had these lines inscribed on rings by one of my favorite jewelers, CaitlynMinimalist2 in the cursive I never shook and that my childhood best friend Chelsea says hasn’t changed since the third grade. This, too, felt important and I am so glad I honored myself by putting my heart and my intentions in my own hand, and they are wrapped around my right ring finger every morning before vaulting off into the world. I rarely feel their weight anymore, in symbolistic ounces or grams, but my hand feels less like mine without them. I feel less mine without them.
I find frequent irony in this lyric’s resonance within my soul and its accompaniment to my every outfit. I wear black, all the time. My eyeliner is black, my Lambo’s blue. I wear black more than any other color. If I own an orange or red or blue shirt, I also own it in black. My email receipts for bra orders contain colors like “onyx,” “eightball,” “like my soul,” “who Issa Rae roots for.”
But I knew what Lana meant. Thanks, girl.
And, on theme for Lana, some sugar baby kinda shit:
Parade reached out to me a number of months ago to become a “Parade Friend”: my friend Jaime recently asked me how this worked, what I get paid, etc. so I will tell you: Parade pays me for each social media post I make (to date: 2 Instagram posts at $10 each, 2 TikToks at $15 each, and 2-3 instagram stories at $3 each). I get paid $15 each time someone uses my code SWEATYLAMARR to make a purchase on their site, or if I use it myself. I did not pay for merchandise to resell like Avon or Amway, and have paid Parade nothing except for what I purchase for myself. I did not pay for the code, which will depending on the week give you 20-40 percent off sitewide and can be reused endlessly. I occasionally receive free product, which I would happily acknowledge. I do not post as much as they want me to. I do genuinely love their underwear, and being asked to show myself off like this has really benefited my confidence. If you’re looking for loungewear (all genders) or new lingerie (as Jaime mentioned, it does lean more towards women and AFAB bodies, and I hope they expand beyond that), I do recommend picking up something for yourself as a treat.
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Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browserI haven’t practiced sex work3, but every so often (NOT often) I get asked by a follower if it’s something I would do. One of these followers recently asked if they could “spoil” me, though, without anything in return, and to THAT I am saying a resounding yes. This is my Throne page where you can send me a gift - I know some of my readers here participate in *the work* and so I recommend this resource, especially as unlike an Amazon wishlist your fans can’t see your address. And yes, my username is a very old AOL screen name based off of the Mediator series by Meg Cabot. My kingdom and a BJTC for Jesse de Silva calling me “querida” even once.
Speaking of sex work, my patron charity HIPS can always use fiscal and tangible donations. HIPS is a dream organization to support - they act in support of workers in the industry by choice and those who wish to transition out. They pro-choice/pro-abortion, queer-friendly, harm reductionist, and inclusively staffed. They provide tactile resources: showers, pregnancy tests, STD testing, computers and internet access, and more. They are deeply intersectional, and frequently share news about poverty, addiction, Blackness, and other elements of life that I like to think we all care about here. They are worth a follow and even a dollar you can spare. I have fundraised for them for many years and that support is always met with the deepest gratitude. Long may they serve, and safely.
Today, in bitches be recommendin’:
Number 11 Food Store (@11foodstore): I wanted to hate this place because it took over the storefront that used to house my favorite pizza in Hoboken (RIP Seven Stars) and because I’m a dumb child set in my ways. But last week, I walked past Number Eleven Food Store and then right back on around and inside because of a small chalkboard sign in front that said “I assure you, we’re open!” Me being THEE Jersey brat of our times, I had to ask of it was a deliberate Clerks reference and: it was! The folks who run this place are cool as hell (Robyn was playing over the PA system, and I am a Robyn stan before I am almost anything else) and the menu looks so delicious.
So Hideous’s None But a Pure Heart Can Sing (EP): A little Touche Amore, a lot of horns. This has been in the heaviest rotation, like second-day-of-your-period heavy. Pads with the wings heavy. As it deserves.
Sending me feedback - good or bad. I’m a big girl; I can take it! The below from friend and reader Chloe made me so, so happy. (I did warn her that she will develop sullying and unusual ships, like Dobby/Hagrid-level unsettling ships. Sorry, Chloe! We all want Roman and Gerri to bone a lil!)
I would love to know what you’ve been enjoying and what you’d like to see included more often. I’ve also asked a small group of friends for ideas including ranked lists I can create (“my favorite X”) and segments to include - if there’s an interest of mine that you share and would like to see covered, please reach out. I’d love to give you a “guest pick” in that entry as well, as a thank you for the idea. Something to show your mom, you know?
And now….
This week’s thing that will never leave my brain:
I have thought about the above tumblr post every single time I have thought of or seen Christoph Waltz since the day I saw it, and this week I discovered the thrilling sequel:
Now, I would absolowdownlutely subscribe to these girls on Archive Of Our Own, but let’s get a second day of weekly therapy going. For my ass, too.
Love you bitches,
TG
Until she adds “Paris” and “Driving in Cars with Boys” to the setlists, we really have nothing to talk about!!! (And Nick Messina, if you’re reading this, hi and I love you!)
I also wear, every time I leave the house, a duet of rings from Kate that feature my grandmother’s handwriting and one each of incredibly detailed engravings of my chickens’ beautiful little faces. My good babies.
Listen I WOULD, but I do not have the confidence to ask anyone to pay to see my bootyhole or my military-exemptual flatass feet.
"I would love to know what you’ve been enjoying and what you’d like to see included more often."
It's all good (says the guy who's been binge reading this since yesterday).