27. The Week in Me
Lugosi was in the hospital this weekend. Which means: six thousand dollars while laid off and not thinking about that for a second of the time I stood sobbing at the sight of my beautiful son - who sleeps next to my head every night, who I fall asleep holding hands with, who lays on my stomach like a tuxedoed hot water bottle when I have cramps and who once jumped onto my grandmother’s kitchen table to put his paw over my arm while I shook and cried over how much I missed her - in a cage, as if he was in the pound, or as if he didn’t have a mommy. Or as if I wasn’t his mommy.
Of course I found out how to rip open that cage, would have with my teeth, showed only restraint enough to not pop his IV bag, to tell him over and over and over with my forehead to his (he was sedated) that I love him more than anything and to do kiss (he famously only allows our vet Dr. Stein to do kiss so this made me cry harder).
My son, mommy’s best good boy, is finally home after several days, two catheter re-insertions because yes, he ripped that thing out twice, and several unsolicited reports from the veterinary team that apart from yanking a foreign agent out of his peepee hole (we have educated him on not letting strangers touch his no-no parts like all good parents should) he was the nicest boy, he had such good manners, he was the handsomest boy at the whole clinic, and he took a pet like no problem:
Boobie is missing some fur. He is cranky because he doesn’t like the new wet food compounded to keep his bladder clean and sans stones, the stones being what landed him in the hospital. He is home.
It was a bad few days, for several reasons beyond having to sleep knowing my child was across town sleeping without me: (They didn’t let me sleep in his crate. I did ask.)
I mentioned a conflict I had with a friend in last week’s newsletter, thoughtlessly, and since we had talked it out earlier in the day to good effect, the revival of it in writing was hurtful and confusing to her. What I saw as journaling and benign millennial oversharing1 she saw as content at the expense of her privacy, fodder, and I still feel like a replete asshole over this. (So I’m apologizing here, again.) I mark myself “someone who primarily exists within my own imagination,” to quote Tarfia Faizullah and a
essay I will share later, but that does not mean I am incapable of making impact on, or at, others. It is something I have decried at least two boyfriends for, and here I am doing it: not realizing my impact. Evading accountability in this unintentional yet làidir way. It is, for its mitigation of the self, still self-centered to not consider how our actions and inactions wielded can wound as mightily as anyone you love, like, get hard-elbowed by on the street, can wound you. It was a gangly growing pain. Its stretchmark will dapple my thigh for years to come.I spent the drive up from my latest interlude to Philly suicidal, from my period, from missing two days of antidepressants during my period, writing a Substack in my mind telling you all that my depression was not a cry for help or a cry for attention but a cry for dirt and roses. I had enough mirth at the bottom, like fruit in yogurt, to mentally draft a footnote telling you that I expressly forbid you from leaving flowers at my grave as I am allergic. And no, I do not feel suicidal now. The abattoir of my hormones shut down, ceased production, ceased destruction, citing an OSHA violation. I am safe.
Or, I am safe today. Depression comes and goes at all hours like a mysterious roommate who might be a drug dealer or worse, in a polycule. I can’t take credit for the metaphor: it is often on my mind due to a slam poem by one of my best friends, Dan Roman. Watch this and then think about watching it when the person who shares this desolation and knowing…is one of the people you’d run into a burning building or across an airport for. I can’t watch it now because my nose contour looks really great today and I don’t want to cry it off. I got upset typing the words into the YouTube search bar. We love Dan in this house:
But yes. Today is safe. I am safe today. I was safe this week. I had a few promising recruiter calls. A company with Everest standards was “very excited” about my background. Lugosi is home. Next to my Sui-stack note was a poem I wrote about a boy who once spared a first of August. I wound up writing that one down. It was worth sparing, itself.
Maybe I am, too.
And now, onto the fun:
To read:
“I think I have been seeking a best friend for my whole life, something I’ve been unpacking a lot with my therapist recently, how quick I am to name and claim people as “close” or my “ best friend” because then the relationship feels safe, or more real. Traumatized but over-eager, I’ve always been over-eager for love.” -
’s , as always making me do this:
Last week, I told you that I watched cinematic masterpiece Point Break for the first time. Yesterday, I watched cinematic masterpiece Point Break for the second time. (Holds up!) I was curious as to
from on care work in the film industry including a compelling primer on AD (audio description), used to depict onscreen actions to those with vision impairments, neurodivergent folks who might appreciate the assist in decoding nonverbal cues, or folks who simply prefer to consume media in audio.This is only relevant in its tie to the film industry, but come on. I’m a human American woman and it’s Jack Black:
A great Greta Gerwig interview by Shirley Li, who did the one thing I ask of journalists: ask original questions.
To watch:
To start, me and who:
Real Housewives of New York: there are smarter, funnier people than I doing power rankings per episode (
, ) so I will just leave you with Jenna BEEN Lyons saying “Are you, like, shakshitting me?” over a literal argument on this show about being expected to eat shakshouka before a morning workout. We are, to quote Tom Cruise stans for the first and last time ever, SO back.
I watched three movies this week for the first time and I loved them right away. The first is Bio-Dome. I, the world’s biggest fan of the Paul Shore motion picture Son-In-Law, like I love it even more than the person who wrote it did, had never seen Bio-Dome until this weekend. Kylie Minogue as a redhead and Joey Lauren Adams in a series of small casual tops2…
The second I had never heard of until Sean (hi, Sean!) all but demanded it: 1992’s Stay Tuned, starring John Ritter3, Pam Dawber, and as has become an unintentional pattern with Sean’s movie suggestions, Jeffrey Jones:
When Jeffrey Jones doesn’t have a mustache, you know you’re in for some sick shit. At least with the mustache he’s creeping in plain sight. You know he’s a little freak. When the mustache is not there: trickery. Insidiousness. White devilry.
Stay Tuned tells the story of a typical sitcom married couple: hot wife, schlubby husband who wants to curl up to the television instead of her. In a Faustian cable installation, the couple is transported into a hellacious block of television programming and it’s up to them to unite as a couple to save their own lives. There are so many silly, STUPID send-ups of classic noir, game shows, wild wild westerns…I don’t want to name them. I don’t want to spoil them! I knew that John Ritter was in this movie and that’s all I knew and I am so glad I got to sit there and delight in every stupid little surprise and every minor, minor cameo (John Pyper-Ferguson!). If this sells you, if you need to be sold further: I just ordered it on DVD.
I have relatively little that’s novel to say about Oppenheimer, other than that I was expecting to find it a sluggish white male bore and instead loved it. I didn’t check the time once (because the person in front of me did with his phone on full brightness. But I wouldn’t have anyway.) My only distinct view, really, is that I wish I could see what Emily Blunt and Florence Pugh would have done with each other’s roles. Florence has done her Thane-ess of Cawdor turns before, but we have not yet seen that role sunk like an ice cube in a Belvedere with soda, short glass, three lemons — carcass out. And Emily Blunt, Mary Poppins, resilient silent wife, Rita Vrataski herself…I’d love to see her flaws closer to the surface, her best gotten. I would relish the chance to see what she does with Tennessee Williams, for example. They were cast well, served well as replicants, volleyed with their scene partners with alacrity. But it would have been the one thing I’d change, just to see if it made for a more interesting movie. I, and I’m surprised to say this, look forward to watching it again. Matt ass Damon giving his Aldo Raine best. THE SAFDIE BROTHER????? Bitch???? He was so fucking good???? My BABY BOY Jack Quaid with his little bongos. Richard Feynman walked so Matthew McConaughey could run (from the cops after playing the bongos but also being naked, which is a crime in our hellish martial state apparently!????). We love Alden Ehrenreich in this house, long may he shine. Long may his agent be back from whatever vacation they were on for the last three years.
And we LOVE to see Dane DeHaan cast as a little shitstirrer. (I’m trying to figure out which shitstirring Real Housewife Dane DeHaan is most like while Pantera is playing in front of me at the Metallica concert. This is my life. I’m very tempted to say he’s actually a Faye Resnick and even more tempted to say he’s an Alison DuBois if we’re allowing for Housewife Telematic Universe variants.) I know when that little sicko enters frame you’re not here for a long time, but a good time. And by good I mean fucking goblin ghoul sicko shit. Nasty, nasty work. Weird weird shit. Christoph Waltz, Will Brill, Javier Bardem, Willem Dafoe. Give the boy a Val Lewton remake, damnit!! (And the less said about the Other Affleck, the Afflecktion, the better. His face was a jump scare. He will haunt my dreams and memories. Unfortunately, he gave a magnificent performance.)
I am also obsessed with this IMPROVISED LINE FROM JAMES REMAR. Chris Nolan said the following and I was gooped: “There’s a moment where James Remar… He kept talking to me about how he learned that Stimson and his wife had honeymooned in Kyoto. That was one of the reasons that Stimson took Kyoto off the list to be bombed. I had him crossing the city off the list because of its cultural significance, but I’m like, ‘Just add that.’ It’s a fantastically exciting moment where no one in the room knows how to react.”
I also went on a dad and daughter date to The Metrograph to see my dad’s favorite movie, Midnight Run. (This is a lie. It’s his second favorite movie, sandwiched between A Fish Called Wanda and Friday After Next.) I grew up with a poster of this movie tacked to my deep brown wood paneled basement, and it is the first adult movie my dad showed me where he didn’t have to grand jete in front of the television to hide an onscreen boob. DeNiro is maybe his hottest, Charles Gordon is a silent comedic genius, it is a “dudes ROCK” movie through and through and is the reason I know what chorizo is. It’s quotable, it’s paced well, it’s a funny comedy with bits and jokes and banter and surprises, and no one is maligned due to race or sexuality which is a big ask for a movie of the time. My dad and I have been showing up individually to build a stronger relationship as adults and friends and looking over every few minutes to see him beaming at the screen in the adorable Midnight Run hat I picked up from Patti Lapel was a beautiful experience for me as a daughter.
To listen:
A song I found on my drive from Philly:
Coming home from the city one night this week, I flicked on 89.1 FM and heard the most amazing incredible noise. WNYU’s Sonic Gravedigging broadcast Ulla Straus’s “Hope Sonata” in full. I was delighted to learn that Ulla is based in Philadelphia, and the title of the piece. I chewed it over, wondering if the sonata encapsulated hope for me. By the end, I decided it was a hope I know well. Not hope like Singin’ in the Rain, not ebullience, but turning towards light after a dark winter. Didn’t I need that.
Love you bitches,
TG
I’m too self-aware to make many of the choices I make. My therapist says this all the time. I’m aware.
