46. The Week in Me
I didn’t see him!!!!!!
I didn’t see The Drummer. I barely even saw short kings in glasses who looked like him. I did run into seven people I know: my close friend Scot, three different friends named Greg including one I have known since high school, Pablo, Kinja, Jill. I was in the Leather Tuscadero outfit of my most vengeful fantasies feeling great:
(Thank you to my Aunt Annette for turning this jumpsuit into absolute coochie-cutter shorts.)
I wound up getting a ride to the show, so I walked in with my plus-one bud who is endlessly polite and looks like a goddamn Viking prince, and the seven friends he ran into were lovely. It would be easy to come here and tell you all that I *won* in some way, won the evening, won my confidence back, won.
But I didn’t win. I still spent the show looking over my shoulder, looking (out) for the damn drummer and looking back, Eurydice on purpose, Eurydice in pleather. My feet hurt from two days in a row in the same gorgeous, heelnipping boots. My ride wasn’t up for the pit. I wasn’t shoed for the pit. He was checked out by the middle of the Converge set. I was tired, in body and mind. We left early.
So last night, with my pinched heels and my position behind the barricade at stage right instead of right outside the donkey-punch-guaranteed moshpit, I didn’t win. I acted with the intention to show that motherfucker that I moved on, that I was a loss to regret (Why would I want regret upon my name?!), and that I was still the smart, tough, funny little bitch who made him belly-laugh on his couch and feel like he “high-fived God” two pitch-black hours later.
If I had shown up in my ratty checkerboard Vans and a my Planning For Burial t-shirt and dragged my friends into the center of the audience and punched and kicked and hollered, without a care of looking cool or making ugly screamy faces or even bumping into someone who bent me broken, with my eyeliner scrambling in six directions and my face red with blissed exertion…that would have meant I won.
The concert was a lesson in letting the fuck go. The Drummer told me this on our first date, during one of seven hours we spent talking on that couch in Westchester: if you are choosing a path opposite your trauma, you’re still being dictated by your trauma. How you cement yourself into exactly the opposite of your mother, how you choose a man that is nothing like the one before, how you make a moral calibration in provenance of the scumbag friends you powered through high school alongside. True healing is the safety and agency to walk, in whatever shoes you fucking want, wherever the fuck you want. Not lured towards, not chased by, but where you want to g(r)o(w).
“I gotta let go” was the last thing I thought before I fell into a rock slumber, fifteen minutes after I got home, leaving myself enough time to hug the chickens and run a makeup remover wipe over my face.
And the next day, I felt like I did. As I mentioned last week, the simple act of watching movies has been rife with tension since I stopped talking to him. I wonder if he’d seen this or that one. Us doing one of our simultaneous watches, texting with fury during I don’t know, Rockula. What he’d think. Really, what he’d complain about. But that morning I woke up, ordered French toast, and watched the new Please Don’t Destroy movie (more on that in a later letter) with Matt and we laughed and laughed and slow-clapped and I didn’t think about him once.
Here’s to letting the fuck go.
And now, the recs…
To read:
Just in case you didn’t see the above, I plan to create paid content for this Substack in 2024. As a Black Friday sale, I am offering a yearly subscription for 30 dollars, a 40 percent discount from the usual price! You can access that deal HERE. I’m still laid off though actively interviewing, so any paid subscriptions would be the sweetest holiday gift I could imagine. Thank you for supporting my work and I am so humbled that anyone reads this, let alone would pay. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
I think of
’ short story “Is That All There Is?” often and wanted to share it. I love my friend.Matthew Modine dissenting the current SAG-AFTRA strike agreement on the basis of its capitulation to unregulated AI innovations and permissions for the studios. It’s well worth the read, even if he mentions McNuggets a time too many.
I mentioned what I was reading to Dylan and he sent this over as well, a quick video from a stunt worker:
Yusef Salaam, one of the Exonerated 5, was elected to the New York City Council. (
for )
And my friend
, also on Palestine:
To watch:
I am an ardent Real Housewives girlie and I adore Dorit Kemsley, my fellow Cancerian fashionista. Dorit is one of the finest mothers we’ve seen across any franchise and truly a role modèl in how I raise mees cheekens.
Her pride in these babies is so apparent and this video of the three rating some of her Real Housewives of Beverly Hills confessional outfits brought me joy. Phoenix pointing out the most minimal bunching on a sleeve, clearly indicating that the dress was too large? Those kids are so like their mother. Bless.
To listen:
I have not gone more than two days since 2015 without thinking of Henry Winkler’s episode of WTF with Marc Maron. Hank Winkler is a very special man, and his family motto of “Tenacity! Gratitude.” has stuck with me as something I would like, AND OFTEN FAIL, to embody. I’m working on it. You can listen here.
This is literally just Simone:
This is literally just Lugosi:
(Chloe slept at my house once as we went to see Phantom of the Opera and she woke up to Lugosi, who she had known for maybe three hours, sitting astride her entire esophagus, with love.)
Actually my babies:
Various and sundry:
Jen and I commiserating about being laid off at the same time:
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This is
’s tiny chicken, Tina, who is to quote John Mulaney, “a bitch and I like her so much.” She’s not a bitch to me, because I greet her with the appropriate worship. It’s that simple.
For the Gisond-hos!! (thank you Mark for the alert)
Jason sent me this. From “Luis Armstrong,” I knew I was to embark on a grand adventure with this one:
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In return, I sent Jason this photo of this dog and his little hair that plucked at the depths of my soul because he reminded me of George Harrison on top of that mountain in Yellow Submarine and who else would I bring this deletiriously specific comparison to otherwise.
I would let that dog guide me on an ayahuasca voyage to Peru. He knew me. This is not the first lifetime in which we have crossed paths.
I hope you all enjoyed Thanksgiving, whether with family or friends or your partner or your pets or just you (that especially sounds wonderful):
This is what I wore:
And this is me posing, as my Aunt Jo insists each year, with my beloved lasagna made by Aunt Mary that we only have on Thanksgiving:
Or if you hate Thanksgiving, if you dread walking into the dining room because you know your grandmother won’t be seated at the table, I leave you with this:
Grateful for you bitches,
TG
I love reading in you, being me, but in you, me reading you… Well, have a nice week!
Very enjoyable reading, you look beautiful!! ♥️♥️♥️