22. The Week in Me
My Lambo is blue, my Venmo is @taragiancaspro.
I got laid off yesterday. And I am relieved. I have said that for the last two years I have felt quicksanded by the “brain cloud” from Joe Versus the Volcano. I developed, in my first summer on the job, ADHD that I had never had before. I felt like my brain was full of bees. Sluggish, porky little bees who sniveled like pugs, but bees. I would look at a task, start working on it, and five minutes later would be buying a Kermit backpack1 from Hot Topic asking myself, much like David Byrne, how did I get here. Me, someone who as we famously know, has spun several moody, broody, 5’7” or 5’11” or worst of all 6’2” very fragile plates2 on sticks in both hands and off one knee. I was not able to multitask. I was not able to unitask. I was full of bees and a fucking mess.
So when I walked into a room surely designed for the purpose of shitcanning to find my boss and his Meisner Method puppy-dog eyes and some guy with a mustache that I had never met, I felt one bee waft over my lower lip and leave my mouth. Then another. And by the time I woke up this morning, most of them had packed up their honeycomb suitcases and left through the bedroom window.3
Yesterday morning I took a moment to look at the photo of my grandmother on my nightside table. I blew her a kiss (she would insist that I make a joke here about learning to blow from the best, because my whole “Milton Berle with a bigger dick” schtick comes from her, the surest perv the world has ever known4). I asked her to “look out for me today.”
She did.
The last two weeks have been momentous with change. I have said goodbye to broken ideas about my body and my future and my worth. These were choices made for me, goodbyes said to me, but I claimed agency in them. Found my farewells. What I was asked, forced, summoned to let go of were hot knives of hope and heartache that I clung to, that knitted me into a lie of safety. I am glad they are gone.
It feels like someone bet against me and it blew up in their face.
And showered blessings onto mine.5
LOVE. YOU. BITCHES.
TG
And now, the rest of it:
I saw The Misfits last week!
I had VIP lounge access! I passed around free cannolis to my friends watching the goddamn Gaslight Anthem open the show! Everyone seated near me was very envious of the charcuterie plate I had perched on my leather-clad lap while honestly ogling Doyle’s pecs! Glenn sounded great! Everyone warns you ahead of seeing Danzig that he’s going to sound like shit, but he sounded great, let me tell you his voice carried, especially when he said that Jerry forgot to take his r-word pills (but the actual word) that morning! Not! Fucking! Great! Glenn!
Oh, Glenn. Everyone I knew at that show groaned when he said it, at least. I fucking hate that word.
Also: fuck you, Jonah Hill. How does it feel knowing you’re supposed to be the “face for radio” comic relief and you still get bodied by Leo DiCaprio and Channing Tatum (twice!!!!) in the laugh department? I believe Sarah Brady. And I stand with her.
To read: this orchid of an essay by
. An act of grace towards being masters of none and imperfect in artistry.I binge on @gendersauce posts like salt and vinegar Cape Cods, in that I pick up a bag after some healing, loving distance and all hell breaks loose and I cut the roof of my mouth on those shardy-ass chips and then the salt gets in there and why do I do this to myself but also, they really hit the spot and maybe I should set up an Amazon auto-delivery.
This week, for the Skyler Gisond-hos:
Do yourselves a favor and listen to Little Hag even though Avery ruined my entire day and/or life when she wrote this:
Also, obviously, listen to Adam Schlesinger. I will leave just one of his works of maddening genius here and write more about him, a hero of mine, later:
To quote my friend Sara of
:“Entertainment Community Fund - I’m fundraising for them on my Instagram at the link in my bio there. It is easy to donate! If you are an entertainment worker (cast, crew, venue staff, anybody) in need of help with mental healthcare, food money, rent money, even shoe money, they can find ways to help you.
They help everyone in entertainment, and that includes folks affected by past, present and future strikes. They don’t only help people in unions, or people whose main income is entertainment.
In fact, they once helped a friend of mine navigate the unemployment system when they quit their job for their own safety after an assault at work. They helped another friend of mine whose entertainment industry insurance wouldn’t cover their Crohn’s disease treatment.
And the Fund runs an assisted living facility for elderly folks who are retired entertainers! I really can’t say enough good stuff about them.”
Mexican culture…bangs.
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I read this Chloe Aridjis piece on Mexican Baroque this week, and went on a trip to the Mahoning Drive-In (an incredible place run by incredible people) to see Santo and Blue Demon vs. Dracula and the Wolf Man, a lucha movie and also a monster movie and also a movie about a (were)man who stages a meet-cute to lure a woman to her death. You can and should watch that here.6
And last….girl, WHAT?!?!!
For the record, I see white and gold.
Make your moneyshot jokes. I am. I know my grandmother is.
Let’s go "moving on to bigger and better things" era! Bathroom windows are overrated if you have a fan
Team White and Gold for the win.
Thrilled to see that that bad stuff is turning out for the best. That certainly isn't always the way. You deserve all of the good things, and I hope you know this.