Hollow forms of soft fabric that once held one’s most private parts, now empty and unable to support themselves in upright fashion, and fashion relegated to the inside until it’s dropped on the floor then tossed into a bigger pile of laundry. The thankless cycle of our undergarments unless and until we make them front and center in some ill-advised-but-often-begged-for moment of exhibitionism.
Queer authors will always be heroes to me, as it is within the written word where the magical path to self-discovery and freedom begins. Add in a unique slant of “spicy, queer Appalachian Romantasy” and you have the stuff of literary legend. This is Thomas (TJ) West, who has written a couple of books, including the queer Appalachia fantasy ‘Country Road Romance’ which was inspired by his own experiences growing up in West Virginia. (He also wears the coolest shirts.) Today he is crowned our Dazzler of the Day.
It’s seed-buying season at the garden centers, preamble to the most wonderful time of the year, and I picked up a few packets for people to grow for me. As green as I like to think my thumb is, seeds have never taken to my expectations or preparations. Mom and Suzie will be responsible for bringing this collection of beauties to life, and I save a single packet of dill to try in our garden one more time (which marks about my fifth attempt, with never a single harvest for all five times).
The gray grid of winter streets attempts to put order to madness. Even with such structure, winter defies borders and containment. New York in January can be brutal, and because of that there are usually decent tickets available for Broadway shows. I remember a particularly frigid night when we saw ‘Grey Gardens’ – Andy and I hunkered down at Gallagher’s for a classic steak dinner before rushing along in scarves and coats to the theater. Thankfully our hotel was nearby as the walk back was horrendous.
Suzie and I also saw a show in the wilds of winter – the revival of ‘Follies’ with Bernadette Peters – and I was staying at what was then a Kimpton hotel on Columbus Circle. Another freezing night that ended when the show ended, and I indulged in a very hot shower with some L’Occitane Lemon Verbena bath products – a temporary but gratifying experience of heat and steam and pleasurable fragrance – before diving under the bed covers again. Winter is all about quick and furtive movements in service of comfort and survival, navigating how to get from a towel-clad state of post-shower bliss to the cool environs of a bed waiting to be warmed without losing all the heat in the process.
Photos from a former winter, because I’m too lazy to take new ones from the current winter. The past and present bump up against each other, and it’s not altogether unpleasant. Still, echoes are by their nature less; the more there are, the less impressive they become.
Once my hair turned more gray than black, say in the last few years or so, I began to detect a discernible difference in how I was being perceived. There was a slight deference in basic one-on-one interactions with strangers, a little more respect and used of ‘sir’ from servers and waitstaff, and the slimmest shift in meetings with people who had previously dismissed or discounted me. It wasn’t anything huge or dramatic, just a gentle, sloping tilt in what I felt from other people. It’s possible this is all in my head – that’s always possible – but I’m usually pretty perceptive when it comes to reading a room and its reactions, and it felt like my gray hair was giving me some sort of ancient authority that wasn’t there when I speared much younger.
At the same time, it also relegated me to near invisibility in certain social scenes where youth and beauty still reigned supreme. A strange sort of trade-off, another confounding paradox. Respect and invisibility, deference and dismissal – and somewhere in the middle of it all a head of wavy wolf’s hair trying valiantly, desperately, to embrace the autumn of life.
Today marks a full Blood Moon – the Worm Moon – along with a lunar eclipse and Mercury still in retrograde motion. Astrologically speaking, particularly for Virgos, this is said to be a combustible combination, and I am taking all necessary precautions, mostly just to keep my cool and not lose every last bit of shit that’s barely holding me together. Is it working? Somewhat.
I’m still hitting all the red lights, still tripping over all the computer and phone cords, still wrestling with malfunctioning lights and humidifiers, still dealing with infuriating texts from friends and family who are suddenly unable to read or remember anything – but taking it all in stride, and, more importantly, not lashing out or forcing my well-intentioned (and often-proven-correct) ideas for improvement upon all the people who never wanted them. Getting slightly better at that, better at letting people pick up their own messes, and allowing them to make their mess in the first place because they were never going to listen to me anyway. I was just about to remark about how annoying it was to see people ignore a Virgo’s advice, but that’s very Virgo of me, and at odds with the meaning of this post, and the grace I’m trying to achieve or at least work toward.
Instead, I will focus on clarity and clear communication, sans judgment and ridicule and condemnation. I will endeavor to let others make their own choices, to go along with their suggestions, to be amenable and genuinely peaceable to another way of doing things. This full moon is said to be an opportunity for growth and transformation, and letting go of things that no longer serve you. My critical mind, while helpful for myriad moments in my life, is of no help to others who need to learn their lessons in their own way. I’m also painfully aware there are myriad lessons for me still to learn, not in the quest of a perfection that doesn’t exist, but in the journey to improvement. Shedding control, letting the universe nudge me and heeding those nudges, are my methods for making it through this full Blood Moon moment. I am trying.
A brown sugar vanilla latter it’ll be then, heartfully decorated with the expert design of a seasoned barista. A cup full of hearts. A heart full of latte love.
This is my favorite Madonna anniversary as it marks the release of her greatest album to date: ‘Ray of Light’. While others come close and hold sacred spots in memory for varying reasons (‘Like A Prayer‘, ‘Erotica‘, and ‘Confessions On A Dance Floor‘ come to the forefront of my mind) it is ‘Ray of Light’ that still means the most. Going back in time to that delirious almost-spring release is an exercise in memory that been repeated almost annually, and rather than do all the work I’ve done before, here is a list of some of those posts:
Two troublesome squirrels chased each other along our backyard fence, running parabolic routes in defiance of gravity and against the stifling winter snow – while the sun came up and decided to shine for the day – lucky blue sky at the end of a month that had been so much less than kind. Then, cutting through Andy’s classical music station, the repeated chirping of a cardinal from the top branches of the seven sons flower tree.
Much of life matters because of how we interpret and react to it, what we make of and imprint upon what random and haphazard acts unintentionally seem to intend. On this morning, the cardinal mostly likely was not singing for me, but I felt it was, and that feeling was enough to make it so.
While this country’s convicted felon of a President is likely getting us into a war with Iran, our duly-elected Congress sits willfully helpless – the GOP fully enabling this Psycho-in-Chief to do whatever dangerous whims he wishes in a transparent attempt to distract from the Epstein files. It won’t work – no matter how many troops and people he gets killed, it won’t erase the fact that Trump is in those files, and there are allegations that he molested a thirteen-year-old girl that remain investigated. All in the day for an alleged and morally depraved pedophile – so on with the weekly recap because nothing seems to change or matter…
Today is the first day of March, which proverbially comes in like a lion, though at this point in meteorological history there is no way we can count on a lamb-like departure. Andy has been warning me that the current spell of Mercury in retrograde motion is going to be particularly bad for Virgos – as if there was something I could do with that other than panic and expect the worst – but I’ve seen some astrological feeds warning that with a Virgo’s typical carefulness and deliberate consideration, it’s the people around us who should be worried. Expecting and preparing for the worst is generally my baseline anyway, so where’s the bother? I don’t want any trouble, but trouble loves to find me like I’m some unwilling participant in a game of hide-and-seek. Trouble should know by now I’m rather adept at hiding. When I used to play hide-and-seek as a kid there were times the others never found me. And sometimes, even when they yelled about oxen and income for free (signaling the end of the game) I’d stay hidden until the light drained from the sky and the screams faded into the distance.
Our last month of winter dovetails with the beginning of spring – March straddling both with an element of unease – and it’s usually one of the more emotionally-charged times of the year. Coinciding with the upcoming full moon and lunar eclipse in Virgo, this puts us on a dangerous trajectory indeed. All I can do is meditate, see my therapist, and try not to hurt or get hurt in the process. Being a little more careful is about the only extra effort I can muster – staying within prescribed speed limits, not losing my shit at work, holding my tongue when ex-in-laws drag my family name through their self-created mud – you know, the usual routine. The confines of decent human behavior – the sort of thing that never held much interest or allure for me, but that has proven to be the easier path for those of us smart enough to simply suck it up.
And so I shall endeavor to be a good boy as I put on the mantle of March – saving my lilac fury for spring, when I shall eat the white chocolate lamb before it even gets to bleat.
A week of astrological warfare puts on a show as six planets align in the sky beside a moon on the verge of growing into its fullness. Jupiter, Saturn, Venus, Neptune, Uranus and Mercury parade their heavenly bodies as I step into the night air and stand beneath their magnificence. This night is said to be a portal of sorts for personal transformation.
A time of mysticism, never quite grounded in science, works its own kind of magic. Maybe it’s partly real, maybe it’s all a placebo effect – if the end result is rumination, analysis, manifestation and meditation, then let us have the planets align.
In the air, more than a hint of spring. Clouds moving swiftly beneath the sparkling sky. A mystical evening holding fortune or emptiness, likely something between the two.
