| |  | | | | September 6, 2016 | Letter No. 50 | | | | | | | | | | | | Happy Day After Labor Day, Lennys!
I'm sure I'm not the only one who makes resolutions in the fall — it feels like so much more of a fresh start to me than New Year's does. The Buddhist in me, who mostly wishes my resolutions would include being more Buddhist, says that calling them intentions would make them more mindful and purposeful, but I'm not sure about that. I like the idea of being filled with resolve.
My biggest resolution is to write more. Ha! I know, I am writing RIGHT NOW. But among the many lovely things Lenny brings to my life is all the terrific writing I get to read, and I want this to steer me toward making more, and better, work, or at least trying. My other resolutions are to win the lottery, ignore the election, and really explore the possibility of year-round communal living for me and my friends, because why just do it when we can afford a beach house? I picture a compound that is somehow both in the city and apart from it, full of plants and people and pets, each one of us enjoying the perfect balance of solitude, family time, collaborative vibes, artistic freedom, and radical acceptance that should be everyone's birthright.
Many of this week's stories are about fresh starts and following your own path as well. Misty Snow, who is running for the Senate in Utah, would be the first trans person (that we know of) in the United States Congress if she wins — that's not just resolution, that's revolution. Michael Cavadias tells us about PrEP, a new drug combination that, taken daily, can prevent the transmission of AIDS. A huge, and positive, change.
I love Laia's interview with knitwear designer Amanda Phelan, whose description of her process is so thoughtful and, yes, intentional, that I can only imagine the peace and creativity that would come from wearing one of her pieces. Masha Tupitsyn's story on female film editors opened my eyes to the impact of editors on the movies we see — it will make you want to sit through the credits more often. And of course, we have this month's Lennyscopes. Mine says that I should consider starting a gratitude practice, so I'm adding that to my list of resolutions as well. I know we all have something to be grateful for, so let's do it together.
Love,
Mikki | | | | | | | | | | | | Misty Snow, the Queen of Firsts | | | | By Sarah Sophie Flicker | | |
What if we took a small step toward true representation in the Senate (or anywhere else for that matter)? What if you didn't need to be a rich, usually white, almost always straight, and probably always cis, dude, to be in government and vote on national issues? What would that be like?
If elected, Misty Snow, who is running for United States Senate in the state of Utah, would be more than a small step toward diversity in the Senate — she represents a series of potential historic firsts. She would be the first woman Utah has ever sent to the Senate. She would also be the first Democrat from Utah in 40 years, the first millennial (she's 31), the first trans woman, and, I'm guessing, the first member of the Senate who was working in a grocery store during her campaign.
Misty sees the fact that she has no college degree and has never held elected office as an asset. Her candidacy is about being an insider for the working-class community while being an outsider in Washington — but the tough reality is that she is up against Republican incumbent Mike Lee, who has an advantage when it comes to gender, fund-raising ability, and the historic tendency for those in office to remain in office.
I spoke with Misty over the phone about her campaign, her working-class values, her support for trans rights, and what she'd do if elected.
Sarah Sophie Flicker: Most of us associate Utah with Mormons, obviously. Are your friends and family who are members of the church supporting you?
Misty Snow: A lot of my friends are practicing Mormons. I work with my best friend, who is really churchy. She goes to church every Sunday and wears temple garments. She supports me. Mormon millennials are more liberal on pretty much every social issue.
SSF: How did you get into politics in the first place?
MS: Politics was never my goal. I decided to run for office in February of this year because I was not excited by the Democrat who was running in the primary. He wanted an investigation into Planned Parenthood, he is pro-life, he's not a supporter of LGBT rights, he's pro-war, and he's in favor of private prisons. That's not acceptable to me. I didn't want him to have the nomination by acclamation. I wanted him to be challenged for it.
I knew there was an opportunity to try and challenge this guy at the state convention if I launched a very progressive challenge to him and focused on issues such as income inequality, a $15 minimum wage, and LGBT rights, and you know what? It worked! I beat him four to one!
SSF: Hurrah! I first saw you at the DNC. How are you feeling about the presidential race?
MS: The presidential race is interesting. I'll probably vote for Clinton because she's the best candidate on the ballot, but I do have some reservations on her, especially when it comes to foreign policy. Nobody's excited about the presidential election in Utah, it seems. I'll vote for Clinton but I'm not going to tell everybody, like, "Hey, you need to vote this way." What matters to me is that they get out and vote and that they vote all the way down the ballot.
The lower you get on the down-ballot, the more your vote matters. At the state level, there's only going to be 5,000 or so votes cast. In the presidential election, your vote is one of like 50 million. Your vote matters a lot more for the state legislature, and they have a lot more power over your day-to-day lives than the president does. Pay attention to the senate race, the congressional races, your governor race, the mayoral race, your attorney general, your state-House and state-Senate races. Those people matter.
SSF: Totally — the presidency is not the revolution, but the down-ballot really can be. Speaking of the state level — much of the anti-LGBT legislation, the so-called "bathroom bills," and the attacks on Planned Parenthood have come out of state legislatures. What are things like in Utah, especially on trans issues? It seems like such a conservative state.
MS: In Utah there is no law against changing your gender on state-issued documentation. You just need a court order. It was pretty easy for me. I had been living as a woman for seven weeks, and all I needed was a letter from my gynecologist that I had received "appropriate treatment." I got a new birth certificate and driver's license all on the same day.
This is really a crucial issue. When you don't have the proper documents, it's harder to get a job. It's harder to get insurance. It's harder to prove who you are. Not being able to get proper identification bars you from public life, and that's why we have such high rates of unemployment and homelessness among LGBT people, trans people. You know, there are so many trans people who just can't get a job even though they might have a college degree. They can't prove they have a college degree because they can't get their school records updated.
SSF: What needs to happen to move forward nationally on this issue?
MS: What we really need is some kind of national law that protects LGBT people from housing and employment discrimination. Currently I think only nineteen states have laws like that. In Utah, which as you know is a very Republican state, we have been able to get some protection on the books, but this needs to happen nationally. Getting my passport updated was actually the most difficult paperwork I had to deal with.
SSF: You are a working-class woman without a college degree — and representing the values of that demographic is a big part of your campaign. Can you talk about that?
MS: I think there are a lot of people who are working-class people who feel that our government isn't doing a lot for them. Their voices aren't being heard.
SSF: Do you see your candidacy as a step forward for diversifying Congress?
MS: Of course — on so many levels. There are very few working-class people in Congress; there are certainly no trans people in Congress; there's not a whole lot of LGBT people in Congress; there is an underrepresentation of women in Congress. I think people want to see a more representative government, which we don't really have right now.
SSF: Tell me what you'd like to accomplish during your first hundred days in office.
MS: We still have to confirm Merrick Garland for the Supreme Court. Fifty-five percent of Utahans want hearings for him, so let's just do the job.
I'd like to fight for a living wage. I'd like to see the minimum wage raised to like $15 and then have it adjusted for inflation thereafter. I'd like to advocate for nondiscrimination acts for LGBT people. Certainly, unemployment and housing I think would be the most critical, but also medical care and just ensuring that LGBT people have full equal rights under the law without exemptions or exceptions, in all areas.
This interview has been condensed and edited.
Sarah Sophie Flicker is creative director for Art Not War, a creative agency that specializes in social-justice and progressive-issue campaigns, founder of the Citizens Band, a political theater group, and co-founder of At Once, a website about the future of motherhood and feminism. | | | | | | | | | | | | Mother Cutter | | | | By Masha Tupitsyn | | |
In 1974, Verna Fields was nominated for an Oscar for editing American Graffiti. In 1976, she won one for editing Jaws. The enormous success of Jaws made Steven Spielberg a star, spawned the concept of the "summer blockbuster," and led to three sequels. She won despite Spielberg's resentment of the praise and credit Fields received for her work. Film journalist Peter Biskind writes that when Fields was asked to appear in a Kodak ad celebrating women, Spielberg asked to replace Fields with Marcia Lucas, George Lucas's then-wife, who had also worked on American Graffiti.
Fields was already a veteran editor in her 50s by the time she worked on Jaws. Starting out as an apprentice to Fritz Lang in 1944, she worked her way up to assistant, then sound editor. Fields then went on to make social-reform documentaries for Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society" in the 1960s. During this time she was also a beloved teacher at the University of Southern California, where George Lucas was her student. Fields finally came to prominence as a film editor during the New Hollywood era, from 1968 to 1972. Three young directors of the time — Spielberg, Lucas, and Peter Bogdanovich — made Fields their personal "mother cutter," a nickname coined by Newsweek. Fields's work on their movies catapulted her "out of the customary, near-anonymity of film editors," according to the Los Angeles Times.
In Zeroville, Steve Erickson's great cinematic novel, a female character based on Verna Fields explains: "Cutting was easier than a lot of things for a woman to get into, because in their quaint way, [Hollywood producers] Mayer and Warner and Zanuck and Zukor all had this idea that editing was like sewing." Apart from technical skill, editing is the art of figuring out where things go, how they relate — what should be left in and what should be left out. The hours are in the craftwork. The craft of threading and integrating everything together, with your hands, is something women historically knew how to do — from housework, to cooking, to weaving and sewing. Almost like cinematic housewives, female editors have been seen as bearing an all-purpose responsibility for organizing, caring for, and honing the cultural material men produce. It's seen as nurturing and not as concrete work. While mother cutter is an informal term for Fields's mastery of film editing, it also signifies the way editing itself has been (mis)treated as a feminized skill, and thus creatively negligible.
Spielberg enjoyed Fields's total availability as his live-in editor on Jaws. She cut every day as he was shooting, on the film's Martha's Vineyard location or at her own home. According to Biskind, Fields was "at Spielberg's beck and call by means of a walkie-talkie. Often she would shuttle back and forth on her bike between the producers in town and Spielberg at the dock for last-minute decisions." Fields watched all the dailies and consulted on the script. While promoting the film, Fields wasn't shy about her contribution, often reminding the press "A woman edited Jaws."
Spielberg never used Fields again. In contrast, Martin Scorsese's mother cutter, Thelma Schoonmaker, edited his 1967 directorial debut, Who's That Knocking at My Door?, and has been his editor ever since. Scorcese is quick to give Schoonmaker credit, saying, "I have been making a lot of films … There are many, many pressures and stresses, of course, with different issues. So I really rely on her to keep the emotional continuity of the picture." In interviews, Schoonmaker constantly refers to a "we" — her and Scorsese — when discussing her films. She praises Scorsese for being a great editor himself, who does "50 percent of her work for her" during the script and shooting stage, although she did once joke that Scorsese's gangster pictures weren't violent until she edited them.
A great editor makes us ask: who and what is responsible for a great film — a director or an editor? Auteur theory, in which film reception is still heavily entrenched, seductively conceals the collective steps taken to complete a work — and the (male) film director, who rose to cultural prominence in the 1970s, gets all the credit.
Great directors — a male-dominated field — are lauded throughout the industry. But there are no book-length studies, biographies, or documentaries dedicated to Verna Fields, Thelma Schoonmaker, Dede Allen, or other female editors who contributed to classic, canonical films. Editing is the ultimate praxis because it gives raw material — however inspired and deliberate — form, purpose, and meaning. Until the editor steps in to cut, to make a thousand decisions and choices, raw footage can be anything and go in any direction. Can succeed or fail. Be ruined or elevated. This makes editing the most imaginative, subjective, and decisive aspect of filmmaking. And it's what women do.
Masha Tupitsyn is a writer, critic, and multimedia artist. She is the author of the books Like Someone in Love: An Addendum to Love Dog, Love Dog, LACONIA: 1,200 Tweets on Film Beauty Talk & Monsters, and the anthology Life As We Show It: Writing on Film. In 2015, she completed the film Love Sounds, a 24-hour audio essay and history of love in cinema. She teaches film at the New School. | | | | | | | | | | | | In the Studio with Phelan | | | | By Laia Garcia | | |
Last February, on what was probably one of the coldest days of the year, I found myself actually leaving my house and venturing out into single-digit weather, which as a general rule I do not believe people should ever have to deal with. I was on my way to the Phelan fashion show, a new knitwear line that a friend had said I would really like. Amanda Phelan, the designer behind the label, had previously worked at Alexander Wang and was now showing her second-ever collection in a little theater in the East Village.
Fashion shows have a standard procedure: about twenty or so minutes after the scheduled time, the lights dim, the music comes on, and models stoically walk back and forth for fifteen minutes, and then it's over. What I witnessed at Phelan was a group of dancers performing an incredible modern choreography — that maybe had a little parkour thrown in — as they ran up and down ramps on the stage. The music was cool and creepy, and I immediately sat up a little straighter. I didn't even want to take pictures because I didn't want to miss a thing. Then the models came out — a beautiful, diverse group of girls that looked like nomads in chunky and pleated knits that sometimes resembled armor, all paired with sneakers. It was love at first sight. I knew I had to meet the woman behind it all.
Cut to a few months later, and Amanda and I are in the factory in New York City's Garment District that produces her knitwear. She is about to show me her process — the sketches, the machines that make the knits, the hands that actually finish it all off — and I am in nerd heaven. We brought along a video camera to document the magic — head to our site to check it all out. After the tour, I sat down with the designer and talked about why a sense of community is so important when you are starting your own business and why her rooftop is her favorite place to be.
Laia Garcia: How did your interest in knitwear develop?
Amanda Phelan: I was studying painting at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), but after seeing a thesis show in the textile department, I became infatuated with that kind of work, so I switched my major. I was very enamored by this new way of making and thinking about work, and it was a pretty effortless transition.
At RISD they have this very Bauhaus approach to teaching. You literally start in the textile department spinning yarn on a wheel from wool carded fiber. I think knitting retains this aura of being an old technique, and it also retains an aura of being in the female domain. I find that quite inspiring for my work too. I think I'm attracted to "contemporary wear" because it has kind of created this interesting bridge between old-world arts and crafts and new-world technology.
LG: You were working for established designers, and then you ventured out to start your own label — why was being autonomous important to you?
AP: I've always known I wanted to start my own project. I also think in many ways this company began as a project to fill a void. After I worked for other designers, I wasn't really finding a very process-driven conscious design environment. I challenged myself to build this atmosphere that was directly inspired by a respect for the creative process. Also, there are certain skill sets and interests that I couldn't really nurture working in a company other than my own. I wanted to learn more about cinematography and continue to direct videos and help compose music for the shows [which she does with her partner]. Building this brand allows me to bring all of these artistic impulses to one place in a very controlled way. The climate of the industry is so different now. Everything is really changing, and it's kind of an exciting time to create in this way that can merge into many disciplinary mediums and interests.
LG: What's been the hardest part about running your own business?
AP: Life balance. I'm a perfectionist. It's difficult for me to believe that every small detail does not contribute to my success. There are many details that are very important, but in fact they don't all matter. This is a hard belief for me to actually practice. I have four employees now, so I am learning how to best manage multiple roles — the operational piece of starting a venture, the financial tasks that are involved on a weekly basis, designing the collections — while maintaining other relationships in my life. I think that balance has been the greatest challenge for me.
LG: Some of your production is done here in New York. Is that important to you?
AP: Yeah, we have a really amazing balance of where we're producing. We're developing and producing all over — New York, Italy, China, Uruguay, Peru — but I very intentionally made sure we started the company in the United States.
I think some of the most critical parts or early stages of any brand are the interpersonal ones. I knew that if I had time to develop these relationships and these processes here, it would give me a format of what to do overseas, when you're not face-to-face on a daily basis. Most of our process, and in effect our clothes, is a result of close communication.
The work requires that I maintain a close relationship with the technician, because together we're kind of pushing these boundaries of what the machinery can do and exploring new territory of what's possible. I also have a really high respect for the people that make our clothing, for those who deeply understand that every process, from the development stage to production stage, has a thought behind it and a spirit behind it. People forget, in such a technology-driven age, that there are still hands behind every step in making this work. Cultivating this perspective for the extended team has been really important to me. I think that respect to the hands behind the work and the creative process is part of our team culture.
It's also about cultivating a mind-set where the more alert you are while making the work, typically the more open you are to challenging old ideas. The result is something more interesting and typically something new.
LG: How do you relax?
AP: When I'm not in the studio making work, I try to spend time gardening. My partner and I grow and maintain a large rooftop garden, which is probably bigger than our actual apartment. Each summer, we drive to Lancaster and we buy plants — you can't really compare them to New York plants in any way, it's not $60 for a cactus that dies a week later. The Amish farms are really beautiful there. I love New York, but it's really hard to find stillness when it's such constant movement, especially in this industry. It's always remained a challenge for me. The act itself of growing plants is very meditative. It requires you to be still. It's my horticultural therapy.
This interview has been condensed and edited.
Laia Garcia is the deputy editor at Lenny. | | | | | | | | | | | | Preparedness | | | | By Michael Cavadias | | | |
The first thing I did this morning was take my PrEP. PrEP stands for pre-exposure prophylactic. It's a combination of drugs you can take when you are HIV-negative that will prevent you from getting the disease. For queer people like me — or anyone who is at risk — PrEP has changed not just our sex lives, but our personal lives, our culture, and the way we relate to the world around us. For the first time, we can live without the fear of HIV/AIDS. For me, that has been a profound transformation.
America first learned of a spreading, incurable, and fatal new disease in 1981; it would later be identified as the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV — the virus that causes AIDS. It devastated millions of people as it moved around the globe, aided by indifference, poverty, superstition, and bigotry. In the United States, it primarily affected gay men. Three hundred and sixty-two thousand died between 1981 and 1996. AIDS activist and playwright Larry Kramer called it a holocaust.
I was a 1980s preteen when I first became aware of it. I wasn't out then, even to myself, but I knew this had something to do with me, something that was going to make life much harder and definitely scarier. AIDS was a constant presence in my life before I could even see an R-rated movie unattended. But I did see Common Threads, the documentary about the AIDS quilt, and cried my eyes out for all the people I didn't know, for strangers I had so much in common with.
I moved to New York from Santa Cruz in the early '90s to attend college. Everything was new, even old things like subways and dive bars. The scene was exciting, but tempered by the reality of HIV/AIDS. I met and saw the artists and activists who would shape my life, many of whom were making work related to the disease: Diamanda Galás's Plague Mass, Todd Haynes's Poison, John Kelly and the work of the Visual Aids Artists Caucus. These performances were tinged with rage at the system for ignoring us, and there was power and grace emanating from a community under siege. It was a time of rapid change in the gay-rights movement and it seemed like the arts and queer rights were so connected.
At the same time, there was a collective weariness. Friends, and friends of friends, and their friends too, were testing positive. Some were dying. Grief was omnipresent. Despite the work of activists and health-care providers, there remained an unfair stigma associated with one's HIV status. Princess Diana was considered brave for even hugging or shaking hands with an AIDS patient.
Once, before he died, my friend Douglas asked me to button his coat because he was too weak.
A year later the medicine came.
Highly Active Anti-Retroviral Therapy (or HAART), also known as the "AIDS cocktail," became available in 1996 and turned what was once an almost certain death sentence into a manageable, chronic condition. A friend of mine tested positive and I was overcome, until everyone reminded me: "It's different now." A cure seemed as far away as ever, but this treatment gave hope to so many gay men, queer-identified individuals, and trans women. Today over a million people are living with the virus well into old age.
But I was born prone to anxiety and the anxiety remained, even though HIV was no longer fatal. Well into 2001 and 2002 I had a fear of contracting HIV that went far beyond the actual risk, and I often suffered from intense post-sex panics, no matter how many safe practices had been involved. I was superstitious of getting tested, worried I'd receive a false positive, as a good friend of mine did once. (I got tested anyway, despite my fears.) And the stigma, like my anxiety, remained. All you had to do was open Grindr to see the disturbing use of "clean" to indicate an HIV-negative status, as though our brothers and sisters who are positive were somehow "unclean."
And then in 2012 came Truvada, a combination of two antiretroviral medications that, if taken daily by an HIV-negative person, makes it almost impossible for HIV to take hold in the body — hence the name PrEP. Initially, Truvada was slow to catch on. But even though its use is far below what experts consider optimal, it's already changing the way we relate to each other. It fundamentally alters the dynamic between positive and negative sex partners. On many dating apps now, guys will state whether they are on PrEP or not.
I admit (remember, I'm anxiety prone!) that I assumed there must be a huge downside or horrible side effects and it couldn't possibly really work, so I didn't look into it initially. But as time went on, the evidence has become overwhelming that Truvada does work and the side effects are minimal. The whole thing was amazing to contemplate, but it still seemed like science fiction.
I finally decided to get a prescription a year ago after one last series of panic attacks following an encounter that wasn't even particularly risky. But logical risk analysis doesn't matter inside the brain of someone conditioned for a lifetime to experience intimacy as something connected to illness and death. When I met with the doctor and told her what I was worried about, which was oral sex without ejaculation, she actually laughed and then immediately apologized. I told her it was great that she laughed, because I needed to fully understand how out of proportion my anxiety is about all this.
I was actually worried she wouldn't prescribe PrEP to me if she didn't think I was "high risk" enough. But she said I was perfect for it. And I learned that I wasn't alone in my fears — she had patients who haven't had sex in twenty years because of severe PTSD as a result of living through the height of the epidemic. For me, the fear hadn't resulted in anything that extreme, but the prospect of this intense anxiety being a thing of the past was nothing short of revolutionary.
Once I began taking the medication as directed, the fear around sex began to lift. It's a priceless feeling. Obviously it's not a pass to be reckless — one has to protect oneself from other STIs. But it is a gift to be able to experience life and intimacy with other people without a dark cloud hanging over everything. It's a story I've heard many times from friends who've also decided to take PrEP.
"We've grown up only ever knowing sex with an element of fear, whether it's beforehand, which blocks you from experiences, or the anxiety afterward while you wait three months to get tested," says DJ Nita Aviance, who has been quite open on social media about his use of PrEP. "The sad part is that I never knew fear was such a strong component of my sex life until I started taking PrEP. I thought that was just 'how it was.'"
But who can access that relief? It's been four years since the FDA approved Truvada, but people who could benefit from it, as I have, often don't know about it, can't get it covered by their insurance, or have a doctor who is ignorant about the whole issue. This must change. Organizations like Project Inform are doing important work toward this end, and the New York State Department of Health has launched "Ending the Epidemic," a comprehensive strategy to bring new infections in the state to under 750 by 2020.
For me, a huge source of anxiety I thought would always be with me is gone. PrEP is a profound new tool that can have life-changing consequences, not only in terms of physical health but in how it can give people a long-deserved sense of confidence about living their lives fully. It's still not a cure, but it changes everything. It is a step toward that freedom.
Michael Cavadias is an actor, writer, and DJ who lives in New York City. | | | | | | | | | | | | September Lennyscopes | | | | By Melissa Broder | | |
VIRGO
(August 23 to September 22)
Happy Birthday, Virgo. Stop trying to be good, you are good. I know that's a scary thought: if you're already enough, then what is left to critique, fix, improve, change, aspire to? How will you avoid the present moment, then? We love our self-projects because they keep us occupied. But the present moment itself can be cute. You're just not used to it.
LIBRA
(September 23 to October 22)
Whether it's money, love, or a career situation, there is something in your life that you are being nebulous about right now, because it feels safer to live in fantasy than to face the truth. But in the end is it really safer? Or are you just accustomed to the fantasy?
SCORPIO
(October 23 to November 21)
Happiness is elusive and weird and maybe not even something to strive for per se, but I do know that one component of happiness is to want less. Attachment and desire are bitches. One way to want less is to start by wanting what we have. And the way to want what we have is through a gratitude practice. Gratitude sounds annoying when you're not feeling it. But I bet you can find at least ten things a day to put on a list.
SAGITTARIUS
(November 22 to December 21)
Everyone defines spirituality differently, and for you a spiritual moment is one that feels inspiring, fated, or synergistic. But this month I want you to consider that taking a pause can be a spiritual experience too. So when you get that amazing idea, opportunity, or plan of attack, stop a sec. I promise it isn't going to vanish.
CAPRICORN
(December 22 to January 19)
Life-swapping or body-swapping might seem like a good idea right now, but that's only when you look at one or two elements of another person's life and find them desirable — not the whole picture. If everyone put all their problems on the table, my guess is that you would want yours back.
AQUARIUS
(January 20 to February 18)
In the past year you've likely discovered that expectations lead to resentments. As of late, you might have even pulled back a little from other people so as to protect yourself. But ask yourself: Is total independence really true freedom? Or is freedom the ability to ask for help and then let go of the results?
PISCES
(February 19 to March 20)
It might sound obvious, but there's a difference between catastrophizing and faith. Catastrophizing is when we terrorize ourselves with the worst possible outcome so we can be "prepared." Faith is when we decide that no matter what the outcome, we will be taken care of. Is faith magical thinking? Maybe. But so is catastrophizing.
ARIES
(March 21 to April 19)
The only way to be free of bullshit is to be dead. And even then, who knows? There might be plenty of bullshit on the other side as well. The point is, you're going to have a lot of time to be dead. Maybe you can find a way to celebrate the earthly bullshit now.
TAURUS
(April 20 to May 20)
It's not that the decisions you have to make are all so massive. Rather, it's your fear of their implications that is the big kahuna. But what if you considered the world more of an interconnected web than a right or wrong? More of a maze than a duality? If that's the case, then both directions have the potential to lead you somewhere cool.
GEMINI
(May 21 to June 20)
The biggest issue you face is your own mind (you're not alone in this) and the stories it tells you about your perceived problems. But the problems themselves are not as big as you feel they are. It's the narrative around them that is most oppressive. You've been listening to K-FUKT. Change the station.
CANCER
(June 21 to July 22)
As much as you have a tendency to be an independent isolationist and rebel against what you think is being demanded of you, there is also a whole crew of people in your mind judging your dreams, wishes, and visions. You know who these people are, and they are heavy. Fire them, then go hang out with some real people who love you in this dimension.
LEO
(July 23 to August 22)
Just because people don't love you in the way that you want them to love you (read: the specific way you need them to do so in order to prove their undying love) doesn't mean they don't love you. If you like receiving verbal validations of love, consider that actions on your behalf are indicators of love this month. If you value receiving gifts, consider a kind word an equal substitute.
Melissa Broder is the author of four collections of poems, including Last Sext (Tin House 2016), as well as So Sad Today, a book of essays from Grand Central. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | The email newsletter where there's no such thing as too much information.
From Lena Dunham + Jenni Konner. | | | | | | | |  |  | |
No comments:
Post a Comment