joining the sisterhood, privileged, what so many women have to deal with, my fem fashion, books that shaped marilyn monroe, is friendship more satisfying than love?
yesterday i was grateful for a good meeting at the cemetery…
today i am looking forward to coffee at the “raw table” with my new coffee friends and getting my nails done…
notes…
more and more i am invited into the sisterhood… women are talking with me in ways i have not experienced before… with honesty about some of their most difficult experiences… i feel honored to have gained their trust…
i think about the life i have had… there were difficulties for sure but my difficulties pale in comparison to some of my women friends, even within the context of the upper middle class life we grew up and have lived in… my life has been privileged and easy in many ways… white, male, middle class upbringing, american… so... much... privilege…
yesterday i learn that my new friend was sexually abused early in life… raped when she was 14… endured the death of a cherished nephew she helped raise... such heavy burdens to bear… i have read books written by women about their as difficult lives… none of them as visceral as talking to my friend this morning… she shook me… she broke down in tears… we hugged for a long time…
before she got into revealing her traumas, i shared the“look book” for my new photo project with her… she looked through it… read the written stuff… liked what she saw… loved some of it… told me i wasn’t digging deep enough with my words… i felt her critique had some validity… my personally revelatory writing for the book prompted her reveal...
i have been having coffee with my friend and her friend every weekday day… for a month and a half?… i don’t get done what i used to get done… there has been sensitivity to that… apologies for keeping me from my work… i tell my friend i am making a conscious choice to center a direct, face to face, relationship with her… i think the moment we are in requires it… perhaps we never should have accepted social media as a substitute... i believe i have been, and will continue to be, rewarded for that decision… i don’t worry about the shit i don’t get done… well, not too much…
i told my wife… have been telling her… about my coffees with these women… about my coffee this morning… she said she wants to have coffee with us one morning... i told her she'd be welcome...
another door to a story opened this morning… a man… my age?… older?… he is writing a memoir about being homeless in nyc… he gave me a card with a qr code on it… a link to his substack…
i wore my new free people jump suit with an off-white lace teddy underneath this morning… my wife told me that my bra was showing (she hadn’t yet seen it was a lace teddy at that point) in the back… “that’s how the young women are doing it” i said… the catalog shows the models doing it that way… i don’t know why i feel comfortable carrying on like a young woman with my clothing… i am not that in so many ways… shouldn’t i present my feminine in a more mature way?… i got lots of compliments this morning so, maybe not...
a friend of my friend stopped by the table… i learned she was diagnosed with cancer and had a (full? partial?) mastectomy… a couple of years ago… she was talking to my friend about breast/nipple reconstruction which she feels almost ready for… she is pretty… round face, strawberry blonde hair, good figure, dresses smartly… seems smart… she works in publishing as a marketer… something to file away for future reference…
later at bagel-ish… my jumpsuit outfit is complemented by a young woman… she said it was the kind of thing she could wear all day long… her male friend peeked around the frame of the entry door and said he liked it too and that he had a jump suit very much like it… he needed to find it… it lived in a box somewhere…
i have a feeling my new friend may inspire me to new levels of creation and production… i think she will become the push and the critique i will need to get my book to the next phase… i feel it coming together…
speaking of jumpsuits… ordered this one from free people…
i found this article on the romance of friendships in dazed very interesting... with sex so much less of an issue for me these days, my exploration of trans femininity, and my burgeoning sisterhood of friendships... it was a bit of a revelation...
Online, especially among young women, there is a growing conversation about how romantic friendships can be, with many people sharing that they find their friendships are more intimate than their romantic relationships.
and this one about five books that shaped marilyn monroe...
One hundred years since her birth (on 1 June, 1926), Marilyn Monroe remains one of the most mythologised and photographed figures of the 20th century. As an image, she’s as famous as Jesus or Coca-Cola, infinitely reproduced and canonised as an avatar of a specific species of intense, tragic glamour. Starlet, teen bride, addict, pin-up, introvert, sex symbol, orphan, exhibitionist, platinum blonde, depressive, sequin-clad goddess, divorcee, fantasy, comedienne, cautionary tale, possible suicide, potential homicide, death by misadventure; her legend emerges from a melange of fact and myth, encompassing the many and varied contradictions she embodies as a cultural signifier. Yet, of all the raked-over facets of her life, the idea of Marilyn Monroe as an avid reader is one crucial but less-explored aspect of her legacy.
some photographs...
