Maybe threshold moments are quieter than I expected. Maybe the buzz and vibration of needle against skin pushing ink for hours… Maybe the stinging wipe off of the ink, blood, and lymph, the firm press of clean paper towels, the rubbing in of ointment feeling like massaging reddened skin exquisitely too long… Pain and art, wearing it in your flesh as ritual is perhaps too trite, too obvious to be the door, and yet here it is a porter.

I came home to a room that wasn’t mine. It was the same room I left just days ago, but walking in I recognize few of the decisions which were mine, and more than I could count that were resignations to maintain a false equilibrium.

I want a do-over.

I’m mulling a 5-year plan, mostly because my ‘Year of Whatever’ decrees to make no drastic changes in my altered state of grief, but when desire pulls me in different directions I’m listening to it, because the inner critic stoked by the casual cruelty of growing up weird in Kentucky is finally getting a rebuttal. I can change this room, I can make bold choices, I can work towards and with the things I love and dive into hyperfocus and finally master something beyond triage and repair.

I had already started writing a supplemental Griefletter a couple days ago, and it’s still in progress as that the heart of it feels bigger than this newsletter could contain. I wanted to wrap it up with my seeing the Rocky Horror Show on Broadway yesterday, with the Q & A afterwards still resonating. The director and choreographer noted that the production wasn’t a revival, as it couldn’t be, pointing to the living legacy of the shadow casts for the film, never mind any stage productions that came before.

In the 1000 person theater they noted there were audience members who had never seen the play or the movie, people who were casually acquainted, and people who were part of the initiated fandom. I’ve always been adjacent, my only time dressing up as a character being in a truly meta-fashion - an extra in an indie film dressed as an audience member Magenta at a Rocky Horror Picture Show showing.

Jon wasn’t the first person I’ve lived with to pepper regular conversation with Rocky Horror callbacks, but he was the most recent. Jon ended up a regular attendee while living in Baltimore, clocking in more than 100 showings. Having known a few intense fans of RHPS, he was still pretty casual as these things go. But if the Velvet Underground was the heart of the venn diagram of our music tastes, Rocky Horror was the sinew stretching between where I came from and now.

The director said he had heard some fans say, “Rocky Horror saved my life,” because it was a place of belonging for so many people who had no other place to go. From my friend in high school, who introduced me to tarot, rave culture, queer culture, and Rocky Horror, to my roommate in Chicago and her Rocky friends, some of whom are still my friends to this day, to Jon. Rocky Horror was a community of freaks and weirdos, intersecting queer, horror, science fiction, and sex.

I highly recommend the Broadway production. I think the story comes through a lot better than in the movie, and the affection for all the pieces of cinema and Rocky history references are well-done and reverent. It’s also incredibly sexy, with excellent choreography, costuming, and acting. It was great seeing the wide range of fans in the theater.

I have more to digest from my trip, and more to write. The sneaky thing that has started to happen with this regular newsletter practice is that I now feel the urge to write more, and not necessarily for a current audience. I hope this keeps up, because it feels good to create again.

I just wish evolution wasn’t so painful.