I'm rooting for you

Taking a break from The Sims to write this message

Maxine Shaw, attorney at law. Hulu

The Drew Barrymore episode of Oprah’s Next Chapter lives rent-free in my head. It was early 2013, and Drew had recently given birth to her daughter Olive and backyard-married Will Kopelman, easily her hottest ex and the one with the strongest Chanel connections. They were neighbors in Montecito and I remember Oprah cutting through a garden path and walking into Drew’s house very casually. They’re discussing Drew’s famously rocky upbringing, all documented in the bestselling memoir Little Girl Lost, and how she evolved in adulthood. Oprah asks, “What do you say to people who are rooting for you?” and Drew (a Pisces) says, “I tell them I’m rooting for them too.”

I’ve stanned Drew Barrymore since childhood but it’s strange to feel like the star of The Wedding Singer (1998) is rooting for me harder than I root for myself.

There’s so much shit going on in the world right now and it’s all terribly unfair. That probably sounds reductive and millennial of me, very “tell me you’re a Libra without telling me you’re a Libra,” but whatever. For women+, POC, queer, low-income and differently abled people especially, life is at least 7x more unfair than it needs to be. Don’t believe me, roll the tape!

One thing about me is when someone says life’s not fair I become a snotty, defiant little kid. But whyyyee?! I don’t want to hear that shit, respectfully. We’ve confirmed there’s more than enough wealth and safety and abundance to go around so mathematically we should all be down here thriving. If I was in charge it would be smooth sailing, dolls! No war or suffering, we’d just get our reparations and root for each other’s success and fucking vibe.

I thought about all this and more at the Korean spa recently (queen of transitions). I was fully naked, practically in the fetal position as Denise scrubbed me down to the subcutaneous tissue and rinsed me off with a bucket of warm water. I was Baby being bathed in the sink and Denise felt like an incredibly nurturing auntie who only wanted what was best for me in that moment, and I teared up! Then I opened my eyes and noticed I was surrounded by gray-brown blobs of my own rotted, gutted, decayed skin and it was just like, this means something.

Candidly, this year feels like one prolonged depressive episode with a sprinkle of fun breaks between meltdowns, like when it rains all week but you wake up to the sun on Saturday morning, so you’re like fuck I gotta get outside and live my truth before it starts raining again! One time a guy picked me up for a date, I looked/felt amazing, and I fell down the stairs like Laney Boggs. It’s been very that.

Keeping myself alive in 2021 is the full-time job, but I’m grateful to have been able to see friends and take a couple trips and write about sex toys. After getting vaxxxed it was like Alexa, play “Oh Sheila” because I am Ready for the World! but then there’s that iconic quote about god laughing at my plans. So I’ve been inside more. I watched the Olympics (my problematic fave) and was rooting for everybody Black and lusting after the track and field athletes specifically. Sports can be so sexy and inspiring! Also, my Sims have been running a small dairy farm in the English countryside with tons of potential — we have a garden, a cow named Gertie and five chickens inhabiting Coop Beverly Hills. I’ve made French toast at 10pm for the past three (3) nights. I’m not in therapy but I’m taking more vitamins.

I keep trying to “get back” to who I was in the early days of Quarantina Turner, when it was oddly relaxing to have no control over where I could go and who I could see; when it felt like a short stint rather than a life sentence. Somehow I thought I’d be more comfortable with uncertainty and chaos by now but maybe that was expecting too much of myself. I know I’m giving you Daria! It’s just that the disappointment builds up and bubbles over and frankly, I’m aging, which makes it seem like so much more is at stake. Also I’ve been programmed to strive for things I may not actually give a fuck about, but that’s showbiz baby!

Then I think of the humans out there who genuinely want to see me happy, like my sister, best friends and social media acquaintances, Auntie Denise, and of course Drew Barrymore. The Oprah interview reminds me how much miss Oprah on daytime TV, but also how important it is to let people know how hard you’re rooting for them, and often. So in case it’s been a while since I’ve told you, or anyone’s told you, I’m rooting for you. And I hope you’re finding some goodness between meltdowns.

Currently keeping me afloat:

• Donating to Hope For Haiti and Women For Afghan Women. Please do the same if you’re able to!

• This Beyoncé interview, which Blue Ivy conducted, edited and condensed for clarity before emailing to the Harper’s Bazaar team. The photos are everything; Marni Senofonte is a genius.

• This Free People tube top, purchased solely so I could feel like I was in college again.

• A piece in The Cut about the early-aughts Going-Out Top, which validated me on said purchase.

• Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism by Amanda Montell. She did the painstaking work of writing this book to confirm what I’ve feared all along, which is that life is the ultimate MLM scheme.

• Temporary Highs in the Violet Skies by Snoh Aalegra. I want to melt into every single song. And obviously blah blah blah Solar Power blah blah

• Burning this candle, which I picked up during an impromptu road trip to Marfa, TX. 9/10 would buy a plot of land there if it weren’t for the mosquitos.

• A lavender BlendJet. I’ve become a total smoothie bitch and I hate myself

• *sOmE pErSonAL nEwS*: I’m guest-editing The Newsette for the next couple weeks! You can subscribe here :)