How could we talk about queer dating without talking about astrology and tarot? Whether you’re swapping charts with your crush or showing off your latest deck, astrology and tarot are often go-to spiritual practices for your average queer.
To talk about all things astrology and tarot, we have Autostraddle writer and professional tarot reader Meg Jones Wall of 3am.tarot. We get into their role in queer community and queer dating and then Meg reads Drew (that’s me) and Christina’s cards!
This very special episode of Wait, Is This a Date? is our season one finale! If you liked our first season leave us a review and we hope to be back with even more queer dating soon.
SHOW NOTES
+ This is our finale but we’ll be doing a special mail bag episode! So if you have any questions for Christina and I send us a voice memo under 30 seconds to waitisthisadate@gmail.com.
+ My best friend’s mom who does tarotpy is Lauren Schneider and here’s a link to her book.
+ Check out the site for Meg’s 3am.tarot!
+ My essay about Co-Star and sex and Fleabag).
+ The This Might Hurt tarot deck is currently out of stock but the next print is expected to be back this month! Also fun fact: in addition to being an incredible artist Isabella Rotman was also my roommate at A-Camp! They’re the best and I can’t wait to buy this deck when it’s back in stock!
+ Meg took a beautiful photo of the cards she pulled for Christina and I:
+ If you’re not familiar with Hadestown, how about starting with the 2019 Tony’s performance?
+ And continuing the theatre love, here’s Shoshana Bean singing “Defying Gravity”?
+ All of Marlon Riggs’ films are available in the Criterion Collection!!
Meg: So the four of cups is kind of a card of emotional boundaries. And sometimes that can be a really good empowering thing. And sometimes it can be a sign that you might be holding back a little bit from being vulnerable, or… I know. I told you this is where it starts to get weird.
Christina: Come on! Wow. That is accurate and scathing. And I love it. I feel so alive.
Meg: That’s what I’m here for. It’s what I’m here for.
Drew: Hi, I’m Drew.
Christina: And I’m Christina.
Drew: And this is, Wait, Is This a Date?
Christina: Wait, Is This a Date? is an Autostraddle podcast dedicated to answering the age old question: wait, is this a date?
Drew: Can you believe that this is our season one finale? That this used to just be an idea that we had, and now it’s a podcast.
Christina: Not even a year ago was this an idea we had.
Drew: Yeah.
Christina: We’ve really kind of nailed it. I thought I was going to come up with some sort of fanfare like a musical interlude. It might be for the best that I didn’t, but I just want the listeners and you, I guess, to know that I have thought that at one moment.
Drew: Well, I would say that that’s a great reason to have a season two, would be for you to have time to come up with some musical interludes.
Christina: Yeah, I think moving forward, moving into a season two place, I’d like to also move into a more musical place.
Drew: I love that, which by the way, if you want a second season, you could like give us a review or not, but—
Christina: No, you have to review us.
Drew: Cool.
Christina: And it needs to be said that anything less than five stars is absolutely homophobic and you shouldn’t be doing that, so.
Drew: If you gave us four stars and had something that was really detailed and interesting to say in your review, I would take that and find that interesting.
Christina: I would not, I would take it as homophobia, so.
Drew: So there you go. That’s the difference between us.
Christina: There’s two types of people in this world.
Drew: Another thing is that, even though this is our last episode of the season, we are going to have a little special Q&A sort of episode. So send us your questions is what I’m saying and we would love to be sent, because we love voice memos here at Wait, Is This a Date?
Christina: Love them.
Drew: We would love to have it in the form of voice memos, but the shorter your voice memo, the more likely it is to be included in this episode. So Christina, what timeframe do you think?
Christina: I want you to give me a tight 30 seconds. I think you can do it. And I think it’s actually really good practice for a voice memo, as a person, to just learn how to get that information in-out 30 seconds, I believe in you all. And I trust that you can do it.
Drew: And send them to waitisthisadate@gmail.com.
Christina: Yep. Gmail. Don’t know if you’ve heard of it. It’s a cool website, email, domain place. Pretty tight. Have we introduced ourselves, question?
Drew: No. Oh, great point. Great point. Great point, no.
Christina: Just wanted to touch base with regard to that.
Drew: I mean, we’re pretty late in this. I just am like, people, I mean, I guess you could be starting. If you are starting on episode 10, my name is Drew Gregory. I’m a writer and now, I’m mixing up the different episodes. I’m a writer, I’m a trans woman, I’m a filmmaker. I’m a lesbian and queer person. And I guess I’m a podcaster.
Christina: You are babe, kind of definitively. Yeah.
Drew: Yeah.
Christina: I’m Christina Tucker. I’m also a writer at Autostraddle, loud homosexual on the internet. I don’t know, probably begging for some woman over 50 to run me over with a lawnmower, who can say what I’m up to on any given day. It’s usually that, it’s mostly that. We all know.
Drew: Yeah, it’s pretty much that.
Christina: Love to have a brand.
Drew: So today is a special episode and we are not playing a game because we have a special activity at the end of the episode. So instead we’re going to just get into our main topic, which is tarot and astrology and their places in queer community. Special guest, do you want to introduce yourself?
Meg: Sure. Hi, my name is Meg Jones Wall. I am also a writer at Autostraddle. Can you believe? And I run the @3am.tarot Instagram account, and I have a book on tarot coming out next year, which is amazing, so.
Christina: We came right to the professional, we said—
Meg: I figured I’d start professional because who knows where this is going to go. It might get really off the rail. So, we’re going to come in, we’re going to come in hot and we’re going to see what happens.
Drew: We love it.
Christina: Yeah. I think the listeners should know there’s some energy in this Zoom tonight.
Meg: Yeah, there’s some energy. There’s some things happening here.
Christina: There’s a vibe. It’s fun. I think it’s going to continue to be fun.
Drew: I think so. So what I want to know first is, Meg, what was your introduction to both tarot and astrology? When did they come into your life?
Meg: So astrology took a little bit longer. I think I was raised in this wildly homophobic, deeply conservative fundamentalist Christian situation. My parents are church planners. I got ministers on both sides of the family. There’s just a lot of Jesus happening over there. And I’m a Scorpio sun, so when I was starting reading astrology, it was death, sex, power, intensity, control, obsession. And I was, “I’m not allowed to think about those things. I’m just going to tuck that away in a little corner and never look at it again with my queerness and all this other shit.” And so I found tarot in 2016 after having left the church and come out and being in kind of a bad mental health place, I was like, “I don’t have a spiritual community. I don’t have a queer community. I’ve moved a bunch of times and left my physical community.” And so tarot was kind of the thing that I was, “Maybe this could be just mine. Maybe this could be a thing that is mine, that doesn’t belong to anyone else, that I didn’t learn from anyone else. It’s just a self-taught sprung-from-within-me sort of thing.” And so my interest in astrology kind of rekindled alongside that because when you read about one, especially tarot, because astrology’s just a million years old, but especially when you read about tarot, there’s a lot of intersection with other practices, and astrology is often the one that most often gets squished together with it. So it was hard to read about tarot and not find astrology things. And so I was kind of learning the practices side by side, but tarot very much felt something that was really intuitively… I don’t know, I was just really drawn to it. Astrology’s hard, y’all! Tarot, I was, “I can fuck with this. I think I can handle this. I’m not good at geometry, but I think I can handle tarot,” so.
Drew: Christina, what about you?
Christina: I was just trying to think about tarot, weirdly, if you can believe it, my mother introduced me to tarot. She had a light witch phase when she was in college, she was very much seeing Black Sabbath and Stevie Nicks and having a weird all-girl time. Go off, Mom.
Meg: Love it. Love to see it, honestly.
Christina: We love to see it. And I grew up in a very neoliberal hippie zone in upstate New York. So that vibe is very present in the one street that makes up downtown New Paltz, where I’m from. And so it was kind of just always something that you… The alt kids were always, little different. You’re not one of the popular kids? You’re into some sort of terror astrology moment? But I didn’t really seriously get into astrology, I feel like until… I don’t know a couple… Now it feels like, hasn’t it always been with me? Haven’t I always watched movie and been like, what is this actor’s birth chart though? Isn’t that how because that is genuinely what my housemates and I do every time we watch a film or a program. I don’t know, a couple years into the astrology game? I think at first I was, I get it. Similar to Meg, I get it. I’m a tourist. I’m lazy. And I like food.
Meg: Yeah.
Christina: True. I’m not saying it’s not true, but it’s not the energy I want to hear all the time.
Drew: Yeah.
Christina: So I do kind of love that this kind of astrology boom that I feel we’re in via social media has allowed us to have some fluency in other parts of the chart, I think is really important.
Meg: Yes, great.
Christina: I think that’s when I saw my full chart, I was like, “Oh, that makes so much more sense. I’m not just this one thing. I’m all these things.”
Meg: Contain multitudes.
Drew: Yeah, for sure.
Christina: What about you, Drew?
Drew: Yeah. Similar in the sense that, I think I’m a Capricorn, I know I’m a Capricorn, but I think my response to being a Capricorn was, “Oh, I’m boring and work hard.” And I was, “I’m not want to be boring. I do work hard though.” And then when I learned my whole chart, it was like, “Oh wow, this actually all makes total sense. And I am very much Capricorn, but I’m also these other things.” And then tarot, my best, best friend, met them when I was in elementary school, became close in high school, lived together in college, and when I lived in New York, and their mom is a therapist who does therapy through tarot. Her license plate is tarotpy.
Christina: Is she accepting clients?
Meg: That’s what I was going to say, that’s awesome.
Christina: What’s the deal? That’s so cool.
Drew: She just wrote a book. I’ll include her new book in the show notes. She just wrote a book. It’s Lauren Schneider.
Meg: Okay, okay, okay.
Drew: Shout out to Lauren. But yeah, but I think I also had this feeling before where I was, “This is your job.” I don’t want to be… I don’t want to ask, I don’t know. But then eventually I got over myself, and had a lot of talks with Lauren and at one point, some point in college, Lauren read my cards and that was the first time that, and actually she’s the only person who’s ever read my cards. And she’s only done it a couple times because again, I feel always like, that’s your job, I’m visiting your child, I don’t want to, or I’m visiting you, but I don’t know. Yeah. So that was my familiarity with tarot. And then all also with astrology though, I think, for me, it came out of dating. It was a thing where I was like, “Oh, this is how we flirt in queer women community.” This is… When I became single, I also became obsessed with astrology. And at first it started as a bit and then it became a thing where I was like, “Well, so many people I’ve dated have been Aquariuses, that can’t be a coincidence.” And then I just went deeper and deeper and it just kept making sense. And I think I still sort of fall somewhere in the, yeah, I don’t know. I’m not going to argue with you to tell you that it has to be quote unquote real, but I really enjoy it. I enjoy framing my life and yes, my viewing of different actors or whatever, and being like, “yeah, of course, Will Smith’s a Libra.” It’s great. I enjoy that.
Christina: Yeah.
Drew: But yeah, that’s sort of my journey.
Christina: Yeah. I think I wouldn’t be surprised if I thought about it harder but it would probably dovetail with my coming out and I was fluent in so many queer things already when I was a quote “heterosexual” unquote, but I do think astrology. I was, oh, I got to get up to snuff on this, right quick.
Drew: Meg, it’s really interesting that you’re talking about sort of leaving organized religion and then finding community in tarot and astrology because I do think that’s… If I was going to have a hypothesis and I’m certainly not the first person to ever say this, but that a lot of queer people do feel ostracized from organized religion, not everybody, but a lot do. But if you’re raised with that in your life and there is still a part of you that’s spiritual, it is a nice substitute. And it does feel — the same way that technically the United States of America doesn’t have a religion, in our… whatever, Constitution? Bill of Rights? Which one is it? I don’t know. But then obviously the United States of America is very Christian.
Meg: Yes.
Drew: That’s how I feel about queer women where it’s, we don’t… Astrology is our religion, you don’t have to like astrology, it’s fine. You’re allowed to still live in the country of queerness. But I do think it’s our official religion, if we were going to be unofficial about it.
Meg: Yeah. Even if you don’t believe in it, you’re still probably at an advantage if you’re fluent in it, because it’s such a language and it’s such a community thing that we all were just like, well, when in doubt, okay, well, what are your L Word signs? What are your Babysitter’s Club sign? We can just fuck around with that all day. It’s something to talk about, but it’s also a way of seeing the world and a really cool way of digging into archetypes and talking about signs and energies and the ways that we connect and the ways that we move through the world and process information. There’s so much in it, and yeah, it really does feel the unofficial religion of queer people.
Drew: I also feel I learn so much about someone by how they present their chart, right? You probably learn as much about me by me being like, I’m a Capricorn, but I’m also Leo rising in Sag Venus. You just learned a lot about me just then.
Meg: The fire jumps right out.
Drew: Right, yeah. Where I’m, no, no, I want you to know this. Even if you don’t believe in astrology. If you know enough to know what I was communicating there, I’m describing how I want you to see me.
Meg: Yes. Hundred percent.
Christina: Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. I think that, whenever I’m doing my, yeah, Taurus moon… Virgo, that whole performance of what your big three are, is so a part of the fluency in how you describe yourself. It’s very fascinating stuff.
Meg: It is.
Christina: A question I had for Meg was, as a person who’s come to this kind of hoping to use it in a way that replaces kind of that spirituality and that spiritual practice. Do you have a daily practice with tarot? Are you a person who draws a card every day? I have always wanted to be that kind of person, but much like being a journaler. I’m like, “oh, I forgot,” or “where are they?”
Meg: That’s such a mood. I’ve never been good at journaling. Before I start talking about my tarot practice, you should just know this about me. Across my life, I have bought so many beautiful journals and written approximately three entries in them. And then they’re just these lovely blank books with sad scribbles in the first few pages and nothing ever happens. Tarot is one of the most consistent practices I’ve ever been able to establish. And it was during my Saturn return that I picked them up. So go figure. But, yeah, I am a card a day person. It’s actually what my whole Instagram account really started as, because I’m also a photographer. And so I was, I’d really like a visual representation of the cards, but journaling didn’t feel like a thing that I should do. And now they have cute little stickers and there’s stuff you can do to make it a little bit easier. But it made sense to me to just start an Instagram account and snap photos of my daily cards and write a little bit about them and it turned into this giant thing. But yeah, I don’t do it every single day.
Christina: Sure.
Meg: Because now I have this Instagram account with 21,000 followers. It’s a thing. I try to not beat myself up if I don’t pull a card a day because it’s content versus my personal practice. I do try to still find ways of keeping lines between those things, which feels almost impossible, but I still try to do it.
Christina: Yeah. It’s actually the bravest thing you’ve said here in this podcast, trying to keep a line between what is personal, what’s content.
Meg: Honestly, who do I think I am? What is that?
Christina: The limit does not exist.
Meg: It does not, but we’re out here trying anyway. It’s 2021, everything’s on fire. What are we going to do? But yeah, I do really like the practice of drawing a card a day, because I feel even if I don’t have a particular question or concern or thing that I’m stressing about or wanting insight about, it’s still just a nice little moment for myself and in a world where most of what I’m doing get sent to other people or given to other people or is creating for other people, this is the moment for me to just be, okay, cool, what do I need to hear today? What do I need to think about today? What’s one thing that I should be paying more attention to? And it’s usually something really obvious, but that still feels nice. I’m like, okay, yeah.
Christina: Yeah. It feels external confirmation even though it’s coming from yourself in a way.
Meg: Yeah, exactly.
Christina: I don’t know.
Meg: It’s a weird thing.
Christina: Yeah. My friends and I are always, the thing about astrology is that it’s absolutely fake except that it’s incredibly real.
Meg: Yeah, a hundred percent.
Christina: That’s where we live and we love to live through that kind of tension. I think that’s what queerness is, kind of living in the moments of tension.
Meg: And making meaning out of it and then obsessing over it for five years. Yeah.
Christina: Yes. Exactly. Making meaning and/or content. Who’s to say which.
Meg: Monetize the tension. Let’s do it.
Christina: How do you guys think about using both Tarot and/or astrology — I feel like astrology and dating is more of the common thing, but I do feel like there is kind of that stereotype that you’re like, oh, this is a queer woman who’s like, “Oh, I won’t be dating this person because of like X sign.” And I feel like that is fun to joke about, but I feel like I’ve never actually seen that happen in life despite what the internet would have you believe. Drew has got a, quite a face on.
Meg: Yeah, you have a face. There’s something happening right now?
Drew: No, no, no. I think for myself, I would never, I work in the opposite direction. I’ll be like, oh, it’s funny. I’ve never dated this sign, now I know why. But if I met that Sun sign, I would never be like, “Oh, I can’t date you because you’re a redacted.” I just, I wouldn’t do that. That’s wild to me. I think it is funny to joke about, I think that I’ve, even though it hasn’t been that long that I’ve been astrology obsessed, I think I’ve been on my own journey of like, realizing that even some of the jokes were a little bit, that’s not — one it’s just, not that it’s disrespectful to those sun signs it’s more that it’s, I realized it was disrespectful to astrology. Where I just was like, this is like not really… as I got a deeper grasp of astrology, it was like, it’s a lot deeper than someone being a redacted. You know what I mean?
Christina: I love that you’re using redacted instead of even picking a sign.
Meg: I know. I’m like, we’re going to talk about this later.
Drew: I mean, people know, I will be more excited about people. I like to be positive. I’ll do it in the positive direction, even if it’s still a reduction or whatever, but I love an air sign, especially a Gemini or a Libra. I love a Sag, like I’ll be extra excited about those signs, but I would never cut someone off for being anything, any one sun sign.
Christina: Can you imagine? Can you imagine the marginalized identities of the zodiac?
Drew: Or even having a chart.
Meg: Poor Pisces, just there are certain signs that get so malaligned. And like, we’re all just out here doing our best, but yeah. I mean, I think that’s a good point. I mean, I’m not a professional astrologer, just cannot stress enough. I’m not a professional astrologer and I’m dating a professional astrologer. So I’m even more aware now that I’m super not a professional astrologer, but sun signs are just like the tip of the iceberg, especially when you’re talking about compatibility, it’s like, there’s Venus and Mars and moons, and Mercurys, and like laying needle charts across each other. And there’s just so much to look at. And so just being like, well, Pisces sun, fuck that. Sorry I’m using Pisces, but I just, it’s just the one that I hear about the most.
Drew: I don’t know how you knew what redacted was. That was really incredible mind reading.
Christina: I didn’t, but I have a number of friends that are Pisces suns that are always complaining about how they always get the short end of stick when it comes to things. And my big three are Scorpio, Leo, and Gemini. So like, I’m familiar with the…
Drew: Yeah. That also actually wasn’t what my redacted was, but just…. I’ll tell you later.
Christina: This is so exciting.
Meg: I know I can’t wait. You’re building tension for the end. I love it.
Drew: Yeah. I think it’s always interesting to me when I first was on Co-Star. And that was how a lot of the flirting was happening was like friending each other on Co-Star, which, I still have Co-Star in order to have access to my friends’ charts easy. But I hate it. I hate the — its descriptions of compatibility make no sense. And I took a little bit of pride in being like, oh, everyone who I’m into is exactly who they say I’m not supposed to be into. And like, fuck you stars. And it’s actually like, no, fuck you tech company that created Co-Star.
Meg: For sure. And just trying to make people mad because it makes clicks.
Drew: Yeah, I’m sure if I talked to a professional astrologer, they could explain why I’m more compatible with Libras and Geminis, even though I’m a Capricorn, but I no longer feel like I’m doing something against the stars. I’m like, no, I just have a whole chart. And that person has a whole chart and it’s complicated.
Meg: And also people are people.
Christina: Yeah. I also just love the energy of Drew being like, “I’m doing something against the stars today.”
Drew: A little rebels, sort of…
Christina: She’s just like not like other girls? I don’t know if you knew. Yeah. It’s just a little different.
Drew: I’m not like other Capricorns, for sure.
Meg: Not at all.
Christina: That. I do have a lot of Capricorns in my life, I feel, fellow earth signs, who I do dearly love, but I would say, Drew, you are not like the rest of them.
Drew: Oh well, that’s — I mean, I’d like to just be, I like that. Thank you. I love a lot of other Capricorns.
Meg: Capricorns are great.
Drew: I’ve never dated a Capricorn, though. I’ve never dated a Capricorn and I’ve never dated a Virgo and I’ve never even hooked up with either of those, and it’s interesting to me.
Christina: Keeping away from your earth signs.
Meg: It feels too close to home.
Christina: I mean, what are, but like we do have those, obviously Drew has redacted. So like we’re not going to focus on Drew, but like I do still have a gut reaction when, say, I meet someone who’s like, “I’m a Libra.” I’m like, “Oof, really? Okay, a choice.” And some people are Libras. That’s fine. That’s beautiful. But like, it is funny that as though I don’t necessarily and would not necessarily subscribe to it, it is still just like one of those moments where I’m like, “Oh right, which a Librass.”
Drew: It’s interesting because the two signs that I think I’m least likely to date — which I’m joking, redacted is Cancer, which I’m not. But it’s so many of my closest, like if I were to make a list of my closest friends, so many are Pisces and Cancers, and I’ve never dated Pisces or Cancers. And I think, in those friends, I see some of those energies, especially the people who have more than just their sun in those signs. I definitely can see the ways in which dating-wise we’re not compatible, but I don’t think that someone not being compatible with me also is like a judgment on them, which I think is interesting in the way people talk about astrology and compatibility. And astrology sometimes where I’m like, wait, the definition of compatibility. I mean, I don’t have the actual definition in front of me, but…
Christina: Oh, I was ready.
Meg: I was like, all right.
Drew: It’s all like, oh, you’re great. And this other person sucks. It is literally you are two individuals and or three or four or however many people are in your relationship that you’re testing compatibility with. And you’re not compatible. I’m defining the word with the word, but it’s not a value judgment. And all of my friends who are Pisces and Cancers are great partners to somebody, even if they haven’t been to me. And honestly, putting this officially on a podcast means that I’m absolutely going to have some long, meaningful relationship with the Pisces I deserve within the next five years.
Christina: 100 percent.
Meg: You’ve manifested it now. That’s how it works.
Christina: 100 percent.
Meg: 100 percent.
Drew: And I love that. I’m not, again, I’m not against that at all. Maybe they’ll teach me how to feel like…
Meg: Very nurturing. There’s a lot of good energy out there.
Christina: Sorry. I’m just not going to let Drew slide with someone teaching you how to have feelings. Come on now.
Meg: I know that’s a lot. There’s a lot to unpack there.
Christina: You’ve got so many feelings.
Drew: Well, no, wait, I have a lot of feelings intellectually. I don’t have a lot of feelings that I… I don’t remember the last time I cried. I don’t…
Christina: No, as we have, I think decided on this podcast, if you intellectualize a feeling, you don’t have to deal with it. It’s what science is. Hello.
Meg: Yes, that’s totally how it works. Absolutely.
Christina: Every therapist I’ve ever said has been like yeah, absolutely. Christina. You’re right.
Meg: It’s how to get around it. Yeah, for sure. Really good coping mechanism.
Christina: Nailed it.
Meg: But no, I mean, I think even just the way this conversation is flowing, like the fact that we’re talking about astrology rather than Tarot, I think just goes to show that like, I think that astrology is easier to talk about in terms of as a language. I think it’s more universally known amongst queers, but also people in general. I think Tarot feels more like, this is me looking at a particular moment or the way that you might look at the sky in a particular moment versus your natal charts. People don’t walk around being like, oh yeah, I’m a Death sign and a Strength, Moon, and a Lovers rising. I mean, maybe we should, because that would be really interesting. But — cause that sounds badass, that makes me sound really fucking cool. But in general we don’t talk about Tarot. I do think that it’s a language for connection that can be used for those kinds of things. But I don’t think as queer people in general, we talk about Tarot in the way that we talk about astrology, especially when it comes to compatibility. It’s just, it’s kind of its own little weird thing. I love it. But it’s a weird little thing.
Christina: Yeah, my silence, there was me trying to think of a smart segue to like, let’s move into like a Tarot space, that was not me just being like, Meg, what is Tarot though?
Meg: But, but explain this to me, but no. Because I mean, I do think that like you’re sitting in a bar, you’re not going to be like, “Hey, what card did you pull this morning?” Like, nobody’s going to say that as a, that is not a thing. Even people I know that read Tarot every day, I’m not going to ask them that like, versus what’s your sun sign or what’s your moon sign or whatever.
Drew: I would just like to put it out there that I was ever at a bar, and someone was like, I have Tarot cards with me and I’m going to pull a card for you. I’d be thrilled about that.
Meg: Oh yeah. It’s great.
Drew: I think part of it for me is that, okay, I’m going to admit something that’s very silly and maybe it’s not silly. You can tell me, this is a great moment to ask this question. And I know that I revealed that I have someone close to me who, Tarot is her life. And I haven’t brought this up, but a podcast is when is that this idea that like you are supposed to have your first Tarot deck purchased for you, or like gifted to you? I think whenever there were times where I was like, oh, I’d really love to like get into Tarot. And I was like, well, got to keep waiting, waiting until someone picks me. Someone ask me to the Prom. And so I think oftentimes I’ll go down a rabbit hole of an interest, like pretty randomly, something will be sort of hovering as something I want to get interested in. And then like, there’ll just be a moment where I’m minister and I’m like, I’m going to buy a book on this thing. And I learn about that thing. And I think with Tarot, I’ve always had this thing of being like, well, I can’t. Anytime I have that draw, I’m like, oh, I got to wait. I got to wait. Is that not a real thing? Or is it a real thing? And I have to keep waiting.
Meg: It’s a real myth that is perpetuated by people. It’s sort of a gatekeepy shitty thing that people do when they’re like, “yeah, you have to have somebody buy a deck for you. Sorry sweetie, can’t do it yourself.” Like no, fucking buy yourself a Tarot deck. If you want to identify that, it’s fine. Some of my decks now have been given to me because now I’ve reached the point in my career where a publicist sends me decks, which is really fancy and also means I have a lot of decks that I give away a lot. So then I give decks to people. But most of the decks I have, I bought. I bought my first like 10 decks. It’s fine. It’s not going to do anything. And like, I’ll just take the opportunity to say you don’t have to buy your first deck. You don’t have to store it in silk. You don’t have to, like, you don’t have to buy the Rider-Waite Smith deck first, if you don’t want to. You can do what the fuck you want, frankly.
Drew: I love that.
Meg: My one hard and fast rule is don’t use Tarot to manipulate people or scare people or tell them they’re cursed or whatever. Like don’t use it, don’t fuck with people. But other than that, you cannot use the deck wrong. I know. I’m so sorry. That might be really ruining someone’s day. But that’s the only hard and fast rule, like anything else, it’s a tool, like do what you want with it. It’s yours, it’s just paper and do what you want to do with it. And so, yeah.
Christina: Wow. That’s really beautiful. How do you think about Tarot in a dating sense? Like how does it factor into your romantic life? I know that you are famously in a relationship so we can move this from a dating space to being in a partner space also.
Meg: I mean, I think, I don’t tend to read for myself about romantic relationships because it’s too hard. I can’t be objective, and most professional readers that I know, but also just people that read consistently, often are similar. They’re just certain topics that are, it’s too hard to read with clarity. And so if I have a really sensitive situation or if I’m really stressed about something, I will ask either a friend or pay a professional to do a reading for me. I have not historically done many readings at all, either for myself or had someone else do them for me, around love. It’s not really something that I turned to the cards for, which is probably something I should unpack for myself. Because I really haven’t thought about that much. But in my partnership, my partner and I read cards for each other all the time. Sometimes we read cards together, like for different aspects of our relationship, which is really nice. But yeah, I read for clients about love sometimes, but I have a lot of rules about it, and I don’t read for myself about love. Because I can’t, I don’t think I have the capacity to read very clearly about it.
Christina: That makes sense. I think that is part of what the having a daily Tarot practice was a struggle for me. It was like, ooh, this is so much looking internally at myself. I would simply rather not do that at this moment in time.
Meg: It’s a whole lot. Yeah. And it’s why I don’t do it every day. That’s why I try not to get in my head about it, if I haven’t done it every day. It’s not like drinking water. I’m like, okay, I don’t actually need this to survive, if I take a day off, I’m going to make it. We’re going to be okay. But it is something that like, when I’m in a space for it or have a few minutes where I’m just like, I can’t something about this thing. Let’s pull a couple of cards about it. Like it can be a nice way to kind of be like, okay, I’m trying to do other things. And I’m in my head about this thing. And I’d rather just like, let’s just say, I’m going to take 10 minutes and think about it and pull some cards and actually do the thing. And then sometimes that helps me then compartmentalize and be like, cool. Okay. We have something, we’re just going to put that little box and I’m going to go do my shit. It can be helpful for that no matter what the topic is. I find it useful for things like that.
Drew: Are you able to share what your rules are when you’re reading cards for people about love and relationships?
Christina: That was also my question.
Meg: Yeah. I think they’re on my website. I should double check, but yeah, like most of the rules that I have about reading for other people are because of love questions specifically. And I think for most people in general, but especially for queer people, like I think we’re a little sensitive to rejection and we’re also like very, very, a lot of feelings. So I think it’s something that has to be done with a lot of care. Because I think there’s a lot of vulnerability to asking a stranger to look at your cards and talk to you about a situation that they’re not personally invested in. There’s a lot of power that comes with that. So a lot of my rules are around not overstepping or not inadvertently doing harm or giving someone false hope. It’s trying really hard to be like, okay, like here’s information. I would like this to be useful and empowering and not a thing that makes you spiral for the next two years. So my rules are usually tied in… Yeah. I think both of my rules are really tied to my beliefs about Tarot, which is mostly the, again, it’s a tool that you can use, generally for empowerment. I see the Tarot as being the most useful as the tool for self-reflection and self-exploration rather than predictions. I’m not a fortune teller and I’m not a psychic, I’m not a medium, I’m a girl that slowly and painfully taught herself to read these things. It’s not a gift. I didn’t pick them up and get struck by lightning. I spent years learning how to do it, not very well, it’s taken awhile. So I’m very much someone, I won’t read for questions like, when am I going to fall in love? Or when am I going to get married? Or when is my ex going to come back? If you’re asking, you probably already know, let’s be real. But whatever.
Christina: Ah, the big three.
Meg: The big three, you don’t leave. Actually probably would. But yeah. Yeah. So I don’t read predictive. I don’t read timings and there are ways of reading predicatively and there are absolutely ethical professionals that read timings. I’m just not one of them. It’s not something that I find super useful for me because I get all into freewill. And I was raised Calvinist, there’s a lot in there. We don’t have to go there, but it’s too much. So I don’t want the cards telling me that this is definitely going to happen or not happen, because that’ll affect my actions, that might affect my choices. I might not get myself to the place where that happens. And so I don’t want to do that to anybody else either. And yeah, the other thing, I don’t read for anyone that’s not present and consenting to the reading. So if you’re coming to me and you’re like, how does this person feel about me? I’m like, you should ask them because I’m not going to tell you. I don’t know, they’re not here. They’re not consenting.
Drew: We love direct communication.
Meg: Yeah. I’m like, I’m not going to read cards about someone else’s feelings and then tell you what they are. That feels wildly unethical to me. So that cuts out like 50%, probably more, of the people who want readings.
Drew: Yeah, I bet.
Meg: Because most people want to know, when am I going to fall in love or get married? Or how does this person feel about me? And I’m like, I don’t think the cards can — personally, in my practice, I don’t think the cards can answer those questions. So I’m not going to take your money.
Christina: I would feel more stressed out if I went to a Tarot reading and someone was like, in three years, that’s what’s going to happen. I’d be like, well, so what, I would just be on high alert for the next three years of my life.
Meg: Exactly. And you don’t know how that’s going to impact the things that you might do. If you’re like, oh, well, if I didn’t know that where I would be in three years might be really different than if I spend the next three years being like, well, if I’m going to get married in three years, then I got to do all this shit that I wanted to do before I get married. Like that’s just…
Drew: It’s basic time travel rules. You cannot change the…
Meg: Don’t fuck with the future. Don’t fuck with the past, don’t try to meet yourself. Like don’t, yeah, just leave it alone.
Drew: I mean that’s what bothered me about those first astrology apps I was on, like Co-Star, like the pattern where I just was like, this is hurting me. But I can feel, and I think people talked about it in the context of the daily Co-Star, the little thing.
Meg: The daily trolling that you sign up for.
Drew: That didn’t bother me, that I found funny and I actually still get them because I just find them hilarious. But it was more the thing where it would be like, I mean, I wrote an essay about this, about my relationship to Co-Star initially. And it being like, oh, “today is going to be a good day for you lovewise, this is a bad day for you workwise.” And it was influencing me in these really toxic ways. And I had to grow out of that. And I mean, part of going out of that was actually learning about astrology and actually dedicating a little bit of time to, and I’m certainly no expert, but just like actually spending time, understanding astrology itself and not just Co-Star. Because those are very different things.
Meg: They sure are.
Drew: And yeah, I don’t have an interest in any of these tools when used in that way.
Meg: Yeah. I just don’t find it empowering or constructive or motivating, you know? If you know for sure that something is, might fall into your lap, then you might not work towards it and then you might not actually get it. I don’t know. It’s weird. And I don’t want to fuck with that.
Christina: Yeah. Every time people do a screenshot tweet of their push notification from Co-Star, like “damn Co-Star keeps hurting my feelings.” I’m like, well you are a human being who could simply turn off a push notification. It’s actually so easy.
Meg: You fully opted into that lifestyle. You made that choice.
Christina: You have chosen to hurt your feelings for content, which absolutely respect it. But know that’s the game that you’re playing here.
Meg: Yeah. Yeah. This is a choice you continue to make and you don’t actually have to keep making that choice.
Drew: Okay. I did just think that if we get another season, I really love the Co-Star notification or text from my family member.
Meg: Oh, wow.
Drew: Just speaking of push notifications, you can get fun stuff.
Meg: Well I’m sweating a little bit now. Okay.
Drew: Maybe the same way queer people replace the religion their families taught them with astrology. They also replaced the criticisms they got from their family with criticisms from Co-Star.
Christina: And you got to get it from somewhere. You have to have it.
Meg: Yeah, truly, can’t live without it.
Christina: You simply can’t. Maybe that’s why my push notifications for Co-Star are off because I speak to my mother once a week. So there it is.
Drew: Do we want to pivot into…
Christina: Pivot? Our big pivot?
Drew: You’re going to give us each a little reading.
Meg: Yeah. I mean, I do want to ask you both, if you’ve ever had a Tarot reading about a love situation or relationship, or what your experiences are with readings around love?
Drew: My answer to that question is no, I’ve never had a specific, I’m trying to think of what I’ve had. I’ve only had two readings and I’m trying to think what they were about specifically. I think they were more general. And maybe a little bit more career focused.
Meg: Those are the two big ones. Love and money are usually what people want readings from.
Drew: Oh. And I had like a transition, like when one of the readings was like when I was pretty early in my transition.
Christina: Yeah. I was trying to think, I don’t know that I’ve had a professional Tarot card… just kidding, this memory just came rushing back to me. Me, freshly post being out, Salem, Massachusetts, an old man named Doug really dragged me to hell. I don’t honestly remember what he said in that Tarot reading, but I do remember leaving and being like, why did that man know so much about my life? Like what the hell? He had a gigantic walrus-esque mustache. He was actually an icon now, that I think back on it. God, I hope he’s well.
Meg: Yeah, he sounds fucking amazing.
Christina: Yeah. I hope he’s well.
Drew: How did you meet? Did he just walk out from an alley and be like…
Meg: I know. Did you go and pay him or did he just emerge?
Christina: I did. I went to Salem, Massachusetts. A place where you kind of are like, you have to do something vaguely witchy. And my friend and I were like, let’s go get Tarot readings. And I remember exiting Doug’s booth and being like, what? Now I need a drink. So yeah, that was the one time. I don’t remember what I asked. I think I was like, what am I vibing? And what are my vibes? Like in whatever colloquial language, 2015 Christina used. I have no idea what I asked him, but that is the one time I have professionally had a Tarot experience.
Meg: I mean, I’m glad it was in Salem. I lived on the north shore of Massachusetts for 10 years and I didn’t start reading Tarot until I’d left Massachusetts. But I worked in Salem on witchy things before I ever read Tarot. So it’s a little shocking that I’ve never done super witchy things. I’ve just gone to witchy shops, but.
Christina: It’s part of the journey.
Meg: Sounds great. Just don’t go in October. Yeah.
Christina: No, don’t.
Meg: Not in October.
Christina: Don’t go in October, too crowded, very small.
Meg: Terrible.
Christina: Now that we’ve got the relatives of geography of Salem, Massachusetts, out of the way, the thing that I know people come here for.
Meg: Oh yeah, for sure. Stop regionality. So who wants to go first? And how would we like to do this?
Christina: Well, I was going to ask you, actually, how you would like to do this, given that it’s famously your profession.
Meg: Famously professional. Yes. Well, cool. I think we keep them pretty tight, but I’ll do three card readings for each of you. And we can, generally, I love to do readings that don’t actually have spreads, but if you have a super specific reading, we can make up a spread together on the fly and then read about it. So it just kind of depends what your particular situation is, what you’re looking for, what you want insights on or what your questions are around. So if one of you wants to go first, we can start there. Otherwise we’ll go alphabetically.
Drew: I was like, oh, thinking about it in the love and relationship context because of this podcast. But also you’re the professional, whatever sort of reading that you want to give us, I’m on board.
Meg: Okay, cool. Yeah. I mean, for me it doesn’t have to be love and relationships. It can just be like, whatever’s on your mind. And if there’s something that you’ve been stressing about, if there’s a problem or decision you’ve been turning over in your mind or if there’s just something you’re like, I can’t figure this out. I can’t figure out what I’m feeling about this. Those are all pretty good. Those are things that Tarot was well equipped to navigate.
Christina: I’m seeing now I should have kind of come to this space maybe with some thoughts around those very, very good questions that I…
Meg: I can also just pull some cards for you and we can talk about them. If you don’t have a question, that’s completely fine. But I wanted to give you this space to have a question.
Christina: I love that, I love to be given space.
Drew: Is there anything, Christina, that we’ve discussed in these first 10 episodes that we feel like we should, not that we should come up with each other’s question, but just in thinking back to our own, I’m trying. That’s what I’m doing right now. It’s just thinking back to, and also thinking about what I want publicly.
Meg: Yeah. That’s the other piece.
Christina: Sure. That is the other piece, I suppose.
Meg: I will try not to drag you publicly on a podcast.
Drew: No, you can.
Christina: Yeah, I kind of signed up for it. We said let’s have a dating podcast.
Meg: I mean, respect.
Christina: Yeah. I don’t think I have any questions. So I’m happy to just go with a vibe moment. I’m just happy to vibe.
Meg: We’ll just go with the vibe.
Christina: Where are we at?
Meg: Have fun. Just have fun. All right. Well then I’ll start with you and then Drew, if you come up with something along the way. Cool. All right. Well, I am using the This Might Hurt deck by Isabella Rotman. She’s a genius and I love this deck. It’s based on the Rider-Waite Smith, but it’s queer and modern and delightful.
Christina: Hot. Same.
Meg: I know. Right? Queer and modern. We love to see it.
Christina: Yeah. I was going to ask, I think we should have a space for you to recommend some decks that you love for our listeners. Because I’m sure that people are going to be dying to hear more about Tarot, get into it, after this episode. Love the drama of a shuffling moment.
Meg: I know, shuffling on a podcast is really intense. Okay. So I want to talk first about the card that jumped out because to me cards don’t jump out for me very often. So when they do, I usually pay attention.
Christina: You telling me I’m special? Loving this already.
Meg: Yeah, you’re so special. And the card that jumped out is the World, which is awesome. The World is the final card in the Fool’s journey of the major Arcana. It is a card of completed evolution. There’s ways to see it, that are perfection and completeness, but that feels like way too much pressure. So I don’t usually read it that way. I instead read as a state of contentment, a state of feeling whole within yourself, at least in this particular moment, the World is the end of a journey, but it’s with a consciousness that a new journey will be beginning at some point. So it’s usually a call to celebrate where you are in this particular moment, to be really joyful and content and grateful for everything that you have. And also to be aware of when that sensation starts to shift and what that may be pushing you to evaluate or move towards or seek out next. But in general, this is a really beautiful card. It’s not a card that, at least for me, comes out very often because it is this completion, end of the journey, deep satisfaction, rich contentment, fullest version of the self kind of card. So it mostly just means you’re like a fucking super badass and you’re in a really good spot right now, which seems lovely.
Christina: I love compliments!
Meg: Love to see it. So the other two cards that then I drew for you, which then I would put less emphasis on because I drew them just in this context, since one did jump out is the Four of Cups and also the Page of Swords. So the Four of Cups is kind of a card of emotional boundaries. And sometimes that can be a really good empowering thing. And sometimes it can be a sign that you might be holding back a little bit from being vulnerable. Or…
Christina:Me?!
Meg: I told you, this is where it starts to get weird, but this can speak to being like, trying to distance yourself a little bit from community, not quite willing to share your full heart with someone or with a number of people. Sometimes that can be a really deliberate choice around healing. “Hey, I don’t want you to see me. I just need some time to heal and recover.” But other times it can be like this hand here, that’s extending out this cup to this girl is just fully not having it. It can mean that there might be people that are reaching out to you looking for a deeper connection, that you’re not as aware of, or you’re not giving as much energy towards. So that could just be something to watch out for, especially you’re in this world of place of completion and feeling whole within yourself. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that there aren’t people that would be interested in having a deeper relationship with you.
Christina: Wow. That is accurate and scathing. And I love it. I feel so alive.
Meg: That’s what I’m here for. That’s what I’m here for. And then the Page of Swords finally, Pages are the youngest card in their suits. And so they’re kind of students, they’re explorers. They are people that are kind of starting on a journey and the suit of swords is connected to the intellectual self. It’s the mind, it’s the element of air. And so the Page of Swords might mean that you are getting ready to explore a new course of study or a new intellectual topic. You’re wanting to learn about something or you’re interested in learning how to communicate, share, process, absorb information in a new way. So sometimes it means you have a lot of ideas and you’re trying to figure out what to do with them. And other times it means that you have received a new bit of information and you’re trying to figure out what you want to do with it. You’ve been handed a new sharp, shiny sword, and you’re like, what do I do with this? I want to do something with it. And you’re exploring possibilities. So this can be a part of intellectual curiosity, asking questions, learning something, and perhaps expanding your mind in a new and exciting way that leads you down some new cool pathways
Christina: That’s tight. So that feels very like, I mean the World part feels accurate, based on where I am with career stuff. Obviously I think anybody listening to this podcast is probably aware that I super don’t love being vulnerable. So that really tracks and yeah, like ideas, new information, this, yeah. I feel really held and seen by these cards today.
Meg: Love that. I love that. Good. That’s so good. I’m so glad.
Christina: Yay. That was really fun. That’s so good. Drew’s turn. Drew’s turn.
Drew: Yeah. Okay. So I don’t know if this is like a question per se, but it is just sort of a general topic, which is that, so I recently moved and I feel like my new living situation is sort of the most adult living situation in a way that I feel really good about. I also am in a new relationship. I also feel like I’m on the precipice of some things career wise. So there’s a lot of new stuff that’s theoretically all very good. And it, again, actually very good, but I do, because I’m an anxious person, I think with the changes and things, there is just a little bit of unsettledness of like, oh wow, all these things are happening that I’ve wanted for a long time. And ah!
Meg: Now it’s all happening.
Christina: Wait, your question is what’s going to go wrong. Is that your question?
Meg: Oh boy.
Drew: Well that I wouldn’t ask, because I’m not trying to hurt myself.
Meg: Yeah. Don’t do that to yourself. Let’s not do that.
Drew: The question isn’t what’s going to go wrong. The question is more like, how should I enter into these new spaces of my life? What should my energy be? What should my sense of self be?
Meg: Yeah. I like that. I think that’s a great question for the Tarot actually just in moving through all of these transitions and stepping into this kind of new phase, in so many different ways, like what are some things to know and to pay attention to, and to be aware of as you care for yourself and move through this in a place of self compassion and self love. That sound, that feel pretty good? I’m just going to shuffle for a minute.
Christina: Self love, feels good.
Meg: Self love. Okay. Okay. Okay. So I pulled three cards for you. As per usual, nothing came out. So I’m just going to read all of these cards, kind of with different weights and we’ll kind of see what feels generally like one card might resonate more than another, but I’m not going to try to figure that out along the way. I’m just going to read each of the cards in the order that they came out. So the first card is the Nine of Pentacles, which is a really beautiful moment of — Pentacles is tied to earth. So it’s career and finances, but it’s also like physical health. It’s also your sense of stability. And nine is a number of independence, it’s tied to the Hermit. So it’s very much like being self-contained in a really beautiful and holistic way. So the Nine of Pentacles is this period of deep satisfaction in everything that you’ve done individually yourself. Yes, there’s strong community behind you. Yes. You’ve been working really hard. You’ve had help along the way, but this is like you standing alone being like, “Fuck yeah, look at everything I’ve worked for. All the seeds that I’ve planted are growing and thriving. I have built this life for myself that is deeply satisfying, that cares for me, I’m in a position to be able to give back to people that I care about and I can care for myself in a way that’s really satisfying,” is the word I keep using, but it’s this really content, stable card. I don’t know if you can see her, but she’s just rocking out with this falcon in the field. It’s gorgeous. So that is the first card that came out. The second card that came out is really interesting, given what you were talking about. This is the Three of Swords. And again, swords, as we talked about before, tied to intellectual self, mental stuff, the mind and air. And with the Three of Swords, I know you can see this poor bird being stabbed through the heart with all of these. I love this card. I have this card tattooed on me. So I’m a big fan of the Three of Swords. But this card usually is about a truth that comes out in an unexpected way, and hurts us in a way that perhaps we weren’t expecting. And so to me, again, I don’t really read predictively. So what I’m actually reading from this card, what this card is telling me, is that you were preparing for this to happen. You were worried about this happening. You were bracing yourself against it happening, and it might be impacting the ways that you’re moving through the world, through your relationship, through where you are at now. You’re anticipating that this is going to happen, and it’s contributing to some of this anxiety that you’re feeling because you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop. You’re waiting for someone. This card sometimes is tied to betrayal or new information that harms you, like a fact coming out after the fact, that you’re like, “What the fuck? I didn’t know that. Everybody else knew that?” So to me, this speaks more of what you’re worried about rather than something that’s necessarily actually happening. Just because you were speaking of anxiety, and this is the card of anxiety.
Drew: Yeah. That’s really interesting.
Meg: Yeah. And then the last card is the Two of Wands, which wands are fire. Wands are the soul. They’re passion, enthusiasm. It’s heart desire and the things that really drive you forward and motivate your choices. And the Two of Wands is the card that comes after the big idea, but before you’re fully finished executing it. It’s a moment of you standing there with your, with your roadmap and being like, “Okay, I have all this energy. I have all these ideas. I have all these intentions. What am I actually going to be able to execute properly in a way that is satisfying to me and gets me where I want to go?” It’s the moment of making a plan. You’re like, “I have all this creative fire and energy and ideas. How am I going to make them actually happen instead of just running headlong with no plan and then running out of steam halfway through?” And so, given all of the changes that you’ve just made, to me, this speaks of a suggestion to maybe take stock of where you are. Take some time to be grateful. Don’t give into anxiety. And instead, think about what you really, long term, want to create. And how the moves that you’ve recently made, and also the things that you’re planning to do, are going to get you to the place that you want to be long term.
Drew: I love that. That’s so beautiful.
Meg: That’s what I see in these guys.
Christina: Oh, I love that.
Drew: Yeah, I really like the idea of looking at a “negative” card as not negative, but as an expression of anxieties and what the negativity that we are projecting onto the future, regardless of whether… Obviously, all futures hold negativity because life holds negativity. It happens sometimes. But I find it really interesting to think about it in that context.
Meg: Yeah. Part of the reason I like tarot, as opposed to Angel cards or Oracle cards or some of these other tools that only have positivity, is that I think there’s something, especially if you’re like in a shitty really place, something bad is happening or you’re really anxious or depressed or just dealing with something hard, having the cards be like, “Hey, you feel like shit. I see that. You feel like shit. I’m so sorry. Yeah. I see that. I recognize that. Here it is.” I don’t know. To me, there’s something really soothing about that. This is real.
Drew: Yeah.
Meg: This is a real thing that you were holding that is happening to you. And I recognize that. That’s what it feels like to me, is the tarot holding space for that in a really specific way that feels really deeply personal. And so when cards like that come forward, it depends on the context. And because this is a general spread, I get to do what I want because I’m the reader. But I think when cards like that come forward, it can be really healing. It’s like, “Hey, I’m acknowledging your anxiety. I acknowledge this sense of you perhaps bracing for something that you’re worried about.” But it’s not necessarily actually going to happen. It’s still present because the anxiety is present. But these other two cards are cards with stability and planning and dreaming of a really magical future.
Drew: Yeah.
Meg: Yeah.
Drew: And even when you’ve worked hard to get to a place of stability and a magical future, the past still is sometimes ringing in that ear of yours—
Meg: Sure does, yeah.
Drew: … with other things that have happened.
Meg: Trauma. Can you believe?
Christina: Can you believe?
Drew: What a concept! Well, thank you so much for doing those readings.
Meg: Oh, my pleasure. Thank you for letting me do it.
Christina: Yeah. That was really fun. It feels like a really good send off for this year.
Meg: I know.
Christina: First season.
Meg: I hope y’all are very proud of this show. It’s been really, really amazing to listen to. And you’ve had some really incredible episodes, and this has just been a really lovely thing. So I hope you’re both very happy.
Drew: Thanks so much.
Meg: And obviously you’re going to have another season, obviously.
Drew: I hope so. Let’s move on to Crush Corner.
Meg: Right, right, right.
Christina: Crush Corner.
Drew: Does everyone have a crush? Meg, do you want to start us off?
Meg: Sure. I hope it doesn’t feel like a cop out. It’s just all I can think about. I live in Brooklyn, so I was lucky enough to get to see live theater for the first time in two years. A couple weeks ago I saw Hadestown on Broadway. So my current crush is on the score of Hadestown and everyone involved in it. I can’t get the music out of my head. I’m obsessed. So that’s my crush, honestly, is music right now.
Christina: Yeah, that actually is… Yep. That’s perfect. And that actually really tracks with mine because I have been in what I’m going to call a Wicked K Hole on TikTok. I cannot get away from Wicked content on TikTok. I got Defying Gravity in German last night.
Meg: Oh!
Christina: We are in a space.
Meg: I feel like I should congratulate you. That really just seems like a really special place to be in on TikTok.
Christina: I said I’m a log off for the night right then. But in honor of that, my crush of the week is the Elphaba I saw when I saw Wicked in 2005, one Shoshana Bean. I think she should marry me. I think that would be cool. I think she’d have a good time. She has Jewish chaos, bi girl energy, which I really appreciate. And I would love her to marry me, and then sing me some songs at a time that she decides is appropriate.
Meg: I want this for you.
Drew: I think that’s what you deserve.
Christina: Thank you.
Meg: Absolutely.
Christina: Thank you so much. So that’s it from the theater report over here, I suppose. Over to you.
Meg: Go team.
Drew: Yeah, no theater crush for me. I wanted to end with a really, your crush, like horny crush. And I can’t because I’ve had such a profound artistic crush this week, and I have to talk about that because I just… And so the Criterion Channel, by the time this episode will be out, these films will not be on there, so I’m sorry. But all of Marlon Riggs’ films were on the Criterion Channel, and expired at the end of September. And I had only seen Tongues Untied. I saw it years and years ago and really loved it. And obviously, he’s this hugely important figure. But I hadn’t seen his other seven movies. And I watched all of them and re-watched Tongues Untied, and watched the intro, and watched the documentary on there about him, and watched the little group of shorts that were different filmmakers who were inspired by him. And it just was like a really meaningful four days. And all of that content, content, God, awful, all of that beautiful art is available in the Criterion Collection. If you’re a person who buys discs, you can still do that. And even though I watched them all before they expired off of the streaming channel, I am still going to now buy them so I can revisit them. And there’s more special features on the disc. So that’s also special. But yeah, it was a really powerful experience. And if you don’t know his work, you should see it.
Christina: And honestly, there’s nothing more Drew than being like, “I wanted to go horny, but I came in with meaningful, emotional connections to art.”
Drew: Yes.
Christina: That—
Meg: Here we all are.
Christina: Chef’s kiss, babe. Yeah.
Drew: Yep.
Christina: Yeah. Truly look at us.
Meg: Love it.
Christina: Well, Meg, this was literally so exciting and delightful. I’m so glad we got to have you. And we just have like one—
Meg: Thank you so much for having me.
Drew: Wait. Well, can you tell people where they can find your work?
Meg: Oh, sure. Yes. Yes, I can. So the easiest place to find me is at 3amtarot.com. I’m at @3am.tarot on Instagram. I’m @megjoneswall on the other thing, Twitter. And you can also find me on Autostraddle. I write all the tarotscopes and taro shit and sometimes TV shit.
Drew: Amazing.
Christina: We all contain multitudes.
Meg: I know. So many multitudes.
Drew: Okay. Now, Christina, you can shoot your shot.
Christina: Now I can shoot my shot and ask the question that’s been, I think, on everybody’s lips. And it was like, “Was this a date? Were we just on a date just now? Who can say. Can you answer this for us perhaps?”
Meg: We talked a lot of astrology.
Christina: Right.
Meg: And we talked a lot of compatibility, and I read your cards. So I think it might have been a date.
Christina: Think it might have been a date. Wow.
Drew: Wow. Amazing.
Christina: Huge! I love to end the season with a date. Go us!
Meg: Go team.
Drew: It’s really powerful. Thank you.
Meg: Thank you.
Drew: Thank you so much for listening to Wait, Is This a Date? You can find us on Twitter and Instagram @waitisthisadate and you can also email us at waitisthisadate@gmail.com.
Christina: Our theme is written by Lauren Klein. Our logo is by Maanya Dhar. And this podcast was edited, produced and mixed by Lauren Klein. You can find me online @C_GraceT on twitter.com, the website. And you can find me on Instagram @christina_gracet.
Drew: And you can find me on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok @draw_gregory. And you can find Autostraddle on all social medias @autostraddle.
Christina: And go visit autostraddle.com because that’s the reason we’re all here today.
Drew: Thank you all so much and see you next week.
Christina: Yeah. We’ll absolutely see you next week, and we can’t wait.
Drew: Yeah, and maybe next week will be a date.
Christina: Hey, maybe it will be. Wilder things have happened.
Drew: Except you know what? I also think it’s important to clarify to the listener that if you ask someone if something’s a date or not, you probably should take that as sort of a moving forward… I don’t think every time you see someone you should, that’s not really direct communication as much as it is, not really respecting someone’s boundaries. And we do like boundaries here at Wait, Is This a Date?
Christina: The gayest thing about this podcast is that the outro is a boundary.
Drew, in a voice memo: Look, I know we’re not supposed to give value judgements based on certain signs and sign combinations and stuff. And everyone’s an individual, and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But I do think air, sun, earth rising, that is the best. That is the best person. Those are the best people. So that’s just how I feel.
