California is an airless embrace. LA, ever windless, impresses stagnation on its dwellers. I didn’t understood how suffocation could be comforting until I moved to California and saw the power in stillness, in waiting for the kill.
“I am a parody of myself,” I said on the phone as I parked in front of the Viper Room and walked to the same coffee shop I’ve frequented since I was nineteen. I swore I would never be a Sunset girl again after The Standard shut down and I moved to the Eastside, but at least it possesses a great history. You still get the sense, walking around, that it used to be the center of the universe. Zebulon held the honor for roughly eight months until the Oxy kids found it, and then it was ruined forever.
West Hollywood has been over for literal years, but in some ways, that’s taken the pressure off to be cool. It hasn’t been cool for decades, but it is central, so at least it’ll be convenient forever. Highland Park is fabulous but a little too domesticated for my taste. Hollywood is historic and all, but even I’m not crazy enough to live there without twenty-four-hour security. Los Feliz, however, is never over. Forget Forest Lawn; find a nice pothole for my ashes on Hillhurst so I can haunt All Time, bemoaning how a plot by Horses never came through.
Last week, I was early to pick up a friend at the Burbank airport, so I parked at the Shell on Victory and chowed on candied popcorn beneath the whitetails streaking a bright, cloudless sky. What LA lacks in energy it makes up for in cinematic potential, I think.
“I’d learned a lot since moving to Los Angeles,” Susan Orlean writes in The Library Book, part investigation into the 1986 Los Angeles Public Library arson, part modern tribute to the city. “I knew the Westside from the Eastside; I knew to avoid traffic on Oscar night; I knew the exquisite beckoning beauty and acclaim that sings out to anyone here who aches for life like a highlight reel…I had come to love Los Angeles; I even loved its preening, grabby, ambitious silliness…because it pulsed with emotion and wishfulness and ripe brokenheartedness, animated in the most naked way.” West Hollywood might have a reputation for ridiculousness, but I love that it isn’t afraid. Whenever I drive past the Pink Wall, I see a swarm of girls whose central ambition is to be seen. I think that’s what people hate about influencers: they openly vie for what most of us can only privately yearn for.
I talked to some actresses the other night and was reminded of how lovely they are. They’re not half as vain as directors; they’d take any work at all—it doesn’t have to be cool or pay well. Writers cut themselves open for a paycheck, but actors bleed for free. They treat every outing as if it has the potential to change their lives. As if only the timing were right, a run to the grocery store could be their origin story anecdote on late-night (“No, it’s funny you mention it, Jimmy, I was buying zucchini…”), as if all their wildest dreams could come true by 5:30 this afternoon. Angelenos tend to treat life as one, big, slippery Moment Before.
I’d have given anything to party with the Friends cast in Vegas the weekend before the pilot aired. What it must have been like to order a drink and dance in the blinking spotlight, thinking, “By this time next week, everyone here will know my name.” That kind of fame doesn’t happen anymore, of course. But it’s nice to imagine.
I have spent, yet again, half of this newsletter talking about LA County. I apologize if you live elsewhere; all my industry rants must come across as insular and petty. I don’t have an explanation for that; it’s just that I’m genuinely interested in trivial bullshit.
The low point of the season was when I fed my boyfriend week-old raw fish when I (incorrectly) mistook the hunk of fish on the top shelf for the sushi-grade one in the drawer. The second lowest was falling off the wagon and ripping a discarded vape from the kitchen trash until it tasted like burning chemical fluid. I’m back off the stuff, don’t worry. Sometimes, though, I really hate being nicotine-free. I don’t look nearly as ridiculous, but I miss having something to do with my hands and being able to stay up until four in the morning. I used to thrive off that heady buzz—the long nights into days, the two AM brainstorms dizzy from Laptop Blues. I love the Laptop Blues. I love the time suck, the scribbling through heavy eyelids, the nonsense result. All of my best ideas are total nonsense created in the span of two hours.
I once asked a friend what she understood the least about me, and she said, “how vulnerable you are in your writing.” And I realized what a liar I’ve been. I haven’t been totally honest in my work in years. I try, but it’s a waste of testimony if it’s not anonymous. When I sign my work, I allude and compromise and delete; I contort my grabbiness behind an armor of irony. I am the girl who goes to Trader Joe’s in loafers and a full face of makeup. Online, I am casual. Basic. Ditzy. Here, I debate and futz and edit. In a non-online zine, I all-but-doxxed my ex-boyfriend, but it’s local and he totally deserved it. I used to pull that shit on Tumblr, numbering my crushes and enemies and spilling my guts for free. Now I’ll only do it for cheap. I used to be brave.
Nameless, I am ruthless. Behind the laptop screen, I am God.
Me finding Clarice Lispector abandoned on the street (hot).
Why the fuck are you bragging about being a pisces? Simp smh.
The Westside Vineyard Church (sadly) does not worship wine.