Listening to Touch My Body by Mariah Carey
Today I slipped on a banana peel, locked myself out of the house and then accidentally radicalised myself by asking a lot of questions. How about you angel?
Two things.
Substack is the new Tumblr. I love it here.
My deepest and most sincere apologies for my absence.
I’ve been activating the Christmas (yes I said it) angel that lives within us all. It’s time. Mariah hath descended from the heavens upon us all to cash in her holidays cheques. I’m an inspired woman after seeing her live in concert last week. Catch me practising my melisma for the rest of time. Her voice is the highest pitch I’ve ever heard. She has the register of a whistle. I googled it. When I attempt to do the same my sinuses hurt. I’m on a journey to unblock them. The beast of song has been unleashed. I can’t stop. It was always there but now my husband is encouraging me. This is truly dangerous.
Alas. I’m sitting outside right now, genuinely with my bum on the sidewalk, the concrete is cold but my face is in the sun, parked up in front of my house because I actively decided to leave my keys at home this morning. Does anyone else do weird things to entertain themselves like this. I did it because Marino was home. This is foreshadowing. I knew I could I do this because he makes me feel safe in this world.
I knew he could leave at any moment when I did it, but I loved the thrill of not knowing for sure, and to be honest, not carrying my keychain as I walked up the road to Intelligentsia for my silly little matcha. The jokes on me and my thrill seeking now, because I’ve come home, he’s gone, and both doors are locked. I have no else to blame but me for having a total of 4 metal charms on my keychain that have begun to feel so clunky that I would rather leave them at home than carry them for 10 minutes on my hot girl strut up the street.
The lightness of being means carrying nothing but my phone in one hand and cup in the other. Pockets you ask? Pants aren’t strong enough to stay up thanks to the sheer weight of the keycharms that I can’t seem to let go of. Bag? Never heard of it. This luggage accessory plays no part of the fancy free walk philosophy for me. No siree.
This right here is the lengths I will go to avoid starting to write. I’ve got nothing else to do now other than sit on the street and muse about this nonsense in my notes app. Makes me think about what it would be like to live out here honestly. Makes me think about this story of a man who was on neighbourhood watch 10 years ago here in this cosy nook between Silver Lake and Virgil Village that we call home. Our landlord John said he used to find said street man showering under the open faucet in our front yard, and the whole street had an investigation with a detective. Apparently he started squatting in the apartment below ours until a tenant moved in and he fought them.
Eventually he was served a restraining order and put away behind bars. Pretty rats. Now the bars on our living room window make a bit more sense to me somehow. Now my landlords decline in response to my idea of constructing an outdoor washing line in the front yard makes a bit more sense to me now. Actually that’s a lie. Bars on home windows will never make sense to me, and washing dried from the fresh air and sunshine will always reign superior to me. But maybe that’s just it. Superiority. Icky!
A sense of innate naivety and safety because I grew up in little old New Zealand. Scoffing at the idea of someone stealing my clothes from the outdoor line, until you hear of a squatting man using the hose in your front yard as his daily shower. Suddenly knowledge is starting to sink in. Gentrification is real. I am gentrification.
Anywho. I’m thinking about this time I was so emotionally indulgent in Los Feliz last year and by that, I mean, I was crying my eyes out alone in our 4 runner parked around the corner from Maru. Because I was home sick. Because I needed to get a fricken job. Like get an actual grip Elise. If your life is so hard that all you managed to do that day was drive yourself to the most hipster cafe in Los Angeles and buy yourself an extortionately priced coffee to cheer yourself up then you’re doing just fine sweetie. The fact you even have a car to cry in is enough of a bitch slap. I’m cackling now.
But, for affect, the story must continue. Cut to, I’m sobbing to myself, really getting into it as I conjure up all of the happiest moments in my life like a snow globe in my mind, telling myself absurd things like “these days are over”, and making the decision to allow snot to roll down to my lips. Choosing to be the main character. Playing the victim. Dramatising, as I do so well. Assuming no one will bother me. Think again.
An older woman in her 60’s starts banging on the window aggressively, repeatedly saying something under her breath, to my alarm and out of reflex, I go to roll down the window, while quickly realising I’ve been sat in my car for 30 mins, straight disassociating, and windows simply don’t roll down anymore in 2024. Even if your car is from the 90’s. So I turn the old girl on, by which I’m referring to Sandy my car, not the lady on the street, calm down players, then I press the button to bring the window open and turn to her with my face full of glistening snot and ask, “what’s going on?”.
She is distressed and direct. She demands "Papa John. Take me to Papa John”.
Immediately, I have a purpose. Instantly, I am fulfilled. Finally, someone needs me! I have become the hero. Never mind the fact I’ve never laid eyes on this woman in my life. Never mind the fact that I’m feeling anxious in regards to the urgency surrounding this guy called Papa John. Never mind the many warning bells going off in my body that this is not your average joe sort of interaction. No, instead I’m thinking, whose Papa John anyway? Some kind of cult leader? These are the thoughts that dart between my ears in this moment that lead me to decide to invite this woman in to the passenger seat and say “yes absolutely, no worries, let me take you, please excuse the general vibe of misery in here, make yourself at home, seatbelt’s on” etc etc.
Suddenly I’m driving down Hillhurst and feeling extremely hyper aware of my surroundings. I’m driving past Maru and frantically realising I could have sat there and choked back my tears with my coffee cup behind my sunglasses like other normal people do in public. Suddenly I’ve been taken hostage in my own damn car and I’m realising my life felt pretty safe up until now. Suddenly I am coming to my senses at the traffic lights and I nervously look to my right at the woman, who is staring directly at the snot on my face, to which she reaches into her bag, and my life flashes before me. My first instinct is that she’s reaching for a gun in her handbag. I digress.
What on earth is wrong with me. I was clearly not well. She instead pulls out a handkerchief, and offers it to me. I find myself realising I am the insane person in this scenario and finally decide I’ve had enough of her being in my car. Instead of acting on my decision, I ask her directly “who is Papa John” because again my curiosity has over taken me and I can’t help but wonder to myself, what does he want with her? She looks extremely confused, and tells me Papa John is on Fountain. I drive us through the intersection at Hollywood and Sunset, before making a beeline for Fountain up ahead, and decide dropping her off on the corner will be enough of a good deed today.
I tell her this, and after urging me that Papa John is so close, she too admits defeat and leaves my car. I exhale. Before realising that was one of the most unhinged things that’s ever happened to me, and yet totally normal at the same time? In fact, I’ve probably done weirder? Which is why I didn’t hesitate to open my door and do it all in the first place? And honestly, while we’re unpacking this, I think we could have had a really great conversation if we had both been able to speak the language? There were certain challenges we both faced in our situationship, and I came out thinking, I could have done better, and I still stand by this. There was more to the thread here that I could have unraveled. But I chickened out didn’t I. For that you must forgive me.
Reminds me of hitchhiking naturally. Does anyone still do this? I guess old made Papa John demands it of his people. Anyway. It’s only when I tell this story to my hair dresser Alyson days later that I find out Papa John is a pizza franchise. Not a cult leader. A family restaurant in fact. So bless this lady just wanted a free ride to get pizza. I could have bought her a meal if I had known. Instead I created an elaborate fairy tale about some man named John. I’m deceased. I’m just that kind of girl I guess.
Reminds me of this Uber driver I had once who told me they needed to pee really badly and I nearly invited them back into my house on the spot. Until I remembered that, on principal, this isn’t a good idea. But what is the line? And whose line is it anyway? I ask myself this on a daily basis. What is being a good samaritan and what is being taken advantage of? Who calls the shots in society? The Karen’s? And who is Papa John? These are the questions I find myself asking on a Tuesday at 330pm.
I am now writing to you from the safety of my own home. The door unlocked thanks to the spare key which was always there waiting for me. Life is back to normal again.
Is it the thrill of changing my mind at the last minute that keeps me feeling free? Is it the thrill of feeling free that gives me the energy to write these stories? Or is it simply the thrill of an unfolding plot twist that I created in my life because I am safe enough to do so for the sake of entertaining us all?
Is it the thrill of improvising that keeps me being a person who loves to serve others? Or will I do just about anything for the sake of collecting anecdotes to share with my friends? Who is trustworthy, who isn’t and why? Who are you? Where do you stand on the spectrum of kindness and insanity? And should we all start a podcast? Seriously.
These are just some of the silly little thoughts I think to myself on my daily walk.
I think these thoughts as I walk down the street and slip on banana peels.
Marino told me that the joke of slipping on a banana peel comes from real life.
Folk lore. Stories from a community passed down. That’s when it hit me. The banana.
Some days you’re so busy marvelling with wonder at the joy of your life that you slip on a peel and find it hysterical so you take a picture for your friends, who you believe to be the funniest people you’ve ever met and they, thankfully, think the same.
And then you remember someone told you a joke about slipping on a banana peel once when you were young, and you realise that it was just the truth.
You giggle.
“If it’s hysterical, it’s historical”, as our girl Ellastotle loves to say.
And, if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry. Until the next plot twist angels!
I love being alive at the same time as you.
*jumps off stage and crowd surfs into oblivion*
xoxo Elise aka E=MC²