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.

1. Substack is the new Tumblr. I love it here.

2. 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.