Reading Slow Days, Fast Company by Eve Babitz

Formally writing my wrongs about Los Angeles & critiquing my own personal essay from 2023, plus more thoughts on being alive, basically.

The coolest thing is that I have 1 paid subscriber so I feel I must keep writing. I am indebted to you, Isabella Ruby, thank you so much for supporting my writing. My art! There can be 100 people in the room. And 99 don’t believe in you. All it takes is just 1. Such a 99% percent angel mood if I ever heard one. My mind goes to this banger reminding me of one night when my girls Brisa Holly Lana & I got wine drunk wasted in our tiny kitchen on a Monday and did the limbo for approx 2 hours. Just casually. The limbo is so underrated as an activity I must say. Highly recommend it after a demutesy dinner party with your friends. I know I said last week that weekends are for play but I changed my mind. Play is for every day! 

I change my mind all the time. I’m a walking contradiction. As soon as I let myself off the hook from obligations I’ve imposed on myself, I feel free again. Free of the routine that so often imprison’s me from having fun. Free of that song which is still playing, definitely change it now, it’s absolutely too much. There, that’s better. On we go.

One routine I have been sticking to since last year (see how I contradicted myself there) is reading more books. Not more articles, or more news, or captions, but physical books. I’ve been making a list of every title I read to motivate myself to do it more. I adore literature. Books give me new words to use and can be the best company on a solitary afternoon. I still remember my high school bestie Annabelle, walking to dancing with me one day after school, and casually dropping the word nonchalant in a sentence to both of our delights. We could not stop giggling about it. Long live diction ladies!

I started reading Slow Days, Fast Company by Eve Babitz last Sunday. I’ve gone and finished it in one week. Devoured it in fact, even though I did everything I could to pace myself and drag it out, it’s a slim read. I’m utterly heartbroken and as a reward I will be going to Skylight Books as soon as I publish this post to purchase Eve’s entire life’s work. She strikes the perfect tone. Thank you Sophia once more for sharing your taste with me. You remind me a lot of Eve in fact. Just the vibration I’ve been feeling; silly, effervescent, smart, witty, warm, confident. A far cry from the detached, cool, analytical, hysterical baggage that came with my Joan Didion binge, beginning back in 2022.

Loyally, I persevered through 3 of Didion’s books in quick succession. I felt so cool purchasing them, one by one, along with new pens, from the corner store in Franklin Village during my improv class break. First the Year of Magical Thinking, then came Blue Nights, before finishing with the White Album, and a long screeching stop in my path. The last book left me shivering, cold and dry. It really woke me out of the nostalgic reverie that I had wrapped myself in. I was incredibly confronted by her cynicism for California. It was in fact just how I had been feeling that summer, but had naturally been avoiding. Fed up with the broken systems in this country and embarrassed at how frivolous I was for being apart of it all.

But it’s the romanticism of Bakersfield that Eve Babitz managed to hook me within in her second chapter that has rendered me speechless and left me never the same. If you’ve ever been to Bakersfield then you will know what I mean. I don’t care what anyone else thinks. I am firmly back in my rose tinted glasses era and I plan to be here for the rest of time. I’m not leaving. I’m staying. I love it here! I love La! I finally heard myself say it out loud to my friends, as we danced under the moonlight at Fred Again’s first coliseum show, designed by our friend Ben. I mean does it get any better than this?

I’m staying. That’s something I’ve been saying to myself recently. It feels easier to exist when you are committed to being somewhere. When people ask me where to next, I tell them, I live here now. Sure, the current retirement plan is an island off the coast of Sicily, but for the next 20 years I’m here. Would that be so bad? My friend Brisa used to say she was a citizen of the world but her address would always be in Berlin. Can you tell we were making up our own custom catch phrases for the RHOBH intro sequence. Anyway, I loved hearing that conviction in her voice, and admired her certainty, and how secure that must make her feel, to choose to belong somewhere. Well, now I’m digging my toes in the sand, and I’m rooting myself here. I belong here. For now. Just kidding. At least for this chapter…

For my second post, I’ve decided to critique one of the first pieces I ever wrote on Los Angeles, a private personal essay I started in 2023, which was very Didion fuelled. Truly dramatic, very bitter, sometimes scathing and just dripping in superiority. How depressed I was! I must formally apologise, write my wrongs and change my tune. I’m no longer defending La for what is isn’t. I’m adoring what it is. For all 17 of you <33333

After one year of living in Los Angeles, I find myself longing to discover what is native to the city. So far everything I’ve experienced is manufactured. The identical plastic surgery references all of the woman are using, the incessant obsession with air con causing death by hypothermia at the cinema and supermarket aisles. Gas heaters obliviously blasting on the Erewhon terrace on a 30 degree day. Always in pursuit of achieving the perfect temperature. The best life. The best best. Even the palm trees are transplanted. Providing no shade and no purpose other than an exotic aesthetic. A surreal never ending vacation destination. Makes sense the busiest street is Hollywood Boulevard full of tourists. I too fell for the Hollywood dream.

Alrighty, first things first, I too feel for the Hollywood dream??? I will come back to that part, Jesus, but to start I actually don’t know how anyone survives, on the east side at least, without air conditioning. The only statement I will defend is the cinema (you know the one putting the AC in AMC. Yeah, you’d be daft to wear anything less than wool and a fur coat). Anyway. I tried avoiding air con for two summers, leaving all of the window and doors open while I was home, and low and behold, every month (when I started approaching that window of time which happens every month where you think your pregnant, any woman will understand, this is a birth right) I would become so feasted on by mosquitoes that I started believing I would contract Zika virus and eventually give birth to a Zika baby. I even raised this topic with my neighbours and escalated this emergency to my landlord, really sending myself into a tizz, before he camly reminded me that the screens installed on all the windows were there for this exact reason. Needless to say this summer I have turned the AC on, closed the doors, and I am a) no longer being eaten alive in the safety of my own home. And b) no longer feel like I’m going to faint every time I stand up due to the dizzying dry heat. So now I do understand AC‘s purpose. Hallelujah, for I have ridden the judgement I had lodged deep inside of me towards artificial air. Suddenly grateful for this technology that I use to survive. Suddenly obsessed with the dry sarcasm that locals here posses, which I realise has emerged from their sage survival skills. I don’t quite know what I mean by that last bit, but stick with me some more and I’m sure I’ll figure it out. Kind of like when Annabelle intuitively dropped nonchalant that time.

Let’s continue.

It took 12 months to learn why they call it tinsel town. One night from our picnic view at Barnsdall Park, I caught Julia admiring the evening sky, it was crystal clear, a rarity in a town full of smog, and the palm trees she said, “they look all tinsely”. Seeing them sparkle and sway in the breeze I wondered for a moment if that was in fact where the name sake came from. I found myself smiling, eyes crinkling and looking up at trees too, wondering to myself “am I having a magical moment” as Bella had told me, she had them here all the time in fact. Sadly I wasn’t. According to the Grammarist, “Tinseltown is a slang term for Hollywood, the capital of the American film industry. Tinsel is a shiny material usually used in Christmas decorations, it is gaudy but has no real substance. Hollywood is often depicted as a place that is beautiful on the surface, but underneath, is a harsh and ugly place.” Evidently, I rest my case. 

I mean ffs. How jaded do I sound. I rest my case? Am I a lawyer? Certainly a judge. Clearly resentful of the fact that I hadn’t made it in Hollywood as an actress in just 12 months time. I bet the person who wrote that description of Tinsel Town was jaded too, I’m in half a mind to petition to change it to Julia’s description instead. I prefer it. How sick of us transplants the locals must be. Everyone showing up to cash in on their talents, take a ride on the red carpet and then pop off back home to make fun of it all. How many people are missing the point. My friend Katherine has a print that says “Hollywood is a verb”. She is right, it is in the doing, and the sharing with others of your practice (there I go again) that keeps the spirit and charm of Hollywood alive.

Living in Los Angeles can feel serene; a cinematic scene from your car as you glide through quiet streets, the summer sky seen through your sun roof sound tracked by musicians of Laurel Canyon’s past, scarlet sunset blazing across the horizon viewed as extra beautiful, unbeknown to the untrained eye, (Nikki once told me it’s air pollution creating that haunting red glow). The stars on the streets, or the spotting of celebrities “as if sent by the mayor to encourage tourists to believe in the magic” Rob said, all of which illustrating an illusion, the nostalgia that this town feeds off, and a reminder that like them, you too could achieve your dreams. The longest winter in the world is June. All that sparkled, loses light and becomes gloom. 

Okay I actually don’t mind this part. This is very Babitz of me. One of my favourite things she said about La was this: “Outside, the streets were suffocated beneath stagnant pressure. Humans moved from here to there with queer casualness and you could not drive down a residential street without someone backing straight out of their driveway in front of you as though the world were empty”. All I can think of is that film the Truman Show and anyone who lives here will know what I mean. A certain vacantness exists here in the sprawl of it all. And turns out I love the gloom. Gloom is a respite from, what did Chloe Sevigny call it, the monotony of sunshine. And as we all know, my rainy soul loves the clouds. Babitz says something else (among many more things that struck a chord) “I long for vast sprawls, smog, and luke nights: L.A. It is where I work best, where I can live, oblivious to physical reality.” These days I have less guilt for staying inside on a sunny smoggy day, in fact I give myself more permission to be inside working, quietly secure in the notion and smug pleasure that the sun will indeed shine again tomorrow, and the next day, and the next, and the next.

Paranoia comes in the most unexpected places. Spaces where you’re used to finding solace, the peace of walking down the street on the way to yoga is shattered when realising there is no one else walking with you. The feminine urge to strategise defense tactics against make believe predators following you. The survival instincts activated. The irrational fear of being on a hike and wondering if this is the day a mountain lion will have its way with you. The unease of car rage stories, hearing no one got out of their suburbans to break up a fight between drivers, tension brewing at traffic lights, the fear of gunfire holding people hostage in their cars, discouraging us all from helping each other. Paranoia is the one thing that is native here.

Me! Hi! I’m the problem it’s me! I was the paranoid one! Admittedly I was scared because it felt so weird to walk down an empty street in the middle of the day alone. Everyone drives here so walking feels more vulnerable. I used to yell to myself in my head “I’m pregnant!!! Don’t shoot me!!!! Think of the baby!!! Think of my zika baby!!!” and yeah, that felt like a good way to protect myself. I remember telling Katherine I was so scared of being mauled to death by P-22 (RIP, beautiful kitty) that I was considering buying an extendable steel rod from Amazon that clips to your keychain and can be used like a light saber to defend yourself against attacks in the wild (????) She kindly told me that sometimes when we’re scared we project our fears onto things in front of us to assert ourselves more. Well my friend. You were right. I was petrified out of my mind and that turned into deep guilt and remorse the minute P-22 was found injured in someone’s backyard and went on to be euthanasized. I mean, I didn’t want to die, but I also didn’t want him to die. I think this is where my personal opinion on safety and weapons becomes clear.

Clearly I was paranoid and wanted to buy a weapon to protect myself, only to realise that I was extremely uncomfortable being in a new environment, and the creature I projected my fear towards was more vulnerable than me, and actually not the problem. I was. The only attacks recorded by the lion were snatching people’s Chihuahua off the leash. Is that how big I felt? The size of a Chihuahua? Makes sense why I love to talk so much. And sometimes too loudly. I bark more than I bite. Definitely learned behaviour of a modest feminine 5“5 stature. Needless to say I never bought that steel rod! I did however buy pepper spray which has sat in my car for 2 years, never to be used, and if I’m honest I’m really scared I’ll spray it in my own eyes accidentally, so I don’t like the idea of using it. Drop beats not bombs people!!!!!!!!

To conclude, I’ve decided being less stimulated and living in a quiet neighbourhood is actually really relaxing. At first I thought I was going to die because my nervous system had never felt calmness like this before. Calmness can feel like apathy. Like nothingness. Like becoming desensitised to the horrors around you. Or in my case projecting nightmares as I walked through my neighbourhood, where everyone else had a “queer casualness” about them. So now I too skip gaily daily down the street.

I do worry that I live in a bubble though. I mean I know I live in one. And I know I am lucky to feel safe. But sometimes I have a lot of guilt for my bubble. I know that isn’t helpful. So I try to just feel grateful, soak up the suds, float along the streets, become unflappable really, and share my light wherever I go. Instead of making my self smaller when I remember not everyone feels good, I aim to share my goodness where possible. Maybe I’ve caught the toxic positivity illness. It certainly sounds it.

Words I’m trying to live by this year are ease, flow, presence, gentleness and harmony. I defined these at the Smight’s annual vision boarding party in January in Pasadena. One of the most La activities I’ve ever partaken in. There was a magical wand present. I loved every second of it. Upon reflection it was painful for me to share in front of a group the things I wanted to attract more of in my life. I felt so greedy. I know this is one of my biggest blocks. Feeling guilty for the good things in my life and feeling guilty for wanting more good things to happen. So there you have it. My biggest secrets, written for all of you to see. I hope that sharing sets me free!!!!! And if it doesn’t, then the least you can all do is just let me be.

Love you all xoxoxoxo

PS. Currently my biggest fear that has replaced mountain lion’s is the chance of accidentally air dropping self tape videos to my neighbours when I’m sending them to my laptop from my phone. These videos are probably the most embarrassing pieces of content I’ll ever create. Instead of an Oscar acceptance speech in the year 2034 I’ll just cut to the big screen using the microchip in my temple and play 1 second of every casting video I’ve ever made and together the world will see not only does it take a village, it takes a village of different characters inside of me to make it as an actor. I will basically showcase to the entire world that I have split personality disorder and everyone will clap me off stage. It will be my legacy. My life’s work.

PPS. My spirit guides, gurus, intergalatic zaddy’s whatever you want to call them, they do really love it when I write. Since I last posted I received 2 more scripts for 2 more auditions for TV show roles. Writing is very abundant for me I feel. Do you have some kind of power that you feel is magic too? Aggie said “when you open the right doors you let the good guests in”. Love that. She recommends things on her substack btw.

PPPS. To the rest of you angels, my sweet 16, gorgeous, free subscribers, I truly couldn’t be happier to reunite. You all represent the different nooks and crannies of the globe I referenced last week. You’re all the fricken best. So far I’ve written 2 posts this month, and in September, I would like to make it to 3. Perhaps you can receive the first one free each month, do you think that sounds fair? I can’t make the subscription cost any less than it does, tis the minimum price that Substack allows. Understandably it is the monthly cost of 1 coffee, but if you can’t afford that, then stay for the odd free post. I’d so rather you are here than not <3