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I have searched for heaven my whole life. Sometimes I believe it’s my life’s mission to find it. I always wondered what it might be like. I picture it often in the mornings on my sun-faded yellow couch peeking out at the fluorescent pink bougainvillea, or on the Pacific Coast Highway in June, and more tenderly in February. There’s heaven on the 101 right at 6 pm even in traffic, on the way to Burbank; in Will Rogers park; at the top of Mandeville Canyon road; in the Venice canal, the 10, the 405, the 1; Highland Avenue below Beverly; low tide in the Colony; the loquat trees; the orange groves; gloom in the early morning that burns off between 11 am and 1 pm; 80 degrees in January; the mustard greens, especially at the Fryman Canyon trail; the top of Laurel Canyon driving east on Mulholland Drive; hoping; remembering; soil, fertile and dry; valleys; the half moon; the bridge between Hyperion and Glendale; mountaintops; mourning doves.

I’ve driven up Highway 1 all the way to Big Sur, and past Big Sur to Mendocino. I saw the color blue for the first time last August. Blue like purple. Purple like you. Purple like the sky right before the moon is highest in the sky. Purple like blackberry blue. I’ve flown over all the mountains and looked out at the orange below me. I have seen Hollywood Boulevard, Venice Beach, Malibu county line, Ojai, Palmdale. I’ve overheard conversations you wouldn’t believe. I’ve walked on Glendale Boulevard where I met the love of my life. I’ve watched a thunderstorm in a glasshouse.

All of a sudden on the Pacific Coast Highway I imagined myself kneeling down before the black ocean in prayer, my knees digging into the sand. I saw three Mustangs lined up to drag race in a parking lot. A song played I’d never heard before and somehow my whole life was captured in one sound. I drove 9 miles home with my windows open, my hair sticking to my lips and cheeks. The 10 freeway was a kind of religion. I don’t know why God chose to find me here.

I remembered the sound of his car being locked, his footsteps on our concrete steps outside, the unlocking of the door, and then his hello? When I packed his books, I leafed through the pages of each one, desperately seeking any annotation or underlines, a way to understand him in the final hour that I had access to something that was his. I imagined him now in his car, early in the morning on the twisting Topanga Canyon road, skies just turning to blue, driving and listening to Wilco, or Townes Van Zandt, tapping his hands on the steering wheel in replacement of a drum.

I fantasized about finding my way to a bottomless canyon. Taking my limbs and carrying them, climbing them up from the valley, and laying down in the green, green grass on the side of a steep hill. I thought about being vertical there, feeling my body about to slip and feeling afraid.

I did not grow up in Los Angeles, but I have close friends who have, who have graciously shown me their home and its particular ways of being. I moved to Los Angeles incredibly lost, hoping to find something. It turns out what I was looking for was a place that felt like a real home, something that I could relate to and fall in love with, not like I had with New York. Los Angeles feels like something of a utopia. It’s heaven to come to a place you know nothing about, and that you even resented once. I never thought I would live in Los Angeles; I never wanted to. I even claimed to hate it once. It is an incredibly easy task to love New York City. I’d argue an easier one, and far more rewarding, is choosing to love California.

Time does not stop. The jasmine is in bloom at the end of our street, and the coyote puppies have graciously reminded us that it is yipping season.

Last night I decided to go to The Special Place. I stepped outside to for a walk and said don’t worry Grace it’s just a sensation you aren’t dying and then I walked back upstairs and got my car keys and drove all the way down 3rd Street to Crescent Heights and all the way up Laurel Canyon to Mulholland Drive and thought about Katy and Devon and how when I moved to Los Angeles 6 years ago, the top of that hill is the first place I went and that Katy showed it to me almost exactly a year before. So I drove all the way up to the twirls and spun around the canyons and parked my car and got out and walked very slowly, remembering that one evening when the sky was blanketed in pink over the valley, and that now whenever I say Los Angeles, that is what it feels like.

The sun comes now through the window in front of which I sit. Somewhere close: a television, the cry of a baby, a lawn mower, an airplane, the shhhhwoooshhh of a car, a woman’s voice, a nut in between a squirrel’s teeth.

Fear doesn’t have a sound but I’d imagine it in the early hours of the morning in a room with a stranger. It sits and lies like the air in August. It tricks you into thinking you’ve found it: freedom.

When I ask for help I become not human, I become an animal. It is the only way I can see myself outside of myself. In my mind my thoughts sound like a ticking clock because they do not end. As soon as I reach the inevitable cliff of truth I disintegrate. Then I am reborn and the cycle starts again. I am shaken awake and asked to comply and I agree. Everything I eat tastes of rubber.

The only constant now is the whir of the air conditioner.

The only way to exercise the thoughts out of my rotten brain is to write. To write is an attempt to make sense of my thoughts. I have to mention the air conditioner and sounds around me because they are the only thing reminding me that I am here, otherwise I live in my brain which I resent greatly. So I tell you often of the air at the end of summer, how it stalls and stays still in the earliest hours of the mornings, and about the sun that comes through and turns my vision light pink for the minutes it reflects and refracts off the red building in which I live, making the room around me feel false.

I tell you these external facts because through them I hope you will forget about my private ones, distracting myself and you from the muck upstairs. For example: my paranoia, my compulsions. I forget how to use my words even to those closest to me. I stare at the blinking space bar and forget English. I don’t know how to express myself properly. What if I say the wrong thing? What does wrong mean and who is the judge of if it’s wrong? The person on the other side. If it is wrong the trap door is pulled and like I told you before: I disintegrate and then am reborn.

This week, my arms stopped working. What I mean is my anxious and ruminiating brain made my terror manifest physically. I knew it, I thought, This is the End. This isn’t meant to scare you, I want to tell you the truth. Then I shake myself and remind myself that I am not that powerful, I am not that important, the only thing making this important is my brain, which is tricking me again. It takes courage to write what comes to me: you never know what could come up and scare you.

Why am I flinging myself at you?

I try to bring myself back by reminding myself that Clarice Lispector says:

For a long time I haven’t been people. They wanted me to be an object. I’m an object. The mechanism demands and demands my life. But I don’t obey totally: if I must be an object let it be an object that screams. There’s a thing inside me that hurts. Ah how it hurts and how it screams for help. I’m an object without destiny. I am an object in whose hands? such is my human destiny. What saves me is the scream.

In this essay the writer mentions the Jamesian crisis of surrender:

The moment when the convert recognizes that he cannot live by his own will and must be transformed by something outside himself, which was commonly known as grace. Is there any concept more beautiful than grace? It’s definining characteristic is ease and fluidity.1

And then I realize I have rarely ever thought about the meaning of my name. The concept (or meaning?) of grace is something I have not yet internalized, but something I find myself craving deeply. In this state, beyond the calm happiness that irradiates from people and things, there is a lucidity that I only call weightless because everything in grace is so light2.

If only I could feel as light as grace is.

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Also, I can see how easily people become afraid of the world, of outside.

As the days pass the night gets further away. I worry it will only soon be just a memory, like so many things are now, some closer than others. I want to live inside the memory. Why is that things an instant before they happen already seem to have happened?1 Again my ribs are creaking. Again they tell me. Again I tell me. There’s the neon white moon again showing it’s feathers.

I always find myself in this position: kneeling.

On my bed I look up at the ceiling, clasping my hands together. I look up at the ceiling because that’s what people do when they pray and want to talk to God. They look up at the ceiling and they close their eyes. So I looked up there and closed my eyes and I said outloud please help me please what am I going to do and God didn’t answer me and then I thought how could God be real if this is happening and then God finally spoke and he said you have to wait until I tell you and then you must do what I say and then I said Grandmother are you there God isn’t listening to me please help me please how can I do this alone and she didn’t answer either so then I didn’t believe in God or Grandmother anymore and I wanted to see if I could go visit them instead and see if I could touch Them with my hands and fingers.

So I got in my station wagon and started driving completely up vertically which no one else can do but me and eventually I arrived at a mountain wherein the road to the peak was arranged in a perfect twisty twirl. I drove a long time up that hill and finally made it to where I thought I’d be able to enter Heaven and ask for forgiveness and tell God that he needed to help me, but when I got there I was alone still and I couldn’t reach him. So I then thought well I’m going to try flying really high, maybe He’ll be there. I’m going to be the first human who learned how to fly so she could talk to God. So I got a running start and ran as fast as I could into the portal where Heaven was.

I remembered going to confession before I was given my Holy Communion and I said God please forgive me for I have sinned it’s been my whole life since my last confession, for these and all the sins of my past life I’m truly sorry and the priest said ok do three Hail Marys and you will be forgiven. So now I thought well it must be that easy I must be able to just look at the ceiling and say help me please forgive me I know I was wrong I know please forgive me. Except the priest isn’t here and God doesn’t have a voice. So I imagined another world where God speaks to me and he says: do everything I say and I’ll grant your every wish.

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Walking around the neighborhood was difficult still. It strangely felt like a place I no longer belonged. As I walked up Irving, I remembered walking in the rain in January, reminding myself with each step that I wasn’t going to die. When I remember it, really, I see myself outside of myself picking up my limbs one by one and dragging them along the sidewalk. I tried now to remember that this walk, this walk which was then filled with scents of pine and cypress, was now overwhelmingly filled with bloomed magnolias and fresh cut grass, and that things change, and quickly.

I sat in the grass on someone’s front lawn willing to take the risk of being yelled at. I’d noticed myself disassociating again. I’d barely made it to the end of the block before I became emotional and forced myself to keep walking, reminding myself that I am alive still, and not to worry. Turning the corner, the sun shot down the avenue and shined directly on my cheeks.

I looked down the next block and noticed it was blurry. I’d imagined myself to laying down in the street, thinking maybe it would make the disassociation stop if a car came fast and at me. I decided instead to keep walking down 3rd Street where there were cars I could hear with my ears and where the sun would keep shining on me.

I waited for the moon to rise, something else to do besides ruminate in the trappings of paranoia. I put on Standard Time Vol. 2: Intimacy Calling, a Wynton Marsalis record that instantly comforts me. Other sounds include: any saxophone, the sound of Miles Davis’ voice, keys jangling in the door, a lawnmower, the sound of the coffee machine starting, dragracing, sometimes a jackhammer, the double beep that signals the car is locked and he’s coming inside now.

I suddenly hated all the furniture, especially and shockingly enough, the couch I had loved so much. The one we’d covered from its original fish textile to a yellow cotton linen that became slowly sunfaded in our living room in Hollywood. I had a desire to set everything in the apartment on fire: the sideboard purchased in October at the Santa Monica flea market, the walnut dining room table that sits for eight people, and sometimes even 12 or more if you squeeze, the rug that came the first week of the new year, the bike in the garage, the brand new bed frame that came in November, the TV, and the wooden trout on a pedestal bought last summer in Nantucket.

The mornings last until the sun comes out. These days that means 2pm. I putz around the apartment, still in amazement at its size. The days are as grey as they start.

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From the farmer’s market this morning: a watermelon from Weiser farms, 2 husks of sweet corn, raspberries, strawberries, 4 heirloom tomatoes, basil, hummus, tzatziki, plums, a white nectarine, garlic, and a loaf of spelt polenta bread from Bub’s.

I just arrived back in Los Angeles from a 10 day stint on the east coast where I spent time in New York, Kingston, and Nantucket. It’s lovely to spend any amount of time in New York, which really just feels like going home. A short visit was filled with everything I could possibly manage and still stand up right: The Odeon, shirley temples, air conditioned rooms at Lafayette House, Abraço, The Chelsea Hotel spa, Helen Frankenthaler at Gagosian, Lisa Yuskavage at Zwirner, Sorbara’s, Misi Pasta artichoke, pistachio and strawberry swirl gelato, Olga Basha x Cafe Forgot cocktail, Habiter 100 party, a visit to Emma Larimer of Everyone’s Mother as well as Giovanna Flores at her studio, She Wolf Bakery turkey ciabatta sandwich at the Navy Yard, Michael’s uptown (recommend the kale salad with korean fried chicken, sit under the David Hockney or the Helen Frankenthaler if possible), and Death of A Salesman for the encore.

Topics discussed were billionaires and members clubs, Helmut Newton, David Hockney, being commando at weddings, The Knicks, peptides (what are they?????), Gosh, Walter’s, Kiki’s shutting, analyst vs. therapist, Weiser melons at Gem (!!!), Marcel Duchamp, ice cream truck rivalry, Arthur Miller, etc.

In Nantucket, there were morning buns, blush peonies, hydragendas still budding, houses on the bluffs named Auld Lang Syne, roses growing through white fences, cotton Hanro tank tops, raspberry preserves from Sconset Market, green ice cream with sprinkles, strawberry fields, rhubarb pie, fog as usual, and flowers I’ve never seen before.

A few things I picked up and others that I am yearning for that feel worth mentioning:

• I always pay a visit to Nantucket Pharmacy on Main Street which is reminiscent of an old soda shop. This time I picked up these soaps which are my mothers favorite, too. They are made by Lynn Tucker, who lives and works on the island. The “Spring Awakening” soap has essences of lavender, thyme, and rosemary.

• Rafael Osona hosted an auction in the American Legion building just outside of town where I found an incredible lamp for just $25. It’s shade is tin with a dolphin emblem topper and it’s connected to the rock base with an iron rod. I’d imagine this would go for upwards of $600 in LA, as I know some artists making similar for upwards of that price…

  

• A folk art mirror from Bon Ton, a shack full of tchotchkes run by a sweet older woman and her friend, they sell things like this, but also signs that say things like Underestimate Me, That’ll Be Fun, which I love. This was only $40.

  

• Here are Kathleen, Nathan, and I’s canvas bags in the trunk of the car I rented in upstate NY for Tessa and Marshall’s wedding. From top left down: Hermes, baby blue bucket Devon gave me from her Japan travels, Alex Mill (black), Marimekko (army green), Polo basket, and last but not least, the classic LL Bean. I just ordered my cousin who is expecting a boy in the fall the Alex Mill tote as her diaper bag! As for the Hermes and Marimekko totes, Kathleen is of course selling them here. For the Marimekko totes, text the store to reserve (347) 574-3366…get them while you can…

  

• At Giovanna’s studio I picked up this pale yellow polo which I can’t stop wearing. Along with her other pieces in my closet, I always get the most compliments when I wear her designs. I feel very special to own this. I’m excited to wear it with little shorts back in LA. In New York I wore it with some Comme des Garçon trousers which are also a skirt, an incredible design. This combination is my ideal summer outfit with my Relaxe sandals from Carmen Amsterdam.

  

• This dress from Super Yaya is what I’d imagine it’s like to be a cherry on top of something. I want to have it for 1. My confidence levels 2. Weddings 3. General ice cream topping dressing.

• Ladybird Lingere in Nantucket sells Hanro which I always need to have more of. I really enjoy their underwear! This trip I picked up a cotton black tank (something I don’t own?), and reluctantly left behind this sleep dress.

• Speaking of luxurious undergarments, Maryam Nassir Zadeh is now selling Oscalito on her website? I’ll take one of each.

• I would like a pair of the new Versace pumps. My friend Rachel has a pair of great vintage Gucci ones that look similar, and I saw Clara from TURN Paris wearing a pair from Helmut Lang. Charles Jourdan shapes are not too far off.

• A set of Herbert Krenchel bowls to stack in my cabinets. I especially love the chartreuse color. Some summer melon is waiting to be placed for serving.

  

• These glass vessels from Verre D’Onge. Their studio is based in Montréal. You can inquire here bonjour@verredonge.com or there are a few for sale online at Quail Store.

• Kirsten Dunst’s dress Part I of Melancholia (Lars Von Trier, 2011) is my ideal wedding gown. When I am a bride I want something like this. The rosette shrug! Swoon town!

  

Upstate in Kingston at a local pizzeria, I was served an obscene amount of soft serve in a goblet. Please enjoy. Happy Summer!

I drove back toward Highland and parked my car in a loading zone behind Ripley’s, sauntering up Highland with my roses, taking off their plastic sleeves and pricking my finger with a thorn. As I approached her again I felt nervous. I wanted to leave them for her in private. Despite my hesitations of judgement from passersby, I left the two roses side by side on her star, feeling people’s eyes watching me. I stepped aside quickly, feeling exposed. I watched people pass and take pictures of her, quickly and without stopping. I think they were just happy to see something they could photograph, not knowing it was her birthday at all.

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Recently, a friend of mine helped catalog the recent auction at Heritage for her 100th birthday. Before it went live, he showed me some of Marilyn’s most intimate letters, drawings (which remind me a lot of Tracy Emin), and notes from her time at The Actor’s Studio.

Since studying The Method for the past few years, a part of Marilyn has become familiar to me. I have pored over countless auction catalogs searching for her notebooks from The Studio, anything mentioning Lee, hoping to decode the sentences scribbled into her datebooks. I have notebooks full of these words (concentration, will, movement, sensory) and phrases (I must stop going back, use of sound, don’t hide the things happening to me) that only few can really understand.

I feel spoiled to share a language with her. Reading her notes felt like meeting her. I understood the words and phrases that seem cryptic to an outsider. What once appeared to be fragments revealed themselves to me as deeply familiar.

At the Academy Museum, I walked slowly through the exhibition, dreading its inevitable end. I knelt down in front of objects they had collected from her home, a set of tumblers, pencils, a cobalt blue murano glass ashtray, her address books, and a glass goblet etched with her name on the side.

To the right of this replica, The Actor’s Studio sign that hangs above her head in that one photograph of her at The Studio. The sign was dated 1950. Along with her SAG card and her invitation to join the academy, the next case held a memo from Lee to Marilyn.

I wondered how many others would understand the meaning of these two sentences together because Belle, Rachel, and I understood it perfectly. We had heard almost these exact words and phrases from our teacher, who also studied with Lee, just weeks ago in a building on Santa Monica and Western. The three of us stood at the glass, shoulders touching, reading it over and over again, almost in disbelief. I think if we could have reached inside the glass to touch it we would, just to know it was real, that we were a part of something that Marilyn touched because we are touching it now.

In the final room, the program from President Kennedy’s birthday celebration at Madison Square Garden in May 1962 (quite the lineup Ella Fitzgerald, Harry Belafonte, Maria Callas, Shirley MacLaine, and Jack Benny), which was the last performance before her death in August, a swatch of the fabric from the dress she wore that night.

Then tabloids and newspaper clippings from the day after her death, the plaque on her tomb at the Westwood Memorial, along with funeral arrangement telegrams, funeral remarks and program, and lastly the prayer card.

The reverend’s remarks are drawn from a single line: How fearfully and wonderfully she was made by the Creator.

In the bookstore as usual, I asked Rachel a question about him, unanswerable by either of us, but thought I’d try anyhow. I think your needing to know that answer is your OCD, she said, sorry, I’m not trying to be hard on you. I told her she wasn’t, and that her observation was correct, noticing my compulsion immediately. I’d always been rejected, wondering if it was really about me afterall, and not them like they promised. I do this with friends a lot, asking them questions they can’t know the answer to, hoping their answer will somehow make the pain I feel a little less. It’s a neediness that is unfair. I compared my compulsions to an exorcism, the cliche image of a girl being dragged across a hardwood floor, arms stretched as far as they can go, and a cut bleeding somewhere on her face. We laughed.

My shrink pointed this out last week, she said I don’t present the best parts of myself, but rather the most needy, which repels a lot of people away eventually. I felt myself, this afternoon, again, needing to be rescued. I found myself somehow, again, on my knees unexpectedly next to my bed, head bowed with my hands on my face, wanting reassurance from someone, but feeling too guilty to ask for it.

I thought about how different and how strange my life was, how it felt so the same but different. I wondered why it satisfied me to fall apart this way. It was the only way I knew how so of course I did it. I thought about calling someone and looked at my recent call log and felt guilt again. I didn’t know if it was okay or me putting my problems on someone. I checked the time in Japan where Devon was, relieved it was 8:07 am and that maybe I’d hear from her soon.

Once again I could not sense if I was faking it or making a real attempt, if I was actually okay. I figured, again, both likely.

My first visit there was around this time last year, right around when Gena Rowlands and John Cassavetes’ house went on the market, the shopkeepers had just gone to see the open house and played basketball in their driveway. I spent a long time there asking them to show me Cassavetes’ posters, inquiring to the man upstairs in the attic if they had any from the more celebrated Opening Night or Woman Under the Influence, and then asked about Faces and Shadows, Love Streams, and Husbands. I love the stacks of books covered in dust, manilla folders crinkled and smushed together behind the register, and piles of old screenplays for sale in the back. We settled at the time on a Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice poster.

II. Ed Ruscha’s address’ in Los Angeles includes 1024 N. Western Avenue, 3327 Division Street, Sunset Place in Lafayette Park, and 1818 N. New Hampshire, he recalled to Walter Hopps in an interview from 1992.

I got this book, Leave Any Information at the Signal, from Counterpoint on Franklin, a nice place to spend a Saturday afternoon.

III. I have been searching for a dress for my best friend’s wedding in June and have yet to find the perfect match. Here are some I love but aren’t quite right.

Vera Wang

Alberta Feretti

Richard Tyler

Miu Miu (too light!)

IV. Books I’m watching on eBay:

First Edition of Inner Weather by Denis Johnson

First Edition Ed Ruscha Paintings Drawings and Other Works

Martha Graham Portrait of a Lady as an Artist

Polo Ralph Lauren Fall Catalog shot by Bruce Weber 1986

V. Eating cereal for breakfast is one of my favorite things. A special treat. I love unwrapping the big squares of Shredded Wheat from the brown paper.

I enjoyed reading this Consumption Report from . It reminded me of the Media Diet I did for What Makes This Interesting? last year and also this post I wrote about things I need in order to live, which I have been thinking about doing a second part to (coincidentally I also wrote it after my birthday last year). Below is a mix of all of the above.

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The best notebooks on the market are from MD Paper. Second and third up are Rollbahn and Choosing Keeping. I just finished the final page of a fire engine red Rollbahn. I buy them at Turpan in the Brentwood Country Mart, which is one of the best stores in Los Angeles, if not the entire country. I also take a lot of notes on the Exacompta notepad.

I am currently writing this on my Macbook computer which is sitting on a Flores Paper Desk Calendar. I heavily endorse all of their products. I also have a few of their spiral pads laying around my house on misc surfaces, they make great gifts. Next to me is aforementioned Rollbahan notebook, Zebra Gel Pens, Crayola 24 pack, Elmers glue stick, scorch tape, stapler, an Alessi pen holder, Santa Maria Novella Melagrano candle, an Essentia water bottle, Ghia Spritz, a box from Christofle, Shane Gabier bookends, in between the bookends is The Theatre of Tennessee Williams: Volume Four, Love’s Work by Gillian Rose, Ibsen: Four Major Plays Volume One, Early 21st Century Art by Bill Powers, Hedda Gabler and Other Plays by Henrick Ibsen, Strasberg at the Actor’s Studio, Empire of the Elite by Michael Grynbaum, They All Came to Barney’s by Gene Pressman, Martha: The Life and Works of Martha Graham by Agnes de Mille, The Plays of Anton Chekov translation by Paul Schmidt, Memories, Dreams, Reflections by C.G. Jung, a picture frame with a photo of New York City from 1999 taken by my mother, a Yashica T4 camera, and a keychain I received as a Christmas gift from Taylor.

I wash my face every morning and night using Dr. Loretta’s Hydrating Cleanser, followed by IS Clinical Super Serum, Monastery Made Aloe Hyaluronic Serum, La Roche Posay moisturizer, Elta MD SPF, and sometimes this Sisley eye cream. At night I use the Marie Veronique retinol and Skin Ceuticals moisturizer. I have been using various hydrasols to comfort myself in the evening, my favorite is the Frankincense + Myrrh Zum Mist and this lavender one from Wildcare. In the shower I use Davines love shampoo and conditioner, Margin Body Wash or Dr. Bronner’s lavender soap. In the bath, I use Ancient Minerals Magnesium Flakes, Bath for the Senses from Susanne Kaufmann, or Santa Maria Novella Melagrano bath gel. For sleep I take magnesium, Juna melatonin gummies, or Suan Zao Ren Tang which is a Chinese herb for sleep from my acupuncturist. Lately, I haven’t been sleeping well so some nights I take all three.

On my bedside table is a lamp from IME Vintage, a sound machine, Susanne Kaufmann hand cream, and a coaster from Nickey Kehoe.

Today, I wore a Preen slip from Scout LA and a t-shirt from DAY Acupuncture with Adidas Ghost Sprinter sneakers, brown Ralph Lauren socks, and Rachel Comey bag. Yesterday, a Prada blouse from the Spring 2009 collection (similar here) with military fatigues that I got from Chickee’s Vintage (now Sorbara’s) in 2019. I get them repaired at Dr. Blue Jeanns in Sherman Oaks. To the party, I brought tulips and a bottle of Lovely Bunch sparkling apple juice. The day before, a Perry Ellis button down with denim from Buck Mason. I have been wearing this Porto pouch most days with the strap addition.

The most worn pieces in my closet are jeans from Olga Basha, Auralee, Buck Mason, Dries Van Noten, vintage Levi’s from DLR and Sorbara’s, a vintage cotton Prada v-neck sweater, Hanes white t-shirts from Scout, H-O-R-S-E Sport cotton activewear, a vintage Ralph Lauren pale pink blouse, the Lemaire Twist Shirt which I have mentioned here and here (how you know it’s real good), a grey Russell crewneck sweatshirt, Giorgio Armani black trousers, and an array of button down shirts (Maryam Nassir Zadeh, Brooks Brothers, Barneys).

I use Elta MD SPF on days I don’t wear makeup. If I am feeling hideous I will use Kosas tinted SPF. To feel special I use Glossier lash slick, Westman Atelier contour stick, the majority of Fara Homidi’s line including the concealer and lip compacts, lip liner, and gloss. Also Rhode blush, and Saie brushes and setting spray. I have been using Bhoda perfume oil, specifically the ‘LA Woman’ scent, that my mother got me earlier this year. Notes are jasmine, incense, and warm citrus. Other times I will use a fragrance made by local LA artist, Higinio Martinez, whose online alias is ‘Higgy Slug’. He writes of the scent: It draws inspiration from the patchouli notes of my father’s Boss No. 1, a cologne which he still wears every day, as well as the soft, woody florals of my grandmother’s old Dove soap, long kept in a dusty stack beneath her sink. Completely perfect description to me. It’s sold at South Willard gallery downtown. Other things to smell good: Buly body oil in orange blossom and lotion in damask rose. Margin Global deodorant. I have been using flower essences from Bach out of rec from my acupuncturist, Rachel Day. In particular, Star of Bethlehem for grief and Rescue Relief for stress.

In the mail to me right now is an Isabel Marant slip dress and Lee Strasberg: The Imperfect Genius of the Actors Studio by Cindy Adams.

Here’s what my friends and I have been listening to:

Around 6:30, I walked around the neighborhood, taking in its perfumed air— a concoction of orange blossoms, jasmine, rose bushes, eucalyptus and pink peppercorn trees. On the stoop outside the front door, Capri cigarette butts and Belle’s hand-rolled cigarette filters from last weekend had fallen from the balcony above.

The navy that we had reupholstered the swivel chairs in in November had started to fade by mid-March, the arms now sun-bleached. I turned one of them to face South at dusk, watching the neighbors across the street walk from their car to the front door and into their home. I remembered marveling at it when we first saw the apartment. I said it looked like a castle, what with its coned roofs and all.

Last week, I told Anna about The Long Goodbye and about the High Tower Elevator. It had been around this time, what with her now living here for a year and a half, that I had discovered The Long Goodbye, too. I became familiar with Philip Marlowe in the throes of Covid in September 2022. It was then I started to search for a home that was ours, not just mine.

The heat had settled in for a while, making it hard to sleep at night despite being exhausted from the sun, from standing on the asphalt in Silverlake earlier today with Anna. I noticed how warm my flesh was as I crossed my legs over each other on the ottoman in front of me, nearly itching from discomfort.

I no longer felt a desire for everything to be so precious.

I walked to Larchmont for a pan au raisin, another reminder that I wanted to keep close. I stopped in Larchmont Beauty Supply for floss and Bioderma. I picked up an assortment of blue elastics to put my hair into a proper ponytail for the walk home, as my neck was starting to be slick with sweat, causing my hair to stick. I walked home, carrying the small plastic pink bag beside me, and decided to put my phone in which was connected to my wired headphones. One less thing to carry, thankfully, as overstimulated as I was with the sweat now making beads at my knees and shins.

As I turned onto my street, my neighbor Allie, an older woman from the UK, approached me carrying two purses, a coat, and some dry cleaning. We spoke for a while, standing there, the sun beating on the left side of my face, shins and feet moist from the heat rising off the black asphalt below us. I noticed a desire to go inside that faded quickly as Allie looked into my eyes and reminded me of someone else. There was a familiarity in her essence, the way she chose to embrace me without question as I started to cry in the sun. The way her eyes wrinkled as she looked at me with an earnestness. The presence of her calmed me instantly.

I stood on our stairs by the back door and noticed a long cloud in the sky to the West. It was a particular shade of deep purple, like a color you’d pick at a nail salon, but what I mean is I could sense exactly what it would feel like to be standing in Malibu looking up at the same cloud, my feet placed firmly in the sand. I knew after seeing that cloud that in Point Dume right now there’d be a sliver of light left, especially on the shoreline. The blue kind of light, the crystal kind that comes in spring and stays through October, at least here in California.

In the evening at home, I hear laughter all around me, conversations with friends, the hum of electric vehicles in reverse. A hose outside turned on, which to me has always sounded like someone vomiting suddenly. I kept getting dizzy, perhaps because of the long cloud, the longing to be further West. Perhaps because the light had gone and it was dark in the apartment except for the streetlights shining in from outside. I closed my eyes, squeezing them tightly, almost unconsciously, wishing the vertigo away, praying the feeling would fade with each day that passed.

I didn’t need as much coffee as I’d imagined I would on Sunday afternoon, after not sleeping much the night before. I drove to buy lilacs because it’s finally the season and talked to Ari on the phone for an hour. I have been doing that, talking to friends on the phone for hours, something I never did before.

This morning on my balcony, Katy turned to me and said I don’t know why anyone would want to live anywhere else.

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Phallic bread towers, mauve silk taffeta, potato chips piled high on a silver platter, crème fraiche pillowed into a bowl for caviar, grapes dangling in the air. Plus ginger candies, fruit pate, cherries, and olives. Chocolates from a shop in Beverly Hills that look like game pieces from Candyland. French tulips, butterfly ranunculus, muscari, jasmine clipped from Elektra and Miranda, beaujolais, champagne from Emily, books wrapped in tissue tied with ribbon and string (Simple Passion by Annie Ernaux from Devon, an early edition of Acting the First Six Lessons by Richard Boleslavsky from Belle, The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook from Rachel, The Poet in the Theatre from Brooke, and Cazzie David’s new essays, Delusions from Toni), and handwritten cards from Emily, Devon, Ari, Coco, Stella, Belle, Katy, Brooke, and Rachel. It is special to feel seen so clearly by those who love you, and to be understood.

On Sunday morning, balloons crept into my bedroom, bobbing in the air like dust motes. The time change slowing my gait to the kitchen for coffee, the one ritual that has remained intact. Surrounded by empty champagne coupes and dirty dishes with frosting on forks from last night’s cake (olive oil chiffon with diplomat cream, citrus curd, and fresh passionfruit), I dug what was left of my fingernails into my palm. I remembered last night, how people kept saying things to me like trust me and I promise which felt comforting.

I assumed these things would pass, albeit slowly.

II. I remembered dancing with Devon in our kitchen on 6th Street, the brown and black marble counters, the tea cabinet, the camomile drying on the window sill , watching her long blonde hair twist and twirl around the small kitchen we filled endlessly with love in forms of pasta dishes with olives and walnuts, birthday cakes, blueberry pancakes, passion fruits, sweet potatoes, pomodoro sauce, coffee grinds, honey. I wanted to be back there and spin myself around in the living room, making myself so dizzy that I fall over. She saved me in that dining room. The familiar sensation of her right hand on my left shoulder- a healing I’d needed since I was a little girl.

III. The 10 freeway felt familiar to me again in a way it hadn’t since I lived on La Jolla and Pico, the red lights staring at me in their familiar way. The heat began to dissipate off my neck. I opened the windows and loved my life for a minute again. Getting out of my car, the salt of the Pacific Ocean covered me instantly. It was more familiar in that it really felt like the salt of the Atlantic, of the foggy mornings on Nantucket where water vapor hangs low in the air.

All of a sudden on the Pacific Coast Highway I imagined myself kneeling down before the black ocean in prayer, my knees digging into the sand. I saw three Mustangs lined up to drag race in a parking lot. A song played I’d never heard before and somehow my whole life was captured in one sound.

I drove 9 miles home with my windows open, my hair sticking to my lips and cheeks.

The 10 freeway was a kind of religion. I don’t know why God chose to find me here.

IV. On top of my sheets I laid down in my jeans. Something I never dared do before. This time there was a pebble lodged in my chest, close to the center but veering to the right, just one finger away from the center of my breast plate. The pebble started to feel more like a sharp piece of glass, piercing through me and coming out my back. I imagined bleeding out, turning onto my back and feeling the glass penetrate deeper into me. My pillowcase smelled of frankincense. The birds chirped outside, speaking in tongues.

V. I fantasized about finding my way to a bottomless canyon. Taking my limbs and carrying them, climbing them up from the valley, and laying down in the green, green grass on the side of a steep hill. I thought about being vertical there, feeling my body about to slip and feeling afraid.

VI. Laying in the evening glow of Devon’s living room, the sun peaked its head through the branches of the big tree out the window. I laid on her yellow velvet couch and closed my eyes, falling asleep to the coo of a mourning dove, a familiar comfort. Repeating herself every few minutes, reminding me she’s there.

VII. I imagined Fear as a human being. I walked to them, gently placing my hands on their shoulders, pressing my forehead against theirs, and looking straight into their eyes. Fear exhaled into me and I took a breath.

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This morning I wake before the sun, dry and full of piss. I briefly remember dreaming of getting married. I fall back asleep, trying to continue the dream, though I can’t remember now if I was able to do so. I wake up a few hours later to the big sun after three days of rain in Los Angeles. My bedroom looks pleasant, the tan sheets soaked in light. It’s New Year’s Eve. Everyone has the virus again, even more than before.

In the kitchen, I heat up milk for coffee because I don’t have a microwave. My appetite for food in the morning has been dwindling as of late. I sit on the couch and post a lot of stories to my Instagram. I want people to think I have a cool life. I think about how last night I had phone sex with a stranger, someone I’d like to get to know. He messaged me about a month ago on a dating app. We were supposed to meet in New York before Christmas, but the virus canceled my trip last minute. We later agreed to meet in LA sometime around the beginning of January.

I think about how much has changed since my parents met in 1989 at a bar, casually, and completely by accident. I open up my phone’s voice memo app to try and find the recording of my dad telling the story. I find a recording of my brother playing Canada Day by Emperor X. He is so talented and so occupied with longboarding. He isn’t sure yet what he wants to do with his life, but I am proud of him.

My mom was waiting at a bar for her date when my dad walked in and introduced himself. When her date arrived, they said their goodbyes. My dad, hopeful she would ditch her date and come back to meet him, decided 20 minutes was enough time to know she was not coming back. He headed home on his bicycle, thinking nothing of it. Two weeks later, he received a call on his landline asking him out for a drink. He declined the drink, invited her to dinner instead. After a quick night cap, she dropped him off at home: no kiss, a handshake for a goodbye. He said he knew he was going to marry her from the minute he saw her.

I think of my ex briefly, how I did not know him at all before dating him except for a quick exchange outside a concert venue five years ago. I think about how I should read more and try to crack open a book. I am distracted again by thoughts of the man I’m supposed to meet, a person I’ve never met. What will my therapist think? While I wonder if I should give him a call, his name lights up on my phone. I answer hi in a charming, coy tone I’ve coined for answering the phone with men. I pretend I don’t know how I’m speaking. I feel optimistic to be talking to someone who cares about what I want to do with my life, but feelings of abandonment linger. I think about intimacy, how I’m codependent. I wonder what kind of mother I’ll be.

I take a shower. Sitting in my shower on the pale yellow tiles, I attempt to pee, but to no avail. I switch positions from sitting with my knees up to a sort of squat position. Nothing. I shake a bit and force myself to pee. I get up and wash my hair and my back. My bed is wet and I think of stripping my sheets. I feel like a woman. I feel at home in Los Angeles.

Every time I begin speaking to a new romantic interest, my mind makes its way back to a night in Harlem six years ago. I remember his eagerness to meet after only speaking to me for a day. Like I was his next victim, a perfect target.

I want to see you, he texts.

I’ve barely said three words to you, I reply.

You could have said nothing.

You wouldn’t have said anything, then.

Maybe. Come and see me.

I’m eating dinner. You weren’t going to try and get to know me? I ask.

I’m trying to get to know you.

I wonder if he planned what he was going to do in advance, if he was really a bad person. I remember being weary of his instant desire to see me, but it didn’t stop me. My want to be a desirable woman outweighs almost everything.

I go out to dinner and see the face of him in the waiter. For a second I am afraid, and then I remember I don’t care. Not that I don’t care, but that it has been seven years. November means happy things now. My book launched. I ate sausages by myself and loved it.

Finally, I decide to rent Phantom Thread, a perfect New Year’s Eve movie. I eat buttered noodles. Much like Mr. Woodcock, I avoid this holiday. Tonight, I’m not going dancing.

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I made sugar cut outs and decorated them with bright colors of neon icing- pink, yellow, blue, and green. Last minute, I made peanut butter blossoms and put the extra Hershey’s Kisses in a silver dish. I presented walnuts and a nutcracker, a box of Louis Sherry chocolates, and white roses. I made homemade hot chocolate and piles of fresh whipped cream. I ladled out mugs to each guest and overheard Alana call me Mommy Grace from the next room. I poured Christmas colored and rainbow sugar overtop each pile of cream. Judy Gardland’s voice could be heard softly in the background.

We sat twelve people at our dining room table meant for six. We ate all the food that was cooked by us, and brought by guests. Hand stretched breadsticks in a silver cup, Brie en croute, fig jam, aged cheddar. Additionally, a green salad with herbs and dressing made from Inez olive oil with red wine vinegar, chicken thighs and lemony potatoes, a spatchcocked bird brined in buttermilk, a whole baguette sliced, red grapes, a half a dozen bottles of wine (red and orange), and aforementioned treats plus a berry cobbler from Cara, sticky toffee pudding from Katie, and chocolate babka from Alex, and a Christmas pudding Taylor brought from London which will be steamed for New Years Day.

And hanging in the doorway, mistletoe for kissing tied up in a pink bow.

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Pure Encapsulations, Astrology Zone (Susan Miller), Pinterest, multiple gmail tabs, a patient portal, Williams Sonoma All-Clad pan set, Katie Merchant’s November Diet, Choosing Keeping, Lot of vintage Christmas ribbon, Plum Sykes “how to be old money wherever you are”, Nina’s Karten holiday cards, , Lot of 12 vintage animal ornaments.

Post-Hosting Laments

I am alone after 3 weeks of chaos and family in town. The silence in my house is harrowing. I have had the TV on all day with Eyes Wide Shut (1999) playing on repeat.

Last week I hosted Thanksgiving dinner for 20 people, no small feat. I have taken 4 Ativan in the span of a month, more than I usually take in one calendar year (afraid of becoming addicted to things).

Thanksgiving has never been my main priority as Christmas is my favorite child. It seems pointless now as we’re well into the first week of December (Christmas might as well be next week) to do a lengthy play-by-play of how on earth I planned and timed and shopped and scheduled so I’ll leave you with some of my handwritten documents and you can imagine how many nervous breakdowns were had.

I love hosting and having parties because I can watch from afar when people are flirting in my hallway or lighting a cigarette inside and I can say “ it’s Hollywood, baby!” but a dinner for 20 is different. Most menu items were Alison Roman and others by my future sister-in-law. Some also from my late grandmother including the pumpkin pies made by my father.

Trimmings etc.

This year I got a silvertip tree which I have a fondness towards as they remind me of a Charlie Brown tree. It’s also my first year ever using colored lights. I grew up only using white lights, but don’t know if that’s really my personality. I tried my darndest to decorate my tree to look as close to Cindy Lou Who’s as possible when the Grinch comes to steal it and stuffs it up the chimney. Jury is still out on if I’m going to add more beaded garland and/or ribbons on the boughs. I like the look of things about to fall off.

Last year my friend Stella had a Christmas crafts party where I made this paper chain that goes perfectly with the colors of my tree. I want to make more to adorn my windows with so I went out and got an XL construction paper pack and a stapler.

Yesterday I went to the flower market downtown to get a wreath and some garland which I’ve placed randomly around my house. I want to twist garland around the railing in our entryway, but it is 14 feet long so I will need helpers. I love putsing around the trimmings distrct when I’m down by the market. Last year for my cookie boxes I found Levy’s Trimmings to get deadstock lace to tie the boxes up with. Yesterday I got these and some satin rolls at a place nearby.

Bucatini continues to be the best palce to buy ornaments in town along with Nickey Kehoe. I’ve also heard you can buy packs of vintage handblown German glass balls at Pasadena Antique Center.

Gift Guide Complaint Box

I’m feeling trapped in a Gift Guide Hellscape as every single thing I see suggests I buy my boyfriend a vest (vest??!!??) or a poorly made Tekla bathrobe dupe (sooner die) or god forbid—literally a toaster oven. I can assure you all my lover wants is a new pocket knife.

For women it’s almost worse, who is gifting a $700 sweater?!, lab diamonds (when will this trend die?), multiple microcurrent/redlight therapy/insert tool to make you look younger here, Mason Pearson mini brush (yawn), newly released Celisse nail kit, etc. Seems most have caught on to personalized stationary, but personally I would only gift this to myself as it’s a very personal choice to design on your own. Gifting perfume is boring and also much too personal. I think you should buy this for yourself. Unless you are sending the gift giver a link (the only way to do it), STRAY FROM HERE. It’s unbelievable that Le Labo sells a scent called Matcha. I mean really. I am reading most guides as this is what I want and I hope my loved ones read this list, etc. All’s to say, I have read a lot of gift guides (I mean really most of them) and usually they inspire me to gift things I’ve already thought of months ago.

Kaitlin’s is the only one worth reading (in Google Docs!) and I’ve found some special things on Zoe Latta’s Substack. I also enjoyed reading Passerby’s list. Side bar: are all panettone’s more satisfying to look at in their packaging than they are to eat? (I ordered this)

Dear Santa,

Here’s what I want. Consider this my formal list I’ve sent up North and feel free to use it however you so please—

MacLaren fixture No. 644, Christofle silver tray, Keychain from 695 selection available in person at Jake’s in London (63 Vyner Street) or custom orders by request sally@six-95.com. A $450 dish rack originally designed by Bob Cannard for Alice Waters of Chez Panisse (brought to my attention by friend of the letter Miss Devon Swartz), Blundstone clogs, Original Duckhead umbrella, a brick doorstop from Tapisserie in the UK (rec from Kaitlin’s guide) also just custom orders. Email them at Info@tapisserie.co.uk

Typically I don’t ask for clothing it unless it’s a sweater or scarf, nothing too crazy. Otherwise, I prefer cold hard cash that I can spend where I please. Mostly that means vintage from TRR or Sorbara’s in New York.

Everything I really needed I got on sale for Black Friday including Parachute full set of sheets in Bone plus Euro Shams, plum coverlet from Morrow Soft Goods, Flamingo Estate peppermint exfoliating bar, a pair of H-O-R-S-E Sport track pants , my first babaa sweater, Susanne Kaufman bath oil, long sleeve from 6397, many supplements (not on sale) from Pure Encapsulations, stockings by Emma Larimer a.k.a. Everyone’s Mother from Quail Store. Plus 2 gifts for my boyfriend (one is custom coming from NY).

Next week I start my cookie boxes, here’s last years. Until then. xo

As my personal style has developed over time, so has my taste for interiors. Here are our given influences: my East Coast upbringing in the Roland Park area of Baltimore and Carter’s California charm. The best concoction of places if you ask me. I believe what we have created as a couple is quite special, as any home is and any mixing of two people in one space. I’m a sucker for an antique dresser (chest of drawers to some), as my mother owns about 5 of them, and a wicker or rattan something-or-other. But I love the rustic California warmth that is brought in through Carter’s tastes.

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Buying new furniture is about what it would cost if I sold all my organs on the black market. Thankfully since Facebook’s death when Instagram came of age in the mid 2010’s, Zuckerberg created a platform within the site for fiends like me to peruse. He’s called it Marketplace. Here’s where I’m spending most of my time on my phone.

My most asked question to date is Where is your couch from and sadly (but smugly), I reply with a grin I got it for 100 dollars on Facebook Marketplace.

Now, I don’t want to steer you too far in the wrong direction. The original couch (pictured below) was $100, but reupholstered it in a new fabric, which cost us around $700, plus fabric costs (around $300). However, we came to adore the original fabric and wanted to somehow incorporate it into our home.

The fish motif became a centerpiece for Carter and I. Carter has a tattoo of a fish on his arm, I am a Pisces, etc. We decided to use the fabric taken off by our lovely upholsterer to make a Green River-esque stool, also found on Marketplace. The base, anyhow. We had the fish cushion made with snaps that secure into the wooden base. When it came time to choose fabric for our couch, yellow seemed like an obvious choice. We chose this sunshine color which has become a bit sunfaded over time on the side. I personally don’t mind the wear and no one would be able to tell from afar. I also had our lovely upholsterer restuff all the cushions with new feathers and make the bottom cushion one long one instead of three separate ones. It’s the most comfortable, eye-catching piece in our home. I don’t think we’ll ever part with it.

The second most impressive find on Marketplace, more recently, is our dining table. I got it from a mother in Santa Monica whose home was an Architectural Digest feature waiting to happen. She had originally listed it for $400, but there was a competing offer. I wanted it so much I offered her $600 cash and drove to Santa Monica as fast as I could to pick it up. She told me it was cherry wood, but Carter’s friend proved it to be walnut. Originally purchased when she lived overseas in London, she told me. Upon some digging I have found that Design Within Reach sells an identical table going for nearly 4k. Another win for me. If I sound like I’m bragging- I am!

We found our coffee tables that we had handmade on Marketplace (or was it at a local thrift- who’s to say!) which we’re totally hideous when we found them. We shaved down a bit of the legs to make them shorter and had the tiles handpainted and glazed by a local LA artist who incorporated our fish motif (once again) into a few of the tiles. These are really special tables to us, however I feel we may have outgrown them.

A few weeks ago after looking through my interiors inspiration I decided to drive to Torrance (scary) and pick up this Baughman style coffee table. I am having a sudden aversion (much like I do sometimes with eggs- I once had the best omlette of my life at Raf’s and soon after wanted to be sick in the middle of Soho) to too much wood (warm orangey tones) in our new sun drenched home. I love the chrome and glass. My mother has a very intense feeling that the table is completely wrong for our space and keeps sending me other ones, but I’m going to fight her on this one for now–IT’S STAYING!

We also found our George Kovacs umbrella lamp (similar here) on Marketplace from a seller in Long Beach, which I think we paid around $400 for. Earlier this year I got a nearly brand new Eames desk from a popular interiors Tiktoker (lol) who lived in the house next to the abandoned Samuel Freeman house built by Frank Lloyd Wright circa 1925. I paid $700 for the $1,200-1,800 market price desk. A not-so-chic, but also very necessary purchase was our Samsung Serif TV which I picked up from a lovely couple in the valley for half the asking price. I’m addicted to this TV because you can move it around anywhere you want in the house— it’s lightweight! Since we have moved we’ve gotten rid of our old guest room bed which was twin size (we have a queen now!) daybed with amazing storage drawers where we stored our linens and vintage quilts. A dear friend of mine bought it and is now using it in her Malibu home.

Our wicker side table is also a marketplace find which I think I purchased for literally >$100. Carter says it looks like an upside down wastebasket, but I love it. It’s very difficult to stop myself from buying more wicker.

The rocking chair that is now in our guest room we got from a guy in the valley who offered us beers at our 10 am pickup. It also has an upholstered seat that we redid.

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I’ll leave you with the photos that are inspiring me in this venture.

Since we last spoke, I became a contributing editor at Marie Claire Magazine (!!!!). I am grateful to the team there for giving me a place to talk about clothes. Little me couldn’t believe my eyes when I got the email in July. So far I’ve written about uniform dressing and what I’m coveting for fall and winter. Keep an eye out for next week’s send.

Carter and I moved out of Hollywood into a neighborhood by Larchmont. Our fourplex was built in 1917, making it over 100 years old (instantly appealing to me). It has french windows that open in the living room which we leave open all day, a proper dining room, a breakfast nook in the kitchen, an O’Keefe & Merritt Stove, and a bathroom with purple tile. I can’t wait to share everything with you about how I have furnished nearly everything using Facebook Marketplace.

It’s only right that I make my return back (dramatic of me I’ve only been gone since August) in the lead up to Gift Guide Season aka the best time of year. Last year’s can be found here and here if you want to get a head start. I’m already overwhelmed thinking about how I’m going to decorate this year.

I’ve been thinking about this quote from Agnes De Mille’s Martha Graham biography since Durga Chew-Bose posted it a few weeks ago.

I am thinking about it mostly in regards to studying The Method (acting, if that’s unclear) which I have been a student of for 2 years.

Here’s some things you missed since I’ve been gone-

• Lee Friedlander, “10 Nudes” at Harley Wertheimer’s Gallery Castle in Los Angeles (now closed).

  

• Giovanna Flores and her sister Janelle have quietly started a stationary business out of downtown LA called Flores Paper. All made from deadstock paper. You can place an order through DM. I got this pretty beige one in a box with some samples I pulled from Giovanna last month for a shoot.

  

• I recommend paying a visit to Larry Edmunds on Hollywood Boulevard. Carter and I got a pretty pristine Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice (1969) poster there which we have framed and put in our kitchen hallway. When we visited back in August, the two shopkeepers had just paid a visit to the newly listed Gena Rowlands and John Cassavetes Estate and were telling us all about it.

• I get my hair cut (blow dried often) at Chris McMillan Salon by Carla. Last week I got a blowout for a work event and it lasted 6 days. That should mean something to you. I recommend seeing her. To book you can call 310-285-0088.

• Places you should get donuts in LA: 2/4 are in a strip mall. SK Donuts on 3rd Street and Daily Donuts on Hillhurst. Bob’s Donuts inside the Farmers Market at the Grove, and if you feel like getting fancy, Bub and Grandma’s in Highland Park.

• My facialist recently gave me a sample of a moisturizer that costs $450 a pop for 1.7 oz. It’s MBR’s Cream Extraordinary and it contains 24k gold flakes. Unfortunately for me, it did wonders for my skin. Safe to say it’s on my Christmas list.

• Another pair of Porselli ballet flats arrived in my mail last week. This time a bright blue color. This is my third pair. I recommend them to almost anyone who is nice to me. My black pair is still en route. They typically take 3-6 months to be made and shipped, but they’re worth it.

  

• Kristin Dickson-Okuda of Iko Iko Space just released these pleasurable pillows with a stringy small tassel in the center. Comes in black and white. To be found as ever on https://www.ikoikospace.com.

  

• Desmar Gallery at 725 N Western Avenue is offering made to order Lacquer Bedside Tables. I recommend a visit to her showroom. She also offers a very La Piscine (1969) patio set.

• An amazing Dries Van Noten jacket arrived to me via The Real Real and it’s become one of my favorites in my closet. I wore it a few weeks ago and beleive it’s the best I’ve looked in years. I’d also love to recover a couch in the fabric.

I’ll leave you with this note I found while browsing Mariyln Monroe’s estate late one night—

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I remember arriving at dusk. Around this time, actually, and driving up Fairfax from the airport. My most recent purchase, an Emily Dawn Long hat. I arrived at my apartment on 6th Street to Devon, my new roommate who I’d never met before. She left sunflowers in a jar in my room with a set of keys. I meticulously hung up all my t-shirts that I had collected from working for Kathleen in my closet.

When the moving truck arrived with my belongings everything had broken in transit.

At Whole Foods I bought kombucha (guava), yogurt, laundry detergent, toothpaste, butter, Annie’s bunnies cocoa cereal, and soap.

The next day, a pregnancy test. If I had been impregnated by my boyfriend of a few weeks in New York, I’d have his child and be cool forever. I ordered Thai food and the delivery driver texted me “You r a vision” with hearts.

Later I wept in fear of missing everything in New York.

Until I walked in a canyon at 6:49 pm in August and saw Devon's golden hair glow as a halo protecting her. Katy had taken me here earlier that spring before I moved. The next morning, grapefruit juice and butter pads on pancakes.

My acclimation to Los Angeles was sprinkled with the most beautiful things. I wasn’t able to see most of them consciously, at least barely. I was still living the life I had known in New York, just on a separate coast.

I am writing spread like a starfish in my unmade bed wearing only a blue pair of underwear. It is 5:38pm. I can hear a neighbor shuffling around in their home and wind chimes somewhere down our alleyway street. There is a faint breeze on my face from the ceiling fan which is huffing and puffing above me. This is what it’s like to live in Hollywood in August. Next weekend, a heatwave. For now, an open window. 

All the plants and herbs we bought giddy in the spring have withered away in the heat of the summer. Last week, our gardeners took the dead jasmine off its trellis and threw our mint and lemon balm into the green bins. Now only terracotta pots of dirt remain on our sun bleached deck. Soon, we will leave Hollywood, and with it the helicopters, sirens, and cranky neighbors. 

I switch positions and am laying now with my feet up against my wall and my arms splayed out like a child looking at a mobile, but above me is Chet Baker's massive head. A Christmas present I got for Carter. I think about how much I hate afternoon and hear another helicopter heading north to the valley.

I punch 2 Pepto chewables out of their plastic sleeve and bite down which is similar to what I’d imagine biting down on soap is like. Another helicopter. This one so close overhead it shakes my office. It’s getting dark which I hate. I also hate that I’ve told you so much. 

For now, I can’t imagine ever leaving.

I spent last week on Nantucket Island where I have spent 25 summers and some change in the off-season (go in off-season if you really want a vacation). This time I was lucky enough to host my gorgeous friends, Kathleen Sorbara and Tessa Forrest, and their sweethearts at our home.

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Much has changed on the island since coming of age there. Some of its oldest, most nostalgic institutions have been phased out including, most recently, Downyflake Doughnuts which I have been eating since I was 6 years old (!!) was demolished late last year. Rumor is someone is set to revive it (though this has been done also to some other places most famously Black Eyed Susans) and it’s never quite the same. They are building a new development in where it lay with a bowling alley (worst activity known to man). The bakeries that remain are Wicked Island Bakery where you will wait 45 minutes for a morning bun and Nantucket Bake Shop.

The Fog Island Cafe where I spent many mornings eating short stacks has been shut for some years now. In my opinion, this is the biggest loss the island has faced. Someone bought the building and its doors closed in 2018. My parents say huge mistake, always own the building. The long standing institutions that have not changed are very few. There was a rumor that the pharmacy/soda fountain (open since 1937) on Main Street would be closing its doors, but with much dismay from the locals it has been acquired by new ownership. I recommend buying local bar soap and getting a root beer float from the soda fountain.

Doen just opened its doors on Main Street, which will be open even in off season (well see how that goes) Also on Main Street is Murray's Toggery Shop which R.H. Macy (Nantucket native!) opened in 1843. He then went on to open the department store we all know and love— Macy’s. Murray’s has an entire room of Nantucket reds for men.

I’m convinced the women who read Elin Hildebrand books are part of a cult and I’m waiting on the doc (@HBO). There’s a book signing for her every (?!?) Wednesday at Mitchell’s Book Corner on Main Street. I was there the other morning while they were preparing her arrival and it was a la Runway office in DWP before Miranda Priestly arrives. Everyone gird your loins kind of thing. The line wrapped around the corner and women and girls in Hillhouse dresses waited anxiously while clutching their copies of whatever book they coined favorite. I got out of there quickly after buying a few postcards. It can be scary on Nantucket!

Ladybird Lingerie on Centre Street sells Hanro and OnGossamer among other notable underwear brands. I got a tank and two pairs of cotton underwear from Hanro.

Erica Wilson is another crowd favorite for all generations of women. I used to buy string there when I was younger to make friendship bracelets. They stock some selects from Eres and Maria La Rosa, but the buy is not that strong at least for my taste. Half of the store is for needlepointing needs.

Polo Ralph Lauren on Main Street will likely never shut and how could it? The most neutral of brands that both the left and right can agree upon. They are selling vintage tees for $420 a pop. Plus, a canvas bag from the 40’s with a faded blue sailboat on it going for upwards of $500.

A standard coffee shop is missing on the island. People love Handlebar Cafe, but I’m not convinced (the ice looks wrong). I find most people outside NY and LA don’t care about cortado ratios, or how their coffee tastes at all. I am spoiled in LA. Someone made me an iced cortado at the Faraway Hotel with steamed milk and then poured it over ice. Very confusing! And humbling to know I care too much about my coffee drinks. This trip I found Espresso 2 Go mid-island near the airport that makes a great iced americano. Not conveniently placed, however.

I made sure to visit Sylvia Antiques after having a lengthy conversation with my aunt who just bought her first (!) Nantucket Basket (also known as a Lightship Basket) for her birthday. If you aren’t familiar, Nantucket baskets are a longstanding tradition on the island and have become popular among  certain women, a status symbol of sorts. They are made of rattan, cane, and wood. My aunt's basket will be ready around Christmas. Two different men are working on it, both of them over 80 years old.

Carter and I found a wooden trout here for a good price. It will be the first piece we purchased for our new home (!) where we’ll move in September. We’re waiting on a quote to (hopefully) ship this hutch across country. The owner, John, is lovely. The shop has been in his family for over 100 years.

Down the road from the Juice Bar (no explanation necessary) is Nantucket House Antiques where you can find a 19th century sailors valentine for 5k. Cheap compared to this one online.

This tiny shack on Easy Street is Bon Ton. A hit or miss place, but definitely worth looking. I loved this swan toast holder I saw last year. I regret not purchasing!! The women who owns it has weird hours so you may have to call if you’re interested in the off-season.

Of course, there is still Something Natural (the best sandwich place in America) that lives on Cliff Road closer to town. I always order half a sandwich because the whole is bigger than my face. Peanut butter and jelly from here is my top.

In the off season there are sweet stops on the side of the road to buy christmas trees and reindeer made of tree logs. Flowers On Chestnut sells beautiful wreaths in the Christmas season. Don’t miss their overflowing selection of blooms in the summertime.

Step’s Beach is my favorite, Ladies is also up there (the only nude beach on island), and Nobadeer which is easy beacuse you can drive your car on.

I’ll leave you with that for now. I loved what I packed this trip so maybe I’ll do a little something on how to dress for the Northeast and not stick out like a sore thumb. Until then!

I have thought a lot recently about my anxiety disorder, something I have coped with in different ways over the last eighteen years. Last week, I met with a new doctor. While detailing my medical history, he asked me about my panic attacks. Specifically, how many if I had to guess I’ve had in my entire life. I was shocked to be asked such a question (no shrink has ever asked me this??) given the amount of panic attacks I’ve had in my life seems remarkably high. I guessed and told him maybe 2 or 3 a year since I was 11, give or take. That means, on average, about 45 in my lifetime, and that number seemed low. 

I noticed that I hadn’t started having 2 or 3 a year until I moved to LA, which was disheartening considering how pleased and content I am with my life here. How much happier and mentally clear I feel compared to New York. I tried to remember the last time I had a panic attack while living in New York, but couldn’t recall. I wondered if it was the medication I was on at the time (I had switched from Luvox to Lexapro in 2021), or if I was acting my panic out in other ways that kept the panic at bay. It’s too far back in my conscious memory to know the answer. 

I wonder a lot if the meds are working, and if they’re not then when I’ll have to try another. I wonder if I’m past help, what the next logical step would be for my treatment. Should I go to a specialized OCD treatment center? I’ve tried all the therapy, or maybe I haven’t. In my most anxious moments, I become angry and resentful of myself for having the brain I have. The shame I feel is impossible to acknowledge on a daily basis as it would debilitate me completely. Sometimes it feels like I have a handicap. I frequently imagine extremely violent and disturbing scenarios wherein I become violently ill in public, exposed and out of control to the world around me.

My panic attacks almost always center around a fear that I'm going to vomit. So when I start to feel a panic attack come on, the place I feel most safe is the bathroom floor. In my adolescence, I’d lay on the floor wondering, throwing my head back to whatever God, asking if I’d be like this forever. I imagined him telling me I wouldn’t and feeling quickly relieved knowing It would go away someday, somehow, when I was grown up. But now I am grown up and I’m still on the bathroom floor, still asking myself the same questions. I lose all sense of what I know to be true and logical. I convince myself that I’ll be a horrible mother, a disaster of a wife, and the renowned Basket Case of a white picket fence town. 

The doctor asked me if I had vomited in recent years and I told him no, not since around 18 years ago. I told him I don’t drink, smoke, or participate in any drug use because of my fear. I base my life around avoiding those who are sick. This makes me seem selfish. I avoid almost all seafood, as I know it’s common to get food poisoning from shellfish. I don’t eat on airplanes, I don’t eat red meat. It makes me anxious to travel to places I’ve never been out of fear that I won’t know what the best places to eat are that won’t make me sick. 

I wonder if I’ll ever make it to a place where I’m not asking myself if I'm going to get food poisoning from there. I’ve tried hypnotism once, but it didn’t help. There’s a hypnotist in Los Angeles who I've heard has helped a lot of Hollywood quit smoking, but then I heard he has been a bit of a pervert with young women. I haven’t done EMDR or exposure therapy but I have tried CBT and DBT throughout my adolescence and adult years. I often think I’m past help and then realize there must be something else. 

I have rituals that give me comfort in these moments— chewing ginger, taking herbs from my acupuncturist, listening to frequencies, calling someone close to me, talking to myself, but sometimes I just have to wait for it to pass. Recently, I had an important work event and over dinner I started getting that familiar sensation in my chest. I thought how fucked I’d be if I let this ruin an important moment. For the first time I actually stopped panic attack in its tracks. Maybe it’s about learning to speak outloud and listen to myself and believe it.

It is embarrassing to write about this. I want to be respected in the spaces that I occupy, and not seen as a person who is weak. When I omit the part of myself that has shaped me, I feel like I’m presenting a false version of who I am. The conversation around mental health is of upmost important to me because it has saved me more than once. I hope this can be that for someone else.

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