My Livejournal Sucks

anyway, the starlet recommends me to her healer. there's a waiting list but if she emails, i can bypass and go straight to the top. no matter how much time i spend in therapy disentangling my self-worth from validation, skipping the line will never not thrill me.

i meet with the healer out of curiosity. there is nothing in me currently that needs to be fixed, i think? when you can afford to spend thousands of dollars to have a stranger heal you on the phone, i would say things are, baseline, pretty good.

i tell my boss i need to leave work early to get healed by a woman who communicates through a random spirit and she's like, "yeah, hon, sounds good." no one bats an eyelash at this kind of thing. i mean, we have more shamans than plumbers in LA. people are always trading information on a new psychic or somatic healer. it's always done with a winky face emoji but it's also real because being alive is real and hard. existence is an all-hands-on-deck affair. sad face emoji?

after sitting for an hour and a half in traffic and talking to my hot uber driver who used to be a manager, i'm back at home and talking to the healer. she's saying so many things (age of aquarius will be really good for me but only if i get rid of things that no longer serve me) i'm like, "sure jan" but also kind of addicted to this person who somehow managed to worm her way into a wealthy population of people who are bottomless pits of need. and maybe she really does think she's helping people. maybe she's not some con artist. i mean, does it really matter? i bet people walk away feeling genuinely better. it's a pep talk disguised as spiritual intervention.

our conversation felt kind of broad and "bumper sticker" for a bit but then she started diving into specifics.

"there's a person named ramsey from your high school who killed himself. he really looked up to you because he was closeted." (there was no one named ramsey in my high school but i appreciate the big swing in using an uncommon name instead of, like, john.)

"your boyfriend likes to bake pies with his dead aunt." (okay, here's another big swing. jonathan's aunts are both alive. he does love to bake pies, though.)

when she was telling me these things, all i could think was, "I could've used this money to stay at the bowery for five nights. okay, three nights." i felt foolish, like a los angeles cliche, but then i started to redirect it as a therapy session.

while she was prattling on about another dead relative who was very much alive, i stopped her. "i just, i feel like i'm living my old life. every day i wake up and do things that no longer make sense to me. it's like i'm in 2019 again. the places i go, how i spend my days, it just feels wrong. like i'm trying on jeans that no longer fit. i know i've outgrown this phase of my life but i'm not quite sure what i'm growing into."

it surprised me as i said it—i'd finally found a vein after being poked the last hour—but i felt this sudden compulsion to be honest with this person i'd never speak to again. she was my seat mate on an airplane.

the healer understood. of course she did. people's aimlessness is what bought her a house. she told me some nondescript things i no longer remember. then she told me to be worried about earthquakes.

i hung up feeling lighter, like my bank account. i'd never really vocalized the low hum of discontent i'd been feeling. this sense of things not feeling totally right. LA has felt like some kind of purgatory, a home for an old version of myself i was eager to say goodbye to. crazily enough, i want to live in a city with more plumbers than shamans.

was having this revelation worth seeing the healer? fuck no! but reach out if you wanna see her. i can probs get you to the top of the list.

"What's the part?" I ask, envisioning me holding an Oscar.

"Um. Well. You would be playing a sexual predator," my manager says.

My face falls. "A gay disabled sexual predator?"

Silence.

"Yes."

I turn down the part. Hours later, I go on Grindr and receive the following message: "Hey, saw you outside Sweetgreen! Congratulations on the amazing career news!"

i am trying to have more weekends like the one i had in portland. weekends devoted to cultivating pleasure, taking the scenic route, letting the days drip by like cum. it's only in the last year or two i've learned to dedicate chunks of time where my life only belongs to me. no one else.

i then went back to LA to return my life to its rightful owner: work. I spent the days rotting in bed, typing, which was great because I love LA the most when I don't go outside. then I flew to New York for two weeks to do a workshop for my play. i made a little makeshift family with gideon, chris, and sam. one of my favorite things about being a writer and making things is the immediate intimacy you can find with new people. it's always a little painful when it ends. so much love just came out of you. where do you put it now? but the pleasure always outweighs the temporary heartache. I want to always be falling in love.

i came to new york because jonathan's musical is premiering and also because i had a workshop for my play that i wrote sort of on accident after having a zoom general with a producer who asked me if i'd ever been interested in writing something for the theater. i wasn't but i said yes anyway to follow the green lights and now two years later, it's my favorite thing i've ever written and if i don't start performing it tomorrow, i feel like i might die.

LA has been making me feel inert for the past two years and when i go to new york i feel like my life finally has texture. allow my contribution to the LA versus new york discourse be this: in LA every new person i meet feels mentally ill in the same uninteresting way and in New York everyone feels mentally ill in an exciting way.

jonathan has been working, working, working while i've been here and so i walk 20,000 steps a day and listen to shoegaze and work very intensely in three hour bursts and see people for dinner who don't ask me what i'm working on. i feel anonymous and seen if that makes sense. (it probably doesn't.)

the last two days was my play workshop. i sat in a nearly windowless room in midtown with a few other talented people and we started to take whacks at this thing i wrote in bed while my industry greenlit monopoly: the movie. everyone made it better in ways i could've never imagined, which is the hope for collaboration—that someone sees something you can't and wants to extract the thing that makes it sparkle. what a gift. what generosity. the reading went well and the producers took us to dinner and no one said "make it less gay or disabled." they understood it. they wanted even more sparkle.

We said goodbye—Marc had to go play dodgeball???—and I called my friend who is depressed because everyone seems to be a little depressed these days. My friend said she felt rudderless, like it was COVID times all over again. Things really never got back to normal, did they? Everything starts and stops and starts and stops.

Speaking of depressed, it's Kirsten Dunst's birthday. I love her. For all the obvious reasons, of course. She's a fantastic actress with exceptional taste. But what cinches the deal for me is that, despite her being a movie star, she's always felt at the edge of Normal. Like, you could be friends with her, even though she's the most popular girl in school.

Remember when Kirsten checked into Cirque Lodge for depression at 27 and then moved to New York? She felt too isolated in her Nichols Canyon house so she bought an apartment in Soho. The paps followed her everywhere. I met my friend Garrett for dinner one night. It was 2008, my first year living in New York. He asked, "Did you see the pictures of Kirsten on JustJared today?"

"No," I said, annoyed at my neglect.

"She was photographed walking around Soho for hours in a loop. The same blocks, over and over again."

I went to Minneapolis for work: the birthplace of Brenda and Brandon Walsh, the city where Mavis from Young Adult calls home. I was being interviewed at a college in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. I do college talks as often as they'll have me. To be frank, the money is good. I think back to all the colleges I visited back in my Thought Catalog days—Princeton, Yale, UCLA, McGill, Emerson, University of Vermont—when I didn't have an agent and students would ask me what my quote was.

"Um, just pay for my flight and hotel? IDC!" I said.

One time I gathered up the courage to ask for $500. Now I know I could've made more than my yearly salary.

But it's not about the money. Not entirely. I've realized, especially in recent years, that I love dedicating chunks of time to things that have nothing to do with my Real Life. Getting flown to a city I would never go to ordinarily, researching restaurants, eating the local cuisine (aka going on Grindr) feeling beholden to no one, getting to talk to a group of kids who've been spent the last few years living primarily with Ideas, it's heaven. It feels luxurious, like a nibble of dark chocolate before bed. Sometimes I think if I could live the bulk of my life as a bottle episode—nothing of story consequence, could stand on its own or be cut for time—I would. Bottle episodes are typically the strongest, anyway. They don't have to be bogged down with exposition or serialization. They can just exist and show off the good bones of a TV show.

As you get older, it's harder to just exist. Suddenly everything has consequence, everything is connected. We've designed our lives to to be constantly building, building, building. Go here to get there.

When I'm in these random cities, I'm going fucking nowhere. I'm laying in my hotel bed, AC blasting, watching episodes of Chopped at 1am, my jet-lagged face lit up by my laptop. I'm Googling "Best coffee in Minneapolis" I'm drinking the best coffee in Minneapolis (really good, tbh) I'm working out in the hotel gym with the other mentally ill freaks who can't go three days without exercise endorphins, I'm thinking about going to this museum everyone is raving about while knowing full well I am never going to go, I'm answering an email or two, I'm accidentally getting a huge chunk of writing done—writing that would've taken me a week in Los Angeles—because nobody knows me here, nothing is expected of me. I have nowhere to be. I am really horny all of the time. Hotels put you in that frame of mind. The bed says: "Why are you not having sex with a stranger on me? That's what I'm here for." And then sometimes I do have sex with a stranger. If it's good, the place I'm visiting will suddenly feel like home. Now that I've had a local's penis inside of me, I get why people live here. If it's bad, the limits of the bottle episode will be tested when I fly back in a rotten mood.

Does my enjoyment of these "work trips" belie a larger dissatisfaction with my real life? Yes. No. Maybe. Fuck off.

A state of unease has settled on my chosen city, Los Angeles. The industry I work in is like a weather forecast. And just like the real weather, there's been an inordinate amount of rain. Something's not right. (actual weather: Climate change, Hollywood: Monopoly is being adapted into a movie.) No one knows how to fix it. When will the person in charge come back? Wait. You're telling me there was never a person in charge? Oh no.

Of course, my ego requires me to say I am one of the lucky ones in that I currently, as of this writing, have a job. But even in bustling times, a writer feels insecure. Being prosperous means knowing what the next six months of your life looks like. That's it. And then it's back to planting those seeds knowing most won't bear any fruit. (I spend three days in the Midwest and I'm trying out farming metaphors.)

When I am in these cities or small towns, I am there for a job, which means I know money is coming in. And anything happening back in Los Angeles is none of my goddamn business. Until it has to be.

These cities I visit are full of ambitious people but I project so much on to them. They've chosen to live in cities with affordable housing and James Beard award-winning restaurants. Any unease they feel comes from within and not from watching the Hollywood stock market, otherwise known as the trades. Their lives belong to them whereas I don't know if mine totally does. There's so much powerlessness that comes with my profession. What if a network that is paying my mortgage merges with a Sbarro's tomorrow and, poof, no more job? I wish I were joking but the only comedy getting made right now is Real Life, streaming everywhere.

I want to figure out how to live life more like a bottle episode. How can I take this back to Los Angeles without becoming irresponsible? I don't want a different life. I just want my life to stop feeling different. I want things to go back to "normal" which, for Hollywood, is still crazy but, like, I'm not scared of Sbarro's taking my job.

I am a cynical optimist. Everything is cyclical. It will land somewhere. But, in the meantime, how do you stay inspired when you are told everybody is looking for things that are "safe" which is code for "nothing that comes out of your faggot gimp brain?" How am I supposed to feel when I see my business chasing after IP no one gives a shit about and spending $200 million because they can only conceive of teeny tiny or big bang boom? Baby Reindeer is one of the most popular TV shows right now. I haven't seen it yet but it's a show with no stars (no offense!) and no action figures. Just people trying to figure out less painful ways to be alive, like all the best kind of art explores. It reminds me of Fleabag's success. When your premise is simple, you can be complex. And, yet, I feel like the wrong lesson will be metabolized. "Stalkers! Let's reboot the movie Disclosure, even though no one watched it the first time!"

The thing is, we're all miserable living under these mandates. And, yet, we made the rules. If only someone would just realize no one is coming to save us. We have to save ourselves.

"feed me!" screamed egos all across los angeles. people showed up to the opening of a togo's eatery in westlake village just to feel something.

For years, it felt like I was the saddest and drunkest person to ever exist during the holidays.  It would start with a flurry of activity in December—festive parties, candy canes and gingerbread desserts, blasting a charlie brown christmas while blissfuly soaking in the tub (always skipping the one song that’s sung by children who sound like they escaped from a mental institution)—and I would start to actually think/delude myself into being like, “Wait, I actually love the holidays?” But then, bloop, the activity would stop and all the fun distractions would evaporate and suddenly my bones would turn to crushed ice when I’d realize all that’s left was just me and my flop of a family.

I’m 96% kidding. I love my family. I do. But we’re not the closest bunch. Honestly, we’re just very different people and I knew from an early age that, in order to experience globs of closeness and intimacy, I would have to outsource and build a big life for myself. One that included a lot of strong friendships. It actually works until all those friends have to leave for a week and deal with the reason why they also had to go and build big lives for themselves.

So Jonathan would trot off to see his family in Berkeley (he actually likes them....disturbing)  and I would be left alone to turn my stomach into a wine cellar and have decadent marie antoinette dinners, basically giving myself gout for Christmas. Then, to assuage the guilt of my excessive drinking and eating, I would convince myself that all this peace and quiet was lending itself to a “creative surge of activity” and by that I mean I would drag my hungover ass to a computer and type nonsense for 75 minutes before laying down and watching reruns of Millionaire Matchmaker. (All I want for Christmas is for Patti Stanger and her industrial strength bangs to tower above me and go on a tirade about redheads. My problematic Marina-Del-Rey-living queen...)

The hangovers were particularly brutal this time of the year. I don’t know if it’s because LA was dead and there was nothing really to hide behind or power through for. My skin would break out, my stomach would feel like it was put through a cheese grater (probs because I was eating so much cheese.) And I had no choice but to be an absolute sub to my misery. It felt like my problems were there under the Christmas tree, waiting for me to unwrap them, and I would just stare at them and think, “If unwrapping wasn’t so ableist, maybe I would but JK, not now.”

Then, miracle of miracles, I got sober during the early days of the pandemic. i was excited to see if not drinking and the holidays would make for a quietly iconic duo but then an exposure to omicron cancelled all my holiday plans last year. 2022 would be the first time in three years I would get to experience Christmas the way it used to be: absolutely terrible! 

But I had a hunch that raw-dogging Christmas was going to be actually okay. For Thanksgiving, Jonathan and I hosted fifteen people at our house. It was a merging of our two families and it felt very “Circle Of Life” being able to give our parents an experience where they just eat and chill while we took care of everything. And by “we” I mean Jonathan. I still have the life skills of someone raised in a bunker. But the day was very special and honestly took the pressure off of Christmas having to be a slay. Jonathan is always trying to get me to go to Berkeley with his family for Christmas but I always resisted because I felt guilty leaving my tiny family behind and also, the drunk part of me liked getting to isolate and have “glamorous” nights where I sit in bed alone, drink goblets of wine, and Google “Jon Hamm bulge sweatpants.”

But now I’m that no longer sucking alcohol’s dick and because we had already such a fantastic Thanksgiving with my family, I decided to finally live my Norcal truth. And I’m so glad I did because hon? It was heav. Jonathan’s sister and mom are delightful. They’re all beautiful reflections of each other and being around them for concentrated periods of time allows me to fill Jonathan in even more as a person. We ate delicious food, were confused by Berkeley fashion (you’re millionaires, please put down the performance fleece vest.....) and we stayed at a hotel that kind of felt like The Shining but in a consensual way.

For the first time since I was a kid, I had a lovely Christmas. One that didn’t feel lonely or hungover or cause me to fixate on what I didn’t have. It sounds traj to write but I didn’t know that was possible. I had resigned myself to the holidays forever acting as an X-ray to all of the poisonous thoughts and feelings I have living inside of me.  But now I’ve made new traditions. Healthier ones. And I feel silly for letting myself live in a story I didn’t like for so long but, of course, it’s hard to regret anything when you like where you’ve ultimately landed. 

they’re quite easy to get. whether or not you’ll like them enough to want to see them turn into old faces is another question.

some of these people are spiky. some of these people are gentle. some of these people will feel completely detached from me, like their radio is incapable of picking up any station that’s not their own. some of these people will require work and when we’re finished i will feel like i deserve a cover charge. some of them will be so easy it will make me feel guilty for ever worrying, for thinking it would be terrible.

I had lunch yesterday with Marc, who I met a few days earlier at a party. we talked about gay stuff. he bleached his hair and now the roots are growing in and it looks so chic. i consider doing it myself before I realize I don’t have the strong bone structure to support it. you can only fuck up your hair when your face is hot enough to do the heavy lifting.

yesterday i went to dinner and saw the worst person in the world with clare at the laemelle in santa monica. last time i was there i saw some gay art film and it was one week before covid lockdown and i was hungover and went to wasteland after to buy a yellow shirt that made me look like i had jaundice. i don’t drink anymore and i don’t buy things that make me look bad, mostly because i don’t think it’s possible. i like the way i look. finally. is that okay to admit? 

clare asked me to be the godfather of her son. i said yes, of course. i’m third in line. it’s not that stressful. so many people would have to die in order for me to be a father. at that point, i will need the company of a child because everyone i love will be dead.