#waste!

when i lived in new york, i was dating someone for 3 months and i literally didn’t know if i could refer to him as someone i knew. we’d be returning a vehicle we rented for a weekend trip and i’d still be like “him? oh. we’ve hung out two dozen times but i don’t really know him know him.”

in la, you wait on line at a grocery store with someone for two to seven minutes and they’re name checking you in therapy three hours later.

i have never had to question the descriptor “my friend” more times than i have since i moved here. 

i know now that “friend” is a spectrum that includes “person you’d invite to your wedding” and “person you exchanged “wow that party sucked” banter with in an elevator once because you happened to leave a party at the same time.”

a really corny thing people with no personalities like to promulgate - and always as if they’re the first person to have ever thought of it - is the idea that you can tell a lot about a person by the way they treat servers at a restaurant. 

while i do think that is true - because like, ok sure - on the flip, i treat servers like deities, but i also once described a 12 year old as a “no job having ass bitch”, so…

(^ a photo of me immediately post yelling at a stranger)

yes. that is important. but, in my opinion, seeing how a person speaks about and interacts with someone they’ve met (who is of any tenable social standing) 1-5 times in the city of los angeles is a far better indicator of whether this person is objectively “good”, or if they are someone who pronounces ibiza in the way you know i’m talking about (you know. like they’re a character in don quixote. you fucking know the way), who will likely try to entangle you in a ponzi scheme in the near future.

these are your friends in NY:

the person you’ve known since you were born, who bailed you out of jail that time you got popped for jumping over a turnstile (this is called “fare evasion”, fyi) in high school

that exact person. no one else.

in new york, a guy who was v close friends with my ex boyfriend pinned me against the door of my ex boyfriend’s dressing room and tried to fuck me... two weeks after we’d broken up… while my ex boyfriend was in the en suite bathroom.

that’s what friendship is in new york! it means nothing! 

these are your “friends” in LA:

every dog

the ex of the person you’re currently dating

the kids and other patients of any of your doctors

someone you let go in front of you on line at any establishment that serves matcha or anything CBD infused

someone you have the same in n out order as

anyone you’ve ever seen before 9am in a context other than working out

someone you DMed 10 times, who responded once with the heart that’s already there for you to click

a person you’ve fucked once or dozens or times over the course of 6 months, whom you refuse to call your significant other because you’re scum

and lastly,

a person who wanted to be your friend, whose trust you broke by trying to fuck them in a v creepy and unwelcome way

let me elaborate on the last:

last year, i was actively soliciting friendship on r*ya (a dating app) by setting up a profile and indicating i was “only here for friends”*.

*(this is a setting for 1. men who want to discreetly cheat on their girlfriends and 2. girls who want to trick men into being friends with them by pretending there’s a possibility they might fuck because they matched on a dating site.)

i matched with a “famous” “musician” (i put both words in quotations because i don’t quite consider a sleepy, middle aged white man whose music’s main accreditation is being the melody playing over a man slipping from coma to death on grey’s anatomy “famous”, but ok…) and we talked for a few weeks (mainly about how i had no friends and was desirous of a handful of them).

eventually we met up. he took me to a restaurant, i ate some food, i had one drink, we had a v boring conversation, and 50 minutes later i went home and remembered that i don’t need friends.

we didn’t talk again until three weeks later on a monday afternoon. he invited me over to his place to watch the new “curb” and eat chinese food. i said yes because i wanted free chinese food (and because i still have not learned that accepting an invitation to a man’s house apparently indicates that you’d like to suck his dick).

i arrived in sweatpants at 4pm. we ate chinese food, played backgammon, and he mansplained the “me too” movement to me for approximately 20 minutes. that is not a joke.

he also told me that louis ck would be the next man to be outed (weird flex but ok), and shared a story about him “lining girls up and masturbating on their shins”! also not a joke.

impossibly boring story short… at some point i thought, “i do not even want to be friends with this white devil. it’s time for me to leave”. so i got up, ordered an uber, and walked to the front door.

as i was putting my jacket on, he walked over to me in a way that i cannot even compare to anything to emphasize how crazy it was because it was so specifically over the top in it’s own way. this man sauntered over to me with both his arms outstretched, grabbed either side of my face and tilted his head to kiss me.

after touting his beliefs on the importance of women not being seen as sexual beings for three hours while i sat in his sterile home in sweatpants, eating lo mein, this soft, balding man tried to #metoo lite me.

that’s what friendship means to a man in los angeles. 

there’s no doubt in my mind this corny bozo refers to me as a “friend”... but my only friends are on the internet + the guy who pumps my gas on coldwater.

that being said. if you made it all the way here (wow. you must want to fuck me. hello!!) we are now friends and you are therefore obligated to buy me a christmas gift from the below list of carefully curated, v expensive christmas gifts i’ve assembled:

1. what i really want is a vintage sean john velour sweatsuit that i can have altered and wear every single day of my life until i die from texting and driving, but i don’t know if that’s reasonable… so maybe this tracksuit which is for children but i am sure will fit me. or this set. or this one, which matches my sneakers:

2. i want to go to a lakers game, please. front row. i don’t want this unless it’s front row. please respect this.

3. a trip here  (+ 1 for my sister)

4. this hand soap, because i love to keep my hands clean, and i also love people to know i’m rich when they use my bathroom, which they’ll know when they exit my bathroom, and i charge them for the squirts of hand soap they’ve just used

5. a personalized tray. i do all my business, sleeping, and eating in bed, so this would be helpful, so i can organize all my things.  or a clutch. same people

6. these sneakers. or these. or these. or these. size 7

7. one of these two books. or another book. i love to read, and i can afford to buy them, i just thought it nice to include here... so you remember i’m a thoughtful and educated thot.

8. this dress. or this one. or this dress which i don’t think will look good on me

9. this candle

10. this fanny pack, but only because i want to recreate that man’s exact look, so probably not the best idea to purchase this. 

11. these shoes. or these. 7.5

12. this chair. or these

13. a series of 1 on 1 training sessions at lagree. if you’ve ever watched me simulate sex work out, you will come through with this gift before christmas  

14. this bag which is overflow from my birthday gift list. or this one

thank you so much. here is another picture of me and one of my closest friends in la - a dog i spent 90 harrowing minutes with. i hate dogs.

i was crippled with anxiety in the weeks leading up to my 21st birthday (just last year! wow, time sure does fly!) terrified that one of my earnest girlfriends, in an innocent but spectacularly misguided attempt to celebrate me, would surprise me by hiring a limo** - with a sunroof that i would be expected to stick my upper body out of - to drive us around times square because she had misinterpreted my denouncement of a limo full of rabble (one of whom - having witnessed my disdainful facial expression - had rolled down her window to look at me pityingly and emit with no irony the query, “jealous?”) as repressed curiosity… when in actuality it had been a manifestation of my vehement distaste for unfettered, garish exhibitions of joy.

(limo sidebar: my alter ego, reina, is *obsessed* with limos:

you can see more of her work here. HIRE ME TO RUN YOUR DATING APP ACCOUNT THAT YOU USE TO AMUSE YOURSELF AT THE EXPENSE OF DESPERATE MIDDLE AGED MEN IN YOUR AREA!)

while the last time i was flailing my body through a limo’s sunroof was never, i can say with the utmost confidence, i could go to my grave never having had 50-100% of my body in a limo and my life will have been full.

ditto drunkenly slurring “genie in a bottle” in a neon lighted basement in chinatown with strangers who smell like a chain hibachi restaurant. (i’m describing a karaoke bar. did it work?)

double ditto having a man in a thong swathe me in a sash and other bridal accoutrements and proceed to rub his muscles on me in the name of tradition at a bachelorette party (which is why i don’t allow anyone near me who owns a michael kors purse, whose favorite movie stars reese witherspoon, anyone who has seen magic mike in a theatre, or anyone who thinks instagramming a glass of wine with a caption about “relaxing” is an appropriate thing to instagram… also anyone who has ever posted a collage or that “year in review” on instagram. also anyone who wishes family members who don’t have instagram a happy birthday/father’s day/mother’s day etc. on instagram. #instagram #spon)

fear of having to refuse to partake in the activities someone has planned for me because they assault my sensibilities - and therefore having no celebration at all - has not stopped me from expecting to be surprised in some way on my birthday (september 26th. that is my birthday) every year since i turned 14 my first year at boarding school.

my parents are not “fun” people. they don’t “do” surprises. my mom is not “warm” and my dad is not “sneaky”.

despite this, i was absolutely convinced that my parents - who lived in new york and had acrimoniously divorced the summer before - would surprise me for my birthday and, i don’t know… take me to dinner and look at me, my mother contemplating why she’d crossed the atlantic ocean to do this when she could have just not and instead she could be in new york at like, the chobani store (this is a private joke for myself about my mom and her v specific, repellent personality). but no, instead, she’s in london with her ex husband… watching their daughter eat her weight in prosciutto and not even have the decency to have adopted a british accent yet.

honestly, the best possible outcome was no less grim than this… and yet!

when i woke up, assuming they’d taken a red eye, i calculated time for collecting their bags, getting lost and added two hours in case my recalcitrant mother had gotten detained for saying “bomb” on an airplane in a post 9/11 world - something she has literally done for sport; i have borne witness to it.

so, at lunch until the end of the school day, i stared out the window, waiting for them to arrive. when school ended and they hadn’t arrived, i expected them to surprise me in the dining hall at dinner. they didn’t. when my dad called me after study hall to wish me a happy birthday i thought, “oh maybe just my mom is coming…”

neither of them showed… nor did they the next three birthdays i had there, even though every year i woke up with the same eagerness of anticipation.

(that christmas, aged 14, i learned there was no santa.)

the perpetuation of this surprise fantasy allows me to excitedly anticipate a thoughtfully placid fete… and then inevitably gently fails to come to fruition, effectively allowing me to enjoy a day pleasantly marked by sangfroid, as i consider the calamity that “could have been” while at a dinner i have guilted one to three of my five friends into attending at the last minute!

and THAT is the cycle of my birthday and the 364 leading up to my birthday. (my birthday is a lifestyle, just like drake said.)

(an alternative explanation is that i continue to delude myself into thinking someone will plan a surprise party for me *in order* to be disappointed so that i may blame any potential melancholy on someone (everyone!) else instead of my hatin ass for being a human being who is impossible to please and whose inability to literally be “fun loving” and embrace gauche celebratory activities has barred her from ever experiencing the type of youthful excitement katy perry songs are about. this is a shitty but also v honest assessment. thank you for reading.)

ALL THAT BEING SAID … if you’ve been here before, you know my hatred of vulgar displays of birth nostalgia does not prevent me from loving being celebrated privately and has never stopped me from treating my birthday like it’s a wedding and creating a tacky but v self aware registry for the occasion.

so without further ado …

my birthday list! (which - because i refuse to leave my home unless it's to go to a lawyer's office to sign a contract and pick up a check for a series order for my pilot - is the only acceptable way in which you may celebrate me privately. so if you choose not to celebrate me financially, please consider yourself removed from the following list.)

thanks!

(if for some perverse reason you’d like to see my prior innocent but spectacularly misguided registries, please go here. it’s a doozy! however, please note i will only be accepting gifts from this year’s registry. so stay current!)

also, i’m not going to say whether or not anyone has ever purchased something for me off one of my lists, but i will quote william blake “If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise” as opposed to albert einstein and you may draw your own conclusions.

the list.

givenchy pandora purse

here are 1, 2, 3, 4 options

a casual throw for my bed

i just love something easy you know? i beg you to click that link and know that the description includes this: “perfect for cuddling in the cold”. literally lmao. correct. and unfortunately there’s zero other way for me to cuddle in the cold.

seriously though a casual throw

this one is on sale in the white, which is the only color i allow on my bed. isn’t that nice!

ditto this one

here’s one that isn’t

a pillow

i need a firm pillow. i didn’t know that. i thought i liked soft. but then i realized i like firm and my pillows are soft. you can see my dilemma. here or here or here

this bathrobe

it’s a bathrobe. you know how they go.

a juicero

i don’t know how many times i have to ask. i’m not even putting a link because i’m so furious. ditto: a range rover. smh. 

a personalized clutch

do what you will. small or big

a vacation

you know... so i can chill from all the stress of waking up and realizing i have to figure out how to spend the next 10 hours… every. single. mother. fucking. day. here are some places i’d like to go. you’re more than welcome to book a trip for yourself, but i will not engage with you in any way. (i kept it domestic…ish to be polite)

arizona

this is a whole spa thing…

tulum

utah. also utah

montana

this is an all inclusive ranch experience… can you imagine the discreet fun i would have! and the joy you would get from witnessing that, second hand.

wyoming

erewhon gift card

somewhere in the range of $1000-5000 should take care of me for the fall. if you need to understand why, please read this

macarons

not shitty ones. please use bottega louie as a standard but you can find better i’m sure. go to france! i want like 45 of them. pistachio is my favorite; i also like rose, salted caramel, strawberry.

i want to go to a lakers game, but i must be courtside.

no link.

sunglasses chain thing

i am v embarrassed to put this here because i was directed to it from some bop’s instagram i never should have been on… but we all make mistakes and now you can literally pay for mine. (when i typed “sunglass chain”, it autocorrected sunglass to dumbass.) feel free to have a regular glasses chain custom made if you’d rather not support the local business of an instagram celebrity. i wear glasses now to look smarter but uglier.

a candle 

this candle smells like the gramercy hotel in new york. i once stepped on john mcenroe’s foot “accidentally” at the bar inside this hotel in 2013. that is enough of an interesting story to make you buy me 5 of these candles, right? consider it preemptive retribution for the serena williams comment.

a yoga mat

it’s a long story… i saw a spider in my home and my neighbor called the police on me because i was yelling and crying so loudly she thought i was being murdered. but in actuality, i was heaving a yoga mat across the room to cover the intruder... and then i stomped it to smithereens, effectively rendering the yoga mat - which had previously never been in use - useless. i need another one. and this one is one of the most expensive ones i could find. it’s luxuriously dense, like my cerebrum.

really good headphones

i think this pair are really good but then again i am an idiot. i will accept any that someone deems “really good”.

megaphone

i’d like a megaphone for reasons i don’t feel comfortable getting into here. i have not googled but any top of the line megaphone should do.

in conclusion, i will settle for a job a dinner at olive garden or nobu malibu on my birthday - with uber suv roundtrip fee included - where no one sings happy birthday to me and no one asks “how my career is going”! my birthday is september 26th.