I am writing this newsletter in my class because even with my new prescription of Ritalin LA, from Ritalin the OG, I simply cannot focus. I refuse to believe that I am burnt out because then I would have to confront that and I do not have the time to do that. This newsletter has very much become a Tuesday newsletter and you absolutely have to laugh! I love to tell everyone that I am so productive, yet the one thing I choose to do for my own pleasure and enjoyment is something I cannot complete by the very deadline I set myself.
On Sunday night I went to Brooklyn for a show. I've been paying so much money to be entertained lately and so much more for transportation to these shows! In this case, I took one of the local yellow trains to Brooklyn, I forgot which one! I stopped allowing myself to listen to hilarious podcasts on the subway, I am only allowed to do so when I am moving my little legs. That means that I get to sit on the subway and look absolutely hot and intellectual as I read Didion next to a man listening to TikTok aloud and a woman who took 10 stops to post an Instagram story of the dog in her lap.
On the train, the one that I took from 8th street in Manhattan to 9th street in Brooklyn, I was being the girl I used to want to be. I don’t particularly feel like I’m living an aspirational life, but as a whore for nostalgia, I love to fulfill the dreams of my past personalities! I used to dream of being a girl who read “hard” books on trains and wore skirts more than pants. I wanted to be that girl when I was 16.
When I was 16, my friend who I am no longer friends with was dating a guy who was in a band. When you’re an evil, type-A, goody-two-shoes, teacher’s pet, having a friend with a boyfriend in a band is really really cool. He was having a show downtown, and by downtown, I mean the place that I never really spent time in in my hometown of Los Angeles, California. There was no way in hell my parents would a) drive me to a concert in downtown LA or b) let me drive myself to a concert in downtown LA. However, they did let me go to this concert and randomly let me take the subway. I had only ever taken the subway in New York with my parents and once with a TV personality I was family friends with who let us spend the day with him. Since I was now taking it with my friend, I had to curate a subway personality.
So, I went to the Urban Outfitters in Studio City, which is a classic place where really cool people can find really cool items and you’re like how did you get that at Urban Outfitters? Are we going to the same store? And kind of basic girlies like me cry when they don’t fit into a small and find something just because it’s from Urban Outfitters, so it must be cool. Or, at least that’s how I felt about it when I was 16. I bought a white tee shirt that was not even a little flattering and a black and white floral skirt that was a little too tight. I never got to wear skirts unless I was going to a family dinner or wearing my uniform, so it was exciting to wear one to a social gathering with kids my age, who were and still are, much cooler than me. We went home and got ready and I put on my new outfit and put Franny and Zooey in my bag, because it was a book that made me seem cool and I was trying to conquer Rory Gilmore’s reading list. Nerd alert! Anyway, I still haven’t finished that novel and maybe one day I will, but I probably won’t.
My grandma dropped us off at the station near Universal which is so lol. My friend and I bought the tap cards that they use for public transportation in LA, which was really exciting to me and I was like we should put a lot of money on these so we can take the subway to downtown more, which was also lol. We got on the train which was mostly empty and I immediately pulled out my book. I had the image in my head that I would go to this concert and people would care about what I was reading and why I had a book in my bag and the persona I had created for just that night.
That wasn’t the case. I was very awkward and I knew most of the kids there from Youth & Government. And it was the first time I had seen kids my age smoking cigarettes, and I thought that it was really gross, but obviously they looked so cool and they were so much cooler than I’d ever be in high school. That night was a movie in my eyes, even though I danced shyly and followed my friend around as she talked to the people she knew. And then we went to her boyfriend's house after and I wanted to leave because I was hungry and honestly had no idea how to socialize with those people, even with the persona I had curated for the night, which was not far off from my actual personality at the time. And then we ubered to in n out and then we ubered home from there which was probably really expensive, but so is everything.
And I also ubered home from Brooklyn on Sunday night which was expensive, but not as expensive as I thought it would be. I was going to take the subway home but my phone was at 20% and I bought new boots that I am still breaking in, so it was a safety risk to take the subway home. On the subway there, I read a book that I wanted to read for the sake of reading it, looking cool was just a perk. I wore a skirt and boots and my hair half up, half down, because that’s the style I’ve developed. I looked cool and I was entertained on the long ride and I bought myself a diet coke at a bodega because I was quite early to the show. I am much cooler and even chiller than I was at sixteen, but I will never lose my insane sense of punctuality. I may be the girl I thought was cool when I was 16, but I am nowhere near who I want to be overall. I want to wear only Reformation dresses and spend every day of my life walking around the West Village and be adored by everyone and write novels and have a stable career and be stable enough emotionally that I don’t cry all the time, but unstable enough to never be boring. And when I reach that girl, I’ll want to be another girl.
If I were content, it would be too easy. That’s how I feel about living in New York. It’s hard and it’s often hell, especially in the summer, but anywhere else would just be too easy. It’s so easy to be jealous of everyone and everything here and I never try not to be. I like to have aspirations, I like for them to not be realistic.
I hope you enjoyed my art today, which is what I am calling everything that comes out of my mouth or that I write or post on social media!
XOXO
