*

I am sitting perched poolside in a cul-de-sac in Laurel Canyon, as palm trees fan out casting strange shadows. Our backdrop, a sickly  flamingo pink sky. This house could be a dollhouse, part of a “Hollywood in Miniature” set.  Something feels mighty unnatural about this December afternoon. The cocktails have too much sugar and our only auditory accompaniment is the irritatingly timeless omissions of a white guy on acoustic. 

I am being eyed by a dude that talks to me like he's pitching jokes in a writers room, and yapped at by a bleach blonde who sounds like he's confessing sins in a rehab. I am bored of men sharing “thoughts” and “opinions”. Enough of that useless shite. Look, you sullen man-girl, you silly bitch boy, look at the cosmodemonic doomsday phallus being shot our way. Unless you're mocking the institutions, don’t comment on them. Shut the fuck up and start building us compounds. 

Or sit in a circle and butt chug fluoride, sing a song on acoustic, perform a ritualistic circle jerk to Em-rata. Pick a team. and stick to it. 

Times like these I want to slink off to some remote corner of the earth with talking trees and ferns that let me tune into their ever-singing transmissions.  Swear it all off. Everyone is craving the quickest, most efficient of transactions. We are corporations of individual identity, trying to sell ourselves. Trying to sell ourselves to each other in subtle ways. Carefully refining our likeability, relatability, compatibility. 

My product is very disorganized. I am a messy symphony of the vulgar and refined, the spiritual and superficial, the present yet delightfully inebriated. Pick me! I am an articulate supergirl with a messiah complex. 

If you were here, we would make fun of this together. We would sit, elbow to elbow, wondering if we were becoming too soft. We love it, we hate it. The parties that take five freeways to get to, the pretense, the silly urgency to make fun happen.  

But you're not here, and you did get soft. I hear you're expecting a kid.