I guess i owe myself an apology

There’s something about going to LA that always makes me incredibly anxious. The crippling 8-hour time difference compounded by the physical distance just makes me feel so far away from my family. Which is obviously the main reason why I’ve come here, and yet it’s also ultimately my undoing. Without my Svengali husband to rein me in, or children to pretend to mother, I am untethered and unmoored, and instantly revert to being my teenage self but with a touch of Howard Hughes. Cue: Staying up til sunrise, sleeping til sunset, and just generally on the precipice of madness as the vice-like grip of jetlag takes hold. Wake up, sleep, wake up, sleep, drifting in and out of consciousness as some podcast plays in the distance - the dulcet tones of Looser Women. Screaming banshees that Tom is always telling me to wear headphones over. Sorry, shan’t.

In town for a job and a wedding - a Tim Burton bride in Madonna’s old castle - I didn’t leave my hotel room unless it was absolutely necessary, which meant i was permanently on edge whenever i left the compound but suspicious whenever i remained in it. Were those housekeeping calls really just welfare checks? Did the man in the joke shop think i was stealing? Will i ever feel normal again?

By day 5, I’d taken so much medical-grade melatonin that i’d convinced myself i was having a heart attack, so decided to stay in bed where I binge-watched episodes of true crime and downed pints of coconut water as I heard potassium was good for your cardiovascular system. Can’t say the same thing for true crime though. All the while praying to a god I hadn’t spoken to in years to pls not let me die at the Chateau. I wasn’t even staying in one of the bungalows. Surely I go with more dignity than this?

Fast-forward to Wednesday, and I was finally on my merry way, with a 10-hour flight to regret all my decisions ahead of me. Goodbye LA, it’s been real.

A ratchet older woman in pink hot pants, pigtails, and a china doll mask. A man with a purple moustache. A pack of teenagers who looked like werewolves and a fuller-figured goth shopping for Barbies.

What i did not see: the sink hole. David Blaine. The inside of a swimming pool.

On my flight back, I watched The Drama, which i actually thoroughly enjoyed. It made me think of the worst things I’ve ever done, which are all weirdly related to food and beverages. Like pouring beer in someone’s shampoo and omitting to a vegetarian that the soup they were consuming actually contained meat. And some other things I can’t mention here for legal reasons.

A black Venom Spider-Man costume for Reuben and a Glinda dress for Phoenix as an apology for always abandoning them. And I’m considering buying this Galliano dress for me, bc dissociation is a form of abandonment, and so i guess i owe myself an apology.

A daily mail article about a Christmas shoot I turned down involving an incredibly famous bear and felt at peace with my decision.

Plus a very astute quote from an NY mag about mothering:

“Just because we’re related and I’m your mother doesn’t mean you get access to my whole day.”

There’s nothing like getting your tits out in the streets of London for an independent magazine to make you question all your life choices. Showing tail in the back alleys of Bloomsbury, the smell of piss wafting up in the dry, arid heat, while geriatric tour buses, builders and, yes, whole families looked on, I looked back on the precise assortment of steps it had taken to get me here. To the left, there were students graduating and to the right a homeless person lying strewn across the pavement; a jarring image of past and future, hope and disillusion, and there I was standing, stripped bare, in the middle. Which seems about right.

On Thursday I visited an actual plastic surgeon who walked me through every single objective imperfection on my face. I’d gone in for a Botox consultation and come out a whole host of new insecurities; like, mfor instance, having an overly cavernous eye socket with skin laxity that has formed an A shape underneath my eyebrow - something I was hitherto unaware of and will now never be able to unsee. But I also came away feeling vindicated. The right side of my face is smaller than the left, and so is every feature on it. In fact, the entire right side of my body is smaller, even down to my foot, which I didn’t need a plastic surgeon to tell me, but now I’m wondering if she can help me with that too.

On Tuesday I went to Giorgio Baldi, which I first thought was an invitation to watch live theatre, but was relieved to find out it was just an invitation to dinner, dinner at one of LA’s finest Italian establishments where we ate pasta 3 ways, all swimming in some kind of buttery liquid gold sauce. I also liked the dehydrated mushrooms which they served with blocks of truffle cheese which in hindsight was a very, very random but delicisioso dish.

Special mention: the spag bol at the Chateau, but you knew that already, and the Bloody Mary flavoured crisps they hand out on Virgin Airlines.

“HR? You’re looking at him” Mickey

How much is too much to spend on a dress?

Can you OD on melatonin?

Does anyone read independent magazines?