A Dozen Measly Months

January

I pulled myself out of bed on January 1, 2024 at 12:30pm. Seven hours later I took a Xanax and settled in for an “I’m not anxious” evening on the couch. It was the text, you see. My text remained unanswered. When the answer arrived a few days later and I began the process of “crying it out,” Jack said I should go to Memphis. I mapped out the trip, turned another year older, and spent the rest of the month reading Joan Didion and trying not to put myself down.

February

I had a promising phone call with the SVP of a swimsuit company about some future freelance work. A week later, she emailed me to say my copywriting services weren’t needed after all. I went to lunch with my mom at HMS Bounty and cried into a plate of spongy tilapia about feeling like a big flop. Days later, two atmospheric rivers cycloned across California, and a tight pain pressed against my temples like bitchy bookends. The rain eventually washed away my headache while I watched a Ken Russell double feature with friends at the New Beverly. I cracked up during a sequence in Altered States, and the man in front of me turned his head and stared as if to say, “This is serious!” That, too, was funny.

March

I saw the mansion where Elvis died and the two-room shack where he was born. I saw his gold-plated Social Security card and his pink and purple Cadillacs. I saw my favorite white concho jumpsuit and the black leather getup from the ‘68 Special. At a restaurant in Tupelo, MS I angered some fellow tourists when I said Elvis’ treatment of Priscilla wasn’t abnormal in a patriarchal world like ours where “men are horrible to women.” I listened to them defend Elvis and attack Priscilla and wondered if they ever listened to themselves. But man, I love Memphis, and the most expensive dessert in LA could never beat the banana pudding at Central BBQ. After Memphis came Austin, TX, and then I was off to Santa Fe, NM for a writer’s retreat. I came home reinvigorated and ready to see what was next for 2024.

April

My COVID test came back positive, but I still got my taxes done on time. I designed and ordered business cards while I recovered and handed them out at three separate networking events. Each experience made me wish for the power to turn invisible. The social discomfort led to zero new clients, and I was very tempted to wallow. Instead, I reached out to friends I hadn’t seen in awhile and asked my mom to help me put my rubber plant, George, in a larger pot.

May

A financial advisor told me I didn’t owe any quarterly taxes because I’d made so little money. I took the news as a victory and met a friend for drinks in Koreatown. At a bar, a much younger guy insisted I take his phone number. I texted him the next day, and he suggested a place to meet. I suggested a time, and he never responded. How’s the phrase go? The one I’ve heard countless times? “His loss.” Toward the end of the month, my family celebrated my dad’s 70th birthday by seeing Pulp Fiction at the New Beverly, and I felt nothing but grateful to be a part of such a crew.

June

I was offered a real job by a company I loved freelancing for. After telling them how much money I wanted and hearing that they’d get back to me, I called my mom and cried. I told her I was afraid I’d get stuck in an awful situation like my last job, and she told me that wouldn’t happen: “You’re not the same person anymore.” That weekend, I celebrated the official start of summer by seeing Austin Butler in Bikeriders. I met a handsome dude at the theater, and while he asked me for my Instagram handle, he never asked me for a date. Is this internet porn’s legacy? Would a young man rather look at a woman’s digital image than waste time getting to know her? Even if getting to know her meant earning the chance to touch her? Does he not want to touch her? Does he mostly want to touch himself?

July

After seeing a friend in Walnut Creek, I drove back to LA and did as little as possible. I went to brunch and got very tan and saw lots of movies and brought my laptop to a pink painted coffee shop in Burbank and tried to write about Elvis. I went on a date with an older fellow who didn’t quite do it for me but still did sweet things like open doors and pull out chairs. I could have kissed him by my car, but I knew it would be much nicer to go home alone to my plants than force a connection with someone because it was time, or whatever. When Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race a few weeks later, I realized I could no longer refuse to think about the election.

August

A staycation in Santa Monica turned out to be a bust when I was greeted with an overcast sky. I made the best of it by taking myself to dinner and walking around Third Street Promenade, where I watched a Black violinist play a gorgeous rendition of “Can’t Help Falling in Love” for a far-too-small crowd. My eyes welled up as I thought about art and progress and how this country is always on the verge of falling apart at its flimsy seams. Florence Welch’s voice rang in my head:

“Is this how it is?
Is this how it's always been?
To exist in the face of suffering and death
And somehow still keep singing”

I started my new job a few days after I got home. Life is hardly perfect now, but I at least have one less worry.

September

I brought Bobbie an Oki Dog. I avoided caffeine. I read East of Eden and got into bed by 9:00. I signed up for a pottery class. During my second lesson, I discovered that your titties jiggle egregiously if your clay isn’t perfectly centered on the wheel.

October

Hard work. Early mornings. Kettlebells. Chicken breast. Broccoli. Reading. Writing. Offering critiques. Accepting critiques. Ignoring the polls. Hearing from a close friend in New York that her mother didn’t make it. Mourning. Crying. Checking in. Being a friend. Leaning into feeling gutted without giving up the hard work.

November

About half of us woke up in November to the worst possible news we could possibly have heard. I blinked, and I was in a coffee shop in New York talking to my close friend about loss and grief and empathy, and then I was in an event space watching her eulogize her mother. I blinked again, and I was back in LA for Thanksgiving with my family. After the plates were cleared I reached across the table to grab my mother’s hand. “I just love you so much,” I said.

December

I danced to David Bowie’s “Rebel Rebel” with one of LA’s homegrown bards. A stupid man stood me up, a close friend got COVID, and another close friend lost a parent. I talked to him as he drove to San Diego to be with his brothers, and even though I smiled when he deadpanned “I don’t recommend this,” I knew he was telling the truth. When we hung up I put on Bob Dylan and scrubbed my bathroom sink and thought about all my loved ones losing their loved ones and life making no real sense.

Days later, I flew to Walnut Creek to spend the weekend with a friend. On Friday night, we saw an Elvis impersonator at a nearby retro bar. I wore a white concho jumpsuit, and my friend wore head-to-toe black leather. We caught the eye of a grey-haired venue photographer who led us outside to meet “Elvis” before the show. Standing in the parking lot was a decades older man in a red and black jumpsuit and dark sunglasses. A gold International Hotel belt hung across his working man’s midsection. I was immediately starstruck, and, as it turned out, so was he. During the show, my friend and I laughed and danced and screamed our heads off as Elvis shook n’ shimmied. Much like the original, this Elvis gave out scarves and kisses with glimmering gusto, but I alone was given a TCB necklace he’d had for a decade (and like, four to six kisses). He warned me that the necklace needed a new clasp—maybe even a new chain—and said he’d been waiting to give it to the right person. I don’t know. I don’t care. I’m taking joy where I can get it, and it felt good to be Elvis’ girl.

On Christmas Eve, my family piled into a movie theater to see Timothée Chalamet play Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown. I sat next to my dad, who loves music as much as I do and introduced me to Bob Dylan when he played Blonde on Blonde again and again on a road trip to Big Bear when I was maybe five or six. At the beginning of the movie, 20-year-old Bob Dylan shyly walks into a hospital room and plays “Song to Woody” for Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie. The verse about our tired and torn world made my eyes sting as I thought of the inevitability of inauguration day and the inevitability of death and how time has never flown by quite like this.

“Hey, hey Woody Guthrie, I wrote you a song
'Bout a funny ol' world that's a-comin' along
Seems sick and it's hungry, it's tired and it's torn
It looks like it's a-dyin' and it's hardly been born”

And now, 2025. On top of being scary, it could also be interesting, right? I suppose I shouldn’t waste my one chance to find out, and anyway, the jeweler said the TCB necklace will be repaired by January 2.

Cheers, everyone. Let’s keep it goin’.

“Here's to the hearts and the hands of the men
That come with the dust and are gone with the wind.”