i am in burbank outside a sweetgreen and talking to my manager on the phone. he says there has been an offer for me to play a part in an A24 movie. while this is happening a cute boy walks to his car and makes eyes at me.

"What's the part?" I ask, envisioning me holding an Oscar.

"Um. Well. You would be playing a sexual predator," my manager says.

My face falls. "A gay disabled sexual predator?"

Silence.

"Yes."

I turn down the part. Hours later, I go on Grindr and receive the following message: "Hey, saw you outside Sweetgreen! Congratulations on the amazing career news!"

Anyway, I'm spending the summer in New York.

this past month i've been slurping up life through a straw, treating it like my personal capri sun. i went to portland, oregon and had unstructured play time with a friend. we spent three days having sex, driving to hot springs in the mountains ( i almost got heatstroke, proving just how bad i am at being in nature) we spent an evening in a fancy house in the hills and i drifted asleep while my friend lightly fingered my hole. is this too much to say? no one talks about their lives anymore! i've never had more access to people and known less about them. i hate it. it makes me feel lonely, disconnected. i depend on disclosure to make me feel less insane about everything. don't you?

i am trying to have more weekends like the one i had in portland. weekends devoted to cultivating pleasure, taking the scenic route, letting the days drip by like cum. it's only in the last year or two i've learned to dedicate chunks of time where my life only belongs to me. no one else.

i then went back to LA to return my life to its rightful owner: work. I spent the days rotting in bed, typing, which was great because I love LA the most when I don't go outside. then I flew to New York for two weeks to do a workshop for my play. i made a little makeshift family with gideon, chris, and sam. one of my favorite things about being a writer and making things is the immediate intimacy you can find with new people. it's always a little painful when it ends. so much love just came out of you. where do you put it now? but the pleasure always outweighs the temporary heartache. I want to always be falling in love.

my play has morphed into this little love letter to jonathan. the more i work on it, the more it tells me what it needs to be. it feels so good to be making something so personal. it doesn't feel like i have permission to do that in hollywood right now, which is sad, sure, but i will always find a way to disclose, to feel more connected, less alone.

new york please oh god new york

i came to new york because jonathan's musical is premiering and also because i had a workshop for my play that i wrote sort of on accident after having a zoom general with a producer who asked me if i'd ever been interested in writing something for the theater. i wasn't but i said yes anyway to follow the green lights and now two years later, it's my favorite thing i've ever written and if i don't start performing it tomorrow, i feel like i might die.

LA has been making me feel inert for the past two years and when i go to new york i feel like my life finally has texture. allow my contribution to the LA versus new york discourse be this: in LA every new person i meet feels mentally ill in the same uninteresting way and in New York everyone feels mentally ill in an exciting way.

jonathan has been working, working, working while i've been here and so i walk 20,000 steps a day and listen to shoegaze and work very intensely in three hour bursts and see people for dinner who don't ask me what i'm working on. i feel anonymous and seen if that makes sense. (it probably doesn't.)

the last two days was my play workshop. i sat in a nearly windowless room in midtown with a few other talented people and we started to take whacks at this thing i wrote in bed while my industry greenlit monopoly: the movie. everyone made it better in ways i could've never imagined, which is the hope for collaboration—that someone sees something you can't and wants to extract the thing that makes it sparkle. what a gift. what generosity. the reading went well and the producers took us to dinner and no one said "make it less gay or disabled." they understood it. they wanted even more sparkle.

i walked back downtown listening to "always" by yeah yeah yeahs and met jonathan and our friends for drinks after his show. his musical big gay jamboree, which is open now, is truly spectacular. i'm not going to say i'm biased because i fucking hate musicals and i love this. jonathan's books are so impressive to me but i'm always shocked they come from his brain. they don't feel like him or, at least, not the parts I engage with. they feel like an exorcism. an emotional purge of all the dark thoughts he has banging around that i don't always get to meet. this musical, on the other hand, is a joy-bomb and feels like the brightest, funniest parts of jonathan—the parts I do see every single day. i hope it runs forever because, hi, money but also, selfishly, so that if i'm ever in new york alone, i can go to his show and feel like i spent an evening with him.

I saw Marc on my way home today. He was walking the dog with his friend—a photographer from New York. I forget his name. but he was straight. Sorry, is. I assume all straight men are dead. Inside, at least. I kept asking him, "Are you kidding about being straight?" I think he saw it as a compliment. Which, of course, it was. I really enjoyed him, even though he asked to take a picture of my scar. Embarrassing! For him. Not for me. I told him so and he took it like a champ. I love people who can take it. Marc has a meeting tomorrow with a publisher for his book. It's good. He describes things I wouldn't know how to ever describe.

We said goodbye—Marc had to go play dodgeball???—and I called my friend who is depressed because everyone seems to be a little depressed these days. My friend said she felt rudderless, like it was COVID times all over again. Things really never got back to normal, did they? Everything starts and stops and starts and stops.

Speaking of depressed, it's Kirsten Dunst's birthday. I love her. For all the obvious reasons, of course. She's a fantastic actress with exceptional taste. But what cinches the deal for me is that, despite her being a movie star, she's always felt at the edge of Normal. Like, you could be friends with her, even though she's the most popular girl in school.

Remember when Kirsten checked into Cirque Lodge for depression at 27 and then moved to New York? She felt too isolated in her Nichols Canyon house so she bought an apartment in Soho. The paps followed her everywhere. I met my friend Garrett for dinner one night. It was 2008, my first year living in New York. He asked, "Did you see the pictures of Kirsten on JustJared today?"

"No," I said, annoyed at my neglect.

"She was photographed walking around Soho for hours in a loop. The same blocks, over and over again."

I thought that was strange. But I think I get it now.

Bottleneck.

I went to Minneapolis for work: the birthplace of Brenda and Brandon Walsh, the city where Mavis from Young Adult calls home. I was being interviewed at a college in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. I do college talks as often as they'll have me. To be frank, the money is good. I think back to all the colleges I visited back in my Thought Catalog days—Princeton, Yale, UCLA, McGill, Emerson, University of Vermont—when I didn't have an agent and students would ask me what my quote was.

"Um, just pay for my flight and hotel? IDC!" I said.

One time I gathered up the courage to ask for $500. Now I know I could've made more than my yearly salary.

But it's not about the money. Not entirely. I've realized, especially in recent years, that I love dedicating chunks of time to things that have nothing to do with my Real Life. Getting flown to a city I would never go to ordinarily, researching restaurants, eating the local cuisine (aka going on Grindr) feeling beholden to no one, getting to talk to a group of kids who've been spent the last few years living primarily with Ideas, it's heaven. It feels luxurious, like a nibble of dark chocolate before bed. Sometimes I think if I could live the bulk of my life as a bottle episode—nothing of story consequence, could stand on its own or be cut for time—I would. Bottle episodes are typically the strongest, anyway. They don't have to be bogged down with exposition or serialization. They can just exist and show off the good bones of a TV show.

As you get older, it's harder to just exist. Suddenly everything has consequence, everything is connected. We've designed our lives to to be constantly building, building, building. Go here to get there.

When I'm in these random cities, I'm going fucking nowhere. I'm laying in my hotel bed, AC blasting, watching episodes of Chopped at 1am, my jet-lagged face lit up by my laptop. I'm Googling "Best coffee in Minneapolis" I'm drinking the best coffee in Minneapolis (really good, tbh) I'm working out in the hotel gym with the other mentally ill freaks who can't go three days without exercise endorphins, I'm thinking about going to this museum everyone is raving about while knowing full well I am never going to go, I'm answering an email or two, I'm accidentally getting a huge chunk of writing done—writing that would've taken me a week in Los Angeles—because nobody knows me here, nothing is expected of me. I have nowhere to be. I am really horny all of the time. Hotels put you in that frame of mind. The bed says: "Why are you not having sex with a stranger on me? That's what I'm here for." And then sometimes I do have sex with a stranger. If it's good, the place I'm visiting will suddenly feel like home. Now that I've had a local's penis inside of me, I get why people live here. If it's bad, the limits of the bottle episode will be tested when I fly back in a rotten mood.

Does my enjoyment of these "work trips" belie a larger dissatisfaction with my real life? Yes. No. Maybe. Fuck off.

A state of unease has settled on my chosen city, Los Angeles. The industry I work in is like a weather forecast. And just like the real weather, there's been an inordinate amount of rain. Something's not right. (actual weather: Climate change, Hollywood: Monopoly is being adapted into a movie.) No one knows how to fix it. When will the person in charge come back? Wait. You're telling me there was never a person in charge? Oh no.

Of course, my ego requires me to say I am one of the lucky ones in that I currently, as of this writing, have a job. But even in bustling times, a writer feels insecure. Being prosperous means knowing what the next six months of your life looks like. That's it. And then it's back to planting those seeds knowing most won't bear any fruit. (I spend three days in the Midwest and I'm trying out farming metaphors.)

When I am in these cities or small towns, I am there for a job, which means I know money is coming in. And anything happening back in Los Angeles is none of my goddamn business. Until it has to be.

These cities I visit are full of ambitious people but I project so much on to them. They've chosen to live in cities with affordable housing and James Beard award-winning restaurants. Any unease they feel comes from within and not from watching the Hollywood stock market, otherwise known as the trades. Their lives belong to them whereas I don't know if mine totally does. There's so much powerlessness that comes with my profession. What if a network that is paying my mortgage merges with a Sbarro's tomorrow and, poof, no more job? I wish I were joking but the only comedy getting made right now is Real Life, streaming everywhere.

I want to figure out how to live life more like a bottle episode. How can I take this back to Los Angeles without becoming irresponsible? I don't want a different life. I just want my life to stop feeling different. I want things to go back to "normal" which, for Hollywood, is still crazy but, like, I'm not scared of Sbarro's taking my job.

I am a cynical optimist. Everything is cyclical. It will land somewhere. But, in the meantime, how do you stay inspired when you are told everybody is looking for things that are "safe" which is code for "nothing that comes out of your faggot gimp brain?" How am I supposed to feel when I see my business chasing after IP no one gives a shit about and spending $200 million because they can only conceive of teeny tiny or big bang boom? Baby Reindeer is one of the most popular TV shows right now. I haven't seen it yet but it's a show with no stars (no offense!) and no action figures. Just people trying to figure out less painful ways to be alive, like all the best kind of art explores. It reminds me of Fleabag's success. When your premise is simple, you can be complex. And, yet, I feel like the wrong lesson will be metabolized. "Stalkers! Let's reboot the movie Disclosure, even though no one watched it the first time!"

The thing is, we're all miserable living under these mandates. And, yet, we made the rules. If only someone would just realize no one is coming to save us. We have to save ourselves.

Anyway, my favorite bottle episode is Girls, season two, episode five "One Man's Trash." A show everyone is rediscovering but probably wouldn't get made today for reasons that are made up and nobody understands or agrees with.

all i ever want to do is write, have sex, and listen to music.

it was the summer social climbing went on strike. for months, no one could ask you what you were working on and try to discern your value through your career because no one was working. everyone was equal and it drove certain people crazy. they needed to feel big and that required you feeling small.

"feed me!" screamed egos all across los angeles. people showed up to the opening of a togo's eatery in westlake village just to feel something.

i loved seeing people try to carve out an identity beyond their work. Having to be a person is hard. It's much easier to be someone who does things.

people who've never asked a single question about myself keep threatening to get dinner with me

all i want for christmas is a healthy shift in perspective, tbh.

For years, it felt like I was the saddest and drunkest person to ever exist during the holidays.  It would start with a flurry of activity in December—festive parties, candy canes and gingerbread desserts, blasting a charlie brown christmas while blissfuly soaking in the tub (always skipping the one song that’s sung by children who sound like they escaped from a mental institution)—and I would start to actually think/delude myself into being like, “Wait, I actually love the holidays?” But then, bloop, the activity would stop and all the fun distractions would evaporate and suddenly my bones would turn to crushed ice when I’d realize all that’s left was just me and my flop of a family.

I’m 96% kidding. I love my family. I do. But we’re not the closest bunch. Honestly, we’re just very different people and I knew from an early age that, in order to experience globs of closeness and intimacy, I would have to outsource and build a big life for myself. One that included a lot of strong friendships. It actually works until all those friends have to leave for a week and deal with the reason why they also had to go and build big lives for themselves.

So Jonathan would trot off to see his family in Berkeley (he actually likes them....disturbing)  and I would be left alone to turn my stomach into a wine cellar and have decadent marie antoinette dinners, basically giving myself gout for Christmas. Then, to assuage the guilt of my excessive drinking and eating, I would convince myself that all this peace and quiet was lending itself to a “creative surge of activity” and by that I mean I would drag my hungover ass to a computer and type nonsense for 75 minutes before laying down and watching reruns of Millionaire Matchmaker. (All I want for Christmas is for Patti Stanger and her industrial strength bangs to tower above me and go on a tirade about redheads. My problematic Marina-Del-Rey-living queen...)

The hangovers were particularly brutal this time of the year. I don’t know if it’s because LA was dead and there was nothing really to hide behind or power through for. My skin would break out, my stomach would feel like it was put through a cheese grater (probs because I was eating so much cheese.) And I had no choice but to be an absolute sub to my misery. It felt like my problems were there under the Christmas tree, waiting for me to unwrap them, and I would just stare at them and think, “If unwrapping wasn’t so ableist, maybe I would but JK, not now.”

Then, miracle of miracles, I got sober during the early days of the pandemic. i was excited to see if not drinking and the holidays would make for a quietly iconic duo but then an exposure to omicron cancelled all my holiday plans last year. 2022 would be the first time in three years I would get to experience Christmas the way it used to be: absolutely terrible! 

But I had a hunch that raw-dogging Christmas was going to be actually okay. For Thanksgiving, Jonathan and I hosted fifteen people at our house. It was a merging of our two families and it felt very “Circle Of Life” being able to give our parents an experience where they just eat and chill while we took care of everything. And by “we” I mean Jonathan. I still have the life skills of someone raised in a bunker. But the day was very special and honestly took the pressure off of Christmas having to be a slay. Jonathan is always trying to get me to go to Berkeley with his family for Christmas but I always resisted because I felt guilty leaving my tiny family behind and also, the drunk part of me liked getting to isolate and have “glamorous” nights where I sit in bed alone, drink goblets of wine, and Google “Jon Hamm bulge sweatpants.”

But now I’m that no longer sucking alcohol’s dick and because we had already such a fantastic Thanksgiving with my family, I decided to finally live my Norcal truth. And I’m so glad I did because hon? It was heav. Jonathan’s sister and mom are delightful. They’re all beautiful reflections of each other and being around them for concentrated periods of time allows me to fill Jonathan in even more as a person. We ate delicious food, were confused by Berkeley fashion (you’re millionaires, please put down the performance fleece vest.....) and we stayed at a hotel that kind of felt like The Shining but in a consensual way.

For the first time since I was a kid, I had a lovely Christmas. One that didn’t feel lonely or hungover or cause me to fixate on what I didn’t have. It sounds traj to write but I didn’t know that was possible. I had resigned myself to the holidays forever acting as an X-ray to all of the poisonous thoughts and feelings I have living inside of me.  But now I’ve made new traditions. Healthier ones. And I feel silly for letting myself live in a story I didn’t like for so long but, of course, it’s hard to regret anything when you like where you’ve ultimately landed. 

It’s nice to see yourself get better at living.

it’s hard to tell who is really good or really bad or if it matters because of course everyone is both and will always be both but i wish i weren’t so sensitive. i think that the more i’m around people the less i like them and that’s a horrible thought. i want the opposite to be true. trust me, i really really do.

i’m meeting a lot of new people. “new faces,” i tell everyone. “i need new faces!!””

they’re quite easy to get. whether or not you’ll like them enough to want to see them turn into old faces is another question.

some of these people are spiky. some of these people are gentle. some of these people will feel completely detached from me, like their radio is incapable of picking up any station that’s not their own. some of these people will require work and when we’re finished i will feel like i deserve a cover charge. some of them will be so easy it will make me feel guilty for ever worrying, for thinking it would be terrible.

even when it’s bad it’s fine. as my friend catherine says, “it’s all just information.”

had cake for breakfast

hiatus.

I had lunch yesterday with Marc, who I met a few days earlier at a party. we talked about gay stuff. he bleached his hair and now the roots are growing in and it looks so chic. i consider doing it myself before I realize I don’t have the strong bone structure to support it. you can only fuck up your hair when your face is hot enough to do the heavy lifting.

I go to the gym and then do my usual hour and a half walk home, stopping by quarter sheets to pick up slices of strawberry shortcake. Jonathan and I go to Karley’s house for a dinner party. everyone seems happy. I eat sour cream and onion chips and dunk everything in hummus. Karley looks gorgeous. she’s very good at hosting. someone got too drunk and passed out on her couch. you always need one of those at a party.

swam at jared’s pool yesterday and buck drove me home in my swim trunks and it felt like gorgeous summer forever even though it’s april and then henry, jonathan and i went to an art fag house party in eagle rock and i was in heaven because art fags are my favorite genre of gay. i mean they’re just so hot funny and smart i want to fuck them all!!!! i’ve been a lady of leisure lately doing nothing and it feels like everything.

life blah blooh life

yesterday i went to dinner and saw the worst person in the world with clare at the laemelle in santa monica. last time i was there i saw some gay art film and it was one week before covid lockdown and i was hungover and went to wasteland after to buy a yellow shirt that made me look like i had jaundice. i don’t drink anymore and i don’t buy things that make me look bad, mostly because i don’t think it’s possible. i like the way i look. finally. is that okay to admit? 

clare asked me to be the godfather of her son. i said yes, of course. i’m third in line. it’s not that stressful. so many people would have to die in order for me to be a father. at that point, i will need the company of a child because everyone i love will be dead.

the worst person in the world was good but not great. everyone says its great. i thought it was a nice series of well-shot vignettes with strong performances but that sometimes i felt like there was no “there” there. so many indie films have scenes of drunk people dancing to a cool song, thinking it will add up to something. it doesn’t. i’m telling you, it doesn’t.

i feel very lucky that i get paid to make gay things and live in new cities and have new experiences and make new friends. i feel like i am studying abroad but at 35, which is a much better age to have something good happen to you because you’ve lived through enough bad to actually appreciate it.

i work a lot and i feel things a lot and sometimes it gets to be...a lot.