Carless

Here's something I learned today: even if you voluntarily surrender your car for repossession and have paid 2.5 years of debt on time and agreed a time for the company to pick it up and have no intention of running away and had even picked out the types of cookies you were gonna offer the white trash repo assholes - those cunts will not trust you, and will take the car in the middle of the night.

Carless in LA. The adventure begins....

Stephanie

I used to work at this place in New York City. One of the girls I worked with - Stephanie - always stuck in my head because she had some crazy story about working for Star magazine, writing a roman a clef novel loosely based on her experiences with Bonnie Fuller, and Star had tried to sue her ass off and stop her book coming out. This story - well, it's typical Steph. A small, pretty, slim dark haired girl with big eyes and a wicked sense of humor, Stephanie said what she thought, and didn't let anyone bully her. Stephanie was one of the only people I stayed in contact with when I left the office, and she started up her own blog. We used to email each other and talk a lot about writing. Bonnie Fuller nixed her book and it never came out, but Steph started on a new one, and a new one. And then, a few years ago, Stephanie posted on her blog that she had breast cancer.

I've known a few women in my life who've suffered from this disease, but I guess the presence of social networking and blogs and twitter and everything nowadays gives us a direct link to what someone's thinking or feeling, so it felt, in a sense, that we were right alongside Stephanie as she went through chemo, Herceptin infusions, mastectomy, breast reconstruction, early menopause, weight gain, constant nausea.... She told us exactly what she was thinking, exactly what made her feel better (pot cookies, her dog, partying, shopping at Bergdorf's). She was hilarious, real, loud, angry, sad, scared - and she shared it all with us. She started writing a book based on her experiences, but she never managed to sell it, despite being a fantastic writer. The publishing industry's all about names nowadays.

Just before Christmas, Stephanie posted on facebook that her cancer had come back. Again. It had come back so many times in these last few years. I kept meaning to email her, send her a message, but I didn't, mainly because as a doctor's daughter, I knew what it meant. I knew my 35 year-old friend had run out of - what, luck? choices? and this time she was going to die. How could I send her some inane prattle about 'winning the battle' when we both knew it wasn't going to happen? That cancer isn't a damn battle anyway and talking about it that way implies there are winners and losers, and I hate that idea? The only fight someone can put up is the mental fight, and Stephanie sure did that. However low she got, she was still doling out love and advice to strangers with her disease, spending time with her friends and family, dragging her ass to a birthday party - "thirty five and still alive!" it said on the poster - cracking jokes.

Stephanie passed away yesterday. She was 35. It makes me so sad that she spent the last few years of her life having to be brave and courageous and all those words we attribute to people who've had cancer and been through grueling treatment. What makes me saddest is the lack of rhyme or reason in who life doles out the Aces to, who gets the Joker. But what makes me happy is that Stephanie had friends and family around her, and so much love right to the end. I hope her book gets published.

Sorry, not very articulate today.

Happy New Year

My ex and his parents rescued me on Christmas Eve - called me late at night, pulled up in a Ford Thunderbird, took me to Santa Monica for Prime Rib at Boa. I guess it was some rescuing. Boxes and living in a car, to a five star restaurant The next day I slept for 20 hours, right through the time I was supposed to be cooking, and by the time I woke up it was the evening, and people were arriving at ex's house for dinner.

A note about the ex: we dated, on and off, for two years. He's my 'real' ex, not the fake internet ex. He's an actor. He's British. He's loaded. I love him and his family. If he wasn't a relapsing alcoholic with a fidelity/intimacy problem, I'd marry him in a heartbeat.

So this week, life in boxes, I got to forget about the fact everything in my world is crumbling, and enter someone else's. Afternoon tea in the Hollywood Hills, breakfast at The Georgian, walks along the beach, an evening in The Magic Castle, dinner dates and movie dates and talking, and the more talking you do, the further removed you are from your own mess.

The ex's parents left yesterday and we stayed at home on NYE, eating takeout and watching movies. 127 Hours - hated it. The night was nice, though. 'Nice'. It was just that. Having genteel English ladies and elderly Conservative men around somehow eased my soul a little, and now it's back to flapping around wildly as I try and figure out how to get Chips and me back to the UK for a while. I honestly couldn't tell you why I'm so anxious. Maybe the bills and the lack of money, maybe the concern about putting my pup in an airplane hold in March, maybe, probably, because I miss talking to douchebag internet boy - but I feel so truly terrible about the whole incident that I know I just can't have someone in my life like that. I guess I just stopped believing he's a good person. I can have my messed up alcoholic ex and his massive family in my life - god, these people have loved me and cared for me and screwed me over so many times I know they'll always be there. But douchebag internet boy - I just can't trust him. I guess I don't respect him or something. I stopped - liking him. It makes me sad.

The whole happiness thing - I have to tell you, after ten years of being broke, it certainly is connected to money and career. Because without those things, you can't enjoy friends, or lovers, or family to the extent you should. You always find the people with security, the people who don't have to worry about a roof over their heads, or food on the table - they're the arseholes who make all these assertions about money not making you happy. Money doesn't make you happy, or give you friends and loved ones and the career of your choice - but it takes away the frantic, frenetic, scary knife edge of fear which stops you enjoying the things you have.

Oh life. I'm going to walk the dogs. I feel a bit scared and a bit sad. I need to just jump off a cliff. I've moved countries so many times it's meant to be easy now, and it never is. I hope you had a good NYE.