darlings
yesterday contained almost Far too much drama for us but there was a splendid business meeting later on in the day and who-we-are-in-RL got decked up in the pearls and swept up her hair and looked Ever so nice – sadly she left no bloody chocolates or anything sweet in the house so we lounged around looking winsome and reading the Library edition of The Talmadge Girls by our friend Anita Loos instead and jolly well enjoyed it.
we’ve been thinking (never a wise idea) about our Life so far in Los Angeles – can you believe it’s been….
*countsonfingers*
Almost Four Months since we arrived on This Coast and did things like drive-to-malibu to watch the sunrise and wait for our furniture to arrive, and lease a Perfectly silver Prius and pass (eventually) the written driving test and get a new License and find a doctor, dentist, Receive the Green CARD, go to the Farmers Market, finish writing Emerald and Everything!
the strangest bit has been seeing our old signature on Forms as we Set up a New Life here.
when we got a Library Card (actually, two as there are Different Library Systems in Los Angeles) they pulled up our (RL) name on the Computer and there was our old address and phone number.
has anything changed?
they said.
and we did a wry smile.
oh yes.
it was the same at the Department of Motor Vehicles – we were On File from Before.
and even at the Motion Picture Library – there it was – our old signature (which is the one thing that hasn’t really changed although now it looks a little more world-weary) – on a Manilla Card and we scratched out the old address and Updated it.
another example –
yesterday we went back to our (lady) dentist for a Check-Up (the lady dentist that we used to see when we Lived here from 2001 – 2006 before we went to Manhattan to engage in sniper fire of midtown and get a green-card-qualifying-proper-job) – and the dental assistant (in some very lovely pale blue “scrubs”) said:
could you update your information please?
and handed us a Clipboard.
we reached for our (new cat’s eyes reading glasses – very Script Editor with D. W Griffith looking) spectacles and then did a whole body shake (in a not scary-movie-way).
there it was.
our Details from Before.
with our pre-NYC-tumor-life-travels-internationalbusiness-existence signature (it looked so young and carefree) and address and the empty tick boxes by “serious illnesses” and “hospitalizations”.
we swallowed hard and turned our head away and said (quietly).
do you have a fresh form please?
and then we looked once more at the form from a decade ago (the last time we had updated our details for the the lady dentist) and put it Aside and started again.
because that’s what we’re doing, darlings, Starting Again.
which is scary and exhilarating in Equal Measure.
and when people say “don’t you miss New York?”
we say.
y-es.
we miss our Friends (we definitely miss the Salary) and we miss days like this when the seasons slipped into the next and we ended up wandering home through greenwich village.
but we needed a different Life which is only really possible Here.
at least we hope so.
now we Must Write.
we’re a tiny bit Apprehensive about finishing up The House On Church Row because then we send it into the world (well, to our Literary Agent – such a lovely phrase) to see if it will Fly.
and then we need to start writing something else.
because we don’t want to get a proper job if we can help it.
we like to write Lots of Things – books, articles, columns, sell-sheets, production notes, people’s bios (we are terribly good at those, especially when they’re a Movie Star), online games, quizzes, interviews with a pop star, television technology and late night infomercials – anything, really.
putting words together feels magical.
and sort of, well, necessary.
