Lalalala land

I confess, it’s becoming too cold to sit outside in my usual spot to sip my iced matcha while I write. I’ve been here barely five minutes and already I feel the matcha chilling me from the inside out!! I’m stubborn though and I hate to break a routine that works, so god knows I’m not moving until I’ve written something substantial to edit later. Perhaps the biting cold will motivate me to type faster! Luckily, I am wearing my long, thick Diesel scarf— wrapped tightly around my neck, kinda like Britney with that snake at the 2001 VMAs. Let me tell you, I’m a slave for my warm winter accessories.

I just got back from two weeks in LA, so naturally the cold feels even more offensive than usual. LA was perfect— for so many reasons. But right now, we’re being super English and talking about the weather! Every day was a sexy 26 degrees. The sweet spot. Warm enough to wear a cute dress and heels, no need for a jacket. But not so hot that I’m too exhausted to do anything.

And I was busy. Shockingly busy. I’m still surprised my body managed to keep up with my brain’s demands— that’s rare for me! But through sheer willpower, I ticked off most of a very long list of very LA things I absolutely had to do.

LA—Hollywood especially—has this vibe I resonate with so hard. It’s the juxtaposition: the glamour and the grime. The fantasy of fame, fortune and celebrity sparkling under stage lights, shadowed by a dark, gnarly underbelly of death, addiction, and violence. Hollywood is a cocktail of lustre and decay. People always warn you not to chase your dreams there, as if you’ll end up like Elizabeth Short— and even those who do make it, the legends themselves, often end up scandalised or in an early grave.

While in LA, I visited many famous graves, but the most poignant and emotional moment for me was seeing Marilyn Monroe and Hugh Hefner’s tombs— side by side! Both Hollywood icons were born in the same year, 1926, yet went on to live entirely different lives. Hugh built his magazine empire off the back of Marilyn’s nude photos— which he obtained and published without her knowledge, let alone consent. I’ve always admired what Playboy represented as a brand; it pushed boundaries and played a surprising role in advancing certain kinds of social progress. Such as civil rights, gay rights and even women’s rights! Yet, Hugh himself was an undeniably exploitative, problematic guy— though, in many ways, an unavoidable, quintessential part of the Hollywood landscape. Marilyn, by contrast, stands as a pained symbol of what it meant to be a woman in the same environment. A woman who elevated men like Hugh, while simultaneously destroying herself. Evidenced by her untimely overdose. Women so often become tragic collateral.

I knew it was likely, but it still caught me by surprise when I began to cry when confronted with Marilyn’s tomb. It was a deeply bittersweet moment—making that kind of pilgrimage all the way to see her, feeling both excitement to meet her and then the horrific sorrow of circumstances. It was all incredibly dizzying.

Hollywood exists in a constant state of contradiction—where aspiration and exploitation not only live side by side, but parasitically leach off one another.

It’s that very duality, that I relate to so intimately.

Most days I feel awful inside, but I counteract that darkness by cultivating a beautiful exterior, which has become my salvation. The juxtaposition sustains itself—you can’t have one extreme without the other to drive it. I wouldn’t care so much about looking perfect if it didn’t feel like the only thing I can control in my totally imperfect circumstances. Since childhood, I’ve felt incapable of meeting expectations. I lost control of my image long before I even understood what it meant to have one. It wasn’t until my teens, when I gained a sense of agency, that I realised I could bring to life a new identity for myself—from the outside in. So the concept of glossing over cracks is something I emulate naturally, a sort of microcosm of what seems to happen in Hollywood.

LA’s duality is everywhere— from the culture to the people. There’s this massive homelessness crisis; I touched on it in my last post. The homeless walk the streets like video game zombies—broken hope, crushed dreams, one thing on their mind: drugs. And it’s strange, isn’t it, how the rich and famous can turn into zombies too? We just don’t see it the same way from behind the gates of their Hollywood Hills mansions. Not until one of them dies in their hot tub.

Why is it that, as humans, we all crave the freedom to do nothing and get high? Like, seriously. In LA, you really see it: the homeless have nothing—and live to get high. The wealthy have everything—and live to get high. I’ve always believed addiction is born from trauma. But then, why are we all so traumatised? It’s terrifying. What’s happening in the world that’s fucking us all up so badly? I know life has always been messy, complicated and painful, but why aren’t we evolving past that? Mental illness has become such a defining social issue that touches almost everyone now. Why? Are we hardwired to be miserable, anxious, and unstable? Hardwired to want to escape it all with drugs? We all love drugs. —Well, perhaps I have tunnel vision, but I see them everywhere. Maybe they taunt me harder because I can’t have them, so I notice them. I notice the patterns, and I notice myself feeling jealous. Maybe that says more about my psyche than it does about society. Or maybe I’m actually onto something...

The longer I live, the more everything feels dark and scary. I kinda thought the opposite would happen— that I’d find peace and things would make more sense. But no, the world really is a terrifying place. Especially now.

With politicians like Trump, the world feels super divided, fragmented and extremist all of a sudden. Thanks to social media, I am more than painfully aware of Trumps influence on the world. I thank God we don’t have Trump here… What affronted me recently was seeing the Trump administration’s refer to birth control, such as the pill, as ‘abortifacients’.

I think we all know life begins after conception, that is scientific fact. So birth control, which stops conception from happening in the first place, obviously isn’t equivalent to an abortion. Not in any world. However, when using language like this, the Trump administration knows exactly what they are doing… Addenda-wise, it’s scary. I am scared for American women. If it becomes so that they can’t access contraception or abortion, what are they supposed to do? It’s a way to control and subjugate women.

Meanwhile men are totally unaffected, because if they really wanna fuck you, they can rape you and have more legal advantage than a woman seeking abortion in some states!

I’m a sucker for conservative values, my politics tend to skew middle of the road, I don’t feel seen by any one political party anymore, so I’m shamelessly pretty centrist. However, when it comes to female heath care I really cannot keep myself from defending these things that feel so important to protect. 

I know people love to talk shit about the pill. Every day I see a new reel on Insta, warning me about how it’ll ruin my body, destroy my hormones, and give me cancer. Yes, the pill is literally classified as a group 1 carcinogen— but that isn’t the pill’s fault. That’s the fault of a healthcare system that chronically deprioritises and underfund’s women’s health, to the point that it will approve a medication for women that carries the risk of cancer. While refusing to greenlight a male birth control pill because in trials it gave some men headaches. The hypocrisy is almost laughable— if it weren’t so infuriating!!!

The pill itself isn’t the villain. The system is. It’s the centuries-old pattern of treating women’s pain, safety, and autonomy as secondary. The existence of the contraceptive pill, despite all its flaws, represents one of the few tangible forms of control women have ever been given over their own bodies—and that control is constantly under scrutiny. So yes, I’ll keep defending it.

…This post accidentally became a bit political, but that’s okay!! Two weeks in America really does force you to reflect on both its perfections —LA is an idyllic place, in so many ways it feels like a wonderland I’d literally die to be a part of— and the frightening institutional flaws that feel so personal they can’t be ignored.