DEATH AND PARKING TICKETS
Hiya toots!
Experimenting with new greetings. I like “toots” because it makes me feel like a bawdy old broad who’s been smoking cigarettes for 40 years. I like ladies where you can really smell the past on them. I am 24 and from an idyllic town in Connecticut: I do not give off the vibe that I have seen some shit. I want to be wisened, I want to say things like “when you’ve been in this business as long as I have...” and really mean it. I want to know more, be smarter, give sage advice, hell, I want to call people “hon” like waitresses at roadside diners. I want my big boobs to become a warm motherly bosom that you can cry into. I want my hair to go grey in a cool way, to wear turquoise jewelry that I buy from my trips to Santa Fe.
When you are young people are constantly reminding you how young you are. You’re a baby. They say. Enjoy it. Soak it up. You still have your whole life ahead of you. Before you know it you’ll be a washed up 45-year-old with nothing to show for it. And it’s usually like woah man you’re givin me a lot here. But I get it. Youth is the tits. Plastic surgeons are making bags of money off of people clinging desperately to it. Billion-dollar-industries rely on it as their main marketing strategy. The message I’m getting from every angle is: cling to this thing cause you won’t have it forever. Pretty spooky.
I do feel young, and I appreciate it. I have lots of energy, and I feel free to do what I want and able to pursue a flight of fancy if it so pleases me. I feel happy and in love and excited for whatever is next. But a lot of times I just feel like a big dumbass. An open-faced idiot. I feel anxious and sensitive and uncertain of what the future holds and whether I will navigate it with grace or not. Maybe I won’t be able to handle the obstacles of adulthood. Maybe I’ll have a public mental breakdown on Twitter and run away to a Caribbean Island and people will say that Lael really went and lost her marbles.
Mostly I think getting older sound nice. You are baseline smarter, you seem to get to play a lot of shuffleboard, everyone’s body has gone to shit so who cares, and you get to ride in those cars at the airport without getting judged. I am at a stage of my life where I am obsessed with aging, and consequently, death. A few months ago I noticed a spider vein on my calf and I knew: this is just the beginning. Whether I like it or not I am hurtling at warp speed towards my inevitable demise. I just hope to live a good life until then. I want to host dinner parties and make berry cobblers and get more vitamins and smile at people and rent a cabin in the woods with my friends and not get murdered. I want to sit in the steam room at the gym and go to the zoo and kiss my boyfriend and find my favorite coffee place and notice the passage of time without too much fear or resistance. I want to ride the wave, go with the flow, and most of all try not to be an asshole.
I think about this shit a lot because comedy is a really uncertain path and people grind away at it for many many years before finding any real success, if they ever do. Can I handle it? Will I become a bitter hack? Do I really have to pay off these parking tickets if I’m moving away from Chicago? Will I ever own a house with a yard? I don’t know the answers to these questions. We’ll see.
Anyways, sorry if this newsletter actually sucked ass. I’m just going through a run-of-the-mill existential crisis and thought I’d share it with my sweet sweet subscribers. I will be back in NYC in October and then moving out there soon after. I am terrified and excited.
If you wanna email me, send me the best piece of advice you’ve ever received. Or send me what you ate for breakfast this morning. Or tell me to buzz off. Whatever works.
Your pal,
Lael