Working Woman LA Diary pt. 1

I'm waiting for the plane to take off. I'm flying Premium Economy, which sounds like a recession indicator but it's always been a thing. I've racked up enough press trips to achieve Gold Medallion Status but I’m not sure what it means. The Priority Lane was long and they won’t even let me in the lounge. It’s not that I’m not grateful for the extra legroom and the sense of superiority that comes with being a Working Woman flying business class, but I am Economy Wise enough to know that the microwaved chicken and “champagne” they serve doesn’t justify the price of an upgrade.

The Working Woman next to me is taking up the whole aisle with her Zoom call. A checkerboard of white colleagues who aren’t executing demands the way she pleases silently nod in unison. "The Hamptons is different from Fashion Week," she whines. "I'll explain more later." The Working Woman hangs up and calls another coworker to complain about the rest. Petty, insecure, something I do semi-often. It's hard being a Woman in Business.

I didn't have enough time to get ready yesterday—too many emails, not enough sleep. It's not the 1960s but looking bad at the office is a failure. I think no one talks about this but then I remember Ugly Betty. She didn’t fit in but somehow she convinced enough people that her kooky look was high fashion, which isn’t exactly liberation. Empowerment is a loose concept.

//

I have a vague plan to live in a two-piece turquoise leather suit for the next five days but I know I never will. LA is for creating content, not of me, but of actresses and fresh-faced boyfluencers from around the country who’ve been flown in to sell the promise of youth to adult men. I doubt any of them, or the PR girls arranging this press trip, are interested in my Miami Vice cosplay. I like pushing buttons but I hate rejection more.

//

I sink into the cool comfort of the eco-chic hotel. I’m spiraling for no reason or for too many. I think about my pocked face, the nightmare I had about my hair. 20 dollar smoothies are a trap but so are cosmopolitans. Neither can cover up your insecurity but sometimes makeup can. I email and email and rest and my friend shares his location at the exact time I’m done wallowing, (“I’m kind of psychic,” he later tells me).

//

I love LA because I want my life to be a movie and the city is a set. I like to imagine that life here—maybe mine or someone else’s. A house on a hill (any). A week holed up writing. A weekend partying. Lunch at the Beverly Hills Hotel. An apartment in Venice Beach in the 1980s. A house in on Sunset Boulevard in the 1920s. Anytime I think of moving somewhere else I’m somehow wealthier, more beautiful, immune to history.

//

My turquoise leather suit looks good at this Hollywood idea of a Chinese restaurant. The sun is heating up the wooden banquets and my face is flush with sugar and alcohol and the promise of a weekend somewhere else. My friend asks whether or not I hate our mutual for flaking on a project and I ask if he hates me for not reciprocating something else. No one is thinking about anyone unless it’s about them. I should post more and worry less.