Je est un(e) autre

I shouldn’t drink.

You’d think I’d know by now but the lesson has yet to sink in. I’ve watched my friends get pissed and pass out and it’s not a sexy picture.

And yet all those fruity cocktails they make these day are soooo irresistible and soooo feminine. I had one the other day that was made with date nectar, mint leaves, Cuban rum and pineapple juice. It came in a tall, beveled glass with a twist of citron curled around its lip – it almost looked like a traffic cone!

I had four.

In the space of an hour.

It was great!

When I’m tipsy I let my otherwise cold and stiff demeanor relax and I find I like myself a little bit more. The drunk me only casually resembles the sober me. We both look great in heels, we both speak French and we both enjoy being the center of attention.

The drunk me has trouble walking across a room in pumps but is able to quote Lautréamont and Villon without the slightest stumble.

While in both states I crave the limelight in only one of them do I unfailingly succeed.

(Guess which one)

We all have multiple sides to our personalities and each one is equally illegitimate. I resist the unworkable ideal of authenticity. Clearly we act on multiple stages and we consistently adjust our attitudes accordingly.

So for those of you who don’t like me I have two things to tell you.

Join the club.

and

Just wait. Another Dahlia is sure to appear within minutes.

Unless, of course I’ve had too many Mai Tais

CAN WE TALK?

 I recently joined one of those reading groups that I swore I’d never join.

It’s a small group of mostly unattached artists who meet once a month to discuss … well … the art world (few of us pretend to have read any of the assigned books). It’s basically a cantankerous conclave of bitterness, envy and resentment and so it was no surprise – this being L.A. – that someone suggested we all read Diary of a Mad Diva by Joan Rivers.

We were all probably pretty drunk because nobody objected (except my friend Tripp whose idea of a page turner is an Ivan Klíma memoir or a Cambridge Companion to Tang Dynasty Verse).

Collective inebriation has a nasty way of mistaking happiness for joy. My happiest moments are usually those where I’m at a bar or a party, where the music is loud and everyone is completely pissed. To me there is no stronger sense of community. It’s only later when someone reminds me that I spent a good hour and a half in deep, dewy conversation with a twenty year-old theater major that I realize I wasted another evening in Mudville.

Not one easily drawn into commitments, the most durable relationships in my life have usually been with food. I’m specifically drawn to imported camembert on lightly salted multigrain crackers, roasted Marcona almonds, large green Greek olives, prosciutto and gorgonzola crustini and flamin’ hot Cheetos.

In other words, my favorite foods are the ones that go really well with alcohol. (Cheetos are dreamy when combined with violent sports and weak, arctic American beer).

We have this rule in the reading group that whoever hosts the meeting gets to propose our next book. Last week it was my turn and I went all out. I bought a bamboo mat and a rice paddle and made enough sushi to cater a small bat mitzvah. Which is to say we drank a few silos of sake and deconstructed poor Joan until all that was left of her was a dangling eyelash and a push-up bra.

It was all great fun and I suppose I was pretty tanked because gangly, acne-scarred Tripp was beginning to look pretty darn good while I found myself staring into his horn rims blathering about Daniil Kharms.

It’s amazing what a desperately drunk woman would do to impress a guy. So now I’ve got this overeducated performance artist sending me links to University Press book reviews and texting me at all hours with politically insensitive quotes from Michel Houellebecq. But the worst part is that everyone is mad at me because they despise this month’s selection.

Except Tripp.

He loves it.