I need to get a better therapist

Joan Didion, the fistula of fame and unpacking the scene at the Chateau

Despite being parents for six whole years now, shepherds to not one but two young sheep, it seems that when it comes to planning (and executing) a family holiday, Tom and I are completely and utterly inept. Like two bottoms floundering in a world designed for tops, each assumes the other will take the reins. Which means that everyone ends up suffering. The irony being that holidays are actually meant to be fun, a welcome break from the monotonous grind of quotidian life. Not with kids, they’re not. Especially now that there are so many of them. The tyranny of never-ending half terms.

Let me tell you about the latest shitshow. It was one hour before our flight to LA, the first leg of our Big Fat American Tour, when we realised Reuben didn't have an ESTA (it was attached to the old passport, which by the way, took several failed attempts and countless phone reminders for us even to begin to sort out in the first place). Abort! Abort! We turn around and do the walk of shame, suitcases trailing behind us, each family member silently, violently cursing the other.

But whose fault actually is it? Because no one teaches you this shit when you become a parent. No one prepares you for how fucking organised and on top of shit you have to be. And not just your shit, but their shit too. Their crazy, irrational, barbaric shit. To always keep up to date with their latest dietary requirements, which are often more arbitrary and absurd than a neurotic 30-something woman you’re forced to endure at dinner (i.e me). To remember which random(!) days of the month are Show and Tell Day (so that you don't get gaslit into thinking they can take toys into school on the regs.)

On that note, no one warns you about Culture Day or Bonkers Day or the insane outfits you need to craft for them, weeks upon weeks in advance. There are no guidelines on what the perfect etiquette is for avoiding parent meet-ups outside the school gate, or the minimum amount of messages you’re required to send in the parent WhatsApp group, so you don't come off looking nonchalant. No one tells you you need to constantly be packing heat when it comes to wipes, nappies, snacks, poo bags, tissues and 5* entertainment. To remind you to put money into the kitty for this teacher's birthday and that teacher's birthday and for the Xmas mugs the entire class’s faces on them. Well, who said I wanted one anyway?

There’s no lesson on how not to turn into J.K Simmons in Whiplash when you’re trying to teach your kids how to read and write. How to not lose your shit when they decide a minute into a meal that they’re no longer hungry, despite literally just declaring the opposite. To constantly keep track of every ant-sized piece of Lego they’ve suddenly decided they’re now into.

Seriously, how does one do all of this without breaking your confidence, your sanity, and your marriage? And without contradicting the Tina Barney-tinged portrait of family life, you so carefully project on Instagram.

The ESTA arrived at 8pm that night, by which point morale and familial relations were at an all-time low. Fast-forward 10 hours and we were off again, in the same outfits as yesterday and even, miraculously, with the same cab driver, with the sound of What Shall We Do With The Drunken Sailor blaring on repeat. Only this time, there were smiles all round. And that’s the great thing about kids, they don’t know how to hold a grudge. They also don’t know that you don’t know wtf you’re doing. Now for a 12-hour flight!

What I saw

People watching at the Chateau Marmont hits like nothing else. There’s the teenage rapper and his prepubescent entourage, with one pubic hair between them. Did he just order a glass of milk? The tanned tech bros with their glow-in-the-dark teeth and inflatable escorts they met on Tinder. Mr Muscle by the pool chatting up the thonged thot and her pet pooch. “I have one just like that at home.” Yes, where his wife is. The group of girls sharing their Rhode lipgloss in the bathroom, just waiting to be seen. Pick me, pick me! The Hollywood Has Been meeting his agent, desperate to resuscitate his career with a cameo on White Lotus. It’s like a modern, interpretation of a Hogarthian rake’s progress.

Welcome to the Chateau, where hunger for success is insatiable and the stench of potential is ripe. A place where dreams are made as quickly as they are crushed. Forget the movies, this is the scene worth watching.

What I bought

As soon as I got to LA, I offloaded the offspring with Tom and headed on a whore’s tour of vintage retail therapy. Aralda, Sielian, Resurrection, Replika, What Goes Around Comes Around, Timeless Vixen.

Making me list every single item I purchased, while knee-deep in sleep regression, is like when you shove a cat’s nose in its own cack so that it never does that again. And I’m really not ready to confront my guilt yet. So instead, I’ll just pick my favourite: a 90s-era Dolce mini that barely covers my urethra. The jet lag made me do it.

Side note: if you want more tips on the best vintage spots in LA (fuck it in London, NYC and Paris too, bc I am not a gatekeeper) you can find them all here on AmiGo (just use the code Tish).

What I watched

On Monday night before our (intended) flight, we watched The Importance Of Being Ernest, which was, in hindsight, a really random shout. But who cares, because it got me thinking about the art of Bunburying.

Bunburying is a term coined by that devilish cad Algernon Moncreiff to describe the act of creating a fictitious person (in Algie’s case it was a sickly old friend named Bunbury) to get oneself out of a social engagement, like a wedding or baby shower or random kid’s birthday.

Maybe it’s because I’m exhausted all the time, and in mental and physical pain, or maybe it’s because I’ve finally started to realise that it's ok, nay even healthy (!) to implement boundaries with people who I'm not directly related to, but I've recently, increasingly found myself having to deploy the odd bunbury. Because sometimes I just don’t feel like celebrating a friend's collaboration with an eco-friendly tampon brand. And that’s because I literally just went to her dinner for landfill the week prior.

The problem is that, unlike dear old Algernon, I totally suck at lying. I get anxious and paranoid and stop answering people's calls, for fear of getting busted. I once even posted a fake picture of Paris to corroborate a fictitious story, when I was very much still just sitting at home. Then comes the guilt. I shouldn’t have lied. I should have supported my friend. But maybe they should fucking support me some time and stop insisting on my presence at an innocuous event every night of the week. So until then I’ll be relying on my friend Bunbury to get me out of things. In the words of Messer Moncreif, “One has a right to Bunbury anywhere one chooses. Every serious Bunburyist knows that.”

What I read

I managed to get through quite a few pages of Joan Didion’s Notes To John during our ten-million-hour flight, when I wasn’t engaging in psychological warfare with the random guy in front of me. And it made me realise a couple of things:

1. Life is just recovering from the trauma of your childhood

2. I, too, use work to stave off anxiety. And emotion. And probably to avoid people. The irony being that I always worked whenever I got anxious and now I get anxious whenever I don’t work. So I guess that coping mechanism is no longer working.

3. Shyness is indeed a form of paranoia. Who said they’re looking at you?

4. There’s a fine line between protecting your kids and controlling them.

5. I need to get a better therapist

What I did

Nothing is more LA than traipsing down Hollywood Boulevard and watching a guy get pinned down by five security guards in the sweltering heat. The fistula of fame and (mis)fortune.

I bought my son a toy model of an Oscar because he liked the way it shone. It was only when we got back to the hotel that we realised the base had been chipped and the gold had started to rub away. How fitting.

What I had done

When it comes to intimate grooming, lady gardening, rear window dressing, pubic landscaping, vaginal maintenance (?) - whatever you want to call it - I’ve always been pretty laissez-faire, much to the chagrin of my husband. I used to say it was because I was a strident feminist and refused to conform to society's impossible standard of beauty. lol. But in reality, it’s because, quite frankly, I don't like experiencing discomfort for even a minute, let alone half an hour. So hitherto I’ve basically been nil by wax. Forget Capability Brown style polite English garden lawn, I'm talking Byronic ideals of transcendent nature. The kind of forest Prometheus might get lost in.

I must have been experiencing a form of temporary madness, or maybe I was trying to make up for being a little bitch on the weekend, but on the supposed eve of our LA trip, I decided to capitulate to Tom’s subtle pleas.

An hour later, I was being trussed up like a turkey on a chopping board as a nice lady called Meera poured burning hot wax all over an area that you instinctively, primally don't want hot wax to be in. "You’re growing them,” she said, smiling, before holding me down with a strength that felt incongruous to her diminutive size.

Despite having 2 kids, during this half an hour of unadulterated torture, I feared for my vagina in a way I never knew was possible. Man, it SUCKS being a woman. By the end of the session, I was red and raw and naked and vulnerable. But at least all my bikini pics will be fire.

Best meal

After realising on Tuesday morning that we would not be travelling to LA as planned, we decided to try and save some face by taking the kids to Harrods(?!). Which is probably a TERRIBLE lesson to instil in their young minds. In the face of disappointment, go and drown your sorrows in a capitalist wet dream.

After a disgusting splurge in the Toy Kingdom, we went to Chai Wu on the 5th floor, a fancy Chinese restaurant, where we gorged ourselves on truffled pak choi and sizzling wagyu beef skewers in a desperate attempt to mitigate the blood feud that had been brewing since the morning. Like in the death of Sardanapalus, we surrounded ourselves with riches as we waited out our doomed fate. With full bellies and sticky fingers, we headed home to lick our wounds, refreshing the US gov website every second.

Quote of the week

“I’m hotter than her, right?” overheard at the Chateau

Random thoughts of the week

Are writers ever meant to enjoy writing?

Would I actually wear that back home?

Should I let my hair go grey?