Catie Disabato's Blog, page 3
January 11, 2016
I’m the lovely girl delicately licking the toilet but I am also...
I’m the lovely girl delicately licking the toilet but I am also the toilet
January 6, 2016
January 1, 2016
ALL THE BARS I’VE EVER BEEN TO, 12/31/15: Sunset Lounge at the Malliouhana HotelI’ve never stayed a...
ALL THE BARS I’VE EVER BEEN TO, 12/31/15: Sunset Lounge at the Malliouhana Hotel
I’ve never stayed a night in this hotel, but I know it, it’s a part of me. If there is any bar that is me, it’s this bar.
When when I was fourteen years old, I had my first drink from a bar here. I’ve never once called the Sunset Lounge, just the Malliouhana Bar. It overlooks the ocean.
My bartender, Devon, still works there. He has a little gray in his goatee, we’re both a little worse for the wear. He charged me for one glass of wine and poured me at least three. Nostalgia. He remembers me from when I was a little girl, he remembers always agreeing to serve me.
He remembers me throwing up in the adjacent bathroom. He remembers how Chris used to always buy me drinks and asked if I still know him. I don’t really.
Last week, I walked around in the swampy, post-apocalyptic remains of the area that used to be a play-place for kids at the hotel. They used to have a restaurant, a pool, and a plastic play area in the shape of a huge pirate ship. The first time I ever had sex it was with Chris in the plastic pirate ship, but it’s gone, it all drips away.
Back at the Malliouhana Bar at almost-midnight, I wore my littlest jean shorts and everyone else on the makeshift dance floor was still in their nice dresses from dinner. They played “Sorry” four times. I bought one glass of champagne for $20 and scavenged three others, mostly untouched, left for dead by other party goers and marooned on a serving tray abandoned behind a column.
The DJ didn’t keep track of time, so we didn’t count down to midnight. It just was midnight, suddenly, and the sky and ocean lit up with the four fireworks shows we could see from the balcony. 20 minutes later the DJs were supposed to be finished but they loved me and my siblings, their most enthusiastic dancers, so when I asked them to play “We Found Love In A Hopeless Place” they did.
December 31, 2015
December 27, 2015
I am the sweet morning vomiter who still makes it to breakfast,...
I am the sweet morning vomiter who still makes it to breakfast, just like I promised, even though everyone expected me not to make it, I did.
December 19, 2015
I’m your hungover untrustworthy upstairs neighbor who regrets...
I’m your hungover untrustworthy upstairs neighbor who regrets ever getting out of bed (not just today, but ever).
December 17, 2015
zanopticon:
And here it is, Tumblr: a cover, revealed.
A very...
And here it is, Tumblr: a cover, revealed.
A very partial list of things this book is about: the weirdness of growing up in Los Angeles, the pull of the ocean, the appeal of boy musicians, the desire to hear your own voice echoing, wanting things so much you end up destroying them, how complicated it is to have a family, and how complicated it is to love anyone, even and sometimes especially your own difficult self.
A SONG TO TAKE THE WORLD APART, 9/13/16. You can’t pre-order it yet, but you can add it on Goodreads if you want to keep track of it. (You can keep track of me right here, mostly, though there are other places.)
Zan’s got a cover!!!!!
December 16, 2015
December 8, 2015
zanopticon:
As usual, no one asked me what I read this year, but I’m here to tell you anyway, the...
As usual, no one asked me what I read this year, but I’m here to tell you anyway, the internet. Fifty three books so far, and only three of them by men. It’s not Ben Lerner’s fault that I read 10:04 in a haze of sunshine and bourbon and heartrending grief after my friend’s baby died, but let me tell you, being in the grip of intense, near-unbearable emotion really makes over-intellectualized novels-about-novels feel indulgent and, frankly, kind of cutesy. I mean really what I read this year was Ferrante, and the rest is fucking commentary. A. just texted me “I feel personally victimized by Nino Sarratore” and I wrote back GOD I KNOW RIGHT????
But the commentary was good commentary, mostly. I don’t mean to diminish it by saying it’s not Ferrante. What else could be? And as much as I admire her seclusion, her will to privacy and her confidence in the strength of her work, the idea that it doesn’t need her presence to communicate or succeed, I appreciate the women whose writing I’ve read this year who’ve also put themselves out there, on Twitter and Tumblr and whatever other social media, and guided me towards more women to read. That would be Sarah McCarry, who led me to May Lan-Tan and Sofia Samatar, and Emily Gould and Ruth Curry, who get credit for Chelsea Hodson, Maggie Nelson, Heidi Julavits, and Jillian Tamaki. Can you make a list about women and books and the internet and not say Rachel Fershleiser’s name? Rachel introduced me to Angela Flournoy and Rufi Thorpe. I forget who got me started on Rachel B. Glaser but Paulina and Fran was so great. Some of it just in the air, or whatever the internet version of that is: Claire Vaye Watkins, Kate Atkinson, Mira Jacob, Wendy Ortiz. I read Rebecca for the first time this year! Guys, it’s really good and weird!
The best, though, is the steadily growing stack of books by people I actually know, or have gotten to know since I read them. I went to college with Kate Hattemer and Becky Dinerstein and high school with Steph Cha. I’ve been slooooooowly interviewing Kevin Fanning about fanworks and creative work and “real work;” I wrote about Karolina Waclawiack’s first novel for Emily Books last year and have felt incredibly smug watching the rest of the world catch up to how good she is. I had dinner with Katie Coyle in San Francisco! And I’m so glad to have fellow pop cultural conspiracy theorist Catie Disabato on my bookshelf and in my phone.
It’s just cool, you know? I mean, I sold my book this year, and it’s the best and scariest thing that’s ever happened to me, the idea that very soon I’m going to have to stop fussing with it and let it out into the world where people will absolutely inevitably say cruel things about it. Someone is going to dash off some two-minute one star Goodreads review and I will read it, don’t tell me not to, I am definitely going to read it, and it is definitely going to break my heart. So it’s been especially nice to feel, this year, that I’m a part of a community of people who do this, who love this, who will understand that I’m trying, who have already survived the part where they opened up their tender selves and said, “here. I made this. This is for you.”
Oh ZAN oh ZAN I am thankful & so grateful all of her zan that is
ALL THE BARS IN LOS ANGELES, 12/8/15: Hyperion PublicGin & Soda (1)Total: $10I’m always...
ALL THE BARS IN LOS ANGELES, 12/8/15: Hyperion Public
Total: $10
I’m always meeting up with Ezra in bars that maybe we normally wouldn’t go to, for the sake of convenience. I never go to Hyperion Public normally. Ezra doesn’t live in the city and we’re always meeting up at the last minute, at the most convenient place.
Ezra and Ben were finishing their dinner when I pulled into the third wheel position on the long side of their two top. I ordered a gin & soda and heroically didn’t even think about stealing anyone’s leftover fries. I’ve known Ezra since my sophomore year of high school, so sitting near him makes me feel comfortable. We have wonderful conversations, and I enjoy their contents, but I also just like hearing his voice. The voices of people I’ve known forever (“forever”) are my favorite sounds, a river I could skate away on.
The threads of conversation brought us to Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, a movie I’ve been thinking about a lot lately in a personality quiz type of a way, Are You More of a Ferris or More of a Cameron? I used to think I was a Cameron (depressive, anxious, semi-willing third wheel to the dynamic universe) but lately I worry I’m more of a Ferris, his worst version, a black hole of attention love me love me love me and if you don’t, if you hate me, you better hate me with the intense dark blackness of an older sister. If you don’t tell me every day how intense your hate is for me, what good is your hate for anyway? If that’s all you have for me, give it to me, give it to me all the time, it belongs to me, give it.
