Catie Disabato's Blog, page 6

ALL THE BARS IN LOS ANGELES, 11/9/15: Laurel Hardware Cocktails: the Vig and GangsterTotal:...

ALL THE BARS IN LOS ANGELES, 11/9/15: Laurel Hardware 

Cocktails: the Vig and Gangster
Total: $29

Cecilia said “let’s do an LA thing” but we had to meet in WeHo so I suggested Laurel Hardware.  I like Gangster, their watermelon cocktail, and Laurel Hardware has that nasty LA attitude that stings, so okay, we went.  I told her about my little parting of the ways with the Girl I’d Been Seeing and she was sympathetic and sweet.  Cecilia is the best to talk to in the event of a parting or a breakup or a fuckboy or a bitchy Hollywood dyke, because she feels it with you and tells you you’re beautiful with either her words or attitude or both.

She quoted for me the part of her book where she mentions me and we talked about how we always want to be talked about behind our backs.  She taught me a French word I don’t remember to use as a slur against the kind of woman who “never really got along with other girls” and wears makeup in a way that makes men say she’s not really into those girly things, while meanwhile she takes 60 minutes every day to make her hair look rumpled.  

We talked about ambition.  I am tired of pretending I don’t want what I want, that I’m not willing to claw upwards for it.  This morning, Sara and Louise and I talked through texts for Louise and Sara to send to their dudes who are being flakey.  No more pussyfooting around, we decided.  

ALL THE BARS IN LOS ANGELES, 11/5/15: Button Mash White Wine...

ALL THE BARS IN LOS ANGELES, 11/5/15: Button Mash 

White Wine (1)
Total: $8

When I arrived, Sara was standing with her friend Michelle and Michelle’s friend Kelsey at the pinball machines.  Sara wanted to play Tron pinball, I wanted a drink.  Button Mash is beer and wine only, so I got white wine in a glass that looked like a candle holder to me, but the water came in a glass with such a nice shape that I slipped it into my purse so I could have it in my home.  Michelle really liked that.

Button Mash is new and I’m suspicious of barcades.  I’m suspicious of new bars in general, wondering what they’ll be for me.  Sara and I took a turn around the main game room, assessing both the crowd (Echo Park people or out of towners? [Echo Park is the town, everything else in LA is outside it]) and the games.  The games are better at EightyTwo, the barcade near the good mall in Little Tokyo, but Sara and I both did really well at Galaga.  In the X-Men game you can play as Dazzler and you have two attack modes: regular and mutant power.

This turned into a bar review, didn’t it, even though I meant to talk about myself.  Before Button Mash, I went to Target and Home Depot, to return things my father had bought that I didn’t want and buy things I wanted but I didn’t need: two silver picture frames, a wooden (”wooden”) trash can for my bathroom, small candles in glass holders, a bigger candle scented Sea Salt & Ginger, a new Camelbak Eddy water bottle to replace my one that leaks, two laundry bags to wash my bras in, a foam roller which I’ll probably return because I can’t figure out how to use it to massage my back, a new and better pot for the big plant my father got me, a cactus, a pot for it, a box cutter.

The shopping and subsequent experience of having new objects soothed me, so by the time I got to Button Mash I was calm, chill.  But also, high enough on the endorphin rush of acquiring new things that it was almost inevitable that I’d slip something into my purse, it was just the water glass’s luck I spotted it first.  Later that night, Sara discovered that the old game machines were faulty enough that a lot of them had extra tokens in the change slot, so we made another loop of the game room, collecting free tokens free games free fun, and that felt as good as taking the water glass.

When I got home, alarmingly sober and awake despite the glass of wine, I spent some time getting the box cutter situated.  To make it work, you have to open its body with a screwdriver, situate one of the blades hidden inside into the little lever mechanism, and screw the body back together.  I spent about 20 minutes trying to figure out how to put the pieces together correctly, though the arrangement of shapes was so obvious that it really shouldn’t have taken me that long.  Once I figured it out, I had a mild feeling in the back of my mind that I should be ashamed I couldn’t figure it out fast, but that feeling went away quick.  I thought, good job champ, and went to bed.

I dislive Adriblahblah Grande but this perfect scene of...

I dislive Adriblahblah Grande but this perfect scene of television fills my heart with deep and unrelenting joy 

ALL THE BARS IN LOS ANGELES, 11/1/15: Hermosillo Club1 glass...

ALL THE BARS IN LOS ANGELES, 11/1/15: Hermosillo Club

1 glass of vinho verde for me, 5 beer samples for SaraTotal: $9, with tip

Something I’ve never said out loud is “I look like the babe on the Hermosillo Club sign.”  Something else I’ve never said out loud is “I’d look like the babe on the Hermosillo Club sign if I lost like 10 pounds.”

Hermosillo Club was actually my third drinking establishment of the night, after a beer and shot at Mandrake while I wrote, after two glasses of wine at L&E, the restaurant where Sara works.  In between the previous two, the Girl I’d Been Seeing and I broke things off.  Gently, maturely, but still.  I couldn’t keep my head off the bar at Hermosillo and not because I was drunk.  I was careful not to get drunk because I knew I’d cry if I did, I’ve cried in enough bars in this city.  Sara rubbed my back because maybe I told her or maybe she intuited that I always want my back rubbed.  

Yesterday I was better.  When I feel like I’m toxic, I have a jokey little mantra: I am Alex Mack, I am Alex Mack.  You see, when Alex Mack got covered in toxic waste, she turned into a Girl With Superpowers.  I’m not going to convince myself I’m not radioactive, but maybe if I trick myself the right way, I can make it feel powerful and constructive, I can zap things and turn into a sentient puddle, instead of destructive, corrosive, toxic, trash.

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ALL THE BARS IN SAN FRANCISCO I’m composing this on a...

ALL THE BARS IN SAN FRANCISCO

I’m composing this on a phone in the morning in a coffee place that also sells wine & beer. It’s hard to tell what is and isn’t a bar in San Francisco. If it sells wine and beer but has the vibes of a coffee shop and you go there at night to drink and watch people read from their books, what is that place?

Last night, Jetti, Katie, and I went to two places that were definitely bars (had a margarita with raspberries in it at one), one place that has the vibe and physical appearance of a diner but served only Italian food, and one of those coffee shop wine bar places.

Nate joined us at some point in the evening, it was the first time I’d seen him since he’d had his traumatic brain injury and I wanted to hug him a lot more than I did because I thought that would really freak everybody out. He seems okay, though, because he remembers me and I think he has a girlfriend or at least was on a date.

Sometimes in the Bay I try to look “really LA” with the intention of seeming kind of like an alien or “out there.” This visit, I’m over-stimulated and skittish, so instead of wearing my dresses and tall wedges, I wore my black jeans and mules that are so worn out they’re falling apart under my feet. Also to blend, I didn’t wear any makeup.

"I also treated my severe chronic depression like a joke. What I mean by this is that I didn’t take..."

“

I also treated my severe chronic depression like a joke.  What I mean by this is that I didn’t take it seriously. I didn’t do anything about it for a very long time, and when someone tried to talk to me about how I was, really, about my depression, a close friend or medical professional, maybe, I would almost always lie or change the subject, in a way I considered to be a ‘joke.’ But it wasn’t a joke, because my behavior was a. a deflection tactic, prima facie, and b. not funny.  If a friend asks how you are, and you say, “Fantastic!”, or worse, “You know, fantastic!”, relying on their ability to read between the lines and intuit that by “you know”  you mean “You know the nasty hoodie I call my “Darkness Visible” sweatshirt that never leaves my house? Well, I’ve been wearing it for 6 days straight,” you are not being funny.  

With acquaintances and strangers it was much worse. “Ha ha!” I’d think.  “This person doesn’t know that by ‘Fantastic!’ I mean, ‘I feel like I want to die 7 out of every 10 seconds!’  What a hilarious brilliant use of irony! God, I’m funny!”

”

- Ruth just nails it.  (via zanopticon)

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Catie Disabato

Top sheets are bullshit, all they do is get fucking tangled up by your feet and take up space in your washing machine. You spend $1.75 for a wash (with the extra rinse, which is worth it) and $1.00 to dry, you don’t deserve a fucking top sheet taking up space and energy. Also, think of the water wasted. We’re in a drought. Also, you live alone and sheets are a bitch to fold by yourself.

Live a penny-free lifestyle. Take all your remaining pennies to the Von’s on Alvarado, unarguably the worst grocery store in your neighborhood, and put them in the coin star. You’ll get about $2.37 in credit which you can redeem for cash or put towards the plastic container of raspberries that you know will taste lifeless but you can’t resist buying. Now that all your pennies are gone, don’t take in any new pennies. If anyone tries to hand you a penny, give it back or leave it on a counter or in a tip jar.

ALL THE BARS IN LOS ANGELES, 9/29/15: Bar BandiniA new bar in an old space with the same old...

ALL THE BARS IN LOS ANGELES, 9/29/15: Bar Bandini

A new bar in an old space with the same old liquor license: beer & wine only.  Sara and I drank white wine on tap, hers was something called like “Texas Girl” and mine was like “Workbook.”  

I used to go to Bar Bandini when it was City Sip.  City Sip was always empty.  I’d sit at one of the high top tables with my friend Claire and sometimes her boyfriend, and we’d talk about writing or sometimes about how bad we felt.

Afterwards, I’d worry I talked too much. Claire always dressed like a Summer Witch, years and years before it was popular to dress like a Summer Witch.  When the trend reached a fever pitch this summer, it took me a while to realize it was a New Thing. 

To make the space new, they knocked big holes in the walls in the front and back, to let the air in, but there’s no outside area to lounge in with your wine glasses.  You can sit adjacent to the outdoors but not within it.

ALL THE BARS IN LOS ANGELES, 9/26/15: Tenants of the Trees 1...

ALL THE BARS IN LOS ANGELES, 9/26/15: Tenants of the Trees 

1 margarita for Alex, 1 banana cocktail thingy Total: $30ish

I experienced no music, film, art, or cuisine - just cocktails in a really very cool outdoor area and Alex in her birthday blazer which is covered in sequins.  I ran into my friend Carr (who is really the cousin of a friend) and Sara charmed him and looked down his shirt to check out his nipples (they’re brown) but didn’t unbutton it to make the whole operation easier because Sara is a Lady.  

This bar is in Silverlake nestled between the Trader Joe’s and the Trader Joe’s parking lot so Alicia and I kept calling it Trader Joe’s which is a catchier name than Tenants of the Trees but definitely not in line with the vibe the proprietors of this establishment are putting forward.

The aesthetics are Silverlake but the vibe is Hollywood, with a gold velvet rope blocking the entrance and a man at the door asking me what i was there for and another man blocking the entrance to a VIP room that was empty and ghostly when he let us take a peak.  They are open at 4pm on Sundays.  I want to go back and have a cocktail under the tree in the sun and leave before the Hollywood Bullshit takes over.