Black Swans: Stories

by Eve Babitz

And people who had always thought he was a terrible phony suddenly saw that he was sensitive and kind—which, when a guy is six-foot-three and arrogant, is a nice change.

I guess that is what they mean by “character” on the East Coast: leaving summer behind.

(Actually, it was great sex, in an Edgar Allan Poe kind of way.)

Disgusting

There’s one thing about being in a bad relationship for longer than you should just for sex: when you get out, all you can think about is sex, and my advice to you is—for great sex, get a vibrator (or do it yourself), and remember how fabulous it was; don’t go trying to get the person back,

TRUEEE

Hollywood, after all, is the home of those whom silent star Mae Murray called the “self-enchanted.”

age is disaster.

Pretty much

I have found that malls are an acquired taste, like anchovies, and just as I’m beginning to think they’re not that bad, they’ve become something of the past.

I liked things—even men—who were kind of decrepit and had some elements of falling apart–ness,

"i can fix him" mentality... Same tho girl

even though he was married.

Like damn can she ever get enough of married men

The land of self-enchantment had, once more, upheld its end of the deal—to be there for those willing to stay.

“So you came here?” I asked. I couldn’t believe yet another person was coming to L.A. to be disillusioned. Will they never stop?

I didn’t do a single thing any woman could do: never married, had children, got divorced, went through houses, even universities I avoided like the plague. And yet, here we both were, me in my same neighborhood from childhood, him back where he was born, native Californians, the kind who are never disillusioned by L.A. because it’s always what we expect.

Especially the kind of love we used to feel when we were young, the kind we wish we could feel again for someone new.

I remember trying to look jaded and world-weary and decadent—to make myself look “interesting”—but it never worked; I was always scaring the timid junkies with my radiant molecules.

(Getting a job didn’t occur to me.)

Me tbh

wanted to look up to and admire men, not be like Joan Didion, whose writing scared the hell out of most of the men I knew.

ok damn 😭

I thought if I couldn’t be Joan, then I’d have to be dowdy and/or crazy, like Virginia Woolf.

Wow

I used to think L.A. was the greatest place on earth (now I think Miami is),

Ok… right.

I thought maybe I should be a lesbian; at least with women you couldn’t say things that made them that mad.

Hm

the thing to do was to be a black swan myself. Stick to my own kind—freakish, beautiful outsiders. Become art, not decoration—which was what Walter wanted, decoration.

I knew everyone would be glad for me except the one man I actually loved. It was just like life to be that way.

I may have been a product of the sixties but one thing I knew: you didn’t ever fuck people’s friends.