How to Murder Your Life

by Cat Marnell

I passed out to the Britney Spears Blackout album always looping in my head.

Yes, I’d totally fucked up my future. But wasn’t it lovely here off Amagansett? Didn’t I look fly in my Calvin Klein bikini, smoking Camel Lights?

I took a Lunesta; my dad woke me up at six. I trudged to the bathroom. My tan looked fantastic! I was ready for rehab.

I listed my triggers (carrot cake, deadlines, weight gain, mice, insomnia), studied relapse prevention, and learned dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) skills, which I liked because you could apply them to life, not just recovery. My favorite was “Teflon mind,” where you imagine your brain being like nonstick cookware: negative thoughts just slide right off.

But you know what they say: mo’ prescriptions, mo’ problems.

My first JanePratt.com Makeunder subject was Tinsley Mortimer, the girl-about-town known for her devotion to fuchsia Oscar de la Renta dresses (“I love a pouf,” she told me), platinum ringlets, and Barbie doll lipstick.