Imaginary Socialite

I rarely get manicures, because I feel like if someone should get pleasure from peeling my skin, it should be me.

But when I got to Hollywood, I forgot to pack polish. Also: I was bored and I wanted to sit down. I’d walked for five miles. On purpose, I mean, I really just wanted a nice long hike. But then someone told me that if you walk in LA, people think you’re homeless, so I immediately strolled to the Marc store and bought jeans. I figured if a designer shopping bag chafed my back, it would scream “New Yorker” and not “despondent.” Although I think the kids in LA consider them the same thing.

The manicure was fine. But the girl next to me really wasn’t. She and her nail guru were bonding over their uneven breast implants. The manicurist kept chirping, “You have to push it down; you have to massage it!” Then she reached over her table and demonstrated. On her client’s fake boobs.

Perhaps this was the least of the issues. The girl’s boobs were fake – cantaloupe fake. The hair was acrylic. The nails were plastic. The nose was shaved into her skull. Don’t get me started on the “Gucci” purse.

Despite myself, I got a little obsessed. I couldn’t help it. I looked at this girl’s license when she opened her wallet. She was 26. She looked like she was 40. I wanted to ask her “why?” I wanted to ask her, “Who pays for your synthetic cheek bones?” I wanted to ask her everything but I was afraid if I opened my mouth, it would be way too obvious that I was horrified.

Instead, I turned back to my manicurist. She held up my freshly painted nails and announced, “Now you are so pretty!”

I looked at the girl next to me. For whatever sick reason, it made it easier to believe that maybe my manicurist was right. Maybe I really was pretty. I spent the rest of the day in bright sunshine.

Disclaimer: If I am not actually pretty, that’s fine. It was a $15 manicure and they used Chanel Jade polish. Still totally worth it.

[OLYMPIA CAMPBELL - AM I THE IMAGINARY SOCIALITE?]

[EMAIL ME - IMAGINARYSOCIALITE@GMAIL.COM]

I keep my feet on solid ground

And use my wings when storms come around

I keep my feet on solid ground

You’re free but in your mind.

[AMY HERZOG - AM I THE IMAGINARY SOCIALITE?]

“You’re really nice,” she says, right before she offers me two bags of cocaine “because I quit but I still have some, because I just stole it from my friends, because they should quit, too.”

Circular logic. Love it.

I look at her and say, “Why would you spend money on drugs when you could get the new Celine bag?” and then I explain that 1) I don’t do drugs; I mean, I can barely do Pilates. 2) I am not nice; I am good.

Things nice people do: Give hourly compliments. Write Christmas cards. Say “nice to see you” if they don’t remember your name. I usually won’t do any of these things. I’d rather not; anyway.

Being good is a different story. Being good is having faith that if you react as best you can, whenever you can, it might help the darkness and the light fall in line with each other. This has nothing to do with whether or not you have patience for everyone and everything that thinks it needs your time. This has nothing to do with whether or not you send thank you notes. At least, I hope it doesn’t, since I suck at those.

Last weekend, I crashed into this girl. Her existence makes me a ghost, but it’s not her fault – as usual, it’s about a guy, and a bed, and a lie, and the way feelings lace your gut like smoke from the cigarette you swore you wouldn’t have.

My heart stabbed my ribs for about five minutes, and once I could breathe I was grateful for The Good, or the belief that it can exist, somewhere, everywhere, if you try to clamp it close.

I think that’s what got me through it. Well, either that or the vodka. Who can tell when Fleetwood Mack is playing so loud…

[DANIELLA VITALE - AM I THE IMAGINARY SOCIALITE?]

[EMAIL ME - IMAGINARYSOCIALITE@GMAIL.COM]

Like most people who know me too well, he moved to Calfornia.

People asked if I was sad, and I said, “Not really.” They thought it was because he’d kissed my friend, in front of me, on Nicholas Routzen’s couch.

No, actually, because I was kissing someone else, at the same time, on Nicholas Routzen’s roof. The real reason is because, this one time, we were smoking on my bed. “This one time” means “my birthday,” and “my bed” means “downstairs when everyone else – like thirty people – were upstairs.” Horribly rude, right? I can’t argue.

And while we were on my bed, I stretched my cheeks across his shoulder and looked him dead in the heart. “Here’s our problem,” I growled, and I told him everything that would make him happier. And everything that would make me greater. And a slew of magic words that pressed through cherry chapstick like an incantation, or an order, or a truth. We let it sink into the sheets, this new and heightened revelation. We played records on the floor. We smeared glitter on each other’s faces. We fell, in a graceless “thud” off the bed. We laughed so hard I couldn’t feel my lungs. And then the door banged hard and I was like, “Okay, let’s go.”
The next day, he called me.

“Do you remember what you said? The important stuff.”

I didn’t. “Me neither,” he sighed. But we both agreed it was the most fun we’d ever had with each other, ever.

Then he packed his stuff and drove away. And I said, “No more smoking anything, ever.” Sometimes I break the rule, hoping a little bit of poison can make me hack up something gorgeous from my guts. But usually, I can stretch out on my covers and realize my hair isn’t tangled from someone else’s hands, and that’s enough.

[MICHAEL FRIEDMAN - AM I THE IMAGINARY SOCIALITE?]