Vampires, Strudel, and California Dreaming

I don’t know why I keep thinking about California, I hate it, but it won’t leave me alone. In my California fantasy we have fuck-you money and live in a Spanish-style house in the LA area – not some giant compound, but a small house, all on one level, maybe two levels in part but it’s not huge, has a pool, preferably square or rectangular shaped but it would probably have to be kidney shaped, with an outdoor patio area with a wooden pergola with lots of shade. There would be grass and beautiful topiaries and roses because you have to have roses in California and maybe an orange tree. There would be fireplaces inside and tile floors and lead glass windows. I’d drive a small, very small, convertible, and James could drive whatever he wants. I’d take acting classes on Thursday nights from some washed-up actor who runs an acting school and we’d hang out with people like my friends Dave and Pauline, who are on the outskirts of the Hollywood scene, but still connected, but not like Brad Pitt asshole types. “You mean successful?” James laughed. “No, well, yes, but just not those vapid Hollywood losers,” I say. I’d take dance classes during the day and go to lunch a lot and eat California Cobb salads with avocado and I’d get pedicures all the time and drink iced coffee and tea from clear cups with a straw. I’d be bored in 10 minutes and regret all my choices.

I’m thinking about California because we are still figuring out our next move, and the map is wide open, waiting for the compass to show us the way, and California keeps butting in. Shut up California, I say, but California does not listen.

Eating strudel on top of the glacier in Kaprun, Austria

Last week we were driving to Austria and out of nowhere I started yelling “Vampires!” because we were driving through a remote European village that I sensed was full of vampires. It’s always relaxing for James when this happens. All the European ski towns are struggling this year because it’s too warm and there’s no snow but the place we went has a glacier so there was snow at the top of the mountain. Most of Europe was there. I took the gondola up with James and JW one day and had lunch and hung out with them in the snow before they took their runs, but other than that I mostly hung out in town, walking around the lake, admiring the swans and weaving my way through the narrow cobble stone streets in the village, looking at restaurant menus to see where we should get a reservation. Ski towns have such a weird vibe because they are totally dead all day, and don’t come to life until about 4pm when the aprés ski crowd comes down off the mountain. By 7pm the streets ring out with the sounds of Sweet Caroline.

You can’t tell me this town isn’t teeming with vampires.

We drove home from Austria all in one go, 11 hours of driving, all done by James because I don’t drive here. We listened to The Picture of Dorian Gray the entire way home, and had to sit in front of the house in the rental car in the rain, the remnants of storm Louis, listening to the last two minutes. I read it in college but didn’t remember it well, and it struck me as the perfect book to steal and remake in a modern setting. My smart friend Gaby pointed out this had been done by Will Self in the ‘90s and now I think I’ll have to find it and read it. She also said she was surprised it wasn’t done again during the prime influencer era and made the connection between influencers and Dandys, which I thought was insightful and brilliant, the way Gaby is always insightful and brilliant.

The servers always assume I’m the one who ordered the salad or delicate fish, but nope.

We spent the weekend unpacking, doing laundry and putting the house in order. James and I biked to the Saturday market, checked on Shrimpy, who survived storm Louis just fine, and James and JW made blackened sea bass with mashed potatoes and broccolini for dinner. We tried to watch Troy: Fall of a City on Netflix but it opened with a sex scene that was too awkward to watch over sea bass and broccolini with our teenager so we landed on the 2004 Troy starring Brad Pitt, Diane Kruger, Eric Bana, Orlando Bloom, Rose Byrne, Sean Bean, Brendan Gleeson, Brian Cox, Peter O’Toole and Saffron Burrows, who I was delighted to discover via google is a lesbian, and I feel like that is not well enough known and the lesbians should make a bigger deal of that.

It took us forever to get through it because we had to keep pausing so I could make James and JW explain time to me “How many years was this before the fall of Rome? How long before Jesus was born? Was Egypt involved? How many years is 3,000 years? How many generations is 1,200 years?" Also, JW, who knows everything about Greek Mythology, gave us the blow by blow after each scene. It takes a long time for us to get through a movie together with all the pausing, googling and analyzing. Also, I had to explain Brad Pitt acting to them. Brad Pitt acting is Brad Pitt waking up hungover and brooding in a pile of naked women, spitting things, eating things. There is a tremendous amount of Brad Pitt acting in Troy. I entertained myself by narrating everything that is happening during the movie, which James and JW find delightful. “Breezus stabbed Abdermemnon!” I shouted like I was drunk or had marbles in my mouth, neither of which was the case, I was just lazy and excited at the same time, similar to the time I declared we should move to Key West “Like Ermest Hermingway!” and James replied it sounded like I’d been drinking like Ermest Hermingway.

Perhaps we will move to Key West.