When I was about 19, I got a job hostessing at a fancy restaurant on South Congress. I was always second in command and almost always the girl who closed, because everyone knew that I was bad at running the book, but good at showing up. I liked that job. Good restaurants feel like sex, and feel like sex in that permeable, evanescent way that some things just do. I have always loved the way that certain restaurants and bars smell, like pink soap and rubber mats that have absorbed infinite spilled beer. People would sneak me drinks even though I was underage, and the chefs would give me little bites of pastas and bresaolas. I wore my fanciest outfits and this particular fushia Revlon lipstick that I can still almost taste. It was sticky. I was trying to be grown. My favorite dress in that particular phase was silver and embroidered. Wearing it made me feel like the moon. I wore heels to work, which now seems improbable, but that’s what I remember. Lucy told me many years later, that my theory at the time was that looking nice was a gift you give both to yourself and to other people. I forgot about that. I had more time then. In retrospect, Lucy told me that everyone at that restaurant was doing cocaine all the time, but I was so young and naive, and they were all so kind, that this was kept hidden from me. Years later it occurred to me that this was why one waiter was always sniffing. I just thought he had allergies.
The other day I drove by the old house of a friend with whom my friendship has deteriorated. I felt nothing. Someone told me that Jason lives in the house we lived in on 30th Street now. The labels I had made for rice and beans in the pantry are all apparently still intact. I have no recollection of putting them there in the first place. I feel the past ripple back and forth all the time, in conversation with me as I am now. I always look forward to the month of June because it feels like a puff of cloud, like something free and escaped. A month that never really mattered.
The only goal, ever, is to get the corniness out. While we were recording my song I kept asking Dan, is it corny, is it corny? In a way I don’t really even care if anything I make is “good” or “bad” but the crusade against corniness is really at the crux of the eternal pursuit.
My new book, Father Sky is out this week. I wrote it mostly before the house burned down. Reading it feels like visiting a friend, I both am and am not her still. Often I feel all my different past selves as if they are Russian dolls, all stacked one inside the other. The book was written (on my phone!) over the course of a very transformational summer. The title came first. I felt often as if I was hurtling towards something, trying to find the missing piece. Ideas about karma and destiny and free will have always been especially disturbing and interesting to me. Is it god or is it me?! Do I choose my life or does my life choose me? The poems are about Los Angeles, about listening to the radio, about loneliness and horniness, about looking and finding. Two of the poems are about fire and were written prior to my house burning down (chilling!) I felt very in touch with my subconscious mind at the time, automatic writing I guess… a very satisfying experience. The process was very affirming in the sense that I felt very connected to myself creatively, and felt a real appreciation that moments spent waiting or scrolling, could instead be utilized as an opportunity to both look around and also within.
You can purchase a copy here if you are so inclined.
I swam in the river this week, and it was baptismal. The book is the last item from my previous life, putting this out feels like letting go. If you happen to be in Austin, please come to the release party at Strangelove Bar & Cafe tonight. I’ll be reading alongside
and , with music from Claire Glass. Yay.
mia frances wrote this fabulous piece on Lanolin on her Substack this week.
I loved this piece on AI from
Will AI finally force us to look in the mirror?
Notes From Auntie's Desk by Marjon Carlos is one of my favorite fashion writers and I saw the other day that her publication is on the leaderboard, heavily recommend you subscribe. She’s a great interviewer with a fabulous guest lineup on her podcast as well.
If you haven't already, you can follow my Diary of Alma Jette playlist here, featuring everything I am obsessed with lately and talk about during my weekly Instant Winner vlog/pod etc etc. Yeah the first song is from everyone’s favorite indie freak wunderboi Cameron Winter…My taste is everyone’s taste and that is fucking fine as far as I’m concerned:
Finally, here’s a poem from the book. Another one down. Thanks for being here.
Yours,
Alma Jette (Mary)