Trying Therapy Again
After a few weeks of thought, and the support of my lovely spouse, I decided to actually try therapy again. I’m not anywhere near crisis, but we’ve been under prolonged stress at work and with the house. Plus I feel like I’m stuck in a rut when it comes to dealing with issues that are becoming more pressing as time marches on and everyone is getting older.
The last time I went to a therapist was over a decade ago and it wasn’t a great experience. It wasn’t a good fit, and I was in a place where I could not take the strain of finding another therapist. I wasn’t strong enough to realize that the problem wasn’t me. This time I am so happy to have found a therapist that is a good fit, and already it’s been helping to talk to someone and to get objective feedback.
If you’re struggling, don’t give up. Even if the first bit of help you find doesn’t work out. Things do get better, even if it feels like they never will. Hang in there.
The Dark Side of Fame
Kenneth Anger’s Hollywood Babylon is a book you’ve probably heard of if you’ve ever had an interest in the darker side of fame in the early and peak days of Hollywood. If you’re like me, you also used to watch the TV show of the same name that was hosted by Tony Curtis.
Hollywood Babylon was marketed as the shocking tell-all that named names and spilled every single cup of tea in a ten-thousand-mile radius of Los Angeles. The chapters are short and snappy scandalous recountings of everything from car accidents to studio shenanigans to outrageous directors to murders to suicides. It’s all here and it makes for some very compulsive reading.
Is this literature? Well, no. But if you want an easy, entertaining read then you are in for a treat.
The Fact and The Fiction
There’s one thing you have to remember if you decide to take this trip into the past of Hollywood mayhem. Most of the stories here? Not true. As in: ludicrously not true. Especially the part about the sex toy made of lead and apparently shaped like Rudolph Valentino.
If that hasn’t tipped you off, I’ll straight-up tell you bluntly that this book is for adults. Specifically, adults that can tolerate reading some very wild stories and not believing every word on the page. However, even if there’s not much in the way of facts here, these are the rumours that were circulating around golden age Hollywood and as well as being part of the harder look that the 1970s and 1980s were taking at the long-revered Hollywood studio system.
Photographs for the Win
I love just how many photographs this book includes. Every story is covered in photos of individuals, places, crime scenes, etc. Be aware that some of these photos could definitely be triggering and are adult content. Also be aware that, like the words, some of the pictures are also fiction — mislabelled or just not correct.
The photographs give the entire book the feeling of a tabloid and that brings me back to my grandparents’ sitting room where I used to read tabloids on the rug after my grandfather was finished with their crosswords.
A Good Weigh-In
This week has been construction chaos as our basement floor finally goes in again and the last bits of the other work are scheduled to be completed. I was not expecting Wesker to have a good weigh-in since she usually goes on a hunger strike when any part of her routine is upset.
I am so relieved and surprised and happy that she’s gained over 100g in the course of a week — an amount that I didn’t even think possible. She’s been good with taking her medicine and has been doing so much better.
