purified

my 40-day gauntlet run between self-help and pursuit of the divine

HEAR YE, HEAR YE: I GAVE UP ALCOHOL FOR LENT.

Here’s how it went.

Day 2: I let Gracie drink two pitchers of sangria by herself

I expect an after-school-special level of peer pressure when I show up to the weekly dinner at Toi, in which Gracie and I usually down about a pitcher of sangria each. But Gracie is supportive of my Lenten sacrifice. I drink two Diet Cokes with ice crushed so small little pieces fly up my straw. Diane and her friend, Chris, round out the party. The waiter doesn’t take our food orders for two hours. Our favorite waiter, Lonzo, is cold to us. He usually chats it up and comps us a few drinks. We wonder what’s afoot.

Having just worked a twelve-hour shift, Gracie sticks a straw directly into the sangria pitcher. Driving home, I pull up beside her car on Hollywood Boulevard. She’s in the left lane to turn onto Highland, and I’m going on straight. Her windows are down. She’s smoking and smiling to a song by Fat Evil Children. I try to get her attention, but she doesn’t hear me. I won’t be able to feel like that for forty days. Well, thirty-eight.

Day 5: A stranger tries to get me fired

I sleep terribly the night before my barista shift. I wake up every hour between midnight and my 4:15 a.m. alarm in sweat and panic. I have a premonition on the way to the shop that this day will be bad for me.

While the sun is still rising, two ladies come in to order. They speak meanderingly amongst themselves, so I have difficulty parsing their orders. I have to ask them a few clarifying questions.

As their drinks are being made, one of the ladies goes to tap my boss’ elbow. I pick up snippets like “that person,” “power trip,” and “worst experience of my life.” She storms out with her almond vanilla latte and my boss asks me to explain myself.

“I was just taking her order,” is my only defense. This can’t keep being my life.

Day 7: I journal about it

I feel a bit bad, like I’m doing this for the wrong reasons. But isn’t any religious thing ultimately selfish? All this purification “for the glory of God” — isn’t it all for you? Isn’t it all about feeling better about yourself.

Day 10: I want to quit

I walk around Echo Park for the first time in months. It’s a grotesque 90 degrees out, but I make it three laps around the lake. I call my mom, who says she only has five minutes, then talks to me for an hour. I find myself crying when I tell her about the lady who tried to get me fired from the coffee shop. It’s not really about her.

God, I don’t really want to be an actor. Do I?

No. I don’t like this life. I’m done telling other people’s dumb stories. I want to tell mine.

Day 11: I answer the call

I feel like hell all day. I don’t sleep enough, and I’m almost dizzy on my drive home from my barista shift. I nap like a rock all afternoon, then finally shower and buy toilet paper. I’m head-locked in a doomscrolling binge when Andy calls.

He just wanted to say hi. He just moved back to Chicago after a season in Michigan. He’s about to get back to work on the boats.

We talk about wondering where to go, how to live. Andy says he’s growing tired of the violence of city life. I tell him I understand. We talk about road trips and the beauty of American landmass. Andy tells me about a live whale he saw in San Francisco and the Blue Whale of Catoosa, which he saw in Oklahoma. I tell him about the regulars at my coffee shop. Andy’s number one goal before September is to get a canoe. He wants to take his canoe to the Chicago River with a couple beers and go fishing. I think that sounds awfully nice.

Day 12: I watch a movie at the office

I really want a drink. I want a drink so bad. The end of the workday hits and I can’t go home right away; it would take me two hours in this traffic and my roommate has a guest over for dinner anyway. A couple blocks from here, there’s a Polish restaurant with a happy hour. Heavy pours of red wine and little plates of pierogi. Historically, they’ve let me sit there with my book and my small order for as long as I like. Tonight, this cannot be.

So, I pivot. I walk to Vons and get sushi sans chopsticks or soy sauce, because they’re out of both. I select a can of cold brew and a homeless man beside me mutters, “Gotta stay awake.” I bring these back to my empty office and watch Darling (1965) on my laptop, knitting while I watch it. The drive home only takes 30 minutes by the time I finally get on the road. I feel fine, I guess.

Day 16: I treat myself to breakfast

I wake up without proper food in my fridge. I go to the Kitchen Mouse Cafe for breakfast. I take my novel and my notebook. I read and I eat my food, then I write and nurse my bottomless coffee. Everybody around me is eating beside a date or a baby. It’s Saturday morning. This means a clean break to most people.

Beside me, a sweet-voiced millennial in a denim jumpsuit tries to guide her mother through a nice meal together. It breaks my heart. She tells her mother over and over again to stay there, she’ll order the food at the counter. Once she finishes with that, she reminds her mother over and over that the staff will bring the food out to the table. At one point, she says, “August 17, the day I was born,” as if her mother hadn’t been there on August 17, the day she was born.

I want to say something encouraging to the daughter. I could tear a page out of my notebook, slip her a few encouraging words on my way out, but I don’t. All I know about dementia is that you can never mourn the loss. You’re too confused about when the loss really happened.

It happened at breakfast on Saturday, while we waited for the pancakes.

Sunday 3: I cry on cue

Mere days after making a big stink about quitting acting, I read the leading role in an informal workshop of a new play. I do this for the love of the game. Peyton wrote the role for herself, and she’d only asked me to read it this time to provide her with a fresh playwright’s perspective.

I am nervous when I arrive. I greet Peyton’s other friends, mostly strangers to me. I am relieved when KP and Beaux finally turn up with the coffee.

The show’s climactic moment is a long speech, and I feel tears welling as I barrel through it. I let them fall. I feel embarrassed and perversely proud about the dramatics. I’ve never really cried while acting before. I hope I am coming across as emotionally available, not self-indulgent. This is an experiment in guerrilla therapy.

Day 17: From sea to shining sea

In New York, people ask me why I am here. I shrug and say, “Just hanging out.” The people say, “Oh.”

I’m visiting Charlotte, I suppose. She and Roman are kind enough to let me stay at theirs. I have plans to catch up with my other New York friends, too. All of them are from incredibly random junctures of my life. My hometown, L.A., the woods.

I’m here because I need to be somewhere else.

Day 18: FAILURE

The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. Truthfully, though: the spirit isn’t all that willing.

I feel personally responsible for bringing spring to New York. Halfway through the day, I text Keiva, “the big apple wants me to get a cocktail so bad.” Keiva says, “God grants forgiveness.”

Soon after, Charlotte texts, “Honestly dimes square area might be Europe in this weather.” I meet her at Clandestino.

I don’t mention to Charlotte that I’m giving up drinking for Lent. I don’t even try to bring it up. When the bartender looks at me expectantly, I point at Charlotte’s glass and order a martini. “Like hers,” I say.

I only have the one drink. I don’t feel guilty about it, nor do I feel particularly giddy. This is not my real life. This is what life could be if I were somebody else. Could I be?

Day 19: When in Rome…

I tell Sophia about my Lenten experiment as we’re about to order a second drink. Irish coffee fades into grapefruit margarita. She feels guilty at first, so I reassure her: I don’t feel bad about this. We’re at Forgtmenot, just around the corner from where I was with Charlotte the night before. Sophia gestures out the window. “When in Rome,” she laughs. Exactly.

This day is more draining. Up too early to meet Caitlin for coffee, then I’ve got to see Alayna in Times Square. Then, back to Brooklyn again to do my Zoom interview. It goes well, I think. I try to chill for a spell on the air mattress, but I’m thinking too hard about what would happen if I got the job. I procure a vegan bagel sandwich. I ride the subway aimlessly. Killing time is a delicate art, and I find myself teetering on the wrong side of the line. My head pounds and I wonder again what to do, what to do. Dinner with Sophia is the best part.

My phone is almost dead on my final trek back to Charlotte’s. I hear noises like little snaps; these are raindrops. I feel them slight on my face. I stop inside a corner store for a pack of gum and a Twix ice cream bar. This was my order the last time I was about to leave New York. I was wandering around and stalling, wondering what to do. I felt like I had fewer options then. Now, the world is cracked open.

Day 21: Jesse Plemmons spotted in Burbank

I dutifully meet Peyton for coffee, even though I’d rather sleep forever. It’s hotter in L.A. than I remember. It’s bright and quiet in the Valley. It’s comforting and stale now, the way my hometown feels.

When I told people I was quitting acting in New York, they cheered for me, and I cheered up. So many other exciting paths to take. When I tell Peyton, she gives me the actor’s smile and reminds me I can always go back to it. I ask her about writing; I need to know how to finish a script because I can never seem to finish anything. She talks and I listen, and the sun rises higher, hotter, brighter.

Jesse Plemmons walks into the coffee shop halfway through our conversation, and everyone notices. Whispering to ourselves or risking furtive, greedy glances. He’s still sitting on the patio when Peyton and I leave, and we pass him within inches. He is wearing Raising Cane’s socks. At other tables sit prim girls younger than me, little cherubs highlighting lines in their scripts. I feel like I am made of another substance entirely.

Day 23: I wanna live!

Going to the dentist is an act of radical self-care. I haven’t gone in three years, and I’m afraid of what they’ll find in there. They kindly clean my teeth without asking any prying questions. My gums need some work, but — no cavities! Back in my car, I bare my teeth at the mirror in victory. I want to smile at everything.

Drewes meets me at Walt’s. He gets a beer and offers me a sip. I decline the beer, but I do sample the Mexican Coke he orders next. We stroll over to Vidiots for the 7:30 p.m. showing of After Hours (1985). I had no idea this movie would be so good. I’m laughing and the crowd’s laughing and this is what living is for.

We go to the Astro diner after the movie. We both have coffee and Drewes orders a slice of pecan pie a la mode. Drewes considers his first bite of pie. He decides that his recipe is superior.

We brainstorm our own conceivable After Hours scenarios. I posit that Drewes would drive out to the wrong address and end up getting married in Vegas. Drewes suggests that I would hide out in a nightclub to escape an angry mob of theatre nerds. We aren’t the only ones in the diner, but we are the loudest ones. I see a guy sitting at the counter with his laptop and I think distantly that I should come here with my laptop at some odd hour sometime.

Saying goodbye, Drewes is sincere when he tells me he wants me to stay in L.A. After tonight, I want to stay, too.

I sleep like a baby, even after all the coffee.

Day 25: The everlasting workday

I’ve done this a few times over the past year: a workday that lasts from 5:30 in the morning until 6 (or 7 or 8) at night. I make it through, and my body somehow refuses to let me slip into the maroon haze of weak-minded, broken-backed horror. Miraculously.

I don’t have space for anything else on days like these. No personhood. The last time I worked an all-day, I pulled down some wine for a nightcap, to help me drift off faster and spring up quicker in the morning. No such cure tonight. I dream I’m at the coffee shop. Sometimes, I never escape.

Day 26: Lollapalooza

Tamia always has better luck, so it’s appropriate that she winds up securing a 4-day pass to Lollapalooza on my behalf while I’m suffocating in the purgatory of an online queue. I pay her back promptly via Venmo. Over FaceTime, we proclaim how wonderful it is to have something to look forward to again! Wow, we haven’t done this since 2019. Remember when we won that radio contest? That was crazy. Crazy that it actually happened. And all our other friends were there too. It was just one year after high school.

I spend the rest of the morning trying on clothes in the mirror.

Sunday 5: Beach day

I get to Santa Monica early. I only need to work the matinee, so I plan a beach day around the shift. I wait in a lethargic line to secure viennoiserie from Petitgrain. The man in front of me is actually French and has a rascally little daughter with him. I bring my baked goods to a park nearby and sit on a bench, reading more of Nausea. Sartre’s self-insert says, “I exist,” the same way Sylvia Plath’s self-insert says, “I am I am I am,” in The Bell Jar. I draw the parallel, but I don’t know what to conclude.

It is entirely too cold for the beach after my shift, so I go home and do my taxes instead. Which is fine, since I neglected to bring a towel anyway.

Day 29: Mai Tais in the wild

Keiva surprises me at work. She had an audition in Valley Village, so she stops by the café around eleven and reads for an hour until I’m free at noon. We go to Hanks for bagels and I feel my skin pinking under unaccustomed sun on the patio. Kate joins us. We walk around Ventura for a bit, stopping in Freakbeat Records and Psychic Eye. Everywhere I go, I see people I sell coffee to. Some of them won’t meet my eye; others try too keenly to catch it. Eventually, 4:00 p.m. rolls around and the tiki bars open. I make the sound-minded decision to cheat again on my Lenten commitment.

Over the next few hours I consume two Mai Tais, pick away at a platter of sushi nachos, and take some greedy bites of a scoop of fried ice cream. I’m gleaming. Alcohol unlocks an exclusive frequency. I love this conversation. I love these friends. I love this random restaurant and its chintzy decor. I love how I feel, who I am. I drive home with the windows down, smiling all the way.

Day 30: I get the job

I’ve been dreaming of a better life for a while. I’ve been imagining every possible solution. I just need to make more money, I just need to live somewhere else, I just need to find the love of my life so we can split every bill. I am at my desk in pigtails and a fraying sweater when I get the call. I dash out to take it in the stairwell. When I pick up, they offer me my first full-time job. With all the bells and whistles: the highest possible hourly rate for the role, health insurance, paid time off. I take it.

Immediately, everything will change. This will be a shift so seismic I wonder whether I’m not getting fooled. The tiniest part of me wonders, What if this is going to be bad for you? But the bigger part believes that it will be the best development yet.

Day 31: The worst bar in L.A.

I haven’t seen Gracie properly in about two weeks, so when she suggests we go find the worst bar in L.A. on a Wednesday night, I decide to break sobriety once more. After doing some fruitless internet research, I suggest places my Westside friends used to drag me to. We decide on the Scarlet Lady Saloon — which, coincidentally, has landed a spot on at least one Internet list for “worst bars in L.A.”

The bar’s empty enough for us to get a table, but not so empty that the pool table is ever unoccupied. The drinks are refreshingly cheap. We talk about Gracie’s trip to New York, then my trip to New York. It’s decided: Gracie’s going to move there in the summer, and I’m going to stay in L.A. We talk about the coffee shop, motivation, Uta Hagen, Bo Burnham, breaking silences across state lines. Eventually, I mention that I’m breaking my own rule, drinking here, now, with her. She begins to apologize, but I cut her off.

Through this experiment, I tell her, I’m learning that, unfortunately, life is better when I drink.

Conversations flow, pain disappears, I want to smile through the warmth, the sped flow of time. Call it a poison, call it a social crutch, call it a waste — it’s sacred to me. I’ll die anyway. I want to enjoy the living.

Sunday 6: Cupcakes from Ralph’s

It’s my final shift with J.P. He stops at Ralph’s and gets me a pack of the most processed cupcakes I’ve encountered since middle school. I thank him and take the extra one home with me. I stick a Post-It on the wall where we track out-of-pocket one-liners from patrons. I quote myself and write my dates of employment like a tombstone (Gaby, Oct. 2024- Mar. 2026). I tape it down on the top and bottom so it doesn’t float away. Remember me when you replace me.

Day 35: Soju and tulips

I am so geeked about leaving the coffee shop, my body wakes me up at 3:30 a.m. My roommate isn’t home, so I take advantage by banging all around the kitchen. I make myself my first cup of coffee, cook some eggs and toast for breakfast, and finish reading my novel.

I let a couple hours pass at work before writing “It’s my LAST DAY!” on a Post-It and taping it to my sweatshirt. I begin to get the attention I wanted. I see most of the regulars; they congratulate me. I see a lot of strangers, and they congratulate me too. A couple errant doomsayers tell me I’m making a mistake, but I know I’m not. Whatever gets me out of this goddamned awful hellhole cannot be a mistake. One dude I’ve never seen before tells me, “Keep the change”: the “change” is $30. When my jaw drops, he shrugs and says, “It’s your last day.”

Gracie replaces me at my post at noon, bringing me a bouquet of tulips, a bottle of plum soju, and a card. I clutch the gifts and a fistful of cash tips, grinning through sweat and coffee dust. I feel like Miss America. I’m free.

Day 36: Two cookies and a dozen Diet Cokes

Today is my final day at my favorite job. Jacob and Peyton are my comrades for the shift, a true dream team. Jacob presents me with a 12-pack of Diet Coke as my going-away present, then outdoes himself, proceeding to offer two brown butter chocolate chip cookies from the concession stand. Both gifts are more than welcome, obviously, but the cookies are a real local delicacy; the Infatuation just declared them the 5th best chocolate chip cookie in L.A.! I’m pleased as punch to cushion my last shift in such indulgence.

Unfortunately, everybody in the world decides to ring our line, so I don’t get as much of a chance to talk shit with my friends as I typically do. But I know we’ll hang out again soon. I had a good run here. I loved this job for a year and a half. This job made me feel legitimate. It was a refuge, a cornerstone, and a bucket of laughs. I would do this forever, if this moment in my life lasted forever. But it can’t, so I’ll move along.

Day 40: It’s Easter somewhere…

I do the mental gymnastics. By the time I have my first drink, it will be past midnight in other American time zones. Which means that, like 5 o’clock, it’s Easter somewhere. Easter, the end of my giving up.

We’re on another mission to find the worst bar in L.A. After a false start at Café Tondo, we pivot to Hollywood. Vodka lemonades and green tea shots at the Frolic Room. Then beers at Elbow Room. Then Denny’s.

In the parking lot at Denny’s, Gracie and I finally get to talking about the short. Not a hint of it existed a week ago, but I’m halfway done with a draft. I can see it in my mind. I want to direct it, I want Gracie to star. I feel wind beneath my wings. I love dirty Hollywood and its weirdo denizens. By this point, midnight has long since passed on the West Coast, and I can celebrate being free from my self-imposed chains. Rejoice, rejoice.

Sunday 7/Easter: Another end, another beginning

I spend Easter Sunday hungover in bed, mostly.

I guess this was never about drinking. I expected to write about my relationship with alcohol, but there’s absolutely nothing to say about it when you’re not having it. So, I wrote about everything else.

I accidentally captured a life-changing pocket of time. Maybe I would find a transformation anywhere if I tracked every 40 days in such detail, but something about this moment feels fated. When I was a child, I never understood spring. Now that I am grown, I know what it is to die and come to new life.

I’ve spent a lot of recent time considering spirals, orbits, seasons, cycles — coming back again to destiny. I’ve been craving a trip to the desert. Maybe my wish is to get away so that I have an excuse to dive back in. Here I am. This is how I go on.

It’s been two years since I last felt like breaking everything apart. Back then, rupture looked like breaking up, cutting my hair off, moving across the country with a whisper of a plan. Everything felt painful and iridescent and actual.

It’s like I just decided to move to L.A. again. This time around, commitment is the rupture. Without leaving the land, I’ve abandoned and returned to it countless times. But slaughter the calf now: the prodigal daughter is back.