only bad witches are ugly

and LA coffee scenes

Good morning! It’s Black Friday. I wish that meant something. Black Friday does not exist like it used to (much like everything in the world) and so here we are on just a normal day, with the same weekly text messages I get from the Gap telling me that everything is 60% off, and if I don’t act now, I should probably just unalive myself.

How was your Thanksgiving? Mine wasn’t particularly sad or filled with conflict so I am calling that a success. Not that there are usually family members who bring me conflict, for it is usually I who brings it. Same applies to the sadness. I made a pie that was delicious with one major caveat; the crust was 100% raw. And not in a healthy wellness influencer type of way, but in a “this is raw dough” kind of way. It was a sesame tahini pumpkin pie and, by the way, when I told my family about it via facetime they cringed. And no they weren’t cringing at the raw crust, they know usually when I cook something, some part of it will be raw. (I’ll never forget watching my Mom bite into a hard boiled egg I made that was…well…also raw.) They were actually cringing at my use of the word tahini in the context of a desert. (Midwesterners!) Anyways they are wrong about their cringe, because the pie was delicious, and it will be even better when it has crust.

I also made green beans and cranberry sauce and we picked up some of the other parts of a Thanksgiving meal at erewhon. I pictured erewhon being empty on Thanksgiving and that I could pretend I lived in a small town that just so happened to have an empty erewhon in it. It was not like that. I swear it was the most worst chaos-iest I’ve ever seen it. It was so bad in there it made my pelvic floor clench and burn and so I decided next year I’ll cook more.

This morning I woke up feeling like I wanted to “live a life” and usually that just means “go to a coffee shop.” I decided to go to Canyon Coffee which clearly has its own universe full of storylines and cast members that I am so not aware of, but wish that I was. (Secretly!) No but seriously it’s crazy in there. It’s like one of three coffee shops in this whole city that is always crowded and busy, but instead of the other busy ones that usually have lines filled with tourists and teenage girls, this place is flourishing with Echo Park regulars. I don’t know who they are or what they do or why they wear cool outfits. It makes me wish there was a scene like this when I was little.* (*in my 20s alone reading scripts in an empty Pinkberry.) Anyways if anyone reading this knows more about the cool/uncool scene at Canyon Coffee, let me know. I fear the answer is just that it’s filled with rich kid losers, as that is typically the answer when you are asking about a group of young people in Los Angeles, unless you have stumbled upon something super rare and special.

We watched a little Wizard of Oz last night and I was reminded of a few favorite moments. I was also shocked at how the whole premise of the movie is that some rich lady wants to kill Toto? Like why is everything so scary?? Anyways, I always love that there is something in Munckinland called “The Lollipop Guild.” I feel like if I were on a first date I would tell my date that I belong to this guild and that I can’t tell him too much about it and we should probably change the topic of conversation.

More importantly, Glinda says something that is so outrageously nasty, but it is said with such grace, that it is the funniest moment I’ve never laughed at until last night. When Dorothy looks at Glinda and says something super nice like “How can you be a witch because you’re not ugly?” Glinda hits her with the perky delivery of a nasty truth: “Only bad witches are ugly.”

And even though Glinda isn’t exactly an LA hot girl, I think she’s right.

Let’s all good witch our way into being pretty this weekend,

Esther