Love,
Anne
Oct 22 1983
Dear Sean,
I’m sitting in the penthouse apartment of some friends in Century City. It’s kind of late in the afternoon and I’m very relaxed. Someone gave me a Dalmane (I think I’ve spelled it right) because I had a headache and they told me it would help it. I feel very comfortable and relaxed right now. This is the first time I can remember since I was a kid that I am glad and content to be where I am. I don’t know if you have ever felt like this, but I’ve always felt very uncomfortable and impatient with wherever I happen to be after a certain point. I get bored and irritated and everything I think is in the future tense (maybe like the way you got up suddenly that night when we were all sitting in the Café and you looked at me and abruptly left). I’ve always felt jumpy, like I couldn’t stay in one place for any length of time. But something’s changing. Totally rad (short for “radical”), as we say around here.
This is not going to be much of a letter because we’re about to go out to dinner soon because someone made reservations at Spago and we’re leaving in an hour to an hour and a half, someone says. What I want to tell you mostly is that I’m thinking about you and I hope you are all right. Are you? Will you write me? I want to hear from you. Please?
Love,
Anne
Oct 29 1983
Dear Scan,
There’s something luxorious and wonderful about living in L.A. I feel like this is how I want to live forever. Every day there is some new adventure, some new person to talk to, different things to look at every night. This is the first time I’ve felt like I’ve found myself or something. Even during the worst moments I feel relaxed. Sometimes I get lonely but those moments are far and few between the other ones.
My relationships here with people aren’t tense or trying because no one requires a whole lot of serious emotional investment at all. They’re very safe—but don’t get the idea that they’re superficial. They’re not. I mean, sure I feel kind of anxious and depressed because of them sometimes, but otherwise the sun is always out and the pool is always clean and heated so it’s never cold and I’m happy with people out here.
Part of this has to do with the people I spend time with. They are all alive and interesting and fun. A lot of them are in the record industry or work at the studios and they are all people who are old enough to realize they don’t want to waste their lives in a vacuum. They seem supportive and give me advice from their own experience.
Well, have you gotten all my letters? I can’t remember how many I’ve sent-maybe four or five? Not a single letter from you, Sean. I’m shocked. No—just kidding. I’m not shocked, not really, I guess. I understand that your mood might be such that you wouldn’t feel much like writing. But see, I’d like to know just what your mood is.
Love,
Anne
Nov 10 1983
Dear Sean,
How are you? Your long silence has not unnerved me (should it?). I figure that your life is what it is and I can fully understand you not having the energy or inclination to write. But I hope you don’t mind the onslaught of letters from my direction.
It’s interesting to me what I want to write about to you. I could be telling you all the details of my sexual adventures and bragging about my latest conquests. But that stuff seems pretty silly. I mean, it sounds cool but in reality it’s awfully unoriginal. After a while it’s like, so what? Drugs and alcohol and the sex that stems from them are pretty damn common (well, a bit more out here, but still) wherever you happen to be. It’s all lost a lot of glamour for me. It’s fun but that’s all it is. I don’t know at what stage you are emotionally or how your life is going or how much karma you have and where it’s at but I feel pretty good about where I am. I mean, out here it’s kind of fun coasting around, meeting all these totally gorgeous guys (they’re stupid but oh so cute. jealous? You shouldn’t be) and hanging out with all these rich, spoiled Beverly Hills kids in clubs and going to the beach and going to sleep every day on Valium, dressing up, staying out all night dancing and drinking and whatever at someone’s house on top of Mulholland. It’s all fun but it’s kind of getting boring. But I met this guy …
He’s head of production at some studio out here and we were introduced at one of my grandfather’s infamous bashes and we became friends. He has a Ferrari 3o8-GTB and we drive out to the desert, to Palm Springs, and go to his house and talk. Sean, the man is fascinating. His name is Randy and he’s thirty years old and going out with this model who’s off in New York this week for a shoot and he’s been all over the world—as we say: a total intellectual, very distanced and existential in the best sense of the word. I told him all about myself and about New York and Camden, about my life, and I let him read some of my stories. He liked them but was honest enough about them to tell me he didn’t think they were very commercial. Anyway he told me he’d love to read some more of my stuff. He also told me that he knows three vampires who live in Woodland Hills but out here you learn to take the good with the bad.