The new Grey Gardens

J. said “Maui isn’t a good place for night owls.” I’m getting up at 8 a.m. every day now. It’s 8 a.m. right now and this is my second day in a row. For the first 2-3 weeks I was here it seemed like I always woke up naturally at 10 a.m., but I’m adaptable, and adapting. Yesterday J. and K. gave me an ovation when I actually emerged from the bedroom at the stroke of 8 after saying I would all week and failing. We had french toast and espresso for breakfast, then I did four hours of landscaping in the brutal sun (the high was only 81 but it felt closer to 100) in the back yard, cutting weeds where Cousin is going to install a pond. Today we’re going to the beach! Then tomorrow I go to Hana for the first time. We’re going to do some work there, and spend the night, then Tuesday I have to go in to Kahului to interview at the new Taco del Mar (don’t laugh...I need an easy, part-time job while I’m here). I watched the new Grey Gardens movie with Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange on HBO last night, and it was really quite good. Melony (Melanie) called to talk about it. It adds the dimension that was lacking from the original documentary: how they got to be that way, and what they were like before. It also explained why Little Edie was bald (stress made her hair fall out, apparently), showed Jackie O. coming to visit and helping clean up the appalling decrepitude into which the house had fallen, and even showed what happened after the documentary was completed, with Little Edie attending the premiere in Paris. Drew did an amazing job of talking in the same voice and accent as Little Edie – I wondered if she was lip-synching at times, it was so amazing – and Jessica Lange looked so much like Big Edie it was uncanny. It really is a pretty moving story, to see all they had and how totally they lost it, and how one different decision, like if Edie had married that Getty guy, would’ve made things turn out so different, and then the force of the mother-daughter bond, and the powerful fantasy life they both must have had projecting like a movie in their imaginations in order to be able to live in that squalor and tolerate the sadness and desolation of stagnant lives for so long. By the time the Maysles made their film the Beales were like ghosts and their house was like a ghost house – raccoons roaming freely, broken windows with trees growing into the bedroom, piles of empty food cans stacked seven feet high - despite the fact they still lived there.

The ghost has no home

Yesterday was Auntie April’s birthday. I wished a Happy Birthday to her urn, which rests on the fireplace downstairs. J. got in yesterday, so I finally got to meet him. I was a little nervous beforehand, but not as soon as I met him. He’s very down-to-earth and has a Continental charm and we were all laughing within minutes of meeting. I had really good sashimi for lunch, because we went to Costco for grocery shopping in the morning before J. got in. It came to $1100, including a $540 case of Veuve Clicquot champagne, cousin’s preferred brand. (He says he likes Cristal too, but Dom Perignon is gross. He’s like me in this respect: it doesn’t matter how much something costs or how high it ranks as a status symbol, if it doesn’t taste good, that’s all we base our opinion on.) So we should be set with food for a while, especially since I’ve whittled down my eating to one big meal and a couple snacks per day. (Staying slim!) Nice and sunny yesterday at last, too. My Ben Whishaw portrait number one (“Her Beautiful Son” is the title) has become quite nice indeed since I started over on it. I’m almost to the point of adding text, which is the last thing. Alex Grey says somewhere that a work of art made with love and spiritual intentions will radiate love and warmth to those who view it, so that’s what I’m going for with this painting. I want to see if people will sense that from it, even if they’re not crazy for the subject like I am. I’ve started on the second BW portrait as well. J. said if he had to guess my nationality and didn't know me he would say I was English, otherwise possibly Dutch (because I'm so tall and, formerly, blond). This meshes well with my increasing anglophile sentiment. J. also said there will be lots of opportunity for me in San Francisco (jobs, love, creative outlets, etc). I spoke with Mother yesterday, and broke the news gently that she will probably have to get her own urn, since Auntie April isn’t going to be giving hers up any time soon. Cousin says we'll go on a drive and visit various abandoned places, which there are a lot of here. I love old houses and buildings that used to belong to people and have now been reclaimed by nature. They are ghostly in a good way. I'll take photos.