Today marks one year since the birth of Jelly Sandwich.
Since we spoke last I was featured on Dalya’s lovely
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I write to you from bed while nursing my neck which is out from the bout of anxiety I’ve been coping with since January. It finally caught up with me. I don’t want to diagnose myself here (hypochondriac), as everything I think is in the extremes— exactly my problem. I think the worst always. I have lived my life up until this point not doing anything that would make my body feel different than the normal I know. I don’t take drugs, I don’t drink alcohol, I watch what I eat carefully to make sure I don’t get food poisoning. I’d rather not get less than 8 hours of sleep. I feel paranoid if anything in my body is not at its standard baseline.
I’m afraid I’m no fun.
My OCD has historically turned me into a bit of a narcissist— all that thinking about myself, sitting left wondering and mostly ruminating on things that a “normal” person wouldn’t think about. Wishing constantly that I was one of them, wondering what it’s like to be normal, to have a brain not like this one.
It must be by coincidence that the year anniversary of this newsletter comes just 3 days after my exact Saturn return. I finally feel like an adult, after years of dragging out my adolescence. I have lots of dreams, particularly surrounding acting. I hesitate to be open about it as it feels like a risk to not keep it to myself. As I get older, I fear my time is up. I adore acting. I love the theatre. I wonder about the state of actors today. I watch old movies and wonder. I watch carefully and differently than I used to now that I know what I know. I think about Carroll Baker in Babydoll, about Jessica Lange in Frances, about Gena in Opening Night. How lucky we are to witness such art. Lee Strasberg says art is longer than life.
I started working in fashion from a feeling of failure pursuing acting and a desperation to be considered cool. I still wonder why it was so easy for me to just stop acting (????). It made me question if I really loved doing it, or if it was just something I had done for long enough that I should just keep at it. Still, I wonder why I stopped. I was carried away by factors far outside myself. I wasn’t interested in getting closer to it. I know now I wasn’t going to achieve anything doing it the way I was. One of the greatest gifts of my life has been coming to rediscover my dreams through studying The Method. Through Williams, Inge, Simon, Chekov, Ibsen, Shaw, O’Detts, and Miller. How lucky are we to have such life that exists for us to live through on the stage.
After a year of Jelly Sandwich, I’m finding myself wishing I had more to offer you. Some big event or thing to celebrate, a promise for more, a paywall for this and that.
The reason I started this newsletter wasn’t to tell you about moisturizer. That’s too easy and transactional. I’m worried that people aren’t looking for anything else besides shopping and cool girls posting cool things that they do. I do not feel cool at all. It is a show. Remember, I’m an actress.
No one wants to think anymore, not here anyway. It is worrisome to me, the stage we’re in. This also includes myself. I’m not putting myself on any pedestal. I’m just like you. I think it contributes to the art that’s being made. Everything is copied, a knock off, a dupe, a reprint, a sequel. I think about Hollywood. What happened to Chinatown?
I was ingesting art in the most passive way. I noticed it. What can I do? Why was I doing that? I ask myself a question. I think about it and become uncomfortable. It has been a pattern in my life to form opinions based on what other people think. I’d always been a follower. I don’t think that means anything bad, really. I think we’re all raised the way we are raised and we become who we are because of that. We’re a product of our environments, as I was one of mine. I think in a way that’s very black and white. Both my parents are lawyers. Either something is or it isn’t. Either I’m an actress or I’m not. Either I’m happy or I’m not. I’m healthy or I’m dying. I’m perfect or an embarrassment. An actress or a hack.
I am once again left to my own devices.
This isn’t a structured newsletter. It never will be. That’s why a year ago I told you this was a blog. That’s why you’ll still receive my stream of consciousness thoughts in your inbox once or twice (three if it’s Christmas) a month.
My Blog
Hi. I’m Grace. I’ve traveled a long journey to make it to Los Angeles where I currently reside. A strip mall city, which pings a familiar nostalgia to my childhood in Baltimore, Maryland.
The truth is Ed Ruscha created Jelly in 1964, 10 years before Chinatown (1974) was nominated for 24 Academy Awards, 5 years before the Manson Murders took place at 10050 Cielo Drive, 4 years before Andy Warhol was shot by Valerie Solanas, 37 years before 9/11, and 60 years before the birth of this here newsletter, Jelly Sandwich.
Since its inception I’ve written about Chateau Marmont, Lee Strasberg, Eva Marie Saint, Dash Snow, Helmut Lang, Calvin Klein, Elliot Gould, Young Kim, Dries Van Noten, Judy Turner, Joan Didion, Tennessee Williams, Eve Babitz, JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bassette Kennedy, Tonne Goodman, cocaine, Raymond Chandler, Sorbara’s, Keith McNally, Norma Desmond, leaving New York and returning, arriving in Los Angeles, Frank Lloyd Wright, Brooke Callahan, Elia Kazan, Alfred Hitchcock, Gena Rowlands, and more anecdotes too intimate to list.
Essentially just a reflection, telling you where I am, and always hoping you’ll stay.
I love your writing for what it is. We don't need more transactional content, or copies. Reading writing written in a stream of consciousness is refreshing and what we all need, for empathy, understanding ourselves, humbling, and connection. Thanks for writing!
Happy one year of this beautiful gift