Sunset Blvd

To play a character. To enter into a space and let yourself walk differently, speak with an accent, patronise your husband. Play pretend, play wealthy. Play theater and pretend you have secrets that can’t be revealed. If your life is interesting enough to be having an affair that you’re excused from the conversation. For the rest of us, we imagine what it would be like. To arrive to this door each week with a different confidant. Mystique. Mystique in the well worn room that pretends to never have been used. Parties you wish you were invited to. After parties where you would have been discovered.

In my twenties, the hope to get an invitation to a bungalow took over my waking moments. In my twenties, I broke immigration law in the hope that one day, one path or another, would lead me to Sunset Boulevard. Official invitation or interpreted suggestion, if there was a hint of an offer I would have been there, too eager. The great shame about life is that by the time you can afford something, you no longer need it. I wanted a life of illicit, celebrity-adjacent, paid-for adventures. And the thing about hotels is—you can buy your entry. The price tag isn't just for the room, it’s for the roleplay you get to star in. Staying in the same room as Depp and Moss, you’re basically them now. You lay on the bed as Johnny lay on Kate, you smoke cigarettes that hope to get you in the headspace. Skip dinner because the amphetamines are working. You are the couple others want to be. You can tell yourself this, tell yourself you’re special, wealthy, sexy and of course mysterious. This brass key chain allows you to play the character you’re born to be, should circumstances be different.