Eve Babitz.

If Joan Didion stared the world down, Eve Babitz laughed at it through cat-eye sunglasses, cocktail in hand, fingers already smudging the edges of whatever came next.

Where Joan was precision, Eve was presence. She didn’t report on LA - she was LA. A swirl of lip gloss, cigarettes, typewriters, and barely concealed brilliance. She didn’t walk into rooms to observe them. She walked in, lit them on fire, and then narrated the scent of the smoke.

Eve Babitz is a woman who said yes. To life. To chaos. To beauty. To story. And then dared to write it down like it was no big deal.

She made bad decisions look like lifestyle choices. She wore art and scandal like perfume. And her power wasn’t that she seduced everyone - her power was that she didn’t care if you noticed.

I think what I love most about Eve is that she wrote like she knew the room wanted her, and she let it want her, without apology. Not in a pick-me way, but in a see-me-if-you-can way.

Where other women asked permission, Eve made a joke, poured a drink, and wrote it better than anyone else ever would.

She reminds me that indulgence doesn’t have to cancel out intellect. That sensuality is a form of intelligence. That women don’t need to be either wise or wild - we can be deliriously and deliciously both.

Eve Babitz didn’t tame her life to become legible. She turned the mess into myth. And I keep her on my wall as a reminder that art doesn’t have to be neat to be worth something. It just has to be yours.