Lindsay‘s face looks botoxed and bloated and different these days. Her lips sit in a way they didn’t before, like somebody turned them inside out and spread a thick layer of chapstick all over them just to hold them in place under the wax. Her skin is really shiny: that “healthy glow” look her makeup stylist is going for is not fooling anybody. Every feature on her face looks “fixed.” Really, for somebody who is 26 years old, she looks so, so weathered. It is a terrifying thing.

I am actually shocked that it is 2013 and I am watching LiLo engage in conversation for 15 minutes on live television. The last time she was seen on screen was in the infuriatingly bad Liz & Dick, and then there was that expose in The New York Times about her irreverent antics on the set of The Canyons. That was in January, and since then, she has added one more mug shot to the collection — and a few TMZ articles about her not showing up for court. As for LiLo news that’s been, for the most part, it.

On the April 9, 2013 episode of the “Late Show with David Letterman,” Lindsay brings us up to date on what she’s been up to, which is not much. Technically, she’s there to promote her new movie, Scary Movie 5, in which she shares a scene in bed with Charlie Sheen. She also reveals that she will be returning to rehab on May 2nd.

There is a strange touching moment halfway through the interview where Letterman reads from a list of LiLo jokes and she fires back with a retort for each one. “Lindsay Lohan is in court so often the cafeteria has named a sandwich after her,” is the first one Letterman reads.

Lindsay lets out a real laugh, a laugh that sounds like it starts in her stomach. “They don’t let you eat there!” she shouts, then adds inanely, “What is this, like, a gourmet court?” Which, ugh, doesn’t really make sense.

LiLo understands that once you’ve messed up as many times as she has, there isn’t much else you can do but laugh about it. That part about her isn’t sad. What is sad is realizing that Lindsay taking herself lightly does not grant her a speedy recovery, or a recovery at all. What it might show is that she has resigned herself to the fact that she will never be healthy.

“You have enough spine, enough sense of yourself, and enough poise to come out here and talk to us,” Letterman assures her after all the friendly heckling is over. These words seem to touch Lilo so much she tears up and can’t properly introduce the clip of her and Sheen’s scene from Scary Movie 5.

During her 15 minutes on the couch, Lindsay thanks the audience three times for clapping for her. When a girl in the crowd shouts “I love you Lindsay!” after Letterman asks Lindsay a question about addiction, we see Lindsay pause to respond to the audience member. “I love you too,” she says, her voice low and soft and sincere. Then she continues on bantering with Letterman in her smoker’s voice.

This LiLo appearance will eventually be canonized and talked about in her biopic. Lindsay has reminded America something about herself: Girl is still loveable, but she will never be sober.

“You can do it,” Lindsay. We don’t have much hope, but we are begging you to try.

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Christina Drill is a freelance writer/editor living in Brooklyn, NY.