Los Angeles: Week One

Holding a fritter at a v grammable mural. Headset on.

Puhg came with me on a practice drive to Paramount. I am intimidated by these old highways, but there is no other option. Billboard: there is no other option. I'm drinking a kale smoothie from my new grocery in the sunshine unlocking my loaned Mercedes Benz. Romanian spread with A Jar, specifically a deep fried cheese ball and thick tomato porridge.

Traffic increases every ten minutes and I can't stop replaying the worst case scenarios. Can't find the parking lot right in front of me, but then I am eight minutes early. My first Hollywood space is an empty table with a granola bar wrapper on it, but the lot does feel magical. Kind of like Disney. No one turns on the lights all day. I meet AP. It feels unreal. She is a live human being shaking my hand and welcoming me. I have to sit down and feel the pink drain from my face. And then she is my boss and that's that. I sit at the fountain tense. I drive tense. I eat Thai food tense. I feel the tenseness in my every inch until I fall asleep.

Cowsk wears my gift on the second day. She leaves early and I futz with my new responsibilities. I am not a technical or detail-oriented person, so I learn. (I try to learn.) I'm home for date night. I put on sweatshorts, take off my bra, and we walk to a cozy noodle shop. I order the pot pie, which will take 45 minutes, and I soak in every little minute with my guy. I cannot get over him lately. So good and funny with the best blue eyes I've ever encountered.

4 AM. I'm up. I arrive too early. I have to find the roof. I have to find the van. I have to find the catering. I have to bring Cowsk a breakfast burrito. I had eaten cashews in the car. I was an idiot. I will be completely surrounded by a million foods for the next two months. I didn't know. AP says she likes my raincoat and gives me a huge First Day Hug. I had thought sets would be more organized, but suddenly I'm holding a printer, climbing stairs, searching for a plug. Everyone is friendly. I didn't expect that, and I am relieved. "Am I allowed to...?" "Should I...?" These are my most usual questions. I eat two donuts--a buttermilk bar and a regular ol chocolate. I watch Cowsk work, noting bits and keeping integrity. It is hard not to fangirl over someone you interact with all day. I like the stand-ins. It is raining and I have to get up at 4 again. I am sad and stressed picking Puhg up from a bar. I don't want him to leave. I don't want to drive. I miss my students. I am on a dream movie. I probably need to sleep.

I cry on my way out the door because it's goodbye to Puhg. He will fly away while I start a new location. Today we have a special guest among us, and her time is valuable. I run through cords and hair bags making pages and falling down to my knees when She starts writing to transcribe the improv. I sit in the sound editor's seat watching playback. I have a whiz call me to teach me in the hot sun over the phone while I'm half on headset and MR sings about Cheeze-Its at the craft table. The producer asks me for a joke for AG I preemptively printed, and I sigh a proud sigh. After we wrap, drive to Koreatown, don't even care if I have to pay for the garage. Redbean soft serve in a fish cone. My parking was validated.

Friday prize.

Brene Brown TED Talks as I run. I've never looked at Google Maps so much in my life. I go for a walk and accidentally climb a mountain. One of my girls is on the phone with boy drama. I drive an hour to brunch with Yosh and his finance. I have a ridiculous pile of dessert waffles. All my meals are $20 or free. We've pumped each other up in the middle of the night via text for five years and now we do it in the city of angels. I am listening to that Red Hot Chili Peppers song. Don't @ me. A welcome diversion, a Japan Abroad reunion. I love these three boys. We sit outside and gossip about everyone we've known and laugh about streaking at a temple and discuss where we're at now with the whole spirituality thing.

Sunday I do HIIT while dogs bark at me from behind a fence. They never let up. I go to church with my first college roommate. We used to have a David Beckham magazine ad hanging above our desks and she wanted to be a makeup artist and I wanted to be a writer. I tell myself I will write all afternoon but I have to lay down. I can't not lay down. I clean my mess I watch a Younger I eat broccoli I revise my musical for three hours and sleep.

I dream of moldy cheese, which a psychology website tells me I'm afraid of being awkward.

Welcome to My High School LiveJournal

The cow as white as milk,
the cape as red as blood,
the hair as yellow as corn,
the slipper as pure as gold.

Student Journals in the Library

"I will be an unsuccessful writer," he says. I respond, "All writers are unsuccessful most days." I flip to the next student's work.

1. Is this true?
2. Is it inspiring or depressing?
3. Should I avoid grading post-emotionally revising my own work?

(Answer Key: Probs. Depressing. YES.)

The Antelope Party at Theatre Wit

My cousin was a Brony (an adult male fan of the children's cartoon My Little Pony). He passed away on Christmas four years ago, reppin' MLP pride 'til the end. I knew it was a movement of some kind, so, being a culturally curious person, I watched the pilot. Maybe it was one of those Rocko's Modern Life types that had a dark satirical edge. But, no. It was what it was--fluffy, simple, and for children. But later that day, while on my bike, I thought about the last time I saw my cousin. He was very skinny and needed help walking, breathed heavily, had a lot of adages about "at least I got up today." At the time I was really into Mad Men, but it occurred to me if if I were in J's shoes, I too might prefer an enchanted forest of horses.

So when I saw an ad for this Brony play on the train I texted my cousins (J's surviving three sisters) and asked if they might be interested. They agreed, and we all met up Sunday (plus my sister) for the matinee at Theater Wit. I just absolutely loved this play. I will admit I have specific emotional bias (as alluded to above), but who doesn't to what becomes their favorite plays?

The set for Theater Wit's production was immediately inviting--a living room Brony'd out with rainbow curtains and toy ponies and lest we forget, a plate of strawberry frosted poptarts (which, if you have ever seen my thigh, you know mean a lot to me). Plus, every audience member got a teeny plastic pony! How adorable and perfect. "We're all in this weird club now." Meanwhile, that one bright room is surrounded by rust belt backdrop--a foreshadowing of how their utopia can't stay enclosed forever.

The play begins with a long monologue from Shawn, a scrawny white guy dressed in a pink horse costume, about how he used to struggle to find his self/masculinity (citing Mad Men, no less) and how once he joined the Pony club, he felt free to be himself. The other present members, also in their sparkles and tutus, nod, agree, and speak with enthusiasm as well. And then the first "huh" happens. A nervous woman confesses she thought this was a meet-up for 9/11 Truthers. She leaves. The group, clad in false hooves, call her "the crazy lady." Another Brony shows up concerned about the state of a mutual friend, who was grabbed by "Neighborhood Watch." And we learn about this town's interesting predicament with unidentified, black clad, trucker hat wearing, flashlight-wielding "helper" community vigilantes. So in scene one it's all laid out there--weird uprising secretive group, adorable secretive group, ultra counter-culture secretive group. Theme: secrets, y'all. This theme is the bedrock for the rest of the piece--beginning with the simple enough conversation of "Should we take down our Meetup online page and risk people we don't want getting in at the expense of possibly locking out a future welcomed member?" to a full-blown secret head council within a head council overthrow that results in the injury/killing of dozens of homeless folk in the town. We love secrecy, but it ruins us from the inside out. We can never stop second guessing what is real inside a secret space. That will never not be true.

A few more ideas: I loved the Crucible parallel to the Act I closing sign, which puts each character through the anxiety of signing their name to something they don't necessarily believe for the benefit of another. The snacks were not lost on this little dramaturgical theatre-goer! At the set of the show the Bronies have the poptarts. At the next meeting, rainbow cookies. And then as their utopia begins to deflate, a bowl of white popcorn. Finally, a crinkled bag of Cheetos. Gross, unhealthy, fast and cheap, perhaps even symbolic of Tr*mp (as some people call him The Cheeto). To me the most engaging moment in the whole play was Shawn's speech (long gone from wearing pink fuzz and back to his "manly" fedora) once he was at the top of the Antelope Party. He plagiarizes from his girlfriend who is desperate for power in an organization her father once ran. When she objects he basically complains that it's not fair. She has so much talent! Why shouldn't be entitled to at least half? It was chilling and, I'm positive, a conversation I have had a dozen times with men who didn't know they were having it. As she sprints away from this loser (and as my cousin whispered, "Go girl!") he screams she's a bitch before crumbling and confessing he loves her so much. Mama mia. Too real, 2018.

The development of the whacko plot was fast, yes. Too fast probably. After reading reviews of the show that seemed to be most people's beef. (That and feeling hoodwinked to see a political thriller when they were promised a rainbow of lil horsies). To be A. I'd rather see a play that moves too fast (perhaps unbelievably) than one that doesn't move at all. And if we were going to get to the end of this thing, in an explosion of paranoia, it had to clip along. B. I didn't feel hoodwinked because the principles of MLP remained despite new plot developments. It was COOL, guys.

I did have one hope that didn't pay off in this play. Shawn was such a garbage bag, and, look, I just wanted to see him get knocked on his butt. I wanted to see him fall. The end of the play circled around the idea that the three women on stage, sorting through all the mess of their "friends" should just band together. They were in a web created by and for men trying not to suffocate when they could simply all decide to run for it together. A character explains how stupid the whole Brony fad is in the first place. The show was meant to teach little girls to be friends and instead all anybody knows about it is that adult men like it. It's true, and something I had never considered. Can't we have anything? And so the end. The end being whats going to happen to these people? I just wanted more. I GET the ending of "Okay, ladies, facism is coming for you, so what are you going to do about it?" Hm, yes, I am an audience member and hmm how am I going to apply this question to my own life, yes yes yes. BUT, I already get it, you know? I get facism is coming for me, and I am doing my best to curb it. I now just want to see jerks get hit in the face. I was ready to whoop and cheer, and instead I could only clap.