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Quiet, dark hotel naps. Taco Bell bag in the Trash bb. Sunday afternoon, snuggled in bed, watched the first half of Beaches and later a comedy on the couch full of chickenless noodle soup.

Monday afternoon an old friend from summer camp meets me for lunch. It's a special language and understanding we share even though we were never in the same cabin. At night, Grief throws a seance at her house. Well, at least we order donuts and try the Ouija board. Buckle lights candles and maybe moves the plastic piece.

It's been a week of bonding with Bundo and Copper. They get fed up with something and I do an impression of it, we all power up the volume and sing The Fray. We believe in each other's dreams and each other's best. I am glad we have to be so close even though I no longer have any patience for people eating cereal, making phone calls, or breathing.

It's amazing to be so creative every day. In a week I write something like 100 jokes and pitch 10 ideas. Once they're submitted I feel accomplished even though they boil down to 10 jokes and one idea. In the morning I'm in a sketch with the darlings of wrestling. It's so normal to be dragged into this stuff I don't wear any makeup or look at my hair. Later, when the spot plays, I kind of regret this. One of my favorite writers walks out the door I'm standing near. I say "thank you for coming" and he says "thank you" and I wish I had told him. It would have been okay. Maybe I will meet him again one day and say I pitched the bit he liked.

Wolfgang Puck does a demo, and I get to eat a leftover brownie. I take home a tiny chocolate Oscar. I eat too many sugars all day and vow to be better. Wednesday I take a walk with Lolo. Make a point to be with Puhg at night. I love him more and more every day.

Thursday I get bold. I respond to a rejection email, throw out two lines, go on a date in the middle of the day. AP has her girls over to a private gym for a dance/weights workout. It's invigorating to jump and kick and even use the frustrating resistance band. The normalcy is so strange. We hadn't met a year ago. Social media can be a chump, but I watch my friends' honeymoon happily, hear about a possible new love interest from another on Polo, discuss careers from LA to Omaha.

Pug and I run Friday morning. Oh, is it tiring with hills. I need to power through tasks and go to the yogi cafe before work even begins. When I return I'm pulled in for a meeting, and then I tend to my feelings about the meeting for hours. I'm wearing sandals so Tira and I walk in the green room. I leave a little late, but traffic makes me very late for dinner. We shovel in a falafel. I am tired and haggard. We see The Cripple of Inishman at a local theatre. It's okay. Exhausted, it's time to spritz my rose pillow spray and sleep.

Or It Didn't Happen

What would you do if there would never be photographic evidence? My whole job exists because my boss has a phone addiction. I'm not knocking it (totally) but I am wondering how much we do for the proof alone we did it. I know this has never not been the case. Band t-shirts and ticket stubs and just the story "I went to Paris" even when you've got nothing to show for it. An 80 year-old man in my summer improv class never let up explaining how proud he was of his family, his former career, all the old person tours to Asia he went on. I feel bad for people who need to stuff as much as they can into the year and also live by solstice days. I guess I think intention is everything. You don't need to do something remarkable. You need to feel remarkable about the things you do.

I remember leaving a high school party, and right as I got to my car another pulled up. It was a pile of decoys from my exit--the couple everyone "will they/won't they"d, a wild boy determined to streak, maybe music? I knew as I pulled away I was missing all the things that the locker hall would buzz about in the morning. I thought about turning around, but the truth is I didn't actually care about the party anymore. I had decided to leave. I just wanted to feel included, or, honestly, more than included. I had the chance to be in the tightest circle of experience. I remember I drove home with the windows down listening to Imogen Heap. I read through my old text messages and went to bed.

It hadn't been twenty minutes since I made plans with Lo for tomorrow, but the plans were nevertheless made. Tira knocked on my window with news. A secret pop-up concert for an indie  queen. The place to BE. I know what's cooler to do on a Wednesday night. I obviously know! And Lo wouldn't mind rescheduling, but if I was being honest, that concert wasn't for me. I know it would look good in a picture, and I would probably bump into someone famous, and my friends who love that singer would be jealous, but something tugged me away.

What is a gut reaction? Sometimes it's that Malcolm Gladwell thing where your fear moves faster than your logic, sure. But sometimes it seems divine. An idea plopped down from above. I went to my jewelry cup yesterday and a strong voice said, "Do not put those rings on." So I didn't. Why would I argue? This happens sometimes. There have been times I have thought the voice led me astray, but when the dust settles, I find it never has.