Wake up before the alarm, to a text, asking if I can hop on a show this Friday night. I can! A dance workout, put pumpkin rolls in the oven. Wear my new concert t-shirt. It's baby blue and reminds me of how fun it was to scream "Constant Headache" at The Greek in a row by myself.
I trot down to the coffee shop to meet Puhg for a latte. The barista working, my favorite, a young director. I journal and jet of by 9:10 to meet my writer's group for breakfast in Hirshy's beautiful backyard. I make a big deal about taking the last apple pop-tart and then don't even finish it. Shawl texts me we could write at a cafe together for an hour. I'd have to bail early and consider, as I do often these days, how much to amend my life to accommodate famous people. But the cafe is only five minutes away, so I go and order two eggs and and a lemonade and gab with the funny star. After she leaves I write a scene of my new play, make it home by 2.
Answer some emails in bed. Set up a coffee with AB for next week! Hit the pool. Read my fat Madwoman book, swim, swim, swim. In the deep end I find a bee. I use a leaf to air-lift her to the ledge. Every lap I take a peek. She seems to be breathing and drying, like ohmyGOD what was that all about?
Shower and get ready in a jif. Decide to go with grey dress and bubblegum lipstick. Hop in a cab to meet my manager at the Shake Shack on Hollywood Boulevard. If you live here, you never go to Hollywood Boulevard. It's funny to sit waiting for her around all the tourists. K___ is quite late, but I don't mind. I practice my Japanese. She shows up with her magic company credit card and I get to eat a veggie burger and Coke. And we gab about all my meetings from the week and how hopeless this industry is. But it feels better, when I'm laughing about it, eating a free veggie burger and Coke.
We walk two blocks to the networking mixer and stop to enjoy bits from the walk of fame. I take a picture with Bette Davis's star. Feels important at the time. At the mixer I see a writer I know, who immediately tells me he had to get a survival job in marketing. We run into a theatre producer and I feel myself ooze. I'm sick of oozing. We chat with another exec, clink classes with a couple other writers. One is so fresh-faced and nervous--I admire he came to this big group thing alone.
The pack heads to the theatre on foot, and we watch a brilliant production of Company. My dear friend R___ waves to me at intermission. She's wearing a bright yellow dress and looks anxious. In Act Two I spend a lot of time thinking about my own work. I try to stop myself, but inspiration can't always be tamed. My manager and I gossip out into the night and go to the chic ice cream shop to discuss everyone we know in the context of the musical. Once my mouth is black from brownie batter I call Puhg to pick me up. My manager reassures me, we are getting by. We're cockroaches, but we're alive. And then, a cockroach crawls up from the wall behind her and threatens to jump into her hair! I pull her away in the nick of time.
At 11 Sweet Potato is up, lying very flat but happily in Puhg's shadow. She gets an apple slice.
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