French cafes

Although I’ve been stalking around the city with rage in my shoes, I still love my life. I can be angry and happy to be making art that resists fascism. Just like I can be sad and happy while thinking about my late aunt or afraid and happy at the top of Goliath at Magic Mountain. I am writing at the yellow coffee shop, with my gingersnap latte and plain bagel. I sit in the window, so I can people watch. I often spy friends from this seat. They’ll be trotting by, and depending on which one of us isn’t looking at a screen, the other one of us knocks at the window.

I always thought it was so funny and/or cute, when I’d learn about art history, how so many individual “names” actually rolled around in packs. French painters in their salons and beat poets in their dives and improvisers on the busy street in the most adorable nook of Los Angeles.

Much of my career here has been incredibly controlled. My days packed with meetings and a rapid clip of draft turnarounds and never saying "no" rudely and never making enemies. I’m moving with more intuition lately. I “get” a meeting with this high-powered IP-grabber at “the” top agency. She deigns me the right person to develop a hot new video game, all the rage. I ask if she knows anyone who has sold a feature based on a video game in the past five years. Her mouth forms an O then gets smaller and smaller then she shuffles papers and says, “I think I’ve heard of it happening…” After we end the zoom she forwards me a short story that Timothee Chalamet likes. I consider writing back, “This is really helpful, to know what kind of short stories Timothee Chalamet might like. My MFA is nothing. But this? This PDF you were paid 200K to find? Everything.”

Last Saturday I was supposed to have a morning meeting with a director, but had to push a week so I texted SW from bed, we should meet to write. Jam covered my fingers while she explained, it's not that people don't like me, it's that my existence makes them feel ashamed in ways I cannot control or understand. And most people would rather avoid their shame than preserve our relationship. It's not that deep, though it cuts deep. I am writing through it, but at least I don't worry about losing. I've been through this before. My voice will follow you down. And against all odds, I will probably forget about you before you can ever forget about me.

I decided, seriously, I needed to see Song Sung Blue in theatres. Made it to the mall just in time, sat in the back row and let Hugh take me away. Money talks--but it don't sing and it don't walk. It was a perfect Los Angeles evening, so I walked over to that ramen spot, sat on the patio. Made notes about a short story and dined on my cheap heaven dinner—an Impossible bao with a Diet Coke ($10).

Then this most recent Saturday--three days ago--I did get to meet with the director. I could tell he didn't really like my play, but he still sat with me for a couple hours brainstorming. Artists are so generous that way. I'm not too concerned. In general, women loved loved loved the piece and men were lukewarm. Sometimes a story is like that. Not everything is for everyone.

The afternoon was for as many emails as I could possibly respond to. I am under a lot of pressure. So many exciting opportunities, so many roads diverging, and then another American citizen was executed by ICE in broad daylight.

And then! I went for a girls' night with AB! She greeted me in pjs, holding a glass of wine, pop music playing. I told her she got an A plus. She'd texted at 9 AM asking what my favorite movie candy was, a beautiful bowl of M & Ms greeted me. We watched a perfect double feature, cheering during Revenge then stopping to laugh uncontrollably on the balcony before Drop Dead Gorgeous, the movie that made me love comedy. I love comedy so much. I believe it is medicine. I believe it is a weapon.

who can turn the world on with her smile?

who can take a nothing day, and suddenly make it all feel worthwhile?

clay

I really loved my grad school. I loved it so much. Maybe the best decision of my life was going to that crummy little huge place. Man, I milked it too. I wore tank tops all year and read by the pool and zoomed around on my scooter to seize buttermilk bars from Donut Hut in the dead of winter in the dead of night.

I loved campus. It smelled like clay. There was the term I would habitually go the gym after Dramaturgy and take the long route through Palm Walk. There was the term I'd bike to the gym at 6, hit the machines, shower, and walk into 8 AM theatre history so fresh and sparkling. My first year on Fridays I'd do laps before my sketch comedy show. My second year I'd work the disability testing center Fridays, very slow and quiet. Struggling to remember my third year. That shocks me. That I could forget my class schedule. But time has passed, it seems. It's an interesting anthropological study of one's self, to reflect on what memories make it through all the purges. How did they cling on? Held in your arms like a fawn or like leeches on the back of your calves?

I loved all my friends. I had my comedy girls, first and foremost. Then there were the comedy girls' girls to varying degrees. Then there was the comedy girl's girl's Christian girls. Then! There was grad cohort. And undergrads. And then there was work. (I hung out with work people once my entire three years at the office.) And then then comedy in general, which was just so many people. And then all their little clumpettes. And then then then was Puhg and his whole world. Which was...well a whole world! The show we did, his college friends. Some were lifelong. Some I lived with. Some I went to Vegas with. More I went to Santa Monica with. And I loved just about all of them. Even my sibling roommates, why not.

I met Puhg in the desert. We went to so many adorable brunches and basketball games. We pirated Mad Men every week and some nights he would cook us a pot of beans with tomatoes. We drove that long highway stretch over and over.

I did the military play and wrote the religion play. I wrote many sketches and loads of stand-up and a bunch of plays and/or play-like things. I taught so much screenwriting and a little improv and a little playwriting and a bit of film ethics. I laughed so much. I got pretty angry. There was some sadness, but not much, and not for long. It was a different world. I made 13K or something, and that was great! My rent was $450 for a very nice room and bathroom in a lovely condo. All the best things were free anyway. I ate an incredible amount of Taco Bell and gas station nachos, also a record high amount of Ethiopian.

I learned so so much. Some of the classes were bad. But because I later became an educator, they were useful case studies for me. And other classes were very good! I really lucked out with my theatre history professor and my thesis director, specifically. I absorbed so much about the scope of theatre, got to be inside all the moving parts, keyed into the hot stuff. I squeezed every drop.

I remember so many students. I think I see them all the time. I might. Two of them got married and live out here. They work in post.

2025 was the worst year of my life

Maybe I've been dragging my feet on this recap because of the title of this recap. There are certainly ways I could spin what happened last year. I could ignore a ton to rebrand 2025 as a love story or a buddy comedy or even some coming of age thing. But the truth is, last year blew. It was a drama. And not an uplifting one. There were some very lovely scenes, but there was not a happy ending.

January actually started brightly. There was a sense of newness in the air. Everyone bracing for inauguration, but in the mystery there was still hope. Then, six days in, the fires crushed the entire city's spirit. Despite Hollywood Hollywooding on, we haven't recovered. Not by a long shot. I haven't recovered. At BM's birthday last Saturday the four of us sat at the kitchen table, confessing we all shudder, still, in the middle of the night. We wake with starts remembering: obsessively checking the disaster app, repeatedly forgetting where important papers were because we stayed packed so long, feeling the complete hysterical lack of control that only staying in an Embassy Suites with a tubbed hamster can provide.

And yet all our neighbors walked to the outdoor mall and saw movies with our A-List passes. Flow and Baby Girl if you can believe. There were free animal crackers at 5 PM and I sat in the lobby for two hours eating them while reading Women Who Run with the Wolves. (I turned the last page on my birthday.) I finished the final draft of my new Toy Conglomerate musical at the hotel desk and Puhg and I talked a lot about environmental crises. We were home for our anniversary, picked up a cheese pizza and Caesar salad.

Early winter was, as you may recall, a political hellscape. Sitting under my tree, finishing the movie with AB, revising my play. I sent the script around, one timid reading at a time. I wrote three commercials for a big brand--a job I was very proud to get. It paid $4,500 with no benefits. I ran my women's talk group, every month, all year. I really enjoyed those nights and got a lot out of the yaps. All the gals told me they did too. We did karaoke at the end, ER sang "Lucky" to start.

Puhg's aunt suddenly went into hospice. We booked urgent flights and made it to her bedside, for maybe the last conscious minutes of her life. She looked up at Puhg with such delight in her fading eyes. "I love you!" she said over and over. We wrote her obituary in the room with vending machines.

A month later our darling Sweet P was gone too. I wrote about that day and never published it. I guess I will eventually. Started at critter care, ended at Cowboy Carter.

I saw a lot of concerts this year! In this bizarre time, one of the only things I seem to know for sure is concerts are worth it for me. A good concert can fuel me for a month if not two. I'm still riding high from Sabrina's rendition of "Nobody's Son" in November. From Gaga's "Applause" in August. Breezy nights of Japanese Breakfast, Dashboard, Goo Goo Dolls, Coldplay. I went to another universe when Chris Martin sang "The Scientist" and then we got little banana froths at the underground ferngully while the bassist strummed table to table.

April was restructuring and the big 70th birthday. We got sunburnt at Bernie and AOC's rally. I kept chugging along in therapy. I have to say May was really nice. Happy little birthday fete. The beach, the mountains, the clear pools, the creatures, the soft doughy treats, the hiking up a creek that Puhg dipped into. And then it all turned.

I was professionally chucked in the trash and Puhg was laid off and we had three weeks to get new health insurance. I fought tooth and nail to maintain any kind of stable insurance this year. I lost. I lost in my current deal, I lost when the billion dollar girls' brand told me I'd have to take three months off as a contractor or else (they winced) they'd have to give me benefits. I lost when I went downtown and waited in line at the social services office, behind all the meth heads and poor single moms. It took three months but I finally got on Covered California--and for what? All my rates were supposed to rocket in 2026, so I rushed to get my bloodwork done December 30th. I was billed $40. I spent an hour on the helpline to finally say, "I thought if my doctor prescribed necessary bloodwork it was free?" No, the agent told me. I asked what was covered under my insurance that costs $300/month with a 15K deductible. He told me I get one check-up per year. I said, "I guess I'm grateful I'm not being charged right now for you to tell me this." He did not laugh.

In terms of themes, 2025 was a big year for Disappointment. A lot of people disappointed me. Each betrayal more surprising than the last. Maybe next year I'll have wisdom about it. Today my takeaway is, "Alice you stupid naive idiot. When will you learn? You cannot trust people--even people you love, even people you thought loved you."

On the flip side was Openness. Someone bailed on me but then, randomly, my old professor sent the most affirming email. A department chair struck down a production of my play, but then the piece I dramaturged won an international award. I got yelled at on the phone but that night I recounted it all to Lav in our Portillos booth and we managed to chuckle.

Summer felt very long and sad. ICE terrorized LA, then the guard was deployed. I protested. I showed up for climate law at City Hall. I went out of my mind watching a genocide from my phone. I went to the pool every afternoon. A purple swimsuit this time. I read one book with a red cover very slowly. I clocked in for watchdog shifts. I listened to Man's Best Friend a lot, especially "House Tour." I got involved with multiple progressive groups but they all fell apart because rich people don't think fascism applies to them. Puhg's mom suffered her hellish accident and nothing will ever be the same. I wrote about that day too. I'll probably share, eventually. Did get to see my old friends, did get a mini trampoline, have observed my partner step into agonies. I have said it before, but I will always say it: I am so proud of him. He gets braver each minute.

Some college actors did a reading of my play. Then a young cohort of artists bootstrapped a production in July. They did such a good job. My mom came out for it and our trio celebrated the run at the taco shop with virgin margaritas. My sister graciously hosted us every quarter. We have our Things. I like her orange cat and the big coffee shop with cheddar biscuits and sinking into the sofa for a doc about Abercrombie or that short-lived series Players or that Netflix competition show about pop stars. She buys us seltzer and veggie bacon in advance. There are rainy Chicago adventures--facials and art and The Drake and Alice Sr did a fantastic karaoke performance, a classic from the musical A Chorus Line. There's a cold dark night and a bright snowy morning, there's a hot lake walk and a chilly bop to Brown's Chicken for fritters.

My workshop went very very well, and I am so pleased. The compliments haven't stopped rolling in, even now. My friends and former collaborators and even some newbies attended and gushed their heads off in the street. I shuffled out all haggard but was met with thunderous applause on Santa Monica Boulevard. Two friends told me it was all so moving they cried the whole way home. J sent such a perfect note--she loved it and hoped I was feasting on a well-deserved cheddar log. A high-powered showrunner sat in the second row, then left without a peep--but January 5th she pinged, "You are so incredibly talented and I am very happy to come see anything you do." This past Friday L said it was the most fun she'd ever had at a play. The chickie I invited when she was smoking a joint in a swimsuit sent me no fewer than 30 excited texts. It was so much work but work that is Mine. I worried the whole thing was a narcissistic voyage, but every rehearsal someone in the cast paused, looked up, said, "Wow, this is...too real." I feel bonded forever with the actors. My mom and sister were the ones who ultimately convinced me to do it and I thanked them from the bottom of my heart as we sat in the heart-shaped booth, before the Black Forest cake arrived.

What else? My book keeps selling. I keep stickering. My first ever world premiere will be set! Within the next month! I am gripping but I don't think I am afraid. I am impressed by how well I've been managing all the moving parts. I've learned so much. I sobbed firing my manager, snapped up a fancy new agent,  dropped the big time lawyer with an email, hired a new one in a parking lot. I wrote an incredibly exciting new animated series which may or may not ever exist. I was in the brainstorm room for a new musical show which may or may not ever exist. I am currently developing a movie with two dream collaborators which may or may not ever exist. A graphic novel adaptation came and went. Did six improv shows, I think. Spent a month finagling a group gift for SW--the expensive necklace she's always wanted. She opened the blue box and blurted out to everyone, "But this is against all of Alice's values!" Puhg took me for a beautiful romantic getaway down the coast with credit card points. There was a mini fire pit on our balcony and I wore the big fuzzy robe and toasted marshmallows.

I saw the ghost play and the hilarious vaccine show, which were cool. I watched a bunch of Survivor, which was medicinal friend time. Went to so many movies, adored Heated Rivalry like everyone else. Hamnet, Together, Nuremberg (!), Sorry Baby, Lurker, The Life of a Showgirl Movie (twice). The Life of a Showgirl album: well, I freakin' love it. Blondie's doc: well, I freakin' loved it.

I developed shingles right after Thanksgiving. It was terrifying and painful. The urgent care doctor told me I may have lost my sight and hearing if I hadn't moved as quickly as I did. Puhg served me applesauce and toast. My camp friends sent me a bouquet to commemorate my first prescription ever. I'm sure I'm missing a lot and this hasn't been a particularly well-organized post, but 2025 was not a particularly well-organized year.

Christmas was a peppermint swirl of hard and fun. My sister gifted me a little ocarina and my mother gave me notebooks. Puhg treated me to my favorite burrito. I told you about New Years Eve. There are five incredibly exciting and/or life-changing things that could happen with my art this year, but another Midwestern writer my age was recently shot in the face for no reason and then the president lied about it. So who can say?

I could take you to the first, second, third floor