LA IV

Something is different! Something is so different! I have my daily pecan salad with the stand-ins and laugh and laugh. I have a corner, I know the routine, Grief is my friend, my real friend. JS has gourmet vegan pop-tarts delivered to set on the very day it is so hot I have to wear shorts. PP tells me my tatt is cute. It’s too good to be true. “You have nothing to worry about--you’re in,” this person says. In exchange I tell him how to date a girl. I thought our meeting was a dinner. It wasn’t. I drive-thru a quesarito and crunchwrap on the way home. Pair it with Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. It’s so hard to know if everything is small or everything is huge. Right now, everything is perfect.

I hadn’t gotten to try a couple vegan donuts at the shop I went my first weekend, and JR has several dozen catered. I eat four. A stand-in casually mentions, “Is it good? Because I saw you eating a chocolate one this morning.” I’m doing things right. Sometimes I laugh so sincerely. I have to write a fake Ted Talk about microdosing. I remember watching the Writer’s Room episode about Breaking Bad when the writer’s assistant explained how she had to research poisons. I remember thinking that that was the coolest job in the world—to research and write. Now I am deep into science journals about acid trips for the sake of a bit.

Late call. I FaceTime in for the rehearsal of my new musical. Chills. This thing I was told was impossible x3 is in front of me. I am walking through the middle of set and roll my ankle. It shocks me in an unfamiliar way. I immediately feel like barfing. I turn kind of white, and the makeup ladies ask if I need the doctor. I walk slowly to a stool and think, “I just need to take a few deep breaths.” Then everyone is around me and I’m on the ground. Once my vitals have been taken and it’s decided I pinched a nerve and I am half-forced to eat a sandwich, it’s almost nice. The producer and 1^st AD both assure me. AP lowers her voice and asks, “Wanna sue? I can tell you who has money.” There are new pages, and Cowsk says I can pitch alts. I write five, she picks two, and AP chooses one. My joke will be filmed. I have never acted so casual in my entire life. On the way home I think about how lucky I am and cry out of gratitude.

Thursday my theatre dream is on set getting the lay of the land. CJ is magnetic. She sits in a room alone with me. She speaks magically and openly and grabs my leg. I cannot help but tell her I wrote part of my graduate thesis on one of her plays. I watch my joke get shot over and over from different angles. RD says it is her favorite alt. AG laughs heartily. The night is long. What am I inside? I miss my boyfriend. I eat potato chips driving home to stay awake. I’m mad. Scene revisions come out at midnight, so in bed, in pjs I reformat and distribute.

Zumba morning. I am the only white person and I feel a kind of “Am I imposing?” but I stay because my body misses long workouts. I boost to a hip café for hemp milk espresso and rewrites of my musical. Late night and candy candy candy. Close to midnight JR insists we share a cookie sandwich. I have already eaten two, but what can you do? The pool is glowing under a balloon. The moon and palm trees.

Sat: I eat cashew yogurt while FaceTiming into my musical. Tear up at the finale. A friend texts me during one scene, and I respond, and then I wonder, “What am I doing?” and I feel guilty. Trashy donut shop with high-class treats. MB and I split eight. She has to go, and I want to write, but I can’t seem to. I tell myself I’ll leave once this guy buy $20 of lotto tickets at a time does. He doesn’t for hours. I find a stupid salad, go home and take a walk while all the dressed up people crowd sidewalks. I used to do this on the drunk strip in Pheonix too.

Morning is for the market, a misplaced run-in, church. A planning meeting with Elrey, a real life sunshine chat with a Chicago comedy early-move star, a podcast with a hidden treasure, email from AP, so I have to awkwardly sit in the living room and revise a scene while everyone else munches biscuits in the kitchen. It’s always like turning in a term paper, so I text Smirn to say we will not be having vegan dinner and instead going to an ice cream parlor for dinner. 

Los: Dos

Toasts & latte. Very delightful. Very expensive.

Lunch is weird. Does figuring out where you will sit at lunch ever not feel like high school? I pull up a folding chair into the sun. There are vegan hot dogs in the dinner cart. I am confused about how regular things seem. I knock on a closed bathroom stall and hear the voice of PP grumpily respond.

The 2nd AD called lunch, so I walked a block to a cafe. I had this idea of sitting alone with a grant application. In the ten minutes I was eating a fonut (baked donut) I got three emails and needed to make revisions, copies. My insides rattled, I shoved my junk in a bag, and ran back to set. Later, in the van on the way back to crew parking I heard a makeup artist and tech complain about a mistake I had made with the yellow pages. Cowsk assured me no one cared. I can't get it out of my head and google "making mistakes at work" until I fall asleep. I miss the grant deadline.

Any book about movies could be titled "Where Should I Sit." I sit on an awkward stool. I sit in the writer's seat when she's acting. I sit on the floor across from AG. I am hyper aware of Doing Things Right, and I still print something in the wrong direction.

Call is late. Time to run. Time to walk to the v hip cafe for some work and nosh. Two pieces of toast and a Figeroa espresso is $24. I HAVE to learn to check prices here. There's no wifi. I sweat enough to buy a shirt at Forever 21. It has tiny cocktails on it. I change in the car. Everyone is chipper before a three-day weekend. People all over the country would give up their friends and families to do what they do, and everyone doing it just wants an extra day to have the friends and family back. We go late. The producers buy an adorable cafe truck. A cocoa. I think about how millennials are portrayed in film. I don't remember what happens in chunks of time, namely the chunks before bed.

LA proper: bangs cut, three hour vegan donut writing sesh, a tattoo shop that doesn't tow me, hairs waxed, reading in the sunshine. My temporary roommate is making dinner and I soak up his real pro-ness. A meeting that frustrates me (how do you say you are stupid about X without people thinking you're stupid about Y?) see the show I could join if. It's early and it's Friday, but that's all I have. I try Sneaky Pete, eating donut halves in bed.

7:30 AM SoulCycle in Pasadena. I didn't like it, but I miss vigorous workouts. I'll go again. I worry about this car thing a lot. There are a lot of signs and street parkings and meters. It's about 10-20% of my brain at any given time. I plan to write, but I have to lay down and watch Popstar. I watch every credit. I know many of them. I really enjoy it. At the Echo Park cafe literally everyone has Final Draft open. I meet victoriously. It's hot. I'm in shorts. I drive over to Chicago pals with a lemon tree. I keep asking for advice and everyone says they don't have it, but there's pebbles. Again, what do I do with myself? What is left? I treat myself to Thai while I text Puhg, which is a decent date. I spend a long long time in CVS. When I get home, I crack everything open at once and use it. Face scrub, a nail file, glasses cleaner.

I'm too late to church to sing of Easter gladdness. Oatmilk ginger iced chai. One thing SO LA is all the milks. I love all the milks. We have a girl's brunch. I don't have to think about writing or art or anything. We gossip about dating and gyms and I'm in love with this pink tile and the little bit of grunge here, everywhere. I Yelp donuts. I eat donuts (marshmallow peanut butter and cro-muffin). I send out the draft. I apply for a contest. Did I throw my money in a hole? Someone doesn't. Guy from the past invites me to an improv show. It's seedy but I am happy to go and see this dumb (it is very dumb) thing that will be here if I am. I have to go to sleep but I can't. I purposely didn't buy Easter candy all week. I cave, purchase M & M eggs, munch popcorn, watch Crazy Ex Girlfriend, fall asleep reading scary stories.