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.