A Nice Day in Hell

Felt like a morning for the Olivia Rodrigo work-out. Puhg was gone, up and out early for a meeting. I didn't need my laptop, so I walked a bit further, to the very hip coffee shop where there's usually a line out the door and barely ever room to sit. Because it was only 8:45 I didn't have to wait for my cream top coffee and croissant. I asked for a paper cup, but the barista said they have a strict no substitutions policy. Then she added she was pretty sure the plastic is compostable. There was one little corner to squeeze in so I did. I sat there for three hours, my neighbors being a guy in orange flip flops who never looked up from his phone, a business man with a tiny curly pet-able dog, two aspiring actors, three girlfriends--one whose house burned down. A lot of people's houses and places have burned down. It's bizarre to overhear multiple conversations per day about it. How the insurance company won't pay for that vintage wardrobe or where the kids are going to go to school now or if anyone else is thinking about renting a place in Joshua Tree for the next six months because the air might be giving us all cancer.

One of my corporate producers approved the new episodes with heart emojis. I confirmed lunch with my friend whose house burned down for next Tuesday. He's moving to the east coast Wednesday. I wrote one of my writers' groups I have to step out. I say it's because I am overwhelmed with work, which is true, but it's more true that I am overwhelmed with other people's misguided goals about our work. The Hollywood racetrack has quietly become a hamster wheel, and I don't like watching people hop on. I've been in the room when powerful people lose their deals, know how many execs are getting fired and fleeing into random careers, usually real estate. 

A new fire pops up, near our family friend's home. AP texts me back, this week sucks. I write that other producer back who kind of wastes my time. A friend reaches out saying she gets what I mean, about how I don't make five-year plans, on principle. I set a meeting with the exec who found a comic for me to adapt. Finally I can scootch back, cross my legs like apple sauce, and get lost in the first feature draft I wrote with AB. I carefully read, surprising myself with laughter, forgetting jokes we ourselves made up. I jot all my notes carefully in a pink notebook.

I munch some vegan wings and carrots and head over to AB's house--reminding Puhg to please call me repeatedly if I don't pick up the first time. AB and I gab in her basement and then talk through everything we'd like to change about our script. We're almost exactly aligned, which is amazing. Her husband tells us congrats and her stylist's assistant shows up with a suitcase of outfits for the festival. AB tries the suit and corset combo, which looks stunning, but she thinks the pants might be too loose. I gesture to my yoga pants, two sizes too big and mutter I'm the worst person to ask. Nevertheless, the three of us squint at AB's crotch, deciding if the word "saggy" need apply. We wrap around 4:30, and I listen to "The Archer" on the pink drive home. The fire has gotten much worse.

I was going to write some emails but don't have any energy left it seems. I read a little of Prep in bed. We think about walking to the theatre for a movie, but it's sold out. I trot to the health food store for Puhg's favorite soda and a candy instead. We can do movie night at home. We fall asleep halfway through Y Tu Mama Tambien. At 11:30 or so we get up from the couch and bring Sweet Potato out. She doesn't run around. She sits on her feet and listens, like a little watch ham. There's another new fire, closer to us, but blowing in the other direction. At 3 AM I wake up to check, still no evac warnings.

I'm Grateful for What I Got

This isn't how I would have preferred my life to go I guess. Can't help but thinking of that Lord of the Rings quote where Frodo is like, ah nuts I wish this hadn't happened in my lifetime! And Gandalf is like, my bro same! But that's what everyone always wishes! What else am I to do when faced with the glaring realities of climate collapse?

I still have hope. I believe in solutions I can't fathom dreamed up by brains I haven't heard of created in labs I don't know about. Sounds like a fairytale, doesn't it? Once upon a time, in a far off land, there was a scientist in a tower. She had long blonde hair and needed funding from at least once benevolent billionaire to save the world. One would trot to her window and call up, "Scientist, scientist, let down your hair to me!" She did as asked, letting this lady claw up her scalp every day. But by the end of some time, they'd created something in that bizarre cylinder. Gossip spread to the townsfolk, probably via Gloop, the quirky little guy who brought fresh vegetables to the tower. So the townspeople started coming by too, eventually getting into the habit of making a human pyramid so the scientist could get the bob she always wanted.

I've been talking about silver lining because it's what most unaffected people want to talk to me about. They may think it's making me feel better, but I think it's making them feel better. Though I believe in silver linings. I also believe in the dark gray clouds. One particular cloud has been hovering over me this week, since November really. It's not bad. It's not good either. The cloud calmly reasons, "You've had a really nice life."

The cloud warns that the end could be near. It wouldn't be fair, but maybe I've lived more in these 36 years than others get to in 80. I've squeezed so much into every month and week and day. I've been all the places I wanted to go, experienced all the love I longed for, built a wonderful life of silliness and coziness and adventure with my partner, made art I am incredibly proud of, been blessed with hundreds of beautiful, funny friends and thousands of special acquaintances. I've experienced and explored my special and complicated family. I've put myself in the position to be rejected and ashamed over and over and lived. I've put myself in the position to be seen and beloved and lived. I won a blue bead award at my summer camp when I was 11 and 14. I was a state champion in high school and spoke at all three of my graduations. I wrote my favorite play in 2022. Taylor Swift pointed at me while she sang my favorite song. Last week I gently told a teenage boy he shouldn't joking use the world "cripple" in an elevator at at Embassy Suites. I've taught hundreds of people how to write jokes and five-paragraph essays. I've collaborated with most of my favorite artists, which seems nearly impossible but somehow true. Children have streamed my progressive feminist jokes millions and millions of times. I've watched countless sunsets and many sunrises. I've melted into millions of artistic pieces--the movie Clueless and paintings by Caillebotte and concerts by Something Corporate. I did improv on a cruise ship and under a Taco Bell and wrote theatre in the woods and in airplane lounges. I built fires and made scrapbooks and arranged cheese boards. I've cried until I couldn't breathe and laughed the same. I've told almost everyone how I feel. I gave them the opportunity to tell me. Sometimes they didn't take it. Mostly they did. I'm grateful for what I got.

Cap, just because. 2021.

Don't Let the Days Go By Glycerine

It's the time of year when the sun wakes me and I'm not too cold to stay in bed and not too hot to wrestle out. I close one eye and use the other to look into Puhg's. I decide, urgently, I need to go to a matinee at the movies today. I book the 1 PM Nosferatu in the huge theatre with recliners. I do the Espresso dance work-out and time my shower to be ten minutes flat. I feel determined to make it to the cafe before 8:40, so I can have a few choice minutes with my honey. I fold my vegan bacon slices into quarters so I can eat them in single bites. Crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch. I decide on my black joggers and pink thrifted Scream crewneck. I wear the t-shirt I wore to bed, honestly.

I make it down the street by 8:32. The jolliest barista is in a mask and got a cool haircut. I have too much oat milk and Puhg has too little, so I do some extraction shots with my straw, like a surgeon. We talk about people's odd need to defend systems that don't even serve them and spaghetti vs. waffles. I read two sections of Women Who Run with the Wolves, about the mystical meaning of dolls and naiveté, then jot a list of my favorite art of 2024. I look through my notes from my first play read-through. No one has read a word of this thing yet, and I'm getting nervous. It is boring? I wonder, then, later, no it's it's not boring...it's too cringe to share to even find out if it's boring. I rewrite the notes in better handwriting, with more structure. I outline which scenes I think need reordering and which can be hacked or collapsed. I have to cut about 50 minutes, if not 60! I've never overwritten to this degree! I try to sign a contract for a conglomerate. They forgot to do some paperwork months ago. Two hours after I say I'll review the documents and send them back, they ping me, saying they'd really like the signatures now. I think about all the responses I want to fire off: well I don't actually work for you right now shall I bill you for an hour or two for the rush delivery I have my own life I have other jobs you've actually never ever asked me a single question about myself your folly is not my emergency chill out we live on a rock in space on which everything is controlled by a fake paper currency with no real value. But instead I walk home, open my laptop, sign the documents, and write, "Here you go!"

My friend asked me to note his screenplay. I've read five of his projects. He's worked with me so long that my rate has more than tripled since we met. I still discount him, which isn't great business, but sometimes other things matter more. The first act was hilarious, two and three could use shaping. I type up my findings while fielding all the Coffee Pings. Coffee Pings are so cute and validating and a tiresome never-ending Hollywood boulder to roll. One of my Conglomerate Producers is tapping me for a different comedy project and wants breakfast Thursday. The social outreach gal from the activism group wants to Zoom about my play. The college director checks in about the Saturday reading start time, yes 7 is great and I'm bringing a new scene I exclaim. My old college professor pitches an idea for a guest lecture. The most whimsical playwright I know texts thank you for my contributions to her writers' group yesterday: "smart thoughtful kind meeting everyone where they’re at - just so good." She wrote this incredible piece about a haggard woman who runs a grant program for a sociopath and I laughed my butt off reading it. Another bite from an LA director about a regional theatre producer I should know, I say I'll follow up. Grief asks if I can attend a game night with executives next week and Buckle says we're overdue for face time so I open my calendar and volley 16th afternoon in WeHo and Roll: "Want to get a coffee sometime soon? I would like to sit in your glow for a bit :-) " A trickle of gals RSVPing yes for our next gab sesh. Different Conglomerate says their client is two months late on my notes, but go ahead and bill for the commercial now. That random $300 gig money gets wired. I get overwhelmed and text Gos about how horrified I am that we've been witnessing/normalizing a genocide for over a year! I'm sorry but it makes me completely break-down once a week or so! I'm seeing dead children every day! Intentionally dead children! With bullet wounds in their heads! How are we just walking around listening to pop music and eating pretzel bites!

Thirty minutes later I'm in the AMC parking lot blasting "Karma" and pre-ordering cinnamon pretzel bites. I smuggle in my own can of Diet Cherry Coke. Everyone flipping loved this film, and it just didn't hold me. That's fine, I'm glad I went. Three other people were in there. I clapped for Nicole Kidman alone. I reemerged like a vampire from her crypt at golden hour. I walked along the busy street to the promenade, fully basking in the California winter. Got a falafel bowl. The owner was scooping hummus today. I trotted around remembering being a teen at the mall. When I got back to my car I decided to do another lap, then another. The line was long at In N Out, two girls drink Frappuccinos, I pass an unhoused woman with hair over her face one way and again on the way back. Notably, she has a new Target bag.

I decide not to play music and take the long way home, through the park, by the old zoo. It's a gorgeous windows-down winding drive. The runners are out and the kind of cars who don't rush to be the first to zip through an intersection. I'm very proud of how I timed it all. The darkness, just creeping up on the skyline as I pull into my apartment gate. Puhg came into the bedroom and sat on the bed. We thought about if things we do are responses to or reflections of our stimuli. He went on a walk, so I wrote this. Felt like listening to Glycerine by Bush.

We live in a wheel where everyone steals / but when we rise it's like strawberry fields.