The Shake Shack in Hollywood

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.

Butterscotch Popcorn

Sometimes I do know how lucky I am. It's Wednesday, and I have the entire day to work on my newest play. I zoomed with my writers' group earlier. Now I'm at the cafe with two cookies and a caramel sea salt cold brew. A producer just reached out asking if I was interested in a new project. "Sure" I respond now. There's a 10% chance I'll never hear from her again, but it's nice to be asked.

Last night Puhg had the living room, so I got all curled up in bed with a bowl of Jenni's (butterscotch popcorn). I opened my laptop to watch The Other Two. It felt so college and so 30s at the same time. I'd spent the day pounding away at my keyboard, revising and proofing B_rbie episodes for a big deadline. I stirred up gossip in my high school group chat. I had to send difficult emails, but I sent them.

Monday morning I hit the picket line early with a distant Chicago friend. I got a free iced coffee with a blood splatter straw. I fiercely planned two productions and wrote two B_rbie scripts I went so hard I had to powerwalk the 1.2 miles to my favorite Mexican restaurant. A closest friend and I gabbed for hours. I walked home dreaming.

I had no weekend plans, but Puhg and I hit the movies just because. It was so summer sitting on a patio eating falafel and later watching The Haunted Mansion with frosty Coke Zero in the cupholder. Sunday night I walked to the local bookstore, browsed for an hour with Yosh, then he bought me a milkshake.

Where Is He Now?

G was 60 or so when he worked at the ice cream shop in the mall. He had curly grey and white hair. He was always in a good mood and usually in some mild pain. He moved slowly. Once, he explained, it's because he went to his daughter's house and had to walk home. I had a lot of questions about what that meant but didn't ask. He said he got home at 4 AM. Was the walk that long or did he leave that late? Sometimes he told me stories that included a lot of 60s slang I didn't fully grasp, so I was always worried he'd already explained something about his life to me last week. I didn't want to make him think I wasn't listening.

The job was simple enough--mainly because I was never trained to do most of what we were supposed to do. I know this for a fact because one day a corporate rep showed up unannounced. I kind of made a show of trying to clean the scoops a little more intensely before she finally sighed and said, "Just work as though I'm not here." I did, and then we got an F on every section of the evaluation sheet besides "Hospitality" (for which I got an A -- insert angel emoji).

I was often alone, but G had some regular hours, so that's when we'd be paired up. Mostly people ordered a cup or cone, but once, a week into working together, someone ordered a sundae. G got a little nervous, like "oh great, something fancy." I said I'd make it, and G would not stop gassing me up for the rest of the day. "It looked just like a magazine picture!" he said. Whenever someone ordered a sundae for the rest of the season he'd point to me and explain something like, "You are not going to believe how good she can do it!" A kiosk nearby sold some weird wind chime music. We'd hear the same quirky hour of music on repeat all day sometimes. One of the songs was, "Our God Is an Awesome God." After a long day I said, I'm tired of Our Awesome God." And G said, "Oh but he's not tired of you!"

I remember one morning G was particularly happy. He just got a new job, he beamed, working in the refrigerator department of Sears. I congratulated him and asked when he was leaving. He clarified it was only half time, just like his hours at the ice cream shop. But the next day I overheard the store owner talking with our manager. "G got a new job, which is a relief, so we don't have to feel bad about firing him." We never said goodbye.

Rollercoaster

It was less a week of high highs low lows and more a week of normalized highs and medium level lows.

In a single day (Tuesday) a handful of unreal things happened that I would not have full stop ever believed could happen two years ago, but instead, there it was. Long hugs with AP and MR, letting my old gig friends into the front door of the studio. The studio I write in. A name drop and a nod of affirmation from my boss and her boss (the bossiest of bosses). Puhg, in the expensive shoes I bought him, stood watching from the far back corner as it all went down. And as it ended a friend from summer camp of all places arrived. I told my lunch break for us to have kale quinoa bowls and guac. And then bad news was delivered that should have made me quake and cry, but it just made me think a birthday cake waffle cone of salted cracked caramel was a good idea. (It was.)

Using the roller coaster emoji because some moments I feel fine, more than fine, there's a sheer optimism shooting from me. And then there's a quick zip of metal when I think about climate change. And then a screeching jerk of the boxcar when the fear steps into that operator's box. I see it in there with it's grey crater face, moving the joystick or pressing the button or whatever those teenagers do to keep everyone on the ride alive.

Got dizzy during my workout and sat on the floor for a few minutes. I know I have to relax more. I cried trying to sort out my Friday night plans specifically designed for unwinding. Saturday was sucked up and away by an exciting work project. I would never not have done it but I lost my moment to be chill, and also my moment to finish those two scenes of the musical. Twenty days left before deadline. I want to go on vacation, but not right now. I can't. But I will. One day. These are good problems to have. I used to be be much more stressed, but it's like my body is reacting worse than ever. Took two days (almost) totally off social media and it made a world of difference. It's uncanny how my happiness is ripped straight from out behind my eyes when I see everyone else.

Tried out Sabrina last night and Pretty Little Liars today. I imagine writing everything. I have so much spaz and sprinkle in me. I feel like I just moved to Chicago again, hungry for improv jams. I know one day I won't be sparkling when I read staffing newsletters, but today I am. I feel open like I did when I was 22 and knew if I needed to I could still work at McDonald's. When I was a full-on college professor I took an application for a Taco Bell. And then there's a point where going backward can kill you. Although I did meet a waiter at H_____ of P___ who said he left his giant firm because his blood pressure was going to literally kill him. I said, "You're killing it" sincerely, but I know it sounded absolutely putrid. I've spent at least a couple hours wondering how to right the situation. But attending any energy to him would make him feel even more self-conscious. I think the only possible resolution is to see him years from now and say his words still ring true.

Decade of Fall Memories

Walking home from The Goodman with my cowboy boots on. A blast of chilled wind ruffles my braid. I see corners I've seen for two years and wonder how they will look in ten.

The sun shined for Stripes' visit. We walked Maggie Daley holding hot eggnog lattes begging the universe for anything beyond the squat we got. "I would let out a cheer to even be formally rejected," she yelped at the green lions.

Pulled up my Halloween socks and wore fuzzy leggings to Dusty's musical improv show. I couldn't afford the non-student price, but I forgot my ID. My face got hot, and the ticket girl let me go in anyway. On the way home I picked up a pint of trick-oreo-treat flavor of the month from Baskin. Puhg and I ate it in bed while watching Erin Brockovich until 2 in the morning.

I had this grand plan to do a specifically creepy thing every day of October. The 1st, although it was probably 80 degrees, meant a box of Entemann's pumpkin donuts. I ate them in my yellow room before I had to hop on my scooter and work at the testing center.

The year of partymania was old hat. Now it was time for me to spend Friday with a green face mask on reading.

The car radio told me it was a wild weekend ahead--what with the holiday on Sunday. Bars and dress up for three nights straight. I was driving because I had to do my monthly stock pile of Target groceries. The traffic was terrible because of a football game. The carton of napoleon I had in the bag next to me was melting even with the AC on.

Before smartphones we were very lost. East St. Louis actually. It was meant to be a fun girl's night, but we couldn't get home. The light was sucked from corners. So dark, so dark. We were on our way to a haunted house, but we missed it. A cleanup crew met us at the door. It was okay.

My bio lab partner shuffled his little boots a bit after class. There was a nip in the air. He never had much to say but a lot of sass about saying the simple things (HI!!! WE HAVE A TEST!!!) "I have some chocolate in my room?" I tried. "OH I WOULD LOVE CHOCOLATE." We walked back to my dorm and I showed him the Fannie Mays. "HMM," he pondered loudly. He took one small piece and was on the edge of telling me something. But it was too quiet and too chilly.

It happened finally--my polka dot skirt was splayed around my chunky legs as I walked down the street in Kyoto for the final time. The maple leaf cookies were on sale, so I bought some to eat on the train. I think I whispered to what I'm not sure.

Two guys were in the hallway. I thought they were my friends, but they stopped inviting me places. Everything was dying, but I knew it would all become green again soon.

Blink's

If it were my last day in the world, each minutia would be an adventure, or a hot pot of steam bath to soak in. Obviously the nighttime walk to Bobtail ice cream, Dizz calling me in my office, the sun peeking onto Lake. But even the business emails I sent, putting my step away, thinking too hard.

May donuts.

No No Nobody

Easter ice cream double date!

No no nobody cares--
except for you.
No no nobody is worried--
except for you.

Hoku 4 Days

Writing with some humility this evening. On Friday I had a little bit of a grumble fest. I had just been featured in a real fest--a good, cool sketch one--and it was just really hard to see my work for some reason. It was so imperfect. It always is.

Hunny and her new husband plus Blake and Da had come out to see this silly thing I wrote. We went to the bar across the street. I put on a happy face (half-earned because I like those people a lot) and shouted over the music, but concern stewed in me. After moping home I let it go because otherwise the ghost of failure yet to come would eat me whole.

There are good times and okay times and times of survival lately. Yesterday I was sitting in the library. I love libraries. Especially tiny ones like the one across from my apartment. I eavesdropped on the kid's corner and sat in an oak chair. I looked objectively at my weekend and wanted to slap myself across the face. I am living a very very good life, and I have got to stop grumping when one percent of it is imperfect. I mean, let me talk about my weekend. Seriously.

Friday I was featured in a sketch festival. Supportive, cool people came. We hung out. Bisque bought me a cranberry juice. Once home I popped some popcorn and chomped on a big block of Christmas gift milk chocolate from one of the beuff's work clients.

Saturday morning we did two intense workouts, ate greek yogurt parfaits, relaxed, planned some playwriting classes, read. I went to the library. I sat on the floor. I was in no hurry. Dunt is in town with her mom. She took us out to a super delicious Mexican dinner I ordered the nachos. We got home early since they were en route to a show. Bisque and I watched The Babadook. It was totally entertaining. Afterward I walked in the not-even-that-cold December night to Walgreens for ice cream and flamin hot Cheetos, which I ate before curling up with my laptop and MTV's True Life.

I woke up to happy friend texts. I ran five miles. I had a musical improv rehearsal. The grocery shopping was full of goofs and snickerdoodle Chex Mix. Dusty took me up on my offer to join us at a super discounted magic show. We sat in the Palmer House Hotel parlor and had our minds blown. I mean, I saw a man knife himself out of a balloon and pick the audience member's card tonight! Meanwhile I have the best boyfriend ever, immediate text contact with my whole family, can do laundry in my apartment, and Poptarts exist. THINGS ARE PRETTY GOOD.

Getting rambley now, but I'm so beyond guilty of seeing my life as a bunch of progress always always yet to be made. Enjoy the trash TV, the junk food, the fact that you don't have to do anything at all and still to live is beyond explanation in that very good way.

Badlands

An interesting thing about the Badlands is that their namesake comes from people trying to settle in South Dakota. On maps you'd simply note "Bad land" because a bunch of rocks is pretty crummy land for your family bungalow.

But now many generations later, "Badlands" evokes many different connotations--very little of which are accusatory or critical of the geography. It is a place people go out of their way for. I know because I was one of these people, WHILE I WAS VERY HUNGRY no less. (Thus is the nature of family road trips--someone flouncing around with a camera while another someone stews angrily in the front seat. But ultimately we stopped at Wall Drug Store and I had half a maple donut plus a s'more ice cream cone, so things worked out.)

Reason #867 I Have to Move Back to Arizona

I just remembered ice cream places in the Midwest have "a season." AKA THEY CLOSE FOR HALF THE YEAR. AKA packing up my stuff, burning rubber back to the dessert, and SITTING IN A VAT OF FROYO IMMEDIATELY.

When I was dating Kay he and I took a short trip to Chicago some summer before heading back to school. I wanted to go to Tastee Freeze, but Labor Day was approaching. While we were driving by I asked him to run inside and asked when they closed for the season. He asked me to repeat the sentence like ten times. "Closed for the season?" he kept parroting. "Yes. Closed for the season." "Closed for the season?" Like I was speaking Greek.

He finally went in shaking his head. When he came back he looked stunned. "They said they were closing September 1st. How did you know they were closing?" And then it occurred to us that he was a California boy, born and bred.

Short Hair, Do Care

Been almost three weeks since I got my pixie cut. As my roommate said, "I feel like all liberal artistic women into gender equality have the short haircut at some point, so it was only a matter of time." If so, at least I am going through this rite of passage now when I am young and wandery and can look sort of like I got my head stuck in a sheep-shearer and its w/e.

Running is awesome. My head feels so light, there's no rat tail absorbing sweat and hitting my back. The shower after is divine. I feel like one complete person. No weeping willow vines. Sometimes I look in the mirror and I'm like, "Hey, this is okay. I kinda look like Anne Hathaway in Les Mis" and then I remember she was a street urchin who died of venereal disease. I dunno, guys.

I put on makeup a lot more. I have been wearing earrings every day. I grasp these bits of womanhood tightly. "You like a boy from behind," someone tells me, and I do feel flushed. Even though looking like a boy should be as much of a false insult as "playing like a girl." I get pizza with Shells, who also has a pixie, and I'm pretty sure our waitress thinks it's a date. Which also isn't inherently supposed to be an insult (but it's a little jarring). When I went on a real date this week, I felt a little deflated not being able to do anything with my hair. It is what it is now. Freeing, limiting.

Yesterday morning I went to the tiny hip grocery store for a cucumber, strawberries, and hummus. It was 8:30. I was in pajamas. (It's Spring Break.) As the dude checked me out he said

DUDE: Nice hair.
ME: Thanks.
DUDE: How do you like it?
ME: I don't love it. It's fine. This is the shortest it's been.
DUDE: I admire your guts.
ME: It's hard to have short hair. Which is a stupid thing because it's just a hair cut.
DUDE: A woman's hair represents so much in our society.

I mean, tell me something I don't know, dude. Mainly, I try not to think about it too much. Because it is just hair and it will grow back and it's all very vain in the first place. But thoughts are thoughts. Better to ruminate a little than suppress a lot.

Trefoil and chocolate chai ice cream in Virginia.

I Am Happy I Had To Do Stuff (Part One)

I don't think I've ever had a truly bad job. I can think of only one that deeply challenged me in the bad ways. But I had the good fortune to leave after one year. And it was part-time in the first place. I have taken something with me from everything I had to do. Sure, the season I worked at the mall ice cream shop the amount of nothing hours cleaning the hot fudge machine were vastly disproportionate to the amount of positive life wisdom I gained. But those are the odds when you're 18. That's alright. If I hadn't been there, I would have been somewhere else.

The cynic in me says, "Maybe if you were a true yuppy you would have had an internship at a theatre company." And, yeah, maybe I would have. But I really don't care at this point because I'm here and here isn't bad at all. The further truth of the matter is that if I never had to do stuff, maybe I actually just wouldn't have.

It takes some time, yes, but in hindsight there's growth. There are seedlings that sprout like face-down tadpoles. And that's good enough for me. For me standing here, staring at the dirt.

Mando explains MA consumes the most ice cream of all fidy states.

Happy Birthday, Daddio

Texts, September 14, 2013

ME: What's up in [my dad's town]? I miss [the town] most in fall.

DAD: I am wearing my first flannel shirt of the season. Went to ____ to look at storm doors. Got a Culver's shake. Now on the couch to watch more of Homeland season 2.

ME: You're having the perfect day.

ME: Would love to be there.

DAD: I wish you were here.

DAD: Anytime.

Butterbrickle

March 2012

For all we know, we  might not get tomorrow.

The Person Who Birthed Me's Birth

Yesterday was my mom's birthday.

This summer when we were both in Chicago, we were on our way home when she peeled into a Jewel Osco parking lot. "We'll just pick up the staples," she said. Five minutes later, this is what we were buying. I made her pose for a picture. This is how I know I wasn't adopted. These are my genes:

"Staples."

And this. This is one of my favorite pictures of her I've ever taken:

The Chicago Diner, waiting on a veggie burger.

Happy birthday, Momma!

Weekend Productivity

This weekend's productivity has been a complete joke. In the very tiny time period I had between my five hour Saturday rehearsal and going to see Rye's new play, I scheduled in an hour long break to make and eat a pumpkin pizookie. I regret nothing. But my grading pile is roughly the exact same as it was when I left school Friday.

I have not set myself up for success in this upcoming week of a million hours of rehearsal, but I can't imagine any other way I could have lived. I needed each foray into the unnecessary. Using my Sweet Tomatoes coupon with Kale and Shells. TINY CORNBREADS FOR ALL. Talk of ghosts. The monster bar and haunted basement. My castmate's house party themed Robots and Sluts (for the record, I was a robot). Cuddling up on Kale's pull-out couch, falling asleep to Adventureland and Ru's soft snores. Riding my scooter towards mountains at sunrise. Six hours of improv rehearsal today. A subpar horror film with mucho above par people at the cute arty cinema on the main strip of town. Writing this dumb post instead of grading one more screenwriting presentation.

Some nuggets. Bug is holding white cheddar popcorn seasoning.

True or false: sometimes you have to sabotage yourself, just for a commercial break, in your otherwise "put-together" life. Ex: Ice cream for breakfast--indulgent, kinda nice, and reminds you how good oatmeal feels in your bod? Or, indulgent, dumb, you-should-know-better-don't-waste-your-time-being-a loser? Ditto watching YouTube clips of Cheaters. Procrastinating your dang work for three whole days. Three things I did this weekend that I can't tell how to feel about.

No other road. No other way.

Where Does Being Nice Get You?

"Nice" is basically an insult these days. I mean, I think so. I take it as "in lieu of a real compliment:" It's the backside of a silver spoon or a perfectly triangle slice of yellow cake.

And most of us at one point (or many) times in our lives have asked "Where will being nice get me for real?" Indeed, there are times we feel we cannot be heard if we're nice, successful if we're nice, loved if we're nice.

When you're an educator, and a student meets with you, and the student is nice, it's really hard not to help her succeed in the class. I wouldn't act immorally and pass a failing kid or offer extra help to some and not all, but I am hard-pressed to find flaw in a nice student.

When I worked at at Marble Slab, I remember it was literally as simple as Please and Thank You if I was going to help a customer out of a credit card jam, getting a discount, putting a cherry on top. Just being nice, the whole world opened up for those people.

In rehearsal this evening we discussed the US involvement with Pakistan. Complicated to say the least. And Jersey said, "It's so stupid. It's like paying a schoolyard bully not to beat you up, but, meanwhile, you're a six-foot juicehead!" Point taken. But, part of it is about...niceness. There's a niceness.

Nice flowers at a nice wedding in 2010.

Seriously consider what could have been avoided in the history of crime, violence, and hatred if everyone were nice. The immediate reaction is to say, "No, no. The nice guys would just get taken advantage of." But would they? If EVERYONE was nice. If everyone were nice, wouldn't domination seem a hassle?

Bold but True Statement of the Week & Labor Day

Human History trembles, buckles its knees, and crumbles in terror if you force it face your Potential.

On Labor Day I enjoyed a cone of pear and gorgonzola ice cream. Photo with Shells here. Snapped by Bug.

You can't stop today as it comes speedin' down the track,

Child, yesterday is history, and it's never comin' back,

'Cos tomorrow is a brand new day,
and it's don't know white from black!

Quotes from Ru

"Alice, I guess my question is why aren't we watching 'Clueless' and eating Oreos?"

Yosh, Shellz & Cheeze, Ru. May 2012.

"Omg I don't wanna talk about [only having on semester of school left]. I'm taking the whole "I'm just so over school and I'm ready to get out there and perform" approach. While secretly shoveling ice cream into my mouth to cope with the hysteria."

Weekend Things

Improv workshop with Susan Messing
Navy Pier ferris wheel, popcorn, giant pretzel
Hating Lollapalooza for ruining every bus route ever
Pizza Pot Pie at Chicago Pizza & Oven Grinders
Fraiser & hot fudge sundaes
Four mile run
Ice cream for breakfast
Pirated Louie
Writing--minimally
Reading--a tad
Looking up useless junk online--colossally
Mainly staying in bed
Not enjoying Workaholics--still watching it
Ice cream for dinner
Adaptation
Sunday Brunch at Waffles
Church
Walk to Frank Lloyd Wright house
Beach frolic

Soon to come:
Farmer's Market veggies
Improv shows
A late train home
Final week of improv intensive starts tomorrow!