Lucky Friday the 13th

Woke up in a bit of a bad mood to be honest. Tech issues with one of my accounts, irritation with the Toy Conglomerate who is, as they say in the biz, really pushin' it. They sent another 40 pages of notes on the V4 of this three-minute commercial. I take at least a half hour to compose a message that means, "With all due respect, this is insane" decide on, "Can we hop on a call at 11?"

Puhg clears out so I bop around to Taylor and Joyce Manor, scuttle to the cafe just before 9. I slurp an iced tea and yap with Puhg about his gaming group and housing options for the summer festival. We're not sure where to place the director just yet because she will be bringing her one year-old. I'm glad to work with her and also glad I'm seasoned enough in indie producing to have firm boundaries around certain choices. Like how even though the little lump is an angel in meetings now, we have not met the teething version of the lump yet, so unfortunately she cannot stay in the same apartment as the cast. But! I do agree to pay her at a premium, so she can work out her own accommodations. Sometimes I feel out of my league in terms of professional experience because I've never made much money on my projects and bend most choices to accommodate the artists. Then I reconsider, what if these me-isms are what make actors text me in the middle of the night, "You know I'd love to be in one of your shows..."

I read a little of my blue book, jot a couple details in my journal, start eating frogs. Email city: schedule that DC dramaturgy meeting, that Santa Monica director zoom, make an appointment for laser treatment Wednesday, many drafts at communication with the young organizer. My new notes are littered with criticism the characters don't sound enough like Gen A. It's hard to explain to a corporation they don't want their cutesy characters screaming "SKIBIDI BRUH!" I text Diz for intel, straight from the goddaughter source. She sends me a few lists and even some video of a child offering some lingo. I love collaboration over art in this way.

I zip down to the salon so I'm first in the door when they open at 10. I'm meeting a new potential manager today and feeling a little like a dull piece of silver. Fresh claws could be my secret weapon. I'm delighted the usual manager hasn't arrived to turn on the TV. I'm also with the gal who hates speaking English the most. It's silent as she lotions my hands and the sun streams in.

I decide to take that work call from a perch near the grocery store. I am very friendly to my producer because I know she is not to blame for any of the recent malarky. She agrees I deserve 2K in overages to rewrite both scripts over the weekend. This is great news and infuriating news as whenever I start a contract everyone assures me there is NO money to move on the rate, and then someone who makes triple my salary will waffle on deadlines and opinions and cost the thing a bonus fortune. One thing that has helped me navigate this big bad world as a business of one is sometimes talking to my bosses as a representative of "Alice's Business." Like, hey, luckily you're talking to me, Regular Alice...but if you were talking to the Business of Alice, corporate would be using way fewer exclamation points! Not not Hulk energy. You wouldn't like Alice when she's angry.

On my trot home I pass a blonde girl in an adorable checkered two-piece and realize it's the star of the movie I worked on in 2019. I call out to her and we hug. She seems more out of sorts than usual and mumbles about moving to London because... I get it, I get it. It's a really nice little bump-in. She was playing 16 when we spent all those hours together. But she was actually 26. Now she's 32 so it's kind of like she doubled in age instantly, to me. She says she'd love to see my premiere this summer. We exchange numbers and I rush home to shove a bagel in my mouth and put on "nice" clothes and "nice" makeup and spritz myself with the "nice" rose spray.

Because I have a music improv show later I decide to listen to the entirety of the Little Shop soundtrack on my way to the meeting. I skip the skips (Mushnik and Son DIAF) and take a deep breath before heading into the big boxy building. My email pings, the Toy Conglomerate will only pay me $500 for the overages. I write back that means I will be doing a quarter of the work. I would have preferred to have the money, but this option means I don't have to work Saturday or Sunday, which might be worth more in mental health bucks, down the line.

What's such a shock is this manager is quite low key and nearly too cool, but for some reason that puts me at ease. We share our lore and randomly both loved the same small-budget movie last month. He says he wants to sign me, and I surprise myself when I explain I don't really want to do many more of these meetings if I can help it, I hate them, and I never want to dress this presentably again. It sort of spills out of me, "I'm a slob and socially awkward and I just need someone to handle my reputation so I can be left alone to write for god's sake." He says he thinks he can do that for me, and I think I believe him. But I have believed a lot of people in this city...

As we're parting ways he says he's going to read my play, even just as a fan. I blurt out I wish I could ask my old manager what to do. And so it was revealed to me, how much I've been missing her. And also how maybe I'm finally ready to move on. I drive home listening to my short story playlist. At home Puhg is making lunch and offers one of his little passing wisdoms. I kind of always refuse to work with men, but in this one instance, at this particular moment, maybe it would be good for me.

I slow down and have some buffalo vegan wings with carrots, watch a video about the creation of patriarchy, work more on that one cursed email, decide it's now or never and send it. A playwright who is always busy working on Severance gets back to me about her opinion on subsidiary rights. A playwright who is quite popular in the Theatre for Youth space calls me for advice on a film contest. He is desperate to get a lit manager, which he can't find despite his play having been done literally 2000 times. Meanwhile I have three manager offers I'm mulling over, but it's taken me four years to get a single shot at my play. The playwright on Broadway wrote me a few days ago, her show is a smash and her pitch was rejected by every studio. She's very sad her words will never be translated to the screen like mine have been. Grass, greener, etc.

Around 5:30 I get into "improv" clothes. I even find a running order from that Maine gig last fall. It feels like a kiss of good luck. I just got a promotional email from that theatre company, they'd used a stock photo of me and the other two gals on cast. I forwarded it to them, "We're famous!" They write back with xs and os.

The evening's cast assembles in the green room at the major comedy spot around 6:30. JB brings his son. I clock him around 11/12. He sits kind of sullen and alone, so I ask what grade he's in. I try 6th, and he quickly corrects 7th. Though I am privately proud I was so close, I wonder if he's humiliated, to have been deemed a smaller fry. I ask what he's learning about in school. "Europe," he says. Mhm, mhm. I try another way in, explain I'm writing a commercial and could use a correspondent. I riff on some of what I learned earlier that day. "So I understand 'tough' means 'cool' now." He agrees. I ask about "no cap" and he shakes his head. Eventually the whole cast is gathered around this muffin. He tells us only his generation will ever know the true meaning of 6/7. We nod, that's fair.

What unfolds is a show I will simply never forget. We get the suggestion Mean Boys and launch into a high school locker room full of hormonal teens. I play JH's English teacher, worried he's too sensitive to fit in. JB plays the angry school jock/bully. AW does crude bits and riffs and smokes the whole crowd with her pipes in the 11th hour. RB, who I consider the greatest improviser alive, plays an emotional girl and a closeted boy and brings down the house with one line, twice. There are references to fetch and October 3rd and the a huge dance finale in which the bully cries and becomes best friends with the sweetie and together they bust several moves. Afterward we're so happy. I am always proud when we really serve the crowd. And then JB's son meanders backstage. He takes our photo. I decide in my heart, it was all for him.

I walk home, zipping through the crowds outside. Strangers call out after me--great job, good job, wow you guys killed. I tromp up past the park with the new Harry Styles and when I'm a block from home a man darts out from the shadows at me. It's Puhg! He accuses me of being high on comedy, and I confess, he is right.

I revel in the night air, take a long hot shower, and settle in for Frasier with a plate of heart-shaped sugar cookies from my mother and a big earl grey cookie my sister found at the beach town bakery. Fall asleep on Puhg, during the one about Marty being bad at accepting gifts.

what kind of a boy am i

Alice in Ship Land: The Ten-Day Cruise

During the NOLA Cemetery tour, I saw the voodoo queen’s tomb and the future burial place of Nic Cage. I also accomplished Bucket List Item See The Street the Streetcar Used to Ride Down Named Desire. I had to take a cab because it was a 45 minute walk to that part of town. No matter. Once I stood on the street Blanche had before me, I Yelped “pastry” like one does and walked around to various shops before I found something delightful: ginger fennel apple spinach pressed juice, blueberry pistachio pancakes, and a bowl of yogurt. It was a major hotspot with a million mustaches and that vaguely dirty vibe. When I looked at the receipt my eyes bugged out. Stinkin hipster brunch for one cost $21! Ah well, that’s part of the experience.

 New Port! I was overwhelmed with the possibilities of what do with my one golden day on Grand Cayman, and I chose right. ZPill, MB, and I went to a turtle sanctuary. The excursion was actually called “Turtles, Turtles, and More Turtles.” It was one of the best days of this whole dang enchilada. I saw giant 600-lb sea turtles, held baby turtles, snorkeled in a freshwater pond where a turtle swam right up to my face, fed a bunch of finches, and went down a slide that led to waterfall pool. I MEAN!? The day was over too soon. I forked some samples of rum cakes from a hut en route back to the ship so I could get ready for work. Major snaps for May 11, 2016—I made friends with a teeny turt in the morning and performed for two-thousand people at night. I ate double chocolate chip cookies in the middle.

 Guatemala is not an actual tourist port like all the other cities we go to. The gangway was in a literal train car graveyard. One concrete building a stone’s throw away full of card tables of trashy souvenirs. That was it. Our cast stuck together and exited the barbed wire fence area. Men with machine guns stood nearby. We asked for a cab to the nearest town to get lunch. Were we about to be mugged? Unclear. The car ride was hot and sad. The quality of life was low. But the cab driver came through! He dropped us off at a little seafood restaurant on the water. We ordered and took a stroll down the dock. I drank the best limeade I’ve ever had followed with a slice of pie and a coconut fritter from a guy walkin’ around with a tray of candied fruits.

Guat treatz.

I invited everyone over for Friday the 13^th festivities. Tail even wrote in our weekly calendar “Alice’s Birthday (Observed).”  We crammed into my cabin and each told a story—some made up, some true, some ghostly, others chilling. ZPill was the first to leave, but we sat around sharing creepy tales and munching Walgreens brand caramels for a while longer. I got up to brush my teeth in my teeny bathroom and ZPill popped out of the shower! I shrieked my face off and crumpled to the ground. As someone who loves to be scared, I could not have asked for a better present. Besides maybe the stuffed turtle MB gave me.

Early in the week, I finished a seventh draft of my screenplay, wrote some emails, read some friends’ scripts. By Thursday I was officially unable to be productive anymore. On Saturday instead of going to Belize I had breakfast at 11:30 and then napped all afternoon. I got up just in time for improv rehearsal and then ZPill and I, both not quite ready to go home, wandered around the ship. The arcade was empty, so we played air hockey. We discussed theatre on the helipad. I ate the only things that seemed edible (pizza and a ton of Pringles) and threw up.

I might miss Costa Maya most of all. I did all the things as a farewell tour. Swam in the ocean, took a beach walk, got a massage from a lil abuella, laid in the sun at Nacional Beach Club, and got henna tatts with MB. And still, I forgot to drink from a final coconut. It’s always something, isn’t it?

In our scriptless show, during Pillars MB played my gay aunt Karen who took me to an amusement park to tell me my parents were getting a divorce. Every time I got sad, she fed me candy. It was too real, and that’s some of the fun of improv—your real life friendship is up on stage, and the audience has no clue. We watched the juggler on board this week with some other crew pals. I am surprised by how many friends I have made here. It just happens like any other community in the world. See each other regularly enough, start saying “hi” in hallways--next thing you know you’re jumping into the ocean together and he’s telling you what growing up in Serbia is like.

Speaking of crew “friends,” this boat is thirsty. We’re headed into a dry dock period and everyone knows it. Guys who have been cordial in elevators are suddenly sniffing around like mad for something to appease their month alone in an empty port with very few women. “Wait, let’s make sure we hang out this week!” they say with not-so-hidden desperation. “How will I find you later?” A deckboy professed his affection for me and swore he’d never love again if I meant what I said when I told him, “I have a boyfriend.” Poor knuckleheads.

Final port felt surreal. Goodbye, Caribbean. I may never see you again. I started the day with a ridiculous journey to find a Mexican candy flavored McFlurry. I get it, I’m TRASH. I walked a mile and a half in the blistering sun getting a real blister from my flip flops. When I arrived I was told the ice cream machine wasn’t working. I walked back to the usual crew beach bar, promptly ordered an ice-cold smoothie, and sunk to the bottom of the pool, letting my hair fall out of it’s elastic band and float like algae.

I did my usual jump off a high wall into the ocean. About twenty feet. There’s a way to crawl up a narrow corner of the rock and jump from a thirty-foot spot, but it’s significantly scarier. Barely space to stand up. And Oh. So. High. I have started the crawl three times before. I usually get about two feet before I imagine slipping and decapitating myself on the brick. Then I abort the mission. “It’s okay not to do everything,” I think. I tell Folds this, who has done the big jump once and wants to again but says he won’t because his back has been bugging him. We have a great day. I splash, I do handstands, I finally get an amaretto ice cream cone from the mother/son shoppe down the way. Half an hour before we need to get back on the ship Folds marches over to me and points at me, then at the big wall. “We’re doing it.” And he’s so certain, I follow. I watch him crawl and jump. I follow and stop. I’m terrified. But a gal and two guys are below swimming. They cheer me on. A dude with red dreadlocks (of course) comes up behind me and gives me tips about focusing on my center of gravity. “You can do it,” this stranger I might be tempted to razz in another context says, and it really helps. “I’m scared,” I keep repeating. It is empowering to announce it. It’s rare we get to announce our fear. I do over and over, but then, I slowly stand, and I scream, and I fly. I can barely tell where one blue ends and one begins. Moments later Dreadlocks does a backflip, of course.

Saturday is a long day of signing papers and packing and trying to eat through the snacks I didn’t finish (lunch of buffalo wing Pringles, Mexican shortbread cookies, and a diet 7UP not recommended). After our final show, the entire entertainment department all had a toast in the theatre. It felt truly warm. Goodbye dancers, goodbye singers, goodbye aerialists. In these moments I think how differently I would feel if I had a Facebook. But I don’t need to know what the saucy Brit I befriended will be doing next year. I will only remember him as he was, in high tweed pants, drinking champagne from a plastic cup on the lip of the stage. ZPill asked if I had snacks, and when I told him the only option he decided he was not above the Cadberry egg I had already thrown in the trash. They’re covered in foil, ya know?

Debark was the longest morning of waiting in lines, lugging suitcases, and showing forms. But joy filled the air. Everyone fireworking out back into their lives. ZPill and I went to Frenchman Street and debriefed. We asked the cab driver to drive by a donut shop on our way out of town.

NOLA in the afterglow. Goodbye for now.

Friday February 13th

Just got home. It's 3:15. Our comedy cohort had a workshop tonight. It ended at 8 and we gleefully gathered by the escalators. Together we made our way to Lincoln Square where a reserved table and karaoke awaited us.

The drinks started flowing. Star is in AA, so she said she was interested in ordering the lemon pie or a fried Snickers. I suggested we split both. Crooks and I sang "No Scrubs," our gang danced so good you'd think it was planned, and several nearby drunkees tries to become our best friends. While the too confident business men butchered "Sweet Caroline" the Texan Queen said, "The DJ should really be playing our request more since we're the ones who are kinda making tonight HAPPEN."

Pinker showed up late from another gig, but I had faith he would be there. "Summer Lovin" was already in the queue. We harshly judged the braceface couple mumbling "Kryptonite" by Three Doors Down. It got later and later, but I was wide awake. I only drank half my ginger beer, so the caffeine shouldn't have been that bad. At the very end of the night I inspected the can to find 49 grams of sugar on the label. Ah ha.

There were too many bits. But eventually, as all things, the evening ended. Crooks and I headed out for the brown line. We were gabbing so intently, we forgot it was cold. And then after about a mile of what was supposed to be a half mile trot, we realized we had gone the wrong way. Our train was in 8 minutes. We sprinted.

My feet were on fire from my Uggs. My core, a furnace. Sweat beaded down my face. We sprinted a mile and a half and saw the last train of the night pull onto the platform just beyond our stride. We kept running just in case, but no, that was it. The station guy told us.

We started looking up Uber rates. We started watching for cab lights. But everyone was leaving the bar now. A man on the curb garbled something about hitchhiking. He had glasses, a furry cap, and was holding a pile of papers.Then we noticed he wasn't trying to hail a cab at all. He was darting up to passing cars with his middle fingers raised. I started looking up how long I would have to wait for a bus to avoid the hiked fares. Then the stranger guy walked up to us and said, "People don't like that." He was very close and his zipper was wide open. No underwear. Definitely not going to wait for a bus. And then--

Pinker and Finn showed up! "Hey!" they said very casually. "You guys left so long ago! What happened?" They were going to walk a half mile to the red line, still running. "Great!" We said and showed them our sweat and vamoosed away. A long frigid trek is pretty doable when the alternative was a creep curb. We laughed too much and took in the bricks and graffiti. We passed the huge northside cemetery. "It's Friday the 13th!" I squealed. "We have to go in," Pinker said. We sized up the fence. It was too high to jump, so we just took turns tells scary stories. And when that was over we took turns thinking of horrifying things that might happen on the way home--maybe someone lives in that little nook beneath the tracks. Maybe we'd see a man with a knife in a window reflection. It was nice.

We of course waited twenty minutes for a train, but it did arrive. It did, and we got on, and Finn and I got off, and he lives just down the block from me, so I was never alone. These are the nights of 2015. There are only 365 of them, and many are already gone.