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.

Happy Day Before Friday

Woke-up earlier than expected, so early the ham hadn't gone to bed yet. Scooped her from her cage for a nuzzle and a cucumber slice. Read an essay from Hola Papi on the balcony. Journaled, diligently, ten things I am grateful for and three compliments. Cardio dance workout in the living room, shower with lavender soap and rose shampoo. My manager emailed to say my 11 AM had to reschedule. Also I'd already turned in my Barbie episode early. So, suddenly I had a morning for my newest side project.

Been avoiding people and places because of BA5. Did an improv show the night before because I decided I could be N95'd save for the 25 minutes of stage time with my two gals. Now on the sidewalk at my favorite bakery got a text from the show's producer. A screenshot of her team/fellow producers: "I am a HUGE Alice fan" "hard agree." I'm on the very edge of the aforementioned sidewalk, at a lone table. The fresh air a friend, morning bun and caramel salt brew too. I turn off my wifi and set my phone's timer for twenty-five minutes before chucking it in my purse. I write my new play. I like my new play. I do this sprint three times. It's 11 AM, and I've written the first fifteen minutes of this little darling.

Eat sprouts and vegan turkey, do my Japanese DuoLingo lessons. Learning how to say things like, "I talked with my friend on Sunday" and "I am busy on Friday." I attend a useful Zoom panel on legal advice for writers. I keep my camera off and paint my nails from light to pop pink.

I lay down to rest at about 5 and end up texting with my friend for an hour. Commiserating, then plotting, then scheming about how to get friends jobs. I really like getting friends jobs. I also like plotting. My producer at Big Corporation emails the entire team she loved my episode. Puhg tells me I am flying too high. I think I probably am I decide to do a night run, right as the sky goes pink in sunset. I get home hot and sweaty and immediately dunk in the pool. I rarely swim at night, so this is a special sparkling indulgence. I sink to the bottom and whale around. Have a nighttime diet ginger ale, listen to a meditation podcast, have a rainbow sprinkle cookie over an episode of Frasier--the one where the dog goes missing--write in my planner my Friday to-dos, let the ham roam around before my bedtime, this time.

The Big Red Dot

Fishies at Hein Garden. 2008.

Today was mini-Japan day!

-This morning I read in the CS Monitor that Japan is still strugglin' even though the rest of the world has kind of moved on. I said a teeny prayer for my favorite country.
-Read a lot about Noh theatre in preparation for Theatre History today. Was whisked back to seeing Noh with Jamin and Mahji on a crisp fall evening in Kyoto. The show was so good that I did a cartwheel while I waited for the bus to take me home.
-Watched part of Throne of Blood--the Japanesed-up Macbeth directed by Kobayashi.* Instead of three witches, the Macbeth and Banquo characters come across an old man singing in the woods. He is singing about man being as inconsequential as insects. The two warriors stumble upon him and demand information about who he is at bow-point. Yo, weren't you guys listening? He's singing about the pointlessness of existence...How scared do you think he is to lose his life?
-For only one millisecond, when I heard the Japanese music and the Nihongo, did I think, "Oh...I could have been there." But then the millisecond was shot through with a billion samurai arrows as all the perfection of me coming to graduate school right here and right now swam up from the depths of the Pacific.

I'm the sea, and you're Japan.

*SERIOUSLY EMBARRASSING EDIT. THIS IS THE GUY WHO CAN EAT A BILLION HOT DOGS. The film was directed by Kurosawa. I am the worst Japanese lover of all time...