Karate Kid

"Comedy is a weapon" a director told our ensemble once. I agreed. But also, sometimes, come on. But lately the world is not as funny. All the time. I mean, every day I laugh, and I try to make people laugh, and it's cheesy but laughing is actually very important. I believe and I know. Sometimes, arbitrary or not, I'm just not laughing. A cameraman and I watch a bunch of my female coworkers file into a room. He jokes, "What? Is R Kelly in there?" And (no chill) I said, "No. That will never be funny." He was like "ehhh, yeah, sorry." He was a very nice dude, but I don't have the energy. Today I walked into my improv class. I was annoyed, as I am every Sunday at 10 AM doing my stupid beginner-level class for $500 that promised to be advanced and isn't but I don't want to quit because I already paid the money and several of my friends swear it will get better in the next level. Anyway, I walked in, and this guy, also probably very nice, who has never really hurt a fly and clearly really looks forward to each of these lessons and generally has a nice attitude was like "Hi!" and I was like "I thought I might be late" and I made a little gesture like a chop. He said, "Whoa that looked like karate." And then, I'm fairly certain without thinking, he said, "In general there should just be more karate in the world. Like I wish way more people knew karate." And it was just a throwaway funny opening like, but I was stone-cold like, "What?" He was like, "You know! How fun! People would get into karate fights on the sidewalk!" And I didn't even give him a dumb smile. I was like, "I'm not even ambivalent to that. I really wouldn't like that. I'm already worried enough about getting attacked when I go somewhere at night. I don't need bonus concerns. It's one of the few reliefs I have to know most attackers are kind of bumbling." And he was like, "Heh, yeah. Yeah, no, you're right." This is how they say in France, Being Extra. But my nose is clogged and I am just not into the garbage banter and the jokes for jokes sake. Comedy is a weapon. I'm sick of everyone carrying guns, firing shots into the air, stray bullets killing birds.

Gobs

For some reason I've always remembered seeing  ___ the first break after we went to college. She lamented she was already done drinking. "Beer is so fattening!" She hadn't known. "I put on, like, gobs of pounds." Why do I love "gobs of pounds" so much? The phrase roams into my consciousness when I least expect it. Memory is incredible. What will I download about this week?

I haven't gotten to write the past three days. I've been doing two jobs at work as I transition into my new title. I stay until 8:45 and then get a cheese plate on a slab that is shaped like California at a networking meet-up. Or I couldn't even muster the mental strength to order good food from Postmates. I made macaroni at Bundo's apartment during the best episode of The Bachelor that has ever been filmed.

Yesterday was kissed with magic. Our super perfect this-is-why-we-do-it field shoot premiered. Armie Hammer's wife made buttermilk pie, and I ate two slices at my desk while punching up an intro for the country's first defensive female college football star. Margaret Cho said her underwear smells like pennies and we erupted in applause. My eyes welled up knowing she can't say that on F_____ or K______ or M_____. Everyone grows bitter, they say. But there are too many things to do for that. There are too many loves for that.

Sample

Quiet, dark hotel naps. Taco Bell bag in the Trash bb. Sunday afternoon, snuggled in bed, watched the first half of Beaches and later a comedy on the couch full of chickenless noodle soup.

Monday afternoon an old friend from summer camp meets me for lunch. It's a special language and understanding we share even though we were never in the same cabin. At night, Grief throws a seance at her house. Well, at least we order donuts and try the Ouija board. Buckle lights candles and maybe moves the plastic piece.

It's been a week of bonding with Bundo and Copper. They get fed up with something and I do an impression of it, we all power up the volume and sing The Fray. We believe in each other's dreams and each other's best. I am glad we have to be so close even though I no longer have any patience for people eating cereal, making phone calls, or breathing.

It's amazing to be so creative every day. In a week I write something like 100 jokes and pitch 10 ideas. Once they're submitted I feel accomplished even though they boil down to 10 jokes and one idea. In the morning I'm in a sketch with the darlings of wrestling. It's so normal to be dragged into this stuff I don't wear any makeup or look at my hair. Later, when the spot plays, I kind of regret this. One of my favorite writers walks out the door I'm standing near. I say "thank you for coming" and he says "thank you" and I wish I had told him. It would have been okay. Maybe I will meet him again one day and say I pitched the bit he liked.

Wolfgang Puck does a demo, and I get to eat a leftover brownie. I take home a tiny chocolate Oscar. I eat too many sugars all day and vow to be better. Wednesday I take a walk with Lolo. Make a point to be with Puhg at night. I love him more and more every day.

Thursday I get bold. I respond to a rejection email, throw out two lines, go on a date in the middle of the day. AP has her girls over to a private gym for a dance/weights workout. It's invigorating to jump and kick and even use the frustrating resistance band. The normalcy is so strange. We hadn't met a year ago. Social media can be a chump, but I watch my friends' honeymoon happily, hear about a possible new love interest from another on Polo, discuss careers from LA to Omaha.

Pug and I run Friday morning. Oh, is it tiring with hills. I need to power through tasks and go to the yogi cafe before work even begins. When I return I'm pulled in for a meeting, and then I tend to my feelings about the meeting for hours. I'm wearing sandals so Tira and I walk in the green room. I leave a little late, but traffic makes me very late for dinner. We shovel in a falafel. I am tired and haggard. We see The Cripple of Inishman at a local theatre. It's okay. Exhausted, it's time to spritz my rose pillow spray and sleep.

Or It Didn't Happen

What would you do if there would never be photographic evidence? My whole job exists because my boss has a phone addiction. I'm not knocking it (totally) but I am wondering how much we do for the proof alone we did it. I know this has never not been the case. Band t-shirts and ticket stubs and just the story "I went to Paris" even when you've got nothing to show for it. An 80 year-old man in my summer improv class never let up explaining how proud he was of his family, his former career, all the old person tours to Asia he went on. I feel bad for people who need to stuff as much as they can into the year and also live by solstice days. I guess I think intention is everything. You don't need to do something remarkable. You need to feel remarkable about the things you do.

I remember leaving a high school party, and right as I got to my car another pulled up. It was a pile of decoys from my exit--the couple everyone "will they/won't they"d, a wild boy determined to streak, maybe music? I knew as I pulled away I was missing all the things that the locker hall would buzz about in the morning. I thought about turning around, but the truth is I didn't actually care about the party anymore. I had decided to leave. I just wanted to feel included, or, honestly, more than included. I had the chance to be in the tightest circle of experience. I remember I drove home with the windows down listening to Imogen Heap. I read through my old text messages and went to bed.

It hadn't been twenty minutes since I made plans with Lo for tomorrow, but the plans were nevertheless made. Tira knocked on my window with news. A secret pop-up concert for an indie  queen. The place to BE. I know what's cooler to do on a Wednesday night. I obviously know! And Lo wouldn't mind rescheduling, but if I was being honest, that concert wasn't for me. I know it would look good in a picture, and I would probably bump into someone famous, and my friends who love that singer would be jealous, but something tugged me away.

What is a gut reaction? Sometimes it's that Malcolm Gladwell thing where your fear moves faster than your logic, sure. But sometimes it seems divine. An idea plopped down from above. I went to my jewelry cup yesterday and a strong voice said, "Do not put those rings on." So I didn't. Why would I argue? This happens sometimes. There have been times I have thought the voice led me astray, but when the dust settles, I find it never has.

January 29, 2019

Call not until 2 for 8 PM shoot. But plop right on the couch and brainstorm last minute segment ideas the boss asked for. As soon as I am done, there's an email asking for more. I don't think--just pound four down and send. Run with Puhg--a weekday treat. The pressure to MAKE THE MOST OF THE DAY sets in and I power walk manically through the neighborhood looking for a place to nestle and write. I get my eyebrows done instead, type for half an hour, curl my hair.

Lunch date at the Thai place with long evening lines. A text as I walk to the car asking for jokes. I write six in the 8 minute Spanish-radio-station drive and two minute walk. I punch one up on the sidewalk and send. Papaya salad, spicy. I love the peanuts, the sticky coconut rice, the flat noodles. The strawberry table cloth. Connecting with the person across from me. Sometimes it's been too long. He drives me to work. I arrive early to find my ridiculous idea (the guest does a sound bath) has been chosen for the show. I start researching, I start printing, I start fact-checking.

Jooj the script, write the script. There are full blank spaces. We fill them in. Deep talks with someone on her way out. The sun sets in electric orange behind her. Are sound baths cultural appropriation? Is that news story sensitive to discuss? I've learned the reach of what I do.

At tape I find a bowl of broken chocolate Kim Kardashian sent over. I eat two slats and stand int he back row where I always do. Three of my jokes are picked and all three get applause breaks. TF is in the studio today. I look over and see her laugh at what I wrote. Our guest is a delight. My officemate featured in a bit knocks it out of the part. The final bit, penned by other officemate is perfect. I coin its recurring title. A thumbprint?

An exec from The Bachelor is in the audience. A friend of a friend. The three fangirls crowd him and ask as many questions as we can. In the end, Puhg picks me up. I tell him what a strange day it has been. It's only 10:15. I could write more, but maybe my brain deserves a break. I read my zombie novel, spitz the pillow with rose water, and sleep.

Oh, Oh, Ooh oh oh

He forwards the email, and as soon as I get home (I walk) I open my computer and send off my old packet. "Two packets, one week" I think. A little star wish. My social media has snowy frowns and mittens from Chicago, but here it's all palm trees. On Wednesday I wear my short grey dress. No tights. Friday night patio at a cantina with coworkers. They just saw me do a show. I ask them if they've experienced Destiny. One says meeting her husband, one says no, one says this job, two say every day. I'm unsure myself. But I do know if there is no Destiny, we can fake it. We can feel humbled by the perfection Arbitrary served up. And why not? I asked after I saw The Color Purple specifically. But I crumbled when I chose the wrong path. Is it the one that got away? It's too woven into my brain chemistry to write a new story that always includes a full circle. Anything is a circle if you want it to be. But why not let it be? Tira says that's how poor people stay poor. They wait on the lord instead of using their free will to fix broken systems. I don't disagree. I can't believe six days ago I was up at 5:30 AM editing so ferociously I passed out. Literally passed out. The evening sound bath with Tax Any & Maf couldn't come fast enough. I think the bowl vibrations hung in my ears all week. I made my first mistake at work, showed up two hours late once. But I also submitted my book to a lit agent, those two twinkling packets (what I swore I couldn't do). And beyond that, I dreamt I Did A Thing. It was good but not THAT good, which made me feel it was real when I woke up. Shellz texted me. She had the same dream. In real life Lo texted me tonight. Promising news. My hopes: not high about any one thing, but floating about any thing. I didn't care for If Beale Street Could Talk even though I wanted to. It was worth the $5 popcorn, but it was too slow. I'm not patient enough for beauty. Maybe I'll remember something years from now. Like the play about video games I thought was fine in 2014. I think about it every single week. And based on that or based on nothing I told Puhg on the lamppost corner what my new goal is. I think I have fifteen years, right? I couldn't have script doctored tonight. Thoughts too fuzzy. I wrote here instead. Without intention I already know tomorrow will be another early morning. I want it to be. I'll work on Act II of T____. It calls me. Like I have several children. I can only care for the one that needs me most.  Panic! At the Disco every time I get in the car.

Jan 19 2019

5:10 - wake up for no reason, read Reddit, spend twenty minutes analyzing one meme
6 - make way to the couch and start researching Rhett Miller and Gillian Jacobs for work
7 - nausea hits: stop researching, start barfing
8 - retch and retch, there's nothing left in me, and still I retch
8:30 - stare at the ceiling, Puhg gives me a wet washcloth for my forehead
10:00 - nap in bed, with the new bed frame that I love dearly
11 - finally the demon in my gut has been expelled
11:20 eat two saltines
11:30 - rapidly finish all the day's work
12 - email the bosses my files
12:10 - go on a sunny, slow neighborhood walk with Puhg
1:15 - arrive at the office in shorts, clutching a box of saltines
1:30 - start planning next week at work - Chris Sullivan, Chris Sullivan, what to do with Chris Sullivan
1:45 - everyone in the office wears face masks as we type
2:15 - at some point the girls who have never done improv decide they want to try it but are too scared to ever take a class, I say I will lead a workshop, and so we do a workshop in the celebrity greenroom
2:50 - everyone gives me a a lot of heartfelt compliments about how great I am at teaching, I am really moved, but also sometimes I worry I was meant to be a teacher more than meant to be a writer, it is difficult to not be in a classroom, I check my work email every week wondering how my old students are doing, I still get inquiries from CPS if I can run a drama workshop for girls at risk, and I wish I could so much, there must be ways I can do it out here, but right now I don't have the time, maybe when this season ends I can get down to Long Beach where a retirement home once asked me to come, I emailed a local prison to see if I can visit inmates, I worry about them
3:10 - I try to be productive, but the writer's PA asks me to read her sketches, so I do and give feedback, but I try not to give too much, like I would have three years ago
4 - the internet is down down down, more to do, but must be done later
4:45 - drive through Taco Bell and get three items each for me and Puhg, it silently breaks out rule of "two items only" but neither of us says anything
5:30 - we watch a Survivor rerun and regret breaking our rule
6 - wiped, I lay on the couch and scroll on my phone, I want to answer, like, one email but I can't
6:30 - curl my hair, put button-up, powder, my pearl lip gloss
6:50 - Lyft to the theatre
7 - warm-ups, cipher about birthdays, and meet new girls I recognize
7:30 - perform Phantom of the Grocery Store the musical
8:30 - greet my aunt and Puhg in the lobby
9 - watch the reunion of peanuts
9:30 - girls' night at the LF diner: milkshakes and tuna melts
10:30 - the steep walk home
11:00 - need some chips and about thirty minutes of The Bachelor
11:40 - Duolingo goodnight