Maybe I Enjoy the Chase

Dizz reminded me I never made my classic "Most Influential Songs of the Year" birthday post. Better late than never. My memory is rusty, but here were my top fourteen hits for posterity.

Young Dumb & Broke - Imagine Dragons
Use Me - Goo Goo Dolls
Confident - Demi Lovato
Me and My Friends - James Vincent McMorrow
Waving Through a Window - Dear Evan Hansen
Shallow - A Star Is Born
Teenage Rockstars - Andrew McMahon
I'd Rather Be Me - Mean Girls
Mean - Taylor Swift
How to Save a Life - The Fray
Written in the Sand - Old Dominion
Ruin My Life - Zara Larsson
I Will Always Love You - Dolly Parton
Space Cowboy - Kacey Musgraves

Some of these helped me live as a ghost in Chicago, some of these helped me feel home in LA. Most of these were crucial to my car singing. They all hold a special lil spot in my heart.

Nobody Asked!

I doctored my friend's play this weekend. He brings such interesting topics to theatre, unusual viewpoints, specific tensions. But he doesn't know to formally write. His characters talk how he talks, which is, like, so hard for some playwrights to master. He's way ahead of most in that regard. It took me around five years to finally write something that sounded like people. But the dang pages are so sloppy. Random spaces and indents and stage directions four-thousand miles long and mixed up characters and grammar, lord, the grammar. Every character "exists stage left." He pays me to clean it all up. We've been doing this for five years. I love to read his work. I would never seek it out, and I would never make it. I don't doubt some is completely lost on me. I also know I have dramaturgical opinions that would benefit the text. But I haven't been asked to share those. So, I don't.

I have a couple cringe memories from past feedback experiences. I connected with this playwright in Chicago when I had first moved, went to a staged reading of her new thing, and then emailed her my thoughts. It was a very very long email, and I didn't mind doling out compliments along with, "I didn't like this part"s. Direct and sincere, but she never asked! Isn't that just something? I sent her a non-consensual email of feedback! We never saw each other again, despite me inviting her to a couple things. I just searched for this email and re-read. Honestly, it was less biting than I remember. What a relief. And she was like, "Thanks so much for all the thoughts!" Was she being sincere and direct? I don't know. I did this at least one other time to a fellow theatre-maker. That email got deleted at some point.

Meanwhile I asked someone to be in a reading of my play once (staged reading in grad school, 2012). I didn't know this guy well, but I had been in readings of his work a few times. I honestly thought his plays blew, but he was an actor and about right for this role, so I asked if he was interested. He responded yes. Then he read the play and changed his mind no, and further more, he wanted to meet with me over coffee to give me feedback. Absolutely not, dude!

OKAY TWIST. You are never going to believe this. Right after I typed that little storylet I searched my email to read exactly what this bozo wrote me and... I totally got everything wrong? Mind you I've considered this guy's rude email for about eight years! Turns OUT, he emailed me he wished he could participate but the rehearsal times didn't work for him! And then he said he'd still love to get coffee and help revise if I want! And I said I couldn't, so he sent me a couple line notes and wished me sincerely well! My brain completely fabricated an entirely different narrative!

So do people remember any criticism, even remotely constructive as an attack? I remember people who have given me some good (soy) beefy notes fondly. Is this why no one ever says they don't like your sample? Because everyone wants to be liked? DOES everyone want to be liked? Nobody asked.

Week of Dec 2 2019

Don’t usually want breakfast but was absolutely desperate to eat at call. Put a breakfast burrito in a brown box. Arrived on set, which was a basketball court today. High school pep rally.

I interviewed for a job two weeks ago and never heard back. It was a job everyone said I would get. I would have to leave this movie if I got it. My bosses mourned my departure preemptively and then we all said nothing when my “last” day came and went. My manager left word with the main exec with no response, no response, no response. She said that meant I might get it. Did she really think that or did she not want me to be mad? But why would I be mad at her?

A person who was in the interview room was at the fake high school pep rally because everything is intertwined that way. I didn’t know what he’d say to me or what I’d say back, if we’d say anything at all.

I sat on the bleachers with our costume designer who read my horoscope. It said I was drowning under falsities. I said, “Yes, I am. I just want someone to be honest with me.” She said, yes be honest. I said I love honesty but LA doesn’t.

This person avoided me. I felt a gloom roll in. Confirmed. I wasn’t hired and I was to be pitied.  I had to stand close to the scene to pitch alts. Right in his eyeline. He never looked over. And then randomly he cut loose from his mark, marched up to me, and gave me a huge bear hug. I wasn’t expecting it, and I didn’t like it. Then he said he was sick. Then he walked away. It’s like he planned a bunch of tactics for getting around my disappointment and did them all at once. It was gross. I was mad. Costume Designer saw it all and sang in my ear, “hooonesty.”

I tried to stay busy in my seat, but he sat right in front of me. I felt heat from my whole being willing him away. I finally stood up and closed myself in a port-a-potty to cry. An extra, dressed like a cheerleader barged in. The lock didn’t work. Grief texted me, asked if I was hiding.

In ten minutes he was gone. I barely kept a lid on my anger. My manager emailed me, “They’re not moving forward at this point.” Just say I didn’t get it. She emailed me five minutes to later to set another interview for another show. To be honest, a very very similar show. I accepted the meeting.

Shooting a romance scene the next day that wasn’t quite there. AP pitched me lines, I pitched lines. She sent me a clip from a John Hughes movie. When we found what it was supposed to be we both squealed like This Is It!

It rained on and off. I saddled up to the twins in another department to talk about past failures. Left partway through to get a two tamales. I squeezed lime on them. Later I ate two hot dogs with mustard. I’d had two soy tacos for lunch. I ate more in that one day than in a typical three day span.

A fake marching band performed a Mighty Mighty Bosstones song. I brought up a discrepancy I saw in the shooting. I was impressed with myself for having the ability to defend a script to people I admire.

An extra in the hot dog line had asked how much the food was. Free of course. She was so happy. It was the best day ever for her. She gets to be a dot in a movie.

By the time I got home I had a migraine and went directly to bed. It wasn’t gone when I woke up. If I moved I puked. Things were this way for two days.  Thursday night I had the strength to walk to the grocery store for a box of Saltines and Pedialite, which I drank on the sidewalk. I made an impromptu visit to the Thai massage spot. I told them my head hurt so badly I couldn’t stand the light from my cell phone. The lady dug into my neck for an hour, I hobbled home, and fell fast asleep. With an eye mask on like some kind of Victorian lily.

In the morning I was new. I had an interview at 3. It was raining, but I couldn't stop smiling. The people were so welcoming. They’re going to be honest with me. When I find out if I do or don’t get it. I drove to work for an overnight shoot. I wore my biggest down jacket and ate a sweet waffle at 2 AM.

Ideas to Reality II

When I worked on a cruise ship one of my duties was to lead improv workshops the last day at sea. I liked this gig way better than playing a DVD of old 90s sketches on the first day at sea or being a "celebrity judge" for the dance tournament. For the last few minutes of the workshop we'd (me + whatever castmate I had that week) answer some Q & A. Standard questions about living on a boat, comedy techniques, entertainment careers. Once a woman asked who our favorite comedians were. I think my partner said, like, Gilda Radner or something. I said Lindy West and _____ ____. An essayist and an absolute dream of a writer/performer I saw at SC while I was still living in Arizona. I had written her a fan letter after that show. I don't know if she ever got it.

Two weeks ago I saw Lindy West speak. And the next day, about 16 hours later, I met _____ ____. I had a job interview with her. Isn't that just something? I met my two favorite writers in 24 hours. One meeting I orchestrated (/paid for), and I one I couldn't have if I had tried. And, sure, favorites change, and possibly they morph based on possibility of proximity, but in this case I said into a microphone, three years ago, in the middle of the Caribbean, these two people were my favorites, and it's like some weird seashell summoned them. The truth is nothing is better now.

Ideas to Reality

I learned about Lindy West's book talk in October via her Instagram. Lindy West is my favorite writer and has been for eight years. I've never laughed so hard reading essays, thought so deeply reading tweets. I set an honest-to-god alarm to go off when the tickets went on sale. I invited Lo. Then I invited Tira, who said "okay" and invited her gf as well.

I had a single ticket sent to my apartment. Monday I planned to arrive at the venue an hour before start so I could ensure four (good) seats together. Traffic was worse than anticipated, so I only arrived half an hour early. I was shocked to find only about fifteen women milling around and tons of empty seaties. I checked in to get my hardcover book. The nice lady couldn't find my name but finally announced, "Oh, you were in a section for paper tickets. You're the only one who had a physical ticket sent to you via mail." I needed the hard ticket for scrapbooking.

I sat down in the fourth row and my friends came soon after. This is what we did with our nights. We got four books, we spent an hour. Lo & I walked down the big event space hill to a French bistro and I got a cheese plate. It all happened because it was an idea, and the idea came to fruition. When I posted the pictures on Insta, several friends DM'd to say they were jealous. I wish I had invited more folks! More folks whose evenings/lives would have been altered by an idea.

The most powerful idea West shared with us (for me) was that sometimes it seems things will never change, or only get worse. But remember cigarettes in bars? When that legislation was presented even she (a non-smoker) rallied against it. "Cigarettes are part of bars! You can't tell us what to do! Even if it passes, we will revolt!" But look, after ten minutes, no one cared. Now if you were to see someone smoking in a bar you'd grow deeply concerned, maybe even scared. It would be uncanny.

Two Sides

If you believe in the ice pack healing your knee, that means you can also die of hypothermia. At least that's what my black-haired, chubby Sunday School teacher told me. In my memory she was wearing a blue green dress not unlike a peacock's body. She chewed on chocolate Ice Breakers, a candy I've only ever found in speciality stores and I've only ever seen her eat. Can't count on anything that can be taken away. Hold space for all that can't be.

Nov 10 18

It's been a long Sunday. The night begins at 4:45, so I'm left anxious like I wasted a day that was not, after all, wasted. Have a show tonight. I feel out of practice and don't want to go, but if I don't go when I can, then I'm even more out of practice, so I always go. When asked.

My anxiety has been topping out around 11 AM this week. I have to be on set by 12 or 1 or 2, and I've learned that isn't good for me. I don't want to go hard working in the mornings because I'll be on the clock until midnight, but I get frantic by the time I'm shoving my junk in a purse, trying to get out the door in the late morning. "I didn't even do anything!" I mutter.

My nails look great. I opted for a bright purple, which seems Novembery. I also put two stickers on my laptop today, which I have never done before. I thought about it for a long time. First, do I want to deface valuable object. Second, do I want to put stickers I like on an object that will eventually be valueless. I thought about a mural in a Thai restaurant by i_ in Chicago. It's downstairs by the bathroom. Something like, "Use the good China, you only get one life." I'm sure the person who painted those words in a restaurant basement didn't consider me, a decade later, putting a cartoon clam on my computer.

Friday afternoon I decided to spend some quiet time cracking this screenplay I'm outlining. But I didn't feel like my usual pastry antics, so I went to Del Taco for Beyond ground beef and Diet Coke. I set out my pens and paper and started going at it, but a very dirty man three booths from me was truly hacking so hard I thought he might die right there. He accentuated each cough with a loud, angry swear. "Can't even read the paper," he'd be yelling. I was afraid of him and afraid for him. I think I want to help people, but I can't help everyone. Perhaps I can help at least the people in front of me, but then sometimes the person in front of you is too scary or you've decided they don't deserve it for some other reason.

I've always had this belief that anyone can do anything I have done. I guess it sort of makes all my accomplishments less shiny. But I really really do believe any old person, given a couple weeks rehearsal could pop off an improvised musical, run a marathon, write a play, be in a healthy relationship, pitch jokes to their own high school comedy idol (current job). Lo tells me she is sure she could not do it. But I know she could. But also I don't know that!

I'm grateful to have been so close to shimmery possibilities this year and watch myself come to dislike half of them once they're out of my view. It's not fun, but it is telling.