small girl vs. big city

This is a rare glimpse. Take it for what you will… but never mistake vulnerability for weakness.

A heater glows. Tangled in white sheets and pillows. Wake without reason. Ignore the cold floor. Shuffle through the fog to the bathroom. My robe is on inside-out. Toothbrush, sigh, too much paste. Fuck it. Wake up wake up wake up. Open your eyes. Yawn. Sigh. Brush brush boring. Open the window. Morning city, morning neighbors, morn— clouds?! Ugh. Go away clouds. Swish, spit, scowl. Where the hell is the sun?

Mmm, bet the bed is still warm. Shut up. Make it dont get back in it. Enough of this ponytail, let’s see if I can get away with not washing my hair toda— 

WHAT THE? WHAT? Wait, oh please tell me I’m still asleep. But, the bed is empty. The BED is EMPTY. Why dont I have a reflection? The room is there, everything is there but me. Cant get enough air, my lungs are going to burst. Can they? Am I alive? What happened? Bathroom mirror. Emtpy.  Closet mirror. Same. Pictures. I’m no longer in them.

NO. DAMNIT!!!!! NO! no. nono no nonononooooooo.

Tears stream. Fists fly. Glass flies. But blood does not. Screaming. But without sound. Only silence accompanies sight. And not the sight of me. In a heap on the floor, laying among the pieces of my rejection, trying to FEEL. I see: a spider is trying to flee unnoticed. LIFE! Oh beautiful life. Oh please dont go.

Wait: go… That’s it! GO!!!! Trailing glass as I hurtle down the endless six flights.  No one on the stairs. Doesnt mean a thing. Keep…going. Light is streaming through the windows around the door. Hurry up. My foot slips on the tile and I catch myself just as I reach the door. Resting my forehead on the door, I catch my breathe. I will open this door and everything will be ok.

I throw it open and run blindly into the light…

(to be continued)

get comfortable this is a long one… 

I am one of a few. who refuses to do “what it takes” to make it out here. because HERE lies the illusion: Hollywood is a journey into ILLUSION, it…is…not a destination. you allow it to become the destination and you will take plane, train, donkey, or dirtbike to get there…sleeping through the scenery. only to arrive… at an empty lot.

wednesday night. holly scooped me up. ahhh!!! wardrobe button malfunction. but it’s a new shirt!?!?!!rock it because there’s no turning back now. gotta love double stick tape. we wound through the hills. alternating between bad 80’s songs and the silence of staring at the map on her iphone. a u-turn at a dead end. a last minute eye liner check. i’m greeted by someone who is sure he’s someone enough to give me shit about not speaking spanish. practice grace under fire, bite your lip…bite your lip. i throw a wink and a “because all my relatives speak english” over my shoulder as i walk in without invitation. 

yawn. relax, it was his idea of friendly conversation. my idea of friendly fire. i’m walking and mentally pitching excuses to bail when my heart stops. oh, my weakness. simple girl. simple pleasures. lights. it looks like the house is about to drown in them. no walls between you and twinkling beauty. if i lived here i’d never sleep. i am becoming such a dreamer… zap… hellooo! welcome back to the room…

the house belonged to a musician. a musician who is trying in vain to start a clothing line. he doesnt care because he doesnt need the money. we all had a great laugh of it and i may have convinced him to change the name to wild whoooooooooooo……. nevermind. a cute girl stood up and introduced herself. i dont remember what her name was (be more memorable) probably because she followed her name quickly with “i swear i have friends, they’ll be here any minute”. wow. i wonder if the musician has a permit to run a daycare at night. “it’s ok babygirl we’ll be your friends til your other ones get here”. an actor destroys the myth that he’s an arrogant asshole. pleasantries. holly and i bail and find our way to the patio. she smokes and i listen in an absent minded daze… maybe i said a few inconsequential things. oh really? dj so&so lives there? think the musician will invite him over? no, he’s out of town. the actor joins us and sits on the rail, blocking MY view! he is raining on my parade of pretending i was in my own back yard. bla bla london (as if we hadnt noticed his lovely accent). bla bla smalltalk. he gets the hint and we’re left alone to our dreams.

refill necessity brought us back inside. the house is a bit of a zoo and i dont mean because there were a lot of people there. ha ha…

the guy who’s all too sure offers a tour of the house. i need practice being polite so i dont crack a joke about if he is paid to give tours of his friend’shouse. bla bla bathroom. bla bla guestroom. bla bla office. and then. he sat. well i knew this was coming. i chose the big leather office chair far enough away. picked up a silver letter opener and interrupted my thought of throwing it at him like a dart by reminding myself that i shouldnt pass up an excercise to “act like i’m paying serious attention”.

this was his first pitch… he fumbled vaguely through a monologue of the necessity of “doing what it takes” to make it in hollywood. patience in these instances is effortless. i let him finish his speech. i let silence scream until he made an uncomfortable hand gesture in effort to express it was my turn to react. I laughed. I sipped my drink. Swallowed slowly, in an intentionally poor effort to hide a smirk. I had been sitting straight, so I leaned back. My back is to the sea. I select a low tone of voice. not the tone of a small girl. the tone of a woman who isn’t seeking approval. eyes. I calmly stated my refusal to believe “that” is the only way. I said this sitting on designer furniture, in a room where walls move to remove the glass between you and a sea of diamonds reality calls city lights.

this sham of a man, tried to match my tone and laughed at my naivety. then came the hard sell. he brought up my duty of supporting my family financially at the small price of a secret. I lost patience. Fuck the risk of sounding like an orphan, I announce I need not support them nor myself at the price of my soul. this brought the discussion to God. I rarely let someone make me lose my cool and this was definitely on track to happen had i continued to humor the insanity. I stood. Picked up my glass and left him with ”you believe what you will. I’ll do what I will and who I won’t. ill see you on the other side and let God sort us out”

I pound heels. I don’t look back.

In the kitchen are Holly and the others. I get distance from the frustration by rummaging through my purse. Found my phone. a missed call. my roomie. a txt: “you have to decide on that job TONIGHT. they have other people to interview but they don’t want to waste their time if you’re going to take it”

Fuck. I supposed to make a decision after a couple drinks…….? after that conversation just now………?! where are my words? what… is… my decision? this is the difficult proposition to ponder. the safe route. the 9-5. the sure thing. my bank account won’t let me say no but my heart won’t let me say yes. sales. stability…really? My mind’s racing as I step into the privacy of the bathroom… call her, get the # and promise to call the potential employer right back…

I open the door. I’m walking … I cant see her but I know she’s around the corner… yelling through the house as if it were mine: Holly! heads or tails? The actor jumps in: ooooh I want to play!! the musician: yea me too!

great: then everyone all at once - heads or tails?!

tails! tails! holly and the actor say simultaneously. the musician pouts. well i was going to say tails but i dont want to run with the herd so i say heads.

well i veto your heads because you wanted  to say tails. i’ve been trying to tell myself heads all week but i really wanted support in tails. so we all said tails. so it’s final.

holly knows me and knows better than to ask. at least in front of present company. the actor doesnt and cant move on… he gives me a long look “well….?! what did we just decide? what was that all about” everyone is looking at me

we just decided whether or not i’m going to accept a job i was just offered.

the actor “out of thin air?!? really? you’ve decided your future by flipping an imaginary coin??!?”

i smile. you guys pulled my fate from thin air, and that is exactly where it is anyway…not on the side of a coin

i grabbed my phone and walked out, dialing… the perfect words already in my throat.

just as the phone begins to ring… i overheard the actor: i thought i was crazy, but that’s just insane

insanity does not lie in turning down a job my heart wont agree to. insanity is in agreeing to lie down without a heart for a job.

i’m in a ridiculous mood. i auditioned for a little agency we’ll call Bullshit. i was late. suuuuurprise! i didnt apologize or explain. you dont apologize to the receptionist, she doesnt care. she isnt waiting for you and apologizing to her doesnt make you any less of an asshole.  stop thinking i’m a jerk, i was very (genuinely) nice to her. 

the lobby. was a little dark and not very big. there was one guy from chicago, something about him screamed “theater”. his girlfriend had a terry tube dress over her bikini. enough…said. there was a kid who brought his skateboard. there was another guy who didnt want anyone in the room to know he existed.  i asked if i had missed anything. someone mumbled no. i smiled & asked quite humbly “are we not allowed to talk?”. apparently no one had a pulse. i sat to watch the video they were all focusing on. the video they played for people waiting in the lobby. the video a company plays usually in order to toot it’s own horn…brag… make you feel like youre about to be in the presence of someone with the very key to your future. i couldnt help it. believe me, i tried. really i did. but when a father and his two sons gave their testimony of how amazing it is to work BACKGROUND, i lost it. i laughed …loudly…just as the “agent” opened the door to let in the next “potential actor”. the receptionist glanced…he, on the other hand, shot me a look. 

off the record, background is the only reason i paid bills at times. the only way i ate a hot meal. the reason i met so many amazing people. it’s also where i learned texas hold’em… anyway, it serves its purpose, but it’s not the goal. Bullshit took the time to shoot and edit a video and loop it on a flat screen just to brainwash you into paying them of % of any work they booked for you. the only reason i didnt walk out is because i figured i needed the practice. i got chicago guy to have a mento but asked him not to do anything stupid when he offered to , “just like on the commercials”. i got skateboard kid to laugh but i cant take credit for that. he laughed because i was laughing at the video. they were showing all the extras from “i am legend” during that sad part of the movie where everyone is trying to get off of the island. tragedies make me laugh sometimes. bikini girl was too nervous to pay us any attention. she was mumbling the words from the paper we were given upon arrival.

i was last. because i was last. agent-x asked if i knew the people in the lobby and looked confused when i said no. he was not using his own office. i know because he didnt have the ego to fill it. i know because i ran the “audition”. i introduced myself. i sat, legs crossed and a little back but still straight in the chair. i smile. silence. i blink sweetly…

a little late on his cue but, he starts the speech about the agency… “we book mostly background and some speaking roles”… i politely state i will not be considered for anything less than a speaking role, small or large.

a pause.

i didnt blink and didnt look away. i did however smile a little and lean forward on one armrest of the chair. he set a voice recorder on the desk in front of me.

“ok i’m going to count to three and then i want you to read the paragraph on your paper. dont worry about over acting, just give it your best shot”

he slowly sank into a comfortable position in his chair.  deliberately found a notepad and pen…reached forward and counted to three…

not laughing here was easy but i’d still like to know what expression i had on my face. i was in outside sales. in koreatown. they onlylike koreans! outside sales in los angeles with only a phone book for leads.  i was a designer who presented time and time again to a conference room of conservative ol’boys whose idea of style was a duckhead cane. i thought this was major league & we’re playing tee ball? the kid was way too obvious. the agency was way too obvious. nothing about this shook me. a voice recorder?!?couldnt spring for the digital hmm? yawn, alright batter up kid…

i read. every time he looked up i was already looking at him like he was the boyfriend i was pleading with in the scene. he made notes….turned off the recorder… and paused for effect.

he “made an executive decision” and welcomed me. i didnt laugh. i surprised myself and was actually happy. make that giddy. hey, it’s a chance. it may be a very very very cold day in…arizona…that a speaking role actually lands on the desk of this little agency. but, if it does and they send me out… that wont shake me either.

let’s play some freakin ball