Awkwardly Social

I have no recollection of what I did last year, because I didn’t write about it.  The only way I can remember anything now, is if I write about it and look it up the next year.  This is what happens when you’re in your mid-thirties, isn’t it?

On Saturday, we did our first IUI.  It was slightly weird.  The doctor, while my legs were in stirrups, my vag speculumed open, and my husbands sperm was being cathetered into my uterus, was talking about movies.  How he doesn’t like sad movies, like Blue Valentine.  I kind of wanted to changed the subject but instead I blurted out, “Well then, definitely don’t watch Rabbit Hole!  Dead baby movie!”  Which I immediately thought was a bad move on my part.  Like I jinxed it?  Anyway, everything went really quickly and we were back home in no time.  I pretended I needed to be on bed rest until I dragged myself out of bed and to the Farmer’s Market where I had to see humans.  Well, one human. Long time readers will remember Allie (she’s the best!), she’s still alive, she’s still awesome.

Today, I had a giant piece of red velvet cake at lunch that everyone pretended to share.

Tonight we went to Hatfield’s, had a four course prix fixe dinner (so good!), had a little spat with Seth, because apparently on my birthday I can be a little unreasonable. Through sickness and health, idiocy and unreasonableness, ’til death do we part, AMEN.

I also learned today that I am no longer in the demographic of the network I’m working for.  Which kind of cracks me up.  Poor 18-34 year olds, they’ll have to watch stuff made by an old ass 35 year old.  Who doesn’t understand their silly trends and wacky fashions.

Here’s to all of you!  And here’s to me!

It’s so easy to look at a tv show and give notes.  People make livings doing that.  They get to sit there and say what could be done better.  And then we, the people doing the behind the scenes part, have to make it better.  It can be really hard to do that, because sometimes you’re not sure if what they want is actually making it better.  But also it can be really great to have someone who’s not completely entrenched with the material just sit back from their safe distance and say, “Don’t need.  Lose this scene.”  “Story not tracking until Act 3.” or, “Not enough sexy, let’s add some fun into act 2.”

I was thinking about how I would hate to sit through a notes session on my own life.  How there would be complete sections that someone would say, “Lose, doesn’t move story ahead.”  Or, “Why is this scene here?  Repetitive.”  Or, “This is your A story?  Why is it being introduced at the end of Act 2?”

If I look at my life like a 4 Act, 22 minute 30 second episode of reality TV, I would have a lot of story notes myself.   My story is tracking right, it’s just not tracking quickly enough.  I am trying to get pregnant right as I’m also trying to get my career into full swing.  That gives great potential for conflict, but I actually have to live this life, not watch it on TV.  I spend a lot of time looking at story outlines on neatly typed 3×5 cards on huge corkboards, and I’m starting to realize I might have fucked up my act breaks.  That I’m pushing too much story into Act 3.  That Act 4 is always the shortest act and that Act 3 needs to bring the tension to a head then have some fun with it.  That the way I’ve designed my story it’s all leading up to this great Act 2 act break, and if everything goes as planned in the field, Act 3 will have great drama and conflict with a really awesome Act 4 resolution.  The thing is, I have no idea how to get there to that act break.  I cannot control when I get pregnant, or get a job.  Not to mention once I get to Act 3, I have no idea how to balance work, family, creative life, social life and still have time to ride bikes with Seth on a Sunday afternoon.

I don’t regret my act 1, and even though my act 2 took a story detour for a while, I’m really loving this second half of it.  I just don’t know how it’s going to work.  I don’t see a lot of people in my business, at my pay level, being able to do the things I’m going to want to do.  Which means, I’m going to have to sacrifice something, and I hope I manage to figure out what to sacrifice before it’s too late, because from what I’m seeing, the way it’s designed is that people with kids don’t have both parents working 10-12 hour work days.  And I sure as hell am not giving up my 10 hour work day.  I actually like what I do.  I like being there.   And, yes, everyone seems to think that will change once I have a baby, that I’ll want to be home more, but what if it doesn’t?  What if I still like 10 hour work days?  Will my children be ADHD monsters who date hitters (or worse, actors…) because mom liked work better than them, and dad is dead because mom married someone 21 years older than her? Or fuck, what if I can’t even have kids?

These are things I guess I should have thought about while I was dorking around in Film School.  It’s so embarrassing now to think about how much time I dorked around there.  Or god, how much time I was obsessed with getting shit faced drunk in crap bars in crap parts of Los Angeles with crap boys.  But these are the things I can’t change.  This is the story line that’s being shot.  I’m just going to have to make it work in the cutting room.  I hope there won’t be too many notes, and I hope they mostly say, “More sexy,” or, “Up the fun here.”  Those are my favorite ones to get.  And they’re ones I know how to address.

I lost my bra this weekend.

Normally that would be an impossibility, but this weekend something totally changed for me. And that thing was that I found myself in a swimsuit, an actual honest to god two piece. And once I figured out that I could sit around in it all day (HI, I ALSO GOT A UTI. What am I a moron?) I pretty much did. Which led to me leaving my bra somewhere. I’m guessing room 105 at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

It was a very good bra. I mourned its loss, and had to wear a really old almost elastic free bra that fit like a piece of fabric loosely balanced on my bosom with no sense of gravity or movement. So when I experienced gravity and movement, my bra sort of threw up its hands and said, “Have at it, world! Look at Tamara’s tatas sway in all this gravity.”

But before I tell you the story of how I’m suddenly a 34D, I’d like to go back a bit and say, holy shit, I sat around in a swimsuit. In PUBLIC. With a male person. And with other male people around.

I am pale. I am curvy. And I haven’t been in a swimsuit since high school. Which is ridiculous. I usually wear shorts to cover the bottom part of my curviness. It’s a strategy that almost always has someone asking me why the fuck I’m not wearing an actual swimsuit, and me always hemming and hawing about how they don’t really want to see me in an actual swimsuit.

Catherine has been bugging me for the last month about her wedding in Michigan, on a lake, where there will be swimming. And how if I don’t get in that lake in a swimsuit she’ll stop being my friend. So, when Mr. F– took me to a hotel that has a pool that has music piped in so you can hear it when you’re submerged, I decided to have a go at it. I mean, he’s seen me naked. Like totally, completely naked. And he still likes me, so I did it. And wow. I thought I was going to die for the first fifteen seconds, but then when I didn’t, I got over myself and relaxed. I think the champagne helped with that whole ‘relaxing’ part.

The best part was when I walked out of the bathroom hoping lightening would strike me dead right there in the heart of all that is tanned and beautiful and LA (and so not me) and he said, “God, you are so fucking pretty. Look at you!” So the swimsuit came off for a little bit and then it went back on and we went swimming.

And somewhere along the way I lost my bra. This was an impromptu vacation so I didn’t have any luggage. I seriously hope I didn’t drop my bra in the lobby, but I wouldn’t put it past me. I’m pretty sure that last march through the lobby was done with a couple of vodka tonics tingling my veins.

Yesterday I took myself to Victoria’s Secret to replace the bra of magic and uplift and tried on several but there was a ‘fit’ issue with all of them. I flashed back to a conversation I had with Allie about her bra size and how she had gone up a cup and down a size and I decided to see if our tits had once again aligned. And lo, the angels sang and the sun beamed in and Jesus smiled, for my boobs are a 34D. And I have two bras that actually fit me.

No fucking wonder my back has been killing me. To quote a good friend of mine, “That’s a lot of boob.”

I don’t know what has caused my brain chemicals to calm the eff down, but damn, it feels good to be a gangster.

Last year if I had been faced with a BBQ, a housewarming and a (now canceled) visit from the dude I kissed on the street, I would have been freaking the fuck out.  There would be elaborate plans constructed to get out of it.  All of it.  Sleep, sleep, sleep.  But I had only a slight twinge this afternoon thinking about the housewarming.  In my head I was like, “Oh fuck, you fat socially awkward twit, how are you going to get through that?”  And then I snapped out of it and my brain chemicals were all, “Easy lady, that’s our hot desirable body you’re talking about.  You are a charmer after one glass of champagne.  Besides, three separate dudes made out with you last week, and only two of them were drunk!”  And I said, “Thank you, brain chemicals, for putting it in perspective. “  I turned up my radio and “We Are Rock Stars” by Does it Offend You, Yeah came on and all was right in the world.

Then I started thinking about how even though I made out with three separate dudes last week, there was no panic infatuation.  Before Louie, I would make out with someone, panic and think that they were the last person I was ever going to make out with and immediately try to convince myself that I loved them and they were going to make beautiful children with me.  WHETHER THEY LIKED IT OR NOT.  Hi, I was a peach to be around!  I don’t know if it’s because I’ve now had that long term, loving, live-together relationship (FAIL) and it’s out of my system, or that hello, I am in my 30s and fuck that noise.  It’s nice to make out with someone and then not worry if they’re going to call you.  Even nicer when you hope they don’t make a big deal out of it, and they comply.  I kind of love not being in love.

I have a friend who claims I am not socially awkward in the slightest.  I tell her that she just can’t see how I’m dying on the inside.  But I’m not even doing that anymore.  Am I growing up?  Am I always drunk?  The thing is, I’m not only not dreading this BBQ on my back stoop tonight, I’m actually looking FORWARD to it.  I was looking forward to seeing drinks dude this weekend, but he’s staying put and I’m fine with that.  I cannot wait to drink champagne and toast my good friend on his new apartment at his housewarming.  There will be a lot of people I don’t know around, and guess what?  That sounds awesome to me.

If anyone sees the real Tamara slouching around muttering and trying to take a nap under your bed, don’t tell her where I am.  Pod Tamara is happy.

I was talking to a friend the other day about how I have come to realize that being 30 is actually pretty awesome.  I’m having the best time.  It’s weird and sometimes awkward and I’m doing some inappropriate things with inappropriate people, making me just verging on this side of being a whore, but 30 has been bringing the fun, and I have been accepting it.

I know it’s totally boring to read about how things are good and I can’t give any details.

But, well, things are good.  And I have another secret.  It involves slightly not so legal things and going to bed (but not sleeping) at 3am (yes, again with the late night.  What’s up Los Angeles?  You can’t get a damned decent night’s sleep?  No wonder you’re always cutting me off and swerving in and out of lanes.  You are sleep defuckingprived) and kind of getting my face kissed off.  There is a point when stubble is too stubbly and you should probably stop kissing the person you’re kissing, but um, I didn’t.  Hi!  I have a red face this morning.  For more than one reason!

I wonder if I’m going to remember what this was about when I look back at it in 3 to 5 years, you know, just after I get out of prison for having so much goddamned fun.

Goddamnit. If I can make it through these next two days, I am owed a gigantic pool sized dirty martini. No, make that an ocean sized vodka martini up. Two olives. Don’t worry, I’ll find the olives in all that vodka. I have super-sleuth capabilities when it comes to the green be-salted devils.

I haven’t been drinking this week because I wanted to see if all the wine I’ve been consuming had something to do with the tummy I recently started sporting. I was worried that it had more to do with being in my thirties than drinking wine, but I’m here to tell you, I had a wine belly. Didn’t know it was possible? Well, now you know.

Oh holy crap, I just remembered something! I was talking to the ex last night, telling him how embarrassing it is that I can’t keep my mouth shut about my stupid blog. I know, I know, it’s not like I didn’t tell the drinks guy’s friends to read it, but I seriously didn’t expect that they would remember. (Hi! I’m a dork. See: My entire archives!) And the ex was all, “Oh, yeah, funny you should mention that. When people asked me how the breakup was going, I would just refer them to your site.” Gulp. I told a friend about it this morning and she started cracking up. She was like, “I hope you don’t get mad at me for saying this, but um, that makes me kind of like him again.” Goddamnit. Why can’t he just be hateful and horrible?

Man,  if you could read my paper diary right now.  There’s some salacious shit going on.  If I know you in real life I’ll fill you in.  If I don’t… well, I’m sorry, you should take me out for a drink sometime.  I’m totally easy.  About secrets, I mean.

See you on Saturday.

It’s easy to get low self-esteem in Los Angeles. I am surrounded by size double 0 women. Women who don’t eat. Women who eat only vegetables. Women who eat but throw up. Women who eat whatever they want but look like models anyway. Beautiful skinny women are the foundation that Los Angeles is built upon. Say what you will about the past and how it was all different then, that women were curvy. I’ve heard it all, but fuck it, women in Los Angeles were always thin. And by the way, Marilyn Monroe was not even close to a size 12.

Guess what size I was for the past, oh, all my adult damned life, um, it’s scary for me to write this, but here goes nothing - a not so perfect size 12. I even feel the need to tell you, as if I need to justify it, that only my pants were sized 12. My tops, I could fit into anything from a large to a small. Never extra-small because these tits weren’t made for extra-small, but yeah, the pants were a size 12.

It seems like such a harmless number, the number 12, but let me tell you, in Los Angeles, when you’re looking for a size and the nice (pinched, skinny) sales lady asks if she can help you find it, when you say 12, it’s kind of like saying, HEY, I’m a big fat person, I’m lucky Wild Bill didn’t see me or my big fat person skin would be adorning his dress form right now.

When I went to get my expensive dress to wear to the Oscars, I had been training for the marathon for 2 months. I had lost some weight, and I was feeling good. I went to BCBG in Beverly Hills because I had no idea where to start. In the nicer stores in Beverly Hills you don’t have sizes out. They get the sizes for you. I was fucked. I couldn’t just casually grab a size and scurry into a dressing room. I had to engage with a sales woman. I had to tell her my size OUT LOUD. I felt ashamed (ASHAMED!) to tell her what size dress I wore. To be honest, I didn’t really know. I told her I wore a 10. The biggest size they had was an 8. The first one I tried on was too tarty for me, and it sort of fit, but was not something I would have felt comfortable wearing, so I tried on the next one. The blue one. The one I spent way too much money on. I didn’t feel fat in it. I didn’t look fat in it. But something in the back of my mind told me, “You are wearing the largest size in the store, what a fatty.” I wore a ’support garment’ underneath it.

I’m going to Vancouver this weekend to hang out with Kristin, a woman I admire in so many ways. When we first met, here in LA, I felt like I had known her for a million years and we had a billion things to catch up on, but that’s blogging for you. You read and support the people you would love and appreciate in real life. The thing is, Kristin is skinny and tall and goddamnit, she’s pretty.

I went through my closet a few weeks ago and got rid of pretty much everything that made me feel bad about myself when I wore it. This left… not a lot to wear. I’ve lost weight in the past few months. Hard work, running with Lula every night and (this is the weirdest thing, but I think it’s relevant) not watching TV have brought me within 10 pounds of my goal weight. My Los Angeles Dream Weight is only a mere 10 pounds away. Seeing as I’ve lost 8 pounds in the last four months, it doesn’t seem so unattainable now. The problem with losing 8 pounds and getting rid of all your clothes and not making much money? Well, I had nothing to wear to Vancouver. This wouldn’t be such a big problem if I didn’t have such low self esteem, but being that I do have low self esteem, added to the fact that Kristin, as I’ve mentioned, is tall, thin and gorgeous and we are planning on going out in public together, I was a little worried.

So, with visions of tax refunds in my head I ventured into Beverly Hills again today to buy some damned denim. Now, it’s been a while since my last brush with designer denim and I am a different woman now. Let’s just say, I went in with low expectations. The last pair of jeans I bought was in January. I felt gigantic trying them on in the store, and they were a little tight when I looked in the mirror, but I bought them anyway. Two wearings later, they’re too big. The thing about designer denim? You have to buy it too small, the fucking expensive stuff? GET’S BIGGER with age.

I went to Anthropologie because I know they carry Joe’s Jeans. And Joe’s are the kind of jeans that girls with big asses wear. (I hesitate to write this next part because even though I shouldn’t be ashamed of what size I wear, because it’s just a stupid goddamned number, I still feel like I’m a gigantor assed woman with too much butt.) I grabbed the two sizes I figured would work, a 32 and a 31. I tried the 31 on first, thinking, “Fuck it, I can always go to the 32 if I need to.” And, guess what. They fit. Almost perfectly. The alarm bells began ringing in my head. They said, “If you are going to buy a pair of jeans worth more than you make in a day, you best buy the right size, dumb ass.” I opened the dressing room door and called for my lady.

“Hey, do you think you have these in a 30?”

She came back with my jeans. The smallest jeans I have ever worn. The jeans that still were in the 30s but jesus god, looked so tiny on the hanger.

I tried them on. They were tight. They fit like a glove, not quite an OJ Simpson glove, but a tight glove. A glove I knew would look perfect after three days. So I bought them.

I didn’t know that buying a smaller sized pant would make me feel so good. Worried I had been duped by a skinny mirror and bad lighting, I tried them on in the privacy of my own home this evening and examined them in my own skinny mirror and my non-skinny mirror, and hells yeah, I am ready for Vancouver.

Sound the alarm, ring the bells, I am a smaller size. Could someone please explain to me how this is possible? Wait, don’t tell me, I just want to revel in the fact that I am thinner today than I was 4 months ago when the bad thing happened. Ah yes, that’s a nice feeling.

Tara, Katie and I closed down the restaurant, and since Tara and I weren’t going home to anyone we decided to go to a bar. Unfortunately, we spent a good 30 minutes of our drinking time trying to find a bar that wasn’t full of Los Feliz losers. I love my old neighborhood, but man is it filled with douchebags. We finally ended up at the Roost, a table magically opened up, and we were left alone until just before last call when the drunk former frat boys now hipsters tried to get us to go to the Griffin, where we had already been.

It never fails to amaze me how someone asking for your number in a bar, based solely on the way you look, having spoken only one curt word to them before the moment they pounce, still flatters. Instead of giving him my number I took his, then he gave me a sloppy wet kiss on my cheek. And the magic was over. Tara fared only slightly better by being asked if she was a hairdresser. Snort. She’s going to hate that I’m writing this, but man if you want to piss Tara off, ask her if she’s a hairdresser, or even better, a waitress. She’s feisty. Which is why I like her. I like going to bars with her because you never know when she’s going to completely lose it and get into a bar fight with a dude who told her she was pretty.

I’m thoroughly enjoying this new phase of my life. There are stumbles and some boring nights alone, but it’s nothing if not amusing to be single and in your thirties. Excuse me, 27.

I share a birthday with a lot of friends of friends and siblings of friends, which makes those people awesome, because January 20th is a good day. It’s Inauguration Day every four years, and how can you beat that?

I can’t wait to blow out a candle, or maybe I’ll set my martini on fire tonight and blow that out. You know, whatever is easiest.

I don’t know if it’s superstition or the break-up or laziness, but I didn’t want to make a long list of resolutions this year.  There are a lot of specific things I want to accomplish, but those are just the big, daunting, somewhat tedious items on my to-do list.  The one thing I’ve been thinking about most is why my relationship failed, why I’m still not achieving the level of success in my off-line writing I thought I would be achieving by now and why I’m still 10 pounds away from my ever changing goal weight.  And the answer is not a pleasant one.

I’ve spent most of my life doing the minimum.  This is what happens when you’re told you’re smart for most of your habit forming years.  Instead of telling me that if I worked hard I would be able to get the things I wanted, I was told I was smart, I would be OK.  “You’re smart, you’ll figure out a way to get that 20 page paper done by tomorrow that you’ve known about for 3 months.”  Guess what, I always got it done.  I always spent the entire semester dreading that final weekend before it was due, but never got off my ass and did the research.  So here I am, approaching 32 and I’m still cramming for life.  Here’s the thing, you can’t cram for your relationship, you have to do the work every day.  You can’t cram for your screenplay, you have to sit your ass in the chair and write.  You can’t cram for weight loss, you have to - well, you get the point.

So, on December 17th, 2007, my world got flipped around, I’m starting over and instead of making a grand sweeping change that is sure to be given up on in one month - like RUN EVERY DAY OR DIE - I’m resolving to ‘try a little harder.’  It sounds so simple and maybe it’s too simple, but so far it’s working.  All I have to do to keep this resolution is ask myself a couple times a day, “Did you try a little harder, can you do a little more?”  And if I say yes I can try a little harder, I can do a little more - I run a little faster, I add an extra set of push-ups, I write a few more pages.  Generally, I’m only asking the question if I know I can try a little harder, but it helps to have the extra push even if it comes from me.

I expect to resist this in a few months, I expect to get to a point where I want to tell myself to shut up, but one aspect of my personality that I shove in the corner most days is a supreme level of stubbornness.  I am a stubborn mother-fucker, and I mean to get the most out of that.  At least, I’ll try to.