Awkwardly Social

A little over (under? I have no concept of time since I stopped working) a month ago, a friend (acquaintance? We’ve never met, but one of her good friends was one of the first people I ever read on the internet, so I consider her a friend of a friend, but also a friend, this internet relationshipping is complicated) asked me to write a little something for the site she edits.

I checked out the website and was like, “YES! But! I don’t really have a garden at the moment….” And she was all, don’t worry about it!

So I promptly freaked out and considered buying a new camera to photograph our house. Then I calmed down and decided to just rent a lens. WAY CHEAPER.

After I sent off the article and the photos, I was pretty sure she would hate it and be all, “I have made a GRAVE mistake!”  And never publish my piece, but then she did.

It went live today. Check it out if you want to read about what I think makes a house a home, and HINT, it doesn’t involve a bookshelf with books facing backwards.

So, if you are coming over here from there, welcome, make yourself at home, I have wine chilling in the fridge. This is my website where I recently have been talking about my infertility treatments and the sudden death of my mother. Which doesn’t sound very homey, come to think of it. But if you stick around, I promise one day, I will no longer be injecting myself with lots of hormones (today I was told to reduce my medication by so much that now I only have to do two shots! Woo!) and I’ll be less sad about my mom. One hopes.

I’m reading a slightly embarrassing self-help book for writers called Walking on Alligators.  In it there are daily (hourly?) meditations on writing and strategies on how to get your ass into the chair and write.  One of the strategies is to look at oneself and the demons you keep in your closet and use them.  If there are things you don’t like about yourself, use them in characters.  Build those things into story lines.  Use them in your villains.  Use them in characterizations of your family.  Use everything, good and bad.

I have a lot of bad.  I think if we’re honest we all can find a lot of bad.

My demons are plenty, but mostly I feel like shit physically right now.

I am dealing with a bum ear, and those that know me know I’m a terrible sick person.  I need a cave to hide in and someone to throw medicine and food at me from a safe distance.  I am having a hard time hearing on the left side, thrice daily drops poured into my ear canal, congestion, hives, sleepless nights, and all the while dealing with a new daytime situation that has me commuting to the dreaded valley and sitting at a table made of plastic.  It’s a hard knock life, for us.

So, if you notice a bit of extra angst on these here pages, I will just tell you, I’m working some things out, and this is my safe place.

On the upside, I got to go to the Dodger v. Yankee game tonight, something I had been looking forward to for a while.  And aside from the extra obnoxious vibe of Dodger fans, it was good to be back at the park.

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.

Seth said to me, “I think you’ll have terrible morning sickness.  No reason, I just think you will.”  Then he said morning sickness was caused by the baby pressing on your stomach.  I crinkled my brow and told him I was pretty sure it was because of hormones, not because of stomach pressing.  So we googled it.  I was right.  Then I said, “I think women have to pee more because of the baby pressing on your bladder,” and he said, “Oh, yeah, that’s what I was thinking of.”

Then we googled the Pink Hotel in Bermuda because a friend of his recommended it.  We decided La Vita e Bella in Tulum was much more our speed, even if it doesn’t have room service.  If I get pregnant in Mexico, I promised I would consider naming the baby Tulumla.  There is no harm in promising you’ll consider something.

I googled progesterone, trying to find out if men had it too.  I still don’t have the answer to that.

I googled a hotel in Cabo and after looking at the pictures for two seconds realized we shot there, then I had to google the name of our show with the name of the hotel to make sure I was right.

I’m off to google places to run in our neighborhood.  It’s about time I got out of bed.

I’m on hiatus at the moment.  I like saying that.  “I’m on hiatus!”  It adds a positive twist to my current unemployment situation.  And since my 2nd episode aired last Sunday, and we’re waiting to hear if we get a second season, it is actually true.  We TV people are so fancy with our hiatuses (hiati?) and our 2nd seasons and our episodes on TV.  In fact, today I actually had a “lunch meeting” with a real producer and pitched ideas to him and he acted like I wasn’t a total moron.  It felt like a real thing even if it was Seth’s best friend and I am just the girlfriend who was there to act like a reality tv expert.  Maybe one day, I’ll get paid again to have story meetings.  (Hire me! I promise I’m very fun and talented and you won’t ever be bored in a room with me.  I can hula hoop!)

I’m trying to get some other writing done, but of course, I have an interim gig lined up already and my first week off has slipped away, and by this time next week I’ll be swamped.  These are good things.  Yay!  But I’m not getting any closer to finishing that great American screenplay/documentary/novel/short story that I was supposed to be working on. C’est la vie!

Nothing much else has happened other than that time on Cinco de Mayo when I was supposed to meet some friends at a bar, saw that it was crowded, couldn’t find parking, went to a different bar, found parking and then started to accuse Seth of having rotten kids, started crying when Seth assumed that I meant he was a rotten dad, and fell asleep worried I was not only going to have to find a job but also a new place to live because he was going to leave me and Lula would probably prefer to stay with him now that she’s picked a favorite and the favorite is him.

Needless to say, I don’t think Seth is a rotten dad, I do think his kids are sometimes rotten (I also admit that being a kid myself, I am sometimes rotten and I don’t blame my parents… much…), and he didn’t make me move out, and we are still very much in love, but I haven’t heard from my friends I was supposed to meet so I guess they hate me.  Phew and boo!

My other concern of the moment is that I am interviewing for jobs, something I haven’t had to do in a while, and I worry about my google results and how people will find this page if they’re really looking and what they’ll think when they do.  I’ve tried to make it less findable, and for the most part it is.  There are some dead ends that if cross-referenced a savvy person could navigate through.  But I’m fine with that.  I’ve made my bed.  And here I am, as we speak, in my pajamas, laying in it.

I ate ice cream for dinner.   Someone get me a wheel chair, I’m getting too fat for these pants.

Oh god, this is not ending well.   I need to put this baby to bed.

I joined a gym.

It’s in Boys Town, so the men are beautiful, unavailable, and thankfully not looking at me.  (Except in cases of cattiness… Which I’m sure I’ll deserve.)  And the women, surprisingly, are a lot like me.  I wasn’t even scared to sign up.  I just walked in, plunked down my $10.00 initiation fee and told the dude I wanted to start that day.  It’s been 10 years since I’ve had a gym membership, and right now I’m pretty much sticking to the treadmill, but I was suckered into three personal training sessions (hold me…).

Seth started working again and in our business, late nights are a given.  He’s not crazy about me running alone at night.  I gently reminded him that I was running alone at night for almost 10 years before he came along, but there was talk of pepper spray, code words, taser certification, a whistle, and getting a pit bull (that last part was me, I’m still angling for another dog even though right now I kind of want to kill Lula).  I’m not one to let fear keep me from going out by myself and I refuse to behave as though because I’m a woman I’m a natural born victim, but something happened, and it has given me pause.  Saying the words ‘I’m going to the memorial of the girl who was murdered’ as how you spent your weekend, changes how you feel a little about being a woman of the world and someone who can take care of herself.  So, I’m taking a little time off being a tough guy and working out in the safety of a gym.

But that’s not even the half of it.  I’ve been having some issues.

I’ll get into that at some point, but I’ll leave it at this, I’m getting help with the writing block and the drinking.  I thought going to the gym for a half hour a day was hard.  Turns out, it was nothing compared to the next big bunch of Saturdays.

I used to love that Hair song, Age of Aquarius, when I was a kid.  Mostly because at that time I was under the mistaken impression that I was an Aquarius and that it somehow had something to do with me, not free love.

I don’t read my horoscope very often (horrorscope) because sometimes I’d rather not know I’m going to be experiencing financial strife, or my relationships will be rocky.   Thanks, planets, I’ll just be over here waiting for you to get back in line for me, fucking someone else for a few weeks.

But I couldn’t help myself this afternoon.  I blame the detox tea I’m drinking.  It’s making me feel like singing “White Boys/Black Boys,” and “The Flesh Failures.” (And also, “Sodomy,” but that’s a different story.)  So I looked up my monthly horoscope and it had this to say:

With the ruler of your twelfth house and the ruler of your third house aligned, some of you will be writing or otherwise communicating your more personal thoughts and feelings, perhaps focusing on the past or more private material. You are considerably more intuitive this year. Your mind often runs along moneymaking ideas and anything that has to do with communicating ideas. Writing and teaching could add to your personal income this year. In general, you have more faith in your ability to make money in 2009, regardless of the current state of the economy! This attitude can certainly bring rewards to you, but you should also be cautious about becoming too starry-eyed about finances–keep it real and avoid jumping into moneymaking schemes without first considering the facts.

Yay.  This is all true and good and thank god they didn’t say this month would finally ruin me financially.  There’s even a hint at something very close to home in there career wise, so wow.

I’m sure they’ll get back to fucking me next month.

Sometimes I catch myself thinking I would have been better off getting accidentally knocked up and having a baby in my twenties.  Then I shudder and think about the potential fathers of these accidental would-bes and I thank the gods that I’m not dealing with that hot mess of a parenting situation.  Alcoholics, slam poets, and randoms from Amsterdam, oh my!  But babies are on my brain and they just so happen to be pressing uncomfortably in the ‘lifestyle’ and ‘fun’ sections.  And boy, am I a worrier!  I have pretty much worried the shit out of this whole babies ruin your life situation, and have come to the conclusion that be that as it may, I have a very good friend whose relationship with her son reminds me that kids can also be kick ass sidekicks, not to mention the two really good examples of how awesome my genes are when it comes to making cute babies.

Meanwhile, life keeps happening, my writing keeps being blocked and my world keeps feeling like it’s going to collapse in on itself in a gigantic black hole of missed opportunities and blown exits.

So, Valentine’s Day was spent sleeping in and ambling around trying to find a restaurant that served a full menu at 3pm.  Interspersed with comments like, “So if we have this theoretical baby, will it sit there with Lula on her bed and entertain itself jovially while I try to figure out where my pants are?”  To which Seth replied, “Fuck no.”  To which I further pressed, “But, um, Lula will be CPR trained by then and she seems to have a good head on her shoulders, are you sure she won’t be able to babysit?”  To which Seth replied, “Baby, we’re going to have a nanny, and it isn’t going to have a pelt of black fur.”  And then I made some crude joke about women from Romanian and we laughed.  By the time we settled on El Cholo, I was starving and freaking out about the fact that if you have a baby it will sometimes scream and ruin your Saturday morning, which led to me gulping down a strong margarita and then another and oops, there went the third.

About mid-way into margarita number two I started crying about the life I was giving up by wanting to have a baby.  Which is when Seth tried to surreptitiously slide the margarita glass away from me, and I snatched it back out of his grasp, because I was drunk, but not that drunk.  Half-way into margarita number three, I was really giving it the old tears in my Chile Colorado routine and Seth wrestled the last half out of my trembling hands and wow, I really am not allowed to drink tequila anymore.

Sunday was good until it was bad and that was when Seth pressed me a little about my writing and had to admit to him that while I still write here, and occasionally am able to spew out a few days worth of morning pages, I’m not really writing.  I’m (god it’s such a cliche!) blocked.  And good.  He asked me if it was a mental block or a motivation block.  And honestly, I think it’s neither, I think I’m just fucking tired of writing.  Tired of caring about these lives I spent so much of my time creating and bending and making say words.  I want to be done with them, but they keep running around in my head and I want them to shut up.  I want them to take it easy for a few months, and let me just live my life without having to think about whether or not they’ve made it through the second act without boring the reader to tears.  I want to be able to write, the way I do here, without pressure, without worrying about selling something, without the added dread of getting people to like what I do.  For the most part, here, you like me, you have told me as much with your comments and e-mails and aside from that one time when someone told me I was a big ol’ sack of repetitive complaining, you seem to get it.  Which is why I feel so comfortable here.  Which is what I’m looking for when I write, just a few less voices in my head.  Which is what I used to get when I wrote my other stuff.  And I want to get it back.

I wasn’t able to articulate any of that to Seth and just started crying.  Again.  And he took me up in that way that no one else can and told me I needed to talk to someone.  And that it’s important to him that I get it sorted out.  Important to him, because he knows how important it is to me.

And I know I sound like a broken record, but yeah, the signs are clear, the road is paved, the exit is looming, I just need to get off this interstate and back on that side road, the one that has the words on it.   Because as soon as that baby comes, it’s gonna send me on another path, and I want to make sure I saw all I needed to see on this other one before I get off.

I gave up mid-week drinking for the most part a couple of weeks ago. I was finding it hard to stop at one glass of wine and then even harder to fit into my new jeans, so I just stopped buying white wine. And lord do I miss it. My offline writing has suffered. My waist line has not.

I am supposed to be working on my script right now, but here I am dicking around on the internet.

Is it weird that I’m think I can hear the bottle of Gordon’s Vodka and the Clamato talking to each other? And they’re saying that I need to pour myself a glass so I can get this script finished? Because I’m guessing that isn’t a good sign.

It’s not that I can’t write without alcohol, I mean, here I am writing. On this blog that pays me zero dollars. It’s just that this particular script is a little painful to write and well, alcohol is a pain reliever. Also it helps get to that tucked away spot where I stored some of those memories.

Maybe I should just have the Clamato with some olives in it.

Did you all just throw up in your mouths a little?

My big worry is that it isn’t just this script. That it will be every script and all of a sudden I’ll be red nosed like a Kennedy. And everyone knows what happens to Kennedys.

It wasn’t romantic or sexy. It was a sad cliché slapped on top of a boring teenage sob story. And there I was, in the McDonald’s bathroom, snorting crystal meth off the back of the toilet.

I had a party to go to that night. I knew the boy that had broken my heart was going to be there, and he would be nice to me but distant and I knew if I got drunk I would still be the same person, but if I did drugs, if I did crystal meth, I would be different. And I wanted him to prove to him that I was different. That I Had. Moved. On. And the thing that I had moved on to was something so much bigger than him. And better. And I was better.

June and Emma were my best friends in the world that summer. I could feel them slipping away. They had been acting strangely, disappearing into bathrooms, leaving parties and coming back like they had just shared the best secret. I asked them what was going on and they would tell me not to worry about it. “God, it’s nothing, stop being so crazy.” They would say it really fast.

We were sitting in McDonald’s that summer night waiting for Emma’s boyfriend to get off work. Emma didn’t want to go to the party because she hated everyone. June didn’t care where we went as long as it involved drinking and having fun and not watching The Doors for the 50 millionth time. I told them I wanted to go because I figured he would be there. That’s when they told me that while he was definitely going to be there, he was going to be there with someone else.

“He’s been with her since you left for camp.”

“Since before, actually.”

Every muscle in my abdomen was knotted up. All the blood in my body had mysteriously disappeared and been replaced by air. I would have cried, but I couldn’t figure out where my feelings went. I was absent from the room. My body was there, but the rest of me was somewhere else. June and Emma told me to come with them to the bathroom, they had something to tell me.

We walked into the bathroom and they locked the door. June hopped up on the sink and swang her long legs back and forth. She was wearing cut off jeans. She was a gazelle.

Emma stood at the mirror and looked at her perfect bangs and eyelashes. Her pale skin was flawless and her brown hair so straight.

“You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.”

“Do what?”

I couldn’t imagine what they had in store.

“It’s crystal.”

Emma held up a tiny bag with dusty yellow smudges and wicked looking clumps.

“What’s crystal?”

“Crystal meth.”

I looked at June. She was staring at me.

“I don’t want to shoot up.”

June burst out laughing. Her laugh was infectious. It felt like a playful tug on your pony tail. She hopped off the sink and hugged me.

“Don’t worry, dude, we just snort it.”

“Do you want to do a line?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know how.”

“We’ll show you.”

Of all the things we do as humans, of all our rituals and addictions - the uncorking of a bottle of wine, the crackle of tobacco when lighting a cigarette, the long stretched out moment before a man puts his hand on your neck and pulls you in for that first kiss - nothing quite compares to the way it feels to prepare a line and feel it go up your nose and burn a path down your throat.

I became that ritual and it became me. I still catch a whiff of the familiar smell every now and then when I open my glove box. It is my phantom leg, my dead spouse, the imaginary friend who felt so real.

So that night, I did a line and saw the boy. I tried to make him realize that he had made a mistake. That he was missing out on all this - spreading my arms out wide - but he didn’t care. And I got hooked on the feeling. The feeling that I didn’t care that he didn’t care.

So it began.