Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Ugh.

Funny story.  I was sitting on my couch reading I Am Malala, crying.  Sitting on my couch, in my climate-controlled, well-lit, safe, two bedroom apartment in Los Angeles, after eating a giant plate of food I made on my gas stove (for which I didn't have to go buy gas somewhere in town), with my perfect child sleeping in his room, where he would likely sleep through the night, which he has done pretty much every night for the last year, reading a book about a girl who got shot three times just for wanting to get an education.  Oh, but I wasn't crying out of guilt over my privilege.  I wasn't crying out of compassion.  I wasn't crying at my inability to right all the wrongs in the world.  Basically I was crying because I'm not on "New Girl".

I TOLD YOU THIS WASN'T GOING TO BE PRETTY.

Back in September, when I was in Brooklyn, I read a great story in The Sun called "Three".  It's about going with what life brings and wondering how you ever lived without things you initially didn't even know you wanted.  The family in the story lives in a rural part of the country, near woods and rivers.  Their Thanksgivings are filled with friends, and laughing children, and wild-caught game.  A place where it's cold in the winter and hot in the summer.  Where it's gloriously green in spring and the leaves turn orange and yellow and brown in the fall.  I'm assuming.  He doesn't mention where they are exactly, but in my mind it was somewhere with four seasons.  At any rate, I suddenly had an image of standing at the kitchen sink, looking out at Monty playing in the backyard and I wanted that more than anything.  The next few days were filled with images like that.  Screened-in porches, fireflies, local farms, hot cider.  Hot cider, guys.  I was fantasizing about hot cider.

When I left grad school after one semester it was to go back in to acting.  Well, that's not entirely true.  I left the grad school I was at, I would say if you asked, because I didn't think their curriculum was grounded in concepts of social justice and equality.  My classmates giggled when our instructor recounted the time a patient wet himself during group therapy.  They were young.  They spoke of their potential private practices where they could treat the worried well and whenever the issue of internships with truly sick populations came up they all got squirmy and uncomfortable.  And this is me being super judgey.  The truth is, what my classmates thought or did shouldn't have had any bearing on my education.  If I had really wanted to, I could have seen past them, and stuck with it.  But also?  The program was hard.  And I was terrified of it.  I was working at a different school in their graduate program where it is extremely difficult to not pass.  I watched idiots go through the whole program and graduate (we can only hope they didn't pass their licensing exams.) doing work that would not have sufficed at my high school.  But the school I was going to had actual letter grades and real tests and students were actually held accountable for proving they were learning what was being taught and I was straight up scared of it.  It may not be clear, yet, but I have an overwhelming fear of failure that I've carried around like a God damned prize my whole life. 

I dropped out of that grad school with the intention of switching to the one I was working for and coasting through, but in the middle of the application process I decided to go back to acting.  In retrospect anything that school could have thrown at me would have been easier than a life of maintaining a living as an actor.  And so now I'm having these images of a rural life and I know that getting there as an actor would be a sysiphean task I'm not sure I want to undertake.  I want to actually spend time with my son.  I don't want to have to be constantly worrying about my next job in order to maintain a lifestyle.  And I'm not talking about living like a king.

So, I Googled the best social work programs in the country and narrow the list down to a half dozen or so in cities I could imagine living in, did a little research and narrowed that list down to University of North Carolina Chapel Hill.  Raleigh has been voted best city in which to raise a family this year, there is a large performing arts community, the cost of living is extremely low, and there are four distinct seasons (though God only knows what the climate will be like in ten years...).   Yes, there are cons, but you people are always yelling at me to "BE MORE POSITIVE!"  And by "you people" I mean the voices in my head.

I booked a flight to Raleigh for the first week in November so as to scout the area for potential neighborhoods to move to in January.  The next day I get a call about the possibility of a gig in NYC.  On the Broadway.  You get it?  I booked a flight to do preliminary moving research to RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA so I can go back to becoming A THERAPIST and THE NEXT DAY I get a call about possibly returning to Broadway after 15 years.  Which is great, right?  But after more than 20 years at this I've learned not to get excited until I'm moving into my dressing room (not, like, MOVING IN, like I have a heroin problem and I've been kicked out of my home so I'm "moving in" to my dressing room.  Just, you know, putting my stuff in there and setting it up...  I don't do heroin.)  So, my initial reaction is like, "Great, now I have to put everything on hold again."  Well, my initial reaction is like, "Nifty!  Broadway!"  and then I'm like, "Great now I have to put everything on hold again."

A few days later I'm on my couch reading "I Am Malala" and crying because I'm not on TV.  I'm fully aware of how gross and icky all of this is, even while it's happening, which only makes things worse.  Nothing like feeling shitty and then feeling shitty for feeling shitty.  So, I did something I've literally never done before.  I got on my knees and I "prayed".  I was like, "Well, nothing else is working..."  And I say "prayed" in quotes, because I still don't understand the concept of a Higher Power.  I don't even know if I believe in one.  So, I was "praying" to my "Higher Power" just asking to be made aware of the "plan".  If that's a thing.  And it became painfully obvious that I have a vice-like grip on my need for control.  Which, good thing I chose show business!  Nice and stable.  Lots of control.  So, I need to, like, "let go" of my need for control and "trust" that "God" has a "plan" for me.  Which makes me just feel like a dandelion seed blowing along in the wind.  That sounds nice and relaxing, right?  Like, I just get to float along on the breeze, in the sunshine.  Wherever I land is where I land.  What a nightmare.

In the middle of all this I blurt out, "I want to live in Los Angeles and I want to be on T.V."  So, there it is, I guess.  I asked for knowledge of the plan for me and then said the plan out loud without thinking.  So, it's settled, right?  I stay in Los Angeles and "be on T.V."  But that puts us right back where we were at the beginning.  I don't know if it's realistic to pursue this path when I want to stand at my kitchen sink and watch Monty play in the backyard.  Those two goals seem at odds.  If I want to make enough money so we can live where we want and have a backyard does that mean I'm ever actually home or am I constantly out chasing the next job?  And really, this issue is more dire than "I want to watch Monty play in the backyard".  It's actually about making any kind of living and having health insurance and being able to send Monty to a good school. 

I don't want to be a dandelion seed.  I want to be an ant that has a very clear job.  Go to the potato chip, nibble off a piece, bring it back to the... farm?  Repeat.  But then, at the end of the day and on weekends I want to be able to go to my nice home in a rural part of the ant country, where my ant family is happily living.  And maybe we have a nice garden.

I'm going to go ahead and post this blog now because I've been worrying over it for a couple weeks and I want it off my mind.  But I'm not happy with it because it's whiney and so navel-gazing it hurts. So, forgive me and please stick with me.



Sunday, October 12, 2014

False Alarm

A few months ago I made a grand announcement that Kurt and Monty and I were pulling up stakes and moving back to NYC.  Kurt had been let go from his job of 15 years (he signed a confidentiality document so I can't bad mouth them, much as I'd like to) and we had been thinking about it anyway.  The plan was that Kurt would go there for a couple weeks, pound the pavement, secure a job, and we would pack up and move.

Turns out the whole economy sucking and people not being able to find work thing is completely real!  Especially for someone who was employed in a low-tech position for 15 years.  Loyalty doesn't count for much these days. 

Plan B was for me to go to NYC for a month and lay the ground work in my industry for a move back.  I was supposed to go for the month of September, but I was up for a part on a TV show that shot there in Mid-August and my agent told me the sooner I got there the better.  So Monty and I went in Mid-August.  New York City in August.

My parents' house is a death trap.  It's a miracle I survived there at all growing up.  There are three winding wooden staircases, one with a wrought iron banister thingy.  Monty's favorite thing to do, it turns out, is climb stairs.  He especially likes the part where the staircase curves and the stairs get SUPER narrow.

It was an awful trip.  Not because of the stairs.  Navigating the city with a stroller is rough especially since most of the shitty hipsters that have infested it don't seem to understand the concept of helping women with strollers up and down subway steps.  It's like they moved there with the cliched idea that New Yorkers are rude and they want to be authentic, so they just pass you by in their skinny jeans and scarves and stupid mustaches while you struggle up the steps with a stroller, a toddler, and accoutrement. Also, my skin was FLIPPING the fuck out.  I had taken the awesome advice of oil cleansing.  Oil cleansing.  Oil cleansing is where you literally rub OIL into your skin as a way to clean it.  You CLEAN your FACE with OIL.  Is that clear?  Good, because my face certainly wasn't.  The two women I know who oil cleanse have beautiful skin.  The thing is, they have beautiful skin.  So, they're starting out at a major advantage.  They haven't been dealing with acne since they were 12.  At one point in this adventure I was rubbing oil into my skin at night and rubbing apple cider vinegar into my face in the morning.  So, to be clear, I was cleaning my face with salad dressing.  I kept telling myself my skin was purging and I had to stick with it.  All the websites I was looking at were telling me to keep treating my face like an arugula salad for at least eight weeks until my skin had purged all the gross stuff out and then I would look like Charlize Theron.  By week six I looked like Hoggle.


Also, it's not like you use canola oil from the 99 cent store.  Everything has to be organic and cold-pressed and you have to use a combination of different oils depending on your skin type (and good luck figuring out the right combination and ratio for your skin).  By the end I was using a combination of castor, jojoba, argon, tamanu, and tea tree oils.  Next time you're at Whole Foods take a look at how much a tiny container of organic, cold-pressed tamanu oil is...
 
I suppose walking around looking like a troll would have been okay if I had felt like I was home.  New York doesn't feel like home anymore.  Honestly, it feels like a luxury mall filled with Starbucks, cupcake shops, and T-Mobile stores.  And Park Slope is lovely, don't get me wrong, I grew up there, but $2500 for a studio??  Come on, guys.  It's not THAT lovely.  You have to really love New York in order to make a life there and I just don't.  The deep irony is I know that if I moved back to NYC it wouldn't take too terribly long to start working fairly steadily and cobble together some kind of a living.  I could probably be comfortable financially, so at least that part of the puzzle would be in place.  But it's the getting to that point that I can't hack.  I can't deal with the snow and sleet and wet pants on the subway and the heat and pee smell everywhere and the jam-packed subways and the subway stairs and the prospect of having to live all the way out in Bed-Stuy.  I don't have it in me.  Plus, to be honest, I resent the fact that I've been priced out of my own neighborhood. 

On top of all that, I had two life-changing fights with my parents, which, as regrettable as they were (and they were), helped me to understand some things about myself that need changing.

In the meantime, back at home, Kurt was going through his own shit and coming to terms with some life stuff he hadn't wanted to look at for a really long time.  His language was changing.  His priorities were shifting.  He realized that getting a job similar to the one he had just left, one that largely meant catering to people with a lot of money, no real concept of self-reliance, and a real concept of self-entitlement was going to crush his soul.  Further than he'd felt his soul crushed already.  In the five years that I've known him I've watched him lose more and more interest in his "work".  I've seen him go in day after day, NEVER taking a sick day and hardly ever taking vacation days, working with people who were rude and unappreciative.  His skills vastly outweighed his duties.  By the end he just seemed beat down and defeated.  He felt like he was letting us down.  More importantly, he was letting himself down.  He devalued himself.  At the end of the day, getting shit-canned from that place was a huge blessing (but don't tell them that).

We found ourselves kind of laid out bare by it all.  Home is no longer home for me.  Los Angeles, as much as we love it, has just become a place with great weather where we happen to live.  I haven't had an audition since the one (ONE) I went on in NYC (for a one page co-star).  We're both on unemployment and we have a child.  And, for some dumb reason, we insist on feeding him organic, healthy foods.  A recent trip to Whole Foods cost us $250.  Two weeks later we were out of almost everything.  My parents have very generously sent us a Whole Foods gift card to keep Monty in kale and bananas, but that's not a viable life-plan.  We can't just keep going this way, hoping something will change and that our parents' generosity will continue eternally.  My agent tells me to get a survival job, but we're not talking about waiting tables while I cross my fingers and hope to get an audition.  If it were just me, that would be fine.  But I have a child.  That shit won't fly anymore.  Plus, I've never waited tables, but I can guarantee you I wouldn't last a day.  Could you imagine me waiting on you?

I do love acting.  And I know I'm good at it.  But the sad truth is making a career out of acting doesn't have too much to do with talent.  There are a lot of factors that go into having a successful career, and I, for various reasons both in and out of my own control, have not been able to attract enough of the factors to me at once in order to make a solid go of it.  Success does not guarantee future success.  

I don't feel sorry for myself.  My story isn't tragic.  It's pretty mundane, actually.  Most actors who have been doing it for more than five years will have a similar story.  It's okay.  It's the life I chose.  It's just not working anymore.

As it stands now we're contemplating a major move.  We've realized that if things need to change we have to change them.  We can't wait around anymore for something to magically be different.  We have to think about Monty and what kind of life we want for him.  We have to show him how to make a healthy life for himself by making one for ourselves.  It's looking like that life doesn't exist for us in Los Angeles or New York.  Which means we have options.  We can go anywhere.  This is both exhilarating and utterly terrifying.  But nothing is permanent.  Right?  RIGHT???

I realize this reads like a diary entry.  I'm just trying to fulfill my promise to be honest and share this journey.  This is where my journey is today.  

Join me tomorrow when I discuss coffee enemas, kale shampoo, and sun-staring. 

Thursday, October 2, 2014

Who's misundertanding?

Here's a great piece by Leighton Meester about the interpretations and misinterpretations of Curly's wife in Of Mice and Men.  This is for the people who accused me of not understanding Steinbeck's work when I took Brantely to task for his use of the phrase "she was asking for it".  Enjoy!!


Wednesday, October 1, 2014

Daisy and Jordan Drive Around Town

Hey, guys!  Fun story:  One of my favorite people, Jordan Kai Burnett and are doing a podcast!  It's called "Daisy and Jordan Drive Around Town" and that's also what it is....  Basically every time we take a drive together we have a GREAT time and we decided to share the joy with the world!  ISN'T THAT AWESOME????

Here's the thing: For now I'm recording these episodes on my phone and editing them with a software I'm totally unfamiliar with.  I have no idea how to do cross fades or fade outs despite much looking around.  So, it's not the best sound quality, but it's definitely audible and totally listen-to-able.  We think.

Enjoy!!