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.
Wednesday, October 29, 2014
Monday, October 13, 2014
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!!
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!!
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