May 2007 Archives

I am really enjoying this new routine of getting up at 6 AM, writing, and working out.  Then it's like all the hard stuff's out of the way by the time I get to work, and I can kind of sit back and relax and feel awesome because it's only 10:30 and already I've accomplished so much.  Because I am God's gift.  No, really.

I just had lunch with this girl from my home state who literally moved out here yesterday.  Reminds me of the days when I lived up on Laurel Canyon with the Tennis Pro.  I had no car my first week in L.A., and there is no walking to be done on Laurel Canyon.  I once went for two days without food because the Tennis Pro forgot to come home and chauffeur me to dinner.  And he didn't have a refrigerator, so it wasn't like I could go shopping or bring home leftovers.  Would I trade it for the world?  No.  Because now I can smile and tell this new girl that it will all be okay.  She did ask me how long it took for L.A. to feel like home.  To be honest, it took me two and a half years.  It took going back to Kentucky and staying for three weeks to realize that wasn't where I belonged anymore.  And when I got back here, I felt so grateful for this town of coke addicts and posers, of faux friendship and materialism and never being bored.  And I felt grateful for the close friends I've made here, the ones I go to to make fun of the posers and the coke addicts and the frivolity.  The ones who turn to me before a night out with their faux entourages and say, "I'm going to apologize in advance, because I have to turn into another person to get through this night."  Because I understand.  I even like pretending to be someone else for a few hours.  But then I like taking off my heels and eating cobbler and watching JUST FRIENDS and drooling on the couch.  I like being both who I am and who I want to be.  Yeah, being God's gift to humanity is pretty awesome. 

After my first day on the new job, I can honestly say that I am relaxed for the first time in almost two months.  I love the writers' room, love the writers, and, most importantly, love not sitting on my couch crying every day.  It's wild, how much more productive I've been today than any day I was unemployed.  I got up at 6, wrote for over an hour, worked out, packed my lunch, then it was off to the office, and I've just finished organizing the room notes and emailing them to everyone.  I even dryed my hair this morning, which was oh-so-first-day-of-school, and I applied eye shadow and mascara, albeit with somewhat of a shaky hand.  What can I say? I just wanted everyone to like me.   

There are so many thanks that need to be doled out, to Prancers and Aw, Snap (and a big fat congrats to him for making STAFF WRITER!!!), to Poops the Bed and Cube Boy, my fellow assistants all going through various job-hunting/rung-climbing fiascos this staffing season.  It's a mad scramble, and we did quite well for ourselves, if you ask me.  And, of course, to Prancers' boss, who got me this job to begin with, and to Aw, Snap's boss for trying to poach me and making me feel all kinds of awesome despite giving me the half hour guilt trip/arm twisting from hell. 

Then there are the personal friends... the Designated Driver, the Honeybee, and the Hottie, who all celebrated with me this weekend but have been there when I was too scared to shell out money for a Diet Coke, much less dinner or drinks.  And who knew that all I needed to hear when I was down was "I love you, and you are so talented, and you will work in this town again."  And the Irish Asian, who treated me to dinner Saturday and made sure I saw the show I'd be working on before I interviewed there, even loaning me a golf cart so's I wouldn't get all sweaty by trekking fifteen minutes across the Universal lot.

I am happy.  Very, very happy.     

I have had a tough week.  No tougher than anyone else's, I'm sure, but tough nonetheless.  This week, everything has rolled itself up into a neat little wrecking ball and crashed right into the left side of my head.  Had I died, all would be well.  But I didn't.  I dragged my bloody self up from the debris and kept on trucking.  What has happened this week, you might ask?  Well, I am beginning to compute the number of weeks I can continue living on no income, but I can't take myself off the market quite yet because staffing season isn't over.  Also, I have just realized that my BEST FRIEND IS MOVING TO JAPAN in, like, fourteen days (well, okay, longer, but she's going to Pittsburgh first, then to Japan).  I need the Honeybee.  I need her here so when I'm feeling really shitty about myself I can just curl up next to her on the couch and lay my head on her shoulder and cry, even if I'm being irrational, because she knows me well enough to know that I'll get over it, and this is what I need right now.  Also, she watches ROSEANNE with me, bitching about it at first, but then shaking her fist at Becky for eloping with Mark, then alternately shaking her fist at Dan for giving Becky the cold shoulder when she returns, newly married.  Also, I got a call today from a showrunner I've worked with before, lovely guy with a promising new show, who asked if I'd be willing to move to NYC to take the Writers' Assistant job there.  I'm so done with everything and everyone in L.A. right now I might just take him up on it.  After all, my clothes aren't good enough, my face isn't good enough, and apparently I am an embarrassment.  Who the fuck knew?  Certainly not me.  But I do now.  

In between bouts of job hunting, channel surfing, napping, and completing my metamorphasis into a badly-dressed, self-loathing, unemployed loser, I can't stop craving Koo Koo Roo.  I don't even know if I'm spelling it correctly, but, really, I don't care.  Although I bet I'd have to learn, in order to get a job there.  Hmmm... maybe I should look it up.  But first I must sweep the ginger snap crumbs off the couch.

I would just like to point out that I spent an hour last night working on a blog entry, which evil Xanga proceeded to eat.  Just snapped it up in its greedy jaws and chomped away as soon as I clicked "Submit."  Some of you might be skeptical as to who was at fault.  "But Melissa," you might argue, "Don't you remember when you unknowingly dropped multiple paper clips into your poor little Inkjet printer your sophomore year of college and it got a permanent case of indigestion and died?"  Splitting hairs, people.  This was not my fault. 

Two interesting tidbits... first off, I got an email from my elementary school's Director of Development today, wanting to know if she could interview me for their alumni newsletter because I was "in" PD.  Um, no.  No, I was not.  She continued by saying she'd like to see what I was working on now, and thought how encouraging it might be to the children, blah, blah, blah.  Yes.  I'm sure these children want to hear about an unemployed writer who spends her days pulling out her hair and digging her nails into the skin of her forearm in between bites of sickly sweet cake.  Yes.  She has cake for lunch.  Also, she sometimes drools on her pillow at night and therefore thanks the Wee Baby Jesus that she is single so no one was around to see that.

Second, I had lunch with a Vandy alum who is writing an actual book, with a publisher, about television writing, and he wants to interview me.  I don't know why on earth people would want to hear what I have to say.  Perhaps to mock me?  Perhaps to see if I have an accent?  I've done nothing remarkable, I'm difficult to get along with, and I don't ride elevators alone or use public restrooms without a friend standing guard at the door.  To me, it's always been simple.  If you want to be a writer, write.  Keep writing.  Write every day.  You may or may not ever make money from it, but writing can't be helped.  I don't claim to have talent, but I do know if I skip a day of writing, I get all cranky and want to kick the wall or throw something at someone's head, preferably someone whose head is disproporitionately large for their body, so I have a better chance of hitting them.  But on days when I do write... well, on those days, when my head is clear, all I need is a guard for the bathroom door.