What's in a Tagline?

After a recent post, I clicked on my blog to check the spacing and I mused for a moment on my tagline: A Tinseltown Chronicle for the Naïve and Hopeful. I started this blog over five years ago and I genuinely was that girl. Fresh from my small mountain town, a fancy job in a big studio, writing training at a prestigious university, I believed with all my Pollyanna heart that I would have a meteoric rise as sought-after writer in this town, that I’d meet and marry a rich and famous Prince Charming and all would be well with the universe. I’d been told my whole life that I was special. I believed that my life would enjoy such rarified trajectories because I deserved it – I was destined for it.

I began blogging as a witty aside to my days. My goal was to produce a stable of comedy essays that would be curated into a book ala David Sedaris. Not that I claimed to have Sedaris level talent. But I still thought a publisher or three would sit up and take notice.

I’ve noticed of late – like over the last year or more – the comedy has abated. More of my essays seem to focus on something that infuriated me, hurt me or left me indignant or incredulous. If you came here for the comedy, sorry to disappoint. But, as I'm finding, so like life.

What happed to that funny girl who believed that “any day success can come it this town”? I actually said that during my first year here to a neighbor as I was out walking. I heard them laughing at me as I walked away.

The studio job evaporated in a corporate take-over. I went on to produce an independent film but its distribution has been an uphill battle, not the break-out hit/calling-card project as hoped. I’ve sort of slid sideways out of the film business and find myself running a non-profit that helps women. It’s a vital and worthy cause and it should make me feel fulfilled. Instead it just reminds me every day that there was no meteoric rise to film power. From the film sidelines, I watch my compatriots go on without me.

As for Prince Charming, the famous one broke my heart as it had never been broken before and I made an abject fool of myself pining for him and trying to win him back. My heart got kicked around by a few others to whom I gave it too easily hoping they might stop that pain. I finally met and married a wonderful man who doesn’t have any such show biz meteors up his sleeve. We are safe together and on the same page.

All in all my life is quite pleasant. It has settled down to be normal and average. Normal and average. Two words that always made me cringe.

As a kid, even understanding I was special, I thought I’d be great at normal. I was raised by my father with a kind of anachronistic set of 50’s ‘be true to your school,’ sock-hop values. I assumed I’d be a cheerleader, date a football player and wear a letterman jacket while driving my Studebaker with a raccoon tail flying from the antenna. I got to high school and was shocked to realize school spirit was super-uncool, the cheerleaders were the skanks of school and the football players were idiots. I was unequipped for navigation in such waters so I sank to the bottom in my own bubble of “off-beat, unique, eccentric, eclectic.” I cultivated that bubble through college where I was a DJ. The more fringe you were the better. The sooner you declared that a band had sold out, were over-exposed and moved on from them, the more insider you were. My whole adult life has been: “if everyone else if going right, I’m going left.”

And now to be faced with normalcy and average-ness. No wonder I’m filled with upset and angst that flows into my writing. The film career fizzled, the book deal never knocked. The famous I thought I’d hob nob with flow past my window without seeing me.

I moved here because I realized I was living a small life in my little town. I didn’t want to wake up one morning ten years later with nothing to show and wonder what would have happened if I’d only gone out to LA and reached for the brass ring. Well it may not quite be ten years later but I reached. At least I’ve answered that question for myself. I caught at a bigger, more glitzy, more important life. I didn’t get it.

So it seems my tagline should be changed. I happen to live in Hollywood but really have nothing to do with Tinseltown, the mythic construct that functions around and without me. While I still have moments of Pollyanna trust, I am no longer the naïve ingénue that believes success is just around the corner ‘cause doggone it, I’m special.’ I have finally become that most average of Hollywood states: jaded. And as for hopeful. That strikes me as a saddest part. I have lost my hope in success - in my talent bringing a film/writing career to life. In the absence of hope, resignation fills the void and I see I have become bitter. I am sorry to see that flow into my writing and on to these pages but it’s what is true for me.

“An LA chronicle for the jaded and bitter” doesn’t have that great a ring to it. But I finally fit in with all the other bitter writers grumbling in cafes. I have become a true Hollywood girl… Which may ironically mean that success really is right around the corner. While I don’t hold my breath, I suppose it’s time for me to take a step back and reassess what success looks like for me. It’s time to start finding it in the small victories, in the little bubbles that make up my days. I’ll leave the tagline as is for now, just in case.

Awkward

I went to the Arclight this week, the only cinema in LA as far as I’m concerned in my …is it snobbishness or curmudgeonly-ness? OK I do love the vintage movie houses like the Vista et. al. l but I digress. I went to the Arclight and while waiting for my friend in the lobby, I saw what can best be described as a former acquaintance walk in. He hadn’t changed much in the six years since I’d last seen him. Still tall and mostly bald, still somewhat sheepish, with an awkward walk. I could see by the emblazoned sweatshirt he wore that he was working on one of the new cable shows this year. I turned to see if he’d see me and wondered how to greet him.

We met when I was at film school and he was a featured speaker as a writer who had a successful film out. It was actually he and his brother – his hunky, fit, charming brother. After their lecture I plowed down the stairs of the lecture hall in my forthright, still-unjaded way and marched right up to them. I figured it would be smart to make a connection with a working writer and it would be an added bonus if I could date a cute one.

Sadly, the cute one was mobbed so I ended up connecting with the awkward one who was eager to have someone be interested in him. He was very sweet and we agreed to meet up the next week. Excellent, I thought, I have my first connection in Hollywood! It would have been fabulous if it had been romantic too but I was contented to have a new friend. Besides, maybe there was a way I could get to his brother…

So we had drinks that week. He creeped me out when he did an awkward lean-in at the end of the evening. I avoided the smooch and tried to make it as gently clear as I could that this was not like that. It seemed fine. We hung out a few times with other family friends, and in other social settings but the brother was never around. Maybe Awkward wasn’t so bad. He was smart and funny. He was kind and a little eccentric. His looks left me cold as did his lack of charisma but maybe I’d be OK with that if I looked a little deeper.

At this point it became clear that their writing team was as imbalanced as their looks. The cute brother had been hired on a show and assigned a feature script. Awkward continued to have his pitches turned down and lived off old family money. It also became clear that he thought this was more than just a friendly writer mentoring situation. The details are fuzzy now as it’s been so long but I seem to recall he tried to kiss me again and my firm no sent him scurrying. It seemed there was no friendship possible on his end without romantic attachments and on my end there was none possible with.

I knew I’d hurt him even though I thought I’d been clear on that first “date”. Well at least clear-ish. Maybe a part of me knew he was only continuing to talk to me because I was young and cute and looked up to him. Maybe I knew he hoped this would go somewhere romantic. Who are we kidding, I was only talking to him for mentorship and business connections. I hadn’t even written my first script yet! I suppose it was a case of mutual using and we both walked away unsatisfied.

After my last exit following that awkward kiss attempt, I never heard from him again. His humiliation over the rejection apparently precluded any possible continued friendship. I was sad to lose my one connection in a town where it’s all who you know and I knew nobody. But it was a good lesson learned: I’m not up to the challenge of toying with men’s hearts to get what I want. I just can’t fake it.

When he walked into the Arclight, I was the only other person standing in the lobby so it’s not possible that he didn’t see me. However, six years is a long time. My hair is different, my clothes are different. Maybe he didn’t recognize me. I thought for a second about going over to him, catching up, seeing how he was. But then I stopped. If he’d been so hurt, he may not have relished being faced with me. I decided to leave well enough alone. He did his awkward walk toward his theatre. I watched him go and hoped his new series gets picked up.

The Old Dog on the Stairs

“You’re crying at a dogfood commercial?”

“But look,” I gestured to the TV as I sniffled into a tissue.

You probably remember the one. It started with a kid at the top of the stairs hollering “Come on, Casey” to a red Irish Setter puppy who frolicked up the stairs. Then it moved to a teen calling “here, Casey,” to a healthy, adult Irish Setter who romped dutifully up to his owner. It finished with a post-college guy encouraging “atta-boy, Casey,” to an elderly, graying Irish Setter who struggled up the stairs.

I burst into tears every time it got to old Casey: He’s trying so hard to please his human. They’ve had such a beautiful, long friendship. Casey doesn’t have much time left. How can you not cry?

I would look at my robust, healthy Simon and be happy he hadn’t seemed to age a bit in all our years together. Always as eager for a hike as me, and just as willing to be happy with quiet time, for a decade this former pound puppy has been my perfect match. People have always stopped me on our walks and told me what a beautiful dog he is. I thank them as Simon smiles and nuzzles them for a pet. He knows.

Simon’s into his fifteenth year now. Old for a big dog. I believe it’s our active lifestyle and his not being a purebred got him this far, as well as the love of course. That and every time there’s been an injury or a sickness, I’ve always looked into his expressive brown eyes and said “you’re not allowed to leave.” He lays his head on my knee and somehow heals himself.

A few months back I noticed him panting all the time. He started to lose weight, drinking lots of water and not being able to hold it. I knew what it meant but I didn’t want to face it. With my limited salary I knew operations or chemo wouldn’t be an option. How effective could they be anyway at his age? I didn’t want to hear the words.

I took him in when he seemed to be in pain. Lymphoma, they said. They gave us antibiotics for infection, pain killers, and steroids to keep his lungs working. I went home and cried for days. So now Simon and me - a few weeks, a month, more? They couldn’t tell me how much time we have. I can only keep him comfortable and wait and watch.

The vet had chuckled, “Not a trace of arthritis or anything. Otherwise a totally healthy dog.” I want to scream that it’s not fair for his body to be in such good shape and still get taken down. It’s not used up yet. If the cancer just weren’t there…

Suddenly I have the old dogfood commercial Casey – the dog that makes me cry with his unsinkable will to please despite his infirmity. His ready smile breaks my heart.

After a few weeks on his steroids Simon started acting like a jerk. Begging incessantly, stealing the cats’ food, raiding the garbage – a doggie sin he’d never committed. I brought him back to the vet. He was down from his healthy 85 to 60 pounds, his spine and hind quarters skeletal. Quite simply he was starving to death. The cancer was stealing all his nutrients and he wasn’t getting any. We switched him to puppy food for greater nutrients and upped his feedings to three times a day. His walks to four. He stabilized and calmed down. Still smiling his happy dog smile. “But won’t that feed the cancer more, too?” my husband worries. I suppose it will but what can I do?

So we play our waiting game, enjoying whatever we have left. I tell him I love him a million times a day. I force his pointed steroid pills into bread slices that he eagerly gulps. I listen to his soft panting every night. I feel guilty that it irritates me and keeps me awake but I know it will be so much worse when it’s not there anymore.

Long gone are our wandering hikes in the hills. My once-strong dog shuffles behind me to the end of our driveway and back, his rear paws making a soft ‘shush-shush-shush’ as he fails to lift them. Sometimes, even moving slowly he stumbles. I modify my gait remembering not to rush and we amble along.

“What a beautiful dog,” people still croon on our short trips outside. I look at his emaciated rear and the visible curve of his ribcage. If you only knew, I think. Of course he’s still beautiful even as his eyes look sunken and his face fur grays. He wags his tail and nuzzles them for a pet.

Inside he struggles to get to his feet, his failing muscles fighting the slip of the wood floor. He can’t really hear anymore and I startle him if I come up behind him. I have to touch him or make vibrations to get his attention. And he smiles. Still that full-face, adoring-eye smile he’s always had for me, despite the pain, despite the fear he must feel at not knowing what’s going on. “The way that dog looks at you,” my mom always croons. It’s what unconditional love looks like.

He’s given me a decade of being the best dog ever. He’s always been there to comfort my tears or share my joys. I can’t imagine my adult life without him. I always thought he’d be around to help us raise kids.

He smiles, puts his head on my knee and nudges me with a nose that’s always hot and dry now. I give him whatever treats he wants. I stop myself from uttering my knee-jerk “you’re not allowed to leave.” It’s selfish of me and not fair to him. I tell him he’s allowed to leave if that’s what he needs. I bump my forehead onto his and tell him I’ll be OK but he has to tell me when it hurts too much; when it’s time. I pray I’ll have the strength to listen to him. Because otherwise I’ll hold onto him forever.

Simon vs. The Purse Dogs

*** I wrote this post five years ago and it never made it online***

I needed a dog. When you own a mountain home with a big fenced yard, you live at the base of a network of hiking trails and are a single girl, it’s a natural progression. I combed the humane society website every day for months looking for reasons to spend my lunch hour at the pound. I was very clear what I wanted: a medium-sized, short hair female with intelligent eyes. To non-dog people it may sound odd, but you really can tell how smart a dog is by looking in her eyes.

One day, I came across a photo of a bright eyed dog with a huge grin all over his giant, furry face. I kept clicking back to it until finally my coworker pulled out her keys and said, “Get in the car.” The next day the paperwork was handled and I was leading an 85 pound, shaggy, male Shepard/Collie mix out to my tiny hatchback.

“How am I going to get you in there?” I asked him as I contemplated just how much lifting 85 pounds would kill my back. He cocked his head, looked from me to the car, jumped in the open hatch, sat down and looked at me again as if to say “like this?” I knew we were going to get along just fine.

Back at the start, I discovered why Simon had been turned in to the pound. He had an issue with bolting. On several terrifying occasions, he slipped past me as I opened the door and ran toward the highway near our mountain home. He usually chose to do this when I was barefooted or carrying armfuls of groceries. So I’d drop eggs and milk and fly after him, ripping my feet to shreds, convinced I was about to prove myself the worst dog owner ever as he got flattened by three semis and an ice cream truck. On the third or fourth chase, I realized he wasn’t actually running from me. He’d keep looking back over his shoulder, grinning, to make sure I was still playing along. He just wanted to play, to have my attention, to be listened to. How like a human.

Five years later, I have learned to listen to him and he to me and we usually walk through the Hollywood hills without a leash. We are companions, not master and beast. Listening to the second major Simon in my life has taught me I don’t need to force my will on a situation.

I’m not proud to say there have been times when I considered selling out on him for certain human males in my life who didn’t like dogs or found my having to go home to walk one inconvenient. Simon has been very patient with me, waiting for me to realize these men are not worth my time.

When I decided to move to LA, suddenly having a giant, trail-loving mountain dog was less of an obvious pet choice. Everything here seems to be small enough for a purse, or lunch depending on your perspective. On observation, it seems many of these “dog” owners are more in it for the accessory cache’ than the companionship. The conventional wisdom is that you can tell a lot about the owner from the dog. Maybe it’s the mountain girl in me but Chihuahua with rhinestone collar and crocheted sweater does not say good things. At least it doesn’t say down-to-earth person of substance, intellect and world consciousness. Maybe it’s just me.

Simon avoids purse dogs as they tend to have Napoleon complexes and lunge at him snapping and biting. This allows me to avoid their owners who tend to be blonde and covered in brand names. Sometimes with matching rhinestones and crochet.

Sure, sometimes it would be nice if Simon were more portable and welcome at Hollywood shops and eateries. But only so he could see for himself. Sometimes I don’t think he believes me when I tell him about what I see in this town.

Having a big dog in an apartment town has certainly been extra work. If I were just getting a dog now, I might make a more convenient choice. But when has convenience been interesting? When have you grown from taking the path of least resistance?

A Toast

For my little sister on her wedding day:

'A' has many roles in our family: The ray of sunshine, the glue, the leftover crap.

I was not too pleased when you came along. When it became clear mom was not going to return you to sender as I had requested, I agreed to tolerate you. The truth of it is that I was jealous. You were the one who was happy despite anything. You were loving, creative, funny, generous, and saw the good in everyone and I desperately wanted to be like you.

As we’ve grown, you’ve taught me about courage, diplomacy, how to step outside my own perspective, and how to organize a mean closet. I am so glad mom wasn’t able to return you.

Wanting nothing for Christmas but Bride magazines at 5 years old, you planned your wedding so many times who can say if this looks anything like what you had in your minds’ eye. The most important ingredient, however, is here: a man who adores you and loves you and promises his life to you. With his kindness, warmth and playful spirit, 'M' is the best gift I could have wished for you.

Likewise, M, you are getting an extraordinary soul. She lights up any room she’s in. She makes everyone feel valued and honored for who they are. She’s always looking within herself, checking her perspective against that of others’ and putting herself in their shoes to be sure she understands both sides. She would give a stranger the shirt off her back. Gentle and kind, and tough as the cliffs of Moher, anyone lucky enough to find themselves in her heart knows that her friendship is a treasured gift. She will weather any storm with you and be there to make sure you have a warm, dry place to sleep even if it means giving you her pillow. As you know, M, your challenge is to push her to put herself first. This way you will have a wife who is fulfilled and enriched and able to fulfill and enrich your life with her love. Welcome to the family.

A, thank you for always being there for me and listening to me. Thank you for making me laugh and comforting me when I cry. Thank you for being my cheerleader and my partner in crime. Thank you for having the courage to stand up to me and for pushing me to be my best self. If I am any good at all, it’s because for you I needed to try to be the person you think I am; the big sister worthy of your love and respect. Thank you for being my best friend. I can’t imagine being on this road without you. I’m so proud of you, so happy for you, so honored to have you as my sister.

To A and M: May you both always find in each other a shoulder to lean on in tough times, an ear to listen to both your troubles and your dreams, a hand to help through your day to day, a smile to share your joy and laughter, and arms to welcome your heart home for the rest of your lives.