Quarantine Diaries Pt. 1: Dark Times

I conclude my weekly meeting with the VP of Planning and gather all the nonsensical line graphs I’d created out of made-up data 5 minutes prior.

My VP stands behind his desk, smiles, and declares,

“In 5 years, you’ll be running this company!”

I imagine holding a gun to my head, right there in his office.

I flash the same toothy grin I’d eventually use everyday in my next career.

“Can’t wait!”

then walk back to my desk to take mindless internet quizzes until it’s time for lunch.

When I first moved to LA, I got absolutely everything I ever wanted. I made more money than I knew what to do with at a corporate job that required no brain power whatsoever. One weekend, in the midst of my routine weekly blackout somewhere along Hermosa Pier, I (apparently) gave some dude my number and realized when I met up with him the next day that he was hot af.

I couldn’t believe my string of luck. I was literally a blind, blacked out squirrel who’d managed to find a nut without even trying. Or rather, two nuts that belonged to one seriously gorgeous man.

A year later, both the job and the guy had made me so effing miserable and caused so many anxiety-ridden sleepless nights sobbing alone in a dark corner of my (stunning, 3rd story, marina-front) bedroom that I was forced to make the (somehow still) seemingly insane decision to leave them both.

Yes. I had a corner of my bedroom specifically designated for crying.

Talk about a quarter-life crisis. 

The universe had handed me everything I wanted- and was ever taught to want- on a silver platter, just to turn around and laugh as I waded through the mucky confusion and unexpected torment of my newfound reality and yell, “THIS IS WHAT YOU SAID YOU WANTED, YA DUMB BITCH!! PWAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAH!” before cockslapping me in the face with the medium-sized weiner of a beautiful man with no substance.

I’d never felt more catfished by life! I felt like a character in my favorite Goosebumps book as a kid. The girl in the story got 3 wishes and, as they were granted in succession, each made her life progressively worse.

We all know where I landed in terms of career choice. But I’ve learned my lesson on men, too.

I only date ugly guys now.

Jk. But that’s a safe go-to, single friends, if anyone asks why you’re not interested.

I feel bad for any guy who sleeps with me these days (pre-quarantine, of course). I send them out the door the following morning with a high five and thumbs up, and then they gotta wait months for a new blog post to maybe learn how I feel about them.

Each time I think, “There’s no way this random ass dude knows about or actually reads this blog,” and I write whatever I want if I haven’t already forgotten about them by the time I get around to writing.

And each time I learn that yes. Yes, indeed he did manage to somehow stumble across this blog and he’s got some questions about my comments.

Most guys are great. “Great” meaning at least deserving of the hungover, semi-enthusiastic high five they receive on their way out. And some guys are super great. Except for that oneeeee little thing you wish you could change.

Like that guy whose dick game is A++. The proof-that-magic-is-real, leaves-you-grinning, head-spinning, rehash-in-graphic-detail-at-bachelorette-parties kinda dick game.

But.

He also has the derpiest voice you’ve ever heard. Like if Mike Tyson and Kermit sucked helium together.

So whenever he tries to talk dirty you cover his mouth and command him to shut up with all the authority your own squeaky ass voice can muster, so for a moment you sound like 2 chipmunks humping.

And he thinks it’s super hot when you tell him what to do. But you don’t mean like, “Shut up and break me.” It’s more like, “Please, for the love of God DO NOT SPEAK or I’ll feel like I’m fucking a Muppet baby.”

So close yet so far from perfection.

But quarantine has, for me, as it has for many of my single peers, brought upon a dry spell.

And, speaking only for myself, that actually hasn’t been a bad thing.

These days, instead of wasting my time on boys, I’m practicing meditation, taking online courses, revisiting the glorious contents of my dusty bookshelf, and, oh yea- making it a goal to eat a salad once a day.

Apparently, it’s “good for your body.” 

The thing is, I fucking hate salad. Carbs are so much better for my soul.

When the salad alarm goes off on my phone, I sigh loudly and dramatically, begrudgingly trudge to the kitchen, angrily pile a bunch of vegetables into a Tupperware, dump a crapload of dressing on it, cover it up tightly with the lid, and mix it all up by shaking the shit out of that damn salad.

Like, aggressively trying to mutilate all the vegetables inside that fuckin Tupperware, getting sick glee from watching the juices violently splatter onto the sides of the container.

Lastly, I pour on a crapload of croutons and bacon bits to hide the taste of nutrition, then stand back to admire and maybe even eat my creation.

Zoom calls with my favorite people have also become routine, although this activity doesn’t turn me into an unhinged psycho. So far on these calls, 5 of my girlfriends have announced they’re pregnant.

How exciting! I love babies.

But I also find the idea of growing a human inside me to be absolutely repulsive.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s cute and sweet and precious when anybody else does it.

But a life form inside me stealing all my hard-earned, gross-tasting vegetable nutrients? Making me feel sick and permanently destroying my body for its own benefit?

Sounds like a parasite.

I’m good. I’ll play with everyone else’s kids once they’ve grown out of that ugly newborn phase and developed real faces.

Then give them back once they start to get annoying.

A few months ago, I was playing a babysitter on a shoot with 8 toddlers at a daycare center, with the off-screen assistance of a couple ADs and all the children’s parents.

Even with all the help, I hope to never do that again. On “Action,” the girls sat nicely as directed, calmly coloring and looking at picture books, while the boys threw containers of food across the room, growled, ate stuff off the floor like they hadn’t been fed in a week, pushed each other and me, and knocked over kiddie furniture like mini savages.

It was horrifying. We were indoors, yet they somehow managed to be covered in dirt and grime after 3 takes.

The most unsettling part of it was how unfazed their parents were by their feral behavior.

18 years is a big commitment.

The only thing to which I can pledge that degree of dedication is my career. Besides the 3 days a month where I burst out over my balcony and scream, “FUCK THIS SHITTTT I’M DOONNNNEEEE!!!!!!” for all the neighbors to hear.

They’ve stopped reacting.

Some days the only thing keeping me in the game is knowing that no other job out there would make me remotely happy.

So I guess I can be miserable at a job I hate or miserable pursuing a life I want.

*sigh*

Who needs a boyfriend when your life choices fuck you daily.

Sometimes I think back to my short-lived stint in the corporate world. And, despite the dependable paychecks, I’m still glad to be out of a rat race in which it was no longer gratifying to partake and whose rewards I no longer coveted.

The decision to dramatically reroute my life didn’t come on a whim. It was forcibly and reluctantly made after months of overwhelming cognitive dissonance. The kind that keeps you awake at night thinking about what your life could be if you trusted yourself enough to step away from what’s comfortable and familiar and lean into the temporary unknown long enough to come out on the other side.

We’ve all been simultaneously plunged into a strange, awkward, unfamiliar situation, albeit not by choice. Good news is, everyone you know is along for the ride. It’s a weird paradox that we’re all forced to be separate together.

Nobody wanted this.

But then again, sometimes getting exactly what you want ends up sucking ass anyway.

Keep your Zoom buddies close and an extra bottle of wine even closer.

There’s no better time to build up that tolerance for when live, in-person group drinking events are once again a thing. I refuse to survive a pandemic just to die from over-celebrating once they let us out.

Bet we can set a record for World’s Longest Pregame if we start now.

Dating and Dooty Calls

This weekend I had my first ever daytime booty call. Or “dooty call,” if you will.

Him: U up?
Me: …Yea. It’s 11AM.
Him: I’ll be there in 45 minutes.

Guess this is happening.

Did I brush my teeth this morning? I eat a couple Thin Mints, just in case.

I can’t remember the last time I made out with a guy sober. I’m self-conscious about my body, awkward with his belt buckle, and worried about my breath.

I hate this.

Goddamn you, sobriety. You ruin everything.

This particular dude tends to tell me he loves me multiple times per bone sesh. I wish he wouldn’t. It’s so hard not to laugh.

Whenever boys profess their feelings, I have to fight not to roll my eyes in annoyance that they could be so irresponsible with their own hearts to catch feelings for someone obviously riddled with crippling intimacy issues that make it impossible to trust or commit. That or they’re lying.

But in this case I believe him. I’m even flattered. Hell, this guy drove all the way from Mid-City to Redondo Beach for me knowing he has to be in Hollywood 2 hours later. Show me a man who’ll put in more effort!

But actually don’t. Cuz I’m unavailable.

See, I’m already in a love-hate relationship with the Entertainment Industry. Right now he’s treating me like shit. But I’m gonna stick around to see if he’ll change cuz I don’t have any other options lined up.

I can’t imagine swiping on the apps simultaneously. I’d be crying all the time.

Plus, dating is sorta my job.

Your agent, or matchmaker, gets you an appointment for an audition- a first date. You read the specs of the audition. Holy shit, this show and role sound PERFECT for you! This is your soul mate. THIS is the one you’ve been waiting for. Game over. You’re off the market. This. Is. THE. ONE.

Your first date is an audition to be together for the rest of your lives- or, at least, the duration of the series. After your 10-minute long date, you get a “Nice job,” from the casting director. Did they mean it? Is this what they say to everyone? Were they just trying to get me to leave? Maybe they actually meant that I did a nice job and they’ll reach out after 48 hours to tell me they like me and ask me out on a second date!

48 hours comes and goes. Then 72. Then whatever 72+24 more hours is.

You don’t hear, “It’s not gonna work out between us,” or even, “It’s not me, it’s you.” You don’t hear anything.

Straight up ghosted.

You’re left to wonder, “What could I have done differently? Did my hair look bad? Is it because I fumbled that one line? Did I smile too much and look creepy? Are they seeing someone else?”

The answer to that last question is always Yes. Yes they are. And that someone else is likely prettier, funnier, and more talented than you are.

This mindfucking and second-guessing goes on until you find out a couple weeks later from Variety or Deadline that they have indeed, as you suspected, proposed to someone else.

You struck out, Romeo. Time to pick up the pieces of your shattered heart and move on.

Again.

My friends keep telling me I’d be perfect for The Bachelor.

“You’d be so funny to watch!”

Homies. I’m already on The Bachelor. I’ve been on The Bachelor for 5 years. The industry is the Bachelor, dating 30-40 of us at the same time while we all clamor at his feet, hoping to get a rose after every date so we can stay in the running for another week and ultimately earn that bigass Neil Lane diamond, AKA a series regular contract that promises $23K+ per episode.

Maybe if I start treating the Entertainment Industry as a fuck buddy I don’t care about instead of a potential future husband he’ll profess his love for me too.

When I first moved to LA I was super enthralled by the Venice Beach Freakshow, which ran on the Venice Beach Pier until a few years ago. But once you’ve lived in LA long enough, you don’t bat an eye at seeing someone with 100 piercings on their face, a bearded lady who can bench 4 times her body weight, or even a guy shoving a power drill up his nose.

The only real freaks in LA are people who are genuinely happy and well-adjusted.

I met a person like that a few months ago. My acting teacher.

A smily, fun, always-positive human being.

I’d be, too, if I had this guy’s life! He runs a successful acting studio, does what he loves for a living, coaching students and celebrities on their acting roles, and is married to a beautiful woman who runs the studio with him.

After class one night he pulls me aside and says, “You have the brightest smile! It lights up the room. Don’t ever lose that.”

I’m elated. I love this guy. I smile the largest smile I’ve ever smiled in my entire life. “I WON’T!!!!,” I promise him way too loudly.

Fuck. He’s so awesome. I wanna be this guy.

A few weeks later an email goes out to all the students at his studio.

He’d killed himself over the weekend.

Welcome to LA, where everybody’s fucked up or faking it.

When I started in the industry, I also took on a regular yoga practice to ground and center myself so I’d be better able to adapt to change and inconsistency. Plus, staying focused and in-shape is part of the job.

Over the years, I’ve gotten stronger and more flexible. But some days the entire practice is challenging. I can’t balance, everything hurts, I barely hear the teacher’s instructions cuz my mind’s on the million things I have to do after class, and I can’t hold a pose to save my life.

On those days, I feel like everyone in the room is watching and judging me, laughing in their minds about how much I suck.

“What is that girl even doing in this class? We’re all tall, sexy Instagram models and she’s terrible. She’s not even wearing Alo!”

But I manage to take a moment to step back from being an insecure narcissist and look around. I realize everyone’s struggling to hold the pose. People are panting, wiping off sweat pooling from their foreheads. Falling out of the pose. Some try to get back in. Others have given up completely and rest in child’s pose.

Everyone’s struggling. And no one’s looking at me.

Bitch, it ain’t about you! NONE OF THIS IS ABOUT YOU!

A friend sent me an article years ago about shit sandwiches. I was just getting started in the industry- no agents, no bookings, no money coming in but a lotta money going out (for headshots, classes, casting sites- this business is an expensive hobby til you book).

Everyone’s gotta eat a shit sandwich, no matter what you choose to do with your life. What flavor would you like yours to be?

Though this industry sucks at times, it’s the only thing I’ve found to be worth eating shit for. And I do. Frequently. You can say it’s been my primary diet for the past 5 years. Lots and lots of shit.

But maybe if I eat enough shit sandwiches the shit eventually turns into Nutella.

That’s what I’m telling myself anyway.

And though I haven’t landed that series regular contract yet, I make enough from commercials, print, and voiceover to pay the bills and party.

I rewatch last week’s episode of The Bachelor to remind myself that my life is actually pretty awesome. Then drag myself off the couch to go get ready.

I’ve got a date.

I Make Out with My Roommate Next to a Group of Dancing Shirtless Cowboys

It went down at a gay bar called Flaming Saddles.

After all these years of belligerence, I’ve finally met someone who’s a sloppier drunk than I am. As I witnessed my 22-year-old roommate stumbling around, eyes half open, drink in hand, so incoherent that other bar patrons were actively avoiding him, I gained insight into exactly how the world saw me every Friday and Saturday night in my early 20s.

At one point he pulls me aside, looks me straight in the forehead, and says, “I think I love you.”

Boom.

Bombshell confession.

The first time a guy’s popped the L-word in close to a decade and it comes from one whose eyes keep rolling into the back of his skull.

We make out to “Old Town Road” as two half naked cowboys swing on ropes overhead.

The next morning, I text him a high five from the next room and spend the rest of the day intermittently puping.

“Puping? What’s that?”

Well, Little Sally, “puping” is when you puke and poop at the same time. And you gotta spread your legs real wide on the toilet seat and suck in your ribs to dip your head down between your thighs, giving yourself the greatest chance of making a clean hurl into the toilet bowl while your butthole contracts, but you probably miss and end up getting a strange mixture of your insides running down both your legs.

The only way to cap off a productive night of irresponsible behavior.

Puping.

You gotta really emphasize the “u” or the word loses half its meaning.

On another topic, I recently booked a new role I’m pumped about.

A smiley, bubbly yogi whose whole entire life is the best thing that’s ever happened to her.

I’m really trying to stretch myself as an artist.

Jk. Fuck that.

I realized the more I got into this career that acting is not at all about pretending to be someone else and all about accepting yourself exactly as you are, puping, bad decisions and all.

After all, this is Hollywood, son. You beat out 2500 contenders every time you book. If they want a version of you who’s taller, bitchier, or less promiscuous, they’ll find it.

That’s what I love so much about all this. When I’m completely uninhibited in my daily life, people call me weird or tell me I’m drunk. And while I concur with the first statement and the second is usually true, when I display that exact same inhibition on camera I’m told I’m “genuine”. Fuck yea I am. Genuinely hammered.

The less you think, the more purely instinctual your reaction, the better the take. It’s the only job in the world where if you’re ever questioned why you did something at work, “Because I felt like it,” is not only a justifiable response, but, arguably, the ideal answer.

IT’S SO FUN!!! Totally worth showing up to auditions every time knowing the odds will never be in your favor.

It’s easy to talk about how much I love the industry when I come off a booking. But you gotta love it in your low points too. I just don’t talk about them much cuz I’m holed up in my room being antisocial. The last thing I want in those times is any human interaction where someone might ask me how “the acting thing” is going.

Terrible.

IT’S FUCKING TERRIBLE, OK!!!!!! I CAN’T BOOK SHIT! I’M WATCHING THE MONEY DRAIN OUT OF MY BANK ACCOUNT AND I THOUGHT MY LAST BOOKING WAS GONNA PILOT ME TO STARDOM BUT THEY CUT ME OUT OF THE PROJECT COMPLETELY!! PLUS ALL THE GOOD ROLES GO TO PEOPLE WHO ARE ALREADY FAMOUS ANYWAY LIKE WHY, THEY DON’T EVEN NEED THE MONEY WHY ARE THEY TAKING ALL THE GOOD ROLES ARE YOU FUCKING HAPPY NOW CUZ MY ENTIRE LIFE SUCKKKKSSSSSS!!!!

But that emotional episode was last week.

At a wrap party for my most recent project, the director dropped some wise words when I told her about making out with my roommate:

“Guys are just as dumb at 32 as they are at 22 so there’s really no difference.”

I stared at her dumbfounded, mouth agape, racking my brain for examples of men in my own life that could refute such a bleak outlook, only to come up short.

My mind exploded and my uterus contracted as a whole new age range of men opened up to me.

I took her advice and hooked up with another Gen Z-er.

It was fun in a barely legal kind of way.

I’m disgusting.

This guy looked like Nick Carter in his prime, gold chain and all, minus the mushroom cut.

But I might have reached too far into the cradle for this one. It’s jarring, the epiphany that you might naturally sprout more body hair than the man currently inside of you.

You think, “Oh, he’s young! He can probably go all night! HELLLLL YEAAA,” and pat yourself on the back figuratively and also literally, because you do yoga and you’re flexible enough to touch your own back. But then it turns out this strapping young steed actually CAN go all night, and you realize you really just want a guy who will go for 20 minutes then roll over and fall asleep so you can do the same. Maybe repeat in a couple hours.

To the subject of this story, I sincerely hope you haven’t found my blog. I want so badly to believe you didn’t pull all that freaky ass shit just to get a write-up. But I’m probably wrong plus honestly who cares. You get a high five for a fun time.

And $20 you had to google Nick Carter.

I’m retiring from younger men. This grandma can’t hang. I need my 9 hours a night so I can keep getting cast in roles 10 years younger than I really am.

“Why don’t you pursue a real romantic connection instead of just drunkenly hooking up with randos like some sad, pathetic, emotionally damaged lowlife?”

Well, all the guys my age are emotionally unavailable or married and thus unavailable or married and cheating on their wives, which, in the name of sisterhood, I’m unable to enable.

But there are some good ones out there.

A friend in college knew her boyfriend was the one when he was going down on her one night and she ripped a loudass fart.

There was deafening silence in the aftermath as the dust settled. Then…

Get this.

HE JUST. KEPT. GOING.

Yes, friends. This is not some erotic fantasy girl porn. This actually happened.

She literally farted straight into this guy’s open mouth and he took it like a champ.

Queen.

The two are now happily married, while I continue my search for a guy willing to pay for the first date.

See, I know this career is for me because this industry could break my heart a thousand times over and I’d never stop pursuing it. I don’t feel the same about boys.

Unlike my on-camera endeavors, I feel less free to be me when I’m tied to a man. I just wanna be happily in charge of my own life.

Sure, I’ve made some terrible decisions, but they were my decisions, they were all fun, and I’d probably do it all again.

Oh shit. New epiphany. I haven’t matured a day since 22.

I Pick Up Boys Like I Pick Up Dog Poop

A model I met on a recent shoot found my blog and asked to take me out on a date so I could roast him in a future post like all the other guys.

But
a) I feel weird shitting on anyone who actually reads my writing, and
b) I’ve sworn off male models, precisely because they’re the type that would ask someone they just met to write about them.

Although this one looks like Corbin Bleu, fulfilling my High School Musical fantasies of yesteryear, and appears to be able to read with relative ease.
While I can’t spare any more brain cells to slaughter on dates with male models, I will write this:

Poor Man’s Corbin Bleu- I have to commend you on dat tight ass bod. Your abs, the only thing interesting about your Instagram, are the exact tint and definition of a slightly burnt, crispy Belgian waffle, each square chiseled and sculpted to perfection. As with waffles of any variety, I get the urge to pour hot syrup into every ridge and crack and find a way to get that sweet, juicy liquid all over my face.

But I never order waffles cuz they’re the most boring option on the menu.

My first attempt at erotica! Tell me what you guys think.

Jk. I don’t care.

Also, really hoping I never randomly see this guy on set again cuz that’d just be fuckin awkward.

For my own sanity, I choose to live on the westside, away from the entertainment hub and, with very few exceptions, most people I spend my personal time with aren’t involved with the industry at all.

My only complaint about non-industry people is that they’re constantly asking me how much I make.

“I saw you on [insert currently airing on-camera project]! Congrats! How much money did you make?”

Jesus Christ. I’m pretty sure you’d never casually ask anyone else how much they make. Much less toss it out there directly after, “Congrats!” as if it’s the conversational equivalent of, “Is it a boy or a girl?”

How much I make depends on the month. Last month, I sat on my ass and submitted photos of my face and footage of my work to currently casting on-camera projects, got booked directly off my materials, and earned enough to pay my mortgage for the next few months, all while hanging out on the couch in my bathrobe watching Big Little Lies.

This month I had a couple auditions that went horribly shitty and now I’m kicking myself for all the money I spent buying myself celebration gifts.

Most of my friends with normal jobs think I work on set as an extra and a few seem to think I’m actually famous. As someone who walks a solid middle ground between the two, I can say both views are incredibly humbling.

Around LA, I get recognized more for this blog than I do for my on-camera work. I don’t mind.

“Why don’t you write for money?”

I do, actually. I blog for a website offering advice to people who want to break into entertainment. But I’m rethinking this gig since an editor added the word “zeitgeist” into my last essay and published it without consulting me.

I hate that word. Each syllable is a stab to the eardrum.

But screw the art. Do it for the money.

In between on-camera gigs, another one of my side hustles is hanging out with dogs. Cuz I generally love dogs and people in LA shell out mad cash to make sure their dogs are well taken care of.

Last week I got to stay at a big ass beach house and babysit 7 puppies. I say “babysit” and not “dogsit” cuz I’m convinced LA dogs cost more than most babies.

I spent much of my day picking up turds of varying consistencies while juggling all their separate medication and feeding schedules (one takes CBD oil every morning for anxiety, another one is on pills for a UTI, one needs coconut oil rubbed on her crotch daily).

During a peaceful cuddle sesh on the couch, my favorite one of them all projectile vomited her raw, gluten-free, organic dinner all over me and looked super cute while doing it. She’s made for Hollywood.

But these unexpected challenges are things you embrace out of love.

Which is why I can only handle it for a week at a time.

My first night staying at the beach house I had a nightmare that I married an ex.

Inspired by a convo that took place earlier in the day about the final, legendary multi-million dollar Mardi Gras-themed Christmas party for Spacex employees, I dreamed we had our wedding reception at a massive warehouse in similar fashion with lavish amounts of alcohol, hundreds of people I didn’t know, and…fuckin clowns.

No, not people acting stupid. Actual clowns. They appear in many of my nightmares.

But what terrified me in the midst of this dream wasn’t the clowns. It was that, during this supposed reception, the familiar feeling of dread congealed into a heavy lump behind my breastbone, then surged up to constrict my throat before plummeting rapidly down my torso culminating in an emphatic punch to my stomach.

I know it well cuz this exact same visceral reaction happens immediately after I commit to any relationship.

Fuck. What the fuck did I just do? I don’t wanna be married.

Shit.

Also, who paid for this reception? And who the fuck hired clowns?

I start desperately seeking an exit, sprinting my way down dark winding warehouse hallways that lead nowhere, pushing past hoards of faceless bacchants showered in confetti, sweating profusely, the lump of dread in my stomach growing larger and the constriction in my throat getting tighter and tighter and TIGHTER-

…until I feel something wet and soft lick my face.

I startle awake, sweating and panting. I have never been happier to be woken up at 5:30AM by a bed full of puppies as the soft sound of oscillating ocean waves gently washes through the window behind me.

Relationship nightmares aside, my week with the pups reminded me why I’ve never wanted to be the next Bachelorette. I couldn’t walk through the door without a hoard of creatures aggressively demanding my attention, barking, clawing, biting each other and me to be the one or two that I take out at a time.

It’s stressful, guilt-inducing, and sometimes they pee on me- all things I hate about dating.

As someone old enough that most of her friends are married, with no relationship prospects of her own, and who spends more time looking for jobs than actually working, I’m a huge and utter failure by most societal standards.

But for some reason I’m happier than I’ve ever been. I look forward to Mondays so much more than Fridays. I love that I don’t know what each week will bring. A jackpot booking and ensuing massive payday? 5 auditions and zero bookings? No auditions at all cuz NOBODY GIVES A FUCK ABOUT YOU YOU’LL NEVER MAKE IT IN THIS INDUSTRY YOU DELUSIONAL BITCH!!

At this point, that thought doesn’t phase me either.

Cuz the high points don’t last, but neither will the dry spells.

The career dry spells, anyway.

To getting paid and getting laid!

Just avoid the male models.

Save the Dates For My Wedding and Funeral (Separate Events)

The last time I felt insecure was when my hookup buddy stuck a finger in my butt.

It came as a surprise. Kind of. Because for a long while I didn’t even realize it was in there.

I looked down at him suspiciously mid-thrust and we held eye contact for what seemed like 2 weeks.

“Do you…do you- have…your finger…in my butt?”

“…Yup.”

and suddenly I was sent into a wild downward spiral.

This man! Had his finger! In my butthole! And I didn’t even feel it!!

A friend in high school told me the first time her boyfriend delivered the shocker she had a whopping 9 second orgasm.

9 SECONDS!!! That’s some tantric shit.

But I. I could barely feel anything. Even as these thoughts whorled profusely through my mind in the middle of our bone sesh I couldn’t be 100% certain his finger was really in there and he wasn’t just making it all up to fuck with me.

And I couldn’t blame spaghetti fingers. They were of very average length and girth. I examined them carefully once he washed his hands.

I half-drowned in a wave of insecurity. Do I- do I have a loose butthole? How does it feel compared to other buttholes he’s explored? I wanna know, but I also don’t, because I’m not sure how this knowledge will serve me. I can’t change my butthole. It is what it is. And yet I wonder…

Am I destined to live out my days as a shriveled old spinster with only my overstretched butthole to keep me company??

How many more times can I use the word “butthole” in a 1200 word story??

I recently went to a wedding in Cancun. Weddings are the reason I continue to swipe on dating apps. I’m the annoying online dater who ignores all my matches and never responds to messages. I just need to know that interested parties are out there. When you’ve been showing up to weddings single for the past 7+ years, you start to need validation that it’s still by choice.

Speaking of weddings, I always wonder why Asian parents get excited when their kid marries a doctor in their 20s. They’re broke as shit. They might as well marry a moderately successful actor (hi, hello).

My plan is to snag a doctor in their second round of marriage when he might actually have some money for me to spend. I’ll give it another 8-10 years, and only if he signed a prenup.

I’m an optimist.

Relax, friends-who-married-doctors, I’m kidding. I don’t want your husband.

And even if I did, no one would never know cuz I’m chronically terrified of expressing my relationship needs.

I want what every woman wants in a relationship, I just don’t like to talk about it.

There is nothing I despise more than when a guy in a perfectly functioning friends-with-benefits arrangement tries to break down my lofty emotional walls by asking me what I “want”.

“What do you want? What do you really want?”

It’s easy. Cuddle me, kiss me, and feed me. In rank order of importance. Also, don’t blow all your money at strip clubs, don’t use me to get an agent, and don’t ever make me feel like I’m not enough for you.

Cuz that’s bullshit. We both know I’m out of your league.

But even that’s too hard to ask for. So instead, when faced with this loathsome question, I just shrug my shoulders and say something truthful but irrelevant like, “I have to poop,” then walk out of his apartment and right back to my perfectly happy, conflict-avoidant life where I never have to ask anyone for anything.

I’m not weird. Lots of people hide behind awkward humor. Most people who end up working in comedy are way more messed up than I am, our skill at delivering pithy quips and clever punchlines honed in the throes of varying degrees of childhood trauma. We all have dramatic origin stories.

We’re like X-Men, but none of us are sexy and all of us would be first to die in battle.

I’d be the most prosaic superhero ever created. My uniform would be a fluffy bathrobe. My superpower would be staying awake at bars til 11:30 and being able to chug a pint in under 5 minutes. My archnemesis would be the flabby and perpetually disappointing supervillain,  Whiskey Dick.

The common enemy of mankind. I trust you’ve all met him.

In the first draft of this blog, I wrote with enormous conviction that relationships just weren’t for me. But being at this recent wedding, 9^th wheeling for some of my favorite happy couples has made me almost maybe start to question that.

For someone with no plans to get married, I do have some fun wedding ideas. The registry will consist of an assortment of impossible tasks that guests sign up for, sending them on an elaborate scavenger hunt so that everyone shows up on the day with completely outlandish souvenirs and stories.

The open bar will be split into two sides- Bride and Groom- to see whose friends and family consume more alcohol. Negative points are awarded for anyone who vomits, bride and groom excepted.

I guess since I told you about my wedding plans, I should divulge my funeral plans as well. I want Jesse McCartney blasting throughout the entire party. That’s right, it’s a funeral party. I’d like there to be a designated farter in case things get sad and serious, cuz farting lightens the mood in any scenario. Someone who can do it loudly, obnoxiously, continuously, and ideally create some sort of reverberation off the walls, temporarily drowning out the smooth croon of Jesse’s vocals. It should be someone lactose intolerant. All that is to be served at this function will be cheese and ice cream.

Also, I demand to have a large bounce house with my face on it. And if you’re reading this, you are obligated to attend.

SUCKAAAA!!!

If all my other pursuits fail up until my bounce house party (which you, personally, will make sure happens), I have a dream of building a new and undoubtedly fulfilling life in Hawaii, where I’d wake up and do yoga by the beach every morning, work in a library during the day because I wanna be surrounded by books, and bartend at night because I wanna be surrounded by alcohol and drunk people.

Alcohol is fun because it helps me see the magic that was all around me as a kid.

Magic and fun was everywhere!! Barney magically transformed from a stuffed animal to a large talking dinosaur. Moving my hand around on something called a mouse (but not the animal) and clicking twice really fast caused Internet Explorer to eventually open a web page on a bright, flat screen.

Reading Rainbow- ’nuff said.

But the most magical thing ever was Costco on Sundays- that whimsical, enchanted wonderland packed with food and toys bigger than my body, with fairy godmothers in white aprons handing out surprise treats at the end of every aisle.

Costco as an adult is a terrifying, tenebrous maze, teeming with coughing strangers and rogue carts that might run into you at any moment and slather you with contagion.

Hence the alcohol.

Will I ever find that kind of magic again? Will Hannah find love on the Bachelorette? Was there really a finger in my anus that night?

Some things you just don’t know.

Why Do People Bone To Music and Other Important Life Questions

This post is late. Just like my period.

But I’m not worried. So don’t worry about it.

I’ve avoided writing recently cuz all my stories are about boys. Boys come and go, but publishing stories about them creates an uncomfortable permanence. I never go back and delete anything, even if I reread it years later and think it’s stupid (but still funny). Even if my bf breaks up with me cuz his mom read my post about us getting walked in on while he’s getting a bj in the middle of his living room (true story. No regrets).

Too late. I already hit publish. It’s out there in the world. Forever.

On that note, here’s a story I meant to publish around the holidays about the last time I tried having sex to music.

Let me first say that I don’t understand how people have sex to music. It’s a terrible idea. Either the song sucks, or you’ve got to actively suppress the urge to sing along. Or it’s calming nature music and I’m relaxed and just wanna lay there and starfish or let my mind wander and imagine that I’m out in nature with the sunshine, waterfalls, and faraway chirping birdies and I’m depressed that I’m in some stranger’s nasty bed instead. HOW IS MUSIC A GOOD IDEA.

On this night, while I’m making out with this beautiful man I just met, whose roommate happened to hit it off with mine at the club, he puts on a holiday playlist. Because we’d just come from a holiday party. It’s kinda weird, but I go along with it. Cuz he’s hot and I love Christmas.

I manage to make out to Mariah Carey without mouthing the words, articles of clothing are stripped off to “White Christmas,” I struggle to keep it together during a pop rendition of “Frosty the Snowman,” but it’s just too much when holiday music from Alvin and the Chipmunks comes on his shuffle. My libido shot in the presence of pre-pubescent voices squeaking in my ear, I hastily pull on my clothes, say I have to pee, and sneak out of his apartment, never to see his gorgeous face again except for occasionally on Bumble.

I really need to get off that app.

As annoyed as I was that Alvin and the gang crashed my party, part of the reason I had to leave was because the urge to sing along in my best chipmunk voice (which is very good, btw) was so strong that I could no longer focus on the beautiful man grinding on top of me. I got into my car and immediately started belting out my best Alvin impression. And let me say, it was immensely satisfying. The build up to the release of that first squeaky note was slow but intense, leading to a wonderfully cathartic end to the night, driving back home alone in the empty streets of LA.

But that was years ago.

This year, I spent the holidays with my relatives in Asia.

They’re wild.

My dad is the youngest of 6, his 5 siblings and their spouses the parents of my 11 first cousins on his side alone, who are now mostly married themselves and have 10 children and counting between them, all aged 5 and under.

Our casual family gatherings involve 40+ people actively speaking a mix of Hakka, Taiwanese, Mandarin, and English, all conveniently mutually unintelligible.

I forget everyone’s names, but it doesn’t really matter cuz you don’t address any of your elders by name anyway. Instead of “Uncle Joe,” I refer to one of my uncles as “Husband of the second eldest sister of my father.” People all around me ask when I’m getting married. The party consists of mostly old people and babies, so there’s a good chance the person next to you will be carelessly ripping ass. It’s funny for the first 3 hours, then after that I’m overwhelmed and just wanna climb into a dark bedroom corner and hide. I pretend I’m in a bomb shelter waiting out airstrikes.

On my mom’s side my grandma asks my younger sisters to find me “a real job and a real boyfriend,” since my inept fugly ass is capable of procuring neither on my own.

After 10 days of relatives inquiring about marriage prospects, all it took when I got back to the US was my mom casually blurting out, “It’s almost Valentine’s Day!” as we passed by the greeting card aisle while grocery shopping to make me instantly fantasize about self-detonating into a million tiny pieces right there in the middle of Target, the happiest place on earth.

I have a theory that this is how terrorists are made. Yes, it’s “about politics”. But I have a hunch that terrorists are just people sick of being asked when they’re gonna get married and get real jobs.

“Stop humanizing the terrorists!”

Okay.

But in all seriousness, it’s a pass on the relationship front.

I recently read an article in Psychology Today (best birthday present ever) about the “Michelangelo effect”- the idea that your ideal partner should bring out the best in you the way a master artist chisels pulchritudinous sculptures out of a hunk of marble. Not creating anything that isn’t already there, simply highlighting the greatest attributes that already are.

That’s a tall order. And some food for thought. My relationships typically turn me from a confident, happy-go-lucky, “I don’t give a fuck about anything cuz everything is always awesome” person into someone jealous, insecure, and constantly in need of validation. In short, the worst version of myself. The Statue of David reduced to just his weiner.

But I’ve decided it’s ok for me to be avoidant on this front, if even just so I can avoid ever having to bring a boy home to meet the family.

As the oldest of 3 girls, I had to break my dad down throughout middle and high school. Forget curfews, I was rarely allowed out at all. And definitely not at any non-family gatherings where boys would be in attendance, and not before I practiced an hour of piano and finished my Chinese school homework.

9 years later, when my youngest sister is in high school, my dad- this SAME MAN- takes her to get her belly button pierced. AND PAYS FOR IT!!!

I DON’T EVEN KNOW HIM ANYMORE!!!

That’s not true. I know him well enough to know it’s gonna be super awkward when my sister brings her boyfriend home to hang out with the parents this weekend and my dad insists that they sleep in different bedrooms, cuz heaven forbid any premarital physical contact occurs under his roof.

Lololololol.

Although we’re all skilled at disaster aversion at this point.

One night, back in high school, my dad caught my sister making out with her then-boyfriend, a white dude, we’ll call him Mark, in the basement. Infuriated is an understatement. He yelled at Mark to get out of his house and proclaimed that he was never allowed on his property again.

Of course, this doesn’t deter anyone.

A few months later, Mark’s over hanging out with my sister, as usual. I’m doing homework in the kitchen. My dad comes home from work early.

SHIT! We hear the garage door close, we have 3.5 seconds before he walks in through the garage- that’s not enough time to hide someone or slip them down the stairs through the walk-out basement, the trusty, no-fail escape route for boys we sneak into the house. WHAT DO WE DO???!!

I witness these next moments in slo-mo.

My dad opens up the door and enters the house.

He sees my sister and Mark together in the living room.

He has a confused look on his face. Is it a grimace? Is he internally preparing for all out warfare?

I hold my breath and anticipate bloodshed.

My sister looks up at him. She smiles, and pulls the most genius stunt I’ve ever personally witnessed to date:

“Hi, Dad! This is my friend Doug.”

There’s a silent pause that seems to drag on for 20 minutes.

Finally-

Dad: (friendly smile) Hi, Doug!

And walks into his study to put away his briefcase.

And just like that, my sister is my hero. Also, this story proves that all white guys look the same.

Speaking of old flames, most of my exes are now engaged, married, or seriously dating someone. My friends avoid bringing up my exes’ relationships in front of me, but I’ve never understood why. First of all, after about 2 years it honestly feels like we never dated at all. You’re amazing, I’m amazing, we’re not amazing for each other, and that’s perfectly amazing.

And why would I not want to hear about my exes’ new ladies?!! 1) Other peoples’ love lives are a source of endless excitement and fascination for anyone who doesn’t have one themself, and 2) My exes have already demonstrated through their dating history that they have excellent taste in women.

Fuck yea I wanna know everything! Spill.

In exactly one week I’ll be curled up on the couch in my fuzzy bathrobe with a cozy blanket watching the Big Mouth Valentine’s Day special on Netflix and eating carbs. I can’t wait. Wishing you all lots of love, happiness, and exciting random sexcapades! Don’t forget to turn off the music.

 

I Get Dumped With a Quote From the Bible and Keep Dating Anyway

My goldfish, Toby, who lives in my room, is confused cuz I keep introducing him to so many  “uncles” who disappear after a month or two.

Toby: What happened to Uncle ________________?
Me: Not sure, he’s probably dead.
Toby: Why do my new uncles keep dying?
Me: Stop asking so many questions and eat your food.

Yes, we do have difficult conversations, my goldfish and I. But he’s my ride or die til the day I flush him down the toilet, so I should probably be more picky about the men I bring into his life.

Speaking of activities in the bedroom, I’m proud to announce that I finally finished Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina.

It was boring AF, but I had to finish.

That’s what she said.

It took me 6 months to read cuz I’d read 4 pages and fall asleep.

“That doesn’t sound fun!”

It wasn’t. But it was honestly the best sleep of my life. That Tolstoy, man. It works better than melatonin, and it’s free at your local library.

But since I finished this random bucket list novel and have found myself craving a new, more exciting story, I’ve reverted back to dating.

Every date is an opportunity to learn new things about another person, and also about yourself. On one recent date, I learned that poor grammar is an ovary-shriveling deal breaker.

The date started off pretty well. He was cute, sweet, and easygoing. Since he did most of the talking, I didn’t even need to think of anything to say.

We’re both from the Midwest (as all the best people are), and the conversation turned to the deer he used to see running around at his dad’s place.

Correction-

Him: There were deers.
(Long pause)
Me: ..I’m sorry, what?
Him: There were deers running around.
(Silence. Then-)
Me: Oh! …Nice.

He proceeded to deliver his life story in one extensive monologue, but I honestly can’t recall any of it.

The fact that he used the word “deers” without any sense of irony or awareness and repeated it when given a chance to correct this heinous error had caused a blood vessel to rupture in both my ears and I couldn’t hear a single thing he said after that.

“Deers.”

AAAHHH nails on a chalkboard.

The worst part is to come. The following is a real text exchange we had the night after our date.

…I read that text out loud to myself and am now officially deaf.

It was truly a genius move on his part to respond to my criticism of poor grammar with a straight up barrage of more poor grammar.

First of all, it’s not a “small thing” to cause internal bleeding in my ears or eyes depending on whether we talk or text. Also, it’s “flaws of mine,” and there’s the obvious confusion between to/too/two. How would I even begin to ask him not to end his statements with a preposition?

It didn’t work out.

Another date recently asked me if my sense of humor was a cover up for depression.

Yikes. What a unique first date discussion topic. Points for originality.

While many of my comedy and improv friends turned to humor as an escape from the unhappy reality of their circumstances, I gotta say I’m pretty fortunate in that my one sole brush with depression was the time I got dumped with a quote from the bible.

That’s not bad for 30 years and counting right?

I swear to God I couldn’t make this up.

(see what I did there?)

The scenario played out like this: I’d been dumped by the only guy that, to this day, I’d ever been madly in love with and was pathetically hoping to get back together. He had his new chick lined up already. She was freaking gorgeous (dammit, why). I knew it, he knew it, everyone knew it, I decided it was worth a shot anyway.

As I stood there groveling (omg even revisiting this scenario years later makes me wanna hardcore vom), he looked at me with a small smile on his lips and put one hand on my shoulder.

I looked at him, hopeful. He was gonna pull me in and kiss me!!! AWESOME!! CUZ FUCK THAT BITCH HAAAAAHAHAHAHA!! TRUE LOVE WINS!!!!!!

But instead he merely said, in a soft and gentle voice, “This, too, shall pass.”

Then, with a gentle pat on my shoulder, he walked away.

I shit you not.

What. Just happened.

[Edit: I googled this quote before publishing the post and am fully aware it’s not actually in the Bible. But I have no other way of describing where it, since its true origins are unknown. So my Bible-enthusiast friends can stop messaging me with corrections, although I do sincerely appreciate your readership.]

As he got smaller and smaller in the distance, I felt like my soul was being ripped in two, Horcrux-style. For you Muggles, that’s roughly the equivalent of someone shoving their whole arm down your throat, ripping out your heart, running it through a paper shredder, carelessly flinging the remnants back in your face, then giving you one last swift kick in the teeth before sauntering off with someone better looking.

And now it’s the fuck buddy life for me.

Jk.

Not really.

But I was effing depressed for months after that. I could barely string together full sentences without bursting into tears and slept all the time cuz consciousness was misery.

If I were to choose a soundtrack for this period of my life, it would probably have consisted of Papa Roach. On repeat. Since I only know one song.

That, and an empty, fuzzy white noise, as I floated through time and space in a fog caused by dementors of my own making, unaware of how I moved from one day to the next.

Sure, guys can be insensitive assholes. But I can be one too.

After all, I do go on dates with people and blast them all over the internet.

My new resolution is to move on from industry fuckboys and get to know guys who have their shit together.

I met an attorney, an ER doctor, a guy who owns his own martial arts studio (hawt), and a manager at a top (arguably THE top) management consulting firm.

I’m actually kinda into this last one. Like, to the point that I’m a little hesitant to write about him at all. But I’m going to, of course, cuz I’d never allow anything as silly as my own romantic endeavors to hinder a full-fledged realization of unabashed self-expression.

It was our first date. I was pumped. This guy seemed chill AF, was laughing at my jokes, likes football, is a foot taller than me,  got degrees at schools I would never have gotten into, and works at a consulting firm that would never have hired me. Oh yea, and was a former model at a top agency.

Damn. I love when guys can show me up.

We met at a townie dive bar that sold beer, you-call-its, and Jager for $3.75, and I was on Cloud 9. I was at a grungy, disgusting bar in a t-shirt and ponytail, drinking sake on tap, joking and laughing with whom I was sure was the elusive man of my dreams.

Then it happened.

I swear I could not write this shit.

This completely aspirational, educated, sweet, good-looking, laid-back, successful man with a stable job that I could never land in a million years opens his mouth and asks me for advice on how to break into the industry as an actor.

I hid my initial shock as my internal organs temporarily halted function, then, as I felt my fluttering heart plunge into the depth of my bowels, I glanced at a far away TV across the room so he wouldn’t notice that tears of disappointment had sprung up in my eyes, not helped by the light stream of bile that had simultaneously sprung up in my mouth.

I turned my head back around, swallowed my vomit, smiled, and patiently listened to the story about how he’d always wanted to be an actor, and mustered light chuckles and, “I totally get it”s and stifled the overwhelming desire to smash open a beer bottle and end it all right there.

Maybe it’s completely hypocritical. I mean, I definitely know what it’s like to have a stable job and dream of becoming an actor.

I can’t say I’m particularly turned on by people who use a first meeting to express how much they covet my job and ask for a way in, but I’m gonna make an exception for this one, since the job respect is mutual.

After all, we’re all wannabes until we make it. Then we’re just former wannabes who found a way to make it happen.

*sigh*

Dating. I do it for a couple months a year and need the rest of the year to recover. It’s fun until it starts to feel a job.

Much like dog walking: I started doing this for fun over a year ago. It was a welcome break that provided some much-needed cuddle therapy while allowing me to avoid any true responsibility or commitment (I recognize this as a recurring pattern in my life with humans as well). But then I realized I could easily pay all my fixed monthly expenses by solely walking dogs for rich folks (big tippers) a couple hours a day.

I started setting goals for how much I could make while still fulfilling my actor duties, and now it’s become stressful and annoying and I honestly think it’s making me like dogs less than I used to.

WHAT HAVE I BECOME???!!!!!

Meh…screw boys. Keep your dogs. I think I’ll just stick to talking to my fish.****

****I reserve the right to change my mind about these statements at any given time.

 

 

I Dated A Guy With A Foot Fetish And I’m Confused Cuz He’s Hot But I Have Weird Feet

I went on a date for the first time this year, purely so I’d have something new to write about.

I realized lately that it’s been the same routine shit week after week and I have no interesting stories to report. Auditions, side hustle, meetings, bookings, filming, pay commission, back to side hustle, auditions, and filming. Not saying I don’t love it, but emotional and life stability don’t exactly lead to interesting stories.

“Let me tell you about the time I was perfectly happy.”

Comedy comes from events (and people) that are at least a little fucked up. So I re-introduced dating into my life in hopes that, if nothing else, it’d result in a few good stories.

Anyway, I met and boned a stranger from a dating app, and the same rhyme has been going through my head all week as I’ve weighed whether or not I should see this guy again.

He’s super hot
And really sweet
But he’s also into guns
And feet

Hmm…I’m in a pickle, cuz this guy is pretty cool but kinda weird. It wasn’t the fact that he was homeschooled. Or even the self-proclaimed foot fetish that turned me off. It’s the fact that he told me he “feels bored when watching sports” that made me realize we have nothing in common besides a mutual interest in boning and bouncing.

I actually found the foot fetish to be somewhat flattering. I don’t personally find my feet to be all that beautiful, so it was interesting to have someone appreciate them that much. It’s like someone telling me they find my growing social anxiety to be incredibly sexy.

He works in IT, so we got to spend a good portion of our date discussing my favorite topic: Human CentiPads. Plus he voluntarily initiated post-coital cuddling (so freaking adorable I fell in love for a second) and is the first guy to make me Pizza Rolls in a good 8 years.

But he did commit my ultimate pet peeve and reason I hate talking to single guys- they always seem to find a way to work into the conversation how much money they make.

“How’s your week going?”
“Good. I’ve made a lot of money.”

“So what do you do?”
“I make a lot of money.”

“Would you rather eat a bloody band-aid or a wad of hair?”
“Neither. Also, I make a lot of money.”

It’s like I have “Gold Digger” written on my face. Or they just enjoy announcing to all near-strangers that they make a lot of money.

This tendency annoyed me so much that for the past few years I’ve exclusively dated guys who made no money. But that didn’t work out either.

To be clear, my issue isn’t with guys who make money. That’s wonderful. For you. And maybe even me, if someday those dolla bills are converted into breakfast burritos that I get to eat.

My issue is that they feel the need to tell me how much they make. Which screams all sorts of insecurity and a need for validation that my inevitable eye roll probably doesn’t satisfy. Just present me with a breakfast burrito every time we meet. I’ll get the hint.

In my first couple weeks back on the dating apps, I’ve learned that I definitely have a type. Every single one of my Bumble matches looks exactly the same: chiseled features and huge, toothy, ridiculous smiles that suggest they probably love dogs, along with everything else in the whole wide world.

And it always goes the same way- we get into a pattern of light text-flirting. A solid middle point on the texting spectrum ranging from transactional (“Be there in 5”) to sending nudes (“pictures of your privates”). But then it gets to a point where they wanna meet up, and I’m faced with the prospect of having to put on makeup and a bra to interact with this person, and suddenly it doesn’t seem worth it.

That’s a lot of work to meet someone who’s more than likely disappointing compared to his photos. Let us preserve these filtered, edited images of each other in our minds always, and not tarnish these ideals by revealing the sad, real-life versions of our IG pics.

I guess I don’t see the point in dating these dudes, besides so I can talk about them on the internet, when I know it’ll inevitably lead nowhere. WHERE COULD THIS POSSIBLY GO??

It’s hard enough to convince me to spend a couple hours with a guy. I definitely can’t imagine what someone would have to do to convince me that it’d be totally awesome to spend the rest of my life with them. And I have a wild imagination. Wild. It’s out of control with no help from drugs. I believed in leprechauns for a good portion of my childhood and believed in Barney until I was way too old to be believing in a fake dinosaur.

The weird thing about that is that I knew from a very young age that dinosaurs were extinct. But Barney. Barney was fuckin real.

I remember being horrified the first time I heard a kid on my school bus sing, “Joy to the World/Barney’s dead/We barbecued his head.”

Not only do those lyrics promote excessive violence and possibly cannibalism (I always had a sneaking suspicion that there was a man inside that Barney suit, but that didn’t make him any less real to me), but if you paid attention to the lyrics that follow, there’s no possible way that Barney’s body would fit if “they flushed it down the potty.”

Have you seen that large purple dinosaur in its full-sized glory?!

(That’s what she said.)

Undeniable proof in my mind, at the time, that the song was pure propaganda from a bunch of cynical non-believers. Barney was not dead. He popped up on my TV whenever the kids on the show wanted him to.

And then one day, I realized they were right. Barney wasn’t real.

“What is the point of this?” You may be wondering.

I don’t know. How did I even get on this topic. Oh yea, imagination.

I guess if I were to thread it all back, dating is silly and boys are silly, Barney’s not real, and foot fetishes are flattering if you have weird-looking feet.

But I don’t know. Maybe if I keep swiping I’ll eventually meet someone that I find worth putting on makeup and a bra and driving and finding parking in LA for. Until then, at least I (maybe) get some good stories to share on the internet.

Wow I am a terrible person.

That is it. Good bye.

Jury Duty

60 minutes til we’re dismissed for the day. 45 wooden ceiling panels. 16 jurors remaining to be interviewed. The fluorescent lights emit a weak, dingy glow that seems to reflect the slow death of my soul. I need to get the fuck outta here.

The first part of my first day of jury duty was incredibly boring, but I partially did that to myself. For anyone else who gets called in for jury duty in LA, know that they have wifi and bring something more uplifting to pass the time than Tolstoy. Reading tragedy hits too close to home when you’re sitting in a DMV-like holding room for an indeterminate amount of time, your future out of your own hands and at the mercy of a disembodied, monotonous voice over the intercom who periodically butchers a list of names at unknown, inconsistent intervals throughout the day.

I wish I could’ve shopped for shoes online, or engaged in any other mindless Internet activity that causes a temporary spike in serotonin.

Not porn, though.

I’m one of the lucky few who’s managed to contract a virus on their Macbook. I hear it’s hard to do, but trust me. It can be done.

And for the record, it was not from porn.

Really.

I was finally assigned to a group halfway through the day. 36 of us to be individually interviewed by the judge and then lawyers in front of the entire court with 12 eventually selected to sit for trial.

8 potential jurors were automatically dismissed due to the fact that they couldn’t understand basic English, and I won’t pretend I wasn’t slightly resentful.

Yes, I know, I am an entitled, privileged shithole for feeling this way, which made me resent jury duty even more for making me resent myself and bringing to light that I am, in fact, an entitled shithole.

First of all, I call BS on your non-English-understanding capabilities. How did you manage to figure out when you needed to be here, where to find juror parking, and how to navigate 6 bigass blocks away to the actual courtroom??? They did NOT make any of that easy to understand.

This left 28 people. 28 individual interviews.

After we were informed of the charges, one by one, the judge went down and asked each person about their lives, occupations, occupations of spouses or roommates, and any and every encounter they’ve ever had with police. It was brutal. And took FOREVER.

I stared at the clock. It seemed to sync with the lethargic pace of the interviews. Halfway through Potential Juror #10’s description of the 4th time he called the police back in the 80s, I started counting the panels on the ceiling of the courtroom. 45 wooden panels.

Potential Juror #10 was still talking. 60 minutes til we’re done for the day. I recounted the panels just to make sure I’d counted correctly.

46 this time. Guess I’d better count again.

We moved on to Potential Juror #11. After him, only 17 more to go.

45 ceiling panels this time. 2 out of 3. That’s settled.

I start to count the scratch marks on my portion of the bench, and check out the outfit of the guy sitting next to me. He’s very good looking and has great shoes. I wanna ask him where he got them but I’m pretty sure I’m not allowed to speak unless spoken to or called on. I’ll have to corner him when we break, although I fantasize about busting through the double doors the second we’re dismissed for the day, flying down 15 flights of stairs, and running and running and never coming back.

I don’t even like running.

That first night after my day in court, I woke up at 3:30AM in a cold sweat and stared at the ceiling, playing out an imagined scenario based on the horrific allegations in the case. No evidence or witnesses had even been called yet. They still had to interview the remaining jurors. And we all had to sit through it for another day.

I won’t pretend I wasn’t biased from the start. The charges scared the crap out of me.

But as the second day of juror interviews went on, and Potential Juror #25 was in the midst of listing every item stolen from his car 10 years ago before he called the cops and no one was arrested, I found myself softening on my innate biases, and beginning to sympathize more with the defendant. Less because I was having a change of heart on the alleged violence and more because I myself felt like a prisoner, trapped on this bench and forced to hear a bunch of strangers disclose mind-numbingly boring facts about themselves until I was released by the judge, and it sucked.

39 scratch marks made on the bench by the captives held there before me.

My number was finally called in the middle of the 3rd day. The walk down the aisle from the courtroom benches to the juror box felt like being called down for the Price Is Right, except I wasn’t excited, no one was cheering, and I wasn’t being presented with an opportunity to win anything but my daily life back.

“I’m biased. Violence is scary.”

(I’m terrible at speaking in front of large groups. It’s the one fear I’ve never conquered. Oh yea, besides commitment.)

After asking me more in-depth and clarifying questions about my personal experience with any and every sort of violence to the point where I felt like I myself was on trial, I was eventually mercied and dismissed by the defense.

As I jumped up, sweaty from emotional distress, and immediately flipped my deadpan expression to a delighted, shit-eating grin, suppressing the fervor of every man on the Maury Show who finds out he’s not the father, and speed walked out of that miserable court room, which now housed another 15 new potential jurors to be interviewed (have fun!), everything outside the dank, brown room seemed to glow with a brilliant luminosity that I hadn’t noticed before.

It was a taste of freedom that’d been momentarily suspended, and, having now been restored, smelled, looked, and felt as refreshing and exciting as if I were experiencing it for the first time.

My takeaway from all this? I despise courtrooms. I hadn’t felt so trapped, helpless, and claustrophobic since my days working in an office building.

Also, having been through such a miserable 2.5 days, I can’t believe small children are currently being caged in detention centers at the border, which sounds like everything I just described but infinitely worse.

As much as I hated it and sincerely hope to never have to repeat the experience, it is a weird privilege to be called in for jury duty. It means I’m an American citizen and my everyday life is one of utmost freedom.

Literally. As a self employed person (albeit someone who regularly alternates between “LOOK MA, I’M MAKING BANK!!” and “Oh shit! Now I’m broke!”), I really never have to do anything I don’t want to do. I haven’t even been to the dentist in 3 years, cuz eff that.

The important thing is, I could if I wanted to. And I didn’t have to do anything to earn this position.

Free to go home, it was freaking awful to hear about little kids being separated from their families and detained in cages, having tasted a minuscule, negligible fraction of what they’re experiencing.

I can still smell the stiff, stale air of forced confinement as I type.

It sucks.

For any fellow Americans who aren’t in staunch opposition of this inhumane immigration policy, I hope you all get summoned for jury duty.

Road Trip Games

On family road trips as a kid, my sister and I would lie in the back seat and play a game called “Protect Your Privates,” where we would position ourselves on opposite sides of the car, yell out in unison, “1-2-3, PROTECT YOUR PRIVATES!!!!!!” and try to violently kick each other’s vagina with one foot while protecting our own with the other.

This is how children entertained themselves in the days before iPads.

But I won’t blame a lack of technology for our perverse games. While “Protect Your Privates” has gradually been phased out of our lives, my sisters and I now have an ongoing flashing game that’s been in existence for so long its origins are completely unknown. It’s the Cat Meme of flashing games.

Basically, we find opportunities to surprise each other with a stray boob hanging out, extra points for both boobs and even more extra points if it’s in a public place. If you haven’t tried this game, don’t. It’s horrifying. But like Jumanji, I’m trapped in the game with no way out so I might as well try to find a valuable life lesson in here somewhere.

I just don’t know what that is yet.

This past weekend, I took a road trip down to Temecula with a few girlfriends for some wine tasting.

The drive down was uneventful- no vag kicking or surprise boobies. Just a little traffic and PG road trip games like 21 Questions, which we stopped playing after we couldn’t manage to guess simple answers like “movie theater” and “mountain.”

It was our first time in Temecula, although all wineries (and wines) are pretty similar, in my opinion. The differences are purely cosmetic. Some wines are red, some are white. Some have corks, some have twist off caps, my favorites come in a bag. In Napa, people wear designer shoes. In Temecula, people wear jerseys and backward baseball caps.

5 hours in, we were ready to switch to liquor. We Yelped our hearts out and searched far and wide through wine country seeking a bar that would satisfy our desire for non-country music and O-bombs, to no avail. Everywhere we went, people tried to feed us more wine. Dejected and cold (it was mid-50s and windy!! How was this shorts weather in the Midwest??), we decided to head back to the hotel.

As we got off the elevator and walked toward our room, determined to keep the party going in the face of adversity, we suddenly heard my personal savior and idol Flo Rida bumpin through the ceiling. Cautiously optimistic after a night of disappointment, we make a few drinks and head upstairs to check out the hotel’s rooftop bar only to be greeted by a rowdy group of drunkies, a fully stocked bar, and a packed dance floor. In a moment straight out of The Alchemist and Blue’s Clues, we discovered that what we were looking for was right in front of our face all along.

Or, technically, right above our heads. Also, it wasn’t just your normal everyday rowdy group of drunks. We’d managed to crash an event called Prom Night for Temecula Singles Over 50. We got a few side-eyes, but downed some shots and hopped on the dance floor with the old folks anyway.

As I grinded the air to Juvenile’s “Slow Motion” and witnessed the 50 and Up crowd around me grinding on each other in their prom attire, all I could think to myself was, “Man, I hope I don’t regret my decision to stay single when I’m 50.”

Cuz frankly, the market looked bleak. I hope I don’t decide in 20 years that I suddenly wanna meet someone special and end up on the dance floor with a bunch of saggy dudes whose only dance moves are standing in place and swaying slowly side to side to “Salt Shaker” by the Yin Yang Twins.

But I’ll give them a little credit. There were certainly quite a few butt grabbing attempts, and the older ladies didn’t even run away. Guys of any age get way more play whenever Usher’s on. I saw one guy grab so much asscheek and get so deep in there I thought he was trying to deliver the shocker through the older lady’s prom dress. I stared for way too long.

What was happening.

Is this my future destiny as a presently-30-year-old-but-soon-to-be-50-year-old single woman?

Should I hop on Match.com and settle for some meh dude now to save Future Me from eventually having to socialize with old creepy butt-grabbers on the dance floor?

No, not even witnessing this group form a grind train to Ginuwine’s “Pony” could change my mind. But I thought about it and asked myself a few questions while drunkenly watching the singles night unfold before me.

Is this how you wanna end up? Find a boyfriend already!!

No way, dude. Committed relationships guarantee a ton of extra work, without any guarantee that they’ll make me happier than I already am!!

DO YOU WANNA END UP LONELY WHILE EVERYONE YOU KNOW IS IN A RELATIONSHIP??

Hmm..interesting dichotomy. I’m pretty sure 4/5 loneliest moments of my life have been in relationships. The other one is that time I got lost driving down a foggy mountain at night somewhere in the Angeles National Forest with no cell reception, 25 miles til empty, and Lady Antebellum on the radio.

Shortly after completing this thought, my girlfriend snapped me out of my drunk introspective musings by ordering another round of shots.

Thank god for girlfriends. I’m swearing off wine til next week.

And replacing it with beer.

See, I have this awesome idea called Beer Bong Yoga.

I don’t wanna pat myself on the back too early, but I think it might be truly genius.

When you go to yoga as much as I do, you see some crazy shit. And trust me.

I’ve seen some crazy shit.

I’ve seen one of my teachers touch both her feet to her forehead while in a handstand, calmly listing off exactly which muscle groups she’s using to hold that insane pose.

I’ve seen instructors who look 27 reveal that they’re actually in their late 40s.

In my Vinyasa classes, I’ve met some of the most LA men ever: their bodies are ripped, their faces are chiseled, they’re probably Vegan, and their moods vary depending on traffic that day.

But in my 4+ years as a yogi, I’ve never seen anyone do yoga while bonging a beer.

My idea is to record a series of videos of me bonging beer in all sorts of crazy yoga arm balances. It’s gonna be a certified hit.

As soon as I learn how to bong a beer.

I’ve made that my goal of the week! After all, nothing is a mind and energy suck like stagnation. Constant self-improvement and development of essential life skills is the way to go!!

Speaking of change, my youngest sister just graduated from college and is moving out to California this summer. I could probably convince her to do drunk yoga with me.

If not, she can make and feed me drinks while I hold Single-Legged Crow.

This might be my favorite social media idea yet!

Or maybe I’ll just end up drunkenly flashing the bartender.