This is where you want to go. You want to go to Columbia if you want to go to a college in New York. Be real. My desire to go to NYU—stupid. Columbia is nicer. Go to film, not theater. Get with it. Acquire real skills. All of this sounds so obvious to me now, turning around this ivy league. Niceer buildings, library. Why would you study theater? Sorry I’m laughing. It’s like, getting to EARTH at 39 years old, I’m going, why did I listen to ANYONE that I did? Within four months of being back, I might not have an agent yet, I might not be on TV, but I am finding ways to act. I’m working on a scene from Pretty Woman for a grad class geared around “working with actors” so we get character breakdowns, we get directed, even by the teacher tomorrow. Better yet, the woman playing Julia Roberts’ character Vivian? She’s a real stripper, so there you go. I got the real deal to work with, and she even went to Playwrights, yup. Same school as I went to at NYU. There goes that theater degree.
I live near Columbia, so I took a perfect New York walk up a tree lined boulevard, the leaves yellow, and I guess it’s because I am working on a film scene, I do not know, this stupid guru, I started feeling him in my heart, as if he manipulated my heart. I get pulled in different directions, it’s a nightmare. I BELIEVE IN MYSELF for the LOVE OF GOD! I have to CRY! Leave me alone! I HATED this man! I’m filled with FOREIGN feelings, as I feel like he misinterpreted me, but I lacked the ability to draw a line. I have to practically EXPULSE this person from me in these moments. Why he’s INSIDE my heart, I do not know. It has gotten 92% better, so when it comes back, I get agitated. I don’t understand it, to be honest, but I start to feel slimy. What is that? You don’t go feeling around people’s insides, manipulating them. You do not do that. He acted as if he were psychic, you see, like he knew me without needing to ask me anything, he TOLD me who I was, how I felt, should feel, didn’t feel, repressed, a player, etc. Even this sensation that he’s watching me, not exactly, but he acted as if he could FEEL anything and everything.
I don’t understand what his relationship to me was at all. I don’t know why he roled played some version of my father WHILE telling me he was in love with me over a lost I-TANYA DVD, WHILE telling me this was a psychological set up to disappoint him, and he believes in me as an artist because he PERCEIVES me as someone who didn’t KNOW they were “special,” help! Jesus Christ! And that was only ONE interaction! My heart was a MESS. A total mess. WHY was he OBSESSED with NOURISHING me? He’d say words with a heavy hand—emotionally manipulative. So when I get this creepy sensation in my heart, because I’m walking to some SCENE rehearsal, I have to REJECT IT. I have to cry, a little, like, this is what I wanted to do… and it took me a long time to get here.
I hate that guy, but I did get to enter Columbia off Broadway, so I took the promenade, the official entrance. I admired the sprawling grounds, the classic New York institution. I had never met this director before, a grad student, but she’s a aspiring screenwriter. Friendly, blond, enthusiastic. She cast me well, I thought. KIT in Pretty Woman was a solid choice for me. I felt like I embodied it well, so what that tells me, is that I’m good at supporting roles… I’m a good sidekick, best friend. I’m trying to identify how to sell myself as the clock is ticking on this agent’s class. I have until Feb for this coach to sign off on my email that I’ll drop in their inboxes, and I’m paying attention to what feels right and natural… what I’m good at.
KIT goes to see Vivian at the pool, she comes to understand that she’s changed, that she’s fallen in love with Gere, and she has to joke to keep their friendship alive and pick her up in totally other circumstances, I mean. I found the end of the scene challenging, because she’s needing to pick her up, now? Joking. The character break down didn’t make that much sense to me at the end. I can’t tell if that was her break down or something official. I feel solid about my character though… maybe I play working girl well, brash. Good to know. I could probably film that scene for my reel. Hopefully other students will ask me to come in and read or be in a film.
So now, I’m going to sing. I need to get a songbook together for this pianist, gotta get that going… I don’t know what to say about this lawyer I just started seeing.
Last time, he sort of casually stated before I needed to hear it… that he didn’t want anything serious, it seemed, I did not know. The point was, it was a turn off. He didn’t want a family. He’s looking to see someone 2-3 times a week. A companion. But what about his need for freedom? What’s funny, and I had to think about my own experience in thinking about this character, because I have a strange default — vulnerability. Whereas most women might have put up a wall in that moment, I got vulnerable. I started talking about what I wanted, “I mean, someone to take care me, who wants me, and is kind to me…” I got vulnerable. But later, I went, “wait what?”
He reached out today wondering what I was doing this week— I’m busy. Then I just confronted that, like, I don’t know if we’re looking for the same thing, and now, I don’t know what to do because I didn’t want to go there. I wasn’t sure if I was picking up on subtext, like we sort of hooked up so he was responding to that, and it’s RARE for anyone to ACTUALLY admit their true feelings. I do. So I texted him, “did I understand you correctly?” He goes, “I think so, that’s fair…” and I’m like, “What is? Are you saying that you feel that way or are you saying I’m not totally getting you?” I think so? I’m not 10 steps ahead, but I don’t know if we’re looking for the same thing. “Communication is key,” I said, “as they say.” His apology was not “totally necessary, though I appreciated it,” but me? I like being on the same page. He said, “I’m sorry,” he’s a nice guy. “I gotta watch what I say.”
“No, be who you are, I’m just going to respond.”
It’s hard to tell sometimes, he said that to me when the last time I saw him, we barely hooked up… you know what I mean? So, shrugging, I don’t know, but it didn’t exactly inspire me to want to hook up with him. He wanted to keep going on dates, he hoped we could be friends if I didn’t want to. So I said, sure, let’s keep going out on dates, I just don’t know what to do with that info so soon. I think that’s fair. I’m looking for my person, to be honest. I hate having worked out so much later in my life, so I hate being here. I’m 39, I’m broke, so I don’t really feel like a catch, and I feel like I focused on the wrong people, relationships, life choices. Do I want kids? I didn’t want to be here. I don’t like having to think ahead, but now I am. I don’t know if we’re compatible.
We’ll keep feeling it out. I have to keep getting out there…see who else is out there.
At these moments, the guru seeing me as SPECIAL, it’s so disturbing. I could have found someone who thought I was actually special, you know? So that hurts, it really does. I was thinking about it, if the guru had a daughter, is that what he’d WANT for her? HIM? Would he be HAPPY if his daughter ended up in that relationship? He would probably be the first to say: that guy disturbed you. That’s the thing, his relationship to me was so… heartbreaking. WHO is he seeking to be? Jesus Christ, who wants to be a fucking pupil? Of consciousness? I hate this man.
“What is the central energetic frequency of this material…”
“Fuck you.” That’s what I wish I said. Whereas I’m pretty sure, Joyce Carol Oates…would have asked another question. What is the central energetic frequency of this material? “Just read books…” right? Joyce Carol Oates. “Maybe try to identify ones you enjoy…” and I found one, I’m reading a book I like right now.
So I was thinking, KIT might be slightly more charged up because she’s in uncomfortable conditions. She’s not toning it down, she’s turning it up, in fact, because she’s at a nice hotel. I’m just reflecting on how we truly act, when I feel uncomfortable, I tend to play it up… I can laugh a lot or appear like I’m really comfortable when I’m really not. We don’t always act sensically, like, you’d think she’d get smaller but maybe she feels exposed? All good there.
I need another job. I don’t know where to go. Maybe I should go into a location tomorrow and just get another job, CVS. I’m laughing, but I don’t know what to do, I do not know anyone. I need to get out there and meet more people… like tonight, but I don’t know what to do. I would go out, but where? I suppose I could get a drink somewhere. Looking for “Mr Right,” hilariously. After all that, I just want to find someone I love, you know? Between a successful writing career, not that I had to make a choice, but it would have supported me over all if I had… if I could have…more comfortably put myself out there… so I arrive at the same conclusion, I can’t change the road it took to get here. I’m 39 now, so I’m not the age that I was when I attracted all this weird male energy, sometimes wanting to cry again, because did you treat me like that because you thought I was attractive?
Okay, I worked out that heart tension, and that’s it, I’ll keep turning the page. I keep turning my fists, in little circles, just like, I want to be so happy. I just want to be so so happy. I want to keep moving as quickly as I can… so okay, I’ll just think about what other job I could get for the moment. I’ll keep moving. Okay, so I’m going to stop writing, I think, because the future thing I absorbed from these people created a weird overactive gear turn… in general, I think you shouldn’t just open someone up… in a void of a relationship. Like, my cousins did the same thing to me, where “TALK TALK TALK TALK TALK” no. Don’t do that.
Okay. I’m going to go and chill. I’m going to go sing.