It's been a rough year and a half- anyone following these can attest that the fates have not been kind to me since I moved out... Or have they?
Since I arrived, I've been able to spot myself on the big silver screen, I've PA'd a porn movie, I've PA'd two horror movies, I worked for Gale Anne Hurd, I've worked for Jerry Bruckheimer, I hung out in Scary Spice's kitchen, and I shook hands with Rob Zombie. (Then later saw him again while playing his wife, Sherri Moon, at Halloween Horror Nights.)
I've been a professional stilt walker, a personal assistant, I've picked up dog shit for someone else and I've delivered $20,000 worth of film. People have trusted me with theircars, their friendship, their pin codes, their laundry, the keys to their homes and their pharmaceutical lives.
I have been blessed to reconnect with old friends from Orlando and blessed to make new friends here. I've worked in a haunted hospital, a porn factory, CSI Miami's crime lab, and the WB lot. I got to hang out at Malibu, Venice Beach, the Hollywood sign, Crenshaw, Griffith Park, and Runyon Canyon. I've eaten at the best restaurants and had the rope dropped for me by my friends at the best nightclubs.
Right now, I'm sitting at a desk as an Executive Assistant to a Creative Development Exec at New Line Cinema, which is the same company that cranked out all my favorite Jason movies. God I love New Line, and I wish I could stay, but sadly, more layoffs are coming and I'm only a temp for the month. After this, I'm not sure what's around the corner.
But here's what's happened recently:
Jay and I decided a "break" was in order since our priorities had changed: He prefers to work a 20 hour day, party for 3, sleep for 1, and then go do it again the next morning. I, on the other hand, had taken to staying in bed and crying on my days off, which was getting to be a bit of a downer. Since we are both social creatures, I loathed being alone while in between jobs, and wasn't able to reconcile my desire to have a domestic married life with his industry lifestyle. He got tired of my self-destructive behavior and made a stand to force me to begin to take care of myself, and has made it clear that he cannot support me anymore, financially or emotionally. So we separated for real, living apart and not seeing each other, which I hate. He is living in Pasadena, with friends, and I am living in Glendale, with friends. After a few months, on a set date, we will reunite and see if we're going to be compatible any more. I get off on being taken care of, and Jay wants an independent partner. Some mutual adjusting is in order if it's going to work. At this point, I feel thrown away and angry and sad, so I am not able to make a lot of personal progress with self-healing, but I have high hopes for the future. I've made some good friends with some good people out here, and they are buoying my spirits in the mean time as I heal and figure stuff out. And as always, my heroes back home are keeping me smiling through the pain. Long distance love is still very powerful, and it means the world to me to have my friends by my side, 3,000 miles away.
If I can maintain a job here, I will stay as long as I can to ride out the separation until Jay makes up his mind. If I can't keep a job, my financial situation means I have to go home, so my brother will fly out and we will roadtrip it east with two angry cats in the backseat. I will return home, spouseless, jobless, live with my mom and try not to feel like a failure. That's the plan, anyway.
Now that you're caught up, here is why my ear smells like cat food:
I had to move a lot of stuff. Jay packed as best he could, but time was limited by his work (among other things), so when he left, our apartment was a chaotic mess. At the time, I had a virus, a fever, a yeast infection, pinkeye, and was balled up on the kitchen floor crying, so I was not much help on moving day. Who can pack when they're that sexy? After I found myself alone, I had to sift through the rubble and pack the remainder of our mutual and personal belongings, which I did not do in a timely manner. I had better things to do. Like not pack, and lay in bed and cry. Important stuff. Fortunately, my friends here and this temp job came along and motivated me. A fire was lit under me, and I have a reason to be productive and active.
As the 1st (today, my last day in the apartment) approached, I packed what I could, but physical exhaustion and my new work schedule made progress slow. I'd also grossly underestimated how much work was left, and how much would (not) fit in my rented 10-ft. U-Haul truck. On the day of the move, Carlos, my best friend from Orlando, his girlfriend Shaunelle (whom I adore,) my best friend from LA Paul, and a brand new very generous friend named Lucas showed up and loaded the truck. Carlos is ex-military, and Paul is a Theatrical show loader, so between the 5 of us it was packed to capacity within no time. Carlos drove the truck to Pasadena, where we unloaded it into Jay's storage unit. I took a carload to Glendale and unloaded and tried to make some order from the swirling entropy of my life. I had to leave our cats in Hollywood that night because the town was on lockdown due to the Oscars. No one gets in or out on Oscar Night. Unless of course you're important.
That was Sunday.
On Monday, I bought more tape from Target and came home to find Paul (the Theatrical loader) on my doorstep. He'd just gotten out of an audition nearby and realized I might need a little more help. "No, no, I'm fine, I got it," I said, but he offered to come help me dismantle the hooks in the walls and our window coverings. I figured he could help with that since he's tall and I'd pack the kitchen. Piece of cake, right?
Wrong. It took another 3 hours to load everything in both our cars. At this point I'm just shoving bleach in with my alarm clock, and cat stuff in with my phone charger. I have had about 8 hours of sleep over the last few days and I was deliriously tired. Paul refused to go until everything was ready, then loaded half the load in his car (FULL) and half in mine (FULL). He missed his gym time (which is why he can actually lift the boxes my stupid T-Rex arms couldn't) and an engagement party for me, but he came through in a way that mackerel-smacked me with its generosity and selflessness.
This is the same guy who crashed on my couch so I wouldn't be scared/stabbed/sleepwalk while Jay was home visiting Florida. Paul has shown me more kindness in 4 months than all of LA has in a year and a half.
(I took him to the airport once, so we're totally even.)
He drove behind me 11 miles, and at long last, we arrived at the storage unit Jay chose, conveniently near his new place in Pasadena. Inconveniently, they do not allow 24-hour access to one's belongings, so, feeling like the biggest a-hole on the planet, I let Paul drive to the trickle-down remainder of his party with a car FULL of my life. I drove to Glendale, schlepped my carfull upstairs to my new bedroom, drove to Hollywood, gathered my angry, frightened cats and brought them to their temporary new home. By then it was midnight. I collapsed into bed.
Seven hours later, I got up for work, stumbled around boxes and bags full of storage unit goodies, and got dressed. It's cold where I am, and I have to keep the door open because my room is too small to fit a litterbox inside. The cats need access to a microscopic pointless balcony, which I have barricaded off like Les Miserable so they won't leap for freedom. Frozen, I found my phone, and, in case anyone called, got my bluetooth, which is required by the state of CA while driving and talking on a phone. The bluetooth, thrown into the "Gotta Have In Glendale" box, had rattled around. So had my container of dry cat food, also necessary in Glendale. The bluetooth was buried in catfood. I fished it out like a disgusting crackerjack prize, and debated on how best to clean it.
Answer: There is no good way to clean cat food off a hands-free cell phone piece when you have no cleaning supplies.
The best I could do was kleenex and prayers. As I got in my car on my way to work, I tried it out, and, much to my chagrin, I could still smell Friskies long after my phone call. My ear absorbed the scent, and when you're stuck in rush-hour traffic, ears are harder to clean than small electronics. It will probably smell like cat food for a long, long time.
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