SEXY IS BACK!

Recently I was involved in the filming of a low budget indie flick.  It was a comedy filled with tongue-in-cheek, satirical references to Hollywood and it's love of the fake: fake boobs, fake lips, fake hair, you get the picture.  For the last two months I have been surrounded by "hot chicks".  I searched for hot chicks with BIG boobs to be everywhere in the movie.  All of the actresses were beautiful, if not totally real, lounging around in lingerie, bikinis, short dresses... 

I started to feel a little drab, my hair not trimmed or colored in months, a sorry natural tan freckling my often not-shaved legs, always dressing in jeans and a tee-shirt, usually sweating off the little makeup that I bothered to put on in the morning.  I mean, I was going to work after all!  I guess you shouldn't be too concerned with looking hot when you are working 12-17 hrs each day.  But I couldn't help feeling a little.... well, less than gorgeous.

That movie is now over and I am on another shoot where the actress is also beautiful, and yes, she has pretty big (real) knockers, as well.  Even the make-up artist ladies are beautiful.  But I am not intimidated, or feeling low this time and I finally figured out why!  

I didn't quite realize it at the time, but in the previous shoot the feelings toward the women were so much more about them as "hot chicks" the objects, not them as people who happen to be good looking.  Tits and ass were things to be bought and traded.  Without a big rack, tight bum, glossy lips, the girls were nothing.  It makes me kind of feel bad.  I don't think it was the intention of the writer to demean the ladies or be malicious.  It is a funny script and it's not like I'm going to swear off raunchy comedies forever.  However, it's nice to be back in a miscrocosm of Hollywood where real women are at least noticed and APPRECIATED for qualities other than (just?) a great boob job.        

"She's always been such a sensitive girl..."

Well, turns out I did care. I cared a lot. I came to realize this when I kept getting upset. Things went from bad to worse until I couldn’t stand it any longer and broke down. I had tried his method of keeping quiet, not saying anything. “Not Caring”…. But it was under false pretenses because I actually did care and still do. Is it still love if you keep getting hurt? I think it is. Maybe love has made me ultra sensitive. Perhaps my feelings get hurt more easily now. Does that mean I’m insecure? Or just sensitive?

I hate that word “sensitive”. It has so many negative connotations: weakness, lack of a backbone, wishy-washy, crybaby. But it can also be a very awesome thing. To be sensitive is a kind and caring thing. If you harness that sensitivity you can use it for all sorts of good things. I think in order to be intuitive you would probably be sensitive as well. Being sensitive to others’ emotions, thoughts, and feelings can make one a master manipulator. It can be used for good or evil. A highly sensitive person could be a wonderful leader, doctor, teacher, mother, daughter, girlfriend. Highly sensitive people may also be artistic. Fragility poised on a ledge between reality and a dreamscape.  Some of the best musicians are sensitive. 


But then there is being overly sensitive, which I tend to be. To put it in the words of the recording artist, Feist, “I feel it all, I feel it all” I feel it alright, very strongly. The good and the bad, which makes it so difficult to balance the two. Must I sacrifice the good for the bad? How do I let go of my oversensitivity to bad but keep the good?


Learning to love oneself and to be comfortable in one’s own skin is an important life lesson I’ve always heard. One that I’m sure I’m still grappling with. But with each hurt and disappointment, sometimes it’s impossible to tell whether I’m moving ahead and growing stronger or falling behind. I guess I won’t know until I’m older.

Why Does Everyone Look Alike?

I've been thinking alot about human nature lately.  Nothing too deep or anything, just how funny humans can be.  That's exactly how I've been thinking about them: those humans.  Them.  Not us.  Not me.  Like I'm not human or something.  Like I'm an alien.  There is so much diversity in the world yet humans are basically the same everywhere.  There is always going to be people who annoy you, people who you like right off the bat. 

Corey Feldman

There's even it seems basic templates for how people look.  Sure, sure, everyone is unique, blah blah blah.  But how many times has someone told you that you remind them of somebody, or how you look just like so-and-so...  There are celebrity look-a-likes.  My boyfriend for instance looks like Corey Feldman.  I've gotten (a surprising number of times) Anna Faris.  You know, that chick from Scary Movie.  Every time I move to a new city I often have to look twice because I am reminded of people I knew in the past city by strangers walking in the street!

So next time you are in a busy street look around.  How many people look like someone else you have seen or who you know?  Think about all the faces, all the mixtures of features...  When you mix up ten kinds of chins, eight shapes of eyes, five different cheekbones, four basic shapes of face, six eyebrow variations, and lets say twelve noses, that's only ummm... 115,000, and change, different looks.  What about the other five billion, nine hundred ninety nine million, eight hundred eighty five thousand, and change, people???*  Thus everyone looks alike.  Sorry folks, I know we all think we are the unique ones, the "special" ones.  But we're not.  We are just a nose away from being our neighbor, whether that neighbor is across the hall or across the globe. 

*This statistic I am purely guesstimating based on a six billion total world population.  Since there is probably, by now, a shit-ton more people, well I guess that just makes us even less special now, huh?

Collecting Loneliness

My eyes are each moons, only reflecting the light unable to shine on their own.  My tears as they slide pick up all the little pieces of dust left on my cheeks from neglect.  My breath is the stale breeze trapped in a room with no windows doomed to be pushed around and around by the rusted blades of a fan propped up against the wall.

Seat-Filler: Part Two

Oh. My. God!  Did you ever think you could get so tired from sitting on your tush and being excited?  By the end of my most recent "Audience Gig" as I like to refer to them, my butt hurt, my back hurt, I was starving, dehydrated, and totally mind-blown.  My attention span was shot.  Driving was laborious.  I spent a half hour in the suntan lotion aisle at Rite-Aid; I couldn't decide if I wanted self-tanner or SPF 50.  

 I had just sat in a metal folding chair for 81/2 hours clapping and cheering, watching people win money, the super annoying warm-up guy grating on my nerves.  Usually on a day that long we get a walk away lunch which is a polite way of saying, "Pay for that crap, yourself!", but not on this occasion.  We had a lunch "break" which was 15 minutes long, leaving me not even enough time to walk back and forth from the parking garage let alone get anything to EAT!  The vending machines weren't taking my five dollar bills leaving me alone with my hunger.  I had already devoured my half bagel I packed for the morning.  Growing faint, I slowly ate the last of my handful of grapes I had in  my purse.  

I have definitely learned after the first time I did this to pack SOMETHING!  You will always get hungry.  My first Audience Gig, I did not eat or even drink coffee before the show because I was so keyed up about getting to the studio on time and finding my way.  A few hours in I was fading fast.  I developed a terrible caffeine headache and was irritable and weak by lunch.  I couldn't think straight, I desperately tried to find somewhere to get coffee and food but I didn't know the area and what restaurants were around,  So I stopped at this gas station, got a bad little sandwich left in the heater from breakfast and some cola, which did not cure my caffeine headache and I ended up suffering through the rest of the day. 

Seat-Filler: Part One

Have you ever seen in a movie or a television show where the scene in the background suddenly gets picked up and moved away?  Its funny because at first you think it's real and then you realize you have been fooled.  Ah, life in Hollywood.  Tricky, tricky...

You know, watching television talk shows or game shows, I never even thought that people just didn't go for fun.  Don't they line up outside and wait in the rain or blasting heat just to get inside to watch a taping.  Did I ever think you could make this your part time JOB? 

That's right, folks, I am a member of the privileged, oh-so respected class of people they like to refer to as "seat-filler."  Myself, along with a hundred of my closest colleagues get to dress up, stand in lines, (yes, in the blasting heat) and then sit for hours upon hours without being fed, allowed to go to bathroom, clapping, cheering and acting excited.  But, you get paid.  CASH.  Who ever THOUGHT?

I have seen some crazy sh*t, too!  A certain golf player's highly publicized mistress, marriage proposals, a Jonas brother, perfect strangers sharing their most intimate secrets.  I have made friends with the people sitting around me, at least for that day.  I have laughed.  I have cried.  One show about cheating in relationships was so heart-wrenching I actually fought back the tears much to my own embarrassment.  And of course every time they surprise the game show contestant with their mother who "couldn't make it" before I get all dewy eyed.  Is this me being too emotional, getting too attached?  I think not... entirely.  I mean these are people like you and me.  It's a human experience.  As one host says, "It's not a game show, it's a life-changing show."  

I've come to enjoy watching game shows live way better than on TV.  At home, never watch 'em.  But as much as my a*s hurts at the end of the day from those terrible folding chairs, I keep going back.  Just one of the herd. 

Baby Gotta Get Me That Money

Being in Los Angeles there is such a broad spectrum of wealth.  There could be a person sleeping on the sidewalk w/o a penny to their name with a hundred thousand dollar car parked right in front of them.  Drive down Santa Monica Blvd and you will see wholesale shops, trash on the streets, crazies yelling at bus stops.  Then a few blocks down you will see boutiques with a pair of ripped up jean shorts priced at $300 in the window, valet'd coffee shops, custom vintage car dealers.  There are things to spend money on everywhere here.  Luxury doggie boutiques where your pooch can get only the best massage and gourmet chef-prepared treats.  Private villas you can rent when you come to visit.  Wining, dining, spas, diamonds, valet, penthouses, the art-deco Spanish style houses up in the Hollywood Hills, it is all here. 

I like to think I live pretty simply.  Or at least I try.  I thrift store shop for clothes.  I'm not ashamed of picking furniture up off the street.  I buy whatever vegetables are in season.  But is it only out of necessity?  Being around so much money makes me want things.  Makes me want to do things.  I long to lounge by a sparkling pool with a glass of champagne in one hand and a plate of cherries and gourmet cheeses on the table beside me.  I drool over a shiny custom El Camino (okay not exactly what you would call a "luxury" car) and my head turns at a window filled with lit-up crystal chandeliers. 

I've lived in the country.  It was easier to not want money so bad.  I was content with driving around in my beat up Camry, picking up groceries at Aldi's and trading in my clothes at the local vintage shops.  That left just enough money to go to movies pretty frequently and out to eat/drink quite a bit.  Now that rent is twice as much as what we used to pay for half the space, I've had to step it up.  I've been hustling since I got here, I'm proud to say.  But it is not easy.  Once I get a little more into my career I'm sure I will make more money.  Pay my bills on time.  But then there is that question:  Will I be able to ever make enough?  Is enough ever enough? 

It will hard to strike that balance between not wanting so much and staying happy.  Must remember: money doesn't buy happiness, money doesn't buy happiness.  But it sure does buy a good time!