DreamCity

Part 3

May 3

Still no word from my agent.  AArrgghhh!!!  I got a call from the regular temp agency.  They want to book me for a two-week assignment at a production company for a receptionist's gig.  I'll be making a whopping $10 an hour.  That's like minimum wage. What will I do with my new-found riches?  Buy a tank of gas? Somehow, I thought by now I would have made it in the business.  My biggest role to date was a one-liner in a Tom Arnold movie.  Like I'm going to put that on my resume. 

The credit card companies are calling me 24-7, on a first-name-give-us-our-freakin'-money-now basis.  If Sam Jackson were to ask me what's in my wallet, I'd have to answer dust and dashed dreams. My school loans are about to go into default and my hooptie needs a new transmission & battery.  Am I holding on too tight to my dream?  At what point am I supposed to let go and try Plan B? 

May 4

FOX should do a show called "When Migraines Attack."  I must have taken a whole bottle of Excedrin just so I could function.  I read an article about a woman who had really vicious headaches and it turned out to be a brain tumor.  I wonder if my mom would loan me the money for a CAT Scan.

May 5

Ok, I've only been on the job for two days and I already hate it.  First of all, I'm so bored sitting out there in the lobby.   Why did I go to college?

This production company is not exactly a major player in the Hollywood game.  Can we say on the fringes?   Their last few flicks were crap. We're talking straight to video, do not stop at theater.  Everyone seems to wear that desperate-happy look while they quietly float their resumes.  The phones were so quiet, I thought they didn't pay the phone bill. 

I had lunch with Kandi.  She treated.  It was a belated birthday gift.  Timely too cause I'm down to just enough gas money to get to and from work until Friday.  Anyway, we went to the Ivy on Robertson. It was a paparazzi magnet thanks to all the celebs that frequent the spot.

Kandi's doing this workshop and she was trying to sell me on it.

"Adrianna girl, you have to do this workshop.  Everybody's who's anybody in casting will be there," she told me.

"I don't know."  Her judgment was questionable after that whole Craig thing. 

"You know with as much experience as I have, I would never be involved with anything that's amateurish.  My rep is on the line. "

Kandi is forever talking about her "experience."  She had a short recurring role on Beverly Hills 90210 and acts like she's Meryl Streep. 

"It's only $175," she added, like that was a selling point.  The whole time she was talking, she wasn't even looking at me.   She was scanning the patio. 

I told her to ask me again for the next one.  I'll wait and see how she makes out. 

For an L.A. girl, Kandi's pretty cool; flaky, but cool.  She's dependable about 50% of the time, but usually her heart's in the right place.  Although you have to be careful with her, because though she has a Valley Girl, ditzy exterior, you do not want to get on her bad side.  I saw her reduce a waitress to tears once for not giving her low fat salad dressing.

She still lives at home, although I would too if my parents had a house like hers.  They live in Ladera Heights, which is like a black Beverly Hills.  We're not talking palatial estates or anything, but nice homes.  Kandi works out at the gym and goes out on auditions and shops.  And her parents don't mind!!!  Does she have it easy or what?    

That Craig guy called me again.  He left two messages.  Like I'm going to call him back.  Right.

May 6

Sometimes, I don't feel as though I fit into my life.   I haven't found my stride yet and it's frustrating.  I want so much and I just don't know how to get it.  This is just one of those days when I woke up in a funky mood. 

L.A. is everything I thought it would be and nothing like I expected.  Sometimes, I just get very scared about the future.  The other night, I was writing down all of my complaints about my lack of work and my apartment, and I just had to break down and cry.  I just need a GPS that will guide me from point A to point B with no traffic in the shortest amount of time as possible.

Kandi invited me to a movie premiere next Tuesday.  I have to find something to wear.  I think my Macy's card still works.  Maybe I'll buy something and return it.  I'm not going shopping with her though. She's a label whore.  This woman will drop $1,000 on a shawl and not even flinch.  I keep telling her she's never going to get out of her parents' house if she keeps spending money the way she does.

The disappointing news for the day...I heard back from my agent, and I didn't get the part.   How do you not take the rejection personally?  How do you walk away and not feel as though they're saying you're not smart enough?  Or not funny or beautiful enough?   Or not talented enough?  No matter how many self-help mantras pour through my lips and fill #inspiration tweets I retweet, I can't underestimate the initial sting of being rejected.  Acting is about reaching into the depths of your soul where most people are afraid to venture.  It's hard to put that part of yourself on display and have it rejected.  It just hurt to know that I wasn't enough to book a measly three lines.

"Cheer up, Adrianna, your time is coming," my agent told me.  Easy for him to say, he's got a paycheck coming every week (I'm assuming he's making commission off someone).  If he doesn't find me some work soon I'm going to cut him loose. 

I tallied up the men I've slept with since I was 19, when I lost my virginity, and the count comes to 18.  That's almost two a year.  Does that make me a slut?  I guess if I ever had a long-term relationship, it would cut the numbers down. 

I was thinking along those lines because it's been six months, one week and three days since I last had any sex (I'm starting to do pillow talk with my detachable showerhead).  That last time wasn't even good sex either.  It was clumsy and angst-ridden (probably spurred by performance anxiety - on his part).  First and last time for him.  Why do men insist on drinking before they partake in the act? Hello?  Can we say rendered ineffective?  After that whole episode, I swore off sex until the right one came along.  Not that I would actually know the right one even if he was wearing a sign.  I have never made a good decision about a man in my life.  And that goes all the way back to my dad and believing in him. 

My parents were divorced when I was 10.  He was supposed to pick Anita and me up on the weekends and take us out.  He never came.  Always something more important than us would pop up and detain him.  Like a dummy I would sit around the house all day waiting for him to show, believing that his car broke down or he was at the bank and it was being robbed and he couldn't get to a phone or something.... 

My mom?  She played the martyr role really well.  She never said anything against my dad directly, but she had her ways.  Sometimes I think I must have been switched at birth, because my mom and Anita are like two best girlfriends.  They can sit and talk and laugh for hours on end.  Whenever I try and join, it's like I'm the hussy who stole their man.  Cold shoulder.                             

Fortunately, this physical distance between us has actually improved our relationship.  We're too far apart to really get on each other's nerves.  Although my mother will usually find a way, but at least now I can just hang up on her.