Nine Times Eight

How often does one almost get hired to portray a real-life slutty nanny on national television? Talk about Hollyweird: I spent a chunk of my afternoon on avail for a sketch comedy role on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!". The producers decided to go with the option that was more "ethnic," about which I wondered why my mother couldn't have been from El Salvador and not just born and raised there. But I wanted to be on television today, I could say to her. How often does one get to play a character who had sex nine times with a dad of eight?

Question: Am I Turning Into a Squirrel?

Pondering this serious question, I huddle over a bag of pistachios, cracking and cramming them into my mouth. Never before one to go for nuts, I feel for a newly-grown fluffy tail. Fantasizing about living in the UK, I wonder: do they have good trees there for running up when a neighborhood cat scouts me? I reflect on a dog recently lunging at me, a casting director's critique that I hunch over too much, my bright eyes. It doesn't take a rocket scientist. Pass the acorns.

It Happened Last Night

It's one thing to walk outside and find a used condom next to your car, but a single glove? Maybe my VW inspires the use of latex. But I still don't like thinking of Mickey Mouse or a magician or a prep cook lingering in the streets after hours, leaving signs of where they've been like Cinderella on the lam.

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

I admit to being jealous of this dog. 1) His level of inner peace is soaring. 2) With those long legs, he's always going to be in demand. 3) He looks amazing in stripes.

Tranny like Sunday Morning

Sunday morning: the time of the week when I listen through my open window to the trans community sing to Jesus at the corner church, learn my lines about how my character came on to her half-brother, and drink homemade iced espresso.

My Sneaker Wants to Hug Me

Cockatoos are often called "the Velcro bird"...but when was the last time your zipless closure nuzzled you and tried to eat your earring?

Show Me Show Me Show Me

The grand conclusion to the acting class I taught tonight was just show me. I had the actors work on one-line auditions, and quickly had them drop their sides to book the role without saying a word. So much of it is in how you stand. How do you move? Where does your gaze fall?

Like a kindergarten mantra, show, don't tell; or at least don't just tell. The family portrait and the history lesson. The weekend getaway and the "I love you." The visual and the voice.

Your body in relation to space. At least that's what the man in nothing but a trench coat argues to get out of jail. But it's also the dividing line in something happening or not. Being he-who-acts.

Dressing for Work

My mother used to model, way-back-when. I associate that hustle with wearing a one-piece in a 1960s catalog called The Ski Inn or The Snow Inn or Mommy in a Blanket. My own brief foray into modeling, on the other hand, involved a lot of colored tights, studded fur, and a chain-mesh halter. There's the person you look like, and then the costume you don. And if they've got you gussied up in a unitard for the winter, your beauty really is your smile.

MNU and Me

Empathy can, perhaps, be taken too far. Such as this weekend when a viewing of "District 9" resulted in pain in one of my arms for hours afterwards. Let's just say that just because a character on the silver screen grows a claw-arm doesn't mean that one ought to feel the sensations that one is also growing a claw-arm. Luckily my sense of caring stopped short of producing black liquid out my nose (see the movie).

At work today I had a rush of feeling like an outsider: cue claw-arm sensations. A flood of fear about something in my life hit me: claw-arm. Reassuring myself it was all okay, I ate my spring rolls with my claw.

Or is it going too far to want to hug and take care of CGI-produced aliens in a sci-fi sleeper hit? Typecast me in the sequel, Neill Blomkamp. Typecast me.

Talking on Broken Glass

This weekend I triumphed in successfully making my very own Vietnamese fresh spring rolls. No longer will I have to rely on takeout for these soft rice paper-wrapped vegetable appetizers. I even can stand proud on the dipping sauce front.

Standing over the sink, pulling out strands of glass noodles, I carefully held the wet wrappers so that they wouldn't tear. I packaged the food inside itself, handling it with great care. The tofu, the carrots, the cucumber, the lettuce, a single basil leaf.

Just as I finished the second gorgeous batch, a small jar fell from a top shelf and smashed my favorite glass pitcher. Heavy-bottomed, elegant, and Polish, this useful object took me years to hunt and find. Finally this weekend I unpacked and placed it on the counter, anticipating any number of Mojitos.

Picking up the shards, I thought about how luck and blessings can come when you have some success--the ability to compete with a south Asian restaurant--but are still yearning, feeling like you're walking around in the dark. Immediately I thought of Jewish weddings, as if I myself was participating in a dyslexic ceremony--break glass, then tie the knot. Instead of feeling blue I'd been unable to catch the pitcher, I thought, Divine light must--per mystic tradition--be flooding my apartment, freed from the glass. And glass noodles.

Gas Station Band Practice

Just when I got done celebrating my mother's birthday and pulled into a gas station to fill-'er-up, there was a giant Mexican tuba band with a ventriloquist clown practicing in the lot. And for that, I am grateful.

White Jeans

Albino denim, why do you plague me so? If it wasn't bad enough getting accused of trying to mimic Britney Spears back in 2001, there's a new crop of tween stars who would serve as apparitive warnings were I to gain a new pair. While rehearsing for an Irish play I managed to end up with part of a raw egg on the back pocket of my Gap jeans, yellow against creamy twill. My character warned her brother of the "green-toothed girls of Antrim" in the words of Martin McDonough, while my rear dripped albumen. What is it about this August 2009 that has me considering another jaunt, pre-Labor Day? Moments I feel adolescent, or wish to fit in at Kundalini? I slip into my indigo skinnies: more my style. But still the voice of Amy Sedaris haunts me, enthusiastic and mocking: "I have no questions. I think I'll wear white jeans!"

I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant

There is a television series in America titled "I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant," and it is reenactments of real-life stories about women with just that experience. I met the casting director of the show tonight, and she shot down my and others' refutations of why this couldn't possibly occur. This proved to me that not only is life as a female capable of strange heights, but that people are even more disconnected from their bodies than I thought. What about a show called "I Didn't Know My Mouth Was Open and I Was Talking or Singing Along to My iPod?" If you've ever been to my gym, you know this phenomenon is not uncommon. Or "I Didn't Know I Owe A Credit Card Company Money"? Bank of America and Capital One sure do think I'd be on that show, because why else would they call me every day? Even "I Didn't Know," in which a whole lot of people could try to get out of responsibility for stuff by lollygagging, their blank stares in lieu of an apology.

A Moment of Silence For the Arrival of September Vogue

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Giant Cat

You know the day's going to be alright when you pull up outside of work and across the street is a free-for-the-taking giant painted cat portrait. Why would someone let a few tiny sugary-brown splotches get in the way of a lifetime with this 4 x 6 foot objet? A tiny turtle gazes back up at the looming pasty-mauve kitten, as if to say "Why ask? You already know how awesome you are."

If I Was A 70 Year Old Armenian Man

If I was a 70 year old Armenian man driving way over the speed limit, I would not have given me the finger. In order to determine his identity, I asked him to complete a nationality quiz. Unfortunately the man filled it out by drawing a picture of his hand giving me the finger while he gave me the finger with his real hand.

And Still With the Biological Clock

There's No Bear

When you embark on something you really want, but haven't yet experienced, you can seize up. Your heart beats faster, you sweat, you want to run. Sometimes you do, and end up posing as a pig farmer or a lanyard expert or a lover of steins, just to avoid what you're really after. Your nervous system interprets going after the real deal as a threat, as serious as life or death. It's like a giant bear is chasing you through the forest. But there's no bear.

How do you mend this gap, and not cave to the phantom danger? You keep moving forward. You keep taking steps towards what you want, all the while reminding yourself this isn't you at the edge of your mortality--just you at the edge of your own happiness. Or even, in the worse-case scenario, the edge of something different than the results you've always gotten. Where's the bear? How close on your tails is the bear? There is no bear.

And if it helps, draw a picture of a very, very small bear to carry in your pants pocket. He's adorable, with trousers and a lisp. He enjoys berries and the aesthetics of wood grain. If and when this bear ever catches up with you, he's got honey.

Up and At 'Em

I'm type A! I have things to do! I say, and then wake up in gnome-print pajamas and sleepily roll over. I am embarking on the next big steps of my career! Followed by putting on a fluffy pink robe and pressing my own juice. I am so hardcore! As I drink the juice out of a cup with a face on it. Get me in a suit and when I'm on, I'm on, but in the meanwhile, you can find me goofing off with homemade puppets, like a cross between the world's best mom and the children she'd have. Or possibly just a human Muppet.

New and Improved

Joan, Take Back the Night!

It's on: the countdown until the end of the week when the season three premiere of "Mad Men" airs. What comes of the Sterling Cooperites in the year 1964? I'm taking out my excitement about those unsolved mysteries on a tube of Dior lipstick, as I sashay through the office up to no good.

Big Dreams and Why They Are Important

Dear Teacher,

Here is my essay like you asked us to write on Big Dreams and Why They Are Important. Not everybody has the same dream but I have my dream. I am a movie actress and also I am on the television. But not every channel, I don't have that many hours in a day, ha ha! Once I met a boy who told me for his job he sold dreams. I think he is really good at his job and he taught me a lot of things like, Luck plus Preparation. I bet he read books, and we have a lot in common, because so do I.

We all have Big Dreams, like for me it is to get paid so much doing what I love that I can start on my Big Dream List. And that list begins with hot sauce. Here are some of the hot sauces I plan on buying at the store with all my famous actress money:

#1 Sambal. Sambal is so good! I like to make Vietnamese cold noodle dishes with it.
#2 Siracha. Siracha is so good! You can even put it in homemade sushi.
#3 Cholula. Food Mexican.

I think the biggest takeaway of this message is: Shoot for the Stars. Fame is not the point, it is the love of your art. And if you're lucky, you can have spicy food.

Dear Actor's Access

Thank you for letting me submit, but...we need a safe word.

Period Piece Hard

"Oh my gosh, I didn't know what to wear since it was going to be 1960s!" the French baby lady gushed at my audition on Friday. "So to research it, I watched Grease, because that took place then, during 'Flower Power.'" She then modeled her getup: a far cry from the 50s of Grease, the 60s of 'Flower Power,' the 60s that the film actually suggests, or the more modern times the film is actually set in. One thing to do a vintage mash-up, as in a photo shoot I did where the 50s were suggested but not articulated on a literal, exacting level. Another entirely to pick up a banana, and since it is fruit, consider it a pineapple. While those aspiring young actors are out reading their very first tome, may I also recommend a picture book of changing fashions-by-era. "This is 80s!" I imagine little Girleen at a second Industrial Revolution sort of audition. "1880s," sighs the casting director, "Nice neon tights."

Four Syllables Hard

"Let me tell you first how to pronounce this word," the reader at my audition on Friday said. "None of the other actresses knew it." He pointed to the sides: patriarchy. You can't make this kind of thing up, can you? A friend suggested to me that someday, when I'm on a panel at the Screen Actors Guild giving advice to young actors, suggest this: Read a book.

Pony on Stilts

Last night I had a dream about two ponies that had built-in stilts for legs. Then it turned out that one was a man and one a woman, each wearing a pony suit. They danced together while a giant herd of cows came running through the field. This was all some kind of relief, which goes to show you that three days in a cubicle really can make you feel like an animal in a box, chewing on carrots to pass the time.

To Dream the InPotsticker Dream...

Take that, impossibility. I'll opt for the soy sauce.

Things Signs Say: Watch Your Step

Really, you should watch out. If the door is too short for the ground, and you're going to exit with your sexy leg.

Guap

Guapo means "handsome" in Spanish, and refers to quite a pretty penny when spoken as Guap. Referring to a pile of cash that's astronomical in size, when you drop a guap you've laid down a load. I propose some additional conjugations of the word to further its lexicographical use:

$ Guappy. A general insult to the rich, as derived from the playground slang of calling someone a "guppy." "What a tasteless gill-breathing guappy," Cindy declared about Andrea in light of her beige silk couches and veined marble entryway.

$ Guapcamole. When you're so rich you're practically eating your dough. Alternately, a five-star dining experience. "Gee Hank," said Sandy, "I'm sure full of guapcamole after two hours at French Laundry!"

$ Guaptistic. Also used as Adult Guaptism Spectrum Disorder. When someone can only mobilize social skills to serve the gain or use of money. "Stop trading on the stock market and come play with your children," Risa begged Charles. "If you become any more guaptistic I'm going to have to take you off gluten again."

Moose Tracks, or Peanut Butter and Chocolate

Dare I suggest this building is filled with ice cream and the chimney is an industrial blender, ready to produce an abundance of milkshakes?

Grandmationary: The Eel's Hips

Eels don't have hips. Maybe that's why back in 1920 everyone preferred saying "She's the cat's meow." This, however, discounts entirely the fact that the kitten's call can just as easily be irritating as charming. Eels, on the other hand, never need slim down to fit into cigarette pants. Like our runway models, they are the adolescent boys of the animal kingdom. And I suppose that's something to admire; or at least that somebody did, hooting out to a passerby that tidy phrase that goes beyond suggesting what could fill a sushi roll.

Popsicle Makeover

Rebranding sometimes appears to be the action of someone's having dipped too much into the rebrandy. Rather than a hot toddy, the drink's gone completely lukewarm. With an already successful product, the question has to be raised: why the hedgy, impulsive behavior?

The perfection of Palapa Azul coconut popsicles cannot be overstated. They don't contain dairy or highly processed sugars, they're milky and chunky and perfectly shaped, and their flavor is consistent and lush. I knew some of these things from reading the box, but seeing the box, I sensed them all. Exhibit A, outlined in red above: spacious, effervescent use of Helvetica. A hint of a tropical beach through gentle use of color. A clean layout to match my gustatory sensibility (and that of the general Whole Foods demographics).

On the other hand, exhibit B, in which a handwriting font marries an awkward sketched reiteration of a cartoony vacation brochure photo. Our all-natural, un-dyed bar gets bleached, bitten, and angled to employ its blatant sexuality, with two coconut halves to match. Okay, so instead of being urged to "just escape," we're assured we've escaped and it's 100% natural, but we haven't. We're in our overheated apartment inbetween jobs chilling out with an icy snack, and despite the positive messaging, the whole package screams big-box grocery store in a way that makes me suspect I'll get cavities. Like a cute girl in too much makeup, I want to urge Palapa Azul to take a good shower before going out, reassure: You're fantastic just the way you are.

Frozen Smiles

I adore novelty ice: hence the assorted pastel trays filling my freezer. And this product by my design-team darling fills my cup with upper and lower dentures. Thanks for bringing the Grandma to my iced coffee, Fred!

Things Signs Say: Little Girls Only/In the Place Where Words Should Go: Lady

At the Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo, there's one stall in the women's bathroom reserved for the underdeveloped. It reads "Little Girls Only," and comes complete with miniature toilet. Does this stop certain friends of mine from partaking in some tiny joy?

Little girl, fine. But what's with the new use of the word lady? "Hey lady!" chipper urbanites say to one another. "Hey lady!" says even my mother. One thing to call myself a lady; quite another to be greeted as such. To call oneself a lady: comical. To be saluted as one: grating.

Did I just get off the golf course with a fresh manicure and a sensibility as vast as the square footage of a shopping cart? Did I attend a debutante ball and properly breeze through adolescence without a hitch? Am I on an after-office softball team wearing white shorts and a visor, engagement ring pert on my narrow finger? No. I am photographing a small plastic rabbit and thinking up lewd jokes to tell on stage. Girly, maybe...but hardly a lady. And I hold my head high.

Novice Knows Best

The following are some tips and tricks from this newcomer to screenwriting, who after years and years of working in other genres finally has come around to things to be said, not read, on camera. Believe me, dear Reader, after the mere days I have put in, I have got it all figured out. And they said it'd be a challenge!

Rule #1. The book you bought to teach you screenwriting has got a lot of funny words in it. "Make cards with events that happen": ha ha! Everyone knows life is a big muddle of feeling, best expressed by your characters in amorphous vowel-filled sounds.

Rule #2. Alcohols. This word was once spied on my best friend Krista's grocery list. A lot of screenwriters before made lots of drinking, but I don't make any drinking while writing. I make sleeping. It's inevitable that the words will flow effortlessly from my fingertips onto the page if I am not awake for it. Backup plan: hire those monkeys with typewriters to finish for me once they're done with Hamlet.

Rule #3. I know a screenplay's supposed to be 90-120 pages, but isn't the director going to fill up the time with lots of closeups and extra funny bits that he invents on set? The 19 pages I've got will go far...that'll fill an hour and a half, right? And Now For Our Feature Presentation.

Things Signs Say: !!

If you're going to be a good political activist-slash-graffiti artist, you need to have passion. And the only way to display that verve is through the use of multiple exclamation points!! If you were to suggest that you wanted to free Tibet without those top-heavy dash-dots, it would be obvious you don't care. Especially in San Francisco's Mission District, where you tagged your opinion. Obvious!!!

Lady GaGa Finally Caught Up With Me

At least Botox hasn't.

Naked Harry Potter

The new Harry Potter movie campaign promises "Dark Secrets Revealed." I'm hoping that includes an explanation about why my father's ex-wife would take my niece to the New York production of "Equus" that starred Daniel Radcliffe. I know the play is old news, but the fact that my dear child was subjected to multiple acts of naked Harry while seated in the front row...help, Hermione, help!

Vacation Means Never Having To Wear Real Shoes

...But bringing extra pairs anyway to drag around in case of attempt to look like a clothed person.

I Was Invited to a Ladies' Pampering Night

...so I showed up in adult diapers ready to be burped (soybean already lactated for me). How was I to know that it meant peachy gauze tops, Sauvignon Blanc, and making clever, snide quips about men? I was in quite a mood as my nanny strollered me home.

People Use Facebook to Mourn Celebrity Deaths, Celebrate Commercial Holidays

Because nothing says "we connect" like posting YouTube videos of a recently passed rock musician or agreeing that "Dads rule!" Social networking sites: the best place to boil any originality you have down to oft-quoted phrases tweaked slightly by a quirky noun. Or, as of FB's recent policy decision, provide an informative data feed to marketers, newsrooms, and the questionable curious.

Hall(ywood) of Mirrors

Normally I get myself dressed in workout clothes and go to my gym in the morning. This morning, I was instructed to get dressed in workout clothes, go to my gym's parking lot, and ride a shuttlebus to set. On set my role was to appear to come out of a gym after working out. No working out happened there; so when I was wrapped, I went to my real gym for a workout, wearing my real workout clothes that earlier masqueraded as fake ones. ("Is this your real coffee or your prop coffee?" the propmaster asked me in-between takes.) At my real gym for my real workout, a camera crew roamed, filming contestants for a reality show. There I was, real-working out, surrounded by contestants only fake-working out, since they just needed a few minutes of footage here and there. Back at home, I half expected behind the initial walls to lie a team advising me on how to best present, enact myself. "We know the manipulations you need," they'd say, "to be truly authentic."

Lady Fix-It

First comes the gas smell, then the inability to heat toaster waffles in your oven (don't own toaster). The option of bumping yourself off old-school talented writer-style is officially out: these new ovens know to stop the gas flow. Besides, you don't want to get out of a loveless marriage or a spiraling sense of existential doom: you just want a landscape for maple syrup. Did you know there are other options besides calling your management company and wheedling a visit from a handyman out of them? You can use the interwebs to do it yourself!

If you have never taken apart your oven and re-lit the pilot flame on your own, you may feel free to sit back and admire my prowess. Like any true repairperson, I effectively got rust and charcoal all over my clothing, and grit my teeth all purposeful-like while employing my pretty IKEA tools. The trick to find the pilot light is indeed a trick, however. It is not just an obvious spot you place a match to. It is not a button, or a miniature dachshund in an Amelia Earhart cap waving from a model plane that you have to give a biscuit of fire to. If you examine the inside of your oven, you will think it is just urban legend that there even is such a thing: doesn't the heat instead come from the the rubbing together of two thoughts?

In reviewing the various unintelligible diagrams proffered, I realized there was only one thing to do, and that was stir-fry vegetables for lunch. When that was done, I unscrewed the base of the oven floor, unscrewed something that looked like the roof of a little red schoolhouse, and then set about sticking matches into various orifices until something took. Then after I'd put the whole megillah back together again, the light went out. Rinse, repeat. And voila! To fix the stains on my dress, the internet dictated lemon juice. I added water, sugar, and ice cubes. I have good taste in clothing.

Finally, in the order of journalistic honesty, I must confess that it was not toaster waffles I made at all, but the warming of corn tortillas. I abused your love of tree sap, dear reader, to connive you into reading this post. But tortillas, my friend: are they ever good filled with homemade guacamole, cherry tomatoes, and romaine. Are they ever.

Sometimes Your Mother Suggests That You Get Drunk In Order To Manage Your Neck Pain Due to Processing Complex Emotional Issues

And you do.

Symptom and Symptom

Girls, boys, and the gender-free, one of my favorite pastimes is to explore medical diagnoses online. At times it's kind of like watching a liar in action who is open about his fraudulence, and at other times it's like listening to a highly optimistic person suggesting her theory of the universe. Either way: both fiction and comedy.

When a strange rash broke out on my wrists, I wanted to know what other symptoms I might expect. Perhaps the cause lay in an insect bite, an allergic reaction to a flour tortilla, the restructuring of memes dominant in my mind? Some suggestions from the internet included:


Here are what I can only assume are the causes for these ailments:

+ Wrist rash and Abnormal walk:
Overexposure to "The Holy Grail" while reenacting scenes from "Life of Brian."

+ Wrist rash and Abrupt watery diarrhoea:
Inability to spell various bowel movements.

+ Wrist rash and Abscessed teeth:
Vampires that held down victims with rope.
Handcuff-loving dentists.

+ Wrist rash and Absent eyebrows:
Ladies with unattractive extremities don't deserve to have expressions.

+ Wrist rash and Absenteeism in children:
The children got tired and went home. Also, they had fleas.

iPhone Now Omniscient!

The new iPhone 3GS is due to hit stores this Friday the 19th (just in time for my half-birthday, whimsical present-givers!). There are an incredible amount of new features that would have any Apple devotee or just plain human life form drooling and chomping at the bit. These include faster speed, voice control, a 3 MP camera, video recording, Internet tethering, and an internal compass for those of us who don't know north from yesterday's left. A quick glance to the website, however, doesn't fill the consumer in fully on what the phone can do.

Want your heart rate monitored? How about your thyroid? Did your body fat percentage decrease? iPhone acts as your doctor-away-from-HMO. Are you sitting around, wondering when that job offer or red carpet invite will come your way? iPhone can not only see into the future with perfect accuracy, but it also has picked out an outfit for you to wear. When's dinner served? iPhone already made it, and then when the yams burned, ordered you delivery. Then, when you ate too much and went to bed early, iPhone curled up beside you and told you you're pretty.

Sooo worth the upgrade.

Yes, Giant Hamster Billboard, I Submit to You

So big.

Solution 'Stache

Due to the fact that Los Angeles is wont to breed air I am allergic to, I finally purchased an air filter yesterday on my way home from the shoot. Having spent the day in a fake mustache, I wondered why allergens couldn't just get trapped there and leave my respiratory system alone. Even more frightening than lame coughing attacks that make me look like I am about to asphyxiate, however, are the pictures and language on the side of the air filter box. Smoke! Mold spores! Dust mite debris! Next to disarmingly creepy images are descriptions of these intruders, with key words highlighted so that from a distance or if you have eyesight troubles you will know what's what. WEEDS RODENT DANDER DEAD SKIN or FECES SALIVA PIPES... Yet, nestled in the midst of this real-live ghost story is an image of a cheery Golden Retriever and his tabby friend. Look above them: cancerous wisps! Look below: an insect that looks like a man-eating pimple! One wonders if the manufacturer thinks seemingly lovable pets are actually demons trapped inside soft fur. Like a slow child I want to rescue them from this bad company. Perhaps like me they too could don facial hair, and at least temporarily, hide out.

Hidden Gem for You

Netflix, you see that I enjoyed such quirky half-hour comedic episodics such as "Flight of the Conchords" and "30 Rock." In both, there are awkward protagonists in cute glasses! And I am a fan of that charming documentary "The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill" as well as that New Zealander masterpiece "Eagle vs. Shark." I love birds, whether real or just as felted costumes worn by humans in love! Yes: clearly I would enjoy watching footage of Nazis pillaging works of art throughout Europe in a movie with "rape" in the title. Q.E.D.