So don't know if you had a chance to read the previous blog, but I was cast with this piece in the essay show "Listen to Your Mother".  Information/blog about the show and the cast announcement is at the link below.

http://listentoyourmotherla.blogspot.com/2011/04/cast-announcement-ltym-11-los-angeles.html

This is something I wrote for the upcoming show Listen to Your Mother.


The idea sucks all the air out of my body, and I come to in the middle of Trader Joe’s crying in front of butternut squash ravioli. 

My momma, how will I live without my momma.  I feel like I won’t.  Like that is the moment when I will just stop, when I won’t feel like doing or fighting or being what I want anymore.  That I will just curl up into a ball and shatter into a thousand pieces of grief.  That the world around me will no longer have the depth and joy that it did.

My mom thinks this is hilarious.  “Gillian you’re being over-dramatic.  It’s just a part of life.”

“Mom!”

“What”

“Mom.”

“Jill there’s nothing you can do about it.  I’m not sick. I’m just getting older.”

“I hate it!”

“Me too.”

I come home and see grey I didn’t see before.  Movements that feel slower. 

What will I do?  What will I do when she is gone? This woman who can scoop me up in a way no one else can.  Fathers and lovers and brothers and friends can hold me tight, but she can hold me tighter.  This Southern woman with a soothing cadence that says, “What is it honey?” and I know it doesn’t matter what “it” is, but just that she is and I am and that she pats me the way she always does. One two three.  Rub.  And I let go.

Gillian, she isn’t dying.  I know! I’m just…I’m getting older too. 

I want more, and I want her to hold my babies if I have them.  But I feel like time is running away from me and her and all of us.

I'm on the 10 year plan. And by 10 year plan, I mean in 10 years I'm gonna say, “Shit, I forgot to have kids. Time to steal a baby.”

I mean the only way I'm going to intentionally get pregnant is by accident. Whoops! Thought my IUD was my tampon.

I want to be the movie star I know I am, in time for her to see it.  And I want to be as rich as I know I will be, in time to give her things that are so expensive they seem magical.  I want to come into my moment now, so I have the freedom to find more moments with her.  So that I am free to scoop her up when the time comes that she needs me.  So I can hold her tighter.  One two three. Rub. “What is it momma?”

And then I come to in the middle of Trader Joe’s crying in front of butternut squash ravioli.

“I’m fine.  I just feel strongly about winter vegetables.”

So I am a fan of curly fries, just as much as the next person.  But perhaps there is a boundary to how far one should really go.  Last weekend there were terrible storms in LA.  As usual we had no food in our house.  So the roomie and I decided to make a trip to Arby's.  We debated on Panera, but Arby's was closer.
We are in line at the drive thru behind a big white van.  We are watching this awning filp back and forth off the building and thinking, "Man that thing looks like it's going to fly off."  A pro-active person, or perhaps a movie hero like Tom Cruise or Daniel Craig, would have probably taken some action to remove him self from the danger.  We are not movie heroes, not yet anyway. 
Sure enough the awning flies off the building and into the van in front of us.  Pieces of building come off into the man's driver's side window, and he is just stuck there underneath this thing.  This giant brown Arby's awning.  You know like the kind that has a metal frame.  Not little.  Huge.  Heavy.  I being a comic start cracking jokes that this would be the perfect time for an earthquake to happen.  "Doesn't that suck?  How's that dude going to get out from there?"  I'm looking at it just kind of dumbfounded, when the wind picks up the awning.  I'm watching it fly right into my windshield, and my face.  I scream.  My roomie turns to see what's happening.  It's like I'm in an action movie.  Something is flying at me requiring action, but all I do is scream and cover my face. The awning hits my windshield, and splits in three places right down the middle.  We go inside to give the woman our contact information and get the name of the manager.  And the clencher, she charges us for our food.  No free curlies at Arby's hell no.  An Arby's can attack you but you better be ready to pay for that Beef n' Cheddar.  Now, that's customer service.
And yes, they are paying for the new window, not the fries, but the window.  I mean if I had to choose.  I'd pick the window.

So due to the incessant boredom that comes with hours and hours of filing, I have been listening to radiolab.org at work.  If you don't know radiolab is a radio show a la "This American Life", but through the filter of science.  Holy hannah people, I was a little bit sad before I started listening but listening to consecutive episodes breaking down all magic things in life into a series of evolutionary or mathematical realities put me in one hell of a moody spin.  I still like radiolab, but it incredible clear to me why I am not a scientist.  For example, cancer that you can catch.  Well Tasmanian Devils can catch to be exact, BUT who knows when it will hit humans.  Or the man who could only orgasm from safety pins.  WHAT?!  True. 
Flies that borrow in heads, suicide, and man accidentally cutting down the oldest tree ever, being alive and dead, absolutely only randomness, and on and on and on...where questions like the divine and destiny and manifestation are killed hour long scientific deaths.  Sigh.  Now I'm going to listen to another episode. :)

Did a showcase at Flappers last night in Burbank.  I love the name of that club.  Nothing make me thing of comedy like the 1920s.  It was a great show and thanks to Dave Neiker for putting it on.  Had a blast.
Earlier in the week I forgot what a tic tac was.  I'm chalking it up to fatigue.  I had to actually google "tic tak" and click on the images link to remember what a tic tak was, and even then I looked at the pictures and my brain thought, "Gillian are you sure that's a tic tak?  It's not really ringing a bell."  The hypochondriac part of me is convinced I have a brain disorder.  The normal part of me is considering the proposition and will get back to the hydrochondriac part of me.  Yep, I just typed hydrochondriac.  Not hypochondriac...more evidence to be submitted.

So I went to an open mic at Cafe 212 last night.  I had already hit an mic in the valley, but I was being hard core and decided to hit two.  Anyhey, I get there after sign up has started and I am #25 on the list.  It was 8:45pm.  I was like "okay, I will get up at like 11:30.  Three hours later it is time for me to go up...The girl before is about to go.  I have sat through three hours of open mic comedy, which is similar to sitting through a high school pep rally, awful.  I am 3 minutes away from touching the mic.  When bam, the girl before me pulls out the mic from the stand and the sound system blows.  She throws a fit, and refuses to do her set.  The host turns and looks at me like, "What about you will please distract and keep this going?"  Hell Yeah!  So I waited three hours to do my set screaming at a 24 hour coffee shop.  HIGHLIGHT.  Reminder: I will not try and double up on mics unless they are close to my house.

All right...so I watch my fair share of the boob tube.  I don't actually own a TV.  What?  I know, but here's the thing.  Almost everything is online.  Assuming you are patient.
My question is...am I wasting precious time in SYFY shows?  DO I just think this is somehow a relaxing past time but it is getting in the way of my productivity and therefore preventing me from living my destiny.  Is the BBC a roadblock to fortune and glory?  Has Harry's Law stopped me from blossoming?  Katy Perry says I am a firework, is House Hunters International squelching my fire?
I find the idea interesting that the industry I am a part of my be sucking away needed hours from getting work in the industry I am a part of.  Yeah! Take that meta.
I try and justify it by saying it is research.  But I don't watch stand-up.  I actually rarely watch comedy's.  I love SYFY.  The day I'm cast on a SYFY show I will invent a new dance for all the world called the "Nerdbird", and I will dance it in all the nations.  See just another reason to cast me...the "Nerdbird".
Who knows anybody?

You know how normal people struggle with going to the gym?
That's how I feel about open mics.  I just don't even consider the gym.  Let's be serious.  The mic is like my homework.  I kick and scream about doing it, but if I just go, I usually like it.  When I'm done I feel accomplished.  It helps me learn...blah blah blah and other metaphors applicable to homework.
If you don't know the open mic deal, basically you get there super early, sign up on a list, and wait for your 3-5 minutes of glory.  When I say "wait", I mean "WAIT" for sometimes like 3 hours.  It's clear why my body is resistant to mics, but I keep telling myself if someone said to you, "If you do this for a year with commitment, you will get everything you want professionally."  Of course, no one has exactly said that and we all know the is no guarantee.  But Jerry Seinfeld did say and I'm paraphrasing, "If you work hard and you're good.  You'll find work."  So...he's somebody.  I'm trying a new mic tonight, Hallenbeck in North Hollywood.  I shall report back.

Seriously, I do not know how people do it.  I mean I guess I've done it before, but I am so tried trying to run two careers.  I mean holy moly.  I guess it's like having kids.   I'm ready for my baby to grow up and take care of itself.

But I'm gaining speed.  My body is adjusting to my new hours, and I am rolling down a hill at your face.

In other news I will be at Soapbox Sessions tonight working on some new material.  Who doesn't want to listen to this lady fight through to greatness.  Do it.

So I moved to LA about 3 months ago.  I currently have in my checking account $5.88.  What?! Yep. 

I'm not saying it as some sort of "poor me" situation.  I think it's amazing.  I did not have enough money to put gas in my car last week.  So I just drove it until I ran out...on the 170 highway.  Luckily I have a support system that is willing to jump in and save me at 10:30 a night on the middle of a median (thank you Annabeth) or fill up my tank (thank you Aunt Leslie). 

I'm not starving.  I have a bed, and I get my first paycheck on Friday!  But the most awesome thing about this situation is that I am adding to my legend.  Some day when people are talking about my road to fame they will say, "Well she didn't even have enough money to put gas in her car." 

You know, like they always talk about Jewel living in her car, or Charlize Theron, or Daniel Craig living on people's couches.  Yes, I am basically saying I am Daniel Craig without the steely gaze, however my abs are similarly hot, well...close.

And I am an actor willing to live with less at the moment to gain more.  Yeah!  Let's do this thing.