On Despair in Los Angeles or; CAN I HAZ EMPLOYMENT

(Written July 12th, 2013)

IMPORTANT TO NOTE: my last Westward Hoe post was dated 10 months ago and elaborated on the freedom of getting off food stamps. Moreover, getting off food stamps, off unemployment and starting a steady job in a better apartment.  That Westward Hoe was growing up! Things were moving in such an upward direction, I clearly felt no more need to blog on the trials and struggles of a gutsy, dream-filled move to Los Angeles. I was done--victorious, and literally in the sunset of my year-long day in the Los Angeles sun (good metaphor? great metaphor?)

JULY 2012. SO SMUGLY HAPPY.

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JULY 2013. SO CONFUSED WITH OWN FAILURE.

Granted, I'm not dead, nor have I resorted to stripping. I have a smattering of good palz in LA and a wonderfully grounded and adorable boyfriend, which is arguably harder to obtain than a job. Things could be worse. But since being laid off of my flexible-well-paying-non-service-industry-job, the struggle to find employment again has chipped away at what I thought was my pervading Ali-ness, my steel curtain of optimism--a spiral which I'm trying desperately to reverse before I start blaming "The City of LA" for my struggles like every other jaded weirdo here does. An overview of my mourning process goes as such:

DENIAL: Of being upset with losing my job. Will not waste and time feeling sorry for myself, instead be proactive about getting a new job in the blink of an eye. It's meant to be! Now I can focus on my ACTING AND WRITING CAREER. The perfect ending to Act One of my life-screenplay! Er.

ANGER: At not being able to find new job right away. 

BARGAINING STAGE 1: No writing/marketing jobs coming through right away. Maybe I'll have to go back to nannying for a little bit to make money!

BARGAINING STAGE 2: Nanny families seem not to need my services currently. What-EVER. Those rich kids don't deserve my pointed midwest wisdom. Maybe I'll have to go back to waitressing!

BARGAINING STAGE 3. Strangely, not hired at all-African-American bar. Or 3 other bars. Maybe I'll accept this job selling salon coupons for a lady I met on the street!

Realization this job will make me feel worse about self than currently do.

DEPRESSION FOREVER.

Every job or opportunity that doesn't come through confuses me. Is it me? I thought, or I was pretty sure that I was one of the best people ever. I don't know if I've been unemployed for 3 months (while trying) before.

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One particular waitstaff interview really got me down. Yesterday, I went to an open call interview. The boss asked if I was an actress (normally I would have said "no", but I've been going through a renaissance where I think it will be better for my psyche to admit to myself and others that I was an actress, and not just a writer who performed. Right.) and proceeded to make me feel like a lobotomized turkey for the remainder of the interview. I felt so upset afterwards that I got in my car and drove to Venice, not knowing how else to handle my helplessness.

Venice is a very cool but extremely inconvenient to get to part of Los Angeles. In my state of despair,  the hippie/fuck-da-man/beach bum mentality that pervades along the Venice coast seemed to be the best medication.

Walking on the dirty beach, with homeless people sleeping and seagulls picking at garbage, and nothing but the Pacific Ocean stretching onto infinity, I kicked at the sand.   The wind picked up and the skies grew gray. People started to leave the beach. It began to sprinkle, but didn't rain. I stayed out by the water.

The wind was a torrent of darkness, among the gusty trees
-- The Highwayman, Alfred Noyes

When I'm around nature, when waves crash in a dramatic fashion, everyday pain seems more insignificant. I told myself that when I moved out here, my only goal was to not get jaded.

I live in California. And by the water, I feel possibility once again.

An Important Update

Dear friends and readers,





I AM NO LONGER ON FOOD STAMPS.





Looks like I've made it. Look how far I've come my babbiiiesss glad I didn't listen. To all those people who said I'd never be off food stammmps.
They saiiid, I betttt, she'll never make it (off of food stamps) but just look at me going strong. I'm still the one! I'm still the one that buys myyyy---egg white cartons and buys my bacoooon. I'm still the one that feeeds myseeeelfffff.

This is for you, high school self. I never wanted to let you down.

11 months in Los Angeles/25 Years on Earth

Happy Summer Readers and Friends!!!!

Did anyone accomplish anything this summer? That makes one of you. I can sum up my LA summer pretty easily here. As that dude says, no use complaining! The White Sox are still in first place, I got to perform in front of a paying audience again, I may have tricked some people here in to liking me or hanging out with me--overall, I'm reaching one year in LA without feeling like a jaded nomad, wandering Sunset Blvd, wondering why I moved here. That was goal number one.

Also, I live on a block with this guy, chained to a fence. Life is never boring.

Terrifies me every time I walk by.

I am still nannying, but getting a little tired of my boss asking me how long I'm giving myself here to "make it" before I give up, while she online shops and I cut apples and think up activities for her 3 spoiled (though adorable) kids.

There's also something about turning 25 that has brought life into a bit of a focus. 25 is not early 20s. My goals have shifted from 'work anything but a 9-5 job, 'explore and meet people', 'travel and live a poor but exciting life' to 'MONEY WANT MONEY WANT CLOTHES WITHOUT HOLES IN THEM.' Thus, I will attempt next to do so (while still pursuing all my very special dreams.) Stay tuned for that?

I like to use this blog to remind myself that I am, as always, "a piece of shit" to motivate myself to do things that indicate otherwise, but since last week was my birthday, I'll let myself off the hook. I think I'm doing okay here. I think I understand the energy and pulse of Los Angeles, and I think I've managed to be myself, and 'myself' has found a way to meet people here who aren't miserable (LA can make people, especially actors and comedians, miserable). Granted, its only year 1, but thinking about where I was a year ago, I can say I've definitely grown up. Quite a deal, actually. How terrifying, right?

The thing, here, (and maybe in life?) is that when you get what you want or accomplish a goal, there's always another step. It's nice when you can bask in it a little while (or a long while), and think to yourself, I think "I did something right." "I think my life today is better than yesterday." But my Mom will always be calling, asking me what I'm doing do better myself and career and I know that what I've done isn't enough. Until I sit up on top of Chateau Marmont, dripping in my riches and laughing at how I fooled everyone here into turning my quirks into a career, it will not be enough. And as God is my witness, I WILL get off of food stamps.

Sometime in mid-June, I rolled out of bed and realized I had to pick up keys from my roommate, who works in Beverly Hills. Without showering or thinking twice about my appearance, I ended up parked a block away from Rodeo Drive.

The exquisite shops of Rodeo Drive.

The glamorous people of Beverly Hills.

Me. 

That's how I like to sum up Ali in Cali, Year 1. There's something very delightful and comforting about it.

I STILL HAVE A BLOG GUYS

6/20/12

Bet you all forgot I had a blog! Well, I sort of forgot too.  But friends, I'm not giving up on it, so you all still get to deal with the blog named for the greatest wordplay I've ever come up with.

Quick update since my last post: no longer live with 5 other girls. Have my own room. So now I can start sleeping with some assistants and climbing to the top! I now nanny instead of waitress, thus; I feel that I've graduated from The Scum On Society's Loafers to Lint in Society's Overcoat. That is an important difference, guys, take note.

I would post some pictures of the adorable kids I take care of, but I'm also sort of terrified of the rich parents somehow finding out and suing me for exploitation, so SORRY.

Somewhere in between there I ALMOST got an internship on the Sony lot, but then lost it when I chased Leo Dicaprio around a studio space (or a more boring, bureaucratic reason). I could have easily applied for another one after, but I managed to turn "the process of moving" from a one week excuse into a one month vacation to myself for accomplishing nothing. It's the sunshine guys, makes it hard to work.

Perhaps I'll expound on some of this, and maybe not! Maybe OTHER stories will present themselves first. Guess we'll see.

Forever yours,

Westward Hoe

I-90

This bus drive from Chicago to Madison in early May is pure magic. I’ve driven from Illinois to Wisconsin on I-90 hundreds of times in my life, since I was little, but I’m now realizing the drive never feels exactly familiar. I assume its I-90, but how can one differentiate this stretch of road with clumps of trees and farms from any other in this part of Wisconsin? Once in a while, a small river passes by, catching the late afternoon sun, and for a second the river blazes silver. These clouds! Let me tell you. These large, high clouds are so particularly midwest. On the west coast the clouds are low-shrouding blankets. Here, their height gives one an impression of the space between the heartland and the heavens. Of the infinite possibilities. Are you all getting this??

I wonder what California natives would think of all this, if it would seem boring or as beautiful and invigorating as I find it.  So many times I rode this bus in college, and each 3 hour ride seemed to fill my head with all the fire and emotion of whatever I was going through at the time. My first year, after failing an audition, I remember my eyes filling with tears, and whimpering (rejection for 18 years olds is hard!) for the first hour on the bus. Then, slowly, I calmed down, and by the end of the drive, I felt rejuvenated by the green land that sometimes rolled, sometimes stayed flat, mixing evergreens and oaks. The bus continued to speed forward, while a song played on my ipod and reminded me that I could someday “be someone, be someone.”

I haven’t written in this blog in awhile. Clearly, I need long drives and flights to inspire me. I’m always the driver in California, blasting one of my many scratched mixed CDs, while trying to master art of LA traffic (cutting people off). The second three months have been difficult in LA, but even at its roughest points, I never forgot why I moved out there. I remind myself always, always, to never give up. There is always another day to fight, even if I don’t have my friends and family around me. 

Sometimes I don't understand how people grow out of things. The things in my life that I love right now are things that I’ve loved forever. I love baseball and I love Titanic and I love the Great American Anthem “Fast Car”, because it feels like life, and life is struggle, and it's beautiful because it's a struggle.  I love this drive and I love my friends so much that it hurts. Even when they stress me out. The sun is continuing to lower and making the fields and trees glow gold and I feel so rich right now. So goddamned lucky.

The Art of the Pity Party (DMV edition)

(DISCLAIMER: This post was written in mid February and I just forgot to complete it, so adjust your mind accordingly)

After my first few months in Los Angeles went down surprisingly easily, the last month since winter break has been a TAD rough.

Before I go on any further, I'll just put it out there that I pride myself on being someone for whom things don't get too rough for. Things get me down, obviously, and I wallow in it for an hour or so, get bored of feeling that way, and then bounce back. But the last two weeks have been a test of that, and it all culminated with a trip to the DMV.

Aside from taking it upon myself to work one million hours last week (cry me a river, I know) --on my one free day, I went to the DMV to get my car registered.

The DMV is one of those institutions that no one could possibly have a good experience at, despite an unwavering optimist like myself's best efforts.  You know a few things going in: you are going to have to wait a long time, you are going to fill out a lot of boring paperwork and the only thing to break up the monotony of waiting in the most sterile, institutional room known to modern architecture, is encountering a variety of crazy people there. I thought that last thing might at least make the experience interesting--where else is a shoeless hippie and a rich executive forced to wait in the same small enclosed space for so long? This very dynamic was revealed as soon as I started to wait on line at the Santa Monica DMV, when I heard two rich older gentlemen hatching a plan to use their senior citizen status to somehow cut in line. Classic. Not TODAY, gents.

Long story short, aside from a crazy woman screaming at a DMV attendant, the wait was boring and dragged on even longer than I anticipated. The most hilarious part of this wait period is that there is a digital screen at the front of the room which flashes the expected wait time. SANTA MONICA EXPECTED WAIT TIME 1 HOUR 45 MINUTES. But. They also feel the need to flash the expected wait time at other DMV locations, such as CULVER CITY EXPECTED WAIT TIME: 0 MINUTES. Like they have to rub it in your face that you chose the wrong DMV to go to, and its too late at this point to change that fact, so all you can do is imagine what it's like at the amazing Culver City location where there is no wait time and most likely everyone is getting free cider and red velvet cupcakes.

After one hour and 55 minutes, my name was finally called, and I bounded up to the desk, excited and ready to go, showing the clerk that the long wait of sitting next to the unhappiest people in the world didn't phase me, and that no beaurocratic institution will turn me into every other dejected, tired figure walking out of the DMV doors. No it won't!

And then I found out that my 2 hour wait had been in vain, for I needed to get a Smog Test before being registered. What the hell is that? Never heard of a Smog Test before and I didn't know whether to blame my parents, teachers or the state of Illinois for never warning me of this.

I could get my smog test done at the gas station down the road and I could pay now if I wanted to. My mother had warned me it might be $100, which I had mentally prepared for the entire night before. Instead, the cost for the privilege of registering your car in California is $220, and the smog test would be an additional 50. This is where my Nothin' Getting Me Down Attitude started to break down a little bit. I had worked overtime so I could finally go shopping and buy clothes and shoes that didn't have holes in them, so that I could at least pretend to walk throughout Los Angeles like the self-respecting Westward Hoe that I know DEEP DOWN I AM.  Instead I would have to work more shifts the next week and sacrifice more valuable screenwritin' time.

I drove to the the damn Smog Test station, and paid the attendant with what I expect was the most pitiful, defeated expression possible on my face. And then I went to have my pity party on a brown metal chair while they looked at my car. I sat in the hot sun, sweating, dirty, knowing I wouldn't have time to shower before work, knowing that I was a 24-year old piece of shit who was getting slapped in the face with real life. I wanted to cry about how HARD it all was and then I wanted to cry about what a wimp I was being.
Deciding I was hungry, I went to get a snack at the gas station next to the Smog test station. I picked up a granola bar and waited behind three older women with big sunglasses who were crossing their arms and tapping their feet, waiting for  a small, Arabian man who was trying to fix their credit card transaction.
"It's like we're being held hostage here," one woman muttered.

"I am trying to fix, try card again,"the man pleaded.

The machine wouldn't work and with every passing minute the women became more aggravated and more antagonistic toward the poor gas station attendant. It was truly awkward to watch.
Finally, they left and the man cried "I have one more customer like this, I die."
I told him I was happy to pay with cash and I was sorry they were so rude.

He genuinely seemed relieved that I too was not biting his head off, and when I finally left once my car passed the smog test, he gave me an appreciate wave.

So herein lies my thesis statement, or statements. No one cares about your pity party. Everyone is too busy having their own pity party. And no matter how bad your day is, someone else's day is worse. So you can either add to their problems, or you can try and find the strength to be a human and make someone else's day more bearable. Of course these women didn't see it as this man's pity party, they saw it as their own. Maybe they all were having bad days, maybe they had to wait at the DMV for two hours and all they wanted was a coffee and to leave, and this man got in their way. And that's one of the first things I've encountered moving to LA, or maybe its just growing up.  Everyone's problems mount as they get older, and so its not as easy to make other people's lives easier when you are too busy struggling with your own.

But as I drove home and hit rush hour traffic, I started to feel really, really good knowing that I had found it in myself to be nice to this dude. I was the BEST. I hit the corner of Santa Monica and ran into this.

Everyone was honking and you could see the frustration in every car because, what else is worse in Los Angeles than traffic like this. But at this point, I was laughing and bouncing to music, thinking--its 75 degrees! What is everyone so upset about?

After battling traffic, I went to work, and work was terrible, despite my revamped attitute and I wanted to get out early and just fall asleep. Alas, I lost a coin toss with my coworker and I had to stay until close. I was tired and dirty and had made no money. I dragged my defeated body Denny's and stuffed food into my mouth, not knowing what to take away from this day--whether my "good attitude" would carry itself through my life in Los Angeles or whether growing up meant being pissed off a lot and upset like everyone else.

All I ended up with while walking home was knowing that we're not kids anymore and we don't have time to feel sorry for ourselves when everyone else is making It happen despite life throwing the odds against them.

And I went to bed, ready to take on the next day.

What I've learned after 4 months in LA

Alright! Two posts in one night! Looks like that Monday advice was the best thing ever!

Since the point of this blog was to relay my new LA life to my frendz and fam from home, let's quit anymore foreplay and get right to it!

4 THINGS I'VE LEARNED AFTER 4 MONTHS IN LA

1. People in LA aren't flaky, you just have to drive everywhere.

Unrelated, but how cool is this Mad Men advertisement on Sunset Blvd?!?

I'm convinced that 90% of the 'laid back' and 'flaky' traits that get attached to Southern California are due to the traffic.

If you don't live down the block from a friend or associate, you have to drive. Sometimes in rush hour. This means an automatic 45-60 minutes in the car. So "I'd love to see you soon" often becomes "I'll see you when our hangout becomes worth 60+ minutes of my fucking traffic time. See? Los Angeles people are actually wonderful!

Also, people don't get mad at you if you are late for class or work or a meeting because you always have the excuse of "I got stuck in traffic". And everyone buys this excuse because it's true all the time. Which is why it's extra amazing when you decide to sleep in and your boss/teacher is like "Poor girl, I bet it's the traffic."

2. People in LA aren't superficial, they just can't help that movie stars are bred here.

Angelinos (sorry for that using that term) might tend towards a more image-obsessed lifestyle, but only in the sense that East Coasters 'tend' towards a snobby and cynical lifestyle and midwesterners tend towards a fat and naive lifestyle. They're just stereotypes with some slight truth basis in some places.

That being said when the stereotypes are true, then are hilarious and wonderful. The people here who are the most obsessed with working out are definitely the men. I've met several males who do marathons and Iron Men ...ALL THE TIME. That is what they do with their lives. For a living. One said "I was acting for a while, but now I just train for marathons." You've got me.

3. Everything is an opportunity.

If you're trying to "make" it in LA or even if you're NOT trying to make it in LA, you will come across someone who wants to put you on TV. I don't mean they always actually want to put you on TV, they just will very obliquely insinuate it. For instance, when I was waitressing 2 month ago, I served 3 older, distinguished looking gentlemen who thought I was the most charming person they'd ever come met.
I can't remember the exact words exchanged, but I bet it sounded something like this:

Gentleman 1: Hey waitress, it's a little chilly out here, don't you think?

Me: You know, it sure is! How about I turn these heat lamps on!

Gentleman 2: Heat lamps? That's incredible!

Me: Well boys, I'm a solution-finder! (Stop groaning)

Gentleman 3: You're very animated. Are you an actress?

Me: An actress? Oh heck no! That crazy business? I'm trying to be a screenwriter!

G2: A writer, eh? That can be a lonely life.

Me: Well golly! That's why I also do improv!!!! So I can LAUGH and don't have to take myself too seriously all the time!!

G3: Wow! You've got quite a business going on! Do you know that my friend here is a producer?

Me: Uh..what? Cool, I mean, why would I be interested in that?

G1: Here's my card.

(Instead of taking his card so I have his information I stupidly write down my information on the card instead and give it to him)

G1: Are you looking for employment opportunities outside this job?

Me: Errr, not really. I'd prefer to be a waitress my whole life. Not interested.

Me: JUST KIDDING!

G2: Hahaha! What a charmer! We would love to be in touch with you. Start preparing your academy award speech!

Me: You guys, stop! Here I just thought it was a normal day and look how my life is changing!

END SCENE

Alright, I exaggerated most of that, but the point is. Even though those guys DIDN'T end up contacting me (I should have taken that fucking card) maybe they would have. Or maybe someday they'll be desperate, find my card and call my number. Probably not, but the point is everything is an opportunity. And while you are trying to make whatever aspirations come true through actual hard work, little opportunities like that make every day a little more exciting.

And lastly,
4. Los Angeles is a city like any other city it's just warmer and some people here make movies.

The End.

EVERYONE'S MOVING OUT HERE? GREAT!!!

No seasonal depressive disorder in these parts!