Monday, November 29, 2010

Joe Rogan and brandy alexanders

OK. I'm sorry. This blog was supposed to be sexy, and dating and NOW. Here, now - in Hollywood. And, instead, I get bogged down in the past - and CLEARLY I'm not ready to write about it anyway!
SO...tonight.....a rock band just left my house. With all the noisy turmoil that one would associate with a rock band. One hour ago, my house was filed with song. Literally. Three young gods were singing vocal excersizes all over the house in the same key - and to someone listening in a room removed, it sounded like it was all composed - as if for a film. Punctuated with laughter and things banging every once in awhile - (perhaps gear being packed?) - and the thing is - who could ask for anything MORE fun than that? REALLY.
It is my son, Max's, band. I guess I can't really call them a rock band. They are an evolution. They are morphed and evolved into something different. The press has called them "Electro-indie-Hop". And they even have a song thusly titled. It is maybe my favorite of their songs, because it is HIGHLY danceable. It's one of those songs that BEGS you to dance. Insists upon it.
Anyway, they are now gone - off to a show at the Key Club on the Sunset strip. I wonder sometimes if they even realize how coveted a gig like this is to other fledgeling bands around the country. They are at that point where they take it for granted. Maybe that's good, or maybe it's really bad. I'm not sure. I feel like I was taking a lot of things for granted at their age. And it wasn't good.

Flash back to my Joe Rogan story. Which I am reminded of because I saw him recently at my friend's awesome event called 'Comedy is Dead' - a stand-up comedy event at the Masonic Lodge at Forever Hollywood cemetery. Jay (my friend) does all these AMAZING things at this cemetery space close to my house. Including a stand-up night that has gotten better and better....it is one of the best kept "secrets" in town! And I have been going since the first one.
Well, right before Thanksgiving, I was planning to go - happened to look at the line-up (I never do - always know it will be stellar) and saw, to my surprise, Joe Rogan on the line up. I laughed out LOUD sitting at my computer screen - happy to remember one of the very best hollywood stories I have ever lived through. Sue me if you will, Joe. It happened.

Shortly after my third child was born, I found myself with a heroin addict for a husband/father and had to pay the bills after he moved out. Luckily I was still in the game and auditioning all the time. I reference the month of september, many moons ago. I was breast feeding my darling little Sophie, and therefore had a "killer" body. Slim, curvy, with big (temporary) breasts. And I got this job on a pilot called 'Hardball'. The name makes me laugh as I write it. But it was real. And my role was that of "Snow-cone", the role of Joe Rogan's ditzy, hot girl interest. To my credit, the producers liked me enough to write me in for couple more episodes and give me a real name - but that's not important. Or fun.
The fun part is that Joe was newly into town, and this was his BIG debut. His whole family came out for the taping of the pilot, and I met a bunch of them. Not because we were dating - we barely knew each other - but just because he decided to introduce me.
Now...for those of you reading this who have not been on a sitcom set - I'll fill you in. This was filmed on the same lot as 'Seinfeld'. Great lot. Up in Studio City. And on a live sitcom set there are often these "quick-change" little temporary booths if you will, set up all over the stage, that look like little tents, depending on the amount of quick changes that have to be done in the course of the live taping. It's much like a theatre gig. Quick changes off-stage - only in theatre, you often have to get down to your skivies, or down to nothing, in front of fellow actors, because there just isn't time or space....in TV land - people are afraid of getting sued, so there is always a tiny little changing tent.
On taping day - or rather evening - the cast and crew of 'Hardball' was in a PICKLE. The air conditioning wasn't working, and our audience was leaving in droves. The producers offered free pizza, and co-ersed people off the street to come in and sit through this baseball comedy being directed by a sitcom dinasour/legend. I could have sued this legend if I'd been more savvy. He kept referring to me as "tits" and saying horribly masochistic/sexist things to me. Instead, I grinned and bore it. I NEEDED the dough. I was suddenly the single mother of THREE. COUNT 'EM....THREE. One still breast feeding, which, I was sure, was why I got the job.
So, we're all running around sweating during the live taping....no AC, and a whole cast of BASEBALL players and ME. I was the second of only TWO ladies cast in this thing - the second is Alexandra Wentworth. Very mean to me. Did not like her. Look her up, imagine 25 guys in the cast + her and I, and see what I'm talking about.
Joe was ,well, showing interest in me during rehearsal. I think. It was confusing, because - he told me a whole lot about himself, how he got there, his girlfriend, or X-girlfriend or whatever she was - and his family coming out - but expressed NO interest in my info whatsoever. I assumed he DID NOT know I was a mother, for instance, or any thing else relevant about me. In fact, it was inceredibly confusing - dealing with him. He talked a mile minute. Which could be just New York, or could be the sign of a major coke-head.
THe taping went as well as it could, considering. The poor make-up people were running around trying to powder down the actors as fast as they could. No AC on this set was a DISASTER, September in LA might as well be August. And I had a couple of changes, as did Joe.
So, as i was running around the set to my next change/entrance, a hand reaches out of one of these little tents and grabs me.
"Jennifer", I hear, in a recognizable New York accent.
I am pulled into Joe's changing tent. During the live taping. Cameras rolling. Audience sweating in their seats.
And there he is.
Joe Rogan. Who no-one very MUCH knows at this point in his career. Pretty fresh and young. And.....HUNG.
THERE HE IS. Completely naked. Grabbing my wrist and looking very proud of himself - which, in hindsight, I guess he had every right to do.
He had a rock hard body. Absolutely. Just PERFECT....no-one in their right mind could utter a critisism of that body. AND....he had a rock hard hard-on. I will tell you right here and now in this blog that Joe Rogan has a giant and well functioning cock. Dick. Penis. What have you. There is no argument. His wife is a lucky lady.
It WAS an odd move, though. At least in my book. I mean, in retrospect, I wish more guys had the (pardon the pun) balls to do what he did. At least I knew everything was working and that I would have been dealing with TOP merchandise had I taken him up on what SEEMED like an offer....
I didn't know what to do or how to react. I was racing to a quick-change, too, after all....and I didn't fancy him. He felt too brash, too ego-centric for my taste. And in the face of this EXTRAORDINARY "offer"....I just laughed. I laughed.
Joe Rogan - if you ever read this (I doubt you will) - you are something else! What a great body you had. ALL of it. I mean, it was like a statue of an African God or something. I will never forget your rock hard body or your crazy big erect penis staring me down. And I'm sorry that I laughed. Your giant balls - both figurative and literal - have earned my respect. No WONDER you went on to host 'Fear Factor'!!! YOU were the perfect man for the job!!!
And though we never dated - I sort of wished we had. You might have spared me from a fate worse than .....well, worse than the biggest dick I've ever seen, anyway.
Thank you, Joe Rogan. Thank you for the compliment, and thank you for the story.

Saturday, November 20, 2010

your kisses. (a work in progress)

your kisses make the world around me melt like the chalk world in Mary Poppins when it starts to rain.
your kisses make the world inside of me melt like golden honey.
your kisses taste like home, and love and life.
your kisses make the lines blur between sex and love, between real and fiction.
when you hold me in your arms and kiss me nothing matters and all is better than anything has a right to be. and yet it feels so right.
your kisses should be illegal and expensive, but they are free and we're not getting tossed into jail.
your kisses should be holy and untouchable - like Jesus on the cross, but they are close and fine and of this earth - begging for touch, demanding it.
your kisses make me strong, and safe and warm and sure. they make me hungry,starving, no - ravenous, and leave me feeling full.
full of something impossible to describe.
full of you. of us.
full of that elusive thing that people spend lives looking for, and writing about, composing music about, or painting.
it's better than music, or drugs, or money, or fame. it might be better than God. but then again, it might just be God.

your kisses are home.
your kisses are love.
your kisses are life.

Friday, November 19, 2010

Blood Mom comes a callin'

I was pretty pleased with myself to be in a real Equity show at my ripe young age. No matter that it was in one of the smaller theatres in Dallas. No matter that it was 'Joseph and the Amazing technicolor Dreamcoat', and i was basically chorus - playing all kinds of little quick-change parts (including the ADORABLE baby camel), running around, switching out wigs and costumes, singing my brains out with a whole bunch of mostly gay guys. THAT was the fun part. They were all so sweet and fun. they were so NICE to me! and the leading lady - the narrator - was dating a famous football player. one of the Dallas Cowboys. He took it upon himself to be my body guard, and also decided that it would be fun to pick me up and carry me around as if i were a little rag doll at every opportunity. his girlfriend didn't mind at all. i think she felt like i was a cute puppy that was entertaining him when she needed to sign autographs or schmooze with people. he was a perfect gentleman, and i never felt like such a little china doll in my whole life.

my routine during that quarter in Dallas went like this. i woke up at 4:00 am, showered and high-tailed it to the bus that took me downtown where i started my sandwich making job at 5am. when that part of my day was over, i hopped on the bus and made it back to my Grandmother's place just in time to change my stinky shoes, sometimes catch a cat-nap, read the letter that had come from my biological mother, and then hop into my grandfather's old car (he had passed away by then) and get to the theatre in time for rehearsal, and later, to the show. from then, i either plowed through rehearsal (with this crazy lesbian hitting on me - and then being REALLY nasty to me for the rest of the run because i was clearly terrified of her)or plowed through the show, was "home" by midnight or 12:30, scarfed half of a huge container of ice cream, and passed out for about 3 hours, and then started it all again.

my grandmother would get SO upset with me for eating so much ice-cream. but i didn't want to wake her UP!!! and i was STARVING after the show. like most performers of any description - i didn't want to eat too much right before my marathon of running, dancing, quick changes and singing...and she never had any REAL food in the fridge - so what was i supposed to do?

i was a little lonely, but not too much. there really wasn't any time for that. and the show WAS so much fun. we got GREAT reviews - i was even mentioned - which of COURSE sent my grandmother and i over the moon! and all of her friends came to see it (they were subscription holders anyway, for the most part) and they cooed and sweet talked me and complimented my grandmother on what a talented grandchild she had. that show was a big old love-fest between me and all the old people or gay men in the whole city!

and at the end of the run, my blood mother showed up.

she gave me no warning. she came and watched the show from a back row. not that i would have recognized her.
as usual, there were many people waiting to tell me how much they loved it, or say hi after the show. and there she was...sort of waiting quietly off to the side.
she glided up to me after everyone else was gone. put her hand out in a delicate fashion.
"well, hello there.", she purred. "i'm Judy."

needless to say, i could have been blown over with feather.
there she was. the woman who gave birth to me in a convent in South Africa, then shortly afterwards, sold all of her rights to even SEE me away for $330. and never bothered to write or show up until now.

she fixed me with her eyes. a trick i would come to know very well. she pierced her gaze into me with a seductive intensity. it was like a Jedi mind trick. her subtextual message seemed to be "don't mind anyone or anything else. they are of NO consequence. I am the only thing important in this space and time. heed me in this, your very life is at stake."

she was intense. a little scary.
i took her hand, and it was thin and cold. she could see my fear.

Judy had piercing blue eyes, and she knew how to use them. she was like a snake charmer. she was still fairly beautiful, but her bottle-died blonde hair and tacky clothes gave me the impression that she had wandered off of a weird commune. or perhaps had just stepped off the boat from communist Russia.

i didn't know what to say or what to do. my instincts told me to run. but my curiosity and her Jedi stare got the better of me.
i stammered akwardly, "well...i didn't know you were coming....did you like the show?"

her lips curled into an ironic, half smile. ( i was so naive - i knew NOTHING of good or great theatre) "it was...boisterous." she practically snarled. the look she then threw around the theatre practically melted it. i could see her comparing this little Dallas theatre to the great ones she had been to in New York, London, even the Old Globe in San Diego. i had been to Broadway, too. i KNEW what this was. it was EASY for her to bring me down to the little worm i deserved to feel like. wasting my time with this stupid show in this stupid city with all of these old people who just wanted to be ENTERTAINED for 2 hours. her withering looks said it all....NOT WORTHY.
"Jennifer, honey." she purred in sympathy.. (where the hell was my Grandmother TONIGHT? when i NEEDED her???)..."it's pretty clear that you don't belong in a place like THIS." she said it like i was withering away in prison or something.
"well, " i stammered...searching for SOME redemtion.."i DID get my Equity card out of it"
her face was stone.
"i mean, i'm still in HIGH SCHOOL." i practically whimpered.
and then i saw her break into a half real smile for the first time. she really was something...else.
Judy took my hand in both of hers and looked at me warmly, her steel-blue eyes drinking in every curve of my face, piercing my eyes as if she were mining my soul. "oh, sweety. you sweet, dear girl. it's not YOUR fault. you are something special. and it's very, very clear. you just need the right OPPORTUNITIES. that's all." she smiled at me with her pretty, white teeth.
"and i think i might just be able to help with that."
i'm sure i just looked stunned.
"ok, sugar." she purred at me as she sort of stroked my hand. "well, this show sure was ENERGETIC, if nothing else. you must be tired. i'll call your Grandmother in the morning and we'll set something up. does that sound alright?"
i nodded yes, not knowing what the hell she was talking about. but i was entranced. she was the snake charmer, and i was the snake. i didn't know if she wanted to be my agent, or my mother, or a girlfriend, or WHAT.
i could barely drive back home that night, i was shaking so hard. if you had asked me how i felt that night - i wouldn't have known how to answer.

i got back to my Grandmother's place and got straight into bed. no ice cream raid tonight. i sobbed and tried to hold myself, wrapping both of my arms around my small frame as if to hold myself together - to keep my body in one piece, as my violent sobbing felt like it could pull me apart.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

pissing Denny off at IAA, or; Something's Afoot!

i couldn't sleep last night, and this is the story that was eating me alive. felt like it was gnawing it's way through my brain as i tossed and turned,fruitlessly commanding my stupid imagination to shut up and sleep already.

this is where it starts getting really hard for me....just THINKING about this story and what it will turn into makes me want to cry. to sob. to break. BUT....easy does it, girl - this is JUST the beginning, after all.

my senior year at Interlochen (boarding school for the arts), was mostly better than the first one had been.i had more friends, felt a bit more confident...all the usual stuff.and just as i was feeling like i had really found my footing there, my biological mother started to write me letters.i hadn't seen her for years and years. i didn't know who she was - or how she was - or where she was - until these letters started to arrive. some with photos. photos of her holding me in South Africa where i was born. she was beautiful. tall and thin, with big eyes and long wavy caramel colored hair. all the photos looked like they could have been movie stills.

i hadn't seen too many pictures of her before - my father had shown me photos of him holding me on the ship during our trip back to the states, he had shown me photos of lions and elephants, and of my African nanny with me wrapped up in a blanket on her back - but i had hardly seen any photos of my mother.

she didn't send me any currant ones, either. just from when i was born and before that. she told me in the letters that SHE had been an actress. a successful one - that only because of her crazy mother and my father she had stopped. practically been forced to stop. i didn't know what to believe, but the letters made me sob my brains out. my girlfriends were there to hold me so many nights. Maura, Hilary,and Hala. thank goodness for them. i was wracked with so many thoughts and feelings about her. i didn't know if i could trust her - she had been absent for all of my formative years. when i got my period the first time, i was alone in the house with my DAD. he had to call the neighboring mom over to deal with it after i wailed to him through the bathroom door that i was bleeding to death. no one had explained it to me.
and then to find out that she had been in Lockheart, Texas for YEARS - just 30 minutes away from where i was growing up in Austin. i had been told she was in Mexico!

but she did know how to write a compelling letter. each one was more seductive than the last. and as Christmas break neared, i warmed up more and more to the idea of meeting her again.

at school, at Interlochen, i was having my share of frustration, too. i did NOT get along with the OTHER acting teacher. Denny. he was the one more in charge of musical theatre. and he had finally cast me in a musical which was a silly riff on the Agatha Christie stories called 'Something's Afoot'.
i was cast as Miss Tweed - you got it - the Agatha Christie/Miss Marple character. which was great. i wanted that part and went all out to get it. i was very silly, and very physical - stuffing my belly with padding and a big old brassiere so that it looked as though my old chest was sagging down to my bellybutton. i walked funny and squinted a lot.but i did NOT like the show, i did NOT like the choreography, and i did NOT like Denny, our director. i don't think i hid my disdain for him very well, either.

the funnest thing about that show was doing it with Stuart Richardson. actually, everyone in the cast was great and fun - but Stuart was a really good friend of mine by then - and he could NOT have been more perfectly cast. he played the handsome upper class English lad who spent most of the play draped across the fireplace mantle gazing off into the distance. HILARIOUS! he and i were always cracking each other up during rehearsals and being blatantly disrespectful to Denny.

and when it was time to "put on the show" - i just kind of started to do my own thing. especially when it came time to "dance". i thought the choreography was so stupid and boring, that i decided it would be funny for Miss Tweed to pull a 'Lucy' (as in I Love Lucy)and sort of screw up all the dance numbers she was in. the audience LOVED it. but DENNY was furious.

needless to say, when the 'Pippin' auditions rolled around right before Christmas break - i had NO CHANCE of working with Mr. Denny B. again.
on a side note, my brother and grandmother came up to see me in 'Something's Afoot', and my brother, Robert, later confided in me that THAT was the moment he fell in love with Stuart Richardson.
Robert said, years later, "I just thought he was so perfect and dreamy, with his English accent, and just DRAPED over that mantle with his curly hair! OH, Mary! I was just DONE for!"
you'd never know my tall, Texan brother was gay - unless you were privy to him letting out that "Oh, Mary" voice of his. it is so darn cute!

anyhoo - back to 'Pippin' auditions. i thought i did great - especially teamed up with Phil Lewis - i thought we made a swell team. but....Denny was having NONE of it. so i was denied the honor of being immortalized in the Interlochen year book in a tie-died unitard. and as i look back at that year book, i'm ok with that. quite frankly, i thought Drew McVety was the only one who really pulled it off. he had a perfect body - but i'd say Katy Suber did, too. that whole unitard thing was just HARD to pull off - especially with the way they were tie-died. i'm JUST sayin'.....
so, with no play to look forward to at school, i went back to Texas in a defiant mood. i decided to meet my blood mother - in secret - and i auditioned for my first Equity play in Dallas.

the play that i got and earned my Equity card with was 'Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat'.
and meeting my blood mother opened up whole new CANS of worms. bigger cans than i could possibly have imagined.
PS - i never actually SAW 'Pippin'. maybe everyone in the cast looked great in those things in real life - my only reference was and is the yearbook, because i was in Texas doing that other show. but for the record, EVERYONE said 'Pippin' was GREAT - despite Denny B. and i believe them. we were a hard core bunch of critics at IAA.

still isolated.

The second and third day of Maggie's self imposed incarceration were ...interesting. She thought to herself, "This is accomplishing something. I'm not sure what. But something."
She made perfect sloppy joes. She made perfectly wonderful mac and cheese. She thought about things, and tried to rest from thinking all together. She watched 'Holiday' on the second night, and confirmed that she thought Katherine Hepburn was altogether over-rated.
And on the third night, she was watching 'Being John Malkovich', when married guy decided to call.
It was one of her favorite movies. Just her cup of tea. And she was relating to this movie as though God himself was sending her a message. The IDEA of being in someone else's body so that you could be WITH the person you love! Genius.

And then he called.
His tone was ....distant. Matter of fact. Why had he called anyway? What the hell did he want?
The pain and the tears ran up into Maggie's throat and tried to choke her. These feelings felt like they had their own hand - a STRONG hand - their own grip, and they wanted to choke the life out of her.
"Why?", she thought, "WHY??? Why do i care? Why does it matter?" she grasped for air, for clarity, for some reason to hold on to like a life boat..."And HOW - HOW is he doing this to me?"
The phone call hurt. She tried to remember what he had said. something about "I can't talk for long. But I wanted to hear your voice..."
And that wasn't bad...but his tone , and his manner, and ...his sign off.
"I could have been his real-estate agent", Maggie thought.
She conjured up (and it was easy) the first time - the first time recently - that he had said good-bye to her on the phone and said "I love you."

There were no words. There were no words. No words for how that simple three word sentence affected her.
She hadn't been quick enough to say it back. The connection was gone and she was left saying it back, "I love you,too." to the empty space that resides where phone calls end. She had wanted to reach out and grab him, physically and hold on - say it again and again so he would understand - "I love you, too. I love you."

Not this time. No "I love you" at the end of the call. He was fading back into his world. As he should. As he should. And there was nothing she could do about it.

Three days of isolation. And that was it. Without this man, without this love...she was more alone than she had ever been in her life. That's just how it was.
So, Maggie called her tenant - the other loneliest person she knew or had ever known, and asked him if he wanted to go to the pub. He did, and they drank it away.

The poison filled her with numbness. And numbness was better than extraordinary hurt.

Saturday, November 13, 2010

isolation.

Maggie was alone. Alone by choice.
She decided that a 3 day isolation from the world might be what she needed. But with no money to spare - it would just have to be just her, hiding at home. Kids at their father's....no answering the phone, minimal 'facebook', etc. She vowed she would speak to no-one and not step into her car for 3 whole days.
And, as Maggie turned over her reasons for doing this, she made herself laugh. She had always been good at that. Laughing at herself.
"It's funny", she thought, "I'm doing this because I'm lonely. I'm surrounded by people - almost all the time - but I'm lonely."
The loneliness she was feeling was turned on by recent events. That's how she thought of it sometimes - as 'turned on'. Or 'turned off'.
When she made the decision to shut everything down and off for 3 days - she had told herself it was for a completely different reason. She had told herself that she was tired. And she was.
She was tired of thinking. She was tired of fighting. She was tired of being taken for granted, not being appreciated. She was MOSTLY tired of dealing with her family.Not her children. They were great for the most part. She always felt lucky to have them. But her mother, her father, her sister - even her brother. None of them were really THERE for her when she needed them. And she needed so little. So very little. Mostly, it seemed to her, she gave. She listened to their fears and concerns, she gave them love, support, money, time, birthdays, trips, dinners - was best friends with her brother's girlfriends, one after another. They had all needed her many, many times in significant ways. And she didn't resent it - she loved being the one they could call if they needed a place to live for a few months, or some money for this or that, or a dinner party for a script reading with possible producers attending.....until now. And now - she couldn't even say clearly that she felt resentment. It felt more like betrayal.
"Maybe everything in my world feels like a classic play", she thought.Regardless of why, the word that came into her mind over and over again was BETRAYAL.

As Maggie filled her house with the smell of cookies baking - for no other reason than she wanted that smell - for no-one else but herself, as she flipped through channels of bad TV, as she ignored the phone calls coming in and made herself a cocktail, she mulled the facts over in her head, and tried to assess her own feelings and motives.
1. Her sister was NOT calling her back. This hurt her feelings. She had invested a great deal of money into her sister's shop this last year, with no expectation of getting any of it back, and recently loaned her a bit of money as well, AND been there through the closing of said shop - all the hurt and disappointment that went with it - had been entirely supportive, and now - not even a return phone call. For weeks.
2. She had begun to doubt the loyalty of even the very few REAL friends she had in this two-bit, show-biz town. They all seemed to have a motive.She was so TIRED of people disappointing her on such grand scales when she felt like she was giving so much. This was a difficult time for her. The stakes were high. Life stakes, money stakes....and where were her FRIENDS? Did she even have any? They would certainly return in a couple of months when she had plenty of money to throw around. THAT was encouraging.
3. Her own father wanted her to BUY him a house. Yes. SHE was expected to buy HIM a house. The very same father that never paid for school when she was growing up, the very same father that borrowed money from her when she was a KID and never paid it back, the very same father who - after all WAS the only father she had ever had, and had - after all - introduced her to poetry, literature, opera, classical music, great theatre, and almost everything else she held dear in this life...it was so confusing. Maggie was NOT wealthy by any description. Far from it. The last couple of years, especially, had been a struggle for her.
Her modest DREAM was to be able to pay the bills every month without stressing out about it, or begging for more time. And now this MAN who was - in theory- supposed to sort of take care of her - needed Maggie to buy him a house.It was exhausting.
4. Maggie was in love.
That was the worst thing of all. And no one to talk to about it. In love with a married man who she could not have, or be with or even speak to with any regularity. She was head over heels in love with someone she had known since she was practically a child. Someone who knew her. Knew her darkest secrets and her worst fears.Someone who knew the best of her as well. Understood her resilience, and her deep capacity for love. Knew her humor, and understood it as she understood his.
There was no question of DOING anything about it. He was "happily" married, and that must be respected. She wanted him to be happy more than anything she could possibly want for herself.
The worst thing about this revelation was that it felt like a huge and undeniable spotlight - shining on her heart and her dreams. She could no longer operate under the misguided belief that there was some satisfactory compromise relationship waiting out there in the world for her that would, you know - be alright. How could she expect to settle for the mundane, the ordinary, the less than turn- your- whole world- upside- down kind of love when that spotlight had re-entered her world to show her exactly what she had been missing for so many years.
Maggie tossed around on her sofa, clicking the remote with little to no satisfaction. 'Pretty Woman' - one of her all time most hated movies - was on. Not much else. The hooker with the heart of gold - the hooker that was not really a hooker rang a LOT of bells for her. Lately she could categorize herself as 'the other woman' more than ever before in her life. She had somehow become the ex-girlfriend that men called or e-mailed or wrote to when their own wives or girlfriends stopped having sex with them. This seemed BEYOND ironic to Maggie at her age.Clearly it wasn't just sex that they wanted. Some of the men that sought her out lived too far away for that to be ANY kind of possibility. But they wanted something. They wanted to feel ....what DID they want? And why was it HER? What did she have or know that was all of a sudden so in demand? And why was the net result of all this attention that she felt so alone?
As Maggie regarded 'Pretty Woman' with growing disgust, her mind rattled around on the subject of loneliness.
Her screen writer tenant and somewhat friend had written a film about loneliness. He embodied the subject, was an expert on it as far as she could tell, and therefore his script was one of the saddest things she'd ever read. Quietly brilliant. Speaking to the hoards of people in this place and time who have forgotten how to connect with other humans.
He lived downstairs. By himself. None of them (in their circle) could remember when the last time he had a girlfriend or even a date was. Maggie joked with him about it freely. She laughingly threatened to charge him more money because her adorable and clever 16 year old played with him once in awhile.
People need human contact, that's for sure. They need to be touched. They need sex. This is the reality of our human/animal nature. But what about love? Do we not need love as well?
What is the point of a life lived without it? What is the point of a life lived without love? That was the question that would not let her brain, or heart, or body rest. She was tired, but could not sleep. She was hungry but could not taste. She was starving for the love that was dangling in front of her just out of reach....
and what is there to do? What is there to do about it? She had no answers, and she had no hope.