our first Christmas in LA...

I moved out to LA against ALL advice from everyone. Except maybe my boyfriend at the time. He was an actor, and supportive. Otherwise - no one. For some reason my whole family thought (and mostly still thinks) that LA is the land of the DEVIL.
When my mind goes into imagining their version of LA - I see lakes of molten fire with creepy plastic surgery ladies dancing around it and chanting some evil words to seduce me into a life of plastic bad-doing and HELL! The casting couches are as big as a small house, and when you DARE to sit on one, you are swallowed up whole like quick sand! Evil, bad men with slicked - back hair, driving convertable BMWs lure young girls into their cars - only so they can drive them straight to the gates of hell - where there are crazy orgies going on night and day!
And I just want to say to them all (I still do!) - I SURVIVED DALLAS!!!!! NOTHING can be MORE plastic or EVIL!!!!

Anyway, I moved out here with a 3 year old little boy (Max) and a crappy car, and no-one else that I knew in the world - except that my boyfriend was going to move out some months after me, and Hilary Aptowitz was coming to live with Max and I just as soon as we got an apartment.

David Poynter ( my boyfriend) drove me out with all of my stuff. David was hands down the most beautiful man I was ever with. Hands down. He looked like a model. And he had a place for us to stay when we first landed. It was with a pretty big casting guy at Disney. He had a place up, up, up Beachwood Canyon.A really sick place. And it was so odd - because at the very same time that this guy was flirting with ME - in front of my boyfriend, making him jealous - I was getting some major gay-dar vibes from him. It turns out I was RIGHT. He was in lust with David, and well, whatever. Not important.

Because of David's introductions to agencies from this guy - this friend - I got an agent in the first week of moving here. And not just any agent. A GOOD one. STE, if anyone remembers. They later turned into Paradigm. And they started sending me out immediately.
We found an apartment in Korea town - which I chose because it reminded me of New York - David wasn't going to live with me - but Hil was flying out right away. She was great. We had no furniture, poor as Church-mice, but Hilary made our place look great. She turned cardboard boxes into little side tables, threw beautiful scarfs over everything, filled our big closet up with beautiful clothes, and our tiny bathroom up with the most expensive and lovely smelling bath products imaginable! She had a couple of items that I LOVED to borrow and wear - and of mine - I mostly remember her wearing my jodpurs - which she looked GREAT in!

And the two of us with Max were a hoot! Hilary was especially funny. She would sweep Max up in her arms - this adorable little blonde boy - and say "Kiss me, you fool!" and Max would collapse into giggles and try to squirm away from her. But then, after awhile, he sort of got the routine down and would answer back VERY dramatically,"YES!!!! I will kiss you - but YOU are the fool!"

By the time Christmas rolled around, I had already had a couple of TV jobs,Hilary had I been on some great adventures, and we felt like we could throw a Christmas party. So we did.
We got a Christmas tree with Max, and decorated it with the most random things you can imagine - lots of jewelry, and some paper things we made - some of Max's toys made it onto the tree - and we made some phone calls.

The night of the party, our tiny apartment looked and felt like Holly Golightly's place in 'Breakfast at Tiffanies'. There were people packed into every corner. In the tiny kitchen, bedroom, bathroom and also spilling outside into the hallway, and the stair landing. I was beyond impressed at our combined effort to throw such a good party. But I felt that it was mostly due to Hil.

Anyway - the party was slammin', and we were all having a great time. The median age was probably 23, and there were all kinds of beautiful people and characters there. And then a surprise walked through the door.

Our friend, Phil Lewis, (from Interlochen) walked through the door with Christian Slater and some other actor that ended up being a big deal. It was SOO great to see Phil! I didn't have the slightest idea that he had a TV show...he was the teacher on a show called "Teach" back in the early 90's - if you have kids, you might know him from a current Disney show, "The Suite Life of Zack and Cody" - which I think has moved to a boat or something, but my kids are too old to watch that show anymore, so I've lost track! Phil played the manager of the Hotel that Zack and Cody lived in - you know the uptight and proper hotel manager - lots of eye-rolling at the kids' antics!

Drinks were flowing, music going, everyone having a good time. I have a couple of polaroids from that party - must find those! And before I knew it, Christian Slater was beckoning me to come outside into the hallway with him.
He asked me if I had a boyfriend. I said "yes".
He asked me if it was 'serious', I said "yes".
We talked about acting. Agents, movies coming up, auditions, etc. I was sitting on the stairs, and he was sort of leaning over me. We were getting along really well. Conversation was easy. And just as he leaned down to kiss me anyway - my boyfriend came out and saw the whole thing.
"What's going on?" David demanded.
"Nothing", I said, with a guilty look.
"REALLY?" David said. "REALLY? 'Cause it LOOKS like something is going on." He said, looking like he was going to murder Christian Slater.
Christian just laughed. "Look, man. Nothing happened. Calm down."
You know what Christian Slater is like - you can imagine perfectly how this all came out - his sly grin, slightly superior look on his face, the attitude that he and I were in on some secret joke that David just didn't GET.....horrible for David. Just horrible.

Well, despite a few moments of not knowing - David did NOT beat Christian Slater to a pulp, and we all had a great time.

A few days later, we had to get rid of our very DRY Christmas tree. Hilary and I put our heads together, as we did with all things back then. We realized that the trash bins were directly below our windows, and decided to simply throw the tree out of the window. Max was thrilled. We all got it off of it's stand, and heaved it out the window - 6 stories down. It landed with a big thud on the dumpster, and Max's cry of "Oh yea! Yea, baby!"
It's a memory that has stuck out in his mind all these years. So funny what people remember - and don't.

That Christmas, Hilary and I were best of friends - that was a treasure in and of itself. I was in love with an amazing and gorgeous man, my career as a TV actress was just getting started, and my little boy was having fun doing the simple things. He didn't resent me because all three of us lived in a one bedroom apartment, or even because I didn't always have money for his favorite cereal - Max just thought it was great that we were throwing Christmas trees out of the window, and that he got to ride around with me going to auditions all day instead of going to some scary pre-school or day care. He thought it was cool that our local grocery store was Korean and they had lots of 'monsters' (lobsters) and fish swimming around in tanks to visit every time we went for groceries.

Our futures were right in front of us. We were all young and beautiful and fearless.

"Kiss me, you fool!", Hilary said to Max after he quit jumping up and down with glee over the Christmas tree landing.
"I SHALL kiss you, fair maiden!", said Max this time, "But don't tell me I didn't warn you!"
And with that, he gave Hilary a terribly big and wet 3 year old kiss - and Hil went down shrieking with laughter.