Nothing shows procrastination more in my life then when I begin moving the sparse furniture around in my tiny studio apartment.
Tiny.
Studio.
Apartment.
Think NY, but in Santa Monica.
Costs the same and worth it for the view…from the roof…at the north corner…leaning over the edge….looking over the trees to the south…craning your neck to the west a smidge…there you go, SUNSET View…perfect, breeze coming off the ocean and at 3AM, you can actually hear the waves in the ocean as there is no traffic at that time…unless it’s a Saturday night and people are filling the incline and filtering themselves into this, that and the other freeway…home.

Thus…

I’m like a little rat in a cage here, at 4PM on a Saturday. Farmer’s market is picked over. It’s hot, even here…and I am home.

There is no one waiting with dry cleaning or ‘how was your day’ or what do you want to do tonight…no one. Not even a cat…with liter to clean or hot hair to warm your sweaty shin. Nope…just me.

And it’s not like I don’t have plenty to do.

I’ve just been gone for a month and the need to catch up with work, reading, e-mails, calls and the vile facebook are begging my attention. People I’ve never met want to be my friend and they have no idea what this last year has been like for me. Would you want to be my friend if I told you?

Good friends say; if there’s anything I can do, don’t hesitate to ask.

Ok, then, can you do my laundry? Can you go grocery shopping for me? Can you pay my electric, gas, cable? Can you play with my hair in the middle of the night when I’m sweating and lonely and staring at the ceiling fan focusing on one blade as it spins my gaze into dizziness? I’m not saying I need that at this moment, I’m just asking, in case said needs arise.

No, I don’t need any of the aforementioned. My friends are gems and the last thing I want to do is….
I like being back home…listening to my neighbor above me have mediocre sex in the middle of the afternoon. Why mediocre? Well, one uh, hem, ohhh and it’s over after two minutes? The click of heels on the hallway floor above three minutes after…not great, I think?

What else am I going to focus on?

I desperately need to move this plant three inches from where it already stands and this mirror across the room to bounce the light. Doing this, I’m convinced, will make everything more conducive and appealing to get my ‘real’ work done so I can live a fruitful and balanced life.

Feng shui. Sweet!

Today…I was treated to a blissful massage at my favorite place in Hollywood on the hottest day of the year and I can almost feel all of the tension from the last month unravel itself from my muscles and tissues till my mind reminds me, I’m still mourning.

Furniture. Moving the furniture is imperative!

All other things can wait. Even friends.

Besides, there’s a bottle of wine in the fridge that’s calling my name.

And a fresh iTunes gift card courtesy of Juniper Visa. They give me an iTunes card every time I accrue a certain balance on my card. I’ve been debt free for several months and this month has put me in a debt and I wouldn’t trade it for the world. Now I can load ten new songs on my iTunes playlists and remember.

I finished the painful yet tellingly honest ‘fictional’ rendition of Hollywood in ‘Beverly Hills Adjacent’ by Jennifer Steinhauer and Jessica Hendra. I would friend these girls on facebook. They are brilliant. It hurt to read this book and I laughed out loud so many times in public, it was embarrassing. Well, not really. There are stranger people in LA doing weirder things than laughing out loud in public. In fact, I’m sure it was refreshing to witness had I not been me, me…laughing out loud in Starbucks at the absurdity of living and loving in Hollywood.

I miss my mother and sisters. I miss the damn dog and cat.

I miss New York and the soupy August air.

I miss the idea of familiar even though nothing will be the same. All new memories will now be without my dad in them.

I am the lucky one of the bunch. I’m the first one with a birthday without my dad. Next week. Sweet. Even in the midst of all this procrastination, I am getting older and I can’t f-ing stop it.

I can break the ice…or the soup.

I woke up early the other day for a session with a client. She had cancelled short notice. Not a big deal. Just quick re-thinking of my schedule. What to do now that even Kelly Rippa is not up on this coast. I could work out? Who’s up now? I could call my dad. Really? When do I have that thought? I never really did before.

I remember the days… college through just last year that it didn’t matter that there was a three-hour time difference between NY and LA, my dad would always call at the butt crack of dawn…just to say hi. What the fu-k? Really? I have nothing to say. But he would say…always…I just want to hear your voice. Damn you dad. ‘Cause I remember, even when I was young, that I would miss this someday. And here I am, up at 6 every morning and the phone doesn’t ring. Ok, sometimes it rings, but usually it’s the LA Times and you were so much cooler, even if all you talked about was the weather or the traffic on the f-ing FDR. I hated those banal conversations that I clipped shortly with my tone, enough for you to know it was enough even though it never was and I was always waiting for something more, even if it was what Daisy (the dog) did that morning or mom said last night.

It’s funny. I write everyday. I remember at the kitchen table at our house on Quaker Ridge Road, a house now condemned by mold and burned to the ground by the city of New Rochelle (another blog altogether) and you told me, a then unpublished writer and artist, that I should always find a place for me to write and draw. I hated you for that because I always wanted to be an actor and at that time, my looks didn’t afford me the opportunity one would have to be a successful actor…I was heavy and awkward. But you always knew, what I loved. No matter what, no matter how much I loved anything, home would be here…in the written word and ironically, you. Every time I sit down to write, even if I am inspired by something else, it comes back to you. I’m still here in LA, pursuin’ the dream of being a beautiful and successful and accomplished actor…but you know…knew, what home was.
Hmmmmm.
Writing is home.
Writing is you and mom and my sisters and the damn dog and cat.
It’s the purest form of expression that I know and celebrate and even when I have a feature film audition on Monday that I need to prepare for…here I am alone at the computer, banishing friends, obligations and the like to find my place on blank screen and paint a picture of words that I find beautiful and entertaining.

Even when I sat down to write this I had no intention of going to you, but here I am and I can only say, it’s part of my healing, or mourning, or whatever the heck you wanna call it.

I sit here and I write.

Because, I can only move the three pieces of furniture I have in a certain combination to satisfy myself long enough to change it again and I’m sure I’ll change it again.
Later.
I have an audition to focus on.
I have clients that have hired me and fan blades that need staring at.

And I sit here and write and hope someone reads and hope someone likes and hope that I teach well and act well and write well and love well enough to those who want my loving.

I hope and I dream and I stare at the blades and wait for your call at 6AM and when you don’t, I still move, like you did…and move the plant again, just two more inches. Perfect, water, coffee, breathe, yoga, words, love and it’s ok again.