Scrappy Little Nobody(23)
I started getting calls from the same friends from my hometown, the ones who’d been adapting so well to college, now in the first months of their sophomore year. Back at school again, they were no longer overwhelmed by newness or possibility. They had gone back to the same place, and the same friends—some of whom they had made hastily—and now they were lost. It was fine to be a freshman who hadn’t declared a major, but now they had no idea what they wanted to do with their lives or what kind of person they wanted to be, and they were feeling the pressure to decide fast.
The role reversal was uncanny. I hadn’t even booked a job yet, but somehow we’d switched places. I was convinced that I was on the right path, and they were riddled with uncertainty. I’d only been looking at the drawbacks of my situation; my single-mindedness meant that I had no backup plan, and I worried that if I failed, I’d be unhappy doing anything else. But now I saw this as a blessing. I knew what I wanted. I’d never considered how scared I would be if I didn’t.
That year Felicity Huffman won an award for her work in Transamerica and said something in her acceptance speech that I held on to for years. “The second time I didn’t work for a year, I gave up any dream that looked like this.” It knocked me sideways. This undeniably talented woman went years without getting a job, not because she wasn’t good, but because sometimes you just have to pass an endurance test. I worried that luck and timing and opportunity (and my little frame and goofy face) might never align at the right moments, but for all the inexorable insecurities that live inside my head, I knew what I was capable of. I just had to be patient.
I did get work, eventually. I acted in a few independent films that made me happier than I thought humanly possible, but they didn’t change my financial situation or keep me all that busy. So I had to develop some hobbies.
My biggest time waster (and unrepentant money suck) was baking. Baking provided something I didn’t know I needed: the ability to make something tangible. Actors don’t make anything. You work all day but there’s nothing physical to show for it. It’s an oversimplification, sure, but it felt so rewarding to put a little effort into something and have three-dimensional evidence I could hold in my hands. It also provided more of a thing I’ve always liked: validation!
Baking is a really fun way to get people to like you. Being a good listener, a lively conversationalist, a loyal friend—it takes so much energy. Spend a couple hours alone in your kitchen and get the same effect? Sign me up! Sadly, I have less time for it now, but for a couple years, it was my whole identity.
When I was in the throes of my baking phase, my oven broke, and, luckily, different friends were happy to host me for a few hours and let me fill their apartments with the smell of cinnamon while I refused to let them help, because YOU DON’T KNOW THE SYSTEM. I saw baking as a risk-free way to try things that I knew were beyond my skill level. I was never the girl to strap on a snowboard and head straight for a black diamond, but if I saw “advanced” in the corner of a Martha Stewart Living recipe, I’d think, Bring it on, you crazy bitch.
This meant that I would sometimes spend hours in someone else’s home, experimenting and cursing and emerging from the kitchen looking like I’d fought off a rabid cat. But my hazelnut torte would be shining and beautiful, and I’d go pawn it off on someone who hadn’t seen behind the curtain and would praise me as a culinary genius.
One friend in particular liked having me come by. Scott wrote music during the day but didn’t like being alone. He wanted someone around to chat with for a few minutes every hour or so but then needed to sit in front of his computer with headphones on to get work done. It became a semiregular arrangement. After about a year of this, he told me he’d gotten off meth. A month before.
What? What was he talking about? Meth addicts were gaunt and toothless; their hair was stringy and their nails were dirty and they certainly didn’t burn me indie rock CDs. How could a friend of mine have been in this kind of trouble without me noticing? I felt foolish and so, so guilty. He was out of the woods (and sober ever since, thank god) but really, what kind of friend was I?
“So, you would just do it as soon as I left your apartment? I mean, were you ever like, She needs to get out of here because I need to . . . do meth?”
“No.” He looked a little embarrassed, maybe more for me than himself. “I would do it before you got here.”
“I’ve seen you on meth?!”
“I would say, for the last year, you’ve only seen me on meth.”
I’m the biggest idiot on the planet.
“Yeah, I didn’t like being alone, but then I just wanted to sit on my own and work once you got there. You really never noticed?”
“I thought that was just your personality!” I was reeling.
“Why do you think I never wanted to eat the food you were making?”
“You said you didn’t have a sweet tooth! I believed you! Because, you know, I believe people when they say things!”
He was laughing now. I’d gotten shrill and frazzled. I was laughing with my friend about how he was hiding a meth problem from me. This is when I learned that I cannot tell when people are on drugs. At all.
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After a while I met some fellow aspiring actors, which was nice because they were the only people in LA who didn’t crack the old “So you mean you’re a waiter” joke when the “What do you do?” question came up. Every now and then we’d get stoned and talk about our silliest, most specific goals.