angelaboration

Beginning to read Eat, Pray, Love

2020-10-06T18:58:00.000-04:00

I don't feel like going into backstory here, so forgive me for diving in without much explanation.

May it suffice to say that:
- I just went through a surprising, traumatic breakup with a man I thought was my future husband
- I almost booked a television role that would have changed my life in a major way, and I cannot talk about it because I'm still under a Non-Disclosure Agreement
- and everything else that's affecting everyone else in negative ways right now, which we're generically blaming on the year 2020

Twice in a week, the book "Eat, Pray, Love" was recommended to me. I'd heard of it, but never seen the movie or read the book. So I decided, hey, maybe I should get the audiobook and start listening to it on my hikes. (I recently hiked 32 days in a row... and am now 32 days into a meditation journey...)

I wrote the following email to a relationship coach that had recommended the book to me:

"Hey Kate,

I decided to download the audiobook of Eat, Pray, Love and listen to it on my hike, since you had mentioned it.

In the opening, Elizabeth Gilbert mentions that each section will have 36 chapters, and that she is in her 36th year of life. As I am currently in my 36th year (age 35, and turning 36 in October), it felt like now was the perfect moment to read this book. Like it was a sign.

In chapter 12, she starts to describe the statue in her favorite fountain in Rome.

I studied abroad for a semester in Rome in the fall of 2003, and I had the brief thought of “I wonder if I’ll recognize it,” but quickly brushed that aside. There are just so many statues and so many fountains. In fact, in 1995, my family Christmas photo was in front of one of the fountains in Villa Borghese in Rome, and when we went back in 2015 with the hope of recreating the photo, we couldn’t find that fountain even though we knew where to look for it. That’s how many fountains there are.

But as she described the fountain, I listened in disbelief. She spoke of a bronze family, with parents holding each other’s wrists, while their child sat on their arms eating grapes. She was describing the very statue that my brothers and I had posed in front of, and then couldn’t find.

I listened 3 times, shocked, before I let myself move on. The next thing she said was, “It was early September of 2003. I had been in Rome for four days...”

I got to Rome the last week of August, 2003. Elizabeth Gilbert was in Rome writing what would become “Eat, Pray, Love” during the same three months that I was living there.

It felt like a sign. And I wanted to tell you.

~A~"

And, well, I wanted to tell more than Kate.

And I remembered this beautiful time in my life when I used to write to strangers on the internet, and tell them everything that was going on in my life.

And while I'm quite certain that no one, literally no one, has looked at this blog in many years, and all of the blog aggregators we used to use to follow each others' lives have tumbled into dormancy...

I still thought of this. And decided to write it here.

Because even if you're not reading it, I needed to write it. And even though most of my own life is now documented through facebook posts and instagram stories, and those are sure to be ignored by future generations in place of whatever rises up to replace TikTok and SnapChat...

Well, I missed this. So here, I write. If not for posterity, then at least for sentimentality.

And maybe for luck.

May you all be alright, and may you be following the omens, wherever you may be.

~A~

Why I Didn't Report

2018-09-26T14:50:00.001-04:00

Why I didn't report:

(Trigger warning)

.

.

.

.

.

First of all, I have no proof of the majority of the events on this list. That's a pretty strong deterrent.

I won't explain all of the things that have happened. Some of them are still too upsetting to think about. I'm not ready.

1. He was gay, so I didn't think it counted as assault.

2. He was my boyfriend.

I was friends with his girlfriend. I punched him in the face. I guess I thought that was enough.

I was a month into grad school and I didn't want to cause a problem. By the time I finally did report (after many incidents -- and by which point, I was terrified of him), I was asked to file a formal complaint with the university, and take him to some sort of hearing. I refused, crying, because I was so sure that he would try to kill me. (He did eventually get kicked out of grad school, but not for all of the things he did to me: he got kicked out for using the c-word in front of a donor to the school.)

5. He was my friend, and he was drunk. I left him stranded at the bar where he was without a ride home... and I felt so guilty about it that I called and apologized.

6. A professor witnessed what was happening and stopped it. I was mortified and celebrating someone coming to my defense simultaneously in my mind.

7. I tried to report it to a female stage manager. She laughed. (I was not Equity at the time, so had no Deputy or union to report it to.)

8. He was a stranger who approached me from behind, and I never got a good look at him.

9. He was my boyfriend

10. He was a stranger.

11. He was my boyfriend.

12. It was a stranger. It was in public, in daylight, in front of my boyfriend, who did nothing to help or 

stop him. I was so shocked that I didn't do much either, although I was able to stop it from happening and the guy ran away. And by the time I thought about doing something (which, honestly, wasn't until a few days later when I worked up the courage to tell my parents why I'd been crying), there was no way to track him down in NYC.

13. It was at my job on a tv show. I reported it to a union rep. I was told "well, we're his union, too, so we have to protect him as much as we have to protect you. If you want, you can sue Sony Pictures..." (Spoiler alert: I did not sue Sony Pictures.)

14. I forgot about it for a full year (to the week) after it happened, until a friend posted about a similar event on her facebook wall. It was so, so awful that I guess I blocked it out of my mind. What's strange is how clearly the memory came back after that year. And I realized then just how horrific it was. I recently realized I'm still facebook friends with one of the men. I didn't delete him, because I feel like I have some sort of responsibility to other women to keep tabs on him.

15. I forgot about it until yesterday, when I read another woman's "why I didn't report" list, and it came flooding back. At the time, I didn't even confront him about it. He was staying with me at the time. It happened while I was sleeping (or while he thought I was sleeping). I felt so badly for him and excused his behavior because of everything he'd been going through... I remember telling a mutual friend what had happened, and she told me, "Yeah, he did the same thing to me a few years ago."

16. It was a first date. He very forcefully started making out with me against my will. He seemed like a nice guy who just misread the situation. He kept writing to me for months, and I liked him, but I just couldn't see him again after that.

17. It was a first date. We spent four hours together. I drove him to his apartment, because he had walked to the date. After I told him I didn't want to kiss him (because I was trying to draw boundaries after the last one), he grabbed me by the back of the head and very forcefully started making out with me.  I was terrified that he might rape or kill me, and I just froze. We were at his place. I managed to get away from him. When I got home and told my male roommate what had happened, he said, "What a baller move!" The guy texted me the next day wanting to go out again. I deleted the dating app and blocked his number.

18. It was a second date. It took me weeks to process just how badly things went. I still see him in social situations. When I retell the story of why there was no third date, I tell the lie of what SHOULD have happened on the second date... which would have been bad enough... because I feel this need to spare him from gossip, and to spare myself from the pain of people telling me what I could have done differently to prevent it.

Note: this is a partial list. Both because some things I don't want to talk about, and some I'm sure I'm just not remembering in the moment (I mean, if I'd made this list yesterday, it would've been one shorter). And these are all pretty traumatizing events. This doesn't count every time a male actor has touched me inappropriately in a rehearsal, or every time a drunk man has groped me while dancing in a club, or every guy that kissed me after I told him I didn't want him to (even my FIRST kiss happened that way). Those are such frequent occurrences that my brain hasn't bothered to record them. BUT THEY ARE STILL WRONG.

A Year of Improvement

2018-03-08T11:54:00.001-05:00

One year ago today, I returned to Los Angeles. I took the train from NYC, via New Orleans after a hiatus on the east coast. I think I came back better than I was when I left.

This year I was hired for my dream job (tour guide at Universal Studios Hollywood), I was cast in my dream role (Vanda in “Venus In Fur”), and I started dating a dreamy guy (Mr. Nick Sweet).

I’ve had a total of ten jobs in the last year, I think. (I currently have seven... Being an actor is weird.) Three of those jobs, I was paid to act. Five, I was paid to perform. One, I’m being paid to write. And the tenth, I was assisting a casting director. Suddenly my jobs are reflecting my goals in life, in a way they haven’t in the past.

I’ve gotten better at saying yes to things through my fear. I’ve gotten better at saying no to things through my guilt.

I’ve gotten better at chasing what I truly want. I’ve gotten better at letting go of things that are not meant for me.

I’m still on a journey of self-improvement. I’m trying to stay positive. I’m trying to stay disciplined. I’m trying to find ways to help others. I’m trying to take chances. I’m trying to ignore what is easy, and to do what is right.

I made vision boards and have a constant reminder of my plans (The Secret). I KonMari-ed my room in the most serious attempt yet, and it has stayed much more organized than normal (The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up). I’m waking up an hour earlier in the morning for prayer, affirmations, visualization, exercise, reading, and journaling (The Miracle Morning). I’m paying more attention to how money flows into and out of my life (Rich Dad, Poor Dad). I’m taking a magic class that I hope will help me delight others for years to come (Magic University at The Magic Castle). I am sending strangers my dormant books, with hope that someone else will get joy out of them (PaperBackSwap).

During this Lenten period of reflection, I wanted to express my gratitude for the last year of my life. All that I’ve learned. All the friends that I’ve made (USH, LA On-Call Filmmakers, CV Rep, Candytopia, TGS Collective, Theatre Dybbuk, etc.) All the opportunities that I’ve had to perform and to grow.

God is good. When you pray, move your feet.

Thank you for this year. 🙂

(And happy International Women’s Day!)

Five Years in LA

2018-01-10T13:46:00.001-05:00

I celebrate my move to Los Angeles on January 10th. Which makes today my 5-year Los Angeles anniversary.

It wasn't the first time I moved to Los Angeles (I came the previous September with the intention of staying... but it didn't work out). And I've left the city for months at a time since then, so it wasn't the most permanent of moves. I'll always be a little bi-coastal, a little transient, no matter where I am.

I came to Los Angeles for the wrong reasons. I came here for an abusive ex-boyfriend whom I was convinced I was going to marry (thank God I didn't). I came for a non-guaranteed seasonal job with long hours and very little stability. I came because I didn't know what else to do.

I've stayed for better reasons than I arrived. Because of the community I've found. Because of the art I've been able to create. Because I can feel like a person here, while also pursuing my career aspirations. Because I can be in a city and the suburbs at the same time. Because I feel unlimited in what I can accomplish. And hey, the weather is a nice bonus.

I went to the east coast for four months last year (in fact, I was gone for what would've been my 4-year anniversary). Since returning in March, Los Angeles has given me so many things that I'd asked for. A job that makes me feel joy. My dream role in a play, which reminded me that there's a reason I keep fighting. A boyfriend who loves me (and also seems to like me), who supports me in my goals even when they take me away from him for months at a time.

In these 5 years, I've been in 9 productions of plays/musicals, produced 1 play, worked with 10 theatre companies, made it to the quarter-finals of a playwriting competition, acted in over 20 staged readings and workshops, founded 1 theatre company, had a co-star role on a television show, been in 7 student films, acted in an award-winning web series, acted in a film that screened at Comic Con and Newport Beach Film Festival, been nominated for a Best Actress award, trained at 3 improv schools and 3 acting schools, joined a sketch comedy troupe, joined 2 unions (bringing the total to 3), spent 3 years volunteering with a playwrights lab to help develop new works, modeled for more than 20 photographers and 1 painter, tutored Shakespeare students, taught a class on social media marketing for actors, lived in 3 apartments (and on my friend Ann's couch), and had 12 day-jobs (not including being the Literary Manager of a theatre).

I've tried to fill my life with adventures. I've had my photograph in Rolling Stone. I've taken trains around the country. I've been to many dance parties at 6am. I've sung in karaoke competitions. I've become a female drag queen. I've assisted a magician at the Magic Castle. I've proudly worked behind the scenes on a tv show doing off-camera dialogue, being a scene partner to people I admire. I've acquired over 60 wigs. I've visited 4 foreign countries. I've written hundreds of thousands of words for National Novel Writing Month. I've documented years of my life, one second at a time. I was on a panel at Comic Con. I've mentored younger actors. I've composed poetry on a typewriter. I've gotten myself into therapy, and then back out of it again (I'm equally proud of both). I've looked like an idiot in front of more celebrities than I'd like to admit (at least 4 of whom hugged me after the fact).

Five years in, I don't have an agent, but I'm still hustling. Five years in, I don't have the steadiest stream of income, but by the grace of God my bills get paid. Five years in, my life is filled with uncertainty, but also adventure. Five years in, for all the things that have gone wrong, many more have gone right. Five years in, I'm genuinely happy.

I feel great about where I am. And I look forward to all the places I'm going. Because 5 years ago, I hadn't accomplished anything on the lists above. I was climbing from the ground floor, with no connections and nothing to build on. And now, starting today, I greet the rest of my life from a much higher step on the ladder. May the next five years be even bigger and better.

When I first got to town, my friend Kenzo told me that it takes five years in Los Angeles to feel like you're making any progress.

Cheers to five years.

It's Been Awhile

2014-12-15T12:47:00.003-05:00

I wish I still posted in this regularly. But frankly, there's a good chance that no one will even be able to read this, because I lost the domain name a year ago.

What's currently happening in my life?

1. I'm unemployed.
2. I will be employed as an income tax preparer starting next month.
3. I turned 30.
4. I'm dating a 24-year-old. (It's not going to last, but he is HOT.)
5. As a result of 3 and 4, I suddenly feel like I look SUPER OLD in every photograph.
6. I was dating about 8 guys at one point. But the two that I thought had great potential both basically disappeared on me, and the two that I'm REALLY not interested in keep coming back. (I don't like playing "games", but this is making me question whether that theory of "men chase you if you ignore them, and run if you chase them" is actually water-bearing.)
7. I just finished playing Emilia in Othello, for which I received a great deal of encouraging praise.
8. I moved to the east side of LA, which is weird, as I've been a west-sider up until now.
9. My new roommate is just terrific. His name is Zach and he's both a painter and an actor (he played Othello in the production I was in).
10. I'm producing a play in town, so the next few months should be interesting.
11. I was in a karaoke league during the fall, which was super fun, and way more stressful than it should have been. (It's how I met the 24-year-old... he was on a rival team.)
12. I don't read frequently enough.
13. I'm addicted to technology in a completely unhealthy way.
14. Generally, my life is good.

Have a nice day.

Angela

I Wish I'd Chosen Scott

2014-01-08T02:24:00.002-05:00

Hey guys.

Remember when I used to blog?

I just skimmed over my last post here. It's crazy how much has happened, but I'll give you the short version.

I did end up dating Gus again. And it was great. And he's wonderful. And we were happy.

And then he'd freak out, and worry too much, and stop trusting me.

And then it'd be great again. We'd walk through downtown Burbank holding hands, and he'd comment that other people looked jealous of how happy we were and how cute we looked together. We even had partner Halloween costumes, and I've never done that for/with ANYONE before.

But then he'd freak out again.

The Gus I got back was not the Gus I had the first time around.

And in November, he dumped me. In an email (you should know that I requested that if he were going to dump me, that he should do it by email).

I guess I've been doing more thinking than I planned to.

And I think we need to let each other go. For the foreseeable future, at least.

The last thing in the world I want to do is cause you pain, but within all the craziness, one thing has stayed consistent: I'm full of doubts and can't help but feel I'm being unfair to you. That I can't give you what you need, or what you can give me. I feel like a sponge. I don't want to be that person.

You're amazing and kind and talented and cuddly and personable and so beautiful and you need someone who is willing - scratch that - thrilled at the very prospect of committing to you mind, body, and soul -- not someone who's going to waver endlessly over petty nonsense for months on end while he tries to get his own life in order.

I helped you through a hard time, then - serendipitously - you did the same for me. And that's as deep and meaningful as anything I've shared with anyone in memory. Truly. But on that note, if a time comes when we do end up together, I need to know it's because It's What's Meant To Be and not simply because it's a welcome and easy and comfortable contrast to whatever awful person you or I happen to be coming off of at the moment.

I really do want (read: need) to keep you in my life, but understand if, for your sake, that sort of interaction has to be limited in the short term (or even long term -- whatever's best for you).

No matter what happens, you will remain in the upper, innermost circles of those most special and important people I've crossed paths with in life. You're incredibly unique to me. One of the good ones. I will always think of you fondly.

Best wishes. All good things.

G

(I liked that he borrowed my signature sign-off in that. Rather cute.)

It hurt. Because, you know, getting dumped always does. And I may or may not have stayed in bed for about 5 days without bothering to put on clothes or shower or integrate myself into society. But then, I kinda got over it. Not 100%, of course, but much better than I had the first time he dumped me. Because this time, at least we'd had a chance. This time, it was his decision, and not a consequence of the actions of a third party. This time, I had hope that he'd be happier on his own.

-------------------------

Right around the same time, my life became more challenging for other reasons.

I found out that the gig I had last year wouldn't be coming back for several more months.

My unemployment benefits ran out.

And the job I got that I thought would save me? Only offering $9/hr, with no number of guaranteed hours per week.

I ended up having to empty a savings account that my dad started for me in 1985 that had always been a last resort. And I broke down in tears in the middle of the Bank of America waiting room. One of the lowest moments of my life.

I nearly packed my bags and moved in with my parents.

I'm glad it hasn't come to that yet.

--------------------------

And then in the beginning of December, I started running into Scott again.

I mentioned Scott a couple of times in the post I wrote in September.

Scott, the perfectly nice guy I broke up with in order to see if things could work with my potentially insane ex. (In other words: I did the same thing to Scott that Gus did to me.)

First, I ran into him at an open mic night where my sketch comedy troupe was performing (SIDE NOTE: I'm in a sketch comedy troupe!). I've performed at that open mic a few times before, and I've never seen Scott there. But my troupe put out the word on Facebook, and I invited him... and he came.

And I saw him and got really flustered and nervous.

And he got up to the mic and read a chapter of a novel that he's writing. And it was good.

Then I threw a play-reading in my backyard (another slice of that quasi-theatre-company I started that I mentioned months ago). He RSVPed that he was attending. And then he asked if I needed him to read a role. And he brought weird chocolate wine (which was terrible, but he insisted upon drinking). And he was terrific in the reading. And I found in myself this sense of "what if...?"

We both ended up at an ice skating excursion with a big group of mutual friends. Neither Scott nor I had been ice skating before. But with him you'd never know it. That Florida boy took to the ice like he'd been playing hockey for years. And I was struggling to stand up. He ended up taking my hand and being my buddy, leading me around. And every time I nearly fell, somehow he caught me. And held me. I loved it when he held me.

And I was so gleeful. And I wanted to kiss him. But it had been months, and for all I knew, he might have been dating someone else. And as soon as we were off of the ice, I felt regret.

He was great. There was no reason for me to have left him. The reason was only that I wasn't over Gus.

But now I was over Gus. And I knew I'd missed my chance.

And then I ran into Scott again, when I attended a play reading that I didn't know he'd be acting in. And then we sat together at a bar after the reading and flirted, and I had hope. And a couple of days later we both ended up at a theatre alone, and I decided to be bold (well, for me) and sit next to him uninvited. And then I ended up in a bowling alley watching him play an intensely competitive game of pool with bizarre rules. When I arrived, he was up by eight points. But I guess I distracted him, because he ended up losing by one point, and was shocked to discover that he had fallen behind.

He walked me to my car that night. And I hugged him goodbye, maybe a little too long. He kissed me. And my heart fluttered girlishly. He was more charming than I remembered.

I asked him to see a play with me the next night, which ended up having less of a date vibe than I would've liked when we ran into another friend who had come alone and wanted to sit with us.

And I went home for the holidays the next day.

-------------------------------

While I was with my family, I texted Scott. And one night, via text message, he told me that he was terrified of me. Because I'd hurt him. And he was afraid I'd do it again.

Since I've gotten back to California, we've hung out a couple of times. But he's different now. More cautious. He doesn't adore me the way he used to.

The last time I saw him he just casually said, "I'm pretty busy. Don't know when I'll be able to see you again. Probably not for a week or two. BYE!" (I'm paraphrasing because he actually went into detail about his schedule for the next five days, full of excuses as to why he couldn't possibly see me. Am I that important to avoid?)

The Scott I got back was not the Scott I had the first time around.

Just like what happened with Gus. Except this time, it's my fault.

-------------------------------

A few days ago, I had a truly horrible day. It included having a migraine, some awkwardness with Scott, my wallet getting lost, and my car getting towed. (I found the wallet in time to flash my Driver's License to the impound lot and pay the $350 -- which I don't have -- to get my car back.)

And right as I got home, Gus called. He said he happened to be in my part of town and wanted to know if I wanted to meet up for coffee and a chat (we've been working on trying to be friends, and have actually been doing pretty well so far). I started crying, explained the whole ordeal of my day, and said I had no money and didn't want to do anything involving driving and parking.

He picked me up. He changed his mind on coffee, and he drove me to a dimly lit bar to get cocktails instead. And he paid for mine. And we had a really nice, fun, light talk.

Now, in case you don't recall this about me: one drink, and I'm drunk. I drink so infrequently that it has turned me into a really hilarious lightweight. So after one drink, Gus said he thought I seemed pretty far gone, and that he should take me home.

He parked outside my apartment, and we were having a lovely conversation... when suddenly he decided to hit on me, in a really awful way.

My ex-boyfriend got me drunk and propositioned me.

I SCREAMED at him. Because WHAT THE HELL? We were doing so well! We were trying to be friends! THIS IS NOT OKAY.

He tried to brush it all off as a joke. And maybe that was his intention (but I think it was more of a half-joking thing that he might've tried to see if he could get away with it).

I ended up bringing up Scott, as some sort of argumentative weaponry, which I hadn't intended to do. But hey, if Gus's plan had been to get me drunk and try to sweet-talk me, that backfired him in a crazy way.

Gus advised me not to rush into anything with Scott. He said he thinks that I'm uncomfortable being single, but that I shouldn't date someone just to date them. (I don't *think* that's what I'm doing. I always liked Scott. Am I deluded? Does Gus know me better than I know myself? Or is he jealous and frustrated to know that he no longer has me hanging around waiting for him to be ready for me?)

We somehow transitioned back into a nice conversation and left the night on a friendly note.

----------------------------------

I can't help but think that maybe I made a huge mistake.

I should've continued dating Scott.

There was actually a night when I chose Scott. Over the summer. I left Gus a voicemail saying that I was dating someone else who was great, and I hoped he'd be very happy with the Harpy he was seeing, and that I needed some space. And Gus responded with a text message saying, "My life is a waking nightmare." And that night, I found out all about the abuse he had been enduring at the hands of the Harpy. And that began the downward spiral of me feeling confused about Scott and chasing after Gus again.

What if I hadn't left that voicemail?

I would've dated Scott. I would've pushed Gus out of my mind, which I'd been trying to do for months.

Maybe things with Scott would've been great. (And maybe now they can't be, because he doesn't trust me anymore.)

Or maybe things with Scott would've run their course... but it would've given Gus time to heal, and then I could've ended up with a better version of him.

But instead, I ended up with Gus too soon, and Scott (potentially) too late. And I feel weird about all of that.

No. No. No. I will not regret. I will not do that thing I do where I get stuck in what I should have done in the past. I will focus on what I can do in the present.

---------------------------------

In slightly more positive (and non-male-related) news, I had my first day of training for my $9 per hour job today. And it went so well that I'm already being considered for a promotion (to a position with a better rate of pay). So cross your fingers for that for me, please.

---------------------------------

Also, I'm proposing a play for the upcoming season of a Los Angeles theatre company. I spearheaded the project. We've done two readings so far (the one Scott was in, and another that he attended to support me). I'm currently attached as a producer. I'm pretty excited about the project, but it's also a little daunting. Hoping the proposal goes through. Wish me luck.

---------------------------------

That's all I have the attention span to write at the moment.

All good things,

~A~

The Fridge, News, and the Aftermath of Abuse

2013-09-17T02:03:00.001-04:00

Okay, so tonight, I did one of the dumbest things I've done in recent memory. And I'm all filled with agitation over the event, so I'm blogging again.

My landlady was after me to defrost my (compact) fridge (I live in her garage, so she pays close attention to me). I kept saying I was going to do it when I had less stuff in the fridge that I was worried would go bad. So I decided tonight was the night, started defrosting the one-and-only frozen meal that my pathetic freezer compartment can hold at a time, took everything out of the fridge, and put in towels to catch the water when the ice melted.

But then I got antsy. Because it WAS NOT MELTING. So I took a knife to the ice. Carefully, because I didn't want to hit the cooling system and break the fridge. And it was SO MUCH FUN hacking away!

Yeah, I may have gotten a little overzealous... and I hit the cooling system. Got a face full of the mystery gas in there (Don't worry, I googled, and it looks like the coolant in my fridge, 1.77oz of R-134a, should be fairly non-toxic.). And my fridge is now basically a very impractical bookcase.

Landlady hasn't come home yet. Dreading telling her. Hope she doesn't yell at me and can just take it out of my security deposit or something.

------------------------------

In other news:

- I have a hacking violent cough and keep feeling like I'm dying. This cough makes it so I occasionally can't breathe, which leads to lightheadedness and headaches. I say I get this cough once a year, for several weeks... but this is the THIRD time this year (I had it in January, in May, and now in September). I HATE IT. And it makes it difficult to tell if I'm dying from some sort of coolant-related poisoning (which is possible even with non-toxic gas), because I'm coughing and lightheaded anyway.

- I'm still unemployed. I work side jobs from time to time, but have been mostly living off of unemployment insurance... Except they haven't paid me my most recent payment, and I can't get a live person on the phone to explain why, so I'm freaking out a little about that. (I have savings and two day-gigs lined up this week, so I'm fine, but it's stress-inducing not knowing why I haven't gotten any word on the unemployment money.)

- I've been offered two plays that I turned down (I had very good reasons), neither of which would've paid actual money (one would've paid $9 per performance, and nothing for the rehearsal process; in case you wondered why actors get the "starving artist" label from time to time... well, now you know).

- I got callbacks to a couple of shows that would have paid money (one was $250 a week, the other an unbelievable $700 per week!), but didn't get them.

- Ended up accepting an understudy role in a Shakespeare play at a small theatre company. The person who beat me out for the role is not by any means better for the role than I am, but is one of the founders of the company, so I get it. The understudies are guaranteed one performance ($9 total, before taxes, for a 9-week commitment... and I only get that $9 because I'm paying hundreds of dollars annually to the theatre union). But the actress I'm understudying booked another gig, guaranteeing me a couple more performances ($18 more!). I'm actually really excited about this! It's a great role (basically the female lead, if there is one) in a great play, and it's a great up-and-coming company. Hope understudying earns me brownie points so they consider me for future stuff.

- My "agent" is back from her maternity leave, but still hasn't gotten me any auditions.

- I sort of accidentally started a theatre company in my backyard, which was the savior of my mental health this summer. Because I decided I wanted to take my creative destiny into my own hands. We've done nine play-readings so far, with a tenth in the works. And they have been AMAZING. And I've gotten to perform a few of my dream roles that I can't seem to even get auditions for (like Vanda in "Venus in Fur" and Helena in "A Midsummer Night's Dream").

- I acted in a workshop of a new play that ended up being a fully staged, costumed, choreographed project. We performed last night, which was my first time performing on a stage since June. It felt so good, even though I had like 5 lines and was mostly a background dancer. The audience seemed pretty negative about the project, but multiple people weirdly complimented me on my very small role. And as a result, someone in the audience asked me to audition for something, and two people sent me scripts asking if I'll do workshops of their plays. So feeling good about that.

- Since that email Phil sent me ending our communication, I've heard from him exactly once. He sent me a text message while he was attending the wedding of mutual friends (whom I knew first, but they only invited him... weird), saying that he was "checking in" and that it was weird I wasn't there. I wrote something cordial back. I didn't write him on his birthday, because he asked me not to contact him, and I didn't want to break the rule. I found out that a well-known small theatre in town is going to do three of his plays next week, but I've decided it wouldn't be right of me to show up. I wish him well. But I don't think about him too much anymore. To be honest, typing his name at the beginning of this paragraph felt strange.

- I dated a bunch of guys casually this summer. Or at least, I tried to make it casual. They all ended up falling too hard for me. Even though they knew I was still hung up on Gus. Even though they knew I was dating multiple people. I ended things with all of them (and I attended a Co-Dependents Anonymous meeting at the urging of my roommate). Most of them took it well. Two of them didn't take it well initially, but both seem fine now. One of them, Scott, is NOT over it, is still trying to see me regularly, and invited me on a weekend away with him, "as friends". And the thing is, Scott is a lovely guy, and I like him a lot... but he isn't Gus.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

- Gus.

Well, I guess this is the real post.

As you may remember, Gus and I broke up because "the one who got away" surprised him by deciding to come out to LA for the summer to be with him. And he cast her in the play he wrote and directed.

I think you should be glad that I wasn't blogging about Gus all summer. I could have been. It has been a crazy rollercoaster ride.

And if I wrote it all out, you would probably question a lot of it. You wouldn't understand my motives. You wouldn't understand Gus' motives. You wouldn't understand why still, months later, our relationship is in a weird sort of limbo.

But the important parts of the summary are these:
- I still want to be with Gus. Gus still wants to be with me.
- She is an unstable, verbally-abusive banshee who has done nothing but torture him all summer and make him terrified of her and completely traumatized. (He hid how bad it was from me for most of the summer. But seriously, it's like he has a mild form of PTSD now).
- The play closes on Sunday
- She leaves town on Monday (a week from today).
- After she leaves town, we're getting back together.

I don't know what things are going to be like when she's gone. I don't know if we can make this relationship work or not. I don't know if he's even the same Gus. But I want to try.

I don't know who still reads this and what you know of my past. But there are three people in the world who have become the archetypal monsters in my nightmares. I have been in abusive situations before, although thankfully not with someone I was in a romantic relationship with (although as I just wrote that I thought, "well, things with Phil got a little emotionally abusive on occasion...").

These were people in my life that I couldn't escape from. A roommate, a classmate, and a coworker. The coworker one didn't last long, thank God (only a few weeks). But the other two... they were rough.

They both verbally and emotionally abused me regularly, and I couldn't escape. Each of them physically assaulted me a couple of times. And one of them frequently sexually harassed me, touched me inappropriately, tried to sexually assault me, and threatened to put me in the hospital.

And with both of these people, I was terrified. And I felt like there was nothing I could do to escape it. And it seemed like the easiest path to escape was just to keep my head down and try not to rock the boat until it was over. Because I knew that there was a deadline. I knew there was a day when it would be over.

(So that's why I understand why Gus has done some of what he has done this summer, but you might not if I wrote it out.)

And with both of these people, once the day came that I was out of the trap with them, things didn't really end.

First, because (with one more than the other), I was worried that this scary person wasn't really gone. That the person would come back. Would try to hurt me more. With the one, I literally thought he was going to hunt me down and kill me. There was a day when he went missing, and I had a panic attack, and was crying hysterically and couldn't speak, and was around people who didn't understand the situation and thought I was overreacting. And it was horrible.

But second, because when I was in those situations, I didn't experience them fully. I went into some sort of survival mode. Which meant that I wasn't acknowledging to myself how bad things were. I was ignoring things. Blocking things out. Which meant that for months afterward, I'd have more memories surface. More stories of, "Oh my God, and THIS happened."

And every story that came back to me... I don't know how to explain it. Somehow they made me stronger. Maybe because they turned my fear to rage. Maybe because they made me feel like, "I'm going to be so much smarter in the future." Maybe just because they reminded me of what a rotten situation I'd made it through, and how I was safer now that it was over.

But people like these. They change you. They make you question yourself in other relationships. In friendships.

To a small extent (very, very small), it happened at the beginning of my relationship with Gus, in that I kept recognized small behaviors of his that would align with things Phil had done (like when Phil would come up with a plan for what he wanted to do on a given day and inform me of it as opposed to collaborating with me on it), and FREAK OUT. And then Gus would remind me that he was, in fact, NOT PHIL, and had different motives (when he planned out a date, it was because he was trying to be romantic, not egocentric and controlling).

And I already see it in Gus. I asked him if he was coming to something I invited him to, his whole body locked up, and his face tensed, and he used a metered, quiet voice to say, "I'm sorry, I didn't know it was that day, I made other plans, it won't happen again." He looked like he thought I was going to scream at him or strike him and was bracing himself in preparation.

Or when a group of our mutual friends was going to hang out, and he declined an invitation... And eventually admitted to me that he was worried *she* would find out he was with me and give him hell for it. (She knows I exist because she read his email. And she freaked out at him when I came to see the play.)

So, like I said, I don't know which version of Gus I'm getting back. Probably one who is afraid. Probably one with trust issues. Probably one who assumes that I'm going to be cruel to him when I'm not. And probably one who, at first at least, is not going to be a person I can rely on. Not someone I can cling to for support. Someone who will be better at receiving than giving.

And I know you might not understand why I'm choosing to go that way right now. Scott (guy who is not over me) sure doesn't.

Because right now, I could be with Scott. I could choose that path. I could have someone who is better at giving than receiving (Scott's a giver; the walls he has up -- because we all have some -- are more about not leaving himself vulnerable). I could have someone who pours buckets of affection on me, which I crave. I could be with someone who cooks for me, and takes me on nice dates, and pays for everything.

But I'm choosing the broken guy. The guy whom I already suspect cannot give me what I need, at least right now.

I know it's the choice I want to make. And I don't have a solid way to defend it.

The best thing I can think to say is that I don't know how it's going to be, so I have to give it a chance. I want it to be great. I want that very, very badly. I want him to be the man I think he was, and hope he still can be. I hope he doesn't stay afraid of me.

We'll see.

And if it isn't great... I hope I have the strength to walk away.

I guess that's all for now. Catch you on the flipside.

~A~

The Emails I Haven't Sent to Gus

2013-07-08T16:51:00.001-04:00

Gus texted me yesterday. He's about to go on vacation with his family for a week, leaving LA and the other girl behind (at least, I assume she's not going with him).

GUS: Can i call you from [vacation spot]? Next coupla days?
ANGELA: Why?
GUS: ... To talk.
GUS: :)
GUS: If thats okay
ANGELA: 90% of me gives an exuberant yes. 10% of me wonders if talking to you will only remind me of the separation between us and cause me more torment.
GUS: I totally get it.
GUS: Lets call it "play it by ear"
ANGELA: When do you leave?
GUS: Ill be there tomorrow night
GUS: Thru sun
ANGELA: Have a safe journey and a relaxing vacation. :)
GUS: Thanx hun

Then last night, I wrote an email. I started composing it at 2am, fell asleep with my laptop on my lap, and woke up and finished it this morning. And I've been debating whether to send it all day.

Thank you for asking if you could call. Very considerate of you. :)

I would, of course, love nothing more than to talk to you. I'm desperate to talk to you. Please call.

--------------------------------------------------------

But I thought it only fair to tell you my thoughts on the matter.

I would rather put my cards on the table than hide them in my sleeve.

And so, here comes some vulnerable honesty.

--------------------------------------------------------

The hesitation arose in me because my brain is attempting to protect my heart. In talking to you, I'm worried I might become burdened with a terrible affliction called 'hope'.

It turns out, you weren't just a rebound. I've had a couple, and they were surprisingly easy to get over, once I was out of them. (Even if I clung tightly to them in the moment.)

You're different.

--------------------------------------------------------

I'm also trying not to be selfish. Try as I might, I haven't stopped wanting you. And I like to imagine that, on some level, you're not completely over me. (If you are, please don't tell me that; it won't lessen the pain.)

It feels unfair of me to keep talking with you. I'm trying to put myself into the shoes of a girl I've never met. I don't want to prevent you from being there with her 100%. It wouldn't be kind. Not after she's come all the way out here, with her dog, and worked out a job and a sublet, and is acting in your play, and has changed her whole life around to try to be with you.

The honorable thing would be for me to let you change your whole life around to be with her. And I want so desperately to be honorable. Maybe it's best, for you, if I tell you not to talk with me. Maybe it's best that I not only let you go, but that I push you away.

--------------------------------------------------------

But selfishly, I miss you.

I'm sure I'll be fine, eventually. I don't want you to think of me as some pathetic chick, wallowing in her bed, thinking about you all day. That's not where I am. [Literally: I'm in the garden. ;) ]

Most of the time, I'm okay. I've been getting a lot done, actually, mostly to distract myself.

Sometimes when you pop into my head, I think, "We started as friends. We can go back to being friends. I bet we'll be even better of friends because of how close we've become."

Or I think, "This would've run its course eventually. It's so lucky that it ended now, before it became more complicated."

Or I think, "He said he can see himself marrying this girl. This is the way things were supposed to be. Now I get to discover what's in store for me, without wasting more time on a guy who had already met his match."

But then waves of emotion come in unexpectedly.

Like when I want to tell you something, and realize that I've already texted you more than I should have that day, and I need to let it go.

Or when I had to cancel on Kate an hour and a half before the screening of The Way, Way Back, because I'm not quite ready to see a movie with someone else.

Or when the hot bartender (the one I kept joking about to try to make you jealous, which never seemed to work) gave me his number and I couldn't have cared less... I've already lost it, and I don't even care. Because he isn't you.

--------------------------------------------------------

Due to the friendly terms on which we ended things, you might end up being a sort of one-who-got-away for me.

The one I didn't get a fair shot with.

The one I'll always wonder about.

Almost funny, isn't it?

--------------------------------------------------------

In conclusion, I would love for you to call me. I can't tell you how much.

We can keep it light. We can avoid talking about her. Or us. It can be one of our fun, happy, silly conversations. I'd very much enjoy that. It can be the beginning of us being just friends.

But if you decide as a result of this information that it is better not to call, then I understand.

I'll be sad, of course, but I'll understand.

All good things,

~A~

`````````````````````````````````````````````````

I didn't send it. I drafted a second email, which I also haven't sent:

``````````````````````````````````````````````````

There are 750 words in my drafts folder explaining my internal debate regarding whether we should speak. The words are vulnerable, extremely honest, a bit embarrassing, and filled with affection (albeit a bit pained). I've been debating all morning whether to send that email...

The short version: Yes, you may call me from [vacation]. I would love to speak with you.

I'm booked tonight from 6:00pm-6:45pm my time, and 7:30pm-10:30pm. You are welcome to call me before 6:00pm (9:00pm EDT), or during the 45 minutes when I'm on the road between these things (9:45pm-10:30pm EDT), or after I'm done (but I'm guessing after a day of travel, and it being 1:30am EDT, you'll be sleeping by then).

Tomorrow I'm booked after about 6:15pm my time. But if you'd like to call during the day, I should be flexible. Just give me a heads up about when you might call, so that I can schedule my day accordingly.

All good things,

~A~

``````````````````````````````````````````````````

I'm not sure yet what to do. Send the first? The second? Neither? Just a text saying, "Yes, you can call me," and leave it at that?

Why do I over-think everything?

~A~

Celebrities People Have Told Me I Look Like

2013-07-05T21:28:00.000-04:00

I need to cheer myself up, so I'm going to write something completely frivolous.

I keep a list of celebrities people tell me I look like. Because apparently, I look like EVERYONE. I started keeping track probably about 5 years ago.

Ones I get regularly (in vague order of how often):

- Anne Hathaway

- Aubrey Plaza (I have been confused for her twice in 2013)

- Natalie Wood (started getting it more often when they reopened her murder investigation)

- Rose McGowan

- Alyson Hannigan

- Christina Ricci (I've been on set with her several times; no one has ever compared us when we're in the same room)

- Audrey Hepburn

- Riki Lindholme (which is weird, because she's rarely a brunette)

- Sarah Hyland (I was confused for her once in January 2013)

- Mariah Carey (usually specified as "a white Mariah Carey"; I swear I get this at least once a year, always from someone I just met)

Ones I got more in the past than I do now:

- Alyssa Milano (got it more when I was a kid and Who's The Boss? was on the air.)

- Laura San Giacomo (got it more when Just Shoot Me was on the air.)

- The girl from "Hook", aka Amber Scott (apparently, I looked identical to that child, but I never saw Hook)

Ones that I don't get often, and wish I got more often because I am totally flattered by them:

- Allison Brie

- Analeigh Tipton

- Ashley Judd

- Berenice Bejo

- Eden Riegel

- Janeane Garofalo

- Kristin Kreuk

- Marion Cotillard

- Marisa Tomei

- Michelle Monaghan

- Mila Kunis

- Rachel Bilson

- Sofia Coppola

- Sutton Foster

Ones I have gotten that make me go, "huh?" for various reasons:

- Allison Janney (I have since been her stand-in a few times, and trust me, we look nothing alike in person)

- Angelina Jolie

- Annabella Sciorra

- Anneliese Van der Pol

- Beyonce Knowles (have gotten a few times, always specified as "a white Beyonce")

- Carol Burnett

- Carole Lombard

- Imogene Coca

- Jennifer Lopez

- Katie Sackhoff

- Lauren Graham

- Lindsay Lohan

- Lisa Loeb

- Liv Tyler

- Liza Minnelli

- Maggie Gyllenhaal

- Mariah Carey (it bears reiterating)

- Michelle Pfeiffer

- Mindy Smith

- Rita Moreno

- Stella McCartney

- Swoosie Kurtz

- Vanessa Hudgens

The Unreliable Narrator & the Conflicted Love Interest

2013-07-01T05:12:00.003-04:00

I have a secret...

I'm an unreliable narrator.

Sometimes the things I write in this blog aren't fully accurate. Especially when it comes to my emotions.

Because the truth is, I spend a lot of time trying to talk myself into things. And even more time trying to talk myself out of things.

-----------

Example: I wrote something on here about this guy being interested in me, but whatever, nothing was going to happen.

Truth: I was attracted to him from the beginning. I just wasn't ready. So many guys hit on me. Many asked me out. Do you know how many I harshly turned down in person? Just Gus. Because he was the only one who was an actual temptation, and I knew I needed more time.

-----------

Example: I wrote a whole post about how being in Gus's play was more important to me than dating Gus.

Truth: I desperately wanted to be in Gus's play because I wanted to be around Gus. But that scared me. And I tried to talk myself out of wanting him. And convince myself that I wasn't just trying to be in his play because I had a crush on him, but that it was actually some sort of savvy career move. (Actually, it probably isn't; it's a tiny, non-paying theatre company, that already has a good opinion of me, doing a verbose high-concept show with no set in the Valley.) I just didn't want to admit to myself, or anyone else (and certainly not the internet) that I wanted to be in a play because of a boy. I actually nearly volunteered to be the stage manager (but stopped short of that because I really couldn't justify it as a good career decision; although Gus told me that he wouldn't have let me stage manage, as it would've been a waste of my talent -- his words).

[ETA: I did, in fact, offer to be an understudy after I found out I hadn't been cast.]

-----------

Example: I made it seem like I was having a conflict deciding between Gus and Phil.

Truth: I don't think there was ever a real moment of me wanting Phil over Gus. I just felt like there was supposed to be. I felt guilty. I felt like I owed Phil something.

-----------

Anyway. These are not the only times in the history of my blog where I haven't been 100% honest. But I felt I should own up to them, because I realized you are all working with incomplete information as a result of them. And I thought that maybe that would make everything else I'm writing seem either confusing, disingenuous, or delusional.

----------

----------

-----------

I hung out with Gus on Thursday and Friday and Saturday and Sunday. And honestly? It was all pretty great. No crying, no stress, hardly any mention of the situation or the other girl (my choice). Just enjoying each other. And ignoring most of the circumstances.

I'm far more at peace with than I was. And maybe more than I should be. I don't know yet.

I'm not going to be able to see Gus again until Wednesday night or Thursday morning. (Between work and rehearsal, he basically has three 14-hour days in a row). And then on Thursday afternoon, we're going to Malibu, so that he can take me to that restaurant he's been promising to take me to.

We're driving separately. And while he hasn't admitted this, I have reason to believe that when he leaves me after dinner, he's driving to pick her up from the airport.

I know. Believe me, I know how messed up that is.

Especially because she doesn't know about me.

-----------

He really likes me. A lot. In spite of himself, I think.

I think he's getting to the place where he wants to start focusing on her. His jokes are all becoming non sequiturs. He's starting to rebuild the wall that I've spent so much time trying to chip away.

But I see him struggling. He's conflicted.

Today we went to see a play. He didn't want me to kiss him anywhere near the theatre, because a couple of our mutual friends (the ones that we never told we were dating) were there. But when I did kiss him, he kissed me back, hard.

And he spent the whole play casually touching me in quick ways. It felt like he didn't want them to notice, but just couldn't help himself. He'd put his hand on my knee just for a second, and then take it away again. Or take the armrest in a way that made his arm touch my shoulder. Or rub my calf with his shoe.

I also know from the things he says to me. When he flatters me, he does it in a way that shows me his vulnerability, like, "I figured it was just a matter of time before you came to your senses and dumped me," or, "You're only dating me because I came along at the right time. You can't possibly like me as much as you think you do." (I know it's hard to understand inflection and context when I type out things he's said, but trust me that when he says these things, they are not ironic, or manipulative, or said in a way that makes me think he's trying to get me to like him either more or less than I do.) Or telling me that time we spend together is "so good... it always is." Or calling an evening in "perfect". Or looking into my eyes, kissing my hand, and telling me how beautiful I am.

I'm not going to lie to you: I like that he's conflicted. Even though he's not choosing me. I like that it's a tough decision. One that he worries he might regret.

And if I were a more mature and selfless person than I am, I might tell him that we need to stop seeing each other sooner rather than later. Because it's not fair to her. She's coming all this way on a huge leap of faith to be with him, and when he sees her, it will be right after having taken me out to a nice dinner. It'll be right after kissing me. And holding me. And (just a guess) after comforting me while I cry a little. And I know that when he drives to see her, he'll be excited to see her, but part of him will feel terrible about hurting me.

But darn it, I don't care.

-----------------

Someone told me a little about her last night...

FRIEND: She's a manic pixie dream girl.
ANGELA: Ah. I'm almost one. But only like half the time.
FRIEND: Yeah, she's one all the time. Also, she's crazy.
ANGELA: Well, I'm crazy, too. So Gus has a type.
FRIEND: It's a completely different kind of crazy. You're crazy in a good way.

*shrugs*

We left the conversation there.

----------------

For now, I'm happy. For now, I'm okay. For now, this works.

But after Thursday...?

Well, don't be surprised if you get another blog post.

~A~

The Potential End of the Phil Saga

2013-06-29T21:46:00.003-04:00

TEXT MESSAGES

June 26th, 2013, night time

PHIL: Hey there, hope you're having a good week! I'm seeing a play in [your neighborhood] on Saturday night, so am going to be in your neck of the woods that day in case you wanted to grab a coffee or something. Don't know if that would work for you, but thought I'd check.
ANGELA: I'm actually going to a party on Saturday night.
PHIL: I meant in the day/early eve. no good?
ANGELA: I'm at a bar and can't remember my schedule. I know I'm going to a play in [the mountains] at 2pm.

June 27th, 2013, morning

PHIL: Ok. When you get a sec can you pls let me know - if sat pm is no good for you ill play softball instead but need to RSVP in advance. Thx
ANGELA: I think I need a rain check.
ANGELA: But let's figure something out. Maybe weekend after next.
[Editor's note: this was my way of putting off seeing Phil until I was 100% done with Gus.]
PHIL: Ok. Here's the thing. i totally understand that you need time and space. but just so you know I can't do this limbo thing any more. I can't keep being strung along like this. If there's no chance of meaningful progression, for my own sanity I think I need to break all communication with you.
ANGELA: I don't know what to say.
ANGELA: I'm a mess right now. I've spent most of the week in tears, because of things happening in my life that I can't handle. And I have plans on Saturday, but even if I didn't, I'm not sure I have the fortitude to see you right now.
ANGELA: I care about you deeply, and I'm not sure what the future holds.
ANGELA: I just know that right now, I need to focus on getting my head on straight before anything else.
ANGELA: If you need to cut off communication with me, for your own sanity, I understand. Dan did that, too. He just unblocked me on Facebook after nearly 4 years.
PHIL: Thank you for being up front. I understand completely. I just needed to know where you were at. And that's completely understandable that you're in a fragile place and are nervous about seeing me. I'm going to send you an email with some of my thoughts, so you know where I'm at, and then I'm going to withdraw from contacting you completely for a while through email, text and Facebook. If and when you're ready to reach out, you know where I am. But that said, as a caveat to that, if you're having a really rough time, and if you really need me, I am here for you 100%. A problem shared is a problem halved. Just pick up the phone and call me. Ok?
ANGELA: Thanks.
ANGELA: I understand.

-----------------------

The same morning, I got an email from him. I can't post the whole thing, because it involves information about his work, and some personal things. But here's a reductive version that gives you what you need to know.

Hey. I'm sorry to hear that you've been suffering lately. This town does that to people. You are not alone in that, not by a long shot. It's been rough for me too recently.

[Two paragraphs on how work stuff is complicated. But he's being very upbeat about it.]

I'm also really focusing on the theatre side of things in a big way. Again, I wish you could be involved. I no longer care about us not working together - I wish I'd cast you in more stuff, because a) you're a great actor, and b) it would have made you happy, and that was more important than anything. I was an idiot. In this life, in this game, we have to help each other when we can.

We can't change the past, we can only learn from it, and that's what I've been trying to do with us, and with working on myself and improving myself, being honest about my flaws and failings and addressing them.

As I mentioned via text, I'm going to have to withdraw completely from communicating with you for a while. I really don't wish to get sucked into a destructive process of petty mindgames. This is simply too painful for me to continue down this path. I am in emotional limbo and I can't dealt with it.

I completely understand how you must feel after what's happened. Angry, betrayed, mistrustful, defiant, resistant...an overwhelming maelstrom of emotions. I completely get it. I understand that you do not wish to see me, and that are cautious, suspicious, even hateful etc. I get it. I won't ask to meet you again. You are not in the same place emotionally now. You need more time and space.

I'm not going to make excuses for what happened. I know you don't care. And I understand.

There is no excuse for what I did. There is a context and there are reasons, but there is no excuse. All I can say is that my world was turned upside down this year. In an insane period of extreme stress, upheaval and alienation, I made a hideous, unbearably regrettable error of judgement. I blamed my unhappiness on our relationship. Through a process of self-analysis and working on myself I subsequently identified the real reasons for my unhappiness and have worked to address those reasons. We had issues, sure, but nothing that couldn't be dealt with if my attitude was right. I was the real problem. My attitude. My behaviour.

For far too long I have allowed my mood and outlook to be dictated by external circumstances, instead of looking to the inside for emotional balance. I lost sight of what was truly important in life. Those we love. I had placed too much importance on my career and neglected your emotional needs. I have since learned a painful, but deeply valuable lesson, and one which I well never ever forget.

A person's career is just one facet of a person's existence. It cannot dictate one's mood and outlook in the way in has been doing for me. One needs to nourish, cherish and nurture the truly important things in one's life: our partner. Our family. These are constants in a world of uncertainty. This is what is truly important. To my everlasting regret, I lost sight of that during an extremely tumultuous period when I wasn't myself. Every day the regret eats away at me.

The experience has made me undergo a complete philosophical shift. A person's life needs to be more than just career validation, a nice car, money in the bank. That is an empty road to ruin. True fulfilment comes from a recognition of the emotional needs of those around us, those who are dear to us. Making others happy. Investing in another person. Helping them. Being there for them. Building something beautiful together.

Career is important. But people are more important. You are more important.

In our relationship, I let you down in a number of ways. I was critical. I was selfish. I was self-absorbed. I was insensitive. I was career obsessed. I didn't make enough time for you. I should have gone to San Francisco. I should have done a million things differently. I was not sensitive enough to your emotional needs. In hindsight, I realise the litany of terrible mistakes I made.

It may be too late now. These mistakes may have cost me the woman I love, forever. That is my fault. They are the consequences of my actions and I must accept them. I can only learn from them, and adjust my behaviour accordingly.

You are the most special woman I've ever met. I am still in love with you. You changed me. My life is diminished without you. Without your love, support, generosity of spirit, kindness, your eyes, musing skills, your smile...

There was so much about our relationship that was so wonderful. That's why I fought for it for so long despite impossible odds and obstacles. You are love to me.

I want to [list of things he wants to do with me that won't make sense to people other than us]. In this life and the next...I want to always have you by my side.

I have wanted to try and address our issues in a mature and constructive way. I do not want to resort to game-playing, provoking jealousy, cruel mind-tricks (however subtle) and such. I have no interest in any of that. Whatever happens, please let's not do that to each other.

I have been trying to come to you with an open heart, and with complete sincerity. Perhaps you are not ready. Perhaps you never will be now.

I now realize that I need to back off completely.

I do firmly believe that we can overcome our problems. [...]* This has happened to countless couples. It can make you so much stronger. [...]* It would be a completely new relationship. My attitude would be totally different. *[references to couples we know that broke up and got back together]

It's always been 0-100mph with us. We needed some real stability and consistency. I was too foolish to see that at the time. I was too stressed out to think straight. If only I could gotten through the eye of the storm. I was short-sighted and stupid.

I truly still believe there was a reason that we found each other in this world. There are too many [...] coincidences. Too much love between us. An ocean couldn't keep us apart for over two years.

[A reference to something he said in the first month we were dating that made me fall hard for him.]

In time, if you are ever ready, if you were to give us another chance, I would be approaching everything from a completely new angle, with a completely new philosophy. But the only way to find out if we can rebuild what was lost is to try.

My intentions are absolutely sincere. Words are not enough, I know that. If you were to give us a chance, I would show you with actions.

I cannot shake the feeling that we are meant to be together. My dreams of a future are with you. You are my seahorse.

I do not want to change you, criticize you, control you...I only want to love you.

And when and if you are ever ready, I would commit to you. I would prove my sincerity, not just say it.

But I know that's not what you want now. Or perhaps ever. You are probably not in that place any more, and I understand.

Therefore, this is the last time I am going to contact you, at least for a while. I cannot just be friends with you, at least not now. I feel like I have been getting mixed messages from you from some time (I understand, you are confused) but I cannot take it any more. As much as I love you, I am not going to be anyone's "reserve", be strung along, or wait on the bench. I wish I didn't have to back away. But I must protect myself.

I know that I can't just flip a switch, or wave a magic wand and make everything ok.

Unless we are moving towards a realistic possibility of reconciliation, however slow or delicate, I just can't be in contact with you, it is killing me. If you are serious about meeting me on a specific date, call me. Otherwise, please don't send me any more articles. Please don't text me. I can't be friends on facebook either I'm afraid, it's just too difficult.

(By the way, I'm not asking to jump in the deep end. I have only ever been asking for one date. Just one date. If you're ever ready, we could take things as slow as you want. I want to show and prove to you how I've changed, not just tell you.)

If you ever want to reach out to me in a meaningful way, you have my number, and you can call me any time. But otherwise I need us to stop communicating in this ambiguous way as it causing me too much pain.

I also need to delete your family and some of our mutual friends off facebook. Not because I don't love them, but because I DO love them, and it is too painful to be constantly reminded of what I have also lost.

You know where I'm at emotionally. My cards are on the table.

I love you with all my heart and soul. If you're really in trouble, I'm here for you 100% day or night. I can be your rock now, in the way you always were for me.

I need to say goodbye now, at least for a while. But if you're ever ready to talk/meet, just give me a call. And by the way, it doesn't have to be a big, heavy, emotional conversation/meet-up either. Let's just have fun. Let me make you happy again.

(PS I'm not expecting a reply, but if you could please let me know that you received this email, I would appreciate it - I've been having problems with my yahoo account recently. Thanks.)

Phil

--------------------------

ANGELA: I received your email. I understand completely.
ANGELA: I'm sorry that I can't be more clear for you right now.
ANGELA: I'd explain further, but I feel that involving you in my current problems will only make things worse.
PHIL: Did I not just ask not to mindfuck me?
ANGELA: That wasn't my intention. I apologize. Goodbye.

-------------------------

He blocked me on facebook. And unfriended my brothers. I don't know who else.

I thought the email was lovely. It made my heart ache a little.

I sent the email to my mother. She said it was manipulative, and it only made her angrier with him. She says he's still making everything about himself.

It's hard. Because Phil doesn't know about Gus. He thinks that me not talking to him (and then sending him articles on the internet, and liking his facebook statuses) is me trying to win power in our relationship, and being angry at him for dumping me. But that's not it. I'm mostly past the anger there. It's that as part of the process of trying to move on, I found someone else. And now I'm being dumped *again*. And the last thing I need right now is to go on a coffee date with Phil.

And the thing is, there's part of me that wants him back. There is. I miss us.

But when I talk about him now, I can't help but remember all the stories of things that are less than positive. This morning (while talking to Gus), for example, I found myself talking about how I hadn't auditioned for some theatre companies that I would've loved to work with because Phil hadn't wanted me to be away from him while he was in the USA. I once totally threw a callback for something in North Carolina, because Phil was going to be in NYC at the same time as the rehearsal period, and he begged me not to go work with that company. And I mentioned that I had wanted to start watching a tv show that several of my friends love, but Phil thought it was stupid and mocked me for it.

Those stories just came up TODAY. But there are tons. And every time I mention Phil in one of these contexts, Gus just says something like, "Yeah, these stories you tell me don't make me like Phil..."

I know, in my head at least, that Phil is not the right person for me.

My heart, on occasion, has other whims.

And I won't lie to you; it's very possible that in a weak moment, in the aftermath of Gus, that I would've headed straight towards Phil's embrace, and tried to have been part of a couple again. Because in many ways, that would've been the easy choice. Go to someone who loves me and wants to be with me. Go back to something familiar and comfortable. Go, even though he's not what I really want.

But on Wednesday (the day I broke down in tears to Gus), a friend of mine and Phil's came over. I think I mentioned her... this is the girl who tried to convince me to get back together with Phil over the phone for an hour a few weeks back... (If I didn't... that's all you really need to know.)

Anyway. I told her about half of the Gus story, with her assurance that it wouldn't get back to Phil. She made me promise her that I wouldn't go back to him. Because, she said, it was clear that I would be going back to him for the wrong reasons. And it would only hurt both of us more in the end.

So that's why I decided not to try to see him today (it is Saturday as I'm writing this, and I'm sure he's in my part of town at this very moment, about to go see a play). Because I knew that I'd want to lean on him for support. And that I'd probably start dating him again (at least partially to piss off Gus, if I'm honest with myself). And I can't do that... Because I don't want to hurt him more.

I had to let him go.

And I *hate* it. I hate that he's blocked me on facebook. I hate that I don't know what he's doing at right this very minute. I hate that he thinks I've been trying to mess with his mind all those times I sent him articles that made me think of him.

And I hate that I'm in pain, and I can't talk to him. Because for three years, when I was in pain, he was the first -- and often only -- person I talked to.

And then Gus became my best friend for awhile.

And now...

---------------------------------

As of the Fourth of July, I will officially be 100% independent again. And I won't lie to you; I'm terrified of that. I hopped into stuff with Gus right after Phil. If not romantically, then at least emotionally. Less than a week after things with Phil ended, Gus became my closest confidant. And so, in that way at least, I'm not sure I was ever really alone.

And I'm about to be.

I'm a serial monogamist without a relationship.

I'm a hard-worker without a job.

I'm miserable when I'm alone, and I'm useless when I'm idle.

And I'm afraid that my whole world is about to fall apart.

I wish I could be more excited about heading into this unknown space again, but that's not where I am.

Wish me luck.

~A~

The Probable End of the Gus Saga

2013-06-27T21:01:00.001-04:00

So, as you know, Gus and I have been quietly, casually dating since the first week of May.

I probably like him more than I should. But he's the nicest, kindest, most compassionate person I've ever dated. He actually puts my well-being ahead of his own, regularly. I'm not used to that, and it's great. And he's sweet to me. He has told me that sometimes my beauty takes him by surprise, and that it's like my features were carved from Grecian marble, and he gasps, and wonders how he got so lucky.

---------------------------------

I went away for a couple of weeks. To Connecticut, and New York, and Chicago. And I took some time away from my life. And I lived in a little world of freedom and fantasy for a bit, and it was lovely. And exactly what I needed.

And I came back. And once I got here, I realized that I really cared about Gus. And I really wanted to commit to him and make things work with him.

I told him that, on Monday when I got back from Chicago. He seemed happy. And surprised. And excited. And worried.

"I'm afraid I'm going to hurt you," he said.

"What, like imminently? Like, tonight? Or by the end of the week?"

"That's not what I meant."

"Gus, every relationship I've ever been in has ended. All but one were ended by the other person. If at some point you dump me, I'm sure I'll survive. But right now, I'm really happy. So unless you're going to dump me imminently, let's do this."

He smiled and agreed

----------------------------------

Last Wednesday night (two days after I got back into town), under the stars, we went hiking up some mountain in Brentwood or Pacific Palisades or somewhere. We stared over desolation, seeing the city sparkling in the distance. And he got all serious, and turned to me to speak, but couldn't look me in the eye...

He said there's this girl that he was in love with years ago. And they've had kind of an on-and-off thing for three years, mostly off, because she was living in New York and they just couldn't deal with long distance.

Wednesday morning, after two years of saying she was going to move to Los Angeles to be with him, she bought a plane ticket. She said she's just coming for the summer, but it's a one-way ticket. He thinks she might be The One (my words, not his), and he doesn't want us to overlap. He says he cares too much about both of us, and it wouldn't be fair to anyone. He said it would be unrealistic for him to expect that nothing would happen between the two of them, and he doesn't want to hurt me.

He decided to break up with me, in order to try to pursue something with her.

If he didn't try with her, he'd always wonder.

I didn't know exactly how to respond when he told me. I asked him how long I had with him until she got here. Two weeks. She arrives on the Fourth of July. I didn't want to let him go. So, for those next two weeks, I told him I wanted to stay together. Because I'm not ready for this to be over yet. Even though I know that's probably a self-destructive choice.

He said, "Really? You know this is pretty much the best way this could have possibly gone for me." And that was that.

So we agreed. We'd keep dating for the next two weeks. And then, when she arrives, we're through.

And the Fourth of July will truly be my Independence Day. In the most depressing way yet.

-----------------------------------

The first couple of days, though my heart was a little sore, this plan was working just fine.

He avoided telling me about her, and I avoided asking. I didn't want my last days with him to be him thinking about someone else. Or defending her. Or telling me all the reasons that she's better for him than me, and remembering how much he cares for her.

We stayed up late on Wednesday night. We hung out again on Thursday night. On Friday afternoon we went to a movie (Monsters University, which I actually really enjoyed).

Saturday, I threw a small garden party in my backyard (long story). The original plan was that Gus would come to the party late and be the last one to leave. I was surprised when he showed up early into the party, looking weirdly stoic.

He said he felt sick. He was convinced he was getting an upper respiratory or sinus infection of some sort, and he couldn't stay long. I told him he needn't have come, and should be in bed, resting. "I didn't want to disappoint you," he said. I looked for my Mucinex for him, but I'd had a few drinks by that point, and I'd cleaned for the party and had no idea where anything might be.

A few of our mutual friends from the theatre company attended. And, as a result, Gus kept his distance from me at the party. It's silly, really. We kept our relationship a secret from them all through the show. And that day, we should've finally been able to stop keeping it a secret... But it just felt like there was no point. Not when we would be ending things in a week and a half.

He was one of the last to leave, but he left before we could talk. Without even a good hug. And I don't remember seeing him smile at me the whole time.

------------------------------------

Sunday, I had an audition right by Gus's apartment. Literally a 2-minute drive away, according to my GPS. If you have any idea how massive Los Angeles is, that's just insanely close. Could've walked from one to the other.

So I packed up some things. Dayquil and Nyquil. Mucinex and Mucinex-DM. Sleepytime Sinus Soother tea. Minestrone soup. Cranberry juice, strawberries, and a couple of beers leftover from the party. I texted him saying I was going to be right by his place, and would drop off a care package.

And what happened next is difficult to explain in blog form... just know that it felt more insane than the following...

He gave me a, "You're so sweet, you don't have to do that," kind of response. I said it was no trouble. He gave me a, "That's really not necessary, but how nice of you," kind of response. I said it was just some stuff from around my house. He said, "I'm leaving at 2pm, so you probably wouldn't get here before I left," and I said, "No problem, I'm super early, so I'll just swing by before the audition." Then he was like, "I'M SEEKING CARE ELSEWHERE. Sorry for the caps, but sometimes when someone says, "No, thank you," you can take them at their word."

Huh? I don't understand boys.

So I called. I said look, if you don't want me to come by, that's fine, just say so. But you're being less clear than you think you are."

He said he didn't look sexy. I offered to leave the bag on his porch, knock, and leave.

He said to come on over.

*shrugs*

When I got there, he gave me one of the biggest, longest hugs ever.

What was this? Did he feel guilty? Did he need comforting? Was he just sick and irritable? I DO NOT UNDERSTAND.

So after unpacking the bag of goodies, and getting a ton of thanks, and another long hug, I went to the audition.

And then I wrote a text message novel.

: You don't have to be afraid of hurting me. Especially not now.

: My audition is over, and I considered coming over to try to talk again, but I know you are trying to get on the road, so I won't.

: You've said that when things end with you and women, it's often because of things that have nothing to do with you.

: I wonder if you seek out women with issues like this so that you can avoid feeling rejected. Because it's not about you when they leave; it's about them.
: And I think maybe it makes you uncomfortable to be separating yourself from me, a person who is accepting you.

: I don't want you to feel guilty.

: I wanted to do something nice for you today. And I'm still not sure why that made you react the way you did.

: But it was something I wanted to do. Not something I felt obligated to do. Not something I did to try to win your love.

: It was no trouble. And there was no ulterior motive.

: You're my friend. You're sick. I care about you.

: I have gone to houses of sick friends, made them soup and tea, and left them to rest and recover. It makes me feel better knowing that I've tried to help.

: So thank you, for accepting a little help, albeit reluctantly.

: It was nice to hold you.

: I hope you feel better soon.

He wrote...

:Thank you. Talk soon.

I don't understand boys.

------------------------------

Monday he went to see the doctor, who gave him six weeks worth of giant pills and told him not to kiss anyone for two days.

I met him at an IHOP between the end of his work and the beginning of my improv class.

We had a lovely time. It was fun. We laughed. He was a little sick, but still very Gus-like. And I loved it.

------------------------------

Tuesday was the day I had a freaking meltdown. A guy friend of mine who is trying to woo me called me crying about something traumatic in his day, and I calmed him down. Naturally, when he called me back to thank me and tell me how much I'd helped, I felt it was my turn. And I friend-zoned him SO HARD.

I started crying about Gus. About so many things.

And then another one of my potential suitors called, and he got the friend-zone weepies, too.

And they both told me the same thing:

YOU HAVE TO STOP SEEING HIM.

Two reasons:

1. The longer I date Gus, the more attached to him I'll become, and the more difficult my Independence Day will be.

2. Leaving him now, before she arrives, will somehow make him realize how much he wants to be with me and will make him want me more.

I told them both I was going to ignore their advice. While fully knowing, of course, that they were right. Even if they were giving the advice from a place of, "Leave him to date me!"

--------------------------------

Wednesday we met for lunch right by his office. And it was a lovely lunch. Very fun.

He'd had the first rehearsal for his play the night before. The play that I wanted to be in, but that he didn't cast me in. (He told me that I didn't have enough seniority in the theatre company, and that he'd had to cast people who had been in more shows with them already.) He said that the massive cast was all there but one person, and how amazing that was, because it's so hard to coordinate schedules of actors in non-paying theatre. I asked who missed it, and he said, "Some bitch."

And I don't know why... but something clicked. And I knew.

"You cast her in your show, didn't you?"

That girl who got away. The one who is coming from across the country to be with him. He put her in his play.

He didn't try to deny it. He said that someone else had turned down a role, and he'd offered it to her, as she was "going to be here anyway." And by that point, he said, he thought it would have been weird to cast me, what with us breaking up so that he could be with her.

"I'm not sure I can go see your show now. I'm going to know it's her. And I'm just going to be thinking about it the whole time."

"No you won't," he said. "Three of the girls in the cast haven't worked with us before, so you won't know which she is. It'll be fine."

So that seniority excuse for not casting me was a total lie.

I told him I thought we should stop seeing each other. That this was too difficult for me.

"No," he said, "I don't accept that. I don't think that's wise. Obviously we should keep seeing each other."

He gave me a bunch of reasons. But none of them very good.

He told me that his whole life, his relationships with women have been a disaster. They always leave him. They never last. He hasn't had a girlfriend since he was a junior in college.

"And now, the two least likely things in the universe have happened at the same time. One, I'm dating a girl whom I really like who also really likes me. And two, the girl of my dreams is coming to be with me."

He sees it as a lose-lose. And he's not sure he's making the right decision. But he's known her for three years, and he said that as a cold, mathematical decision, he feels that she outranks the girl he's know for three months.

And I get it. I do.

And I do have to commend him for being classy. For telling me upfront. For not just lying to me and saying, "this isn't working," when clearly it is. For not leaving me once she was here and decided to try things with him for real.

We left it ambiguous.

And I felt lousy.

So I went to karaoke with three of our mutual friends. And this girl came up.

As it turns out, they know all about her, and her backstory with Gus. Apparently she's also choreographing the show. And he's been saying she might come out here for awhile. And none of them thought anything about that was weird, because none of them knew that he and I were dating.

I was livid. And I burst into tears in the middle of the karaoke contest. And I broke down and told them all the truth.

We've been dating since the first week of May. And I'm crazy about him. And he's breaking up with me for this girl. And he told me I could be in his play, but must've changed his mind when she told him she was available to choreograph it.

And they were all shocked.

And they were all furious.

There is, of course, far more to this story than I feel comfortable putting on the internet. But trust me when I say that last night, Gus turned into the villain of this tale.

As I went up on stage for my last song at the karaoke competition, I announced on the mic that not only had I just been dumped, but that I'd found out the guy I'd been dating had been lying to me. A handful of singers from other acts came up on stage to be my back-up dancers. All the men took off their shirts. Each judge can award 1-10 points. Judge #1 gave me a 10. Judge #2 gave me a 20. And Judge #3 stripped naked and held his sign in front of his junk, saying I was the sexiest thing he'd ever seen, and a damn fine karaoke performer, and that no guy should have hurt me like that... and gave me a 70. 100 points out of a possible 30, and I set a new record at that karaoke contest. My trophy was a bong, which I have no idea how to use and will probably end up being a prop at a theatre someday. But at least I got a win out of the day, right?

Gus was staying at his parents' house last night. Thank God. Because otherwise, I might've driven to his apartment in the dark, banged on his door, and demanded an explanation then.

As it was, I had to convince myself not to send a long, angry email.

I started drafting one just to get things out of my system... at three in the morning...

Dear Gus,

I would like to make the following points:

- A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. You have me. She's a risk. You're an idiot.

- You lied to me. I know she's your choreographer. I know you cast her. And I know you knew she was coming out here long before you told me, and long before I fell for you as hard as I now have.

- I'm not sure I can express right now how much you've hurt me. And damaged me. Because if I had baggage before (with trusting men and fearing abandonment), you've just upped that exponentially.

- I thought you were a good guy. I really did. Congratulations, you're a much better actor than I gave you credit for.

- Does she even know about me? Does she know that you're hurting someone who is kind and cares about you?

- Why was it such a point of controversy about whether I should be in your show, but it's no big deal in your mind for her to be in it?

- I've been sad in break-ups before, but I don't remember ever being this angry.

- Do you have any idea how much I've cared about you? And wanted to be with you? And tried to temper my feelings for you, because somehow I knew this was going to happen? But then I came back from Chicago and thought, "No, I really like him. I really trust him. I'm happy. This is going to work."

- Why did you want to hide me from everyone? Is it because you knew long ago that you were going to dump me when she got here? And you didn't want to look like the bad guy? Guess what, Gus: you are the bad guy.

- What are you going to tell your mother? Are you going to tell her that you are the villain in this?

- I hope she hurts you far more than you hurt me.

But that seemed too harsh. And a little crazy. And I knew it was a bad idea to write while I was angry and tired.

I tried again.

Dear Gus,

I know we said I might see you after your rehearsal tonight, but I'm not sure whether I have the strength to see you. My head is swimming right now. Of course, it's also three in the morning. But in this moment, I am confused, and hurt, and feeling used. I know in my heart that you are a good person, and someone I have wanted badly to be with. And I feel lost and conflicted. I'd like to talk to you in person, but...

And then I came to my senses, closed my laptop, and went to sleep.

---------------------------------

ANGELA: I'd like to see you today, daytime, and sit down and talk.

GUS: I'm in the same sitch as yesterday... Can you come [near my work]?

ANGELA: Yes.

GUS: 1?

ANGELA: Sure.

GUS: Super -- cya then

ANGELA: Warning: there's a very good chance I'm going to get emotional.

GUS: I inferred that with my powers.

ANGELA: I know she's your choreographer.

ANGELA: And I know you wanted... [a couple of other things that are weird out of context]

GUS: "Wanted"? Where are these hard facts coming from?

ANGELA: I thought I'd try to give you the benefit of the doubt and let you explain, in case the "hard facts" are indeed not so hard.

ANGELA: You must've known she was coming before you told me.

GUS: Not true.

ANGELA: Alright, tell me over lunch.

GUS: I told you it had been in the air forever. She booked her trip, I told you.

GUS: 99% of men would not have been as honest with you as I was/am, and I'm not really interested in walking into some kind of ambush.

ANGELA: I'm not interested in ambushing you. If I were, I wouldn't have given you a heads up via text.

ANGELA: I'm still crazy about you.

ANGELA: I know you're a good person. And I know you actually care about the well-being of others.

ANGELA: Which is why I'm so confused by the information I was given last night. And why I want to know the truth, from you.

GUS: "I told you it had been in the air forever. She booked her trip, I told you."

GUS: That's where it starts and ends.

ANGELA: If I didn't care about you as much as I do, this wouldn't matter.

ANGELA: But it seems I am more fond of you than you are of me.
GUS: Stop it.

We met. We spoke for two hours, even though his lunch break is only one, and there was no lunch eaten. We met by the bleachers next to a baseball diamond in the park. I got a parking ticket, adding to my fantastic streak of luck.

And the thing is...

I can't stay angry at him. Because I actually do really want to be with him.

And I know that I shouldn't be sitting around, willing to be strung along. Waiting on the back burner. Available to be someone's silver medal.

But this is where I am. It's pathetic. But for some reason, I can't stop myself from clinging to him. And I HATE THAT.

And I got this whole long email from Phil today, and I can't even GET INTO that, because I'm still dealing with this. One boy problem at a time.

I'm going over to his apartment tonight to talk more. I really don't think anything besides talking is going to happen. And I anticipate more tears.

But I wouldn't be crying if he didn't matter this much to me, right?

I just feel awful.

I feel discarded. Again.

I hate men.

And I hate myself for falling for ones who, for whatever reason, can't love me the way I deserve to be loved.

~A~

My Cute Silent Short Film That You Should Watch

2013-06-25T22:21:00.002-04:00

Enjoy!

The Character Breakdown

2013-06-11T16:56:00.003-04:00

Gus wrote a play. And is going to be directing it.

As an excuse for our first non-date, he told me that he thought I'd be good for it.

He asked me to do a reading of it one night, which I turned down, because I had work. In retrospect, totally should have done it. But I didn't want to miss out on a day of work, when I knew I'd have to take off a few for the performances of the play I was in...

And also, part of the reason I didn't do it, being honest, was because I knew Gus was interested in me. And I didn't want to go out of my way to do something for him. Because as studies have shown, the more nice things you do for someone, the more you like them... and I knew I was vulnerable to being interested in him. I was trying so hard not to fall for Gus.

Anyway.

The auditions are this weekend. While I'm out of town. At one point, Gus said we could work it out so that I could audition another time. Maybe before I left. Maybe once I returned.

We never worked that out.

And then we've had a few, "Is this a bad idea?" conversations.

And yes, honestly, it very well could be.

But I want to be in it. A lot.

And the way I left things with him was:
1. I acknowledge this might be a terrible idea.
2. I think I want to do it anyway.
3. I leave it up to you.
(and a bonus, because I'm a controlling yet sensitive freak who felt the need to specify this)
4. If you decide not to cast me, regardless of the actual reason, please tell me it's because you're worried it would be too weird, and not because I'm, like, wrong for the role or something.

Honestly, I shouldn't have said that last part. I'm like 95% sure that would, in fact, be the reason if I'm not cast.

The theatre company sent out a character breakdown to the actors on their mailing list. I got it yesterday in my email when I turned my phone back on after touching down at JFK. And the company put it on Actors Access, which is a big self-submission site for actors. And I'm sure that at this moment, they are being positively inundated with requests from people to audition. Because the play sounds awesome. And because there are SO. MANY. ACTORS. in Los Angeles.

And I just want to be among them.

There are 5-7 female roles (two are non-specified). I'm probably good for two of the roles... maybe three.

Last night, I sent Gus a text message.

ANGELA: [Play] breakdown.
ANGELA: Do you want me to submit? And if so, for whom?
ANGELA: If I didn't know you, and I just saw the breakdown, I'd probably submit for [antagonist].
GUS: Hey! Sorry, out -- let's talk tomorrow :)

So it's tomorrow. It rolled around to noon his time, 3:00pm my time.

And then I noticed...

If you read the part of yesterday's post that was in brackets, I mentioned that there's a dude in the theatre company who is kind of a dick? And I might have screwed up my standing with the company because I told people that he's kind of a dick?

Yeah, that guy put something on facebook about how in a few hours (and this was a few hours ago), he's going to start looking at something to do with casting. So I went back to the character breakdowns, and he's listed as the "Casting Director" for Gus's play.

Yikes.

Now, I know, realistically, that Gus has more say in this casting process than anyone else. I know that me getting cast or not cast is really Gus's decision and no one else's.

But this guy and I are oil and water, and he's a stickler for rules. And as soon as I saw that, I thought, well, drat, I'd better submit.

And Gus *might* call me on his lunch break, but is probably not going to call me until after he gets out of work, at which point I'll be at a dinner party that I'm being dragged to by my parents... at which point, it might be too late...

So I did it. I submitted for the antagonist, with a note reminding them that I can't be at the audition this weekend.

I justified it by thinking, if this were any other theatre company, I would have submitted. If anyone else in this theatre company were directing it, I would have submitted. And the only reason I hesitated was because of my present undefined relationship with Gus, which the rest of the company is supposed to be unaware of, so the choice to not submit is actually stranger than the choice to submit. Especially if I end up being able to audition. Less fishy this way... I think.

I hope Gus isn't mad. What if I submitted for the wrong character?

Well, I guess that just gives him another excuse not to cast me. And maybe it's better if he doesn't.

But damn, I realized while writing this how badly I want to be in this show.

Because I know it's going to be a good show, with a company I like, and with a writer/director I trust. And I know it's going to get good press, and I could get a role that's good for me. And it'll be fun.

And, weirdly, I think I prioritize all of that above whatever this relationship with Gus is... Because I know it's not really anything. Does that make sense, or is this screwed up logic?

A different theatre company offered me membership yesterday. I'm looking into it. But they have monthly dues, which I'm kind of against. I've been in a "pay-to-play" company before, and it was so not worth it to me. There's got to be another way.

But at least I have that to fall back on, I guess. Except that they want an answer ASAP. So right now, I'm writing to people who are friends with members on Facebook, and asking their opinions on the company's reputation. So far, the responses have been positive... except for a couple of "pay-to-plays suck and actors should respect themselves more than that" sorts of comments.

I'll let you know what happens.

---------------------------------

Gah, I am a drama queen. This is not a big deal, probably, to any of you reading it. And you're probably all just like, "There are other plays. Just go be in a different play."

But see, when you start getting in with a theatre company, you want to continue that relationship. Because you have no idea how difficult it is to get involved with a theatre company from the outside. The last play I was in, I was LITERALLY the ONLY person who was cast just because I walked in off the street and got an audition. EVERY OTHER PERSON had worked with the director before, and all but one had worked IN THAT THEATRE COMPANY before. It was a massive stroke of luck and good timing that I got in (and, according to Gus, had something to do with the fact that one of the other founding members of the company thought I was cute and said, "That Angela seemed good... we should cast her...", leading Gus to tease him about having a crush on me... And then they cast me. And then, weirdly, Gus made a play for me and the other guy didn't. *shrugs*)

So the pros list is this:

1. Get to do another show with a great theatre company with a good reputation that does a lot of Shakespeare, thinks I'm a great actress, and might allow me to do some really cool roles in the future.
2. Get to be in the world premiere of a play by a playwright whose last new play got stellar reviews.
3. Work with people I really like (because I'm sure some of the casting will be internal, quite like their last show).
4. Be in a show, which gives my life a sense of structure again (as I am, at present, still unemployed) and my soul a sense of artistic purpose.
5. Get a regular excuse to see Gus in a way that (in my mind) actually takes pressure off of our relationship (because it's a professional environment, and no one knows we're dating, and we'd probably keep it that way... so we'd have to be very chill, low-key, and not obvious about things).
6. It would be a union show, so I'd get a (very, very minuscule) stipend for being in it. (I think it's literally like $9 per performance or something... Which would be the first time I would have been paid to do theatre since 2008, when I was getting $20 per show for Tony 'n' Tina's Wedding in Chicago... By the way, don't go into show business for the money, guys.)

And the cons list:

1. If things go wrong with Gus, the show gets more awkward. (But only during the rehearsal process... Directors generally end up more absent during the course of the actual performances.)
2. If things go wrong with the show, things get more complicated with Gus (but whatever, things are already complicated with Gus).
3. It prevents me from acting in other things.
4. It means when I get a job, it's better if it's a job that is a 9-to-5, as opposed to a "stand-in with crazy hours" sort of thing... But honestly, that's true of any play that I might end up in.

Okay, it's now 2pm Gus's time, and 5pm my time... which means he didn't call me on his lunch break. I wonder if he'll call me at all.

*sigh*

~A~

Drama Queen

2013-06-10T16:18:00.000-04:00

--------------------------------------------

Wednesday was June 5th. It would have been my three-year anniversary with Phil. In any case, it was the three-year anniversary of the day we met. We met up for coffee for an hour. No tears on either side. It was the first time since he dumped me (April 2nd) that we've had a conversation that he made it through without crying.

And it was good. It almost felt like maybe there was hope of us someday being friends.

Except for the fact that he has said he doesn't want to be friends. He wants me back. He says it's either/or.

------------------------------------------

Friday, Gus and I planned to see Joss Whedon's "Much Ado About Nothing" in the evening. I got a giftcard to a fancy movie theatre from the lead actor on my tv show as a wrap gift (lovely guy), so the actor paid (which was I guess my way of paying Gus back for the "Before Midnight" tickets.

In the morning, on my way to a meeting with an agent, I got into a car accident. Very, very minor. No damage to either car (like I said, very minor). But I was shaken up by the whole thing. And all I could think of was how the last time I'd gotten into a minor accident, I'd gotten into a more major one within 36 hours of it. And then I was freaked out about driving.

But I ended up being near Gus (in the valley) around 2:30pm. I called him up, and told him I had an errand to run, but that I didn't want to go all the way back to my place (40 minutes away) and then drive back to the valley (driving didn't seem appealing after the accident, although it never does)... I said if it were no trouble, I'd rather just go to his place at 3:30 or 4:00... but that if he were still working, I could try to make it later.

At first he seemed hesitant, probably because he didn't like the idea of me throwing a wrench in his plans. But then he said to come over after the errands.

He also said that he wanted to get a lot done the next day, so, "I'm not sure if you should crash here tonight. Or if you do, be prepared for me to kick you out early so that I can get some stuff done." I told him that was fine by me, and that I didn't really need to stay the night.

I texted from my errands at 3:30, saying, "It'll probably be more like 4:30". He wrote "Nooooo". So I rushed through what I was doing, and got there at 4:15. At which time I realized I hadn't eaten since a bagel at breakfast time, and was super hungry. Gus wanted to hang out for awhile, but I needed food quickly. So we walked to sketchy Mexican place down the street.

You all know I have food issues right now. And part of that is that sometimes I forget to eat. And sometimes food is disgusting. And sometimes I eat way too much. So of course, I ate too much and then felt ill. But Gus doesn't like knowing that I have mystery pain, so I didn't tell him.

I also didn't tell him most of the drama of the day. Like that I now have an agent in LA, but am not sure that's a good thing. Or that The Filmmaker, after blocking me on Facebook for most of the last three years, became my Facebook friend again that day, and has been married for over a year now. Or that I feel like a terrible person because I'm leaving town for a week and I don't want to be, because I'm selfish and horrible. And that I felt weird guilt about Bill, even though I didn't really need to. And that two of the guys who have been pursuing me asked me out anew. All of this heightened by that whole car accident whatnot, and feeling like a terrible driver, even though the accident was not in anyway my fault, and my defensive driving was what prevented it from being worse than it was.

(Not wanting to be one who kisses and tells, but feeling it is important to the story... between dinner and heading to the movies, Gus and I had one of the most passionate and sexiest make-out sessions of my life.)

Then (interrupting the make-out session... as though it was weighing heavily on his mind and he couldn't bear to not say anything for one second more) Gus decided to tell me that I'd made a sort of social faux pas with the theatre company (which Gus is one of the founders of) and the head of the theatre company is annoyed with me, and that I should try to clear that up (in a way that didn't let the head of the company know that Gus had told me, both because then it would make the effort to apologize seem less genuine, and because it would fuel speculation that something might be happening between Gus and me).

That only made everything worse.

[In case you're curious, although none of this is vital information:

Basically, one of the other founders of the theatre company is a dick. And has been a dick to me repeatedly. And I mentioned some of his dick-ish behavior to the head of the theatre company privately on the day of closing. Also, one of the nice girls in the company is being emotionally yanked around by the dick (and all the girls in the cast, who also all think he's a dick, are trying to get her to have some self-respect and get out of the situation), so in a group setting, I relayed a string of stories of this guy being a total dick to me, mostly for the benefit of this girl, who needs to be talked out of him.

Anyway.

The head of the theatre company told Gus he felt that if this were something I were bringing up to him privately, then it was not something I should be sharing en masse.

Yes, I feel terrible. I actually felt terrible while I was doing it at the party. Because I'm not usually a gossip or a s***-talker, but I had a bee in my bonnet about this dude. And I felt horrible already for what I had said (even though every single thing I said was factual and not exaggerated), because it's not something I would usually do.

But knowing that the head of the theatre company -- whom I enjoy and respect -- thinks ill of me as a result? Yeah, that made me feel like a horrible human being.

And the fact that it was upsetting Gus enough that he would interrupt an awesome make-out session to tell me about it? Made me feel twice as lousy.]

As we drove to the theatre, I felt myself withdrawing. And my stomach pain getting worse, as it often does with stress. He kept asking what was wrong. I'd say I didn't want to talk about it. He looking at me with so much concern, taking my hand in his as he drove. And that silent compassion was so wonderful in that moment. But I could see his frustration with the situation.

Gus says he's not a natural caregiver, but that's not it. He desperately wants to give care. His frustration comes from the times when he is not able to do so.

I told him that I felt vulnerable, and that I wanted to stay over at his place. He asked why, and I said I didn't want to be alone that night. He said we'd discuss it later.

When we got to the movie theatre, the next two shows were sold out, so we had to waste some time. Gus wanted to walk around a nearby massive music and movies store. I had no desire to buy anything, and really just wanted to sit down, but felt like I couldn't tell him that.

We went and got hot chocolate and coffee, and split a giant chocolate-chip-rice-krispie-treat cookie. And I told him the same thing I always tell him. That I'm sorry that I'm such a mess. But this time I added in something else: I don't want to tell him all the drama going through my head, because I know it's fleeting, and the land of the drama is not a place where I want to live. And I'm worried it's going to scare him off. And I need him right now, and I don't want to get all heavy and dramatic and scare him off.

We went and saw the movie. And cuddled. And, even though "Much Ado About Nothing" was a lovely little film, I fell half-asleep about eight times, resting my head on Gus's left shoulder.

I also fell half-asleep in the car on the way back to his place, while debating with myself about whether I think Gus is an extrovert or an introvert. I came to no conclusion.

When we got back to his place, he stopped his car next to mine and asked if I'd left anything upstairs. I said that I wanted to stay. By that point, I was too tired to drive half an hour home. Especially having been in an accident that day. I didn't want to fall asleep on the road. He said, "How can I ever trust you, if you said you didn't need to stay over tonight, and now you're trying to stay over? My whole day tomorrow is going to be ruined if you stay the night." I said I'd be happy to sleep on the floor. Or to wake up and leave at 5am. But that I was in no condition to drive home.

I climbed the stairs to his place, aware of his disdain. I laid down on the floor, at which point he said, "Oh, stop being a martyr," and told me to sleep on the bed next to him. I spent the night pressed against the wall, afraid to touch him or disturb his sleep. He got up at one point in the middle of the night, and when I tried to cuddle him, he shoved me away.

I woke up a little before 9am and left, with Gus still sleeping.

I got home, and wrote him an email (because I worried a text might wake him):

"Thanks for letting me crash. I tried to not be too much of a bother. I was way too tired to drive home safely last night. I really would have been fine sleeping on the floor.

I hope you slept well despite my unwanted presence, and can have a stressless and fruitful day."

Two hours later, this was his response:

No text. Just that picture.

I spent the whole morning feeling like he was being kind of a dick. And most of the afternoon, too. And then, upon reflection, I realized that he probably thought I was a crazy, selfish, emotional nightmare.

AND I AM.

*sigh*

In the morning, I texted:

ANGELA: ?

ANGELA: Not sure I understand the email.

ANGELA: By the way, I texted [head of company] re:[dick]. He wrote back. I think/hope we're cool. Still feel bad about it."

He wrote back an hour later.

GUS: Cool -- ill try to bring it up on the DL w him at some point

We were supposed to see two plays by his theatre company as part of the Hollywood Fringe Festival that night. But then he wrote me that he had been invited to a fancy and important industry event. So I had to go to the plays alone. Not a big deal…

Except that I knew that I was leaving. For a week. Monday through Friday in Connecticut. Friday through Monday in Chicago.

(Which also means me missing the auditions for the play Gus wrote… The one that he said he wanted me to be in, which was the whole excuse for our first non-date.)

So I texted him.

ANGELA: Do you think I'll get to see you again before I leave [for a week] on Monday?

GUS: Hurm. Dunno, come to think of it...

ANGELA: Bummer.
ANGELA: Look, I'm sorry about last night.

ANGELA: I have fun with you, and I think you're great.

ANGELA: I said some things that put you in a weird position.

ANGELA: I'm not looking for you to save me or fix me.

ANGELA: I don't really want to leave for a week on this note.

GUS: I dont really know what to say, hun.

ANGELA: Fair enough.

GUS: You seem to be looking really hard for something, and i dont know if i have it.

GUS: What are you doing right now? Should we phone?

ANGELA: Give me five?

Five minutes later… I started the call as a happy, peppy person, trying to prove something to him or myself.

He said that he felt that I was too histrionic for him to handle. I’m paraphrasing, but his sentiments were something along the lines of, “When you got to my place, you were hungry, but it was like, ‘Oh my God, if I don’t have food right now, I’m gonna die.’ And then we ate, and you were like, ‘Oh my God, I ate too much and I feel horrible.’ Then on the way to the theatre you were acting all weird and like, ‘I’m dealing with tons of shit, but you can’t know about it, so I’m just going to sit here and noticeably suffer.’ Then in the movie store, ‘I’m in so much pain and I don’t want to be here.’ Then in the coffee shop, ‘Don’t leave me!’ Then after the movie, ‘If I go home right now I’m going to fall asleep at the wheel and DIE!’ And then, ‘I’m going to sleep on the floor like a martyr.’ It just felt like everything was the biggest deal in the world to you. And I think you need someone who lives like that, and that’s not how I live at all.”

On my end of the phone, there was some eye-rolling happening, because that’s not exactly how things went down. But I understood his point. I also pointed out that by using phrases like, “If you stay over tonight, tomorrow will be ruined for me,” and “How can I ever trust you again,” he might have been a little more dramatic than he intended.

He said, “It was just that I was expecting you to go home, and then that’s not what happened. The last we’d talked about it, at like two in the afternoon, you said you were fine not spending the night. And that’s what I had mentally prepared for.”

“I was under the impression that it was fine if I stayed the night, so long as I left early. If I’d known it were going to be a problem, I would’ve told you that delaying the movie by two hours was going to be too late for me, and gone home then.”

“Oh. Ah. I’m sorry… I guess I didn’t communicate what I needed clearly. I’m sorry. That’s… That’s my fault.”

We ended the conversation in a good place, actually. Each saying that we were glad we talked. He said, “I feel so much better. Thank you.” “Me, too.” Although immediately after saying those words, I thought, well, not really.

I guess I felt better about ending things on a note of, “Okay, we’re cool,” instead of the place of “Here’s a picture of Jesus on the cross, sent in a mocking fashion.”

But I hated the idea of being a drama queen. Of course, I had to mute my emotions on the phone call so as not to lend evidence to his case.

Am I a drama queen? Absolutely. Every one of you reading my blog knows that. I feel everything. Deeply. I overthink everything. Painfully. I am full of exposed nerves, a side-effect from being in a profession in which being vulnerable and reacting immediately to the world around me is a valued attribute. It’s not easy to turn that off.

I believe I’ve said this before, but I think part of the reason actors live in a heightened state of emotion (seriously, like 90% of us do) is because the things we’re acting are constantly there (you wouldn’t watch acting if it weren’t, because what would be the point of watching a story with no dramatics?), and so that becomes a baseline of what it takes for us to feel.

And (did I say this before? I think maybe I’ve said this part before, too… Why am I always repeating myself?) it’s a little like the “Once More with Feeling” musical episode of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” Buffy (the vampire slayer, guys) has started sleeping with Spike (a vampire). We don’t know why at the start of the episode. It seems like such a strange and backwards choice. Then she sings,

“I touch the fire and it freezes me.

I look into it and it’s black

Why can’t I feel?
My skin should crack and feel.

I want the fire back.”

And one of the very last lines of the episode is her singing,

“This isn’t real,

But I just want to feel.”

And then she kisses him, knowing how wrong it seems.

And we get it.

Sometimes, I think that’s where I am right now.

Gus isn’t “the one”, although I don’t really believe in such things anyway. I’m not going to end up with him. This is not some big love story. This is fated to end… probably badly.

But when I’m with him, I feel good. (And here comes the drama queen) I feel something other than isolation, sadness, pain, and worthlessness.

If Gus weren’t around, I’d be in a very bad place, indeed. And I HATE. HATE. HATE being that dependent on another person. Especially one whom I know is in my life temporarily.

--------------------------------

I called my parents on Sunday morning. I may have done some crying. I told them nearly everything (as I almost always do). They freaked out at the, “Gus sent me a picture of Jesus on the cross,” part of the story, and told me to drop him like a hot potato.

I told them that I just really wanted to see him before I left for CT for a week. That I didn’t want the last time I saw him before being gone to be me sneaking out of his apartment as he slept. They said to let it go.

But I had an audition in the valley, where he lives. And my brother said to just tell Gus I was going to be near him, and say look, if you want to hang out, I’m near. If not, whatever. So I did.

And he did want to hang out.

And we got frozen yogurt (for which he insisted on paying) And we talked. And it was fun again. Like, really fun.

And then I left, and watched the Tonys with my friend Matt, who bought crackers with spreadable cheese, and champagne, and strawberries, and grapes, and tried to show me a completely lovely time… during most of which, I was talking about Gus. So I really, really hope that Matt isn’t interested in me, because if he is, then I’m a b****.

--------------------------------

I don’t know. I’m in the airport now about to go board a plane across the country.

I feel weird. Conflicted.

Within the last ten minutes, I’ve gotten texts from both Gus and Phil, wishing me a safe journey.

I guess whatever sorts of drama I allow myself to stir up, at least I still have people who care about me.

Anyway. I’m not even sure I’m looking for advice this time, although you’re all welcome to give it. I just needed to vent.

I’m pretty copacetic at the moment. To quote Monica Gellar, “I’m breezy!” Not crying. Not emotional. Not even too worried about it (which I totally was when I started composing this post on Saturday… So I guess seeing Gus again yesterday was the right move. I’m much calmer now).

I know he’s wrong for me. I know that. And I know that in the week I’m gone, he could absolutely go have sex with like five other girls (I’m fairly certain he won’t) without owing me anything. Which is weird. I’ve never really been in this situation before.

Maybe I am, indeed, a serial monogamist, as Gus once accused me of being. And maybe I don’t know how to handle being anything else.

We’ll see.

~A~

P.S. I did not proofread this, because my plane is boarding. So please forgive any errors or passages that were written at 3am and don't make sense.

Before Midnight

2013-06-09T16:05:00.001-04:00

This was supposed to be combined with the post that will come next. But things were getting long and emotional, and no where near finished... So another post will be along today or tomorrow.

----------------------------

On Monday, I wasn't supposed to see Gus. We both had plans. And both sets of plans fell through.

He asked if I wanted to meet him and have dinner and see a movie. I had already eaten, but the movie sounded good.

I met him at a restaurant, where he was finishing a meal. We both sat on the same side of the booth as he ate, and we did some people-watching. Me and Gus. Hanging out. No longer in a play together, so perhaps no longer a "showmance". My heart was warm and cozy.

But Gus said something I didn't know what to do with. He said that the day before (the day that the show closed, and we ended up seeing "Frances Ha"), when I had told him I wished he would go to the cast party, and he had left the theatre without me... before I texted, asking if we could hang out before the party... he said he was angry. Because he told me what he was going to do, and I had wanted him to change his plans. He was perfectly happy skipping the party and going to see that movie by himself, until he talked to me. And then I had made him feel wrong about it. And he said he knew he wasn't going to be able to enjoy the movie. Because he'd be thinking about me.

I'm not sure if that were because he wanted to do right by me. Or because he was upset that I was placing some sort of demand on him. Or something else. Honestly, I think it's the same thing Phil always had trouble with; Gus is used to making plans for himself, and doesn't understand that sometimes his plans affect others. And, in fact, hates that others have opinions on what his plans should be.

I can't fault him for that. He owes me nothing.

I responded by saying that all I really wanted in that moment was to spend a little more time with him. And I had thought I'd be spending time with him at the cast party. But that once I had the good sense to figure out that he was more important to me than the cast party, I wrote to him, asking to be with him. He said that fixed everything.

When we went to the theatre, he handed me a piece of paper. A ticket. He'd already purchased it for me. It was sweet and surprising.

He doesn't have much money. Neither do I. But I got in this habit with Phil of, "I'll get this one, you get the next one." That's where things started with Gus, until one day he apologized, knowing it was his turn, and had said that he wanted so desperately to "be gallant", but that he couldn't afford to be. He seemed embarrassed. Maybe ashamed. But you know me... I don't care. I couldn't care less. (I'm high maintenance in many ways, but not in financially-related ones.) So we just started covering our own costs, or splitting down the middle.

So him buying me that ticket was a slightly bigger deal than it might seem.

We saw "Before Midnight", which is the third movie in a trilogy. And it was really, truly lovely. And we snuggled up in a big theatre with fancy, cushiony, over-reclining seats.

======================

A tangent simply must be inserted here...

Another guy once told me to watch Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, the two movies leading up to Before Midnight.

Bill, in New York.

I can't remember if I ever wrote about Bill. He and I were friends. We met on set last November. And I was sort of aware that he had a crush on me. And, to be completely honest, there was something there. A connection. At that time, I was still very much in love with Phil. And, at the time, I thought the that connection just meant that Bill and I were destined to be very good friends. My relationship blinders were on, and I couldn't fully see what was in front of me.

Bill and I once each drove an hour to meet up for dinner, in the city between where his parents live and where my parents live. I told Phil all about it. It didn't feel like it was supposed to be a date. It just felt like freedom from dealing with my Connecticut life.

Bill invited me to a New Year's Eve party. It was one of three I attended this year. I promised I'd be at party #3 before midnight (HA! I swear I wasn't trying to incorporate the movie title there, but realized I had as soon as I typed it), and Bill was trying so hard -- too hard -- to convince me to stay. It didn't occur to me until I was on the train to party #3 that perhaps, if I had stayed, at midnight Bill might have tried to kiss me. But surely, he knew better... Right?

The last night I was in New York before moving to California, he and I hung out until the very last train was leaving to take me back to Connecticut. And at 1:45am, standing in the middle of Grand Central, he said, "I know perhaps this is something that might make things strange, but I would be remiss if I didn't tell you... Had circumstances been different, the first day I met you, I would've asked you out."

Of course, the first day he met me, I'd already been dating Phil for 2.5 years. I didn't know how to respond to Bill. To say, "I know," would've seemed cruel. To say anything discouraging would have hurt him in what was a brave/vulnerable/kind moment. To say anything encouraging would have been far too romantic, especially as I was to be moving across the country two days later.

So in the moment, what I chose to do, was to repeat part of his sentence: "Had circumstances been different." I left it there, and gave him the longest, truest hug I'd given anyone in a long time.

Because the truth was, had circumstances been different, I could very easily have fallen in love with Bill.

----

I posted a picture on the app "Happier" of my ticket stub. I said the reason it made me happier was that I'd seen two movies in two days. The real reason I posted it -- and I didn't think anyone needed to know this -- was because I loved so much that Gus had bought it for me.

Bill saw the photo and commented on it, saying that he hadn't seen it yet. But the very next night, he sent me a text message. A photo of his own ticket to Before Midnight. Bill, reaching out to me, reminding me that we're still under the same moon.

And in that moment, I remember feeling like I had betrayed Bill somehow... And wishing that I could put Gus and Bill together to form a more perfect man.

========================

After the movie we came back to my place. Not for long. Just to talk. And cuddle, on what Gus says is a very uncomfortable bed. And I did the same thing I always do, and play my "goodbye game," where I try to extend the time we're together as long as possible.

I'm fine being alone. I am. As soon as someone is gone, I pick up my laptop, and retreat again into my solemnity, and I'm quite content. But I hate, hate, hate the moment of separation. I want to keep talking to you. To keep looking at you. To keep holding your hand. To make you want to be with me so much that you forget, even just for a few minutes, that there was something else you wanted to do. And, if I win, maybe you'll just give up and stay.

Eventually, he left. And I stayed. And was fine, if alone. But did wish that I were not, in fact, alone.

And I honestly cannot remember whether it was Monday night after Gus left, or Tuesday night after I hadn't seen him when I started writing the last blog post. I guessed when I posted it that it was Tuesday night, but even when I wrote that I wasn't entirely sure.

--------------------------------------------

To be continued.

~A~

If Only They Knew

2013-06-06T17:09:00.001-04:00

A couple of weeks ago, on what I guess could logically be called our first date (when we went to that speakeasy, but I wouldn't let him pay so that it wouldn't actually be a date, because I'm stubborn), Gus showed up to my place with a present. He printed a photo from a short-lived tv show we both like called Clone High and used it as wrapping paper, with a note on the wrapping that said, "Just cuz. xoxo, Gus"

He gave me "Freaks and Geeks" on DVD. Because he'd brought it up in conversation once, and he couldn't believe that I hadn't seen it. Any of it. Despite the fact that it was the first role that the actress I stand-in for ever had.

I'm fairly certain that he was able to obtain this gift for free through his workplace (he often acquires free DVDs), but it was still sweet. And the thing I liked most was the homemade wrapping paper. And just, you know, the general thoughtfulness of the thing.

Sometimes I'm really glad I live alone. Because tonight, I watched the first three episodes of "Freaks and Geeks", while alternating between spoonfuls of Nutella and A1. Yes, I know that's bizarre. And not something I've ever done before (so don't go blaming my recent weight yo-yo-ing on that...; side note, I gained 8 pounds, and then lost 5 again, so I'm back at 113 today). But damn, it was delicious.

(One time, when I was working on my first professional play, I stayed up late watching episodes of The 4400 while eating Ben & Jerry's Half-Baked ice cream (which is Chocolate Fudge Brownie mixed with Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough) with caramel sauce, chocolate sauce, and green olives, all mixed in. The green olives really gave it something special. I ate the entire pint... and an entire jar of olives. And then I was massively ill the next day, and could never eat that combination again.)

And now it's 4am. And I have a lot on my mind, and a strange stew in my stomach, and cannot sleep. So, I'm taking to the blog.

----------------------------------------

I wrote my tumultuous, emotional post on Sunday morning. The day the play was closing.

We had our final performance. It went well. I took some pictures.

Me and Gus in our matching purple costumes, with our well-placed brooches.

Gus photo-bombing me in the women's dressing room as I took a picture of myself in my "disguise" costume.

Actually, I felt weird when I was putting photos on facebook, because I realized that I have so many more with Gus than with anyone else. I tried to limit how many I put on, but it's still fairly obvious that he's in the most. Let's just hope Phil isn't facebook-stalking me too hard. Or any of the cast.

Anyway.

After the final show of a run, two things happen.

1.) Strike -- This means breaking down the set, sorting out the costumes, and generally doing everything you can to make it seem like this show never happened. It's a very strange, occasionally emotional process. In professional theatres, actors generally have very little to do with it. But in little theatres like this one, we are our own crew. I actually prefer being involved in the strike. It gives me a sense of closure.

2.) Cast party -- This generally involves people getting drunk, and often making questionable decisions. And it is always, always a good time.

Gus came up to me privately during the performance to inform me that he had no intention of attending the cast party (probably right after he photo-bombed picture #2, actually).

So during strike, I told him I would like him to come. And then I walked out to the lobby, where I knew no one would be, fully expecting him to follow me. And he did. And in that moment, I must admit, I felt delightfully powerful.

But he wouldn't budge on coming to the cast party. He didn't even really have an explanation. Just that he was sick of everyone. And that he'd rather try to go see some art-house indie film in Encino. And that the party was being held really far away (dear God, was it ever... a cast-member's parents' house, which was at least 45 minutes north of the valley in zero traffic... and the valley is already 30 minutes north of where I live, in zero traffic).

I asked if this were his way of breaking things off with me. And I stood strong, proud, and independent as I very honestly told him that if he wanted to end things right then and right there, that I would be just fine. And in that moment, it was a true statement. Because the last 24 hours had been so upsetting that I think part of me would've been relieved if he'd just walked away. But his response was, "No! What? Why would you say that? Why would you THINK that? I want this."

I told him I wanted to hang out with him. And that it wouldn't be as fun without him there. He told me that I didn't have to feel obligated to go to the party, but I told him I wanted to go. He said I should call him when I left, but I knew I'd stay late, and I had an audition in the morning, which prevented me from being out to an ungodly hour.

Anyway. After one last declaration that he wasn't coming, and one last "I really wish you would, but whatever, it's up to you" sort of declaration from me, we were interrupted by some other cast members. In the lobby, alone. Talking in hushed tones, standing as close as people can stand without actually physically touching. It seemed we had indeed made it through the entire run of the show with no one noticing that we'd been dating through most of the performances, but in that moment, I felt like we'd been caught. And, strangely, caught in what must've looked like a very weird lovers' quarrel. So I took off back towards the strike, and he took off out of the theatre.

About five minutes later, my good sense kicked in. And I realized that, as much as I do enjoy all of my cast-mates, even putting their positive qualities in combination, I'd still rather be hanging out with Gus. So I texted him and asked if we could hang out before the party. I'd given all the contributions to the strike efforts that I could, and the party wasn't going to start for a couple of hours anyway. I could just be late.

He told me to meet him in the parking lot of the Mexican restaurant next door to the theatre. I said some quick goodbyes, told everyone I had some things to do and would be at the party late, gathered my things, and rushed out to meet Gus. As we were driving away, one of the other cast members was walking to his car, and said, "Bye you two! See you later!"

Caught. Definitely. Probably. Maybe?

Driving to the movie theatre felt exciting. Like we were running away from something. Like in the end of "The Graduate", but with much lower stakes involved (and thus, much more fun and less troublesome).

And we did some more #realtalk. But this time, it was better. He said he thought I'd want to end things. I don't. He said he's just as confused about everything as I am. He doesn't know if he should do this. He's worried it's only going to hurt more in the long run if we keep falling for each other, knowing that this can't happen. But that he doesn't want to stop. He said, "I think, right now, we're good for each other."

I don't know if that's actually true. We might, in fact, be terrible for each other. But for right now, it feels right. Even though it isn't right. It feels like this is helping me get through a larger heartbreak. And get back to a place of independence. And do it in a way where I'm not throwing myself heart and soul into a rebound relationship, because I know that's all this can realistically be. It's in many ways very safe for me.

And I worry about him. That this is bad for him. That this is going to screw him up, because he's compromising his values by dating someone religious. But I think he's dated so many women who have used him and not appreciated him... that maybe it's good that he has someone who recognizes the great things in him. Even if it's just for now. Maybe we are, in fact, good for each other.

We discussed how much emotional baggage we each have. Him keeping his guard up, in constant fear of rejection. Me seeing warning signs everywhere for little things that turned into big problems in my last relationship. He planned a whole day for us on Saturday, and I freaked out at him worrying that he was as selfish and controlling as my ex became by the end. He said, "I'm not him. I'm just trying to be romantic." And I bit his head off for that. Which made him say, "It's like we're boarding American Airlines together, and you want me to pay your $700 worth of baggage fees, and I'm just not sure that my bank account can handle that right now."

(Not quite as good a line as the guy on set who told me, "Angela, you're like a big bag of puzzle pieces... and I'm not sure the pieces all go to the same puzzle." But, you know. Close.)

He held my hand as we walked in from the parking garage. We went to see "Frances Ha", which was a delightful little film. And he put his hand on my knee. And I put my head on his shoulder. And it was quite possibly the sweetest, most first-date-like movie-going experience I've ever had.

Now, I've seen movies with Phil. And with The Filmmaker. And with Jake. And I'm sure they held my hand, or had their hand on my knee at some point. That probably happened.

But when I think back on the movies I've seen with boys in movie theatres, the list looks kinda like this: - The 40-Year-Old Virgin
- Wedding Crashers
- Rent
- Inside Man (and we brought another girl with us)
- Spiderman 3
- Star Trek
- Super 8
- Captain America
- Midnight in Paris (and my dad was with us)
- X-Men: First Class
- Cloud Atlas (which Phil went to completely begrudgingly)

I can't remember the others right now, but you get the point. Not exactly cute or romantic fare. And while there were probably sweet moments in Midnight in Paris and Cloud Atlas, the circumstances that surrounded the movie-going experiences kind of ruined the potential of those moments.

But here was this quiet little movie about a gal my age trying to figure out her messy life and looking for love. I identified with several parts, although I wouldn't claim to have much in common with the character. And I felt vulnerable. And some parts were sweet and lovely and full of hope. And there was Gus, stroking my arm, making me feel connected to the world around me. Making me feel like I'm not alone.

He asked if I wanted to rush off to the party, or if I could stay and join him for dinner. We got Japanese food. And we did some people-watching. And we talked. And made fun of the couple sitting at the table across from ours. And we were couple-y in less of a new-couple-y way, and more of a "we've been dating for 6 months" kind of way. I don't know if that's because I'm so used to being in a long-term relationship that I'm skipping steps to get there, or if it's really that we have that good of a connection. Could be either. I'm guessing a little of each.

We ended up getting into a minor car crash in the parking lot (with a concrete flower bed), because Gus comedically swiveled the car around in too extreme of an angle upon me lamenting that we should've gone to a nearby frozen yogurt place. His paint is all scraped up, but the car itself is fine. I insisted on paying for the frozen yogurt, blaming myself for the event. But Gus wouldn't let me take any of the guilt. Not one iota. He said it was his fault, not mine. His mistake. And that at least we hit something inanimate, so no one was hurt and no damages were owed.

What a change from my last relationship. Phil says now that part of the reason he dumped me was because of our car accident. He thought it was a sign that our relationship had become a destructive force. Also, when Phil was backing out of a narrow driveway once, he knocked off the driver's side rear-view mirror, and then blamed it on me for not helping him enough while he was backing up (um, I told him he was fine on MY side. I wasn't looking out for HIS side. That was HIS job).

I ended up going to the cast party late, alone. About 2 minutes before I showed up, an actress in the cast sent me a text saying, "Gus isn't here yet. Do you know where he is?" And a matching text to Gus, asking about me. I knew that it was their way of saying they suspected we were together, and I knew that showing up immediately thereafter would put an end to those rumors.

And the guy who saw us in the car together? Didn't show up to the party until after I did. So he didn't say anything to them. And then he saw me alone. He probably didn't think twice about it.

But the thing is... I kind of like that they were talking about us. And that one of the cast members actually drunkenly dared me to kiss Gus last Friday, saying, "It's just a recommendation. He's good for you." And that at the party, another cast member threw out, "Ah. We thought you were with Gus. Kinda too bad. You two would be good together." And another one saying, "I think Gus might be into you," and upon my denial of this, "Well, if he's not, he should be. You'd be great for him."

I wish they just knew. It would be easier.

--------------------------------------------

Okay, I was writing this on Tuesday night (well, Wednesday morning), and that's when I fell asleep. And then I forgot to write more.

So I'm going to end this with a quotation I just came across, which I think is quite nice, and sums up my feelings on what Phil *should* have done.

“Go after her: Fuck, don’t sit there and wait for her to call, go after her because that’s what you should do if you love someone, don’t wait for them to give you a sign cause it might never come, don’t let people happen to you, don’t let me happen to you, or her, she’s not a fucking television show or tornado. There are people I might have loved had they gotten on the airplane or run down the street after me or called me up drunk at four in the morning because they need to tell me right now and because they cannot regret this and I always thought I’d be the only one doing crazy things for people who would never give enough of a fuck to do it back or to act like idiots or be entirely vulnerable and honest and making someone fall in love with you is easy and flying 3000 miles on four days notice because you can’t just sit there and do nothing and breathe into telephones is not everyone’s idea of love but it is the way I can recognize it because that is what I do. Go scream it and be with her in meaningful ways because that is beautiful and that is generous and that is what loving someone is, that is raw and that is unguarded, and that is all that is worth anything, really.”
---Harvey Milk

May you run towards the things that you value.

~A~

#RealTalk, #RealEmotions

2013-06-02T14:22:00.000-04:00

I had a nightmare last night that Phil had found this blog and started reading it. Dear God, I hope that isn't the case. Phil, if you ever find this blog, don't read it. And if you've already read it... I'm sorry. But dude, I've told you so many times not to read this blog. It will hurt you more than you think it will. It always hurts the men in my life when they read this.

I haven't heard from Phil in 10 days. The way I left it with him, he said he'd give it a few days before texting me... But he didn't. No contact at all. I've emailed him some articles I thought he'd be interested in, but he didn't even respond to those. Honestly, it makes me feel weird and guilty.

I can't remember if I've written this next bit... so forgive me if it's repeated information.

Gus hasn't had a "girlfriend" since he was a junior in college (so, 2004 or 2005), and that only lasted two months. Since then, he's had a habit of becoming interested in unavailable women. He's dated. He's slept around a little. He's met several women through internet dating sites. And he claims that it's almost always the women who leave him. The last girl he dated started being harsh and criticizing him after about 4 weeks of dating, and then dumped him when he wasn't ready to make things "facebook official". That wasn't long before I met him.

A couple of weeks ago, Gus asked me if I'd go to a BBQ with his high school friends. That's when I started to get the feeling that he was serious about me. That, and when he told me that he'd told his mother that we were seeing each other. Even though we'd been hiding it from the cast of the show, the fact that his friends and his mom knew made it feel... I don't know. More real, I guess. I get the feeling that his mom and his high school friends don't find out about most of his short-term dating situations.

By the way... In order to hide it from the cast of the show, I'd allowed most of the rest of the male cast to flirt with me without getting weird about it. I don't actively flirt back, but I don't discourage them. Because if I didn't, it would be too obvious how flirty I get with Gus.

Anyway...

We had a text message conversation that I keep re-reading, so I feel it's pertinent information.

(relevant: This conversation was on a Tuesday. Phil had asked if I could go on a date with him on Wednesday, which I'd given a maybe. I had promised Phil I wouldn't go on a date with anyone else before going on a date with him. The BBQ was going to be on Friday.)

GUS: R u free tomorrow? Im in the office but loose otherwise
GUS: Maybe we could shoot for dinner or sumpin?
GUS: oo maybe we could check out your speakeasy? I still never been
ANGELA: :)
ANGELA: Perhaps.
ANGELA: But it wouldn't be a date, obviously.
GUS: NO! just foody drinky staring longingly makey outy brief nudity adult themes share our hopes for the future Playdate!
ANGELA: Perfect.

(He was joking about the "brief nudity adult themes" part, in case you don't know me well enough to have guessed that.)

GUS: Keep friday open for me?
GUS: (Bbq)
ANGELA: Sure thing.
ANGELA: What is the BBQ occasion?
GUS: The one with my [high school] friends I mentioned
ANGELA: (Side note: I just got asked out AGAIN. This time by an older man who has a girlfriend. WTF?)
GUS: #simplyirresistable
ANGELA: I was just wondering if it were a birthday or something.
GUS: its a Just Cuz
ANGELA: Are any [people in the play with us] going to be at this thing?
ANGELA: Or am I allowed to touch you?
GUS: I cant imagine -- we can be "out" :-D
ANGELA: Will it get back to the others?
GUS: I think the circles are pretty isolated
ANGELA: Good.

And that's when I had a minor emotional breakdown.

ANGELA: Fuck. Suddenly I feel guilty.
GUS: For turning down 525600 men?
ANGELA: No. For Phil.
ANGELA: And who says I turned the men down? ;)
GUS: Guilt.
/gilt/
Noun
The fact of having committed a specified or implied offense or crime.
GUS: ... Youve done nothing wrong.
ANGELA: I was supposed to go on a date with him on Wednesday.
ANGELA: Instead, I'm making plans with you...
ANGELA: And being "out" on Friday...
ANGELA: I feel rattled.
GUS: He stopped being the priority when he chose to no longer be the priority
ANGELA: I promised him I wouldn't go on a date before going on a date with him. I lied, and I never lie, and that makes me feel lousy.
GUS: Its not a date, remember?
ANGELA: Gus, we've done far more than go on a date.
ANGELA: And, depending on how you count, we've been on more than a few.
ANGELA: I do feel mildly bad when I allow the [castmates] to flirt with me. Like Nick's long hug. Or Michael's slow dance. But I feel like if I don't, it will make things too obvious when I flirt with you.
ANGELA: But that's really, really, mild. I don't like the idea of leading them on, but it's on them that they are getting caught up in the idea of me without actual pursuit.
ANGELA: Phil is a completely different thing. He thinks I'm his soulmate. He's actively trying to change his life and win me back. We have years of history. We have the best damn "how we met" story you've ever heard. I wore his grandmother's ring for a year.
ANGELA: There is part of me that thinks I'm ruining something by not giving him my exclusive attention.
ANGELA: Which I think I said or implied to you before we even kissed.
ANGELA: Sorry for the novel.
GUS: Right... But hes also a hot-mess-overly-impulsive-non-date-taking-idea-sucking-sellers-remorse-motherfucker and YOU DONT OWE HIM ANYTHING
GUS: You can do whatever you want, act however you like but
GUS: You
GUS: Dont
GUS: Owe him
GUS: ANYTHING
GUS: #realtalk
ANGELA: I know I talk about the negative of him a lot, but please know that he has positive in him to match. I didn't waste three years with an asshole, even though I make him sound like one.
ANGELA: But yes, you're right. I don't owe him anything.
GUS: Correct.
GUS: And I think theres real reason you didn't just go back to him immediately, no questions asked.
ANGELA: Because he approached me the wrong way. And by the time he'd found the right way, I'd found someone else.
GUS: WHO?? ILL KICK HIS ASS
GUS: :)

(The part I read a lot is the part in bold. If that weren't obvious. There were actually a couple harsher things in there, too, but I chose to edit them out in case anybody ever reads this blog knowing who Phil is so they don't make assumptions that are worse than reality.)

So I did end up going out with Gus that Wednesday.

On Thursday, May 23rd, I made tentative plans to go on a date with Phil, which fell apart, and instead we had a three-hour phone conversation, with him crying through most of it. The text conversation with Gus had strengthened my resolve. And Phil called me cold and unfeeling. He told me he was "in hell" and that I was being cruel for still "punishing him" for this tiny little mistake he'd made of throwing me overboard when he was worried his boat might take on water. He told me he'd text me on Monday or Tuesday. But he didn't.

On Friday, I went to the BBQ with Gus and his friends. And spent most of the weekend with him. And grew very, very fond of him in the process.

I brought Gus to the wrap party on Tuesday, and he was a great date. I didn't give him a list of instructions in the end, but simplified it to "don't be a dick to the girl you went to high school with," (as far as I know, he wasn't... but he did talk to her at one point while I was in the ladies' room, so who knows...). He let me flutter around, talking to people, and following at my side. It worked out very nicely. He got me drinks (they were free, but you know... he brought them to me). He got me water after three drinks turned out to be too many. He was terrific.

On Thursday morning, I got a phone call from a girl who is a mutual friend of Phil and me. She spent 45 minutes on the phone trying to convince me to get back together with him. Because he's such a mess without me. And because we made such a great couple. And because Phil had just made a tiny little mistake by letting me go, and it was only because moving had been so traumatic for him.

But again, I thought of the texts with Gus. You. Don't. Owe. Him. Anything.

I told her the truth. About most things, at least. I told her a bunch of the negative. A bunch of the things that had happened with Phil that I had hidden or ignored. By the end of the conversation, she was saying, "I'm so sorry. I had no idea any of that happened. I don't think you should go back."

The next I saw of Gus was at the theatre on Friday. We ended up hanging out most of Saturday.

But about half an hour before we had to leave to go to the show, we had a #realtalk conversation. A "does this actually have potential" conversation.

And the answer is no. It doesn't.

There are two issues.

1. Gus can't handle my "phantom pain" as he called it. It freaks him out that I'm often in pain, and says he's not a natural caretaker. I was pretty surprised when he brought this up. He said, "yeah, it's not something I'm proud of."

2. Religion. The big one. You know what's weird? I'm actually more at peace with this than he is. I'm Catholic. And while I have my issues with the church (as any good Catholic should), my faith is very important to me. Gus thinks that organized religion is responsible for the majority of the evils in the world, and that it is inexcusable to affiliate oneself with an institution that was involved in the Crusades, and is hypocritical about wealth, and misogynistic, and hid a pedophilia scandal, etc. Me being Catholic angers him far more than him being agnostic bothers me (although it's not something that I'm completely at ease with).

This isn't going anywhere. This can't go anywhere. It was a long, very upsetting conversation.

And I felt like I'd just been dumped again.

I haven't been. We didn't end things.

But damn, it felt like it. I felt so lousy through the whole performance. I told him backstage that I felt unsettled. He said he was glad we talked. He said it was better to get this stuff on the table now than six months down the road.

But I'm so damn needy right now. ESPECIALLY right now. Because my job just ended. And because today is the last performance of the play. I'm about to have NOTHING happening in my life, and I don't know how long that's going to last. And it was nice to at least have Gus in my life. Because he's been such a positive thing for me. He's been kind and caring. He's built up my self-esteem. He's helped me talk through a lot of things I hadn't been able to deal with on my own.

And it sucks.

Because all I want to do right now is have someone to cling to. But now I feel like that person shouldn't be Gus. Because I know this is going to end. Sooner rather than later. And I don't want to get too attached. But darn it, I already am attached.

I really liked the idea of becoming the first girlfriend he's had in years. I liked the idea of hanging out at his parents' house. I liked the idea of the theatre company finding out after the show closed that he and I had been secretly seeing each other for most of the run.

Also, Gus wrote a play, which he is going to direct. (I wrote this before, I think.) And at one point, he wanted me to be in it. And I was really looking forward to that, because it seems like it's going to be a terrific play, and I think I'd be great in it. But now... We talked about it, and while we haven't said this out loud yet, it's not a good idea. We both know it's not a good idea. It's weird if we stay together during the show. It's even weirder if we don't. Unless we can find a way to definitively end things between us in the next week with both of us being 100% cool with that, I can't do the show. Oh well. Life has other plans for me, I guess.

This hurts.

I really, really dig him. He's a great guy. I have so much fun when I'm with him. He came into my life exactly when I needed him. And I still need him. But if I stay, it's only going to hurt more in the long run. I'm so fragile and vulnerable, just as a general state of being, but especially right now.

Gosh.

I just started crying while typing. How on earth did I get this attached to him? How did I fall this hard for someone I always suspected might be a rebound?

Truth is, I don't want him to be just a rebound.

Do you know how much I like this guy? HE TEXTS LIKE A 12-YEAR-OLD GIRL, AND I DON'T EVEN CARE. He's an incredibly intelligent human being, and a gifted writer, and has memorized the atomic weights of the periodic table, and yet last night he sent me a text that read "Lez b in tetch :)" (He meant "let's be in touch", although I spent at least 10 seconds thinking he was saying "lesbian tech".) DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW BIG OF A DEALBREAKER THAT USUALLY IS FOR ME? He says he does it ironically, and normally, that would not be an acceptable excuse to me. Most of the time, I use *punctuation* in my texts, and here he is, intentionally misspelling things because he thinks it's funny.

UGH! And I just caught myself smiling about that. Because I'm that infatuated with the guy. Twitterpated, in fact.

Today is the last day of the show. No more excuses to see him. No more excuses to be in the valley, which is where he lives (and where the show was). No more light-and-casual.

Now, being around him will feel very this-is-a-mistake, what-am-I-doing, I'm-only-hurting-myself, I-need-to-stop-being-so-attached, I-hate-that-I-want-him-so-much, we-can-never-sleep-together-or-i-will-hate-myself-forever-because-this-can't-go-anywhere.

You know what thought I just had? I feel like Buffy (the vampire slayer) when she started sleeping with Spike (a vampire). Because I know this is a bad idea for me now. I know I need to get out of it. I know that if I stick around, I'm doing it for the wrong reasons. And I know it isn't fair to Gus. Or to me.

Yesterday, Gus asked me if I knew how to leave. If I knew how to get out of a relationship.

And while I assured him that I do, I came to the hard truth that I don't.

I dumped Boyfriend #1. It took me entirely too long to do it, and I basically did to him what Phil did to me. And it was probably just as traumatic of an experience for me as it was for him.

Boyfriend #2 was a rebound, in the truest sense of the word. He jumped in immediately after I became single, and was completely wrong for me, but I dated him because I needed to be dating *someone*. I spent most of my time complaining about the guy, but kept him around because I needed someone.

Boyfriend #3 was Brian. Who ripped my heart out.

Boyfriend #4 was The Filmmaker. And I knew the relationship was bad, but instead of dumping him, I sort of convinced him to dump me. Because I didn't know how to get out of it on my own.

Boyfriend #5 was Phil. And honestly, I should've dumped him in October. But I couldn't. Because I loved him. He had become a terrible boyfriend. And we had a conversation when I told him, "I'm not happy in this relationship," expecting him to work to try to fix the problems. And he said, "Neither am I." And that made me turn around and think, "Oh God, maybe I'm the problem. What am I doing wrong? How can I make him happy? How can I fix this?" When what I probably should have thought was, "Neither of us is happy. Maybe we aren't right for each other after all."

Gus. I started out thinking Gus might be a rebound. Just like Boyfriend #2. But the difference between Gus and Boyfriend #2 is that I really like Gus. I don't complain about Gus (maybe that's because most of the people who know both of us have no idea that anything is happening between us).

So is Gus right? Is it just that I don't know how to end things? Because I see that this has to end. I know that. I think he knows it. I think. But I'm not sure I can end it.

Honestly, I hate that I'm thinking this way, but I wish we hadn't had our #realtalk conversation. I was so much happier when this was fun and light. And now it's all, "we know what the future holds," and that blows. I want to go back to cute and flirty, sneaking around, stealing kisses, cuddling and watching movies, living in the moment, not worrying about what the future holds.

I want to live in the moment.

And now, I'm way too far inside my head.

So many guys have asked me out. Nine last week. Only two this week, but still. I think I'm going to have to start saying yes.

Gus and I never had any sort of "it's you and me and no one else" arrangement. Neither of us has been dating anyone else. He wants me more than he wants anyone else. And I've wanted him more than I've wanted anyone else. But I think I have to get out of that mindset.

I'm not great at dating. Obviously.

And, apparently, I'm bad at keeping things casual. And keeping my emotions in check. I have a wave of FEELINGS just thinking about Gus. And I can't help that.

I don't know what the future holds. I'm not even sure what the next week holds.

I'm leaving LA on the 10th to go visit my parents in Connecticut for a few days, and then going to Chicago from the 14th through the 17th. So that'll be good for me. I'll get out of here, get away from Gus, and gain some perspective.

Why does this hurt so much?

And why does it feel like the thing that would help most in the world right now is cuddling with Gus?

(Is this even about Gus? Or am I just lonely?)

Help me.

May you never put yourself through the mental and emotional anguish that I seem to torment myself with regularly.

~A~

Advice Needed: Wrap Party Date

2013-05-26T15:52:00.002-04:00

The tv show I work on wrapped for the season on Thursday. I have been invited to the wrap party, which is this coming Tuesday night.

And yesterday, I was told that I am now being given a "plus 1".

Obviously, I RSVPed to include the plus-1, because why wouldn't I give a friend the gift of free food and drinks and hanging out with industry people?

But the problem becomes choosing a person.

Phil is out, because... well, I couldn't possibly. I had a 2.5 hour long phone conversation with him on Thursday after I wrapped, and he was sobbing for most of it.

So my options are:

1. My friend Matt from Chicago.
Matt has been an incredible friend. When Phil and I came out to LA in the fall, whenever we invited people to anything social, Matt was the guy we could count on to show up every single time. Matt is a broke, non-union actor. He pays his bills with background acting and cater-waiting jobs. Despite that, every time I see him he tries to buy me a drink or a meal (don't worry; I've gotten him back in more than equal amounts). When I had a meltdown after leasing my car, Matt took me out. When Phil dumped me, Matt brought me to a speakeasy. Matt came to see my play and came to karaoke with the cast afterwards, and effusively complimented both me, and the production as a whole (something Phil didn't do). He's had me over to his place and we've hung out and watched "Slings and Arrows" together, in a completely platonic, "I'm sitting on the couch and you're on the chair" kind of way.

Matt also has a huge crush on the actress I stand-in for, and would LOVE to meet her. He's been joking about it all season, and more than once has flat-out asked (joked?) to be my wrap-party date. And I think he's fairly broke, and this is an opportunity to get him some free drinks and food. And get him into an industry event where he's an attendee and not a server.

Matt is probably the obvious pick here. But there are a few cons...

- I think he has a crush on me. Actually, I wouldn't have drawn that conclusion on my own, but my castmates think he's into me. And I don't want to lead him on. He doesn't know about me dating Gus.
- Matt, nice has he is, has said some weird things in social situations before. I think of him as fairly self-sufficient socially (he wouldn't need me as a babysitter), but I'd worry about what he might say to my coworkers.
- I really don't like the idea of my coworkers thinking I'm dating Matt. He's a lovely guy, but yeah, something about it makes me really uncomfortable.
- I'm a little worried that he might geek out around the handful of celebrities that will be there. Probably not...?

2. Gus.
He's great. We've been spending a lot of time together. We've had some very frank conversations about how neither of us is sure where it's going (Do I like Gus, or do I just need someone right now? Does Gus like me, or does he just like that a fairly attractive female is showing an interest in him? Are we just interested in each other because we're in a play together because it's convenient? What happens when the play ends? Is Gus an intermission in my relationship with Phil?). But we've decided (and trust me, this is really out of character for me) to be hedonistic. It's fun right now. We are enjoying each other's company. It feels right. So, here we are.

The other stand-ins want to meet him, because I've been talking about him since Monday, April 8th (6 days after Phil dumped me; 2 days after I became aware of Gus flirting with me; the day Gus first asked me out, although it turned into a decidedly non-date situation), and they've been around to hear about the situation evolving.

Gus has worked with famous people, and he's not going to be an idiot. Last night, most of the cast of my play went out to a bar. I pointed out that Timothy Busfield and his wife Melissa Gilbert had walked in. Gus was all, "That's cool," whereas several of the company members kind of freaked out, and one of them walked up to Timothy Busfield and had a whole, "I love your work, and I think Aaron Sorkin is God," conversation.

And I know he'd be self-sufficient. He took me to a barbecue over the weekend with a bunch of his friends, and we kept separating. He expected that I could hold my own amongst people who have known him since he was 12, so I have to assume that means he could be expected to do the same amongst my coworkers.

And, as a bonus... if there is some glaring issue with Gus that I'm not seeing right now, and he truly is only fit to be a rebound, the other stand-ins will totally be blunt about it and tell me (especially Ryan, who calls me his "set-wife").

Gus has some cons, too. Namely...

- Gus went to high school with one of the actresses on the show. She told me to avoid him like the plague. So for all I know, she might totally hate him, and feel really weird about him being at her wrap party. And I really like her... (But she's also a very tough, blunt chick, so she can handle herself. And Gus texted her over the weekend, slipping in heavy implication that he and I are dating, so I don't think it would come as a total shock to her.)
- And, to a lesser extent... Gus has a strange sense of humor. Not sure everyone there will appreciate it.
- If (when?) Gus and I break up, I think I might feel weird about having taken him to this instead of someone who has been a true friend.

But he also has a big pro in his favor: I'd have the most fun with Gus being there. Not that I wouldn't have fun anyway... But it's a factor.

Also, I'm unemployed now. I don't have a lot of money. I can't spring for date night things (and I'm usually a you-pay-this-time-i-pay-next-time kind of girl). And this is a situation where I can do something nice for him without dropping cash in the process.

3. Julia... Or Linda.
Our show has a core group of background actors. Two of them have become good friends of mine. Background does not get invited to the wrap party, but I KNOW that they would love to come.

Julia is my age, and has done stand-in on the show for a few episodes as well as background. She'd be cool, she'd know people there and wouldn't need to be introduced, and she'd be a great date.

Linda is my parents' age, and has the biggest, kindest heart of anyone you've ever met. She only started acting recently. She's the kind of person you can't imagine anyone ever disliking.

It would be a very kind gesture on my part to invite one of them. And they'd each be a great date. And they would be so thrilled to be there.

But the con there is... I can only take one person. And there are tons of core background on our show who have been lovely to me. These two are my favorites, but it does feel weird to single one of them out.

4. Jennah
There are four main stand-ins on our show: Ryan, me, Jennah, and Erin (written in order of importance of the characters we stand-in for). For some reason, Jennah didn't get an invitation to the wrap party. Just a weird oversight, I'm sure. I told her to talk to production, and I'm sure she'll get in. She could probably just show up. But if not, I might need to take her as my date to get her in. Though, I'd kind of resent her for putting me in that situation, because really, she should just call the production office and get added to the list instead of making me waste my plus-1.

I actually have told Gus that this wrap party is happening, and that I get a plus-1, but told him he's not my automatic date (although he totally wants to go). Haven't decided yet (and haven't told the others about it). I started writing him an email saying what I'd need him to agree to in order to be my potential date, but didn't send it.

So *if* I decide to ask you to the wrap party, this will be your mission (if not asked of you, then to be asked of whomever accompanies me to the event). Review the guidelines and see if you are up to the task.

- Must be self-sufficient, capable of mingling if I'm off talking to other coworkers. (Especially if I need one-on-one talk time with [actress I stand-in for] or [lead actor]. Or if I need a [coworker who makes me uncomfortable] buffer.)

- Must be willing to carry around a camera and take pictures of me with coworkers all night. (Bonus points if willing to take said pictures without being prompted to do so.)

- Must not be a dick to my coworkers (this includes referring to [cast member who knows Gus from high school] as [mean high school nickname] or any derivation thereof).

- Must be willing to be the designated driver, as I fully intend to drink.

- Must be willing to attend any after parties that I decide to attend.

- Must treat me like the amazing wonder that I am for the entire evening.

Part of the reason I didn't send it, is that I'm really not sure it's the best decision. Taking Gus is absolutely what I want to do in this moment, but it seems selfish somehow. Taking Matt or Julia or Linda would be kinder. Gus has industry connections already, which Matt doesn't. Gus and Matt can get into swanky parties like this, which Julia and Linda can't.

So what's the right move? Do I do the selfish thing? Or do I do a kind thing instead?

I'll be honest; if no one responds to this, I'll probably take Gus. But I'm worried that I'll feel guilty about it if I do.

So tell me the truth: what do you think is the best decision? And also, what would you do? (Because I know that those questions might not share an answer.)

All good things,

~A~

Accidental Weight Loss

2013-05-22T19:14:00.001-04:00

NOTE: Do not read this post if you are at risk to have an eating disorder. This is NOT a pro-ana post. Also, do not read it if you don't like reading about women's weird body image issues. Or if you're currently trying to lose weight. I don't want to upset anyone, but I need to vent.

--------------------

I've spent most of my life underweight. Always. I weighed 38 pounds in 3rd grade. I weighed 59 pounds in 6th grade. Doctors gave my parents advice on how to help me gain weight. People walked up to me and asked me if I had an eating disorder. I have photographs of myself where my legs looked so skinny that it pains me to look at them. When I started my senior year of high school, I was my current height (5'6") and weighed 92 pounds (which was the most I'd ever weighed; I think I was around 87 pounds when I reached my full adult height). My goal was to hit 100 pounds before I graduated. My best friend Megan (also underweight for most of her life) shared that goal. I remember excitingly calling Megan when I hit 100 pounds, and her saying, "Our little Aiea is growing up!"

On the day of my high school graduation, I weighed 102lbs. First day of college, I weighed 112. I gained 20 pounds in one year, while maintaining the same height. (And my BMI still labeled me as being underweight.)

That's a pretty major body shift. And I was really happy about it. What I didn't realize at the time was that it meant my metabolism had changed in a major way.

By the end of my sophomore study-abroad trip to Italy (and all the pasta that provided), I was up to 126lbs. In a year and a half, I had gone from owning a pair of embroidered GAP Kids size 12 jeans (with most of my closet being size 0), to buying a dress that was size 8. I cannot tell you how horrified I was by that size 8. Hitting size 4 was weird, and 6 was weirder... But 8? I didn't think I'd ever be an 8. Suddenly, it seemed like I'd gone too far.

The rest of college, I ended up being pretty active. By the beginning of my senior year, without trying too hard, I was down to about 118.

But the end of senior year was stressful, which seemed to mess with my eating pattern once again. I got measured for a costume for a production of "The Comedy of Errors" in January. By the time I actually had a fitting in the real costume in May, it was too big. I graduated college weighing 112, the exact same underweight place where I had started college. And my costume needed to be resized.

A year after that, I was living in Chicago, fat and happy. I had a desk job in a cubicle where there was always cake around for someone's birthday, and eating was more interesting than working. Also, I had become the bad kind of vegetarian... the kind who pretty much only eats carbs.
So, when I started grad school two years after finishing college, I weighed 128lbs. My fat and happy weight.

By November of my 1st year, I got up to 143. Why? Because I kept the eating habits of Chicago life, but wasn't as active as I had been. I had been taking the equivalent of 14 flights of stairs at my job twice a day, and was living on the 4th floor of an apartment building with a broken elevator. I was walking to and from the L stop, and then all over the city. I was dancing in Tony N Tina's Wedding five nights a week. And the weight stacked on.

My movement professor made me keep a food journal for two weeks. When she saw that my diet was all carbs, sugars, and frozen pasta meals, she made me reform. She recommended that I put meat back into my diet because I wasn't eating enough protein.

By the end of my 2nd year (after doing the food journal with you first year, but then kind of letting things slide) I weighed 135. That's how much I weighed in London when I met Phil.

During my 3rd year, I really started paying attention to what I was eating. I joined SparkPeople.com (which I cannot recommend highly enough). I made a conscious effort to take control over what was happening to my body. I dropped from 135 to 119.

In the last couple of years, I've mostly maintained my weight, and it has generally been in the range of 121-125, which suits me just fine. This weight was not always attractive on me, but it's more muscle than it was when I first crossed the 120 threshold. And I've been a pretty steady size 4-6. After sophomore year of college, I have never again owned a size 8. I barely even owned size Mediums after that. It's just about weight redistribution, really.

I moved out to LA in January. At last weighing on my parents' scale, I think I weighed 123. I was worried that I would gain a ton of weight from being on set and being around the craft services table and catering constantly. I tried to make good food choices. Then, for Lent, I gave up meat AND junk food (I was still eating a ton). And then in April, Phil dumped me.

People started telling me around Easter (right before the dumping) that I looked like I'd lost weight. I didn't have a scale, and I didn't really believe them. I didn't feel like I'd lost weight. My clothes fit pretty much the same, except for my bras, and it became obvious that my cup size was decreasing.

So last week, I bought a scale. Just to see... Imagine my surprise to see the number "113.1" show up on the scale.

I was so shocked that I assumed the scale must be broken. So I signed back into SparkPeople, and compared my current measurements with my old ones (last measured nearly a year ago). I've lost inches everywhere. When I was doing Pan Am, you had to have a waist smaller than 29 inches to fit the vintage clothing, and I barely hit that, so I'd suck in at my fittings to be even smaller. Now? My waist is 26 inches without sucking in an iota.

Then I went to Victoria's Secret. At one point, my bra size was a 34D, and at another point a 36C. Yeah, now I'm down to a 32B... My boobs have basically disintegrated.

My BMI is now underweight (I'm supposed to be a minimum of 115 at this height), which worries me. So over the last week, I've been consciously trying to eat a lot. Even junk. I've had hotdogs, and grilled cheese, and tater tots... And what happened?

The scale says "110.4".

I haven't weighed this little since the summer after high school. That was 11 years ago.

I'm suddenly worried that I have cancer or a brain tumor or a tapeworm or something.

I spent YEARS trying to lose weight, and had a very tough time doing it. And now, without trying, I've lost 13 pounds in 4 months.

Possible causes:
- My job is very physically demanding, and maybe I wasn't giving it enough credit for that.
- Trying to eat non-junk-food.
- Cutting frozen meals out of my diet (I don't have a freezer).
- Stress of the break-up (although the weight changed was noticed before that)
- Temporary vegetarianism WITHOUT replacing it with pasta.
- Went back on my ADHD meds (which have an appetite suppressant side effect, and make me an even pickier eater than usual)

I want to gain some weight back, but I don't want to be unhealthy about it. And it's kind of worrying me.

Anyway. I know there's a chance that you're reading this right now and thinking something like, "Why is she complaining? I wish I could lose weight." Or, "she spent years complaining about not being able to lose weight, but now that she has it's a bad thing?" Or, "Why are girls so weird about their weight?" Or, "Damn, her boobs are gone? Why am I even reading this if her boobs are gone?"

But I needed to vent. If you have helpful advice, then feel free to share it in the comments.

~A~

5am Email

2013-05-15T12:09:00.000-04:00

If you haven't read the previous post, this is just a follow-up note to that one.

I've gotten some very helpful feedback from some of my online friends already. But I'm worried that I may have skewed this post out of Phil's favor. He begged me to tell him what he needs to do to win me back. He's trying.

And this morning, at 4:56am, I received this email:

I can't sleep. I'm in complete agony. I know it's all my fault. But I am in so much pain. I can't bare to lose you. I'm so sorry i got so lost. Im so sorry I hurt you. believe me when i say i'm more than paying for it now. I've never felt pain like this.

But I'm begging for your forgiveness. I swear to you I've really changed and I can make you happy and treat you right. Please believe me. Please help me do whatever I need to do to prove it to you. I know I can make you happy if you give me another chance. Every moment with you is a precious gift that I cherish with my heart, body and soul.

I miss you, I need you, I love you.

Phil

PS sorry if my emotional, 5am email has bad grammar. I know you hate that. ;)

Anyway. Just wanted you to have all the information.

~A~

Two Princes

2013-05-15T05:42:00.001-04:00

*sigh*

I don't even know where to start. That's the tricky thing about blogging with such irregularity... It would be easier if I could just psychically connect my emotions to this thing without having to type them.

(Also, I'm writing this in a strange state at an ungodly hour, so forgive anything that is too emotional to make sense.)

I'll start with the bullet points:

- Phil wants me back.
- I met someone else.

(I thought there would be more bullet points than that when I started the list, but that's pretty much all you need to know.)

Slight elaboration:

- Phil wants me back (and is now making a lot of earnest effort, and I still love him).
- I met someone else (who is terrific, and whom I have grown attached to very quickly).

Oh yeah, and also...

- Phil wants me back. He did a totally TERRIBLE job of winning me back at first. Then he realized that, started actually trying, but I'd already sort of had my "this isn't going to work and I should get over it because he's kind of a jerk to me" moment, but now he's trying SO HARD, and doing everything that I totally wanted him to do, and I still love him like crazy, and I don't want to throw this away or screw it up, but it might be too late.

- I met another guy 5 days before Phil dumped me (remember the Jewish guy in #7/#8 from the last post?), then he kind of took me on a non-date 6 days after the dumping, thinks I'm incredible, has been pursuing me hard despite me constantly talking about my ex AND attempting to dissuade him from pursuing me at a time when I am so clearly a mess, and calling him a masochist to his face because he won't give up, and he totally wore down my defenses, and I'm totally infatuated with him and having a wonderful time casually seeing him, but we have fundamental differences and I recognize that he's a rebound, and I don't want to delude myself into thinking otherwise.

And for those wild readers out there who actually want a full explanation (or as much of one as I'm up to giving you right now)... well, fine. Here you go.

Phil got to the USA on March 2nd. He dumped me on April 2nd. We started texting again on April 15th (purely for logistical "you have my slippers and owe me $100" sorts of reasons). And I didn't hear his voice until April 29th.

He'd had a horrible day, and wanted to talk to me about it. He called under the guise of needing a doctor recommendation because of a mysterious illness. He started crying and told me that he was worried he was going to die, and he realized that the person he cared most about is me, and he just wanted to be with me. (He's not going to die; he was suffering from exhaustion, according to the doctor.)

He spent nearly two hours crying, as I wondered what to do on the other end of the phone. Stay silent as he wept? Try to change the subject? Attempt to cheer him up, even though HE dumped ME and I owe him nothing?

I spent the next day completely messed up about the whole thing.

And on May 1st, I called him. And I said that I'd let him cry for two hours while being the strong one, but that now it was my turn to cry. And I told him how stupid I thought he must be for dumping me. And we rehashed (AGAIN) a minor fight we had in November, but this time, he finally understood where I was coming from (Note: I'm not the one who keeps revisiting this fight; that's all him). I was a complete wreck in my rehearsal that night.

And then that night, in a separate call (and technically after midnight), he said he wanted me back. He wants to try again.

March 2nd: arrive in America. April 2nd: Dump girlfriend. May 2nd: Try to win girlfriend back. Seriously?

I told him I needed a break from talking to him, as I was too emotional about the whole situation. I told him that my parents were coming into town the next day, and I was opening a show the day after, and that I couldn't be emotionally dealing with all of this during my opening weekend (based on how it had affected that one rehearsal). He agreed, but begged me to call him as soon as they were gone.

So I called that Sunday night. May 5th. He talked at me for 5 minutes about his career, and how important it was, and blamed that for being stressed out by being a real boyfriend (as opposed to a Skype-boyfriend who only needs to be caring and considerate for an hour a day, if that). Then he said we should get back together, but take things slow. And by that, I mean that he wanted to start by sitting down together and hashing out all the things we dislike about each other and the relationship. And then -- oh yeah -- he thought we should only see each other twice a week.

I told him how awful that all sounded. That he wanted to still fix me, and ALSO limit his interaction with me. Totally lame. And not enough.

We talked again later in the week. This time he said he wanted another chance. I said that there were twenty other guys asking me out on a date, and that I'd gotten pretty good at saying no to everyone, and I saw no good reason why I should say yes to him. He begged me for one date. Just one date. I said he could meet me for lunch the following Friday. He said he wanted to take me for dinner, because he had a whole very romantic evening planned. I said that he didn't have to wait until a date to be romantic (he could write me a poem, or send me flowers, or bring a f***ing mariachi band outside my house to serenade me). But he insisted.

He begged to come see my play. I said he could come the second weekend.

He came. He showed up more than half an hour early, and I saw him on my way into the theatre. I told my whole cast that he was there, and received a lot of, "Do you want me to beat him up?" reactions.

He sat front row center. He brought me a rose. He wrote me a letter saying that I was the best thing in his life, and that he'd made a huge mistake. He wrote me a poem. He took me out for frozen yogurt, and he cried, begging me to take him back.

And all I could think about was the fact that I had woken up in someone else's bed that morning.

--------------------------------

Phil dumped me on a Monday. I wrote an email to the director of the play I'm in saying I might have to drop out (and explained the whole dumping situation). I had been to only one rehearsal at that point. The director talked me into sticking with it, as he thought it would help me get through the break-up to put my focus into my art. I went to rehearsal on Saturday as a complete and total mess, but tried to hide it and be as professional as possible. That's where Gus comes in.

I'm not always great at knowing when guys are interested in me, but that first week post break-up, I kind of hated all men. I didn't want to talk to them. I definitely didn't want to flirt.

I am the ONLY new person to this theatre company who is in this play. The rest of them have worked together before. Some of them have known each other since high school (and the ones in that group also know an actress on the tv show I work on, who does not seem to care for them, and told me to drop out of the show). So as the ONLY new person, I hold a certain level of fascination for them. The first week, whenever I told a story, everyone would stop whatever side conversations they were having and listen. It was bizarre, but for a performer like me, totally great.

Gus came up to me at the rehearsal and started asking me questions. Not even a ton. Just getting-to-know-you stuff. But there was something about the way he asked that I found somehow flirty. And I said, "Why do you need to know?" rather combatively in response to one of the innocent questions. I acted like a total b****, to be honest with you. But I just couldn't handle it.

The following Monday, I got a text message from Gus (I don't remember giving him my number, but I think it's on facebook, and I accepted his friend request), saying that he was in my part of town for work that day, and asked if I wanted to hang out. I told him I was working on set, and didn't know when I'd be done. Maybe around 6pm, if they didn't use me to stand-in for someone in the final scene.

He said he had an ulterior motive. Gus is a playwright, and was holding a reading of a new play he had written the following Monday, and wanted to invite me to be a part of it, and talk to me about the role. So fine, I said I'd meet him.

I didn't get out of work until after 8pm. Meanwhile, he stuck around my part of town (he lives 40 minutes away, so this is noteworthy), sitting in a bar with a book for two hours.

I went to the bar, and very bluntly and sternly said: "Look, I'm not stupid. You just waited for me for over two hours. Now maybe you really, really want me to be in your play, but I suspect that you are for some reason intrigued by me and considering pursuing me romantically, but I just got dumped by my boyfriend of three years on Tuesday and nothing romantic is going to happen between us. So if you really want to discuss your play, great, but if you're here because you're interested in me, you should leave."

That's not far from verbatim. And it took a lot out of me to say all of that, because I don't think I've ever been quite that blunt and unfriendly to a guy who was interested in me before. I'm from the Midwest, so I'm generally pretty friendly, and find ways to let guys down gently. This was not my usual way of going about things.

He reacted by saying he didn't know (neither that I'd had a boyfriend when he met me at the first rehearsal, nor that I had been dumped and had such fresh wounds). I'd assumed that the director had told people, but no, he'd kept my business to himself. So poor Gus, who waited two hours in a bar to talk to me, got blindsided completely. And reacted by asking me to tell him about it. He wanted to be there for me to vent to. This guy who had just met me.

I was so guarded that night. I got angry at one point when he sat too close to me and made him move his chair away. I said, "I'm not hooking up with you, if you think that's going to happen. It's not. I'm not some vulnerable creature that you can pounce on." At times, I was just downright pointedly mean, I think. But he stayed. He let me vent to him for four hours. It was very healing.

I saw him at rehearsal over the weekend, at it was nice to feel like I had a friend there. I wasn't quite so much of an outsider in the super clique-y group, because I had Gus to talk to. Gus, in that one night, became one of the people who knew me best in all of Los Angeles.

The next week, Gus said he was staying at his parents' house for the night, and that it was right by where I live, and wanted to know if I wanted to hang out because he was bored. I remember thinking that I should say no, but being desperately lonely and wanting human interaction. He suggested that we meet at a family-friendly restaurant for pie (although I ended up ordering dinner instead). We ended up talking there until it closed. And then sitting in my car in the parking lot and talking some more. (This was the night I mentioned in #8 in the last post, where other men were texting me the whole time.) Despite my protestations, Gus paid. He remembered that Phil hadn't taken me on a date since he'd been in town, and he said that he thought someone should buy me dinner.

Remember how a girl who works on my tv show went to high school with Gus? I worked with her the next day. She said, "GUS? NO! Avoid him like the plague!" I said, "He's actually really sweet. Although I'm worried he thought it was a date." I told her that we'd met up because he was staying at his parents' house. She said, "I've been to his childhood home. His parents live on a hill that it takes 20 minutes just to get down from. They don't live anywhere near you."

Okay, yes, I'd suspected that he was interested in me from the beginning. Yes, I knew when he waited for me for two hours at that stupid bar. But it wasn't until I found out that he had lied about how far away he was as an excuse to see me that it really hit me. (Yeah, he also wasn't working anywhere near me that first day... he exaggerated on that as an excuse to see me as well.)

One night after rehearsal, I was supposed to meet an acquaintance for karaoke in Burbank, but the guy had forgotten to tell me what karaoke venue he was going to. Gus lives in Burbank, and said he'd be happy to accompany me, so that I wouldn't be wandering around there alone. We went to three karaoke bars before giving up and ending up at Big Boy, where he again ordered pie. I ordered a milkshake, which the waiter brought with two straws. I remember being so careful to not be drinking out of it at the same time Gus was, so that he wouldn't think the moment was in any way flirty or romantic. I also (as I mentioned in the last post) had a whole conversation with him about Catholicism and popes and whatnot, because he's Jewish, and I figured that was a good way to show him that I was not long-term girlfriend material, without having to be quite as harsh as I had been previously.

After that, I don't know. Things get foggy. We went into tech for the play. I spent a lot of time with him, being closer to him than anyone else involved in the show. I vented to him about every Phil thing, and he didn't seem to mind.

May 9th. I'd had an insanely busy (and awesome, and frustrating, and emotional) day. Gus sent me a text message saying that he was house-sitting for his parents, and lonely, and asked if I wanted to come over and hang out for a bit. I said I'd visit after my final event of the night... which got out two hours later than I thought it would. But the place was on my way home, and I also kind of wanted to see for myself just how far from my house it was.

I remember doing a lot of Phil-related crying. And then I remember thinking at one point that Gus was going to try to kiss me, and telling him no. I said it wasn't because I didn't want to kiss him, but because I wasn't ready.

Wait, what?

I have no idea when that switch happened. None. I remember thinking I was going to be at his house for like 15 minutes and then leave. Just a quick hello to a friend who'd had a weird day and wanted company. Five hours later, I was still there, and telling him that I wasn't ready to kiss him, but that I wanted to do so. If something had changed within me before I got to his house that night, it was so gradual that I didn't notice it. Did it happen during the course of the night? I don't know.

What I do know is that I stayed entirely too late at his place that night. And then hung out at his apartment again the next night. And then crashed at his place the night after that, and we went out for pancakes in the morning. I used his shower, and we drove in separate cars to the theatre for the matinee (very good idea, as we don't want anyone in the cast to know we've started casually dating, especially because half the guys in the cast have crushes on me), and when I walked into the lobby with my hair still dripping wet, there was Phil.

And the first thing I did after I saw Phil was run backstage and look to Gus for comfort.

------------------------

After the show, Phil spent two hours with me, crying, saying he'd made a huge mistake, begging me to come back.

And I got in my car to leave, and called Gus. He asked if he could meet me at my place. A friend of his, just 24 years old, had unexpectedly died that day, and he had just found out. He didn't want to be alone.

I tried to help. To be there for him. I held him in my arms as he choked back tears. And then he said, "Tell me about you. How did things go with Phil?"

I told him it didn't seem important anymore. He said that our stories were not in a competition, and that he wanted to be there for me. I told him that I didn't want to hurt him, and he said he has mentally prepared for every possible outcome of us, and he's not going to be hurt.

I told him that Phil was great, and that I still love him, and that I'm not sure if we'll get back together.

And Gus somehow took this all in, and listened, and advised, as though he were some sort of impartial third party. Despite the fact that he is very clearly invested in the outcome. And he didn't seem hurt at all. He said something like, "I'm happy to be in the present with you. And if this only lasts a week, and you go back to him, I won't regret this for a second." He told me he looks forward to every moment that he gets to spend with me.

------------------------

I'm crazy about Gus. I know it's infatuation. I know it's because it's new and exciting and not tainted by years of tough situations and compromises. I know that the religion thing is big enough that I think it prevents this from being a permanent relationship. But he makes me feel great. So happy. And there's so much laughter. And somehow he can hold me while I'm crying about my ex, and not try to change who I am or what I'm going through in that moment.

I had a very weird moment yesterday. Gus knows that I'm planning on letting Phil take me out on a date and seeing how it goes. And I acknowledged that it would be unfair of me to either request or assume that Gus would not go on dates with other women. And I mentally freaked out.

I've gotten to a place where I'm more upset by the idea of Gus dating someone else than I am of Phil dating someone else.

And that was a very strange realization. And made me feel super clingy. I only acknowledged -- even to myself -- that I had feelings for Gus four days before that.

But see, this is how messed up I am right now. Because of Phil leaving me so abruptly before, I suddenly have these major abandonment issues popping up. And trust issues, I guess.

We went to see a play last night that a guy from our theatre company is in. And I sat next to Gus, but surrounded by other people in our show. We didn't flirt, or touch. We didn't even share an armrest. When we were hanging out with the group after the show, we talked in different circles. We left in different times, in different cars, texting each other that we were going to meet up later. (This is my preference; I've never been in a so-called "show-mance" before, and I really don't want things to get weird with the rest of our cast-mates... especially since, as I've said before, I suspect that some of them are interested in me and would get crazy jealous).

The sneaking-around thing is a little bit exciting. Am I just being taken in by that?

----------------------------

Phil asked to see me as soon as possible. I told him that, even though I got off of work early today, I was super busy with errands and reading a play that I was participating in a workshop of tonight. Phil asked if he could either go on my errands with me, or read the play aloud with me. I acquiesced to the latter.

He came over. He brought a bunch of little love notes and asked permission to hide them around my apartment (I said no, as I didn't want to be surprised by them, so he left them in a stack on my desk). And he said some of the most lovely things he's ever said to me. And he played his cards completely right. And he charmed me. And he made me love him all over again. But the whole time, I just kept thinking about how I wanted to call Gus and talk the whole thing out with him. And then I felt terrible. Because here's Phil, sitting on my bed, doing everything right, and he doesn't know that on Saturday, I pulled Gus into a vacant dressing room to give him a quick kiss during the second act.

I told my mother about this whole situation. She said she thought it was unfair to Phil to not tell him I was seeing someone else. And it did seem like Gus had the upper hand because of it. And it felt like I was being dishonest to Phil by not disclosing it. And also, even though I'm single at the moment, it felt like I was doing something wrong. Like cheating. On my ex-boyfriend, who desperately wants to get rid of the "ex" part of that title.

I told him, "I started dating." I didn't say it's one guy. I didn't say that I've spent the night at his place. Or that Phil had seen him in the play. Or that this guy, too, is a screenwriter and a playwright (and, in fact, the two of them have the same agent). I didn't say anything but the bare minimum that I felt was necessary, as it would have hurt both of us too much.

I watched Phil clutch at his chest when I told him. He looked as though he were enduring physical pain. He said he knew it was all his fault, and that this wasn't going to stop him from fighting to win me back. But then about an hour later, he changed his tune. He said that he didn't think it was fair for me to only be putting forth a partial effort into trying to put the pieces of our relationship back together. He asked that I not date anyone else while trying to rekindle our relationship.

Phil also admitted that he's been on a couple of dates with other girls since our break-up, but that he didn't even kiss them, because he wished they were me. That's part of the reason he came back. Because, "those girls weren't fit to tie your shoe."

----------------------------

Someone told me today that I should try to imagine that my (hypothetical future) daughter is in the situation that I'm in now. She said, "What advice would you give your daughter? Because that's the advice you should give yourself." And that messed me up. Because I think the advice I'd give my daughter is, "If you can't decide between them, it might be because neither is right."

And maybe neither is. But I don't want to go there right now. I can't. I'm too selfish for that, I guess.

Part of me thinks that I should go on some dates with some other guys, who are neither of them. Just to figure out if my fondness of Gus is real or circumstantially based. And also a little so it feels less like I'm misleading Phil (who assumed that me "dating" meant going on first dates with a few guys, as opposed to spending a lot of time with one).

I just... I need Gus right now. I can't tell you how much he's helped me. And how great I feel when I'm with him. And how positive he makes me feel about myself and life in general.

But I also don't want to hurt Phil. And I don't want to prioritize a rebound over a three-year relationship to the man I had planned to spend the rest of my life with.

*exhale*

I only just understood while typing this that my reaction was not, "I don't want to lose Phil." Maybe that's because I'd already reconciled myself to the fact that I had lost him. I started moving on.

Phil said that breaking up with me made him realize how much he loved me and wanted to be with me. But him breaking up with me caused me to spend a month trying to get over him. Trying to fall out of love. Focus on the negative.

But when he was here in person today, so sweet, and making an effort for the first time in a long time, and crying over me... In those moments, I really wanted it to work. I wanted for him to be THE guy again.

And then I felt like I was cheating on Gus. Which made me feel like I had been cheating on Phil.

----------------------

I don't remember ever being this confused over guys before. I don't like it. I don't think they do, either.

----------------------

May you know which road to follow so that you will have the fewest possible regrets.

~A~

3 Weeks, Post-Break-Up

2013-04-26T12:50:00.002-04:00

1. I decided to throw a party. “Angela’s Going to Be OK Party”. (I decided to leave it ambiguous as to whether the ‘s was possessive or a contraction of Angela-is, with a sort of play on “going away”, which I’m not doing… I thought way, way to long about that.)
It’s going to be at the speakeasy around the corner from my house (The Blind Barber) on Saturday night, in case you are in LA and feel like joining. There's a facebook event that I'll invite you to if you are interested.

2. That actor from the call sheet (from the last post)? I told my mother the story. And she found him on Twitter, and is now a huge fan of his (as a human being, not as an actor). She insisted I tweet him, which I did. I don’t think his character is returning, at least not this season. Oh well. Nice guy. And you should totally look him up on twitter.
Anyway. So I wrote him. And I may have lightly flirted. And I think he might have lightly flirted back. And I might be completely and totally wrong. But honestly, made me REALLY happy. And now I’m nervous and don’t know how to respond... But I totally invited him to the party I'm throwing Saturday, via tweet. I doubt he'll come... but nothing ventured, nothing gained... right?

3. The lead actor on our show came up to me and asked how I was doing. I told him about the break-up, and he said that he had inferred that something like that had happened. He said he went through something similar right before we started filming the season (which I knew, because he's famous and it was in the gossip blogs), and that he thinks it’s good to stay busy, but not so busy that you bury your emotions. I agreed. He told me that I'm awesome, and not to let it get me down. He gave me a big hug, which was lovely.

4. I went out to a bar on Friday night by myself. Because I got out of work early, and I didn’t have rehearsal… and I was lonely. And I wrote to pretty much everyone that I knew in town, but no one could meet up with me. Around 10pm, after still not finding anyone able to meet up with me, but wanting to stop moping in my room, I went to a bar. A speakeasy. And I ordered a fancy grilled cheese. And the waitress, who knew of my plight, bought me a drink and commended me on my bravery.

Phil has said many times that it was his pet peeve to see scenes in movies where a hot woman is sitting in a bar alone. He claims it doesn’t happen in real life. If a woman is at a bar, she’s either with her friends or a man. So here I was, bringing the scenario to life. I may not have looked my most stunning, but I’m not unattractive. And I was alone. And making it very clear through body language that I was open to talking to anyone. I sat there for nearly two hours with nary a bite.
Then, as I was leaving, a guy came up, took my arm, and said, “Leaving so soon?”
You’ve got to be f***ing kidding me. I was there for two hours sitting by myself, hoping for someone to talk to me. But no.
Then, on the way out, I started talking to a nice guy who seemed to work there. Cute, my age-ish. But then he said he had to take care of something and would be right back. He didn’t come back, but the doorman started hitting on me. Dude, you’re like mid-40s. There’s no way. Also, you’re in your mid-40s and a part-time doorman at a bar. Don’t underestimate me here.

5. I’m in a play called Timon of Athens. It's a Shakespeare play that no one ever does (because it's weird and the ending kind of sucks... It's basically like the reverse of Scrooge's journey in A Christmas Carol. Rich guy starts out generous and loving humanity, and ends being misanthropic and a total dick to everyone). I don’t know if it’s going to be any good. I was actually thinking of dropping out of it, but stayed in so that I’d be busy while dealing with break-up emotions.

I play two characters. One is a Lady and the other is a prostitute. I might not always know who I am as a person, but as an actor, I’m whatever you want me to be.

6. There’s a girl in our cast by the name of Eliza. She went missing mid-rehearsal. I sang out, “Run Eliza! Run from Timon!” (which is only funny and pun-ny if you know “The King and I”, but I thought it was pretty good.

7. There's a guy in the cast who is totally interested in me, and I'm not sure how to handle it. He keeps asking me to hang out with him, and I do, because I'm lonely. But I've been very clear with him that I'm still in love with my ex and really, really, really not looking to get involved with anyone. And flat out shut him down once when he was trying to flirt with me. I'm trying not to lead him on. Really. But he's nice, and it's nice hanging out with him.

Also, we are totally a bad match. He wants to settle down with a nice Jewish girl. I'm Catholic, and that ain't changing. Actually had a whole conversation with him about my opinions on various Popes last night to try to cement in his head that he should not be pursuing me. Not sure that it worked, but I tried.

8. I know I’ve already said this, but dear God are there a lot of men hitting on me. It’s freaking ridiculous. At one point, I was hanging out with the Jewish guy above, and trying to make it perfectly clear to him that this was NOT a date, and pulled out my phone. During the time that I’d been hanging out with him (roughly an hour), I had three new (unread) text messages from guys in Los Angeles asking me out. It’s insane. And do you know how many of these men I’m interested in? Not even one of them. It’s just depressing. (Even the doorman at the bar is texting me… And yes, I know I’m an idiot for letting him guilt me into giving him my number, but in my defense, I told him flat out that I wasn’t interested, and had also imbibed exactly one drink, which means I was drunk off my ass.)

See, I think I fall into this special little box… I’m somewhat attractive, fairly intelligent, mildly entertaining in social situations, and friendly enough that I’m not intimidating, so men all think they have a chance with me. Like I don’t appear to be out of anyone’s league.

9. There’s a female writer on the show whom I think is really cool. I thought her episode was great, and she used to write on another show that I loved (Awake), but that only lasted one season. Anyway. I told her about my break-up. And the next time I saw her, she brought me a necklace. She told me that once, when she was going through a rough break-up, another woman bought her a piece of jewelry as a way of helping her through it, and that it meant a lot to her. She wanted to do the same thing for me. A piece of jewelry that wasn’t purchased for me by a man, that I had never worn during a memory with a man, and that was the mark of a new beginning in my life. I told her I would wear it as a talisman of strength. I haven’t taken it off. It’s a pearly oval with a gold “A” in the center, and not something that I would have ever picked out for myself. But I love it so dearly that I can’t articulate it.

10. Remember how an actor on set told me to download Tinder? That same guy was back on set yesterday, asked me if I was using Tinder, and then casually mentioned that I had popped up on his Tinder. Is this his way of propositioning me? Like, trying to get me to use Tinder until I see his profile, say that I’m interested, and we get matched up? (Note: we have an age difference of 7 years, of which he is fully aware.) Am I reading this wrong? He’s very funny, and kind of cute, but he also is the ex-fiance of the sister of one of the writers on the show whom I really like, and this could get weird. (We just became friends on Facebook. We'll see.)

11. One of the stand-ins I work with keeps showing me pictures of himself from facebook throughout the last several years, many of which are him without a shirt on (dear God, he had a nice body). Is this him hitting on me? Or is he just a douchebag who puts a bunch of shirtless pictures of himself on facebook?
In any case. He went through a bad break-up in January, right before we started shooting, so he’s been giving me break-up advice. Which is nice, because he’s just been through it… but also usually seems super inaccurate to what would help me.
Side note: he has a cra-zay-zy ex-girlfriend. So he has started casually dating a new girl. And he was at his house one night, making out with the new girl, and got 7 text messages in the span of about 2 minutes. And then they heard sobbing coming from outside the window. He stopped the make-out session to see what the noise was, and saw his ex standing in the middle of the street weeping. Turns out, that night would have been their anniversary, so the ex decided to come over and surprise him (to try to rekindle things? Or just for a booty call? Not sure). When he didn’t respond to her texts (and she saw the lights were off), she remembered that the lock on the door to his porch is broken, jimmied it open, and snuck inside, thinking she’d surprise him when he got home (in what universe is that a good idea?). When she heard make-out sounds, she freaked out and ran into the street crying.

12. I decided to write to the casting director of the show I work on to try to get an audition. I was really nervous about whether this was a good idea, which was why I waited so long. But then I figured, I’m never going to feel safer with any other crew of people than I feel with this one. So I might as well go for it, right?

Well, I got a response. The casting director said she wishes she had known about me earlier, but it doesn't look like there will be any roles for me that haven't already been cast. She was super nice about it. And I wrote back that I'm kicking myself for not writing to her earlier. She wrote, "No, don't kick yourself! It will happen. I've heard great things about you."

So fingers crossed for the future. Again, nothing ventured, nothing gained... right?

13. Texted Phil yesterday.

I put down a $100 cash deposit on a car he didn't end up buying (Gene Simmon's daughter's Dodge Charger), and the place still hasn't refunded my money. Phil said he'd take care of it. (He lives 5 minutes from the dealer; I live 45 minutes from the dealer.) He told me he went in person, and that they said they'd send a check, and gave me the name and number of the person he spoke with. Two weeks later, still no check. I called the guy, and he said he didn't remember Phil, but that they probably sent the check, and I should keep waiting.

I texted Phil about it. He said he's sorry, that he'll go back next week if I still haven't gotten the check, and that he'd be happy to lend me the money if I need it.

But here's the thing: I feel like, if he were classy, Phil would just give me the $100 out of his pocket, and deal with getting the refund for himself. Because in my mind, that money was a loan from me to Phil. So him offering to give me a loan is just wrong.

My mother told me to take him up on it. And then just stop trying to get the money back from the dealer. And if he asks me about it, to just say, "Still haven't gotten a check from the dealer," and make him deal with it. And then, if and when I get the check from the dealer, to endorse it and mail it to Phil.

14. So we were texting. And he said he's worried about me, and that he hates thinking that he has caused me any suffering, and that he's beating himself up. So I texted. "I'm better. Still angry that you never took me on that date."

Because, you know, we kept saying that someday, we'd live in the same city, and we could go on dates like a normal couple. And I kept trying to make that happen. I even tried to take him out to a nice dinner a couple of times, but he wouldn't let me. So instead, I just paid for lunch at every possible opportunity, since I knew he was worried about money. And he said as soon as he got paid, he'd take me out to dinner (he also promised to take me to Disneyland and Hawaii, but whatever; I would've been happy with a nice dinner at the not-expensive Italian restaurant by my house). But he never did.

He wrote back, "Oh fuck. I'm sorry. Really wanted to do that."

I wrote back, "No you didn't. You had a month. If you wanted to, you would have."

I actually started writing something else far more vitriolic right after sending that text, but my coworkers could see the smoke coming out of my ears and stopped me. So that was all the anger that he actually received.

He wrote back, "I don't want to fight," followed by more well wishes and apologies.

15. It's a rollercoaster, dealing with this stuff. Most of the time, I'm just f***ing angry. I'm f***ing angry that he put me through so much s*** over the last three years, and that I put up with it because I f***ing loved him. I dealt with a lot of stuff that I shouldn't have had to deal with, because I was so convinced that he was my destiny, and that we were meant to be together, and that we were somehow going to have a happily-ever-after, and that all the tough stuff was just a rocky part of the road.

I did my part. I worked at it. I put in the effort. I tried. So hard. I bent over backwards trying to make his life better and easier, and I sacrificed so many things that I wanted. Like when there was a show that I wanted to be cast in, but he told me that if I left LA right after he got here, it would be too great of a strain on our relationship. So I didn't even audition, because I couldn't imagine my life without him.

And he couldn't even take me on one lousy f***ing date. Not one.

My mother thinks I don't know my worth. Maybe she's right.

The Name on the Call Sheet

2013-04-11T03:44:00.000-04:00

All day, I've been thinking that I should come home and blog to vent my frustrations of a very weird and upsetting week*. But instead of having to trudge through that muck, I'm going to save you by telling you an extremely lame, totally uneventful tale from my day, which got me smiling and gave me a bit of my spark back.

A former child-star actor** had a small role on the TV show I work on today.

And I may or may not have at one point in my youth totally had a crush on this child actor. And, lucky for me, he grew up totally hot. So when I saw his name on the call sheet yesterday (and, mind you, 98% of people would not recognize his name), I got kind of geeked (actually, I get geeked by a lot of the people we've had on the show... pretty much any time I see a name on the call sheet and know who the person is without looking them up I get geeked, so maybe I'm just more of a Hollywood newbie than I would like to admit).

Yeah. Not proud of anything that I've just written, looking back on it. But whatever. Moving on.

Totally made the mistake of telling one of the other stand-ins that I knew who this guy was, and that he was coming, and that he grew up hot. And also putting on makeup halfway through the day, right before this actor was going to get to set (not because I was entertaining any sort of delusion that this arguably famous person was going to get one look at me and fall madly in love and carry me into the sunset; more because, you know, I'm vain, and I hated the idea of this guy thinking I was a mess, which is basically what I am right now. So it was less Molly Ringwald-style wishful makeup-ing, and more Doug-era beautify-ing Bluffington). The other stand-in noticed this, and then kept egging me on to go talk to this actor while he was on set.

Here's the thing about being a stand-in: you don't always actually get to talk to the actors. It really depends on the situation. Sometimes we talk. Yesterday I got break-up advice from an actress (who was in "Mean Girls") who told me that I'm probably co-dependent like she is. And another actor made me download some weird dating app called Tinder (the only redeeming quality of which is that it feels somewhat empowering to reject 100 men in a row based only on their age, terrible photo, or fact that you have no "shared interests" showing on your respective facebook profiles). Recently I told an actor who was briefly on The Office that his character was referenced again this season, and explained the whole plot of an episode. But this is not really what I do every day. Most days, my job is very jobby. Just like when I was working in a Chicago skyscraper cubicle, while I talk to the people in my department every day, I don't always have time to get into conversations with people in other departments (like the actors, or as they are referred to on set, "first team"; the stand-ins are called "second team"), even though we smile and say hello as we pass each other in the hallway.

Sometimes, actors really WANT to have relationships with their stand-ins. (Michael Emerson is totally kind to his stand-in on "Person of Interest", for example, and bought him a well-thought-out Christmas present last year with a card addressed "to my friend and colleague", which totally made his stand-in's whole year. And I'm pretty sure Tina Fey and Tom Cruise are real-life friends with their stand-ins.) And sometimes, they don't. Some actors, in fact, don't want relationships with ANYONE on the crew, and ask their hair and make-up team not to talk to them while making them gorgeous. Usually, you get an idea of how personable the actor is going to be pretty soon after you meet them, but not always.

Right. So. I don't generally just go up to any actor who stops by our show and just start talking to them. You kind of have to feel out the situation first, or else you end up watching Michelle Trachtenberg tell Leighton Meister that she thinks you've been stalking her since 1994, but that's a story for another time...

So then he showed up. And is totally attractive (in a John Krasinski way). And he was clean-cut and dressed all 1950's-esque. And it totally distracted me from the week of pain, despair, and peer-pressured drunkenness that I've just been through.

Then the other stand-in (who I think is trying to help my through the trauma of my extremely recent break-up) said that she wanted to set us up, "just like Amelie" (although I saw this movie, it was long enough ago that her qualifying description means absolutely nothing to me, so feel free to explain in the comments). I begged her not to do so. And then I casually said, "for all I know, he's gay." (Although really, really hoping he's not, because it's so much harder to crush on celebrities -- quasi or otherwise -- once you know that they're not even willing to entertain the idea of dating your gender, let alone someone as lame as you probably are in their eyes.) She seemed to give up on the idea of introducing us. Or of me pursuing him (did she really think that was going to happen?). And I was pleased.

Later, while I was on set, waiting to stand-in (usually, the actress I cover hops away from set whenever they aren't rolling, but today she had gotten into a conversation with two other actors, so I stood off to the side joking to some of the idle crew members, waiting to see if I were actually required), the actor started speaking to me. And then we had a delightful little conversation. We started off talking about some of the oddities of the '50s, and by the end were improvising back-story about his character. And it was good fun.

I didn't make a fool out of myself by telling him that I knew exactly who he was or that I totally have the title track from the Lohan TV-movie he was in on my iTunes. It was just nice. (Don't get too excited: the entire conversation spanned three minutes at most and we never introduced ourselves by name.)

[Now, the next episode is going to be directed by the woman who directed "Now & Then", so no promises that I won't make an ass out of myself in front of a debatably-famous person before the month is through, but I still think progress has been made.]

I don't actually know if this actor is going to be back or not. It seems plausible that his character could recur, but he only had one line in the episode we are currently shooting, so if he does come back, it won't be for a couple of weeks. But from that three minute conversation I had with him, he actually seems pretty delightful. I'd actually really like to talk to him more if he comes back. And maybe flirt a little (with a couple more weeks of singledom under my belt, I might actually be ready to do so). I very much hope he returns, as I would like that very much.

Look, I'm not a star-chaser. I'm not. (If I were, I would have been fawning over the very talented former American Idol contestant*** whom I hung out with over the weekend, as he gave me more than one unusually long bear hug, as though he'd known me for years.) That's really not what this post is about. (Besides, it's not exactly like he's Matt Damon or something. I think I'm the only person on set who even knew who he was.)

Over the last week, I've had a crazy amount of men hit on me (I've been to three bars in the last week. I don't know if I've ever been to three different bars in one week before, ever). And I haven't been in a place where I could enjoy or appreciate that. I've been in a place of "you're not Phil." (And then drunkenly petting the furniture, because my strongest sense is touch, and my love of exploring the tactile is apparently emphasized by not being sober, as I no longer have a sense that divining glee from exploring surfaces with my fingers is in any way culturally inappropriate). I even had a guy wait two hours until I got off work and then physically come over to my house, and then I very bluntly said, "it's obvious that you find me intriguing and are here to explore whether you want something romantic with me, but that's just not going to happen. Also, you're not allowed to sit on my bed, because that feels too intimate, so I will sit on the bed while you sit in the [very uncomfortable wooden] chair." (And then I proceeded to talk at him about my break-up for three hours. But I sent him home with 6 bottles of the Stella that was taking up room because I had it for Phil... so while I am emotionally unavailable and mentally unstable, I'm not a complete b****.)

And it was nice today to be able to talk to a male and not have that feeling. Him being cute was a bonus. And I would've enjoyed it very much even if he hadn't been a name I recognized on the call sheet. (Although that does make it a more entertaining story.)

May you be pleasantly surprised by cheerful distractions,

~A~

*(If you missed my last post, I've been dumped by my boyfriend of nearly three years. I'm actually handling it better than I thought I would, which is to say that I haven't broken down in tears at work yet, which I totally did multiple times in the wake of being dumped by Brian.)

**(Yeah, I know you're curious. But I didn't want to say who it is at the top of the post, because then it just feels like name-dropping. Also, I don't want to write his name in case he has a google alert on for himself and then ends up on the show again and I have to go through a mortifying event because of that... but I don't think he can possibly have a google alert on for the word "Alfalfa", so that's your massive clue. Also, he was in a movie titled "Get a Clue", and I doubt he has a google alert on for that because it's not something that anyone would expect to be mentioned online again. So if you still don't know who this is, just take those clues to google... and you probably still won't know who it is. But I do, and that's really all that matters to the story, right?)

***(Bearded guy who played jazz on a string bass. If you watched the 10th season, there's no way you don't know who this is.)

2 Years, 9 Months, 28 Days

2013-04-03T13:00:00.001-04:00

He came over to my place, which he rarely does. He asked if we could sit on the bed. He said that I should brace myself.

Just like Michael, back in 2007.

Thanks for playing.

I spent more time consoling him than anything else. He was here for hours. I gave him two of the Stellas from my mini-fridge that I had stocked up on for his occasional visits, and he went on his way.

I skyped my brother. I called my ex, Brian. And in the morning, I woke up with a face so puffy that I could barely open my eyes.

I love him. I wanted to marry him. And now, it's just over.

I gave him back his grandmother's ring. The red stone that I wore daily on my left ring finger. He told me to keep it. But how could I ever wear the ring of my ex-boyfriend's dead grandmother?

He kept crying. He started hyperventilating when he realized that we weren't going to have the son that we had agreed on a name for. I got him water, rubbed his back, and told him to breathe. He broke up with me, and I had to be the strong one.

I didn't know whether to be kind to him so he'd see the error of his ways and change his mind, or be cruel so that he would know the damage he'd done. I suppose, in retrospect, that he was hurting plenty on his own.

I don't understand. We were finally in the same place. We were finally going to have a real, normal relationship. Yes, we had some adjustments to make and some kinks to work out. But he gave it a month and threw in the towel. (He arrived on March 2nd, and broke up with me April 2nd.)

This is the longest relationship I've ever had, albeit an unconventional one. We were going to hit three years in June.

He told me he still wants me in his life. That I'm his best friend. That I'm his family.

I can't imagine not talking to him every day. But I also know that I'll never heal if I don't cut off contact fully. I'm just not sure if I'm ready to.

I feel so very alone. And so very scared.