Up to Speed

If any of you are as bored as I am (at 1:30 in the am, with a glass of wine following a bottle of beer, as well it should) then read on.
For here between these spaces will you be able to follow up on where I have been, what transpired, and how that's created the Now.

Not more than a month ago, the holidays ceased to exist. Now, I don't know about the rest of you but this round of Holidays were just about the sweetest, loveliest and more adventurous set of festivities that I had seen in years. We had SUCH a wonderful season, did we not?
Then January rolled back it's weighty eyelids, and post-celebratory realism set the stage once again..for those dreamy folks among us that like to live from lily pad to lily pad.
Let's begin with the beginning of January:

I set forth on a train from Sacramento, driven with dad to the station and scurrying into the new Year like I was rolling through a gloomy irish folk tale.
I got to Santa Cruz, and spent a full day helping Candice move into her new house in La Bahia. She has an amazing place, and as is typical, she created a full-fledged home in under 24 hours. Then Daniel and Melissa swept by in Scion and gathered me up to head back down south to not-so-sunny southern california.

I remember when I stepped back into my newly-unfurnished room for the first time post-holiday season..it felt a tad foreign and I didn't like that. But I knew I had my work cut out for me, so -
for the next week and a half I spent every waking moment scouring the WWW for jobs and asking every employer in Pasadena if they were hiring. Nobody bit, not once. At the same time, I geared up for an unknown journey that i was finally invited to join: assistance in making the Day 1000 film directed by Alex Calleros. It would be shot in Arizona, and it would take 6 people on the journey that may never set them back down...that's pretty dramatic.
Anyway, two days before setting sail on the adventure (around the 12 of January) I was offered TWO (you heard that, TWO) interviews for jobs - the first as a barback at the Yard House in Pasadena, and the second as a mysterious valet for a mysterious company for some Hotel somewhere. Because I had landed these interviews, I decided to postpone my journeying to Arizona for a couple of days. The night before all the boys set out, I attended the final pre-production meeting and assisted in getting all the necessary things together for the shoot - including my very own homemade Prop: the Journal (that ultimately took several hours of work to complete). I stayed up until 4 am working on the journal, and the boys stopped by at 6am to pick it up on their way through to Arizona. I slept, and that day I had two interviews - one for Yard House (which I GOT!) and the second for LAZ/Sunset Parking (which I also got!). Staying behind seemed to have paid off, and the following evening I was in a taxi cab with a man named Mr. Nick, escorting us to LAX where we would board a short flight to Phoenix, Arizona to spend the next 6 days on a hell of an adventure.
I didn't sleep well in Phoenix that night for fear that I would be stung by scorpion tails beneath my covers. Every time i turned, I imagined a little black demon aiming at my toes.
The sun hadn't come up by 7, and I feared it was the apocalypse. "WHO are you texting this early in the morning?!" Nate Sillyman bellowed from the bunk beneath mine in his room, "um...your sister. It's time to wake up" I said. Because it was. Coffee was necessary, and then after a quick sunrise climb to the top of Mt. Doom we were off on the Arizona highways, past saguaro cacti and endless mountain ranges to the dusty town of Peyson, Arizona for a Wal-Mart stop. Then we ventured onto Pine and then Strawberry, where we found Addie's parents' cabin for the movie shoot.
Instantly I was put to work. I knew from a young age that when presented with a problem I could find some make-shift version of solving it - I maybe never fully appreciated that skill until the making of this film. See, there was a director, a DP, a sound operator, two actors and ME. All crammed into a cabin in the snowy woods of upstate Arizona. So I had some work to do, to keep this movie moving smoothly. Which it did, and I can happily report that all shooting went as planned and the film shall be a success once cut and finalized. I was covered in blood and scrubs. And saw Orion a lot.
Getting back to California felt like a journey in unto itself. The desert has these huge raindrops that drown out the the dirt..it smells like clean laundry and sage everywhere you turn your head - there's a freshness that comes with desert rains. And plants that have the scent, once you press it between your fingers, like raindrops. It's amazing.
Back in California, I jumped immediately into job trainings. I spent two hours filling out paperwork for LAZ, a parking company that was outsourced to do the garage valeting for the W in downtown Hollywood, and an additionaly two hours filling out paperwork for the Yard House. Both jobs seemed pretty cool.
Then on the following Tuesday it came down to me deciding to keep either the job as a barback at Yard House, or the job as a valet at the Hollywood W.
After much deliberation and tribulation, I decided to keep the valeting job at W and drop the Yard House venture. Why? Because I believe you should follow your heart no matter where it takes you, and my heart was in the valet job over the barback job. No offense, Bill - you could have been the coolest boss ever. I just wanted to try something totally new and see if I could be good at it.
Before I knew it, I was in Hollywood training amongst the best as a valet for the swanky W Hotel. For those of you who don't know, the W is the first fancy hotel experience I ever had with Disney. When going to New York for one of my first shoots, I was booked up in the W and was blown away by the swankiness (yes, I used the word "swanky" at the time) of it all. Now I work for them too.
Training to be a valet means parking strangers' expensive cars perfectly (say that 10 times fast). Which I didn't do. In fact, I knocked over the coffee cup they'd set up as a guide. Oops! Well, if you know me, then you know I am a stupidly meticulous person about details for a job I respect. So I spent the next two training shifts getting in the mindframe of being a perfect valeter - so when opening weekend happened (this past weekend) I was ready to park the cars of millionaires...which is EXACTLY what I had to do.
I remember the first time I had to figure out how to take the keys out of a BMW, by pressing the brake pedal and putting it into park. More complicated than you might think when the millionaire owner is standing over you, watching.
We hosted, as valets and W staff, two Grammy Parties on our opening weekend. A successful opening. I had really worked my way up to that.

I've skipped over a bunch -
like the extreme financial horror that was in rapid approach..then snuffed out by an unemployment check and a promise for a Disney gig in the beginning of February.
Or the massive angst that's ridden my soul over my emotional dissonance.
Or the total non-failure that is Misty, my car...still putsin along.
Or my lack of communication with my family.
Or my endless preparation for the Glee audition, singing Come Sail Away by Styx hundreds of times in my house.
Or my awesome friendships I've made in LA.
Or the dozens of times I've driven through the lighted skyline of Los Angeles in total blissful admiration for the half-tragic town that I'm living in.
Or the piss-test I took for my job in a weeeird doctor's office somewhere randomly in Glendale.
Or the time last night when I met Jack Black after watching Will Ferrell dance to Popcorn.
Or the time when Wes Anderson said my name.
Or all the delicious Subway sandwiches I've sinken my teeth into.
Or the weird movie-esque encounter with Denise D.
Or the beautiful sunsets.
Or the amount of Love I have welling up inside of me

I guess that about sums up my new year so far.
this barely scratches the surface.

so there's my drunken self-dialogue. Hope you enjoyed it.
No editing!!!!!


Love Mikie