TheBanyanTree: How to Reinvent Your Life in Twelve Weeks of Summer: a work of fiction

[TLW]

(continuing)

WEEK TWO

Here are the things I forgot to mention last week:

1. I'm not really fat and pimply.  I mean, I could lose some pounds
(fourteen, to be exact, but fifteen would be great).  And it seems
like I always have at least one zit on my face, but no one points and
barks or barfs when they see me.  At least, not that I've noticed.

And YES, I know I said I was not going to care what people thought of
me now, but still.

I gained weight when I moved to Los Angeles.  It just sort of... crept
up on me.  And I really cannot join a gym or get a personal trainer or
whatever.  I detest exercising on purpose.  Treadmills, elliptical
trainers.  I tried Pilates, but that was just more exercising indoors
on machines -- and mighty pricey, too.  I like yoga... but I want a
beach house to do it on the covered deck of.  I mean, right?

It doesn't help that I discovered the Best Grocery Store Ever only two
blocks from my house, Cap'n Jack's -- the working girl's answer to
Whole Foods.  Cap'n Jack is my personal chef.  He makes yummy salads
that I adore, and I felt quite smug eating salads, till I finally read
the label and saw that it wasn't exactly user-friendly and the whole
thing was actually two servings.  Yah, like I'm gonna eat half of it
and save the other half (of a salad?  Soggy much?)  for later.  They
had this lasagna I adored.  I'd wake up in the middle of the night
with a craving, and stick it in the microwave.  And, I ate the whole
thing, then found out it was two-and-a-half servings.  Who makes up
these rules?

They sell great cookies and chocolate and cheese, too, by the way.
They sell nuts and dried fruit and amazing juices.  And five different
editions of macaroni-and-cheese and eleventy varieties of hummus.
These are things you don't even know you need, but when you have them
in the house, they make you feel rich.  I love Cap'n Jack's.  In fact,
I've had "Bring Your Favorite Cap'n Jack's Product" parties.  (I've
also had "Wear the Oldest Thing in Your Closet" parties and "Repressed
Desire" parties.  I used to be a really fun girl.  I mean it.  Ask
anyone.)  The whole
evening we were pretending we were in Cap'n Jack's commercials: "Have
you tried this?"  "Oh, no, why, what is that?"  "Here -- ready in
minutes, and the kids love it!"
Anyway, I'm just saying that Cap'n Jack is a great guy and I love his
food.  I love it so much, I'm carrying fourteen extra pounds of it
wrapped around on my thighs.

2.  I mentioned that my friend, GiGi is out of town, but I should also
mention that this is another reason I am remaking myself.  It's sort
of an opportunity, with her gone.  She is an actress ("actor," some
call her, but she likes the word "actress," so I use it, okay?) who
also works in a chiropractor's office, and we have been meeting for a
glass (read: bottle) of Cap'n Joe's Chardonnay every night after work
for almost a year.  Which is probably eight of the fourteen pounds,
right?   and it's just a little too comfy and perfect, you know?  She
is hilarious and she makes everything worth everything.  She has a
boyfriend in New York who is a magician and I (kind of) have a (kind
of) boyfriend in Texas (more later) and so we talk about them and
long-distance relationships and Hollywood and celebrities and by the
time we have both had two glasses of wine, we're ready to eat some
Cap'n Joe's supper and then we go ahead and finish off a bin of
cookies and we're done.  Actually, it's a little too comfy and
perfect, you know?  But GiGi is so hilarious and makes everything
worth everything.  GiGi, however, is in New Orleans for the summer.
Her mother and stepfather live there, and they are something like 60
and 80 years old, respectively.  They got married when GiGi was about
ten, I think.  Her real father was never around.  Anyway, GiGi, an
only child, went down there last month to surprise Mama Bettina for
Mother's Day.  She was supposed to come back the Tuesday after that,
but the morning of her flight, Mama Bettina just  kind of toppled over
and ended up (Hello. Ended up.) breaking her hip.  GiGi and I both
agree this was Mama Bettina's passive-aggressive way of keeping GiGi
in town.  And it obviously worked, because now it's June and  Gigi is
still down there.  They have some sort of, I dunno, acreage there --
Mister John, her stepfather, was in local politics and insurance and
real estate.  He is a wealthy  man, is what I am trying to say.  When
I think of him, I remember a joke I heard once about life in New
Orleans.  "New Orleans is a place where a man calls the politicians
"Shep," "Moon," and "Dutch, and his mother-in-law "Mrs. Beauregard."

GiGi and I still talk on the phone all the time, of course.  She must
use up about eleventy thousand minutes on her cell phone every month.
She doesn't text, either, which is probably just as well, since I'd
just be texting her back every two minutes.  She tried texting, but
once she texted an agent she'd "been acting 4 yrs," when she meant FOR
years, not FOUR years, and it led to a big misunderstanding and she's
kind of paranoid now.  She calls Rob in Las vegas and me in L.A. as if
we just work downtown and she needs us to pick up bread and milk on
the way home.

This morning's conversation:

Gigi:  No matter what anyone tells you, once you reach a certain age,
it's really all about the poop.
Me: (thinking) WTF?
Gigi:  Hazel and I both agree that poop is the lynchpin of my parents'
existence.
Note: Hazel is a caregiver Gigi finally hired.  When Gigi started
concentrating on her mom, her stepdad started pouting, and "acting
out" because he wasn't getting enough attention.  Gigi and I have
never been able to figure out why her mother always seems a little
pissed off at her stepfather, but now that Gigi has lived with the man
off and on for a while, it is definitely becoming much clearer.  He's
bossy, snarky, never makes a mistake (he thinks), argues with everyone
about nothing at all, and -- well, I think that's enough, right?
Me:  How's Mama Bettina doing?
Gigi:  Well, other than being confined to a wheelchair and losing
about five pounds a week despite eating like two teenagers, she's
fine.  She's a survivor, ya know.
Note: this is a private joke.  Gigi and I both slightly hate it when
people say they are "survivors."  We're all survivors, period.  If we
weren't, we wouldn't be here.  Durrr.
Me:  And Mister John?
Gigi: (Steam here.  You wouldn't know there was steam unless you knew
Gigi, because steam sounds a lot like silence.  But silence usually
means steam, pretty much any time you're talking to a Southern Girl.
I've figured this out all by myself.)
Gigi:  As I say --
Me:  "It's all about the poop."
Gigi:  Yeah, bowel movements.  When, how much, what color --
Me:  I get it.  You can stop now.
Gigi:  Ohhh, for the number of times I have said that to Mister John!
But he keeps right on going.  And going and going.  It's under his
fingernails, can you believe it?
Me:
Note:  My silence does not mean steam.  My silences almost always mean
I am simply, you know, speechless.  Which is what is going on right
now.
Me:  Under his fingernails?
Gigi:  Yep!  Don't even ask.
Me:
Gigi: Yep!  And under the heading of "if I knew than what I know now..."
Me:  Isn't everything under that heading?
Gigi: Yep!  And under it in this particular case is...  guess what I
found out this week?
Me:  There is more than the whole poop/lynchpin epiphany?
Gigi:  I am not in the will.
Me:
Gigi:  Yep!  He's left his fortune to my mother -- which is great and
just as it should be.  But the lawyer suggested that I have a look at
the will, itself, in the event that Mama dies first, since she is
wasting away before our very eyes.  And if Mama dies first, he gets
her half, and then, when he dies, it goes to the Jesuits.
Me:
(Read: WTF?)
Gigi (wailing a little)  This is what my entire life has been about!
About not belonging, not being wanted, not being good enough.  The man
who has been, for all practical purposes, my father, is not my father
at all.  He's giving my entire inheritance to the Jesuits.
Me:  I didn't know he even liked the Jesuits.
Gigi:  He doesn't!  I mean, he went to Catholic high school, just like
everyone else in New Orleans, but does he really give a fuzzy rat butt
about the Jesuits?
Me:  I guess he does.
Gigi: No, he does not!  And!  He cares even less about me!  Oh, wait,
wait, I didn't tell you everything yet.  He has also left some to his
nieces and nephews.
Me:  He left money to his nieces and nephews, but not to you?
Gigi:  Yyyyyep!  And, let's ask now, where are these precious
nieces and nephews?  While I am living here, taking care of
everything, talking to contractors, dealing with the help, changing my
mother's diapers and hearing about his poop?
Me:  You're saying they're local?  That they live right in town?
Gigi: Yyyyyeppity-yep-yep.
Me: But... that's not fair.
Gigi: No shit, Sherlock!  I could spit five-penny nails, I'm so mad!
And I feel so stupid!  This is my whole life, wrapped up in this
story!  This is what I've been dealing with my whole life!  That I'm
not good enough!
Me:  I don't know that it's about being good enough, honey.  It's more
about power and control and... well, technically, he can leave his
money to whoever he wants to.  Still, it seems like really bad form to
omit you.  I think this tells us lots more information about him than
about you.
Gigi:  It feels like it's all about me!  By leaving me out!
Me: Did you ask him about it?
Gigi:  What?!  And give him that satisfaction?!
Me:
Gigi:  No, I didn't ask him about it!  You couldn't pay me to ask him
about it!  He's a mean stingy, nasty, awful, horrible stubborn old
goat, and he always has been!  No wonder my mother has acted so crazy
for the past twenty years.
Me:  He puts on a good front.
Gigi:  It's because he has such nice manners.  Men with good manners
-- you have to watch out for them.  It doesn't mean they're nice
people, at all.
Me:  No kidding.  That should be on a refrigerator magnet.  "Men with
nice manners aren't necessarily nice men."  So, what are you going to
do?
Gigi:  There's nothing I can do.  I'm going to try not to kill him.
Thank God for Hazel.  I'm going to leave her with him in this big
house to rattle around, and Mama Bettina and I are going to go live in
the guesthouse.  That's why the contractors are here -- to fix it up.
Me:  How long will you be in the guesthouse?
Gigi:  I don't know!  Don't ask me questions I don't know the answer
to!  But I'm sure as hell not gonna stay here in the big house and
listen to him report on his poop!
She was "ratcheting up."  That's what we call it.  The Emotional Lug
Wrench was cranking her psyche tighter and tighter.  I swear I could
hear it gasp and rasp across several state lines.

Eventually we got off the phone, without solving any problems, and I
couldn't make her feel better.  She didn't want to feel better,
either.  It's like she had just figured out that Rosebud was his sled,
and now she just had to yank all her other wrong guesses around in her
head for a week or two.

All this has nothing to do with my list of five goals -- er, efforts.
But since I'm making progress reports, I might as well include Gigi
and her rites of passage down there.  I'm pretty sure I'm in my
parents' will, but there is no fortune included, so it's pretty much
gonna come down to who gets the sofa and who gets the Windsor rocker.
(For the record, I want the Windsor.  I have a sofa.  I also have a
few rocking chairs -- all my chairs rock, in fact, I have no grownup
chairs.  But I still want the Windsor rocker.)

So.  Right.  Okay.

#1.  Find a real job.  No, wait -- apply for 25 jobs, was it?  How
many did I say?  But I really mean: find a real job.

Sigh.  Okay.  Come-Clean Confession:  I have had far too many jobs
already in my time.  I've tried dozens -- really, dozens -- of temp
jobs.  I know people who work temp jobs all the time.  Gigi is a big
fan of the Temp Job route, that's how she got the chiropractor gig.
She auditioned her boss, he got a callback, and she cast him.  Me, I
hate working temp jobs.  I feel like it's having a
First-Day-of-Work-at-a-New-Job over and over and over again.  The guy
who sent me out on the jobs, who always called me "Sean-
Young-movie-Tess-Paladin" kept telling me the secret of working temp
jobs was to stay under the radar, don't try to do a good job, fill the
vacant seat and keep your head down.  Don't talk to anyone, have no
personality, and "just let the minute hand do its job, which is to go
around and around and around."  Hey. if I wanted to have that kind of
career, I could have gone to law school.

Hell, I don't know what a good job for me would be.  I keep trying on
different ones and none of them fit.  The thing I like most in the
world is 1. writing 2. hugging my dog 3. having friends 4. making a
difference.  So I guess I should start a green non- profit with my
friends taking care of pets and then write a book about it.

Jobs I applied for this week:  Tutor.  Hotel clerk.  Store product
demonstrator.  Life drawing model.  Personal assistant (as in,
someone's paid wife) (three of these).  That's seven.  Added to last
week, that brings the total to an even thirteen.  No interviews this
week, though.

I might have to up my goal to applying for 100 jobs.  Still, as my old
William Morris agent used to tell me again and again: it only takes
one "yes."

Of course, they'll say anything over there at William Morris.

#2 Cleaning up the garage.  I completely blew this one this week.  In
fact, I took three giant steps backwards and filled up my apartment,
too. Here's what happened:

(to be continued)