Culver City, CA July 20, 1998 High: 74 ̊F, Low: 65 ̊F Precipitation: 0.00% Windspeed: 10mph
AS I PULL up to the booth guarding the entrance of the BW television studio, my heart’s in my throat and my eyes threaten to leak. This isn’t just hyperbole; I feel things hard. Hell, half the time I experience other people’s emotions more than they do. Today, I make the herculean effort to stay above the swell, because if I’m drowning in tears of joy/pride/terror, I won’t be able to park my car, let alone actually do the job that I’ve somehow landed.
I still can’t believe this is actually happening. When I studied creative writing at Barnard, my parents made me do a minor in education, so I’d have something to fall back on. However, instead of teaching grammar to kids after college, I found a job writing grants at a New York nonprofit. From there, a series of fortunate events leapfrogged me to my new position as a writer on an honest-to-god television show. My parents are still totally freaking out that I’ve moved across the country to grab the opportunity, but for some perspective, they were upset when I moved from New Jersey to Manhattan.
Of course, I have to make it onto the lot, to start the job and that is looking increasingly unlikely. As the gatekeeper returns my ID with a frown and asks me to pull over to the side to let the cars behind me go through, I wonder if I dreamed the phone call in which—based solely the spec scripts I mailed the show’s creator—he said he’d be “jazzed” to add a “fresh, young voice” to the team.
Perhaps the twelve phone calls I heard his mother, aka my former boss, make to him only had him caving in the moment and he’s now realized what a dumb idea it is to bring in someone so fresh and young that she had to check a book out of the library to figure out what a spec script even was. Just as I decide to save myself the humiliation of being fired before I can start, by turning my car around and crawling back to the little apartment I can no longer pay for, the grumpy attendant reappears, hands me a temporary parking pass and a high- lighted map and waves me through.
Dread takes a backseat to awe as I drive down the streets of the studio lot. It’s exactly like what you’d imagine. Facades of buildings line streets that could stand in for a small town or a New York street circa 1900. One of the 3-D buildings looks exactly like Tara in Gone with the Wind.
Not so many people saunter about in outrageous costumes like you see in movies about making movies, though. Instead, people whiz by in golf carts or on bikes, many of them barking orders on cellular phones. When I finally find the administration building, I’m slightly disappointed. A flat fronted brick building, it could be a dentist’s or a CPA’s office in my hometown.
Inside, the straight-out-of-central-casting blond recep- tionist gets mad at me when she can’t find me in her system. Several sighs and eye rolls and mutters (and apologies from me) later, she locates my name in one of the many printouts on her desk. By the time she hands me a temporary ID and a stack of paperwork, I’m exhausted, but I do have a destination.
But when I try to enter my assigned office, the door smacks into some sort of barricade. Sticking my head through the opening, I find a desk blocking the way and a man hunched over a legal pad. I clear my throat. When he still doesn’t acknowledge my presence, I say, “Excuse me?”
He startles, his hair sticking up every which way like a baby bird. A baby bird with thick, Clark Kent black glasses. If Clark Kent wore the 90’s grunge uniform of flannel shirt over faded graphic tee shirt, that is. I stop myself from picturing a Superman body underneath it all. No need to picture my co-workers in spandex.
He just blinks at me without saying anything, so I fill the air myself. “Um, sorry to interrupt. I was told this was my office?”
Noting that I’ve already done three things my mentor back in New York forbid—using “um” or “uh,” apologizing for my existence, and letting statements go up at the end like they’re questions—I stop, take a breath, and start over. “This is my office.”
He blinks slowly and points. After I squeeze through the excuse for a doorway, I’m able to see that his desk has a twin facing it.
“Oh, well, okay. I guess this is our office.”
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