up-and-coming director. I emailed the editor-in-chief to ask how much they were going to pay me. He responded: $50. I wrote back, âFifty dollars, how about a hundred?â He replied, almost immediately, âNo!!â There were really two exclamation points.
The glamour of this bohemian, work-from-home lifestyle quickly lost its luster when I completely ran out of money. Suddenly, my salon-purchased shampoos were replaced by bottles that said âCompare to.â I started washing my carânot just the windshield, but the entire vehicleâwith a squeegee at the gas station. This, because I couldnât afford a car wash. Car washes are nine dollars.
When Iâd tell someone I was a writer in LA, more often than not theyâd want to know about my screenplay. When Iâd reply, âNo, actually, I write for magazines,â theyâd say, âOh! Like movie reviews?â (This was part of an actual conversation, though the woman who said this also asked who âdoesâ my eyelashes. Um, I do.) I realized the only way to stay afloat as a writer in LA at the height of the recession was to supplement that job with, oh, about a million others.
Thatâs when I turned into a full-blown âslashâ: a writer/editor/actress/model/waitress/etc. I was a living, breathing, beverage-slinging, audition-going, electricity-being-cut-off, LAcliché. My slashiness was indiscriminating and far-reaching. I was a cocktail waitress, a leg model, a tray-passer at parties. I was an extra in a Smirnoff Ice commercial. I was a dead person in a music video. One time, the right side of my face was on an episode of Entourage . In one particularly misguided moment of weakness, I volunteered to be a âhair modelâ and had all of my long blonde hair chopped off for $250 and a couple of bottles of deep conditioner. And, I became a Box Girl.
When I told my parents about the box, they were, understandably, a little confused. âYouâre going to do what? Where? Huh?â My liberal-minded mom was more accepting of the idea as she is very into contemporary art. My dad, on the other hand, has a hard time comprehending any job that doesnât involve stock options and a 401K. He is a man who reads Forbes and watches CNBC from market open to market close. He once suggested I sue âthose bastardsâ at The University of Colorado for giving me a degree in something that canât make me any money. Then he added that he used to make more money while going to the bathroom than I had made in the last year. To this day, he still doesnât know what the Box Girl âuniformâ entailed. I think I told him âwhite pajamas.â
My dad believes you go to college and get a job. âA real one.â He doesnât understand how his daughter could be carrying a $900 Bottega Veneta bag (my momâs old one) while declining a side of guacamole at Chipotle because it was an additional two dollars. âChampagne taste on a beer budget,â he liked to say.
And yes, my parents could have supported me. But I didnât want them to. Thatâs not to say there wasnât a significant safety net; my dad bailed me out of many a financial clusterfuck over the years. But for the most part, I tried my pitiful best to get by on my own. My parents paid for my college education, in full. The least I could do was go out and make stupid decisions all on my own.
Run Lilibet Run
About a year after I left the modeling agency, my direct boss, Pam, suggested I go on commercial auditions. Actually, I am not entirely sure this is true. I think I might have suggested that I go on commercial auditions. Itâs just so much less embarrassing to say it was her idea. They werenât going to send me down the runway at Chanel, but perhaps on the occasional audition for a Colgate commercial. At the time, I was interning at one magazine, freelancing for others, and cock-tailing at a