Date with an Angel

By the second round of drinks, you regret agreeing to meet up with her.

You were struck, after recovering from the kiss she planted on your cheek as you entered the dimly-lit wine bar/coffee shop/performance space, with how put together she looks. Makeup flawlessly applied, not one hair out of place, smelling like a sea breeze, not even a stain on her teeth. Then you look around and realize it’s not just that she looks nice — she looks the exact amount of nice as every other person in this place, attractive in an effortless way, as if she could be captured at any moment by a rogue photographer.

Somehow this makes you more anxious than if she’d actually tried to impress you.

She immediately pumps you for information. About your acting career (“Are you in the union yet?”), about your apartment (“But is your neighborhood safe?”), about your relationship status (“It must be so. hard. meeting other queer people.”) You try to take this in stride. You know she is useless without a steady supply of gossip to sift through. If she’s disappointed when you have nothing exciting to tell her, she does a good job of hiding it.

You try an experiment: During a lull in the conversation, as she sips her merlot, you tell a cute anecdote about walking your parents’ dog through the neighborhood where you grew up. It’s rapidly developing, becoming genuinely high-end instead of just desirably positioned, and you had to guide the dog around active construction what felt like every other block. And you turned onto a street back into the neighborhood (They call it “Century Glen” now and the name makes your stomach churn), and on the other side of a brand-new condominium was a tiny, vintage Volkswagon microbus, dingy with age and sporting a vanity license plate marked “GOBEEP”.

She smiles in polite confusion, but you see the unspoken condescension in her eyes. This is what you did while you visited? she seems to ask. Looked at old cars?

She didn’t get it. You weren’t sure you did, either, but at least you wanted to try.

By round three of drinks (you are furious you stayed this long, but she’s buying), her commentary grows cutting. Did you know that Beyonce was performing this weekend? That’s where all the traffic downtown came from! Have you been by Silver Lake lately? There’s a new fusion joint that has mojitos SO GOOD her mouth is watering thinking of them. What about the beach? No? You used to love the beach!

(You never loved the beach.)

What frustrates you is, you know this isn’t her. Not at her core. You know, because you grew up with her, that she has a large family that she cares for deeply, even if she won’t talk about them in public. You know that while she travels almost constantly, she would never consider moving, and she feels most comfortable with a bottle of wine in front of her television, which is the nicest thing in her own condo. You know that even though she’s so perfectly presentable, the inside of her purse is a mess. You know that her passion for shopping is more akin to an addiction, but she would never admit it to anyone.

And you know that no matter how mean she is to you, and how uncomfortable you feel around her, that people will continue to genuinely love her. Because they notice these things too.

She ends the night before you have a chance to (you curse your lack of initiative). After stretching her arms in a way that makes her breasts look full, she stands up and holds her arms out for a hug. You are just drunk enough that you are tempted to laugh in her face, but instead you stumble into her and give her a perfunctory embrace. You pull out your phone to call a Lyft and she manages to get in one more remark about how you still don’t know how to drive. “Did you actually grow up here?” she teases.

You did. She knows you did.

As your car takes you home, you take deep breaths through your nose and look out at the palm trees in the distance. They remind her of those times she genuinely smiled at you, face dappled with sunbeams.

Recent Gigs

Since my last update, I have had the pleasure of providing additional voices for the following shows:

• TenPuru: No One Can Live on Loneliness, Episode 7

Consume!

Following shutdown, my creative practice took a huge hit. For almost a decade I considered myself a serious playwright, but since the current system is, stubbornly, refusing to adapt to production restrictions, audience expectations, and a world that is fundamentally requiring more from it than it is used to giving, I’ve grown disillusioned with the medium. When I tell stories again, it will have to be in a different way. And that idea has left me paralyzed.

In the meantime, I’m listening to other creatives talk about their work, and Jessica Abel’s podcast “The Autonomous Creative” has been a shining light — Abel has long been a force for good with her expertise in getting creative people to just buckle down and create. Her latest project highlights case studies from artists across mediums, debunks myths surrounding the business side of producing creative works, and outlines frameworks to help out when the work just. isn’t. happening.

Performance of the Week

I’ve been watching a Let’s Play of “The Walking Dead” lately, and guess what — 10 years later, this game is still solid gold.

Look, if you’re reading this newsletter I don’t think I have to tell you how good the voice acting in this game is. I’m not saying anything groundbreaking when I tell you that Dave Fennoy takes us on a masterclass of performance throughout his portrayal of Lee Everett, how he brilliantly allows Lee space to act as both a player surrogate and his own defined, complicated character. If you know, you know.

But I want to take a second and invite you, if you don’t know, to pick up this game. Don’t look up anything beforehand. It does not matter if you watched the show, or read the comics, or even consider yourself a “gamer”. This is one of those rare pieces of art where all of the elements gel together beautifully to tell a heartwrenching, character-driven story, in a way that has rarely been done since.

If nothing else, listen to the man, the myth, the legend, Dave Fennoy, and let Lee into your heart.

Cowgirl Blues

Unlike LA’s perfume, Dallas’ scent is harder to pin down. Juniper? Sandalwood? She feels sweet and spicy all at once, woodsy and urban, constantly shifting. She defies your perceptions, and does it with a cheeky grin.

The two of you lay lengthwise on your bed, both petting your cat into oblivion, chuckling as she rolls herself into your hands to deepen the scritches. You can feel her watching you, waiting for you to say something about your time away. She feels competitive with LA, but also admires her desperately. She’ll listen to anything you tell her, but will have her own opinions she won’t share.

“It was fine,” you say before she can ask. “She hasn’t changed.”

“She took a picture of your dinner for her Instagram,” says Dallas.

Of course she did.

As you grow quiet, you feel her pull away. You like her a lot. And she likes you. But you know this isn’t a forever feeling, not even the fleeting kind. And you worry that the end is coming sooner than you would like — you see her pin her hair up in ways she’s never worn it before, buy more name-brand clothes, post incessantly on social media, and you want to grab her by the shoulders and shake her.

You like how she loves to play tourist. You like that she’s good at creating a solid self-image without being bound by it. You like that she cares about her family, even when they make mind-bogglingly bad decisions, and you like that she has a sense of humor about herself. You like that she loves Shakespeare and cheesy romantic comedies with equal fervor.

The other day she told you that she wants to learn to code. Without thinking, you asked her if she was sure she was learning for the right reasons, not knowing how condescending the question was until the words left your mouth. She’s been distant since.

“I feel like I don’t belong anywhere,” you say without planning to. Her fingers stop moving on your cat’s silky fur. Your heartbeat thuds. You’re just re-learning how to be vulnerable.

She’s silent for a second. Then she says, “Well. The world’s so big.”

The world is big.

You bury your face in her neck, and she transfers her attention from the cat’s back to yours. You inhabit her air, and share the sweaty feeling that late summer brings, and root yourself in a moment of stillness.

The cat purrs.