August

and the whole summer too

It is terrifying to change. I mean it. I’m not exaggerating the terror of it. Terrifying. The same as being lost in the woods in the dark. Playing with a ouija board at a sleepover and like, everyone swears they weren’t moving it and it still spelled out your name. Not just fear like being uncomfortable. Fear like being scared.

This is where my life currently stands - I imagine myself at the edge of a cliff before I press post on Instagram. I am archiving things and editing my website. It’s all I can do. Where has my control gone? The illusion of it.. was it just an illusion?

Today, I am trying to serve two purposes at once. I am trying to avoid talking about my new project, which I care about more than anything I’ve ever tried to do, and I’m also trying to talk about my new project, which feels definitely desperate and potentially uncool.

Here’s the gist of what I’ve been up to, for those who are wondering:

1. I moved to Indiana.

New York was like having construction going on in my mind at all times, and not just because of the literal construction going on that kept forcing me to change my commute to work.

It took me an embarrassing year to realize I’d put New York on a pedestal, like most people, and the shattering of my fantasy was at times too much to bear. I hated my job. I hated being a barista. I hated becoming a stereotype, realizing I’d been a stereotype for a while, seeing no light at the end of any tunnel except the one calling me home. Somehow, when I pulled the tablecloth out from under my life, nearly everything stayed put. I announced I was leaving and nothing immediately changed. I was offended, and humbled, to find out that New York hadn’t even absorbed me yet. It wouldn’t miss me when I was gone. How do you get the beast’s attention without reminding it that it can kill you?

I sent a mean email to my HR manager as we left the city in a uhaul. We stood in line to return our wifi router on the way out, trying to avoid making eye contact with anyone for fear of welcoming the vibes that were driving us out of the city in our final, sweaty moments. We felt stale in our souls. Deli Sandwich meed and mowed until we reached the sinkhole in New Jersey.

We reached Indiana and moved into the office in Erik’s Dad’s home. We sleep every night on the shittiest fucking bedframe and a wonderful green-tea mattress Erik’s roommate left two years ago when he moved back to South Korea. I took back my job as a substitute teacher for about two months, paid back some of my debt, and faced my fear of “getting in trouble.” I stood in the purgatory between being a student and a teacher. I had a kid ask me, “what do you do for work?” and I told him I was working toward getting my first Primetime Emmy. He told me that he himself was working toward an Oscar for Best Actor in a really famous movie. I told him to not worry about the first fifteen huge mistakes he makes on that path - that’s just what being in your twenties is like.

2. I made the questionable choice to stay unemployed all summer.

The school year ended and here I was: officially out of prospects, out of money, and out of ideas. The thought I always have came up. I should work a bunch this summer and save up money and pay my debts. They’re hiring at the coffee shop? I was almost shocked by the ease of it. I’ll do the thing I just ran away from, do the thing I just tried so hard to stop doing, and I’ll do it to get ahead on my finances, something I realized at this point in my life is legitimately not possible.

Everyone between the ages of 19 and 30 has a disorder that makes money disappear immediately. It might be because you’re just spending your money like an asshole, but it might be because the universe has a sense of humor and feels like taking. I was experiencing a mixture of both.

One week after I decided not to find any work for two months, to fully commit to watching my tiny savings dwindle before we move to Bloomington, our Car broke down. I was not only jobless, I was suddenly also carless, which meant I was also plansless, and I was to spend every one of my summer days in my boyfriend’s parent’s house. Not even my own parents house. Someone else’s parent’s house.

The summer’s shape was suddenly so obvious: I was to eat many many ham sandwiches, to play Minecraft a dizzying amount, and to go nowhere. Here was a chance I’d never really had before. I haven’t been seriously unemployed since I was 15. Not like this. I actually did apply for a few jobs. Without a car, everything seemed impossible. Luckily, I was outright rejected anyways.

3. I decided to try

I started “The Artist’s Way” at the beginning of our time here in Erik’s hometown as my final attempt to not go fully insane. I was here at my third major goodbye. I was comparing it to the way it felt to leave Bloomington, then the way it felt to leave LA.

I was leaving for one huge reason: I did not feel, in my year there, even remotely inspired to write, draw, sing, or perform. I bombed at one stand-up show, I organized one sketch show with friends from college, We filmed two sketches. Each of these was, by my previous standards, exactly what I was supposed to be doing. I dragged myself reluctantly through all of it, suddenly, and for the first time, afraid I was becoming more boring instead of more interesting.

Everything I wrote was about work, or too heavily inspired by someone else’s writing, or trying to rehash old stories that didn’t even feel good to tell. Even just sitting at my desk seemed to activate a writer’s block that was operating even at the molecular level. I would watch myself try to write, from outside my body, thinking to myself “there must be some part of me who wants to do this,” and wondering where that part was. I tried blaming it on everything, until suddenly I realized it was everything to blame.

What did I actually want to do?

4. Erik and I wrote a Webseries.

Another of my self-prescribed medicinal practices was watching TV. Watching TV now reminded me of all the reasons I used to love watching TV. Before I wanted to write movies, I wanted to write TV. The Artist’s Way was doing a lot of asking me to ask myself about my childhood. In reflecting on who I was before I tried to become someone, I realized much of the guidance I have searched across the country for was actually here, at the start.

Erik and I fell in love with TV as a medium and decided to do what was obvious: make our own. It has been a complicated process. Even sharing minimal news about it feels like betraying my own trust. It is a new, tender, untouched idea.

It is the first project I have cared for like my life depends on it. I am joined in it by friends, and obligated to it only by my own soul. I don’t even know how to talk about it yet. We’re only barely past the writing process, trying to throw together no resources and no money and still make something worth watching.

Reader, of course I’d love to beg for your money. And, in a way, I am. I’d also like to beg for your support, your curiosity, and even your boundless enthusiasm.

5. I got a job.

The summer is coming to a close and my life is about to change again. It went about as expected. I worried and worried about money, and then my situation just got so dumbfounding I stopped worrying about it all together. It is almost comforting to settle into the realization that you’re, whether temporarily or not, a total deadbeat. You’re that guy. You know people who love to shit talk, and you’ve given them like, kind of the most perfect shit to talk. You’re thinking back on conversations you used to have while shit talking, and you remember making fun of people who were in this exact situation. You not only feel actual sympathy for them now, you’re thinking “shit, they were actually right.” You’re watching Wilfred and you’re thinking to yourself, “why is the worst life they could imagine for this guy to have… why is it lowkey the life I am currently living?” You’re watching Girls and thinking, “oh my god.. being 24 really IS that bad.” You’re also thinking “wait a second.. am I Marnie?”

I decided to officially put an end to my working in coffee. It was actually not easy. That’s basically the only thing I’ve ever done. I started as a barista, I did a few fake admin jobs on campus. I worked at Sweetgreen, then I worked at a startup comedy club, then I went back to working in coffee. Being a barista has consistently driven me to the literal edge of my sanity. Now, I must do something else.

6. I came to terms with it.

If you’re a reader in your twenties, I hope you take a moment to appreciate how difficult this time is for yourself and all your twenties friends. The constant coming-to-terms-with-it. The quiet droning of wrong playing underneath everything, the moments of right that are impossible to understand. Suddenly there is no longer drama - there is debt, and death, and health complications, and talk of settling down. There is a sobering realization that everyone you know feels this way, and you have no power to pull them out of it. You’re a foot tall and have forgotten how to do anything but whisper. You realize you didn’t even have the context to imagine the never ending possibilities when you were safe in your college’s bubble. Like trying to imagine the breadth of the sky from inside those classrooms’ walls. You still don’t know what to do but you know you have to do something.

Listen to yourself. If you’re used to ignoring your gut, it’s hard to even identify what your gut feels like. But, even when it has almost completely stopped trying to speak to you, it’s still possible to pay attention. Throw yourself at it. When you’re fucking up, try to still be a good person. Don’t confuse being quiet with being a good person. Don’t ever truly believe that you’re a good person, but don’t ever truly believe that you’re not a good person. Every tacky piece of advice you’ve ever received was probably right, in a way. The bad inspiring quotes teachers hang up in their classrooms. You really do have to be true to yourself. Your attitude matters. Your ability to over-detect yourself being cringe and avoid it at all costs is actually holding your life hostage.

I don’t know how I’m going to impress the 25-year-old version of me. I don’t even know where she is. I’m here at about 15 minutes to midnight, realizing any effort may very well seem like my last-ditch.

Please, Please consider getting curious about our webseries. We start filming soon. It is about a bunch of real stuff, and a bunch of fake stuff too. We desperately need money, support, and even help with various aspects of production.

Ask me how to get involved!