Re-Entry

My intern is sorting two weeks of mail backlog outside my office. He keeps trying to engage me in conversation, but I really don't need to hear about all the tattoos he got and the goth chicks from MySpace he fucked with his pierced penis over break. In fact it was the image of his pale, acne-covered face, eyes squinted as he played air drums to some shit neo-punk anthem that triggered a wave of malaise and light panic in me last night as I began the process of mentally preparing to return to work and begin my seventh year in Hollywood. I did laundry, played SNGs, and cleaned my room until 2 AM, attempting to postpone the inevitable, and when I finally did settle down and try to drift off to sleep, I could tell within 15 minutes that it wasn't going to happen easily. I lay awake for most of the night, just thinking. Even a terrible chicklit manuscript couldn't get my eyes to close.

I thought about Hollywood and why I was still here. I thought about what I still wanted to accomplish in this business. I thought about my projects at work and if any of them would be in shape enough to go this year. I thought about how I'd be celebrating the last birthday of my twenties this summer and where the fuck all the time went. I thought about Showcase and his agent situation, and how if he could book just one Taco Bell commercial we'd be in fat city. I listened to the rain that had been pattering the concrete outside my window for four days now and thought about how utterly relaxed and happy I had been for the last 2 1/2 weeks just playing poker, writing, seeing friends, and driving back and forth to Las Vegas.

In Hollywood, like in space travel, re-entering the atmosphere is often the trickiest part.

I don't make resolutions. I think they're crap and I never end up following through on the important ones anyway, like promising I'll exercise more or giving up fast food. If there is anything I'd like to accomplish this year, it's really just to keep my head screwed on straight and play the best game I can-- in life, in work, in poker. And to write more, because I spent too many years NOT writing because I was worried about what I would DO with what I wrote. Now I just write. And I don't give a shit what happens to any of it. I just accept the small miracle that it's coming out of my head and landing on paper and smile at the fact that some of it is actually half-decent.

In winning streak news, Pauly saw me crack aces with quad tens on a $100 NL table last night only to crack them again with KQd about 15 minutes later. Fear the junkgrabber. Another Stars 180 may be in the cards for me tonight while all of you people are having fun dropping hammers on each other in Wil's tournament. I'm going to do my best to get home by 7 for the Thursday one.

I leave you with the following...

Overheard at a random Hollywood New Year's party:

"I'd totally do him. He's repped by UTA."

"I've only been out here for a month and a half and I already wrote a first draft and got an agent. Can you fucking believe that? I love this place. I know I should get a waitering job for cash to tide me over, but now I'm really afraid of what it might do to my image."

"I'm going to J-Date my way through pilot season."
"Why?"
"To distract me from all those auditions I won't get."