This could be the start of a great career (????)

September and October1997

It started with an unhappy ending.  A break up. A split the Midwest in half earthquake feeling break up even if I hadn’t moved to the West Coast yet to fell any earthquakes.  Rob was supposed to be the one, my other half, my happy ending. Yet he left me a note and drove off in his clunker to Washington State. Leaving me with a dog and a cat.  It had been, after all, my idea to get them in the first place, and a new apartment.  Luckily it was month to month so I left in a month and flopped on my sister’s couch all summer figuring out what to do. I loved Minnesota but I couldn’t see meeting anyone there. Everyone I knew was gay or alcoholic or both.  Minnesota seemed hopeless for my goal which was to replace my one true love, Rob, as soon as possible.

Dad, being a father, suggested I use the teaching licensure degree I just finished up attaining.He even went so far as to find me a job, by the beach, an hour from his house. Beach? Okay. That was a no brainer. I packed the dog, the cat, and my stuff and drove to California. The land of dreams.

Santa Cruz was wonderful.  I loved everything about it, except teaching. By October I started to wonder if that’s my real calling. I liked the actual lesson planning and reciting the lessons but the students were so ornery and always fighting me. I felt more like a police officer. One class in particular was impossible. A bunch of 16 year olds who only cared about getting an A and acted like a bunch of chickens picking on the weak one (me, the newbie teacher).

Outside of my job I enjoyed making friends in Santa Cruz. One told me she had met a great guy, who later she found out was married but that’s another story, through a phone dating service. Internet was still new and suspect for dating but phone sex, I mean, dating sounded promising. I left a message about myself – that I was a teacher, that I liked to swim and write.  Then men would leave me a message, if they liked what I said. Most of the men barely lasted past one phone call – either I didn’t like them or vice versa. But one man left a message that said,
“I’m more interested in friendship and I just started writing movies so I thought it’d be nice to meet you.”

Wow. Movies are written? They aren’t made magically by Mickey Mouse? Who knew. Of course I called him back. I told him that I mostly just write in my journal but I’ve always dreamed of being a writer. He told me that yes; he writes actual screenplays and has an agent. I was fascinated. We did become friends.

He inspired me.  He sold his first screenplay for a six zero price and got flown to a Hollywood party to meet producers and smooze at a pool party with Jack Nicholson and Cindy Crawford. Jack loved his idea.

I saw myself in his shoes. I even told him flippantly one night on the phone that I should write a screenplay about a teacher who kills her students. Obviously it had been a bad day on the work front.

Then fate took over.  A few days later he talked to his agent who asked if he’d be more than a one hit wonder. She wanted to know his other ideas and future writings. He gave them to her. She hated them. Then he remembered what I had said and told her that. She loved it.  He was nice enough to tell her it was my idea.

“Oh no,” I thought. “Now I have to actually write this thing.”  Yet, I had an agent interested, so what was there to lose?

I bought books on how to write a screenplay and followed it step by step. Every morning I typed on my glorified typewriter, still Internet wasn’t necessary yet, and printed a page a day before going to work so if the kids gave me a hard time later in the day I would at least feel like I had done one positive thing before all the cruelty began.  But life as a teacher would get worse, only to push me farther into Hollywood dreamland.

November 1997

My best friend from college rolled into town for a conference. She stayed with me a few days so I took her to parties and the beach and such. She told strangers about her job using Spanish to communicate with migrant workers. I compared that to my job trying to teach Spanish to students who could care less. Something was stirring inside me.

Then we had planned to travel to LA right after I finished teaching the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.  Elizabeth came as a guest speaker but the kennel wasn’t open before school so I snuck my big Golden Retriever/Collie into the Foreign Language teacher’s lounge. 

Near the end of the day I got called into the principal’s office.  I thought I was in the dog house about the dog.  Instead the Principal and the Assistant Principal told me some parents had complained (from that ornery 16 year old class) but that they knew I was a first year teacher and they’d help me along.

Great. I was done, mentally. I’d given my best and only got grief back from these monster teenagers. I cried half way to LA. 

The next day we went to the NBC studios in Burbank for a tour. Afterwards I started talking to a man my age who was working as a “page.” I had no idea what that was but he explained that it was an internship where they helped out on shows like Jay Leno and around the NBC store. It was an entry level position. 

I saw the light. I could ditch the horrible teaching job, move to Hollywood, work as a page at NBC studios, or some other entry level job, sell a screenplay and live my true dream. I had wanted to act, sing, and dance like Gene Kelly since I was five. Somewhere along the way it seemed too hard or out of reach. Now it was in reach.  All I had to do was to continue writing my screenplay, survive teaching until June, then move to Los Angeles.