Fear

I live in a pretty rough neighborhood. Every day that I am home about 11 AM or so, one of my neighbors starts broadcasting vulgar rap. I will hear Snoop Dog and Warren G – some of the old school rappers which is tolerable and sometimes even pretty fun but in the mix is this poorly produced song that has wildly dirty lyrics and he is mutha’ f*@%ing this and mutha’ f*#$ing that. Blah blah blah. We are in tight quarters, so it sounds like he (or she) is playing it in my bedroom. (I am going to call him Mr. Rap Man for the sake of clarity recognizing that this could easily be a woman). When the volume goes up, that is the one and only time that I close the windows in my house including through the night. It is so hot in my apartment I would never dare suffer through the heat, except I cannot hear myself think when the windows are open. Not even my brave little fan can help me, so I suffer until Mr. Rap Man has had his fix mostly because I am not sure who is on the other end of that music. I might be a little afraid to tell them to turn it down.

Yesterday morning after walking my 6 lb. miniature, dachshund puppy there was a young black woman standing in my lobby. She offered to pay me a dollar to call someone to pick her up. She said she had locked her keys in a friend’s apartment in my building. They had all left at the same time and she realized she was locked out when she got home so she came back. “I’m still a bit faded if you know what I’m saying,” she told me as I offered her my phone. I am assuming that some substance abuse was involved as she continued. “I am never going to do anything like that shit again.” She kept explaining the mechanics of payphone calls, waving a dollar bill in my face and I kept nodding and smiling and telling her, “It’s no big deal.” She calls several people and hangs up without leaving a message. I start to wonder who now has my phone number. Finally she gets a hold of someone. She talks in an altered voice- a stressed out, pathetic baby-talk voice, “I’m on (she repeats my address). I locked my stuff in that apartment and I need someone to come pick me up.” As she is talking I start note more carefully the way she is dressed. She has a navy blue do-rag tying her hair back. She wears a wife-beater tank top that is tied in a knot in the back exposing her upper back and belly. She is not wearing a bra and although she seems young her breasts are laying on her stomach just barely contained within her shirt. The darkness of her skin makes her very thin tank seem even more transparent. “Okay… I’ll see you in a minute.” She immediately changes her manipulative voice back to the one she was using before and hands me the phone. “Thanks again.” “No problem.” I smile and walk from the lobby back to my apartment. I try not to worry that my attempt to be helpful to this now clearly, hung over/strung out woman would not come back to bite me.

That night I go to bed with the windows open. The ally that is easily accessible from the street and that the only windows in my house face is mostly quiet. Some cats fight and pigeons scavenge for food in the dumpsters. I drift off. At about 2:30 in the morning my cell phone begins to buzz. It is a number I don’t recognize. I can hear someone in my alley right next to my windows. My mind begins to race. Who is this unknown caller in the middle of the night? Who is in the alley next to my house? I turn on the lights. Stillness comes. I go back to bed with the light on. I get another call from an unknown number at about 4:00 AM. Why did I choose an apartment on the first floor next to an alley? Was I freaking HIGH? What possessed me to hand my cell phone to a complete stranger who is obviously a drug-addict? Stupid, stupid, stupid.

I lie in bed listening for footsteps. Nothing. I drift back to sleep. Eight o’clock rolls around and I listen to my messages. The two o’clock phone call, “Hi, this is Ericka, the girl who used your phone…. Click.” That is weird. Why did she hang up? The four o’clock call is a man with a smooth, deep voice, “Hi Heidi, this is Antoine. You called me on my phone and I was wondering what I could do for you.” …Nothing at four in the morning, yikes. I delete the messages. Well it turns out no good deed goes unpunished. Why these crazy-pants people are calling me in the middle of the night, I do not know but I genuinely hope that is the end of that.

So the other thing that scared me this week is that my father has been diagnosed with advanced stage cancer that has spread into his pelvis, spine and ribs. This went undiagnosed for a very long time and apparently he does not have much longer to live. My older brother died last month and now, with my father in such poor health, I may lose a second nuclear family member in a very short period of time. My childhood best friend died the week before my brother, so it feels a little bit like death is surrounding me. I still haven’t completely processed either loss so when it all hits me I am afraid I might lose it.

Fear of the unknown, fear of death, fear of dark alleys in LA.... fun, right?

Another Downer- You've Been Warned

Well, it’s cancer and it is advanced; that is the verdict. If I lose another close friend or family member before the end of the year I am going to freak out. Two in two weeks is plenty. I don’t know if that means I will cut off all of my hair and run naked through the street or start eating insects with my toes or run off to a third world country and not contact anyone for a year but it is probably going to be major. I am warning you in advance so you are not surprised when I disappear or get arrested.

Distress has become a permanent state of being. Between all of the death, illness, work crap and life in general, my skull harbors a sloshing stress-mess of gray matter. I went downtown to get my computer fixed and ran into a film crew. I almost freaked out there were so many people and so many trucks. Features are not new to me but I was never in charge of operations, I was some lowly peon making one hundred-fifty bucks a day. (Speaking of which, did you know how much even independent writers, producers and directors make? HOLY CRAP. Why was I painting for so many years?) Also the shows I have worked on were never multi-million dollar, on-location pictures closing down sections of Los Angeles.

School has started and all of a sudden I am terrified to commit anything to film. The pressure of being at a top school is getting to me. My classmates are still enjoying the high that only sort of allowed myself to feel when I got accepted. I had lunch with some of my classmates and the topic turned to the SCA (School of Cinematic Arts) swag we were given when we started. I was afraid to use any of it because I felt like I was being pretentious. My classmates thought it was fun and told me how excited their friends, family, peers and coworkers were for them. I felt like my parents and a few friends were happy for me but others (particularly the ones in the film world) downplayed it and I always felt like I should too. Who likes a braggart?

Well, with all of this stress in my life, I am glad I have my puppy, as inconvenient as she has turned out to be. She is beautiful and cuddly and she only wakes me up a few times a night. I think I should end on a positive note and that is it. Who doesn't like puppies? If you don't I don't trust you and you are not allowed to read my blog any more. The end.

First Day

Today was my first day of class and it felt like grade school again. I packed my backpack, picked my outfit and went to bed early the night before. Entering the big auditorium I sat by myself. A bulky guy with a couple of gray hairs walked down my row of seats; he was nervous too. Initially, he wanted to sit one seat away but that seat was numbered “13.” Looking around nervously he said, “I can’t sit there.” “You can sit next to me if you want,” I said. I indicated and he sat in seat number 14. A grey bearded man with circle glasses walked to the front and asked us all to move up to the front. We were in one of the selected rows, but my row-mate wanted to move to the first row. “Are you gonna come?” I wasn’t in a position to say no. I move to the front row, center.

The teacher asked me to go first in the introductions because of where I was sitting. In front of the class, I had to say my name, where I was from and talk about my journey to an MFA in film. I got nervous and made jokes and gestured wildly; the class chuckled. I felt more at ease.
After me, a Brazilian girl with blue hair, a Chinese kid who joked about how he looked 13 years old (he did), a man who had to be in his late 40s, at the youngest, who lived in Asia for years and married and aboriginal (northern Chinese) woman, an African American concert harpist from Detroit and a Ghanan football player who worked for Proctor and Gamble designing feminine hygiene products all got up and talked about themselves for a full minute.

We are all so different, but we were hand picked and brought together to tell our stories… weird as they may be. It is all rather daunting but I am excited, this is going to be great.