Pilgrims, Partners and Poo

It seems I’ve somehow orchestrated two weeks in LA as far from reality as possible. After a week of house-sitting in swanky Calabasas (Spanish for “Rich People Live Here.”) (No, just kidding. Spanish for “Pumpkins,” say my sources.) my law-intern boyfriend Josh and I continued on down Route 5 for a weekend retreat with his swanky downtown law firm at the swanky resort, the St. Regis.

Now let me just say, this is the girl that spent her formative years picking sand out of her bathing suit at the Jersey Shore. The coast that defined public beach. Actual excrement has as much chance of washing up beside your sandcastle as the average amount of dead jellyfish. If you’re lucky, they’ll be a hypodermic needle stuck in it. The St. Regis scoffs at the public. They drive their tram car all over it, douse it in noontime mai tai’s, and drop on top a bedtime chocolate wrapped up to look like a butterfly.

Anyway. What matters here is that our heroine, the smell of Jersey and showtunes lingering on her, spent three days with very, very, very, very wealthy people. Most of whom were lawyers. It was like that one black olive that somehow makes it’s unfortunate way to the ranch dressing bin at a salad bar, leaving an inky marinated trail behind it. Fortunately, everyone was warm and welcoming, generous and, on the whole, at least pretended to be interested in an actress amongst their midst.

But then: The Observation. At the culminating sit-down dinner event, when talk stuttered after chatter about equestrian clubs and golf and daughters in law/medical/estrogen-intense private schools, the attention was turned…to me. The black olive. When it was revealed I was the lone actor, The Observation was made by one of the partner’s wives:

“That is a really, really difficult profession. I mean. Really difficult. Good luck with that.”

Aiiiieee! This is about the most obvious thing you could possibly say to me. Even starlets discovered in outlet malls, one hand in the discount panty bin, figure this out. Even Paris Hilton knows this. I KNOW THIS.

While hungover the next day from way too much open bar vodka-love, I lay on our king-size bed and obsessed over The Observation. Why do people feel the need to underline the challenge of my particular profession? They did this in New York too, they probably do it everywhere, but maybe the high concentration of aspiring stars in LA makes People Not in the Business feel they are warranted warning others from joining the fray. But, I mean, I don’t go up to partners in law firms, or neurosurgeons, or janitors or that poor woman who makes ALL the lattes at my Starbucks and offer a sympathetic caution, “You’re doing something really hard. Really. Hard.” Well, YEAH.

Is that a reason to stop doing it? Isn’t that what boy scouts and marching band and contact sports teaches us as children? If we aspire to something challenging, we should go after it. Get better at it, get great. Isn’t that the whole Puritan spirit? Did the pilgrims at Plymouth land on Massachusetts, look around at all those freaking rocks they’d have to plow out of their fields, realize they’d have to make maize into, like, 400 different kinds of oatmeal for the rest of their lives, and probably watch some of their offspring get cholera and die, and then go, “Eh, you know what? Let’s just go back to religious persecution. It looks like living here is gonna be ye olde difficult.”

Well, here I am on the West Coast, a pilgrim from a strange urban land, and I realize I’m committing myself to a difficult profession. Just like I did when I graduated NYU two years ago and found a rent job to support my Reproductions habit, just like I did when I went to NYU in the first place. I have never not known this was a difficult profession, in all ways, but I liken myself to those transplanted Pilgrims, because, like Nathaniel Hawthorne and his kin, I have no choice. I can’t turn around. This is what I am good at, what I can be better at. This is what I choose to do, even though I know it will A) potentially never give me total financial satisfaction or B) ever stop being hard. I know that.

So, I answered the partner’s wife, before taking a big sip of my company-paid Chardonnay, “I’d rather take a challenge than be bored. I’d rather it be hard.”

My career is like the Jersey Shore, if you will. You might have to dodge some needles and poop, but once you swim out far enough, the water feels so good. As good as the water on a private beach on the Pacific.