If You Knew What I Knew... You'd Be Me.

I keep forgetting how much I know. And know how to do. Really. I've done a lot of stuff in my day.

For instance, I can balance six plates on my right arm. Fan three in my right hand. And scare the shit out of a table full of people who expect it all to end up on their lap. I only dropped one plate in my entire four year table waiting career. It was a pot pie. Chicken. And it landed right side up. On the plate. Like it was meant to land there. Be eaten there. Since college, I've only flashed this super power occasionally, but the muscles in my forearm are still there. Now how is that possible that ab muscles from six years of tae bo... gone. But plate balancing forearm muscles are ready to take on the next challenge?

Also, I pass people on the right. This is a waiting table thing. You pass on the right. The left doesn't make sense. Yet, in LA, I've realized recently that it doesn't really matter. No one ever seems to want to move out of the way for anyone else. Ever. Right, left... who cares?

And a scooter? I know how to drive one. I couldn't afford a car in college. Couldn't afford car insurance. So there was me, in my black pants and white uniform coat with bow tie, tooling through Beverly Hills on my scooter. If I only knew then what I knew now... I probably would have never made it through those 3 years. Humiliation for a degree? Harumph.

Did I mention, I can roll a mean burrito? Well, maybe not anymore. I don't make burritos at home. But I used to be really good at it. A great use of my overachieverism, don't you think? Getting employee of the month at Taco Bell. But then again, I also got it at Claim Jumper. Twice, I think. This was in high school/college, by the way. And it's a restaurant, for those of you who don't know. They even have frozen food now. I had to wear a prairie skirt and white blouse with a sheriff's badge that read my name (when I was a hostess). Once I became a waitress I wore something else I don't remember. All I know is that I worked there double shifts 64 days straight the summer before I went to UCLA. I think I washed that uniform... not so much. I just sponged it down when I got off work at 1:30 in the morning and stuck it in the dryer to "fluff" it up before I had to be there for breakfast at 6:30. That's why I've never been to Hawaii. All my friends went after graduation from high school. I was busy fluffing. But again, I have forearm muscles that they'll never have.

And then, I just did a bunch of professional stuff that everyone else in the real world has done...

Like I worked in film development. I know how to read a script, write coverage on a script, make notes for a script, create lists of writers, directors, actors, and actresses that will never do the movie that a script wants to be. I also learned to roll calls, create a schedule, make copies, order lunch to be delivered, make copies, send a fax, and lie for people who don't want to deal with what they're supposed to deal with. I never did learn to bullshit, though... Hence, my next job.

I learned Final Draft -- on the fly. For those of you who are worried it's hard to pick up-- it's not. That was an easy lie. And how to format a television script...? Also easy. As was eating from craft service and learning to make a check mark next to a joke that works and scribble furiously to make it seem like I had good ideas that no one would ever know. Because I was only a writer's assistant. I spent alot of time making lists of things I wanted. Groceries I needed to buy. Things I couldn't afford. Because at the end of the day... I was a writer's assistant. I wasn't supposed to have any ideas... or money! Oh, and fending off unwanted advances... a joy of the job.

Then, a writer. I learned to make jokes. And feel bad about bad ones. How to feel bad period. I learned creative endurance. How to exist with money but no life. How to exist. And that you can't get a good house for under 2.5 million. I never did learn to feel comfortable when a p.a. gave me the wrong lunch or how to be a bitch so he felt bad enough to go get me a new one. But coffee runs were fun. Someone else running out to bring you coffee. I did like that. Show night, not so much. I wasn't tall enough, experienced enough or funny enough to elbow my way into that all important huddle where you beat the joke that tanked on the floor. I had no niche. No hook. It was worse than high school because it was high school.

Catering... nothing to be learned there. Unless you count that wearing a black and white uniform on Thanksgiving washing someone else's dishes isn't quality holiday time. Especially at 34 years old. Oh, who am I kidding? At any age. Families are there for a reason. Wine. Not as glamorous or as scary as everyone thinks it is. Applying eyeshadow just the right way...? I don't care. I really don't. The USC bookstore? Don't be a Bruin. There.

PR and retail? Those two might just be interesting. If not lucrative. Not at all lucrative. But they're also stories for another day... Because you're tired. And so am I.