Good gracious. I have been living in this mad place for an entire year. How did that happen?
In an attempt to come to terms with this swift passage of time, I am accounting for my whereabouts with a little pictorial recap. Here are some of the standout moments of the last 12 months.
Right before I left Sydney I had some Moo business cards printed up and delivered to my New York address. I remember looking at the template, fingers hovering over my keyboard, and having no idea how to label myself. “Producer” seemed too behind-the-scenesy. “Actor” seemed to promise something I wasn’t sure I could deliver. “Presenter” or “host” also felt a bit weird. I was okay with “Writer”, but it was a bit vague. In the end I went with “Writer, producer and host”. These days I would nix the Producer label, even though I produce some of my Rocketboom shoots. It’s been replaced with “actor”. Finally!
I heard recently that the things you enjoy doing when you are eight years old are the things you should be doing for the rest of your life. When I was that age I adored writing silly stories and staging impromptu plays and musicals for my family. Now that’s reflected on my business card. Awesome.
After spending a month or so sleeping on the floor of my mother’s studio apartment, I moved into a share house I found on Craigslist. It was located in Park Slope, a lovely but frequently mocked suburb of Brooklyn.
This was my bedroom. It measured about five feet by eight feet, and had two doors — in order to access the rest of the house I either had to walk through another girl’s bedroom or out into the hall and in through the front door of the apartment. I lived here for three months. My current bedroom is about three times bigger, and I don’t have to put shoes on or take keys with me when I go to the bathroom. Movin’ on up!
Though it was cramped and often smelled of stale cigarettes, the Park Slope apartment had a stellar redeeming feature: rooftop access. This was our view on a hot summer night. Gorgeous.
That’s Gillian Anderson behind me. In order to establish the significance of this moment, let me take you back to 1996. Two notable things happened to me that year: our family bought its first modem — 33.6kbps, baby — and I became obsessed with The X-Files. The first begat the second; stumbling around within the Netscape-encased pages of this new and disarming “internet”, I happened upon an email discussion list called “Smart Young X-Philes”, or SYX for short.
I don’t quite know why this list appealed to me so much — though I had watched The X-Files a few times, I was hardly a rabid devotee. But perhaps seeking a respite from the real world, riddled as it was with pubertal awkwardness, I signed up for SYX, and over the next few years developed a deep and abiding love for the show. I loved Scully in particular. She was all fire and moxie and smarts, and I wanted to be like her. I memorized her birthdate and middle name. Once, in 8th grade Design and Technology class, we had to make a sort of Chia Pet thing using dirt, seeds, a stocking and stick-on googly eyes. I named mine Eugene Victor Tooms, after the immortal, human-liver-eating mutant that was the subject of a season one episode. When we did Kris Kringle gift wish lists, I asked for an X-Files diary. I stole a gold cross necklace from my sister — Scully wore one constantly and it featured in several alien-conspiracy-related plot points — and wore it in my year 9 school photo. And then, when I was 16, I made an X-Files-influenced decision that has lingered to this day: I dyed my hair red.
As you can see, unsuspecting Ms. Anderson has played a significant role in my life. So when I had the chance to meet her at a film premiere in September, I kind of freaked out. Initially I was content to merely be in her presence, but a friend convinced me to go up to her and shake her hand. I had nothing to say and she must have thought I was a tool, but it was certainly a highlight. Here’s a vlog about the experience.
That’s Zeb and I waiting to go into the studio for a taping of The Colbert Report. I love Colbert. I dig it when he dances, his smile makes me feel tingly, and I die when he and Jon Stewart are busting out some schtick and they end up cracking each other up. So naturally, I pounced on tickets to see his show live. Twice, in the space of three months. The fact that I have published that last sentence may get me banned for life, as you are only allowed to attend once every six months. I am a bad person. But if loving Colbert is wrong, I don’t want to be right.
This time I asked him a question during his pre-show audience Q&A sesh. (It was a stupid question about Twitter — I just wanted an excuse to talk to him. He smiled and made fun of my accent and I pretty much died of glee.)
The trip to Sesame Street was, without doubt, my favourite day of the year. Whenever I watch the show now I always think of wandering through Hooper’s Store, sitting on the stoop and climbing into Oscar’s trash can to shoot the intro to our Rocketboom interview with Elmo.
Back in September I went to Chicago to interview 2,946 winter Olympic athletes for Rocketboom. (Okay, it was actually 11, but it was in the span of 24 hours!) An hour after landing in the city, I was crossing a main street with about twenty other people at a pedestrian crossing. A car slowly turned into the intersection, heading towards us. A man walking in front of me held up his hand to indicate that the driver should stop. The car sped up. The driver intentionally ran the man over and kept going. It was the most bizarre thing I have ever seen. Everyone was in shock.
The man was physically okay, as the car was travelling at a low speed, but the deliberateness of the driver is something that will stick with me for a long time. It was incredibly unnerving — as though everything I knew about humanity was suddenly rendered invalid.
So, yeah. That was my welcome to Chicago. After that I did my interviews, drank champagne with the US Olympic bobsled team and saw a hilarious improv show at Second City.
In December I launched The Elegant Guide. Putting the series online was scary — when you write by yourself, you never quite know if other people will find it funny. It’s a gamble. But if you try to play it too safe, you just end up with something that’s boring and cliche. I addressed this issue by writing scenes where I threaten a child with a hammer, whine drunkenly from the bottom of a stairwell and use a sexy voice to tell someone they have prostate cancer. To my great relief, my inbox hasn’t been deluged with missives telling me how much I suck.
Lesson: do what you want to do. Make the stuff you want to make. Some people will like it, some won’t. But you’ll feel mega accomplished and energised for another project. Then another. And then, the world!
My good friend Eric Brown of Kornhaber Brown called me up one day and asked if I had any ideas for a short film. He needed to shoot something for a Masters project, and it had to be done within the next week. I suggested a few vague concepts and images. We met up a few days later and threw a rough script together. He refined it, we shot it the next day, and three days after that, The Only Living Boy in New York appeared on YouTube. A short film written, shot and edited in under a week. Not too damn bad! Of course, the talent and easygoing nature of Bob Geile and Anthony Carboni was a significant factor. But it goes to show that you don’t have to slave over something for months. Just git ‘er done.
(That pic is a screengrab from the film, by the way. So credit Bob for the composition.)
The last year has been amazing. Getting to know my family again after being apart for eight years; having the opportunity to meet amazing people in my correspondent job at Rocketboom; doing improv classes and acting classes and running around this mad city in the middle of the night…it’s been grander than I ever expected.
If you are contemplating something big and scary — a move across the world, say, or launching your own website or starting your own business — I think you should do it. Really. Don’t wait for anyone to grant you permission. Make the decision and don’t look back. Choose to be positive, surround yourself with creative, intelligent, encouraging people, and go for broke. There will be times when you wonder what you’ve gotten yourself into, but the satisfaction that comes with charting your own course makes it all worth it.
Finally, in the words of the delightful Conan O’Brien: “Please don’t be cynical. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen.”
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