So this Monday was supposed to be the day that I went to both Kickboxing and Body Pump, before 11 a.m. I was going to write a short film and memorize a script for an audition. I was going to maybe go to "Hip Hop 3 with Mike" at night. I need the mental workout. And the fun. Choreography wards off Alzheimers, and 24 is just the right time in life to be warding off Alzheimers. I was going to do 20 minutes of Duolingo. I was going to eat vegan, one hundred, meaning no Snap Pea crisps or milk chocolate. I have Monday off. I am young, vital, sexy, capable, self-loving, and ready. This is the narrative I wrote in my head for myself on Sunday night, in bed, watching the new episode of Girls, followed by Togetherness, drinking beer by myself and living in the filth that was a day of skipped Nike Training Club (because I didn't feel like it), improv practice I was 20-minutes late to, and 2 days unshowered for (sorry), an overpriced Starbucks iced coffee (not only against my 2-month caffeine cleanse but also, sincerely, the WORST quality coffee chain of all fucking time), a comedy workshop where I felt my voice drowned out by other comedy writers (you can probably imagine those type of humans) and two free samples of chicken salad at Pavilions (because if I don't actually buy it, I'm still like, food-consumer-vegan, right?!, or ish?).
I came home from the glory of my self sabotaging Sunday to write another story for myself. That's what we do in LA. I'm an LA resident. Identifiers would be; resident, actress, server of Vietnamese, occasional stand-up comedienne, sketch writer, more so short film comedy writer, etc. Etc. is like, girl that dances full out at The Brig in Venice when no one else is, or that eats unwashed, giant carrots in her car in the LA traffic, dipped in hummus in my lap on good days, and nutella on the bad, or girl who is told she should not be threatened by the existence of Paris Hilton, by suffocatingly narcissistic Beverly Hills PR lawyers who are trying to hook up with her, because "baby, you're pretty too". Don't worry guys, I'm pretty too…… Etc. is like, doesn't wear a bra normally, and reads as free and cool enough to do that, but almost always feels weird about it, even though it's definitely because I just hate all of my bras and don't wanna buy any new ones. But what is etc., really? Because I'm starting to think that it's the stream of consciousness that runs through my mind when my guy friend tells me he couldn't hook up with the girl from the restaurant he works at, who is oddly absorbed in his every word, even though she is far out of his league, unbeknownst to him. He enumerates how she just doesn't feel like someone he could be truly interested in, or even worse, outlines her deficiency in living up to his cleanliness (i.e. shaved) standards, down there. In this moment all I can think is, if you were walking on a sidewalk, you would walk in the middle, even if it was raining and you were carrying an umbrella. Like, that's who you are. You are a middle of the sidewalk, walker. You are the person that eats the grapes in the grocery store, but leaves the stems. IF YOU ARE GOING TO EAT THE GRAPES, EAT THE GRAPES, It's fine. Everyone does it. But TAKE THEM, PUT THEM IN YOUR CART, WALK AROUND, EAT THEM TO YOUR DISCRETION, AND THROW AWAY THE STEMS. No one wants to come home with nothing at the end of their grape stems. Life has enough disappointment.
Maybe etc. is all the salt and pepper in my bed right now. I like to eat avocados in bed. I've been wondering if bugs fuck with salt and pepper. I'm gonna solve that science fair project question soon I guess. It'll be the first one I actually tested myself. You know those nights when you get fully ready for bed and it's 10 p.m. and you're like, tonight is the night to be an adult and get adequate sleep and I have flossed my teeth. But then you decide to eat 2 avocados in your bed. And you decide to see what all of the Donald Trump supporters on Facebook are up to. And you decide to start picking at the zit on your face that might be a zit or might be skin cancer, because there is no grey area in the life of twenty-something skin practices. You write out what you want read at your funeral if it's skin cancer and you only have 2 months to live. You realize how destructive and pointless all of these decisions are. You check in with yourself and realize that these are all practices you have found yourself doing because you just want to be fucked well, by someone who can love you but not obtain rights to you, someone who will feed you a weed cookie in bed, then exchange metaphorical, critical thoughts about Black Lives Matter, both supporting of the cause, in their own abstract, specific ways. You realize that you just want the Beverly Hills egg bank to accept your fucking eggs! You just need the money to go to Israel to see Donna and to be a young person who is fucking alive and exploring. The etc. is your twenty-something experience I guess.
I'm a twenty-something. And we're pretty into our identifiers. But maybe who we actually are is our et ceteras. I mean, what those really mean is, our, "and so forth[s]" anyway. I know. I looked it up. Our and so forth is the acknowledgement that there is more. There is more to come, to learn, to do, more habits to form, more avocados to eat in bed, or to stop eating in bed. There will be more of our self involved dude friends to finally honestly check, with love of course, on all the male privilege. And so forth, we are so many things, and ready to be so many things. I think the et cetera starts with ownership. What I've come to in writing this random conglomeration of bullshit, honest, nonsense is a moral. Because you can't have a story without a moral, right? You can, but, it doesn't serve my current agenda as far as what this article probably needs to be, so, I've decided that the et cetera is the ownership of all of who we are, so that we can fully be the original, interesting, dynamic, fucking-alive-when-no-one-else-is, cool as fuck individuals that we've been called to be. I am a twenty-something badass bitch that moved across the country to pursue my dreams. I am a twenty-something, bold, funny, actress and writer. I am a twenty-something who has been fully engulfed in a blinding, passionate, terrifying love. I guess I'm also a twenty-something that eats chemicals and GMOs on my carrots even though I champion the notion of food labeling publicly. I think when we own the et cetera, we make the choice to be a human in a room with someone else. And that is all we've actually been called to do in life.
