This is sh*t.

I'm sorry you miss me. I've been pretending I can eat dairy again, so things have been taking longer than they should. Though I vowed to cross it off my diet, I almost gave in today when the McDonald's cashier didn't understand what "black coffee" meant, and I couldn't find a way to explain that black means nothing without sounding racist. Since it was only a dollar, I just pretended I had a friend and ordered a second one "no milk, no sugar". I even got it in a different size. I was very convincing.

Despite my continued panic in the simplest of situations, I have had quite a productive week. Productive, not rewarding. I submitted my writing materials to CBS, but in a last-minute self-sabotage, I pulled my original pilot, inserted a story about a boy I don't even like, and wrote a cover letter about how I'm pretty. Like, really pretty. If that doesn't scream diversity amongst the hordes of hideous television writers, I don't know what will. This is a situation where black means everything. Or even just gay means something. I hope I remembered to say I'm gay. I'm sure there was an elusive reference somewhere in the second paragraph, right after the anatomy of cheekbones.

Or maybe it just goes without saying.

Being a writer is harder than being an actor. When you have a bad audition, it can be forgotten. When you write something bad, you have it saved in three different file formats and backed up on a flash drive. And the rejections will stay in your Gmail archives forever. Data permanence, you know?

Now I have two iced coffees, one laced with enough milk to keep me within 6 feet of a bathroom for days, and one reminding me that I have very little chance of getting into a diversity program for writers.

I think I'll go back to Diet Coke for a few weeks.

You know what? Fuck it. I'm drinking both of these bitches.

On to NBC and IBS,

TJB: Making It

Alive from New York

I hadn't been to 30 Rock since my audition in 2011. Had it really been almost two years since I stormed through the hallways in a sweat to repeat one line into a camera three times? I pretended Tina Fey could feel my presence as I entered from the rain. Perhaps she had put a hold on my visitor pass for the mockery I had made of NBC casting that day.

No such luck. They handed me my pass and I pretended I had been there "tons of times" before checking the directions my friend had messaged me an hour before. This was a spur-of-the-moment visit from the boredom of my third day off. Still, I felt the need to impress. But the elevator attended had to unclip the pass from my jacket and scan it as I stood staring blankly at the barrier that hadn't opened for my confident strut straight into it.

Attendant: "Enter 17 on the key pad."
Me: "Right. Sure, sure. It's been a while for me here."

I realized I hadn't been listening and looked down at 1-9, *, and #.

Attendant: "One. Seven."

Please God, do not let Tina Fey be in this building.

I exited the elevator on the 17th floor and turned in two circles before I decided to head in the obvious direction, towards the one girl I could see sitting at a desk. She had been watching my flawless entrance.

Me: "Hi. I'm here to see my friend Kaitlin. She works here. For SNL. Do you know her? Where she is? She should be here."
Girl at desk: "She's...right there...Kaitilin...visitor."

I pretended like it was all a big gay joke and sauntered the 6 feet to my friend's desk. Gays can always get away with stuff like that.

My friend - and by friend, I mean a girl who grew up in the town next to me and judged me in high school (literally in events, not prejudicely) and used to get me into The Late Show VIP - suggested we head to the commissary for coffee, unless I wanted a full meal. I assumed she meant I already looked bloated and should stick to coffee, so I said coffee sounded great even though I was starving.

She got tea. Damn that skinny bitch.

We sat and talked about how we had both ended up where we were from the forests of Michigan. We were living in a city that only existed in movies and on TV growing up, and now she worked in TV and I...watched a lot of movies...

Between the talk of siblings, school teachers, apartments, and promotions, she casually mentioned a few weeks prior when she taught Miley Cyrus how to play cups for a botched Anna Kendrick impression on SNL. Everybody in the Midwest knows how to play cups, but she mentioned the Miley Cyrus portion so off-hand, I had the strange urge to both slap her and beg, "TEACH ME EVERYTHING YOU KNOW!"

This girl had come a long way from the days of Kohl's and Culvers, but there was still a comforting humbleness to her Manhattan noir wardrobe and green tea lunch. The fact that she was 28 but didn't look a month past 21 probably helped her climb quickly, but the composed stare of her listening eyes told me that her wheels were always spinning. Always in drive. I couldn't help but feel lucky to look out over Rockefeller Plaza, lifted by the grace of her hand (and an overly complicated elevator system) to a new height.

I left with a refreshed perspective as I only had to press "1" on the keypad. Going down and getting out was much easier, but the experience of pushing my way down a wet 5th Avenue and staying calm through the confusion to make it to the 17th floor was well worth it. I chuckled at how easy it seemed to get here after so much thought but simple effort, and how willing she was to take the time once I had offered.

There are a lot of floors to go above the 17th, and a lot of people that like tea who work on them.

Just remember: One. Seven. And you won't look so stupid.

Going up,

TJB: Making It