So, what do you do?

It’s been rather hot in Los Angeles the last couple days. On Wednesday – or was is Tuesday? – I decided to join my friend, Steve, at the local coffee shop, although I had the air conditioner on in my apartment. We sat outside drinking iced coffees as he did his crossword puzzle and I sat staring at the Scientology Building. Regardless of the heat, it was a beautiful, sunny day.

To our right, a guy named Michael sat down next to us. First off, I have met this man before and do not like him. He rubs me the wrong way and, within a matter of minutes, he had turned to us and asked, “So what do you do?”

I’m getting tired of this question, because it’s usually means someone is trying to gauge your worth. They may preface the question with “What is your name?” or “I see you here a lot. Do you live in the neighborhood?” But usually by the third or fourth question they are asking “What do you do?”

People love to know what you are about in this city. What car you drive. What part of town you live in. What your apartment looks like. How you make your living. What you’re doing in order to make that living. They like to know where you fit in the grand scheme of Hollywood and what you can possibly do for them.

Steve told him he was an actor, but that he was also in production. And then Michael looked to me, through his sunglasses, and asked me what I do. I wanted to slide through my seat and down to the ground, which would hopefully then swallow me up. I wanted to use my backup answer, “I’m getting my Masters at UCLA in the Geopolitical Strategies of the Former USSR in relation to the US and the UK,” but I didn’t. (That usually shuts them up.)

But I mustered up enough courage to say, “I’m a writer” and Steve quickly added “A very good one.” AH! Shhhh! Not in this town! Why didn’t you say you washed dogs for a living!? But it was too late! Michael asked me what type of films I wrote and when it came out that I wrote “Independent Films,” or one might say “European Art House Films,” he sat back in his chair and with a troubled deep breathe, as if the weight of the World had just sunk on his shoulders, exclaimed, “Yeah, I can’t do that.”

Wait a minute! What? Huh? Hold the phone! Did you actually think that over a cup of coffee that somehow we would create a working relationship? HA! Did he actually think I was sitting there with my fingers crossed hoping that he would make all my troubles go away, pick me up and help me carry my little film towards the light of success?

Another lamprey moment happened to me the night after this. I went into Birds to watch the Boston-Yankees game – such pain! I’m a Boston fan – and this guy sat down next to me and, after much prodding and annoying questions by him, I told him that I was a writer and that I was doing a short film. And by the end of the night, the Idiot had asked me to be his writing partner and gave me free reign to steal his ideas. Pardonnez-moi? Простите мне? Excuse me? What!?

You might have realized here that I'm very private about what I do... And perhaps I also have a wee problem with being secure in what it is I do… I know I’m a good writer, but it’s not something I want to shout from the tippy tops of buildings or on street corners or in restaurants so some producer will take note of me… I’m not like that. I want to do this on my own. I want to be left alone. I want to be independent of what Hollywood symbolizes. I want to sail out on my little ship, with my handpicked crew of fabulous, trustworthy “sailors” and do it my way…

Oh, God help me.

living in Moscow...

I had a magnificent view of Moscow from my kitchen window. In the mornings, before I headed off to school, I would eat breakfast at our tiny kitchen table and look out over the city. In the distance stood one of “Stalin’s Seven Ugly Sisters,” the Moscow State University, which was surrounded by thousands of old Russian apartment buildings.



The city was always awake and you felt like you were always struggling to move around it. You were always pushing your way through the millions of people that called the city their home. You were always fighting your way onto buses or into packed trains, through crowds of people when you were on foot or through the endless heavy traffic that took up entire boulevards.

It was scorching hot in the summer and freezing in the winter, but nothing changed about the city’s people as dirt – not sand – was put on the roads to melt the snow. People kept moving forward with their lives. When you walked down the sidewalk, you keep your eyes focused in front of you. People rarely smiled and, when you smiled at them, a look of confusion usually spread across their face. It was not the friendliest city. The people were just as hard as their buildings. Walls built up around them as high as the University. But you don't have to wonder why. You understand their apprehension.



There are places that I have been that I desire to return to, but Moscow is not high on that list. I am sure that I will go back one day, but the memories of living there are of painfully cold winter days, dirty city streets and attempting to master a difficult language. There was a darkness to the city. A depression that blanketed everything and everyone. Some mornings you went to school or work before the sun rose and you left after it had set. Other times Russia’s “White Nights” forced you to use your black out curtains in order to sleep, but as you laid in bed as the clock ticked by, you would push the curtain aside and see a brightly lit sky at 2 in the morning.

But there were moments in Moscow that were magical. Near my apartment, at 83 Leninsky Prospect, there was a bakery that I would regularly walk to in order to buy a loaf of Russian black bread and two loaves of white and, by the time I returned to the apartment, one loaf of white would already be half-consumed.



The open air markets of Moscow - Рынок (pronounced renok) - were filled with fruits, vegetables, flowers and other foods. I would go with either my Mother or my nanny - Katherine or Maureen - to the market to get fresh produce and along the way were tables filled with flowers. Young girls that were my age spent weekends selling flowers and other goods along with their fathers, mothers or grandmothers sitting beside them.



There is magic in most places you go. For me, it’s found in the little moments. In my memories. The last day I was in Moscow I spent with my friend, Carrie, and we traveled all over the city. After going to the Kremlin – so I could see St. Basil’s before I left – we went to the Arbat, which was one of Moscow's most famous streets. It is also a place where gypsy children hang out and try to steal your wallets and bags. As you walk down the Arbat, the children come up to you in a group and you spend your time watching your bag, handing out kopeks and trying to get away.





In 1991, Communism fell with the August coup d'etat. After three days, the Soviet Union no longer existed and three men had died on the streets of Moscow. From inside the American Embassy Compound’s walls, I sat looking out at the Government of Russia Building and took photographs of the people walking the streets.

Government of Russia Building taken from the Embassy

American Embassy Compound

Streets of Moscow

People don't realize how close these two buildings were – they were across the street from one another – and you can see from these photographs that the protests over the three nights were very close to the Embassy. People had to be moved from the Government building side of the Embassy and into the gym, because of stray bullets and fighting on the street.

After the coup ended, the people of Moscow took the streets and paid their respects to these three young men by putting flowers at the places they died, as well as in the buses that had been set on fire. Here are some photographs from the day my Mother and I walked the streets…

a long time ago...

i have a scanner now.....

So Steve set up my scanner for me and I’ve been going crazy scanning since yesterday. All these fun photographs…







More photographs to come!

the color of life

My memories of living in Malaysia and Russia are filled with dreamlike recollections. The colors of Malaysia stand out in my mind – the greens, the reds – and my scrapbooks are filled with photographs of me walking down the streets of Singapore, standing amongst statues in Bali, carefully exploring the jungles in Frazier’s Hill and watching monkeys climb trees in the backyard.


I remember my Mother taking these photographs. They are memories that are filled with little treasures, like what it was like to speak with a slight British accent or to always be wary of King Kobras sneaking around in the tall grass.


Everyone has memories that carry with them strong visceral reactions when you close your eyes and think back to specific hours, days, weeks, years... You can have love affairs with cities, with countries, with architecture, with the streets, with people, with moments, with passing conversations.


Lately, I have felt like a caged bird. Confined. Knowing that this trip with Heather is in the near future makes me feel like I am finally let out of my cage and allowed to soar and by no means am I going back in. It gives me a taste of what life could be like if I moved to London or Paris. It gives me hope that life will take on some of the aspects that I miss from my past. It also gives me the fuel to complete my film and to move forward.


What is important is that I must remember not to be tied down by old memories, but instead find things to make into new ones. My youth gave me a taste of what adventure and life is all about. It's my responsibility now to make something of this life.