I remember the day I was told my dog died (And he was MY DOG just as much as my brother), just like I remember the day he came to live with us.  I am not sure how old I was, but my mother and I went for ice cream at a small parlor at a strip mall not far from where we lived.  There was a sign taped to the wall “3 month old Beagle for adoption.”  Well maybe not those exact words, but you get the idea.  Somehow I convinced my parents to go look at this dog.  It was not my brother who begged and pleaded, but ME.  Of course as usual though in the end, I was the oldest, and a girl.  That was the way things were in my family, after my brother was born, there were times when I felt like I did not exist, and yet on that day, I got what I wanted – “A DOG.”  He turned out to be not a 3 month old beagle, but a 3 month old “American Fox Hound.”   Several times over the years I have met people who have dogs that are twins to my dog who we named “Lucky,” and I think I named him to, though I am not 100% certain of that fact.  NOW my mother claims MY BROTHER loved that dog and I never cared.  Sometimes not asking is not a sign of not caring, but not wanting to know because of the pain, or of just assuming if you are not told that something is wrong, you assume all is well.

Lucky was old, 14 or 15, the year that he died.  He lived a full life.  He had tumors as I recall based on the way he looked the last time I saw him alive (Cancer is probably what took his life), that and my parents telling me they put him to SLEEP.  It was a Friday night.  I had my own apartment and was making dinner for a GUY- Carlos.  He was a lawyer and a musician in a band.  We never talked about his legal career or work.  We talked music and movies and acting and art.  It was the first time in my life I had a man over and made him dinner.  We had just settled down to cuddle in front of the TV to watch a video and shut off the lights to do so when the phone rang.  It was my parents (I can’t remember for certain if it was my mother, my father, or both).  They told me that they had my dog put to sleep and did not want to tell me because my brother was in the middle of exams and they were afraid I was going to tell him.  THE LAST THING I WOULD HAVE DONE was mess with my brother.  I did not even have his number to call him when I think about it.  We were never that close.  Growing up our parents put us against each other more than they encouraged us having a loving relationship, but we both had a sense of COMPASSION, something we did not learn from our parents.  NOW I WONDER?  Did they kill my dog, or did my land lord at the time call my parents to tell them I had a man over  I know that sounds crazy, but finding out that people here in CALI have been calling my parents behind my back recently has left me pondering why my parents chose to call me late on a FRIDAY Night to drop that bomb shell and now they claim they did not have LUCKY killed and that I NEVER LOVED THE DOG ANYWAYS.  If I had never loved the dog, I would not have FOUGHT to get the dog in the first place. 

YES For those of you siding with my PARENTS- I have not been a good daughter- because they have not once considered that I HAD FEELINGS that HURT or that I had a HEART that could break or that I needed friends, lovers and people in my life outside of THEM.  That was the last night I had CARLOS to my place.  From that night on I stayed at his.  Here is the interesting part though.  He and I dated for a summer maybe- 3 to 6 months  Numerous times we slept in the same bed, but we never really did anything.  He never got past second base.  I think I could make my own MORAL decisions and even if we had gone further than that, I was over the age of 21, and it was not my parents DAMN BUSINESS ANYMORE.  I was a wild child.  I would dance on tables.  I wore black and often showed off my legs.  I like tall black boots and hanging out at “Heaven & Hell” in Adams Morgan.  But looks can be deceiving and I was a modern decent woman.  I can count the men who have been in my bed biblically and still have fingers, and I HAVE NO INTENTION of letting any man into my bed who does not LET ME LIVE.  I am tired of a father who pushes me off to my MOTHER to talk because he has no respect for WOMEN and I am tired of REPUBLICANS who think if they drive a wedge between me and the ACTING UNION Or actors I will GROW up and be the woman MY PARENTS WANT- a dutiful wife and mother and not a woman driven to succeed.  YOU SEE I AM OR WAS DRIVEN TO MAKE  A LIVING AND A CAREER- but I will never be driven to care about a job again if I am not allowed to chose that career and I NEED ACTING IN MY LIFE-  it is not that I want it- I NEED IT- for the years of not being allowed to have EMOTIONS or of ANYONE CARING about how I FELT about anything.  I need to Feel and I NEED TO TELL STORIES and I NEED TO BE THE ARTIST I AM. 

This was the year before I started law school.  I ended up moving out of that apartment into the basement of a group house with three guys.  I had a bedroom with one wall that was a glass door leading into the backyard.   I had a cat (I will write about her another time) and she kept getting fleas in the apartment even though she never went out.   The apartment had hard wood floors and was very old but my apartment was a full one bedroom and I paid about the same I pay now in rent but my current apartment would fit into that one twice, but I actually wanted to spend less as I was starting law school.  A friend of Carlos had a band and I went to go see them play.  We had broken up by this point and well, I ended up meeting a guy that night who I had an on a again off again relationships for the next year.  He was divorced with two kids in California though so I ended it.  He actually once even wanted me to meet his kids.  That is actually the moment I decided that was done.  He was also in the military and our relationship, unlike Carlos, became more urgent and physical as he was always off somewhere and his job was not a safe one.  I needed someone who had the same interest in the theater and acting and music I did, and I was not ready to be a Mom, even a step one.  After a year, I moved again and this time closer to my law school.  Friends from my college who met this guy I think were a bit shocked.  He was very much a man, the kind that looked good in a Uniform and the kind that was sure enough he did not cling to me but kept an eye on me.  Despite the way I have been treated for the past 4 years as though republican NRA people need to do things to hire or fire me or well what ever the cruel twisted need is to stop me from getting work in the arts, stop me from being a what “celebrity” or as I would say make sure I am never happy for the rest of my life again (there is no me taking a job for a short time I HATE- there is only me taking a job to make money to pay off debts for a degree that is not worth the paper it is written on if I can’t sue to get equal treatment from my UNION period).  I’ve had “experiences.”  I know what I want and what I like and don’t like.  I also know I am not MEANT To be a lawyer, not driven to rise up the ranks of the military or the government and love studying acting and I know more about film production and the craft of acting then I will ever know about the law even though I have a degree in it.  I also know I am happy when I am working on lines, creating characters, and well “acting” or on a set working to make film or TV.  I NEED TO CREATE and to me BACKGROUND was a JOB and I WAS DOING something important or EVERY HOUSE IN THE US would not have a TV in it.  I really really really LOVE film and TV acting.   I LOVE IT.  I don’t want to be broken and scared again.  I WANT TO BE FEARLESS.  I already have written in my head a script for my first film making class.  I don’t want to ever be locked into reasonable employment because that means I will never achieve happiness or even be in pursuit of it again.  PERIOD.

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