The Kids Are All Right

We did it, we paid the people our good money and they are saving him a space. How did this happen? I just brought him home. He JUST came out of my frickin womb! My god! Now I'm sending him away to be with other kids. To a place with lots of trees, and letters on the wall, and a tool bench because he likes that kind of "guy stuff". To learn how to learn, how to get picked on. How to laugh at jokes, how to sit quietly while the teacher is talking. How to be bored at school. How to find a best friend. How to have your heart broken. How to skin your knee (he still hasn't ). I have cried spontaneously 14 times in the last 48 hours. When I was trying to go to sleep last night I had that racy heart, pit in my stomach feeling I used to get in my twenties when my heart was broken by a boy. Little did I know that was just practice. I told Nipper Knapp that I'm excited and ill at  the same time. My heart ACHES.

I'm the big talker too. It runs in my family. We're all really "tough". And by tough I mean, we say lots of tough things to cover up for how sentimental and softhearted we are. I'm the one who's usually saying things like "he needs to learn how to do it on his own" and "he'll only do it once if it's going to hurt, it's the only way he'll learn". Meanwhile I've been carrying him around on my hip for three years and I have the bad back to prove it.

We went to see the movie "The Kids Are All Right" yesterday. GREAT MOVIE. It's an indie so for those of you not in LA or NYC it might take a bit before it gets to your local theater, or you can wait and rent it. It's all about marriage and families, and kids growing up. The perfect movie for me yesterday. I got to cry my eyes out in the dark while eating popcorn. Perfecto. Nipper Knapp and I held hands almost the whole movie. Something we did not do when seeing Predators last week.

I don't think I'm spoiling anything when I say there's a college drop off scene in the movie. The oldest kid, the daughter is going away to school. The moment it started, I started to cry. I have distinct memories of dropping my brother off at college. My little family that was on the verge of what we all kept telling ourselves was a "very amicable divorce", (as if there is such a thing) one short year later, was all together that day. I've been looking all over the house for the picture. My parents asked some passerby to take our picture in front of my brother's dorm. I was wearing a purple shirt. My dad had his arms around all of us. I think it was our last family picture. You see? Sentimental.

I don't know if my brother and I had this same exchange that day, that the kids had in the movie, but I'm sure we were thinking it:

little brother "It's going to be weird not having you around"
big sister " I'm sorry I'm leaving you all alone with them"

My brother and I drove my mother crazy. We were always nagging each other and playing stupid games to irritate the other one. There is a picture of us in Italy. We're sitting on a bench on a beautiful precipice overlooking Verona (?) perhaps. Josh (15) and I (11) are sheepishly doodling circles on the bench, eyes cast downwards. My mother's arms are in mid-air, as she's informing us that we are ruining her vacation with our shenanigans. There are two young Italian men behind us, leaned against a wall. They are laughing. At us. My dad is standing off to the side photographing the whole scene. This is my family. I love them.

I wasn't going to write about this at all. It seemed too personal. To raw. Too indecent. But it's just on the tip of my brain all the time lately. I thought I'd wait until we were pregnant. Until had another kid. Or maybe never. Last October we had a miscarriage. We went to the fancy ultrasound doctor for our genetic tests and our 3 month 3D ultrasound. I was finished with the dreaded 1st trimester, and looking forward to feeling good before I got too big and unwieldy. We were having the conversation with the doctor about "did I REALLY have to have the amnio, since I had just turned 35 two months before?". We were giddy to see the baby. The office has these big screen HD tvs on the wall. Fancy. So I'm laying there on the table, and Nipper is video taping the big tv screen on his iphone. The doctor doesn't say anything. He's moving the thing around, and the baby isn't moving. I knew something was wrong. He says he wants to move us to a different room to use a different machine. I KNEW something was wrong.

Before any of this becomes very clear poor Nipper Knapp has emailed the video to our families. They are all excited about the baby, and we all thought maybe we'd find out that day if it was a boy or a girl.

We move to the next room where the doctor then tells us that in fact there is no heart beat. He assures us that based on what he was seeing there was something wrong from the beginning and it was nothing we had done. It just happened. This kind of thing just happens. After it happened, I heard from many other women that it had happened to them. Many just like me, had it happen after, or in between, other completely healthy pregnancies. We never talk about it. It's just too sad. It's too painful. No one wants to hear about something like that. It feels like bad juju to even say it out loud. I don't know if this counts for saying it out loud. But I just thought maybe if there were other women, some of my readers who were out there, who this has happened to, who feel like they shouldn't talk about it, or CAN'T talk about it. I know. All the awful details, I know. But mostly I know about the sadness that sneaks up on you when you are really not expecting it at all.

I know all about having to wait 4 whole days before I could get a D&C, thinking the whole time "I'm still pregnant, but I no longer have a baby". I know all about wishing I could take a little mental vacation from my body. I know about having to sit in the same waiting room as the families waiting for babies to be born at Cedars, to have the procedure to remove my baby. I remember thinking it was some kind of sick administrative punishment. I know all about crying talking to an obgyn I'd never met because mine is mysteriously out of town AGAIN (she didn't deliver Jack for the same reason). I know all about throwing up in my mothers day sweatshirt that was on my lap in the wheelchair on the way out of the hospital because the candy striper couldn't find a barf bag. I know all about being "tough" and going to a callback straight from the hospital (post barf cleanup, and post NK protests), and booking the job. I know all about spending the next two days in bed with oreo cookies and tea, and visits from Jack, and Nipper's sister Jenny who came out to take care of all of us. But mostly to take care of Nipper. I know all about feeling that it must be harder on the husband because nothing is worse than something awful happening to someone you love, much less two people you love.

I thought we were going to have a May baby. May came and went, and it felt like the LONGEST month.  I've thrown myself into work, into cooking, into tickling Jack until he pees a little and begs for mercy. Into hoepfully being a better wife. A better sister. A better daughter. A better mom. I'm hoping we are going to have another kid. We're working on it (not as diligently as Nipper Knapp would like). I just want Jack to have someone to pick on. Someone for him to be able to roll his eyes with when his parents start arguing about whose definition of "clean" is the "right" one. Someone for him to give a quick look to when I am doing some crazy mom thing that will bond them to each other like soldiers in war. (Yes mom, now I know, all moms are a little bit crazy, and now I know why) Someone to share family pictures with when he grows up. He's going to do that. Grow up I mean. I'm not ready for it today. But I'm working on it.

The weird thing is, even through the veil of this sad event, I feel like this has been the best year for our family. Jack is growing into his own inevitable awesomeness. We laugh all the time. We are healthy and happy. And we've had too much good fortune and too many hijinks and capers to list. That's the best thing about family. Through the terrible stuff you're able to appreciate the best stuff you've got, which is of course, each other. (oh, I just threw up a little on myself again. Sorry... blurgh...)

Preschool here we come! I hope they have a spot in the parking lot for the weepers.

Frick and Frack

Some of you have noticed Nipper Knapp and I in a few commercials together lately. We've been really lucky to be cast together on a few jobs. I guess people "buy" us as a couple. Hahaha. We've even gotten Jack in on the action. For this great fortune of being able to work together at the job we love, we are very grateful.

The other day we got a call from our agent (who is incredible btw) for a pilot audition together. As in a tv show that was looking for a real couple to play a real couple. But not a reality show. The audition was on the Sony lot. We set out in separate cars that morning because we both had other auditions afterwards. Nipper asked me if I knew where I was going, and I said, "No, but I'll look at the email with the address before I get there". Except that when I got there I was talking on the phone with Sadie about something really important like, how I had just won an ebay listing for 9 naked Barbies for $1!!!

Hostage Barbie

So Nipper tried to call me, but I missed the call. Then instead of looking where I was supposed to be going, because I'm wired for speed, but not sense, I drove to the main gate, entered the lot and drove to the top of the parking structure.

I took this picture up there. Look at the snow on the mountains in the background! So pretty! At this point, I wasn't panicked at all...

Ok, so I'm sitting up there and it's getting cold, so I call Nipper and he's all "Where are you?" and I'm all "Where are YOU?" He says he's parked on the street because he didn't know if we only had one drive-on pass. I say "Oh, whoops, sorry, I was on the phone, just drive in the gate, tell them you're here for casting, and they'll send you into the lot, we check in at the gate. I'm on the roof. I'll wait here". So I wait. And I wait. 10 minutes go by. I call him. No answer. I text. Nothing. Ok starting to feel a little annoyed. Not panicked or anything just miffed. I'm thinking thoughts like "Ugh, he's probably listening to a podcast and didn't want to pick up" and "he prolly parked on another floor instead of coming to the roof because he didn't hear me say that I was on the roof because I'm a girl, and my tone of voice is in that register that men can't hear, or can block out or whatever." and now I'm MAD. 

I go downstairs and check in at the gate, and try to call again. Fuming. No answer. I wait 5 more minutes. It's now 3 minutes to our audition time. For one second I think "He's been in an accident", but I dismiss that immediately, because it made me too sad, and I was pissed. All of a sudden I get a text from an unknown number "I left my phone in the car, I'm here, this is Nipper on someone else's phone". Great. That's great. You're here, but what does that mean? I mean, I was there, and he wasn't anywhere that I could see him. As I'm standing there with my stupid map, Michael Rappaport walks by saying something very Michael Rappaportish into his cell phone, and the dad from Heroes passes me, and I'm shocked at how tall he is, because I always assume that everyone on tv is a midget. 

 

I text Nipper "are you at the casting office?" Nothing. Ok, I think, you'd better just move your ass sister, because at this point it's the time when you're supposed to be calmly sipping bottled water on the couch in the waiting room trying to look like you could give a damn. But instead you're freezing your buns off at what you quickly realize in the WRONG end of the Sony lot. No worries, it's only as big as that little Tahitian atoll that Marlon Brando bought. Great. I'm hoofing it across the lot, freezing, trying my best to look like I wasn't another dumbass lost actress. Little sheep... baaa baaaa. WHERE IS MY SHEPHERD?! 

Finally I make it to the other side of the lot, and I'm standing there looking at the map the gate guard gave me and it's upside down, as in North is the bottom the map, and south is top, and I'm having this whole "map is not the territory" argument in my head, and cursing the world, when a nice lady, who must be someone's grandma walks up and says "are you lost?" and I say "yes I'm looking for the Astaire building". But she doesn't know where that is, so she says, "Go right in that door over there, and they will set you straight". And this is the door she's pointing to.

It's the police station. Geez. 

I walk in, say "I'm lost, does anyone know where the Astaire building is?" and another nice lady, who I'm sure had nothing to do with that crazy upside down map, and who doesn't look like any kind of police person I've ever seen, says "It's right outside the door down 1st street. I'm telling you this place is HUGE. So as soon as I get outside I see Nipper. I wish I'd taken a picture of him, because it was like being reunited after war. I could have cried. He says he's sorry he left his phone, and I say I'm sorry for not looking at the directions and parking in the wrong place, and we go upstairs and it's fine. This by the way is why Nipper and I are still married after what would be 78 years in real married years. We don't have jobs so we are together 24/7. It's all very pre-industrial revolution. Bottom line, no one goes crazy, we just hug and get on with it. 

We have some time to look over our lines, and sip bottled water, and look like we've got thousands of Shakespeare's monologues right at the tip of our tongues. The casting lady comes out to get us, and as we are walking across the sizable office, which I realize might be the nicest one I've ever been in, she smiles and says "long walk". She opens the door where I expect to see a video camera and maybe an assistant to read with us. Nope. Not today Shirley. It's a producers session. There are three couches full of people 8 in all. It looks like this. We know immediately who the director is, because he's got crazy ZZ Top hair and a trucker hat, and there's no way anyone hires that guy unless he's in charge of everything.

We make nicey nicey talk about Nipper's Muhammad Ali tshirt, and Sonny Liston. That takes 2 minutes. Then we read our scene. That takes 30 seconds. They say "thanks". Which in audtion-ese means, "get the fuck out my sight". Not really. It could also mean "you were brilliant, we don't need to see anything else, because we love you so much we can't bear to be in the same room with you, so please spare our tender hearts and go before me melt". But more likely "you seem like nice folks, but you're not right for this". 

Mary is my favorite!

It always cracks me up when people cry and beg on American Idol once they've been told they're not going through or they are going home or whatever because dude... You need to be able to smile and look like "Oh, I'm SO glad you just summarily dismissed me just now after I poured my heart out" like TEN times a week in this business. Otherwise, you'll:

A. Seem like a loser 

B. Never get called back 

C. hate yourself 

Rule number one (and two through four) of show business (this from a show business drop out):

1. Be GREAT

2. Your mom is the ONLY person who cares how much you want this

3. Don't make excuses

3.a. It's entertainment NOT therapy
4. Be GREAT

Nipper Knapp walked back to his car which was 3 feet from where we auditioned, but I had to walk back across the lot. So I took some pictures of all the cute shops and alleyways off Main Street just for you guys. Doesn't this stationary store look like it should be in Paris in the 40's? Minus the golf cart obv..

Later that day we ate pizza. How's that for a happy ending?