*** So I awake after a lovely night of sleep in Kory’s Mom’s bed, with the kitty I will become so familiar with soon: Harry. Harry is a Devon Rex, a.k.a. Mr. Bigglesworth, and is kinda freaky looking at first, but he’s friendly and warm, and what the hay… wait a minute, who was I talking about? Ok, anyway… after some tearful goodbyes, Kory and I pile into his Rav4 and we’re on the go! Yay!

Ooo, wait, we forgot the map. We go back.

Ok, now, we’re on the road! Palm-pilot Tetris and M&Ms! Weekly World News! Funny Road signs! Zzz...

*** Last night Andrea and I went to Le Passage (where she’s a V.I.P. thanks to a chance encounter with a celebrity who will go unnamed, ha ha). We both wore tight black dresses and did the glamour thing… there was a wedding party going on, so after we breezed into the VIP room it was one guy after another firing off lines in rapid succession. I met a sportscaster and some older guy. Andrea got a tall one and a reasonably cute Russian-speaking guy. Ahh, Chicago… So this morning I’m all packed up, sleepily copying DVD’s for our business, and waiting for Kory to come pick me up. We’re going down to his hometown of Moline for a big family send-off tonight.

*** In Moline I put on some cute jeans and a top, but Kory encourages me to wear the Black Dress instead. The one I wore last night. I made it myself (hey, in fact here’s a PIC of me in it) and it fits completely to every surface of my body. And it’s kinda sheer. Cool for a big city nightclub, but Moline… Hmm… Well, OK, you twisted my arm.

*** It’s 10pm. I’m at the Torchlight in Moline, a cool little honky-tonk, in the dress. It’s a fun mix of people, Kory’s incredible family & friends, local patrons and a few elderly ladies. Elderly ladies? As much as I love dressing kinda va-va-voom, I always feel a bit awkward thusly attired when discussing gelatin salad with great-aunts. Plus I’m wearing heels, so I’m pretty much the tallest person there. I did my usual 10,000 lb Gorilla/wallflower thing (in which I dress and consciously appear striking, and then stand against the wall feeling like the same geek I was in high school) until I was forced into the Karaoke lineup. I’m a one-trick-pony with singing: I can do the Ah-Ah-Ah part from the Little Mermaid, and that’s it. So I changed the song to Rocky Top and busted my mad Clogging skillz on them suckas instead of singing.  Kory’s grandma came over and said, “We couldn’t believe you could do all that in those heels!” Ha, the things I’ve done in heels… I have to give credit to Kory’s family. Everyone was completely nice and cool to me, and I even got hit on several times by the finest creeps Moline had to offer. 

*** Sometime back in the middle of 2002, I had been in Chicago for awhile and things were going well. I had a great gig at a cool nightclub, performing my little heart out and making a living, but I realized I wasn’t getting any younger and had better make a move towards my dreams sooner rather than later. I wanted to act… to perform… wearing clothes that did not sparkle, fluoresce or fit into a Ziploc baggie. Well, maybe sparkle was OK. I can’t just go completely cold turkey…

*** So I hook up with the suave n’ sexy bar manager Kory, an actor himself, and we plan a move to the epicenter of paper-thin glamour and broken dreams… Hollywood, CA! Being the diligent and responsible girl you will come to know so well, I spent the next six months doing not much of anything in the way of preparation. I didn’t really save any money beyond what I usually had. I didn’t diet or exercise. No tanning or orthodontics, no acting classes or research. But before you think too harshly of me, remember I’m no beginner in the world of entertainment, from stage to movie sets and premieres, so I was working in my head even if my body was gorging on milkshakes and tacos. I’ve fought bigger monsters than you in Hollywood, this ain’t my first time at the rodeo! Why can’t you give me… the RESPECT… I… DESERVE! Oh wait… that’s Joan Crawford, not me…

I woke up at 930am to have breakfast with one of the producers and her husband. She had wanted me to meet him before they left Toronto for the day. She told me he had heard so much about me for the last few years, he wanted to meet me too. I’m sure he had heard quite a lot, as I had been a bit difficult to get in touch with at times, so I was glad and interested to get up early and meet him. We had waffles and eggs in the hotel dining room and discussed this and that. I discovered she used to be the head of “One Life to Live”, and had discovered Ryan Phillipe by casting him in the first gay teen role on a daytime soap, a feat I had read about but never thought I’d meet its architect. And Ryan went on to marry a Nashvillian… Ahh, the meaninglessness of universal connectivity. After breakfast I returned to my room and showered again and relaxed a little. I had suggested to Troy last night as he was leaving the set that we ‘hang out’ today, to which he seemed amicable.. I had to quell my familiar thoughts that I was a major, tolerated imposition on everyone. I don’t think I was, but I had to fight that thought. I waited until 1230pm to call Troy in his room. He answered the phone sounding awake, but apparently he was still in bed and had just woken up, so he said he would get ready and call me back. I put my look together, jeans and gap t-shirt, hair up and curly, and we met in the lobby a little while later. We had the usual discussion of what should we do and ended up going to Caf’ Nervosa nearby. It seemed pretty deserted, but on the top floor patio it was packed with only one tin table jammed amongst the others open, so we went inside the 2nd floor where it was empty and got a nice table with a lovely view up against open French windows. He ordered a pizza, a margarita and coffee, and I had tiramisu and latte. I didn’t finish my dessert because it was dry, but Troy vanished his entire pizza. We talked and talked, and it was nice and comfortable. He was kind and secure and masculine, very much as I remembered Barry. We talked about the movie, and about the script. He had a lot more questions about things. When he talked about Calpernia in the script to me, he said ‘You’, as in ‘I am supposed to call you on that page in the script, but’’ I thought about how a lot of actors are very careful to say ‘my character’ and ‘your character’, and it was cute to hear him do it more personally. He said he had slept 10 hours but felt weird, like he could lay down at any moment and fall asleep. I took this as a pretty straightforward cue that he wanted to get going, but that wasn’t the case and he lit another cigarette and we relaxed a little more before leaving. I thought we were going to go back, but the weather was lovely and he said What should we do now? We just walked and passed a Ceramics museum exhibit, and we decided to go in. He bought the tickets into the mostly quiet and deserted exhibit. I watched him politely but firmly deal with the inattentive and passively scornful clerk with some amusement. We enjoyed the exhibit, talking the whole time, and left. On the way back we shopped unsuccessfully for some perfume for Lee. We then went into the Prada store, which was intimidating for me, but I tried to act smooth. I shouldn’t feel so judged all the time… My lower-middle-class upbringing, I suppose…

I eventually got back around 4pm or so. We split up to our rooms and I went back out to get a manicure to cover for the one I’d skipped to be with Troy and to pick up some cosmetic shine fighter suggested by makeup artist Stephen Lynch (who also does makeup for “Queer as Folk").

Dinner was at a lovely, very modern restaurant with lots of frosted glass and laboratory-like surfaces. Sean and his agent were already there, so Lee and I sat with them at the bar. Doro and Linda, always in control, were quite concerned with everything being just right and went to check the table while we ordered drinks. I let Lee order for me, as he seemed to be having fun helping me explore the new frontier of alcohol, and I got another Midori sour. (I had my first alcoholic drink ever a day or so earlier with Frank and the girls.) Troy and Sean stepped into a deliciously pretentious glass room at one side of the restaurant where one could be seen by everyone in the style of a zoo exhibit while smoking. They seemed to have developed a nice buddy relationship. We snacked on candied pecans and some kind of frou-frou bread and then Frank arrived, looking as I had become used to seeing him: expression hidden behind his white beard and mustache, leaving only his kindly eyes to twinkle with reigned-in power. I’m sure he knew he could have, at any time, told us to stand on our heads and we would have complied, but he didn’t seem to be that kind of person at all. He reminded me of a sort of ‘Best friend of my Dad’ type man, one who could be a bear in other situations but soft towards me.

Frank sat at the head of the table, with me at his right hand. Troy was across from me. Doro was next to me, with Sean across from her. Then Lee was next to Doro, with Sean’s agent across from her. We ordered delicious, exotic preparations of fish, beef and seafood. While we were waiting I noticed Troy looking at my eyes, so I looked back with a little humorous challenge. He didn’t blink so I settled into a vastly over confidant position of waiting and our stare contest began. ‘You’re gonna lose so bad,’ I said, and similar things. I had absolute confidence I would not let him win. The others began to notice what we were doing and Sean’s agent asked what was going on. ‘It’s a staring contest’’ Doro said, suddenly the little girl on the sidelines of a schoolyard staredown. To my complete surprise, my eyes blinked involuntarily and I conceded victory minutes before our appetizers arrived. We picked at them and since I didn’t order one I shared a little of other peoples before the food came. Lee received a bamboo steamer full of a huge variety of seafood, which would have been immensely appealing to me if I had been in another mood. Frank had a tasty fish dish and I got some kind of beef. Frank was very talkative and friendly. We had good conversation’ I was flattered to hear so much about Frank’s life and he asked me several questions, including, ‘Do you ever get nervous onstage anymore?’

‘No, not really. I just feel like I expand onstage and I just want to reach out and grab the people’’

And Troy cuts in, ‘I thought you said you still got nervous when you did your older songs’’ That was his anti-BS aura working, which was refreshing.

‘You’re right’ there are a few of my oldest songs that have a strong attachment with the nervousness I used to feel back then, and I still get that when I do them. But I go on through it.’

After dinner the talk was of finding somewhere to go have a drink and dance a little. Doro wanted everyone to see me dance, and I was overcome by a little wave of temporary shyness and tried to steer the goal away from being my dancing. We were aware that Frank was very tired and making a supreme effort to be out so late with us after working all day, so there was a lot of discussion involved in the selection of place. Eventually we ended up back at the Park Hyatt (it was across the street from Frank’s hotel) and we had drinks in the now-silent piano bar where I had done the interview before. It turned out to be nice, relaxed and private, and we all got seats on comfortable chairs and a couch around a coffee table, with a flat-screen TV on the wall playing soccer with the sound down. The entire wall opposite us was a mirror, which is always interesting. Lee ordered me a Midori Sour, which I liked pretty well. I had only the one. This was my 1st favorite part of the evening, there relaxed with Frank, Doro & Linda, Troy, Lee, Sean, and his agent. They talked a lot about young Hollywood. It was very interesting to hear but as I did not have the insider information that they had, I mostly listened. I must have looked sleepy, because Troy kept asking me what I thought and trying to include me in the conversation, which I thought was very nice. At one point Lee went to retrieve his fiddle and I was going to play something for them but my nails were grown out and we had no clippers, so I could only pluck a few powerless ukulele-style notes before giving up on that. Frank seemed to be having a great time but finally excused himself and went home to bed. I didn’t know where the evening was to go from there, but everyone seemed to want to continue on. Various ideas were suggested again, and finally we went to the bar at a hotel close by, which was supposedly usually ‘packed and hopping’ but seemed this night to be full of unattractive schlubs and an aggressive R&B band. We got a drink and tried to make do, kind of enjoying the unusual looking characters around us. I had my 2nd Midori sour. Lee and I went to the dance portion of the floor and tried to dance for a moment’ I basically just moved a little to the rhythm, nothing at all fancy. Later Troy mentioned he had now “seen me dance”, and I realized he meant this moment. I suppose he had been waiting to see my purported “legendary dancing talents”, and knowing that had been my performance was a bit killing. I like to do things up right. Oh well. When a sad love song came on, I kind of wished someone would ask me to dance but at the same time I knew I would burst into tears, so its good that no one did. After struggling through this bar for awhile Doro, Linda and Sean’s agent decided to call it a night and Lee was about to go too until he learned I was interested in going with Sean and Troy to another club they knew. The other two ladies left and we four got a cab to the club.

Sean somehow wrangled us plastic VIP cards, good for one year, which I still have as an amusing souvenir. We went upstairs after a short wait in a line and sat down to more cocktails and conversation. I felt worldly, a bit inebriated and ultracool sitting in there and watched everything with dispassionate interest.

When the club closed we wrapped up our evening and returned to our hotels. I knew this was to be my last big night and said my goodbyes to everyone. In the lobby everyone said goodbye many ways, and said thank you, and Troy said he now understood how Barry had fallen in love with me, which was very touching to me. I hugged him goodbye. I felt a little of the awkwardness with Sean had melted as well. I went up to bed.