I am the unlicked cub.

Excerpt from Four Dogs and a Bone by John Patrick Shanley.

Bradley: I'm gonna tell you a little story.
Victor: Oh, please don't.
Bradley: Once there was a great big pregnant bear.
Victor: Are you really doing this?
Bradley: And after a painful labor, she gave birth to seven baby bears.
Victor: Seven.
Bradley: So she was very tired.
Victor: Sure.
Bradley: And she looked at her seven babies, and they were all gooey and slimy with afterbirth. And in that miraculous way that Nature has built the bear, she felt in her heart a tremendous welling up of material feeling.
Victor: Maternal feeling.
Bradley: Right. And this maternal feeling filled her with strength, so she licked and licked and licked her babies, one after the other, rendering them clean and fresh and beautiful. That is until she got to the seventh little bear. Right then, she ran out of gas, hadda seizure, and dropped dead. Muerto. And the six, well-tended little bears, with their beautiful brown coats, shed a tear, a tender tear, and bounded off into the woods. To have wonderful lives. And the seventh cub, the unlicked cub, went into show business.


I am not sure why, but somehow I am the unlicked cub. Not just because I chose to go into show business (well, let’s be honest here. I didn't really choose to go into show business. I mean I did, but seriously, my other option was an early death and since I seem to be some kind of a survivor or something, I chose show business) but because I am terribly self-defeating. It’s a daily struggle. Not to be self-defeating. It’s much easier to trash my self-worth than, you know, feel good about myself. (In case you haven't noticed) I've been really negative lately. That’s the unlicked cub in me. The good news is that I’m pretty aware of it, so I’m trying to counter the negative crap with some positive, flowery, butterflies-and-rainbows crap. Sometimes it works. Other times, not so much.

We all remember the miserably humiliating audition I had a week and a half ago. I was still so shaken up from that experience that I managed to completely sabotage my audition this past Monday. Let me take you back to Monday morning so you have an idea of how I treat myself. I got up that morning and I started to get ready for the audition. I ate a nice breakfast. I warmed up my voice. I took a shower. And then I looked in the mirror and I said, “You are so ugly. Your face is disgusting. What’s wrong with you? You’ll make a complete idiot of yourself if you go to that audition today. You’re pathetic. Moron. Idiot. You’re fat too. Just so you know. Ugly and fat. And disgusting.” Meet my inner-monster, Dip Shit. Dip Shit is the one with the vocabulary of a sixth-grader who says all those mean things to me whenever I look in the mirror. She isn't even creative about it. I hate her. But she managed to keep me in front of the mirror for over an hour, rambling on and on about what a disgusting, ugly, nasty, worthless-piece-of-human-flesh I am. By the time Poompy woke up, I was a tearful lump on the bedroom floor and I refused to go to my audition. Picture this: Poompy standing over me while I crouch on the bedroom floor crying that I can’t go to my audition because I’m too fat and ugly. Reading that as I type it, I see how ridiculous it sounds. But our words have a lot of power and I let myself ruin my day. However… an interesting thing was in the works. Is in the works.

I recently had a dream about Sandra Oh, who is an actress I have a lot of admiration for, where she sees me in a play and comes up to me afterwards to tell me that I, little old me, am her favorite actress, that she has all kinds of respect for me, and that I inspire her. And then she promises to always be in the audience for any performance I ever give, every time, ad infinitum. It was a truly fantastic dream. I tell my mom about it and then forget I ever had it. Then I get an email from Mamacita and she p.s.’s “What do you think that dream about Sandra Oh is about?” and I don’t answer her. But it gets me thinking.

Tuesday night Poompy met me at work to walk me home, just for fun. We decided to walk across and down through Central Park, even though it is longer, because it is so lovely. Walking through Central Park is heaven. It strips me of any sorrows or stresses or frustrations. We held hands like young lovers as we walked. We stopped at Turtle Pond and watched the turtles. We stopped at Bethesda fountain and sat beneath her and talked. We marveled at Cleopatra’s Needle. By the time we were back in Hell’s Kitchen I was totally relaxed and comfortable. So Poompy asked me what was going on and why did I sabotage my own audition the day before? I couldn’t answer. But I told him about my Sandra Oh dream. He asked me what Sandra Oh means to me and I told him he’s turning into my father. (My dad is wonderful at dissecting the meaning of dreams. But that’s always his first question when you tell him about a dream: What does [insert subject of dream here] mean to you?) Poompy ignored my smart-ass remark and reiterated his question.

When I think of Sandra Oh, I think of Dr. Christina Yang from Grey’s Anatomy. Dr. Yang is my favorite character on the show. She’s f-ing awesome. She’s a total hard-ass. She doesn’t let any personal crap get in her way, ever. Being a surgeon is her number one priority. Nothing gets in her way. Nothing. She fights tooth and nail to make sure she gets in on all the best surgeries, all the best cases. She’s a total Lion. She knows she’s a brilliant surgeon. She knows she’s the best intern at the hospital. She knows she’s got more talent in her little finger than 99% of the world’s best surgeons. And she’s not afraid to tell people exactly that. She’s all like, “Screw you! I’m the best surgeon in this hospital! Blah!” She’s not pompous or self-absorbed, she just knows these things about herself because they are true. And no one second guesses her because they know she’s right. She’s honest about everything, too. She’s not afraid to tell people Exactly What She Thinks. She doesn’t give a shit about what people think of her. She doesn’t cover up her feelings out of politeness. She doesn’t bend over backwards to please other people at her own expense. If she were auditioning for Broadway shows, she would not even think about letting an accompanist tell her to change her audition piece just as the audition was starting. I envy her. I envy everything about her. She’s my secret-fantasy of myself.

So I tell Poompy all of this. And he gets this very serious look on his face. And he says, “You know that Christina Yang is you. In the dream. Every one in your dream is you. So, there is a part of you that is just as strong and forward and honest and hard-assed and confident as Christina Yang. And that part of you came forward in your sub-conscious, while you were asleep, to tell you that she admires you. That she thinks you’re talented and wonderful. That you inspire her! The part of you that is Christina Yang has just promised you that she will never leave you. That you are so captivating that she must be present for every single one of your performances.”

It’s kind of thrilling to think that there is a part of me that is Dr. Christina Yang. And even more thrilling to think that that part of me actually admires the rest of me. So maybe there is a part of me that is a little monster, a nasty little monster with a tiny vocabulary and nothing nice to say. But if I know that there is also a part of me that is Dr. Christina Yang, I think I can survive this. I know I can survive this. I will survive this. I will survive. One day, all these little trials will make for some awesome chapters in my biography. I just have to remember that.