Report from the desert outside Los Angeles, California: When I was a kid, I wanted to be a movie star. It didn't make great sense, because I was actually really good at things like physics and typing class and those things would likely have lead to truly attainable careers. I almost never got big roles in school plays because I was always trying to re-write the main character, even in the audition. The only exception was Cinderella, and then I was cast solely on the strength of my long blonde hair.
I first visited Los Angeles in 2009 and I was smitten. I laid a flower at Marilyn Monroe's grave and Billy never got tired of the fact that I had to take a photo of practically every star on Hollywood Blvd. He even took me on the Warner Brother's Studio tour.
When I came out of one of the restroom trailers, a very put-together woman with a Warner Brother's employee lanyard said, "Aren't you on The Mentalist?" And a nearly speechless me, who had failed to brush her hair that morning, said, "No." "Oh," said this woman to whom I was eternally grateful. "Are you working on that pilot next door?" "No," I said. "Well," she said. "You should be. Did anyone ever tell you, you have great teeth? And you look very chipper, but smart." Then she got a call on her cell phone and I walked on air back to the golf cart.
As we drive these last 300 miles toward the dream city of my childhood imagination, I feel so thankful to be approaching the embrace of so many friends. I can hardly believe we get to tour in California every year and it's all because of the friends who take us into their homes and adopt us into their families for a meal or for a week. If anyone asks me if I'm in that pilot they are shooting next door, I'm going to say that I'm in the Jeni & Billy movie right here, right now.
