{This is what I wore for a casual night out to dinner this Saturday. I’ve officially gone Hollywood.}

Honestly, I really didn’t know what to write today after the horrifying events of the past week. It feels gross to even write that sentence in juxtaposition to the silly photo above. I’d been planning on sharing an outfit post this morning, but it seemed wrong to pretend like nothing happened and go about business as usual. But then, isn’t that what we’re supposed to do? Show that we won’t live in fear, that we’ll keep living our lives and following our dreams and loving our people and dogs and safe, warm homes? I feel at a loss. But this isn’t a political blog; it’s about the funny things that happen to me. It’s about my husband, my dog-babies, the food I like to cook, the beauty products and clothes I like to spend too much money on, the books I’m reading and things in L.A. I’m doing and the career I’m chasing, and also my hoarding problem I just can’t seem to tackle. The smoothies I force myself to drink when my pants don’t fit, and the fried chicken I chase them with as soon as I can zip them up again. My life. And right now, in my life, I’m feeling really sad and scared about the world.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the randomness of it all. In one moment, because of where you happen to be on a certain day at a certain time, your life or loved ones can be ripped away from you. Last week was a terrible, terrifying reminder that things can change in an instant unexpectedly. But we can’t just stop going outdoors and become dog-hoarding hermits, as much as I want to sometimes. (Even that wouldn’t help, because there might be an earthquake and then the roof might fall on my head. On that note, this blog also is about how I’m a “glass half empty” kind of person, and how I’m trying to not be.)

So, today I decided to write about how I ended up here in my beautiful home I’m so lucky live in, in the hills of Los Angeles. In all the randomness of the world, the steps I took and choices I made have led me to be this married, almost-30-year-old mother of 3 mutts pursuing a career in comedy. This is how that happened…

I’m starting with “official adulthood.” (I’m saving my childhood for the major book deal I just KNOW this blog is gonna snag me. Right, universe???) I chose to go to Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas “officially” because I got a scholarship and college is obscenely expensive. “Unofficially,” I chose to go because I secretly fantasized about living out a bizarre fantasy of my own personal Sweet Home Alabama and marrying some country clubber with pastel polo shirts and a voice like Forrest Gump, and the heart of Texas seemed like as good a place as any to set that plan into motion. Luckily, that didn’t work out and I did not get engaged at the ripe age of 18 and earn my Mrs. degree.

I didn’t fit in at SMU and was desperately homesick. I joined a sorority, which is the greatest experience of many girls’ lives but was not for me. I always knew I wanted to be a writer, but thought I’d be a novelist, writing books in Tahoe with my pack of homeless dogs and southern husband I’d dragged to the woods of northern California. I took a screenwriting class for fun and fell in love. We had one assignment: Finish a screenplay by the end of the semester. That was it. And it was the best lesson I took away from college. WRITE. Just write. Do it every day. Have a deadline and finish it. You can always re-write later.

So, at the end of each day, I would write about all of the crazy stuff I was witnessing and experiencing. The screenplay was an exaggerated version of my freshman year. About halfway through the semester in March, my mom surprised me with a trip to NYC for my 19th birthday. Part of the surprise was that, in a fundraiser for a charity she supports, she “bought” me a role as an extra in a major motion picture. The director of photography noticed how fascinated I was by the set (I do not have “resting bitch face,” I have “Tracy Flick/Over-Eager-Desperation Face”), and asked if I had any questions. He learned I was a student, and offered to mentor me. I realize this sounds crazy, and it was, but I’ve found that most people who’ve stuck it out in Hollywood usually have a really spectacular story about how they got their foot in the door. It’s Hollywood, after all. We like cinematic moments, especially if they actually happen in really life.

Shortly after this trip, I applied for an internship at the Cannes Film Festival and ended up getting it. And it was the combination of those three things – the screenwriting class, the trip to NYC and that internship – that changed my life’s course. The internship was more of a work-study program, and I worked in the American Pavilion as a waitress. Two brothers, both producers, from Texas always sat in my section. I made them laugh, and they forgave me when I forgot their beer order (which happened a lot). One day, they asked me why I was there and I told them I wanted to be a screenwriter. They asked if I’d written anything, and I told them I’d written an R-rated comedy about my freshman year in Texas. They asked to read it, and ended up optioning it.

That same summer, right after Cannes, I went down to USC for summer school, where I had signed up for a class that was called something like “How To Pitch And Sell Your Screenplay.” It was taught by a guy who always wore turtlenecks and mostly wanted to talk about how successful he was, but I didn’t care. I loved everything about this city and industry, and was pleased to see it wasn’t that hard to make it, certainly not as hard as everyone made it out to be. At 19, I’d optioned my first screenplay and had a famous mentor who would take me along to screenings at the Academy (yeah, as in the ACADEMY AWARDS.) I called my parents and told them I was never going back to Texas, even if it meant I was dropping out of college. Lucky for me (and my dad’s heart), the latter didn’t happen. My mentor wrote me a letter of recommendation to the film school and I transferred to USC, where I spent my last three years of school.

Because all of these decisions were made essentially flying by the seat of my pants, housing was the only aspect of my Hollywood takeover plan that proved to be difficult – on-campus wasn’t an option that late in the game and the area around campus wasn’t super safe. I also wasn’t thrilled at the idea of hanging out with people my own age. I’d gotten enough of that in Texas to last me a long time. In another Hollywood moment, my mom found out that the grandmother of a girl my brother carpooled with lived in L.A. They offered that I rent a room from her and, sight unseen, I accepted.

That was one of the best choices I have ever made in my life. Talk about a Hollywood moment. I drove down palm-tree lined Highland Avenue in awe, completely unprepared for the house that awaited me. I turned down a mansion-lined street and pulled up to the most gorgeous Old Hollywood estate that, to this day, I have ever seen. And then I met Pearl, my 80-year-old new roommate.

In a word, Pearl was everything. She deserves a blog (a book, really), of her own. There is too much to say about how glamorous, big-hearted and hilarious she was. She was a petite, elegant woman who was larger than life. She was an opera singer and sang every day. She’d outlived several husbands and a fiance in that house, where she’d been since the early 1950’s. She fed the neighborhood feral cats and dressed for dinner. She read a pile of newspapers every morning and was an incredible cook. She became a second mom to me, and I ended up living with her (first in my own wing of the sprawling house and later, the guest house) for most of my college years and a few thereafter. She loved life more fiercely and fully than anyone else I’ve ever met.

The day after I moved in with Pearl, I auditioned for the Groundlings School and got in. A friend of the family (long story, my mom sort of stalked him and in turn he befriended us and was yet another mentor/angel in my life) had told me about the Groundlings. He’d taken classes there, and ended up on Saturday Night Live. He said the theater was a great place to learn about comedy and make friends, and he was right on both counts. I started taking classes there along with the ones at USC, and fell in love with it. I would walk to class in the daytime, and see shows there almost every night. It was back when Melissa McCarthy was only known for Gilmore Girls and Kristen Wiig hadn’t gotten on Saturday Night Live yet. They both performed all the time, and I was obsessed with them. They were uninhibited, confident, brave and hilarious. They were doing the kind of comedy live that boys got to do onscreen. I wanted in. So, so, so desperately.

I did get into the Groundlings Sunday Company six years later. I met my husband then, and one of my best friends in the world, Katierose, both who’d already been performing weekly for six months. I met most of the people closest to me now through that place, and all of the career opportunities I’ve gotten stemmed from my time there, too. My first piece of advice to anyone moving to L.A. (whether they ask for it or not) is to take classes there. Because even if you don’t get into the Sunday Company or the Main Company, you’ll build your own community and meet the friends who will keep you sane in this insane town (and hopefully, hire you later) there.

I moved out of Pearl’s into the home I’m in now, where I’ve been for nearly six years. That screenplay I optioned when I was 19 never got made (turns out, it is even harder to make it in this town than people warned me it would be. Oh well. I’m still at it.) Pearl passed away, and I miss her every day. I didn’t get into the Groundlings Main Company, but I did marry the best person I’ve ever known, and I met him through performing there. And now, I write outside every day surrounded by the formerly homeless mutts I now refer to as my children, and sometimes get to audition for roles like Girl Who Goes To A Holiday Party In Yoga Clothes And Hits On A Blind Guy.

That’s how I got here, in a nutshell. I hope I have a lot of time left, because I’m a procrastinator by nature and there’s a lot I still want to do. I want to sell my screenplays. I want to write a book. I want to be on TV and in the movies. I want to (eventually) have some babies with Tony, and adopt lots and lots more dogs. But whenever my ticket is called, it’s been a really, really, really good life and I don’t regret one step (or misstep) because that’s how I ended up writing to you today.

None of us know how much time we have. That’s a morbid thought at first, but it’s also a motivating and exhilarating one. So, to honor the people whose lives were lost all over the world last week, I’m trying to think about what is important to me, what I love in this life, and cherish it and do more of it. I love my husband and dogs. I love cooking dinner for Tony, and walking the puppers when it’s dark and quiet outside and we can walk the hills in the cold and dream about our life. I love to be on stage, making people laugh. I love to write this blog and hear from you, my internet friends from L.A. and the UK and Australia and Texas and other places I stalk on Google Analytics because I still can’t believe anyone besides my mom is reading this. You make the world feel connected for me; there are bad people everywhere, but there are good people, too. Thank you for being there for me on this journey called life! (What a cliche, right? I don’t know. Just felt like a blog like this needed to end on one. Hug someone you love and have a beautiful night.)