Playtime

I write a lot about being myself and wanting to just be me. Well today I am going to be honest with myself about myself. I believe before you can get what you want you have to be clear on what it is you want before you can obtain it. I know exactly what I want but in some aspects of my life, my wants are too "bad" or seem "not right." As a result I have created a pattern where I shy away from what I truly desire.

Case in point, my social life. I've always enjoyed a quite interesting social life. I've generally been in the best cliques and ran in the best circles. I like nice things and I've always been in the company of nice things and cool people. I used to say a lot in Indiana "I'm the coolest person I know and I know some cool people." Speaking of Indiana, I had a ball. Living in the middle of nowhere did not sour my social life - it enhanced it. Now that I live in one of the most fabulous cities in the U.S. and am pretty well connected, my social life sucks. Why? Because now in Hollywood, my social life merges with my career. Here is weird - for instance, in Indiana if I wanted to party and not be viewed as unprofessional, I just went to places where the athletes and folk from the athletic department didn't frequent. That way I could have the best of both worlds. I could go out and wild out and at work no one would be the wiser. It is not that way here.

Los Angeles is interesting ... well to be honest I don't live in L.A., I live in Hollywood and it is a whole 'nother species. Here it is all networking all the time. Even when I go out and have fun and "do my thing" I can't REALLY do my thing because there is always someone there that could be standing between me and that next level ... I am an assistant looking to cross over so I have to be careful about my actions and reactions at ALL times here. Even simple things like going to lunch on a weekend become a networking event - I'm always on.

Work DaVida is not the same as play DaVida (don't get it twisted there are numerous forms of DaVida: work, play, family, Louisiana, Houston, L.A., Miami, in a relationship, will whip your azz, nice as pie versions of DaVida's to name a few). I work extremely hard and when I am able to party I go hard ... REAL hard. I haven't been able to do that in sometime and I feel stir crazy. It is like the city is closing in on me. All of my friends from the Indy days are going back there soon for a bachelorette party but I can't go. It looks like I'll be at work on Labor Day so my plans to drive to Phoenix are not so good either. ARGH.

I seek balance. I know it has been said that you can be yourself 100 percent all the time and I that is true for some people but not so much for me in this town. Luckily tonight I'm too tired to care. Problem is there's been too many of those nights lately. And there's night's like tomorrow where I'm going out but I kind of have to so you know what that means - more networking which means more work DaVida.

When am I going to be able to come out and play?