Hollywood is a Bad Dad

This week was shaping up to be a great week. I had a fantastic meeting with a financier on Monday and yesterday delivered such a perfect pitch to ecstatic studio executives, that the writer and I were giddy for hours after the meeting.

Today, I got the paperwork from the financier. They are 1.5 million dollars short on what they talked about in the room. And the studio passed on the perfect pitch because, "It was just too smart."

God forbid anything be too smart.

Hollywood is like the dad who keeps leaving your mom in a lurch, and just when you're getting used to living without him, he shows up at the door, all contrite and bearing presents. It's the ultimate intermittent reinforcer. Just when you're totally fed up with the casual cruelty, the unreturned phone calls, and the glacial pace that projects move forward, you'll have a really good day, where everything seems to go your way and all those bad feelings from before are swept from your brain...until the next project falls to pieces before your eyes.

********

My father's tombstone will read: "She doesn't throw like a girl."

And for the record, I don't kick my butt when I run either.

Today I donated my baseball glove to charity. The post office is sponsoring a drive for baseball equipment to donate to kids in the third world. I'd had my Bobby Bonds baseball glove for 30 years. It was one of my oldest possessions. While I loved playing baseball as a kid, I hadn't played a game since filling in on an intramural team in college. I'd held onto the glove for so long because of sentimental value. It reminded me all the times my father would put down whatever else he was doing and play catch with me in the backyard. And, although I remember always having to plead with him a little to come outside and throw a baseball back and forth across the lawn with me, I know that to this day he brags to his friends about my pitching prowess.

I'm sure if I asked him, my dad would play catch with me in one hot second. If only to see if I can still throw a mean slider. And because I know this about him, I felt safe with my decision to give up my beloved glove to some other kid who perhaps needs the chance to feel what a father's love feels like.

My father doesn't really care if I succeed in Hollywood or not. He just wants me to be happy. I'm very lucky to have a father who totally believes that I am the most interesting, smartest and prettiest girl ever...except for my sister who is equally interesting, smart and pretty, of course. I reap the benefits of having a dad who really believes that girls are the greatest every single day. It means that I'm not afraid to argue with men. It means that I never have to play the pussy card and use my "feminine wiles" to get my way. (Because once you play that card, you never ever get to play another). It means that my self-esteem does not come from whether or not the men I have to work with actually like me--even though generally they do, and for all the above reasons.

It's good to be a daddy's girl.

Thanks Daddy.