Live From New York...It's Probably Never Going To Be Me

When I was in high school I wanted to be an actress. Retrospectively, what I actually wanted was an excuse to act like a total drama queen and get away with it, but of course I didn't know that at the time. What I did know was that I had a great memory for memorizing lines, I wasn't afraid of being in front of a crowd (or making a total idiot of myself in front of said crowd) and, most importantly, I was loud. I never got direction to speak up, but someone once told me they could hear me outside of the auditorium. I was also dramatic and could cry on cue, but to be fair, the same could be said of most seventeen-year-old girls. Other than that, I wasn't very good. I've heard that part of acting is reacting and I could never remember this once on stage. I mostly just spaced out and waited until it was my turn to say something. Needless to say, it didn't take long after high school to scratch "Award-Winning Actress" off of my list of dreams. 

The reason I decided I wanted to be an actress in the first place was because of Saturday Night Live. This is hardly an original statement, especially if you've ever read the biographies of anyone who has ever acted on the show, but it's true. My obsession started in the Tina Fey/Jimmy Fallon/Amy Poehler days and I became convinced that being another hilarious actress on the show was the only job I would ever want.

My second semester of college, I took my first creative writing class and, to make the understatement of the century, it blew my mind. I've always liked to write, but up until that point I thought there had to be a formula for writing (as in: intro, body paragraphs, conclusion and all the other things that are relentlessly crammed down your throat in high school) and the freedom to write whatever I wanted was amazing. Suddenly I saw myself less in the funny girl-AmyPoehler-esque role and saw my dream in a whole new light. Why say funny things when you can write funny things that everyone else says? Frankly, everyone knows the writing is where the real talent is. Have you ever seen a movie that looked really amazing and had Academy Award winning actors in it, but completely sucked? I guarantee you it sucked because the writing was bad. It doesn't matter how good an actor is, that only goes so far when absolute crap is coming out of their mouths. All traces of ever wanting to become an actress were officially gone by that point. I wanted to be a writer. But not just any writer, an SNL writer.

Needless to say, it's been years since this realization and, unfortunately, a bit of a fruitless journey so far. But no matter how much time goes by, I continue to have my SNL daydream, which basically consists of an 80's movie style montage of me, Josh, and the kids frollicking around a really amazing city, doing cool things and hanging out with Andy Samberg, all set to that Jay-Z song about New York (I think it probably goes without saying that I don't have the greatest grasp on reality, but I at least redeem myself by being aware of it...right??). I have had the butterfly-inducing opportunity of meeting a couple of former SNL writers who all say the same thing: It's hard, continuous work where you spend a lot of time writing until 5 AM, the city is very expensive and frolicking intolerant, and it's actually pretty unlikely that I'd hang out with Andy Samberg.

But I don't care. It's still my dream and despite getting older, having kids, having responsibilities that tie me to where I am, or even having opportunities that take me in a different direction, I've never been able to give up on it. I don't want to give up on it. In other words, if I'm the show's first seventy-eight-year-old intern, that will be perfectly fine with me.

And if it never happens...that's okay too. I have a great life and family that I'm unbelievably proud of and even if it means I'll never become the next Tina Fey, I'm still satisfied with it.

But a girl can still dream...