Throughout my career I would play many facets of things I actually experienced in life. It was cathartic and productive. I always had a way to channel things. The first film I did after E.T. was Irreconcilable Differences, about two parents going through an ugly separation, with lots of family damage. I felt I had a lot to bring to that. Same with all the characters I played. Riot girl, check! Aspiring young woman who wants to rescue herself? Yep. Girl searching for love over and over, check, check! Messed-up woman who struggles to grow up and just wants a little attention—i.e., Edie Beale? OK, we have a few differences. She had a much better fashion sense than I ever have! The truth is, I have never acted a day in my life. I think I would fail miserably at it. And the older I get, the more I have come to terms with so many things that I simply don’t have the same drive to get to all the pain. And I think I have tapped into every girl who wants to find love! Now I’m just me. And nobody wants to watch a woman strive to be a normal mother of two. Or maybe they do? Is there enough drama in that? Well, there is, but it might not be as cinematic. And any drama that occurs in my real life, that I struggle with, I prefer to keep it private. So where does that leave me? Charlie’s Angels 3, anyone?
The truth is, I find acting jobs when something comes along and I can’t stop thinking about it. It will keep me up at night! A fire starts inside that I cannot extinguish. I start relating it to my own personal experiences. I start seeing what I could do with it. I actually get territorial about it. Thinking that I could do this because of X experience that I have lived through and understand. I can put that circumstance and the feelings I had with it. I can make it mine even though it’s in the disguise of someone else.
And maybe now it’s about telling the occasional story that I really believe in and think would be good to put out there into the world. But as I look back, that crying woman taught me how to approach everything in life. Acting or otherwise.
Be authentic. Be yourself. And most important of all . . . make it personal.
Flossy
FLOSSY
When I was around eight years old, my mother almost let me buy a dog. It was a black Chow puppy. We were in Los Angeles, at a pet store in the Beverly Center, and I had played with it in the strange room where they let you play slash examine slash bond slash whatever. The room was more like a hermetic fluorescent-lit closet, but I felt nothing but warmth and love. I knew I wanted this dog!!
We were at the register, and my mother was breaking out her checkbook (as that was the modern form of payment then), and as she started writing, my heart started pounding. I started fantasizing . . . This dog and I would talk, and this dog would be there to listen to me talk about my problems! We could sleep curled up in the bed. We could make it look like life was not so abnormal. We could look like a Norman Rockwell painting. As my fantasies started to drift upward into the sunset, I saw her pen slowly stop writing! She turned to me and started talking about how this wasn’t going to work. That “we travel all the time for work”! About how I “probably wasn’t ready for the responsibility”! That this whole idea was “bad, impractical, and just not the right timing” because “life was just too hectic”!
You’re goddamn right!! It is too hectic! I have been working for the last seven years and I’m only eight! You’re nuts, Dad’s nuts, and I want a friggin anchor in life! And this pile of fur was going to be that for me!!! How dare you!!!!!! And that check you’re writing is technically my money as well. So if we have to saw this dog in half, I am leaving with this Linus-like security blanket of a dog, you heartless tease slash canine cockblocker!!!!!
Sad to say, she was still the adult, and we left that store empty-handed, and I wondered when I would ever right that wrong.
Enter Flossy!
When I was about nineteen, I started thinking that maybe it was time to try again. So I decided that I wanted rescues. Never a pet store again. Even when I set that scarring childhood moment at the pet store aside, it seems crazy to me not to save a life. I knew I wanted two dogs because I wanted them to have each other. So looking for two young rescues began. It took me months and months. After a series of shelters, newspaper ads, and various other sources, I was at the Pasadena City College Flea Market one Sunday, walking around, and there was a playpen of puppies that needed to be rescued. A whole litter! Instead of dropping them somewhere or taking them to a shelter, the owners wanted to try this venue, where they knew a bunch of people would be. There were about fourteen in the litter, and I thought, Holy cow! Not only could I get two kids that would have each other in this life, but also they could be siblings!!!!!!
Knowing this was the moment, I looked inside, and there were a bunch of blond and beige pups. They were Lab-Chow mutts that looked like little bears. People were rummaging through them like it was a sale bin of scarves. It was like a squished sea of moving, squirming fish. It was hard to decipher much. And then I spotted this one. I don’t know what it was, but my heart just sang. That’s the one! The hero dog!!!!!! That’s the little partner in crime I have been looking for!!! My long-lost sidekick!!! I just have to reach in, grab this one, and then find it a counterpart!!!
As I plunged my hands into the sea of fur, a woman knocked into me, pushed me aside, and grabbed this dog!!!! I gasped. “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” I wanted to scream!! I wanted to say, “That’s my dog!!! I saw it first!!! We belong together! You don’t understand!”
She held the dog up and started clinically examining it, lifting its leg, checking the sex, holding it up without supporting its bottom. As she stared at this dog, time stood still. What was going to happen? Should I tell her? Should I strangle her? Was this the Beverly Pet Heartbreak, Take Two???
The whole scene became quiet. I just waited. Watching them about two feet away from me as fate hung in the slow-moving wind. I felt helpless and freaked. I think I went into some type of catatonic state. After all, I had been anticipating this relationship most of my life.
And then, the sound started to slowly turn up its dial, and the woman turned to me, and held the dog with her arms extended, and looked into my eyes and said . . .
“She belongs to you!”
A smile erupted in all of my being, and I took this puppy in my arms, held her to me, and said to myself, Thank God! Then I looked at her and said, “It’s nice to finally meet you!” And I was as happy as a human could be. But before the joy lasted for more than a second, my eyes popped open and I thought, Shoot, I need to grab your mate! The picture in my mind has two of you!
So I turned back to the playpen. People were grabbing up all the puppies. People were in anarchy for these creatures! You would never know that there was an entire flea market full of treasures anywhere near! This giant box was where all the action was. So I clawed my way back in with my little hero under one arm, and with the free hand I grabbed one of the last dogs. A boy.
With a dog in each arm, I promised the owners I would give them not just a great home but a great life. And I walked half a mile back to my car, opened up the door, and said to them, “Here is the car. Get used to it because we are going everywhere together.”
After I put them in the backseat, shut the door, and then got into the driver’s seat, I looked back at them, and I said, “Oh yeah, and we are not going to be neurotic either. And we are going to have so much fun it’s gonna make your heads spin!” And we did. For the next sixteen years!
Flossy was more Greta Garbo than Lassie. She was an old-timey gal with a flair for the dramatic. Calm as she was, she had a dry delivery about everything. She smiled after long days on the beach. She was able to express contentment, but she did not hop around spastically. That would be beneath her. She had a take-it-or-leave-it attitude, and was a very cool customer. She also looked like a little white bear.
Her brother, Templeton, was a boy and took a while to grow up, but when he did he was a good little gentleman. He was much more hyper and lopsided in his approach to everything, but I
proudly took them everywhere off leash, and they were always good. Easy. They got it. One day, a few years later, I went to adopt another dog at the pound. I named her Vivian, and when I brought her home, she smartly walked up to Flossy and rolled on her back with her legs up in the air in the submissive position. Phew, I thought, because anyone who didn’t kind of bow down to Flossy was going to have a tougher time of it. However, she walked over to Templeton and started pulling on his ear! And that was it. Templeton finally had a playmate with energy and whimsy. Flossy was never going to be that. She was a solo flyer.
So there it was, the four of us, and life was so good. We were pied pipers, and we went all over the world together, from the south of France to Austin, Texas. I actually got a Volkswagen bus, took out the backseats, and just let them cruise about the cabin. We swam in lakes in New Hampshire and oceans in California. We were a family, and when I picked up photography at twenty-five years old, they were my best subjects. They are the celluloid ghosts of evidence of a large chapter of my life.
My life with them was free, and they forced me into the great outdoors all the time, which was good because I had them in some of my most workaholic and prolific years. They balanced my life and grounded me in every way. I always took care of them, usually putting their comfort before my own, and yet these were truly the three easiest creatures you have ever met. Everyone at work loved them too. They were office dogs. Car dogs. Movie-set dogs. You name it. They were such a part of my identity and lifestyle, and I never felt lonely with them. They slept on my bed. We would take long weekends. I would stare into Flossy’s eyes and talk to her, and then take a photograph of her blond eyelashes with a macro lens and make a piece of art out of it. Flossy’s eyes were so calm and wise. She was an old soul. And without words, she was one of the beings I felt most connected to in my life. If you look, most of the pictures that have been taken of me during that time, these three dogs are in them. To document me was to include them because they were such a part of my life. Flossy has graced numerous magazines, fitting for the reincarnation of Ms. Garbo.
She outlived Templeton, when he sadly died at fourteen. By some strange stomach flip, he went overnight just like that. I had never faced what life would be like without the three of them. Vivian was only thirteen, but she died a few months later. Like a widow who’s lost her beloved husband, she went from perfectly healthy to departing this earth within four months. She simply could not live without him, and her health deteriorated rapidly.
We put her down to the sounds of Nick Drake in the garden. We all sat around, and the doctor administered the shot to close her eyes and end her unthinkable pain. We all held her and tried to make it as beautiful and safe as it could be. Everyone who she touched sat hand in hand in a circle around her. I put Templeton’s and Vivian’s ashes together on a giant rock that goes all the way out to the water in Malibu Beach, where these two ran up and down for thirteen years. They would live forever in a spot that made them happy. Again, all my friends gathered for the ash-throwing ceremony, and as we said our good-byes as the sun set over Vivian’s and Templeton’s rock, we read the profound eulogy Eugene O’Neill wrote for his dog, called “The Last Will and Testament of Silverdene Emblem O’Neill”: “No matter how deep my sleep I shall hear you, and not all the power of death can keep my spirit from wagging a grateful tail.” One giant wave came over it as we all were saying good-bye. Was it them? I can only hope . . .
Back at home, Flossy was exercising her third act. Now, as the star of the show, and with no disrespect to her brother and sister, she had the floor and a new glint in her eye. It was by no means evil, just slyly content to have the calm and quiet around her. She could just be as she always was, just an old movie-star diva in her own spotlight. And so, just the two of us now, older, slower, calmer, we both were entering profound phases in our lives.
When Flossy and I came together I was nineteen and very much a kid. However, she taught me how to care for someone and grow in such a way that I could have never become the nurturing person I am today without her. My ability to take care of something and someone developed with her. She gave me so much in return. I was so content with her. I never felt alone.
But now I was thirty-five and Flossy was almost seventeen. I spent most of my days at home with Flossy. I could feel she was winding down. One night I said good night to her—she had recently made a habit of staying downstairs at night. I kissed her good night, and I went up to my room. I woke up the next morning and walked down to where she was. She was facing the other way, and I knew. She was gone. Peacefully in her sleep she went up to the angels, and I held her with tears streaming down my face. There was nothing I could do or say to this fluffy shell that housed a soul that meant so much to me. She had made me whole in this world. My silent partner. My old-world friend.
This was my third time to go through this process, and I had found these wonderful people who come to collect dogs’ remains, and also cremate them and give you the ashes in a meaningful dog-themed urn. I held her until they came. I said good-bye one last time and slumped down on the floor. To say I was lost is the understatement of the world. After a few light-headed hours of feeling like I had been staring into the sun, I got an idea. I picked up the phone and called my travel agent, and when she picked up she asked how I was. I burst into tears and told her what happened. I knew she would be empathetic, and she gave her utmost condolences. I said thank you. She asked, “How can I help?” Then I cleared my throat and took a breath and said, “I want to go to India.” She asked for my time frame, and I said I wanted to go as soon as Flossy’s ashes were back with me, probably in a day. “All right,” she said, “let’s get a plan.”
And so I did. I took Flossy to India and gave her a proper and fitting send-off. The first place I spread some of her ashes was at Gandhi’s house in New Delhi. Then I took her to a Buddhist monastery way up in the Himalayas. And third, I put the rest in the Ganges River off a quiet path in the countryside. I thanked her over and over for her companionship. There is a hole in my heart forever since she has been gone. However, I try to make her proud with all the love that I try to give every day to my girls! Flossy was my first girl. And the love I felt for her is one of the best gifts I have ever known.
I took a small portion of the ashes back to that old rock in Malibu. And hopefully the old band is back together. The three musketeers of dogs I felt so lucky to care for. And I did care for them so very much. I have two dogs now. And because of the kids, I fear they get the short end of the stick with attention compared to the red carpet I rolled out for Flossy, Templeton, and Vivian every day of their lives.
Don’t get me wrong, there are toys and treats and love all around. It’s just a more traditional dog-to-human relationship and not the profound bond I was used to. My whole world was those dogs, and every extracurricular moment was spent conjuring up our next great adventure. I am now turning to my two daughters instead, saying, “What do you want to do today?” with a big smile and a let’s-go cadence!
But I love that my girls are growing up with dogs. We have Lucy—the “White Shark,” as Olive calls her when we are all swimming—and Douglas, the scrawny, long-legged mutt with the heart of gold. He’s neurotic but truly loveable. The house is chaos sometimes when the dogs are trying to eat the kids’ food or jumping into the tub with them. But it’s worth it. Life with dogs is better. I just wouldn’t have it any other way. They say that dogs can give and receive love through their eyes. The unspoken ability to lock in and actually feel love between human and animal is an extraordinary thing. And we shared many looks of love, me and my girl.
Baking, Los Angeles
DOMESTIC BLISS
I am engaged. I am five months pregnant. I can’t make pancakes.
On this particular Sunday morning, I woke up a little cranky. I had a huge zit, and my hair was totally damaged from dyeing it blond, not to mention I was wearing farmer jeans due to my protruding stomach. Aft
er sitting in the sun, brushing my hair, and petting the dogs, I came into the kitchen and read the New York Times. And then I had the bright idea . . .
“I know, I’ll cook some pancakes.” I had just gotten a new recipe for lemon ricotta pancakes, and I thought this Sunday morning would be the perfect time to attempt it.
Cooking had become my latest obsession. I had traded going out to concerts and late-night dinners for a stay-at-home lifestyle. Instead of running around in my thirties like I was still a teenager, I was settling down with my new garden and my new cookbooks and trying to play the part of the character I have never been able to master . . . THE GROWN-UP.
I thought that herb boxes and homemade meatballs were the gateway to maturity. I had an electric pepper mill, which seemed advanced to me! I fantasized about being the woman who could whip up anything in her kitchen.
Instead, I now am stretched over cookbooks with a look of concentration on my face with no freedom in my step, still working out a lot of kinks in my very spotty cooking. For instance, my fiancé is puking upstairs as we speak, and it’s from my lemon ricotta pancakes. Here’s what happened . . .
First I started separating the egg whites. The recipe said to do that, and then whip them into a mountainous shape. So I did. I didn’t have a mixer, so I did it by hand and arm. I wanted to cry in pain after ten straight minutes of whipping. But when the liquid started to become peaks, I was thrilled!
Then it said to take four egg yolks . . . Fuck! I threw those away. OK, breathe. Just go get four more. I had now murdered almost a dozen eggs. Not ideal, but I obviously hadn’t considered the next step enough, so it’s my fault. OK, now I had separated out the yolks, and this time I saved the whites. Not going to be a chump again. Will I need them? Who knows, but in a bowl on standby is better than in the trash.
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