Amy's America

A date in every state?

June 13, 2010 by altatwood

I guess I’m a little delayed, or maybe it’s bad timing. Or is it? With just six weeks left in London I decided to start dating. I guess I just wasn’t ready before. ‘You’ve been there for two years, shouldn’t you have started before now?’ asked one friend. ‘What took you so long?’ Well, for the first year I had a fiance back home. And then it took a while to even want to be back in the dating scene.

So last week I went to the movies with one of my girlfriends and she mentioned that she had two dates that weekend. I was quite impressed and asked her how she managed it. Online, of course, and she named the two web sites.

I’m no stranger to online dating – that’s how I met my ex-fiance (and how I ended up on the worst date in the world, beginning with a meeting at Plymouth Rock, but that’s a story for another time). And several of my friends are on multiple dating sites. Kristen is even writing a book based on all her bad dates – that will be a best seller for sure! Anyway, as fun and easy as it is, I just wasn’t sure I should try it again, especially with such little time left in this country.

But, ah, the power of advertising: everywhere I went, particularly on the tube (subway for my American friends), I kept seeing the same ad for Lovestruck London. ‘Free for lunch? Free for coffee? Meet someone today!’ It sounded so informal, not like the lifetime commitment of eharmony or Match. And I love the idea of something being spur of the moment, rather than email for weeks, talk for a while longer and then finally meet, only to find there’s no chemistry so you wasted all those hours. What would I lose over a bad lunch date? An hour? I think I can spare that.

I caved – I’m back online. I was completely upfront in my profile and said I only have a few weeks left, but want to make the most of it. Who wants to show me their favorite parts of London before I head back to the US? I’ve already had a few dates. And they’ve been fun. I’m smiling – and they seem to be too. All in all I think it was a good idea, almost wish I’d done it sooner.

So I told Tina about this and she came up with a new idea: what about doing similar on the road trip? How about A Date in Every State? The waiter/actor in California, the rancher in Texas, the stockbroker in New York, the possibilities are endless. We spent forever on the phone laughing, planning and plotting.

But I’m not sure it’s for me. I think it may be too gimmicky. I don’t want to do anything like try to hit every state or visit every shrine to this, that or the other thing. I really just want to go where I feel like going. I’m also no Carrie Bradshaw. I’m not sure I could – correction: not sure I would want to – dish intimate details about every encounter with the opposite sex. While it may make some good reading, I’m not ready to be THAT much of an open book.

Don’t get me wrong. If I run into my dream guitar playing, black hat and white t-shirt wearing cowboy, I’m happy to have a date on the road. But it has to just happen. I don’t want to be setting up dates in every state and have some strict itinerary that limits my adventure. So while you had a great idea T, I think I have to pass on it. Maybe one of my other single friends wants to give it a try?

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Second Thoughts?

May 28, 2010 by altatwood

Last night I dreamt that I was having second thoughts about my road trip. Does that mean that deep down I actually am having second thoughts? If you ask me when I’m awake, the answer is ‘hell no!’ But you know how when you have a dream it keeps sneaking up in the back of your brain all day? This one is doing that.

I don’t remember much of the dream. After work I went to Leicester Square and watched the girls walk the red carpet (well, grey concrete) at the Sex and the City 2 premiere. When I got home I was exhausted and other than Nick nudging me out of sleep a few times to ask me some questions, I conked right out. I guess when I fell asleep my mind must’ve immediately jumped back in time to when I believed I’d be starring in the movies and on the other side of the ropes at the premieres.

The first thing I ever wanted to be was an actress. I think it started with my grandfather’s touring church productions. And my cousins and I would perform our own plays on our grandparents’ farm – I was always the director and the star. (Except when we did Peter and the Lions – then Pete got to star.) We even made tickets and asked people to pay. Tara and I also did musical performances to records like Barry Manilow’s Copacabana and interspersed it with commercials (‘Take three.’ ‘Three aspirin?’ ‘No – Anacin Three!’) There were school and community productions like Maria in the Sound of Music in third grade; the Wicked Witch of the West (a role some say I still play), Grease and Tumbleweeds at Bird Middle School; and my dream role as Emily in Our Town. I’ll never forget getting mono as a freshman, and having to stop the touring production of Treasure Island that I was starring in, as well as having to pass on my first high school production because I couldn’t get out of bed for four weeks. I was even too tired to cry.

I planned to go to NYU, become a famous actress, never get married and, after I won my first Oscar at the age of 40, adopt a four-year-old Vietnamese girl. Getting pregnant at 16 changed those plans a bit … So back to my dream.

All I can remember is talking to my mom and asking her (as I often do) if I’m doing the right thing by going on this road trip. She (as she often does) answered me with a question: why? I explained that taking all that time off to just drive around the country and not working at all just feels wrong. I’m a follow-the-rules kind of girl. I always went to school unless there was a real snow day – it didn’t matter if all my friends were staying home, even if my mom said it was ok. I don’t call in sick to work unless I’m seriously ill. I always try to do the right thing. And how is puttering around the US when I don’t have a job in any way right? So I told her I was thinking of trying something new: going back to my acting dream. I’d be working, yet having a break at the same time since it would be new and different work. And she, of course, said go for it.

I plan to spend time in LA with Mike and Jen and Jay and Cesha (and new baby Jaxon) anyway. In my dream I thought what if instead of a week, I stay for two months and spent every day trying to get roles as an extra or whatever? That would be working. My friends could point me in the right direction. I know I’m not blonde or thin or tall or gorgeous, but they need all types for movies, right? I called Mike. He is always the one to act like my father (even though I have two of those) and tell me the reality of the situation: ‘It’s not that easy,’ he said. ‘We’ve been out here for more than 10 years and none of us have stars on the walk of fame. It would take a lot more than two months. Never mind all the prep: you need head shots and a CV and …’ he went on and on with all the reasons not to do it. The only thing I remember after that is Mike and I sitting at a table looking at cameras and deciding on a new lens for me. Maybe we decided I should try to be a paparazzi photographer instead, switching to my love of photography?

So I don’t know exactly what the dream meant, but I do know that I don’t have any regrets. I wouldn’t change a thing about my life or the road I have taken. The question is: which road should I take now?

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Playing it safe

May 17, 2010 by altatwood

I just fended off a knife attacker! Well, not a real one, but someone playing one in my self-defence class. I also got to be the attacker, which was fun. Obviously it wasn’t a real knife; it was a plastic bendable one. I also poked someone’s eyes out, found their pressure points and my old favorite – bent someone’s fingers back. (That was the only way I could ever hurt my older brother when we fought when we were kids, so I know that one works!) Anyway, I thought taking a class like this was probably a good idea since I will be on the road by myself for so long.

Tina laughed at me when I told her about this and said, ‘Isn’t that the kind of class one would take when moving to a huge foreign city like, say, London?’ I suppose so, but I have always felt so comfortable and safe here. Of course, it helps that we live next to the Home Office (UK version of Homeland Security) and in one of the most watched neighborhoods in the world – there are video cameras everywhere. ‘Smile! You’re on CCTV!’ Whereas when I’m on the road in the middle of who-knows-where no-man’s land America, anything could happen and no one would ever know. That’s a bit intimidating.

So I want to be as safe and prepared as possible. I will try to always have my cell phone charged, my car (whatever it may be) in good working order and a can of pepper spray on me. And I plan to be smart about when and where I go, and particularly where I stay. Hopefully a good amount of time I will stay with family and friends; when I can’t, I’ll try to stay somewhere cheap, but well lit and busy. No Bates motels for me, nor any sleeping in the car by the side of the road. I’ll never forget one place that my cousin Tara, Nick and I almost stayed at when we were driving to Washington DC when Nick was around 5 years old. There was no phone in the room (and we didn’t yet have cell phones), the bolt was literally broken off the door and the room reeked of smoke and mold. We didn’t even put our bags down.

As much as I want adventure, to see all different parts of the country and to rough it a little, I also want to do it in one piece and make it home safe to my family and friends. So for the next few weeks my Monday nights will be spent avoiding punches, escaping headlocks and learning how to fight back!

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