My first death of a loved one.

We buried my grandmother on Monday. It was... so hard. So much harder than anything I can ever remember. When I walked into the room with her body, I immediately began to cry, and my feet stopped at the door of their own volition and refused to take me any further. My father, crying too, had to come and put his arms around my shoulders and guide me to chair further in the room. It took about an hour for me to muster the courage to approach the casket and look at her. Everyone had been saying how good and peaceful she looked, but when I finally stepped up, I didn't think so at all. Whatever was in that coffin wasn't my grandmother, it was just a thing. A misleading thing, because I knew I'd held those those hands, and hugged that waist and brushed that hair. It was both familiar and foreign, loved and estranged, her and not her.

We made it though, however, with more than a little family drama that I don't want to get into. Everyone was leaving the next day, so I insisted that the women in the family go through her jewelry and pick out the things they wanted. She had already left her two rings of monetary value to her grandchildren. My cousin Laura got her wedding and engagement rings, and she left me her diamond dinner ring. These were the rings she wore every day since I can remember. As a kid I spent every summer with my grandma, and I always stared at her flower-shaped diamond ring. I'd play with it, and she'd get a kick out of me twirling it around on her finger. She let me try it on all the time. She always said "You get this ring when I die," but she said it so cavalierly that I had no more than a fleeting unease about the whole business. I wonder if she could even fathom how much it would hurt to see that ring handed to me. I know I couldn't.

But I had this burning desperation to go through her other jewelry (and not just her jewelry, but my impulse was to raid everything in her room and closet). I didn't know where it came from, and it made me feel like a horrible person. Like I was stealing from her. I'm sure everyone thought I was being terrible and greedy. But we did sit down and go through her jewelry together. We laughed at her martini necklace and her very large and colorful Egyptian earrings. We reminisced about how she wore that pearl necklace to my Aunt's wedding or those anchor earrings all the time. I took more then I felt was my fair share, and I couldn't understand this impulse. Why did I want these things so badly? I put them all in one of her boxes and tucked it away. On the flight home, even though I didn't check my bag, I couldn't bear to pack it and I kept it on my lap the entire flight, even putting on more then was necessary while I was dressed in one of her large sweatshirts (given to me by my Aunt). I put it on the seat next to me on the drive home.

It only occurred to me tonight how much I wish I could go back and just take everything. Everything she ever touched, looked at, smelled or had near her. Everything I remember and don't remember. Her hairbrush, her makeup, her ratty housecoat. I want to wrap myself in a cocoon of her things and sleep. It makes me feel like I'm still connected to her, like she's still alive (at least in a way). I miss her so much.

The story of the diamond dinner ring, which I had never bothered to ask when she was alive, is this:

My grandparents married in the late 40's. My grandmother was a housewife and my grandfather is a very frugal man (to a fault). He never bought my grandmother gifts. Not for her birthday, Christmas, or anything. The way he put it is he just handed her the checkbook and tried to keep his mouth shut. She bought what she wanted. Well, she was "bitching" (again, my grandfather's word) that he never bought her things. So, sometime in the 70's my grandfather told his oldest, my Aunt Nancy, to pick something out for her. He gave her a budget and sent her on her way. My aunt had this ring made and gave it to him to give to her for Christmas. She was supremely surprised and it was a really big deal for them. Then, he never bought her anything ever again.

It's funnier than it seems on print. My grandfather loved my grandmother very much. He took amazing care of her right up until the end, and the only time I've ever seem him cry was at the funeral. Their 61 year journey together has come to an end, and it's a very profound thing for him. I worry. But to know that I've inherited this ring that meant so much to her, that was born of love and happiness, and that saw so much of her life, is unspeakably meaningful to me. I can think of nothing I own that could possibly ever mean more. It's not mine, but I am its caretaker now. It will see my life, and my grandchildren's lives, and who knows how far it will get, but it will always belong to Mary Elizabeth Shirley.

Writing Sample #1 - Fiction

He had a face that would have been expressive if occupied by another soul at some other point in time, but the face was occupied by him here and now and, as such, remained immobile. Lines around his eyes and mouth insisted that this hadn’t always been the case. They were adamant that this stoicism was situational, not characterizational. His eyes, however, respectfully disagreed; they gazed, blue and flat, at his black and white shoes.

The bench shifted underneath him to accommodate the new weight of a man sitting down to his left, and a pair of brown, leather shoes settled in aside his own.

“What a cliché.” He said without looking up.

“Two old men sitting on a park bench.” Replied the brown shoes.

They were quite for awhile.

“How are the kids?” Asked the man.

“They’re all fine.” Said the brown shoes. A round, paper package slid into his vision. “Cold cut.”

The man took it, and the crinkle seemed obscenely loud. He straightened up slowly and leaned back against the bench, looking straight ahead. They began to eat.

“Julia called us last night.” Said the brown shoes around a mouth full of bread.

He continued to chew and said nothing. There was nothing to say.

“She’s in Colorado now.” He seemed to be waiting, but only stale silence found him. “Anyway…”

A breeze meandered between them, carrying a literary platitude of children’s laughter and the scent of sunshine. The man registered a trickle of sweat bead down his hairline. His joints ached.

“I’m retiring.” He said when he’d finished his sandwich and leaned back over his knees to watch his shoes.

The brown shoes now took on the unnatural stillness. “Alright.” They said.

“I’m tired.” Said the man.

There was no reply.

“It’s time.”

Nothing. The man’s long nose itched. As he reached up to scratch it, he felt something wet dissolve between his gnarled fingers and was surprised.

“What will you do?” Asked the brown shoes finally.

The man did not answer right away. He watched the wetness evaporate in the breeze and sunshine. “I don’t know.” He said at last. “I’ll watch television.” He regretted the words as soon as they reached his ears sounding hollow and brittle, reflecting him too honestly. “I’ll sleep.”

“You’ll sleep?” The brown shoes had an uncomfortable finality.

The man thought to himself about how old he was. How old they both were.

“Yes. I think I’ll sleep.”

“You could take that trip to Florida.” Suggested the brown shoes hastily. “You always talked about traveling.”

“No, I don’t think so” The man sighed. “She was the one who wanted to travel, I was always happiest at home.”

Happiest didn’t seem like the right word, but he couldn’t think of a better one.

The brown shoes were silent again and the man raised his head to look out over the park. When did parks become a refuge for youth? he wondered to himself. Everywhere he looked was a sea of children with their dogs and twenty year old executives in pinstriped suits. Young men and women were holding hands, playing Frisbee, strumming their guitars under the cypress.

The man could have sworn that the parks of his own youth had been filled with old men. Nothing but old men who played chess, smoked cigars and talked loudly at each other about politics. As a boy, they had seemed like aliens; like creatures from a distant planet who came to earth to smell funny and talk funny, who always carried with them some kind of magical twinkle along with the caramels in their pockets. They had been smiling.

There were no caramels in his pockets.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea.” The brown shoes spoke up.

“That’s okay.” Said the man. He watched as an ant tried to burrow underneath his sole. “I didn’t expect you would.”

“So why tell me?”

“Small talk.” He said, sinking his head further between his shoulder blades in a motion reminiscent of a shrug. “Forty odd years of mutual, personal interest.”

“Not to talk you out of it?” Asked the brown shoes.

“No.” The small smile felt foreign, more like a grimace on the man’s thin lips. The ant gave up and began the long trek around his heel.

“Well then…” The brown shoes moved further into the pathway as the man in them leaned back and extended his legs. The groan was so familiar that he barely registered it. “Come to dinner.”

The voice was lackluster. The man thought about this request, and about how many times it had been made before. Through the years, sitting at a dinner table with other human beings had become a concept, a philosophy read about in books and academic journals. The way of the future, perhaps, but old dogs and new tricks…

“No. Thank you.”

“No,” agreed the brown shoes.

Writing Sample #2 - Philosophy Paper

The You/Me Phenomenon

Homo Sapiens are evolutionarily inclined to social groups. It has been encoded in our DNA through millions of years that our reliance on each other leads to a greater chance for survival. But society has changed, become more focused on individuality, and we now covet that elusive quality known as self reliance. Our necessity for other human beings has not diminished, but our motives and self images have changed. We no longer rely directly on those around us for survival, but for information, perspective, and personal gain. Through our social interactions, we learn things about ourselves that we would otherwise have no opportunity to explore, or even realize. For instance, the development of an enemy brings you face to face with your own code of conduct. Do you confront the enemy head on, or do you ignore them to the best of your ability? Do you yell at them, make snide remarks, talk behind their back, or freeze them out? What kind of person are you? These are traits that would otherwise never be considered or consciously revised if not provoked by an outside force. Friends, however, do not just allow you to view yourself from an outside perspective, they act as a mirror. Aristotle, Kant, Kierkegaard and countless others would agree that friends are those in whom you see some part of you. They are ‘other selves.’

The value of this lies in the idea of self love. Aristotle argues that “…blessedly happy and self-sufficient people have no need of friends. For they already have [all] the goods, and hence, being self-sufficient, need nothing added. But your friend, since he is another yourself, supplies what your own efforts cannot supply” (Pakaluk, 63). Friends allow us to love ourselves to an extent that we can not accomplish alone. For instance, the happiness one feels through aiding another, through being relied upon. This is also why we are only capable of maintaining a limited amount of true friendships at one time. The need for friendships is directly proportional to the amount of empty space or loneliness inside ourselves. When we are able to fill that space with sincerely meaningful relationships, we become sufficient on within those relationships, and no longer require anyone else.

Does this mean that the perfect friendship would, by definition, lead to its own end? After all, if a friendship were to eradicate that space and loneliness, eventually the need for even that relationship would dissipate, for we would become Aristotle’s blessedly happy and self-sufficient person, with no more need for the presence of others in our lives. I don’t mean to say, however, that friendships “cure” the empty space, so much as they allow us to acknowledge it. We are able to fully appreciate where our gaps are, which helps us to better navigate through life. To recognize the need that exists within us is enriching and valuable, but to eradicate that space has been the goal of religion, science, and philosophy for as long as we humans have suspected that we are fundamentally alone. It drives us to ask questions and seek out the company of others until we can find that mythic, superlative answer or other half that will finally let us rest, feeling complete and loved. Without those things, our need for others will not dissipate, and there is no inevitable end to a friendship.

Writing Sample #3 - Screenplay

EXT. STATE PARK
JACK and SUSAN are hiking with CARSON trailing behind. They are obviously adept hikers, but CARSON is wearing flip flops and jeans, and is covered in a sheen of sweat.

CARSON
Ick.

They ignore her.

CARSON (CON’T)
Has no one else noticed the correlation
between sun exposure and skin cancer?
I’m pretty sure some doctor wrote about
it somewhere.

SUSAN
You have sunscreen.

CARSON
I’m also pretty sure there is a
correlation between excessive
exercise and arthritis.

SUSAN
Exercise actually decrease your
chances of getting arthritis.

JACK shoots SUSAN a look that says ‘stop encouraging this’.

CARSON
Not excessive exercise!

JACK
Car, I guarantee you that your definition
and the medical definition of
excessive differ greatly.

They walk in silence for a while.

CARSON
I forgot about all these mosquitoes.

JACK
Do you want to go home?

CARSON
. . . no.

JACK
Then shut your trap and enjoy the scenery.

More silence.

SUSAN
My father wants me to ask Deborah to
come out.

JACK
And how would she afford that?

SUSAN
I think the implication is that we
would pay for it.

JACK
Of course it is.

CARSONS’ eyes close as their arguing voices fade away, obviously not wanting to hear anything else about the situation.

INT. CARSONS’ ROOM – LATER THAT NIGHT
The clock reads 2:42. CARSON lays in bed, eyes wide open and panicky. Her breathing is shallow and she is perfectly still for a moment before she flings her bed covers off.

INT. CARSONS’ CAR
CARSON is driving down an empty road in pitch black. The music is loud and upbeat and the windows are down, reminiscent of the opening scene, but this time it is so dark that the only thing to see is the road in front of the headlights, the white line ticking by. Her eyes are still wide.

INT. A DINER
Soft jazz is playing on the overhead stereo. CARSON sits in a booth by herself drinking coffee. She is reading the menu even though an empty plate sits beside her, and drumming her fingers on the table. She pours a sugar packet into a little creamer and shoots it. She colors with the crayons they give to kids on the back of the menu. She looks up and sees a group of three men her fathers’ age. They are dirty and unkempt, but they are laughing together over big plates of meat. One of them catches her eye in the middle of a laugh, winks, and goes back to his conversation. Her eyes begin to droop.

INT. CARSONS’ ROOM
CARSON is asleep on top of the comforter. The light is barely filtering in through the windows, and the clock reads 5:17. The birds begin to shrill, and CARSONS’ eyes pop open.

Long, catch upy and somewhat vow-making.

It's been a long time, and my apologies for that. Life sledded its' way downhill at an alarming speed and I've spent the last few months just trying to catch up. Long story short work dried up, so I had to get a pretty horrific full time job doing customer service over the phone, which left no time to pursue anything creative. My grandmother (on my fathers' side) was going to be fine, but then my uncle (on my mothers' side) was diagnosed with a terminal disease and moved into our basement in Colorado because he had no where else to go. Now my grandmother is not going to be fine and my family is in the process of pursuing treatment options around the US. We went to visit her and when I got back to LA, without any warning, there was a for sale sign in my front yard. Those are the big things, but really, everything in life suddenly and viciously turned on me. Describing it to other people, it didn't even sound real in my own ears because it was just so much, so big, so horrible, that it couldn't be true. I've led a very happy and tragedy-free life up until this point, so I couldn't process everything for a very long time. I'd get my head around one thing and the next would rear its' ugly head from whatever depths I'd buried it in and punch me in the solar plexus. I have since quit that job, and I did find a new place that I adore and cannot wait to move into (end of this month), but it's been hard to shake the negativity that has been dogging me.

Tonight is the night of the 4th of July. I went to Long Beach and ate at a BBQ and cruised the aquarium, pet sharks and sting rays, and watched at least 12 different fire works shows at once while driving home on a hill overlooking LA. I did all of this by myself, at first feeling a little pathetic and foolish, but as the night went on becoming more and more at ease. I've now come to the realization that this is life. This is my life happening right now. And I can spend it being heartbroken and worried and in my head, or I can open my eyes and take in what's around me. It's okay to be upset (I think it's an appropriate reaction to the goings on of late), but I've been rolling around in a mud of depression; sleeping in it, bathing in it, dressing in it. It's taken me out of my body and into a world that I have no desire to spend anymore time in. Yes, more pain is on the horizon, but I'll deal with that when it comes. And even then try to keep in perspective the fact that mortality is what makes life precious. It drives us to try, pursue, succeed. To make a mark. I can't guarantee that I'll accomplish these endeavors, but I do feel better right now, and I want to continue feeling better.

Perhaps this entry is too personal and if so, I apologize. I did want to explain my absence to whomever may pay attention, and also just get some of this stuff out of my head and onto cyberpaper. Thanks for reading.

P.S. I also bought a turtle necklace I named Winston.

Bad news.

My grandmother, with whom I spent almost every summer of my childhood and who paid for my entire college, found a lump in her groin. It was falsely diagnosed as a hernia, but now that she's been to see a specialist, they think it's something more serious. They are getting a biopsy and will have the results on Monday, but they say it doesn't look good. I am terrified.
I started my first acting class tonight, but I'm too concerned about this to enjoy that.

We wait.

Oh, happy day...

I'm spending my Valentines Day reading in a bookstore cafe, flanked by idiotic LA girls pouring through Star magazines and criticizing famous clothes, famous hair, famous men to whom they would do "very bad things" and giggling at each other. Loudly. That bubble-headed giggle that only dogs can hear. My greatest wish is that my ears will soon be so clogged with blood I can no longer hear them. I cannot think of worse VD company to keep.
Hope yours is more enjoyable.

Nevermind.

Hmn. Maybe it's next week.

(Hint)

If you have HBO, you should watch it tomorrow. Specifically Big Love. More specifically the wake. You may see a little someone, someone...

Ack!

The worst thing about multiple and flexible jobs is double booking yourself. Man, I am just so not a fan of making promises I can't keep. If I say I'm going to be somewhere, I need to be there. I guess this is part of the job, schedule juggling and the like, but like I said: Not. A. Fan. I don't know why when it rains it pours, but that certainly always seems to be the case. Then you have to quantify, consider priorities, decide who you have the greatest room to screw. Jeez, so not a screwer...
Anyway, booked with catering, extra job, and two auditions all in the same day. Why? Because I need a friggin' secretary, that's why. Stop asking sarcastic questions. Now I'm trying to worm my way out of one with the least amount of damage as possible.
Plus, cracked out on some kind of heroin-laced, super coffee not of this world, which is proving itself unhelpful in maintaining the mental faculties required for this sort of maneuvering. I wish there were three of me, and that none of them had drank that coffee.

Another magical day in the land of Los Angeles.

I met L at a party a few weeks ago. L is an established actor in his forties. The type of actor who, if I told you his name, you wouldn't know him, but if I told you what he'd been in, you'd say, "Oh, yeah. That guy."
L and I met for coffee yesterday so I could pick his brain about how to get my foot in the door. Just keep doing what I'm doing, was his basic advice. But L is also opening up a management company with another guy. He says they would be willing to audition me, and that I should get together a stack of head shots and resumes and drop them off with him when next I happen to find myself in Hollywood so he can distribute them to some of his contacts. "I like you," he told me, "and I'll help you any way I can." Always a nice thing to hear for someone in my position.

Afterward, while pulling out of a parking lot, a man crossed in front of my car on the sidewalk. He smiled at me and I reciprocated. This was an in, apparently, and he proceeded to come over to my window and insist that he was a swami (he pulled out a row of beads from under his shirt) and asked me if he could tell me my fortune, free of charge. I reluctantly agreed and, mace in hand, parked my car and sat on the sidewalk with him. He told me I'd been working for the past few years very hard, but with little results. He said this would change, that 2009 was the year in which I would make a breakthrough; I would be lucky. He then asked for money for the poor (free of charge). I had a dollar, so I gave it to him. He asked for more money for the poor. I showed him that that was all the money I had in my wallet, to which he graciously offered to escort me to an ATM machine.
I rudely declined. He told me that an ex-boyfriend had taken sexual advantage of me and put "bad voodoo" in my food. He offered to show me the bad voodoo. I told him I had to get to a meeting, so he pulled a "lucky stone" from his pocket, blew on it, and gave it to me. We shook hands and went our merry ways.

Later, I signed up with a group called The Actor's Network, or TAN for short. They are a group recommended to me by another actor I know, and supposedly they teach you how to be aggressive in the business part of the industry. How to market yourself, network, all the crap I'm really bad at. They have a little office in Studio City and don't promote themselves at all, started and currently still run by a working actor (who was on the X-Files, yay!). Their business is entirely based on word of mouth, which makes me a little less weary. Anywho, I'm giving them a shot.

I went to the gym, gymed until I felt the burn, and passed out at home. Wash, rinse, repeat.

The MFing SAG Awards!

I hate to be the one to break it to you, but Meryl Streep is a total cockblock. Here's the thing, Amy Adams graduated from the high school where my mother now works. Her former drama teacher sends out updates on her career to everyone in the district. We've been following her for years. I promised my mother if I ever saw Amy Adams that I would tell her all of this and let her know how proud everyone is of her. Well...I saw her. I saw her a lot. And she is beautiful. And I have a total girl crush on her. But first Alec Baldwin and then Meryl Streep just would not get away from her so I could talk to her or even slip her the note I absolutely did not write.
Fucking Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin.

She's nominated for an Academy Award, so that will be my next chance. If I have to elbow Streep in the face to get to her, I will do it.

Anyway...awesome! Totally awesome! I saw more stars then I can count on two hands, and I just couldn't seem to get away from the guy who plays Taub on House. Every time I turned around, there was Taub, in my face, trying to give me medical advice. Get over it dude, it's just a show.
One actor, who I will refer to as ? for the sake of discretion, was at one table as I was trying to get a dessert plate to the table next to him. The conversation went like this:

?: "Oh, desserts!"
Me: "I'm trying to get to table 14."
?: "Fuck table 14." ::Starts eating off my plate with his buddy::
Me: "Dude, come on..."
?: ::Waving his SAG Award in my face:: "See this! I won this, so I get to eat this." ::Waves donut in the air and then bites into it. It squirts on his sleeve:: "Oh, look what it did."
Me: ::Pointing:: "Haha! That's karma."

I found table 14. Then I felt bad and brought him his own dessert plate and said, a little sarcastically, "Congratulations on your award." He, both jokingly and petulantly, responded, "Now I'm not hungry." So I plopped it down on the table in front of him, said, "Fine. Someone else will eat it," and sauntered away. It was kind of a rockin' moment.

One thing I did learn is that I will never be famous. This is because if I only ate cabbage for the rest of my life and ran on the treadmill 23 hours a day and had 2.5 billion dollars worth of plastic surgery, I will still never be as skinny as 80% of the women there. I'm not going to lie, it's a weird phenomenon.

Stargazing.

To help make ends meat here in LA, I work part time as a cater waiter. This job, like any job, has its perks and drawbacks. Tonight, however, is one of those times where I would happily work for free because tonight, dear reader (whomever you may be), I get to go to the SAG awards. I will be in the same room with Meryl Streep, Josh Brolin, Sean Penn, Kate Winslet, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, and tons of other awesomeness. Now, whether this proximity will lead to auditory communication one can never tell, but regardless...well, that's all I got. I'm stoaked.

Time to prepare...

Expansion.

I am the only daughter of a pilot from Kokomo, Indiana and a nurse from Denver, Colorado. The first thing you should know about me, if your going to know anything, is that I have the greatest parents imaginable. Middle class, only child, abundant love. Unwavering support, no matter how outlandish my ideas about life. They would sell the clothes off their back to help me follow my dreams. This, however, doesn't mean that I get blindly spoiled. They don't hesitate to point out inconsistencies in my game plans, or snap me back into hard work mode when I fall into lazy, hopeless mode. They make me work for what I want, and then they fill in the gaps when I can't do it on my own. I owe them everything, even though they insist that I owe them nothing.

So, that out of the way, I grew up in Elizabeth, Colorado. A little town no one has ever heard of, populated by more cows than people. I went to the University of Northern Colorado for my first year of college and then transfered to the University of Hawai'i at Manoa to finish out my BA in Theatre. I then moved back to Colorado for one year, the worst year of my life thus far, in which I couldn't manage to keep a job because of the economy and, when I did, it was under abusive management who walked the line of illegality on their treatment of employees because they knew we couldn't afford to quit. My parents watched me be miserable and go from restaurant to restaurant as they shut down, falling like dominoes. Finally, after a particularly bad encounter, they offered me the money to move to LA and pursue my acting career under the conditions that 1) I never hide it from them if I am in financial trouble and 2) that I give it all I have, and not give up unless I am sure I won't regret it.

And that's what I did. At the end of July, 2008 the three of us drove my car from Colorado to California, we all had emotional breakdowns, and then my parents flew home. I was alone in one of the biggest cities in the world with no idea what I was doing. To be honest, I still don't know what I am doing. I got a job, met some friends, got another job, quit my first job, made more friends, and now I am working as a cater waiter and doing extra work on movies and TV shows. My full-time job is finding the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Right now I'm just doing laundry.

Welcome, welcome...

...to the start of a blog, a career, a life. My name is Mary Dena Shirley and this is my written account of my actions and the actions of those around me as I try to make it in the big ol' city of Los Angeles, California as an actor. It's also a way for those interested to keep up with whatever I may be up to (professionally speaking, although I'm no good at keeping my personal life out of anything, so I'm sure it'll seep through the cracks).

At the moment it's far too late for me to write anything of merit, but tomorrow I shall provide my foundational structure and outline the progress I've made in the six months since moving here. After that, well, sky's the limit, so they say. And They're always right, right? Of course They are.