A serious talk about ups and downs before the normal Thursday video.

Warning: This is a long video. This is also a serious video. For the normal, sassy/silly videos, please visit the YouTube channel or read further through Smile Big and Pretty.

I have been dealing with a few things in real life and, as a result, many things fell to the wayside - including my blog and other online endeavors. This malaise grounds itself in reality first, though, and I don't know what else to say other than it can make even the simplest tasks difficult to do.

For those of you who go through periods of feeling this way yet stay active online, you might know how important it is to keep these parts of yourself offline. I sometimes feel like I've mastered the art of convincing anyone who follows me online that I constantly live in a state of: "WAHOO!!!"

Sometimes I do go through spurts of unwarranted feelings of awesomeness! Sometimes they last a really long time.

I have gone through rough periods since I was little. The rough periods don't build an audience; they alienate it. I don't mean to alienate anyone, but rather to explain how I have been feeling and try to vocalize my resolve to never be defeated - even if I feel that way.

I am tired of feeling this way and disappointing myself. I'm not a hopeless person. Even when I go through periods like this, I can see them for what they are and try to stay as grounded and distract myself.

But I can't put the brunt of what it takes to feel better on distractions anymore. Successful people continue to create and work even when they feel like they can't. I have to continue to work through it.

And I will.

Dear SoCal Style: Wuuut.

I spent a long time trying to put my thoughts into words, but ultimately I have to get this off of my chest - eloquently or not so eloquently:

Dear Women's Fashion (particularly women's fashion in Los Angeles), 

What the actual fuck. 

Regards, 
Jas

I don't like to be the kind of person who obsesses over clothes. I don't like to sell myself as a person who finds themselves overly concerned with fashion trends. Since coming to LA, however, I have found myself at a complete and total loss as to what on earth these people are thinking.

Someone please explain to me why so many people find this appealing:

It's as if the junkie fashion god of SoCal thought, "How can I make people look frumpy and appear color blind? Oh. Wait. Let's jack the swagger of the Chilean Mountain People."

For a culture that places so much stock in how many curves they can squeeze out of a starving and/or drug-addled woman, LA sure does love dressing her in Joseph's Amazing Technicolor BURLAP SACK. 

I can't seem to walk into a store without some window display trying to sell me on clothes like this:

Really?

Because here's the deal:
I bust my ass running every single other other-other morning. (Really though. Sometimes every other morning.)
I engage in acts of fitness that scarily resemble the most frightening poses of the karma sutra with a kettle ball.
I occasionally wonder whether or not a steady regimen of coffee and laxatives would kill me - and, subsequently, if it would be worth it.
I dreat (drink+eat) shakes made out of kale, spinach, and speed lemon juice.

I do not do any of these things so I can pay F-you money to wear a glorified blanket and heels.

Also, let's talk about the gratuitous neon and pastel colors. Someone once told me that my distaste for pastels potentially red-flagged me as a crass person. That person was a chump.

I know, I know. This is all a matter of personal preference. But... really? Really?

 Inspired by the Toxic Avenger. 

There is one trend that I have been happy to buy into, though. The bando's. Bandeux. I have no idea how you spell it, but basically it's a ring of frilly fabric that you wear around your chest. Don't be fooled -  it's essentially a glorified bra. Unlike a bra, however, I can wear one of these under the most revealing shirt that I own - 

- and no one can judge. In fact (for some reason) they compliment. Women in LA don't worry about people branding them as skanks for wearing something that would get them kicked out of a restaurant on the east coast.

Then again, this is all coming from someone who feels that it is her personal duty as a woman to dress like a Scott Pilgrim character every single day. 

I guess it's a fair trade.

Manic-ures: a life spent keeping people OFF of my fingers.

I hate manicures. I think I hate manicures. Well. I used to hate manicures.

As a child I would accompany my mother on a half hour trek into the city to visit the mall nail salon. I'd sit in the the window while strange men and women in face masks hunched over countless sets of fingers and mercilessly picked, prodded, and painted tens of hundreds of nails.  At first I pretended that I had to infiltrate an evil scientist magician's secret lair. The display windows donned the forearms of old department store mannequins, their fingers merely serving as a base for the flashy, two inch pieces of vibrant and colorful acrylic. The scientist/magician game began when women walked in as normal people. It ended when they strutted away with hyper decorated robot hands.

I could never.

Mom would occasionally offer to let me get my nails done and, aside from this one time when I allowed them to spray paint dolphins on my finger tips, I never took her up on it. I don't event know why I let them do it that one time; I was never one of those little girls who experienced legitimate joy over the idea of dolphins.

NOPE

They disappeared almost immediately.
"The .. what have you done?" My mother scolded, grabbing my hands.
"Listen, Missy: do you understand that Mommy didn't pay people to paint dolphins on your nails just so you could scratch them off with your teeth two days later? Look at these! They look like a Japanese dolphin massacre."

Bad habits don't die when you're six, but more than that I simply didn't want people to touch my fingers. If the relentless need to chew on them failed to do me in, then the countless individuals grabbing my hands as if they were inanimate objects just so they could tell something I already knew - that they bore the striking likeness of the most popular of marine wildlife - prevailed. I found the risk of nail-to-skin contact just too much for me to handle. I experienced a visceral reaction that made me jerk my arms away. That reaction intensified whenever someone touched me with their feet and - oh god - their toenails made contact with my skin. They might as well have brushed my skin with city sewer barnacles.

In high school, I found lessons on the overhead to be particularly alarming. Something about a seeing a giant shadow hand with claws poking through the fingers that tried to show me how to do an algebra problem felt... unsettling.

We thought that my aversion to nails would diminish with time. Not so. In addition to being creeped out by fingernails in general, I associated manicures with a very specific kind of woman - a crazy woman. My mother got a free pass because she was my mother, but I believed that the fingernails were the source of the bitchiness in every woman's soul. It just struck me as a very odd thing to care about.

You should have me prepare for my first prom. I had somehow scored an invitation to neighboring high school's lavish affair when I played Fantine in a community theater production of Les Miserables: The School Edition. Some young rich kid who was really good at karate watched me die on stage and apparently that was enough to make him think,
"Man. I really want to take this girl out a few times."

When your child is as janky looking as I was back in those days, you don't run and grab the shot guns when a boy comes to the porch. You throw a party. At first it appeared as though my mother was beside herself with glee because a guy was willing to take me out on a date in public  - much less take me to a prom. I soon realized, however, that her enthusiasm stemmed from her desire to live out sacred bonding ritual between mothers and their daughters who approach that iconic social milestone in their life: the ritual of getting your child ready for her first prom.

While the other girls obsessed over the prom spreads of Seventeen, I rummaged through the closet until I found my sister's old prom dress. I liked it because it made my boobs look like I actually had them. I also loved it because it was the first time I had ever looked in the mirror and said, in the style of Cowboy Bill,
"Would you fuck me?! I'd fuck me!"

Because I had robbed her of the opportunity to go dress shopping Mom took me to this place in Athens called Hair Time! and I sat in a chair while this Korean lady and her husband pulled, twisted, braided, and teased my the stringy mess above my face until it sat on top of my head in a glorious, manic pile of curls and plastic twists of confetti. Then, for good measure, they literally dumped a cup of glitter all over it. It looked like a whole episode of Lizzie McGuire.

The lady smiled and violently clapped her hands, causing the flashy bits of metal to erupt from her fingertips. Then, wiping the rest off on her pants, pointed over the the manicure side of the salon, and simply said,
"Nail."
I looked at her as if she was joking. I looked to my mother - who was clearly not joking.
"Your butt. That chair. And if you chew them up when she's done, I'm gonna beat your behind."

Proof that the manicure and Lizzie hair didn't kill me.

She was referring to the last time I had gotten a manicure - the one with the dolphins.

-

As an actress with a lifelong aversion to manicures, print job auditions often turned into nightmarish experiences. Sometimes the photographer simply snapped a picture of me as I held a product. More often, though, the photographer uttered these dreadful words:
"I need you to show your hands for a close up."
Then they snapped what I could only imagine was a horrific, detailed close up of my janky looking man hands that captured every wrinkle, every crease, every cuticle, and every physical embodiment of my blatant disregard for my hands.
"Well," I typically thought as I meekly flashed both sets of phalanges in the air, "Not booking this one."
And I never booked one.
Until I did.

I was in the middle of a Hulu marathon when my phone rang.
"Hi?"
"Hello?" came a thick, Brazilian accent.
"Is this Jas?"
"Yes?"
Why was everything suddenly a question?
"Jas? Jas! This is Marina with DePo Studios. Last month you came in for an audition for a printer advertisement."
"Oh! Oh yes! It's great to hear from you."
"Thank you, thank you. Listen, Jas? We are calling because we want to book you for the ad. We shoot this Thursday. Are you still available?"
I nearly dropped the phone.
"You're serious? You guys really want to use me?"
"Yes.. yes."
"Even with my crazy man hands?"
"Well, we wanted to talk to you about those."
"You're going to use someone else's hands."
"What?"
"To cover up my janky hands."
"No. So the client loved your look and your attitude. You just need a manicure. A big manicure."
I loved how dismissive she was of everything I said. A woman on a mission, that one. 

I didn't know the first thing about manicures, but I remembered that near my apartment, sandwiched between a head shop and a Chinese take-out place, was a little place called "No. 1 Nail." I walked there the day before the shoot and spent ten minutes trying to tell the lady at the desk that I didn't need acrylic tips, gel, and that under no circumstances was anyone to touch my feet.
"What kind of nail?"
"What do you mean?"
"French?"
"Um. No?"
"Round."
"I have no idea. I just need a basic manicure. Nothing fancy."
The woman stared at me.
"It's for a job. A Print job. I just need decent looking hands."
"Ok, ok, ok, ok," the lady said quickly. She whistled to an elderly woman sitting in the back and said something to her in a language that I didn't understand. The old woman nodded and motioned for me to follow her.
She pointed to a chair and motioned for me to put my hands in a bowl of hot water. Then, she put on one of those masks that made me think of the afternoons I spent at Georgia Square Mall and pretended that scientists were giving my mother bionic robot hands.
"Short or long?" the lady mumbled.
"Um..." I stammered, looking at my fingers. I was under the impression that my nails were tragic and stumpy, but I worried that if I said long she might try to glue things on them. I shuddered and replied,
"Sh-short. Short's good."

"Hello?"
All of a sudden, a tinny voice that sounded nearly identical to that of Meg Tilly rang through the shop.
"Do you have time to a mani-pedi?" she asked. I whipped my head around to see a woman who looked like she could be a battered mistress in an episode of Law&Order: SVU. She sported fake eyelashes, tons of eye shadow, and her cakey makeup did little to cover the two thick scars on her jawline and neck. She took a seat in such a way that suggested she was quite used to this. She began to ask for specific things: swirls, sparkles, french tips, and something about a color to compliment the eyeshadow she was wearing. She knew exactly what to say. She was so together - except, of course,  for the fact that she was an undeniably hot mess. This was the woman I associated with manicures. Her and the girls in my sixth grade class who undoubtedly grew up to be country club wives.

So distracted was I that I hadn't noticed the elderly woman had filed my nails all the way down. To the quick. The next step would have been ripping them off completely.
"There," she said, finishing with some clear polish, "Short."
I managed a thank you, paid, and walked home - scared to show up to set the next day.

As it turned out, production felt satisfied with my hands enough to demo all kinds of products. Printers, iPhones, iPads... I spent twelve hours holding things. They didn't use my face on camera once. Suddenly, I felt that maybe my hands weren't so janky looking after all. Suddenly I wasn't afraid of print job auditions anymore. Suddenly I stopped associating manicures with crazy women and dilapidated mob boss victim-wives. Suddenly I was interested in breaking my nail biting habit for good. Suddenly I felt that much more "L.A."

Suddenly manicures weren't so bad.

... But let's not even talk about pedicures.

Or dolphins. 

Video Blog: Crazy Tattoo Stories and Hotel Dancing: Jas Goes to Virginia!

New Video Blog!

Yeah, I drank my contact lenses. Marry me.

When I booked a show on Discovery ID,  I thought that I'd be able to tell you all about the exciting and fast paced world of re-enactment television. At least, that's what I thought until I swallowed my contact lenses and couldn't see a damn thing. I am currently re-tracing the experience of filming through Instagram pictures and will happily tell you all about it as soon as I figure out what the hell actually happened.

I tend to assume that everyone who wears contact lenses has lost the case at some point, if not several. How could you not? It's tiny. There are pieces.

I noticed that the case was missing as I prepared for bed after the first day of shooting. Realizing that it must have gotten lost when Wardrobe went through my suitcase to see if owned anything suitable enough for television, I did what I normally do when I can't find the case or feel too lazy: I grabbed a glass. I filled it with contact lens solution. I took out my contacts and dropped them in.

Plunk, plunk. Don't judge.

Dramatic re-enactment.

I then ate half of a medium sized pizza and went to sleep, only to wake up the next morning groggy, bloated, and insatiably thirsty. I drug my feet all the way to the desk, grabbed another piece of pizza, and then drug my feet all the way to the bathroom. I stared at myself in the mirror as I ate my pizza if, for nothing else, then to face and own up to the fact that I was gross.

Suddenly thirst re-entered the priority chain.

Dramatic re-enactment.

I filled a glass with water and drank with intent to quench. I remember feeling something solid in my mouth, which doesn't normally happen with normal glasses of water, but I figured it was just stray pizza and gulped down the rest without thinking. The next three seconds happened in the slowest of slow motion: as I began to set the glass down, I noticed the bottle of contact lens solution. I looked to the glass and thought, "Man, that water did taste a little salt- NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO."


 
Dramatic Re-enactment.

Feverishly slamming my hands onto the bathroom counter, I tried to come up with a solution to my question of ingestion.
"Is it possible to get another pair?" I wondered. 
I knew before I even booked this show that I was running on a single pair of contacts and an expired prescription. I could have gone to the optometrist so that I could take an extra pair with me to the shoot, but I glanced at my bank account and chuckled as I said,
"Too expensive. I can hold off!" before I called up a buddy to ask for an opinion on what to buy for a birthday party that night: one bottle of Fireball or an entire case of Two Buck Chuck.
I made a mental note to work on my sorry priorities.
"Ok," I thought, "my stomach won't begin to really digest anything for another twenty minutes. Maybe... I mean, I only just swallowed them..."

I wondered how harshly people would judge me if they ever found out just how seriously I thought about retrieving my contacts. It was bad enough that I once salvaged an unruly lens by putting it in my mouth before forcing it back into my eye.
"Ew, are you kidding me?" said this girl I had gone to school with, "My mom is an eye doctor and told me that putting a contact in your mouth is just like taking a giant shit on it and then putting it back in your eye!"
If putting something in your eye that had been in your mouth equaled pooping on it, then I cringed at the idea of what it to put something in your eye that bad been in your stomach.

"Well," I thought, "maybe I'll just throw up and evaluate the situation from there."'
If you know me in real life and want to stop being friends with me because of what you are about to read then I don't blame you - but I tried.
And I couldn't.
Not because I was above it.
But because I just physically couldn't. One finger, two fingers, three fingers, trying different positions, or drinking copious amounts of water; the montage possibilities were endless, but my body refused to cooperate.

And that's how I didn't see my first experience on cable television. 

On the bright side, at least I didn't ingest rat poison.


Oh, and I finally went to the damn optometrist.

New Video! Second Hand Impressions: Al Gore.

"Hi! I'm Al Gore!"

Waiting on the Craws.

When I think back to what inspired my stone faced resolve to never wait tables again, I think of countless embarrassing, frustrated moments filled wrong orders, badly calculated math, and lack of mental organization necessary to juggle five to six tables without the aid of a POS system, bussers, or back-waiting staff of any kind. Yes, these experiences tainted my confidence, but the night I waited on the Craws was possibly the most shameful two hours of my serving career.

That night began with a bang when the owner pulled me aside while I prepared water for a new two-top that had just walked in.
"Those are the Craws," she hissed, "and they are very, very important customers."
I paused. Craw. The name evoked an audible response from my gut.
"That means do not screw this up," she said, taking the glasses from the sink and placing them on my tray. She grabbed my shoulders, spun me around, and pushed me in the direction of their table. The journey across the dining room to their spot by the window seemed to last for hours. I hadn't seen Mr. and Mrs. Craw since I acted in a community theater production of Cinderella with their daughter, Holly, a few years prior. Holly, a true triple threat if I ever saw one, had since gone off to NYU to become even more of a musical theater prodigy than she was in the first place. My life failed to include that kind of good fortune and, after a particularly nasty experience at school, I found myself back in Athens waiting tables as I attempted to put my life back together.

I silently focused my energies on hoping that they wouldn't recognize me, but my ability to bend the universe to my will clearly needed more work. The first thing that Mrs. Craw said to me was,
"You look familiar."
"Really?"
"No, really. Do you do theater?"
 I briefly considered lying. Then I scanned her over and, summing her up as kind of woman who wouldn't let something go, opted to give up my identity and said,
"Actually, yes."
"I knew it! I think that you were in some shows with our daughter."
The idle chat that followed was excruciating. They told me all about Holly and how much she loved the stimulating environment of New York City.
"She's going places," her father gushed.
"I have no doubt. She's incredibly talented," I replied. 
"What about you? Do you still do theater?"
"Oh, you know... I did."
"What happened?"
"Well... I mean... I went to school for opera and things .... yeah." I stalled.
"Well, that life isn't meant for everyone. Nothing wrong with that. Someone people just have that drive."
He meant Holly. Not the girl waiting on his table.
"Yeah... I'll get my drive back at some point," I said, trying to laugh it off. I looked off to the side and pretended to see another table signal for my attention. I turned back and before I could get an, "I'm sorry, but..." out of my mouth, Mr. Craw waved his hand in understanding.
"We are keeping you from your other tables. Please, go ahead." 
Score.
"So," I asked, "may I get you something to drink other than water?"
"Oh," Mr. Craw said, scanning over the wine list, "The Hook & Ladder Chardonnay will work just nicely."
Everything about the next three minutes screams amateur in my memory; the slow walk to the cooler, the stepping stool that I had to use to get to the bottle, and the less than composed manner in which I tried to unscrew the cork at Mr. and Mrs. Craw's table. After a small struggle, I managed to pour a taster for Mr. Craw.
"This smells even better than last time," he said, surprised.
"Really?" Mrs. Craw said, taking the glass from him. She shook the taster in a circular motion the way that most people with any knowledge of wine do and, after a small taste, said,
"This is great."
"Oh, wonderful," I said, breathing a sigh of relief, "I'm so happy that you like it!"
I poured full glasses for both.

"Wow, who sold the Hook & Ladder Third Alarm?" asked Sherry, the lead server, glancing at the list of wines that had gone out to tables. She rolled it up and hit me over the head with it.
"Mark it on the sheet, dummy!" she teased.
"I did mark it," I replied.
"No, you marked a regular bottle. Third Alarm is the reserve Chardonnay. It's sixty-three dollars a bottle."
"But I sold a bottle of the regular Hook & Ladder chard."
She glanced over toward the cooler and then back to me. 
"You sure about that?"
Some people are wired to be amazing waitstaff. Our restaurant, with its complete and utter lack of anything geared toward making the place run efficiently, needed at least one person with spacial awareness abilities so acute that they that bordered on superhuman. Sherry was that person - and if Sherry stopped whatever she was doing to tell you that you made a mistake, then you fucked up.
"I thought I was sure. Why?"
"Go look at the shelf."
I remember the next thirty seconds vividly. I almost pressed my nose against the glass of the enormous cooler and stared at the two shelves. 
"What do you see on the middle shelf?"
"Hook and Ladder," I answered.
"What color is the label?"
"White."
"See any missing bottles?"
"No."
"Good job. Now glance up at the top shelf. What do the bottles say?"
"Hook and Ladder."
"What color is the label?"
"Black."
"Now for the final question: what does the fancy red cursive under the company name say?"
"It says," I stammered, "it says reserve."
"So. The middle shelf is full, the reserve shelf is not, and I sure as hell didn't go to the cellar in the middle of my shift to restock a single bottle of white wine. So, lady. Whatcha think happened?"
I looked over the the Craw's table in time to see him pour his wife another generous glass of wine from a bottle with a black label.
"Oh shit," I breathed, diving behind the bar, "Shit, shit, shit shit shit!"
"Did you really just duck and cover?" asked Sherry.
"No!"
"Yes, you did. You're still doing it."
"What in hell am I going to do?" I gasped.
"Well, not that I'm an expert at bringing the wrong wine to a table, but they are drinking it and the label clearly says it's a reserve wine. Did you present the bottle like you were supposed to?"
"Yes."
"Then whatever. They're drinking it. They're happy."
"They won't be happy when they get the bill! "
"Chill out, lady. They may not even notice."
"Not notice a fifty dollar price difference?"
"Rich people are weird like that. Now get up off the floor."

I displayed shoddy service at best for the remainder of their meal. I avoided eye contact, small talk, and executed all of my serving duties as quickly as I could. The only thing I couldn't do quickly enough was pour more wine. Pouring wine took skill. It required me to stand in one place and use a steady hand - a task that I found most difficult to accomplish since it invoked the unmistakable sting of my folly.

I felt my face grow hot as I made my way to their table with the bill.  I set their freshly boxed leftovers on the table with less confidence than I would have liked to.
"And this is the check for whenever you're ready," I said, as sweetly and smoothly as I could. Even though I immediately turned and started for the kitchen with a hurried pace, I only made it a few feet before I heard,
"Um, Miss? Could you come back for a second?"
The sudden and ferocious beating of my heart nearly knocked me over. I slowly turned and made my way back to the table. Mrs. Craw was holding the check in front of Mr. Craw's face.
"Is this a mistake?" she asked, "The check says this wine is sixty dollars."
"It's -" I stuttered, my eyes widening as though I had only just then realized the error - "It's the Hook and --"
"This isn't what we --"
"Ahem."
We both looked to Mr. Craw, who took the bill from Mrs. Craw and slipped his AMEX into the fold.
"You can take it. This is fine."
His wife nearly fell off of her seat.
"But look at the --"
"It's fine," he said, shooting her a look to end all discussion. Then he turned to me and said,
"Jas. Thank you for a lovely meal."
As I walked away, I picked up their audible whispers.
"She did that on purpose."
"What if it was just a mistake?"
"A forty dollar mistake?"
"This discussion is over. I am not going to embarrass that poor girl over a couple of twenties."

I brought the bill back to the table.
"Thank you," I said, quietly, "I'm sorry about any --"
Mr. Craw waved his hand one more time.
"Please. No worries. Thank you for a wonderful evening."
Mrs. Craw said nothing as she took her coat and purse. Mr. Craw took out a twenty and laid it on the table.
"The service was wonderful. I wish you all the best."
They turned and made their way through the front door and into the night.

"So how'd it go? Were they pissed?" Sherry asked, poking for dirt.
"The wife was."
"D'he still tip you?"
I nodded.
"Yeah, I figured. I like them. Good folks."
"Yeah," I murmured, "Good folks."

Normally I pocketed any tips as soon as a party left the restaurant. That night, however, I cleared all of the dirty dishes and completed my side work before I touched his gratuity. I saved the it for last. It was too generous. Every time I looked at it I felt he was in the room, pushing something that leaned toward pity on me.

I finally grabbed it and stuffed it in my back pocket before I clocked out.

I cried a little as I drove home.