Losing My Looks/When I was a 'Ho. Part One.
“Joke ‘em if they can’t take a f***.”
Robin Williams
“Bisexuality doubles your chance for a date on Saturday night.”
Woody Allen
(i was blessed and honored to have Feed the Cat link to this piece of mine in a post of hers in which she provided links to several others. i mean, to have someone read you, period, is great. but to have someone go back and read your first posts on OS???? there are no words.
This post is from back in January, when i just joined up on OS. i've included the comments from back then. i feel honored that some of the same people are still my favorites and part of my readership. i had workshopped this in Santa Barbara, at the conference, so it's a pretty polished piece, not just right off the top of my head. same deal with Brushes with Death. bad thing to do, people. don't show your polished work at the beginning. then you start just blogging and people abandon you. bigtime. except for the loyal and lovely ones, of course. love love love!!! and Part Two:
open.salon.com/blog/theodora_lengle_knight/2009/01/10/losing_my_looksi_was_a_ho_part_twoTHIS LINK WORKS, GUYS! )
My love and sexual history was already lengthy and complicated by the time I arrived in Hell Lay. I’d had way more than my share of conquests. I wasn’t even remotely healthy about men, dating, sex, about any of it, until my early to mid-thirties. Most people who come from extreme dysfunction have some trouble being intimate. I never quite grasped the whole delayed gratification concept – sexual tension made me nuts and I felt compelled to act on it immediately -- so I accumulated way too many male data points over the years. Now I tell people I’m a Recovering Ho, and they laugh because I’m so un-ho-like now, but I was a real player back in the day. L.A. was a major enabler for me. So many gorgeous men. So little time.
(This is what i looked like back then, when i was 'ho-ing and stuff and being a baby screenwriter. i was freaking hawt! i'm so glad i knew that at the time.)
(and now, talking talking talking. hmmm, i wonder why i have no In Person friends...)
I was thirty-three when I moved to L.A. from the San Francisco Bay Area. Still an accountant, not yet in recovery.
I’d had my nose done, finally, partly to get a break from the hell that was the Big 8 accounting firm, but I was also burnt out on being called the girl with the big nose or hearing “you’d be exquisite if you just got your nose fixed”. And more than one guy at U.C. Berkeley telling me how much it sucked that there were no attractive women in our MBA program. “How terrible for you,” I’d say ironically, since I was technically still a woman even though twenty percent of the S.F. population was gay and I’d begun to say that I was getting a “Much Bigger Assholes” degree since at least eighty percent of my colleagues fit into that category. In my not-a-fan-of-Reagan opinion.
I believe strongly now that Asshole should be in the DSM IV or V, right under agoraphobia and anxiety. And that kind of asshole did not find me any more sexually desirable than the huge gay male population. They preferred waspy republicans.
So I’d had the rhinoplasty and was working in finance at Paramount Pictures and Universal Studios and having multiple brushes with greatness. I loathed my work but was thrilled to run onto the Solid Gold set beside Ted Danson to hear Julian Lennon – I also sneaked on to the Cheers set as often as I could. Access was easy when you wore a suit and looked dull. My downwardly mobile instincts were already in place, of course. So I was rude to a very hairy Martin Scorcese and didn’t let him use my phone right away, thinking he was a go-fer with a film canister under his arm.
And I took way too much of Sherry Lansing’s time – she later became head of Paramount – when I saw her under the dryer at the chi-chi salon. Both she and Marty could not have been kinder or more pleasant. Bolstering my theory that truly talented and successful people are cool. It was the social climbing Protestant wannabes from Des Moines who’d given me the hardest time when I was at Harvard. Back when I was so smaht, as they say in Boston, but, sadly, a Jew.
My finance job at Universal was even more hideous and dull than my Paramount one had been and I’d only lasted there for four months. So I decided to take a break and get liposuction on my upper thighs. It was not yet clear to me that I was exorcising my real estate developer and future ex-con mother from my body. I wanted to fit into the slimmer-silhouette pants that I coveted. I wanted to Fit In.
Actually, my plastic surgeries are two of the least stupid things I’ve done in my life. Which is saying a whole lot. Clothes fit better. I felt prettier. I truly had solved some appearance issues.
“What kind of a nose would you like?” asked my artistic surgeon.
“Well, I don’t want that tiny nose. The one my cousins and Joan Van Ark all have…”
“Honey, you can’t have a small nose,” he said, not at all unkindly, “You have an enormous nose for your face.”
“Did you have something done to your eyes?” my lovely chiropractor asked a few weeks later.
“No,” I answered pragmatically. “You can see my eyes now."
He nodded, clearly pleased for me.
“Pull down your pants,” my shorter and even more saddle-bagged sister demanded when I was back east on business, dragging me into the hotel bathroom to see the fantastic results.
“Wow,” she murmured. “You don’t have to wear bell-bottoms anymore.”
My sister was practical about everything in life. My envy of her nature and her closeness with my mother knew no bounds. Her view was that if we’d been stretched on a rack, we’d have the perfect body. She did leg lifts religiously but, having the adoring husband and new baby, she felt none of the stupid urgency that I felt to try to be beautiful.
Of course no matter how lovely you feel or become, in L.A. you are average at best. Which was actually okay with me. It had been so long since I’d had any positive attention from men, from anyone really, since I was not popular among either the MBAs, the accountants or the financial analysts, that I felt like I’d been re-born.
“Do I have something yucky on my face?” I asked my two gay and San Francisco-familiar male friends. “People are staring at me.”
“Noooooo. they howled. “They LIKE women here!”
They were delighted for me, so I joyfully returned to being the Ho I’d been before business school. It was time to date again, to have enjoyable sex. Which did not turn out to be a challenge despite my not being a Perfect Blond.
I had traffic-stopping red hair. A homeless man actually ran up to me when my car was stalled at an Arby’s near Hollywood Boulevard and yelled, “I could see your hair from all the way down the street!” And a strange woman accosted me on Venice Boardwalk, desperate to know my formula. They were not exactly my target market. i miss those days of knowing exactly how you were doing (Portlanders are all about Early North Face/Early Wilderness Expedition and never give compliments, which can really suck when you are older and invisible.) But a compliment means something in L.A.. I had a buff body, finally was at my fighting weight and a very slowly burgeoning screenwriting career since a TV movie I’d written with a partner was being optioned by NBC.
The relief I felt at being able to answer “I’m a writer” to the “what do you do?” question was palpable. When you say you work in finance, the other person’s eyes glaze over, It's painful when you know in your gut that you are more interesting and certainly much funnier than what you do implies.
There was no arrogance or attitude in my saying that I was a screenwriter. I felt buoyed by the knowledge that there was something I loved to do, at which I might possibly also make a living. I was naïve and had no idea about the angst-ridden years ahead, but that was a blessing and I had the glow of someone who’s learned that life might have positive possi-bilities.
So I had the glow and the vitality that made me feel radiant and irresistible. I was told over and over again that I looked like (pick one)Diane Wiest, Marsha Mason, Melissa Gilbert, Fran Drescher, and when I was blondish and in a dark Irish pub, Stephanie Powers, by both strangers and pals in the Industry whose job it is to know who people look like. Two visually impaired people insisted I looked like Sandra Bullock.
“But you can’t see,” I blurted, ungratefully, and then, "Thank you so much."
At the time I knew I must look like some celebrity whom people liked. A lot. It was so much fun. Strangers waved at me from their cars. Offered me free food in restaurants.
“Good luck on the Emmys,” said the ticket booth woman at the Beverly Connection Cineplex.
“Thank you,” I replied, modestly.
“Are you anybody?” asked a tourist, rushing up to me at Farmer’s Market next to CBS Studios
“No. No, I’m not,” I’d say truthfully, the first few times it happened.
But they’d look so crestfallen, and, after all, technically, I was somebody. So I’d say, very humbly of course, “Yes, yes, I am.” And they’d run off shrieking to Harold or Irving that they’d just met ______. I never bothered to find out who they thought I was. It didn’t matter. It wasn’t about being famous or being taken for famous. It was about feeling visible, vital and viable in my life again.
Thankfully, there was no way to know then that my life would change so much after the riots and the earthquake and, well, everything that followed, and it warms my heart to know that I knew I was attractive and appealing and alive when that was going on. One of the cherished time periods that I don’t look back on with wrenching regret.
I’ll get to the marathon dating and to the sex in a minute, since I’m not a relentless tease. But first I need to describe what I was up against. How amazing it truly was that I was able to hold my own in that social scene and how satisfying it was, as superficial as it sounds now, and how much I sometimes miss it all now that I have lost my libido and my looks. After all, I had just found my looks and it was thrilling. Especially considering all the perfectly stunning blond actresses who always insisted on sitting next to me in bars and nightclubs since I was so scared of women (see above description of my "mother") that I had no desire whatsoever to compete with them.
So there I's be in a fabulously funky bar or dance club in Hollywood or on Melrose Avenue or the 3rd Street Promenade. The glow I felt gave me the confidence to go anywhere and everywhere by myself. Music and dancing, almost any kind, made me hugely happy. Jazz and blues were my favorites but the most fun venue was the Crush Club, where people of all ages could gyrate around by themselves, if they wanted, to Motown and 50s and 60s rock’n’roll.
There I would contentedly be, all ho’d up for the night, and in would walk a Perfect Blond. I’d smile at her instinctively, which she would inevitably misread as an invitation and sit down next to me.
“You are gorgeous.” I’d say, because it was so totally true.
“Thank you,” she would reply and be relieved and delighted that I didn’t seem to loathe her, which I didn’t. I was another species entirely, with my large pores – well, any pores at all because the Perfect Blond didn't have any. Well, I was human, and she was NOT.
“You’re very pretty too,” she’d say, because she was not unkind, had no reason to be, as the bartender drooled nearby. “Well, thank you for saying that,” I’d demur. Then take a breath and a beat.
“This is awkward but do you think you could sit somewhere else?” I’d ask the PB very politely. “I won't meet anyone with you here." Not mentioning that I was in heat or what a giant ho I was. The PB would nod knowingly and move on to another bar stool or table where she would be most welcome if there were no other women around.
These kinds of interactions became second nature. But this pattern did come to a ridiculous head, even for me, one night in the hip and trendy Ladies Room of a hip and trendy restaurant in Santa Monica. I was washing my hands and blotting the sheen off my post-rhinoplasty nose in the strategically and fashionably oddly-angled metal mirror and feeling particularly okay about myself since I was on a date with a very cute guy who looked like he might be able to both pay for dinner and be a lot of fun later on.
So, of course, in walked a Perfect Blond. She was a brunette actually, but she was so stunning that she might as well have had the golden locks. And she was crying. Not the full out ugly cry, of course. But there were tears.
“My boyfriend doesn’t like my new dress. He says I look hippy.”
I stared at her in the mirror, mesmerized. She didn’t have any hips to speak of. She was perfect. The designer dress was cut just right. She was beyond gorgeous.
I’ve always wanted to write a play called the Ladies Room where there are women looking in the mirror and talking to each other while they polish themselves, but then there are women on the other side of the glass who are the ones truly doing the talking. Since women never look at each when they talk at the sinks. Their reflections do the speaking and the listening. And women bond in those rooms in ways that men and children will never ever understand. Maybe because we don’t actually look at each other. Our reflections do it all for us and that makes us feel safer.
“Your boyfriend is an asshole,” I said, with complete and total conviction. “You look perfect. You could not look better if you were framed on a wall. You are beautiful.”
She smiled at me, hopefully. “You think?”
“I know,” I said, wishing I didn’t have so much more faith in other people than I did in myself, as much as I actually did like myself in those days. “I do some screenwriting. I’ve worked at the Studios a bit. Seen lots and lots of amazing-looking women. You’re right up there. Tell him to fuck off.”
She wiped off the tears. Re-applied her lipstick.
“Thank you so much.” And, then, on her way out the door, “You’re very pretty, too.”
When you find yourself comforting PBs in the Ladies Room when you are not remotely that way yourself, that should be a sign that it’s time to move on. Up, up and away from L.A. I did do that eventually, only got myself an hour and a half north, but it felt at the time like a whole other world. But I was still in L.A. and I was intoxicated with maybe being somebody. I had just found my looks and I wanted to make use of them.
Which all led, inevitably, to the dating and the fabulous dysfunctional sex…
To Be Continued in Part Two
(UPDATE!!! for those who are telling me to write more and such, this will be a chapter in my Prozac On Paws memoir. maybe two chapters. and i feel no motivation to write the Ladies Room play. not when i have this place and the POP memoir about agoraphobia and the service dogs who can save those of us suffer with it. but, shit, i am so grateful for the encouragement and belief in me that i could kick ass with that play. it's what i hope to do with my Tale of Three Spayed Females.)
Author tags:
screenwriting, dancing, sex, ho, hell layComments
Sometimes, you have to be "somebody" before you can be "nobody".
You sure write well for a "recovered accountant" :)
You sure write well for a "recovered accountant" :)
Extremely well written, Teddy. I'm not going to comment much because I never have understood girl/women things (ask Sue) and whatever I say will either be wrong, dumb or trite. Better I enjoy the read and let you write. Good job. I felt like one of those spy cameras watching every move.
Monte
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Monte
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Ooops! that ra was actually "rated" but the computer ate the "ted." No double entendre (sp?) intended. But this is good for the feed.
MC
MC
Great writing---great story.
I,too, live in LA---even worse---Malibu. I, too, was that accountant for a while---in the Industry for a while---(know that eye glaze over look well) surprised I didn't swallow my own tongue to end it all on some days. Finally figured out that the round peg was never going to fit into the square hole. Got into marketing---distilled spirits---that particular industry---it's got a little "rock star" quality to it---but soon it became "rock star legends in our own minds" quality.
Looking forward to another installment of your adventures.
I,too, live in LA---even worse---Malibu. I, too, was that accountant for a while---in the Industry for a while---(know that eye glaze over look well) surprised I didn't swallow my own tongue to end it all on some days. Finally figured out that the round peg was never going to fit into the square hole. Got into marketing---distilled spirits---that particular industry---it's got a little "rock star" quality to it---but soon it became "rock star legends in our own minds" quality.
Looking forward to another installment of your adventures.
Great post - look forward to number 2. Thanks for making me smile :)
There are many things in life I am glad I have not been a part of and life in Hell A is one of them.
Fantastic. I live in Southern California and always felt "other". (Or as M.A.H. said, "a round peg in square hole".)
I’ve worked my entire adult life in L.A., in the motion picture industry: From business and finance, to production and distribution, both at the minors and now at the majors. So what’s particularly fun (at least to me) about reading this is how the parts about the business and L.A. truthfully come from that insane world. Your humility and your sympathy and good humor for those in that world who are in need of ‘self-image repair’ is, well, heartwarming. (Classically funny bit, the return comment to the chiropractor).
This is fairly wonderful stuff. Bravely (and painfully) funny, as well as illuminating. Thank you for sharing it.
(Used to love the Crush Club up in Hollywood. One night a week they’d spin just soul and R&B after 11 PM).
This is fairly wonderful stuff. Bravely (and painfully) funny, as well as illuminating. Thank you for sharing it.
(Used to love the Crush Club up in Hollywood. One night a week they’d spin just soul and R&B after 11 PM).
You wrote this so well that I don't even mind that I didn't get to read about the sex this go 'round. You are a very intelligent and naughty ho, knowing just how to get us coming back for mo.
david decker -- how very cool that you know the Crush Club. i've missed it so much over the years. is the mint lounge still there or harvey's? i love blues. thank you so much for the lovely comments. if i got it right in your eyes, well, i feel really proud.
I thoroughly enjoyed this post and can't wait for your second installment. Fantastic!!
Yep, The Mint’s still going strong. Not sure about Harvey’s, though – don’t know of any blues clubs by that name; unless you meant Harvelle’s in Santa Monica, the standard for small, dark blues clubs by the beach since the 30’s! Still a very cool joint.
yes, cool, i meant Harvelle's. i loved it there too. mixed it up with comedy club here in portland. remember Catalina Bar and Grill too, for jazz. god, there are things i really miss about l.a. :food -- is the authentic cafe still there on beverly or hot wings on melrose?, the shopping -- i lived in park labrea, 15 minute walk from melrose, 5 to lacma. loved that museum.
shutting up. just no one likes to talk about good things of l.a.
oh yes, would you pass my post on to others on here or elsewhere? this is the first thing i've written that i really like since my brain tumor treatment took my writing "voice" away. could use as much feedback as possible!!!
love and gratitude!
shutting up. just no one likes to talk about good things of l.a.
oh yes, would you pass my post on to others on here or elsewhere? this is the first thing i've written that i really like since my brain tumor treatment took my writing "voice" away. could use as much feedback as possible!!!
love and gratitude!
Revealing one's sexual history in print is risky business. Who among us wouldn't want to jazz things up just a bit? I found the matter-of-fact delivery of your journey appealing. Not going for shock or schlock, just telling a story.
Great story, offering a glimpse of a world that I can only imagine. Can't wait for Part Two!
"I’ve always wanted to write a play called the Ladies Room where there are women looking in the mirror and talking to each other while they polish themselves, but then there are women on the other side of the glass who are the ones truly doing the talking. "
Write it.
Write it.
“I believe strongly now that Asshole should be in the DSM IV or V”
LMAO! Ain’t that the truth!
“I’ve always wanted to write a play called the Ladies Room where there are women looking in the mirror and talking to each other while they polish themselves, but then there are women on the other side of the glass who are the ones truly doing the talking. Since women never look at each when they talk at the sinks. Their reflections do the speaking and the listening. And women bond in those rooms in ways that men and children will never ever understand. Maybe because we don’t actually look at each other. Our reflections do it all for us and that makes us feel safer.”
You gotta do this, girl! That would be a badass play, I’d go see it!
This was just brillant . . . .I love your style and use of humor, its perfect and really makes your writing sing!
LMAO! Ain’t that the truth!
“I’ve always wanted to write a play called the Ladies Room where there are women looking in the mirror and talking to each other while they polish themselves, but then there are women on the other side of the glass who are the ones truly doing the talking. Since women never look at each when they talk at the sinks. Their reflections do the speaking and the listening. And women bond in those rooms in ways that men and children will never ever understand. Maybe because we don’t actually look at each other. Our reflections do it all for us and that makes us feel safer.”
You gotta do this, girl! That would be a badass play, I’d go see it!
This was just brillant . . . .I love your style and use of humor, its perfect and really makes your writing sing!
Lovin' it! I too lived in LA during those years. Left right after the riots. Hubby and I were in the studio lighting business. Lots of sitcoms...lots...
Can't say I spent much time in the clubs tho...I was busy having babies. But I DO miss the food! I'm no fan of LA and couldn't wait to get out after seven years of traffic, smog, crime, and bad schools.
Now I gotta go and read part 2! And BTW...you must write that play.
Can't say I spent much time in the clubs tho...I was busy having babies. But I DO miss the food! I'm no fan of LA and couldn't wait to get out after seven years of traffic, smog, crime, and bad schools.
Now I gotta go and read part 2! And BTW...you must write that play.
THeo, I'm so glad you linked this...I missed it first go round. I am totally mesmerized. "I’ve always wanted to write a play called the Ladies Room..." that whole paragraph screamed out at me "do it!" How profoundly true and I can think of so many moments in the women's restroom with women strangers...and tears shed, careful regards, kindness, bitchiness...all of it. Now I need to read the next.
My, what a wonderful writer you are. Thoroughly enjoyable. I can hardly wait to read part 2. Sorry about your current problems, not that I know what they all are, but getting old and the loss of your libido really sucks. I hate getting older!
There is so much here I don't know... You have to write that play - it's the perfect concept: please, you are just the 'somebody' to do this! Rated (what will that do to the new front page?)
I lived in LA from 1992-2000 (won't call it Hell Lay because I actually had some great ones:) This post really brings me back!! I miss the hot guys.
Live in LA, can relate to much of this.
This comment is right on: "Of course no matter how lovely you feel or become, in L.A. you are average at best." So true. And so difficult to come to terms with for everyone who moves to LA having been thought beautiful back home... Then, of course the key is to realize that it's an unwinnable proposition and to stop seeing it as a competition.
This comment is right on: "Of course no matter how lovely you feel or become, in L.A. you are average at best." So true. And so difficult to come to terms with for everyone who moves to LA having been thought beautiful back home... Then, of course the key is to realize that it's an unwinnable proposition and to stop seeing it as a competition.
Wow, Lady. This is good work - it reflects you so well, and the reflection, in my opinion, beats the PBs all to hell.
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this is great.
I read this months ago, but I enjoyed it more now. :)
Rated!
Rated
And I even told you how beautiful I thought you were/are. Hmmmm....Too bad. All you want are empty proclamations.
I suppose I don't understand your self-deprecating humor.
My bad.
You are beautiful & gorgeous and you have a big heart--your posts just don't make sense to me--my apologies... Sometimes I think only in absolutes.
wow, brie, for saying such lovely things. i hope you found Part 2. you can scroll down, well, to the second to last page and it's there. it psises me off how these links cut off. love love love!
Wchanz, sweetheart, i provided a link to Part Two. if that doesn't work, then go to the next to last page of psots, at the bottom and it will be there. love love love!
Miko girl!!! i figured this was right up your alley, so to speak. :) i'm so glad it holds up on the second read and that you found part deux. lvoe love lvoe!
oh, my Siren Girl!!!! thank you for reading this a second time. hey, you said we have the same body now. did we have the same one back then???? love love love!
LL2 -- thank you, love! you and suzie have my heart. awlays. love love love
Owl, my love, your comments gets pithier and pithier as the day goes along. which i totally get. love love love and so much gratitude for your excellent support.
SuznMaree, thank you, girl, for reading my old posts. that is above and beyond the call of duty. i know, i was really hot back then, wasn't it? i love my hair and my body. but it's all good now. love lvoe lvoe!
Tinkerbelle!!!! it's so great to see you here, love!!! i'll go see which porn subject you've covered tonight. i'm so grateful to you for getting to the Pics posst and to this one. it's a lot to ask but i had no idea taht i would be MOST RATED today. shit. things must be really off this weekend. love love love
and major gratitude for all of y0u!!
Rita -- you're so right, love. a well placed fuck? well, it solves all kinds of things in your life. well, mine. it would in mine!
Scanman! -- i'm figuring that you found Part Two so you'er asking for part 3 and i'm flattered. this may well motivate me to write Part 3, which will be Called My Sex and Dating Protocol and will use major humor for people to learn from my very numerous sexual experiences, great, good, awful, horrifying... and maybe some manners too. :) love love love
god, YO, this is why i was so thrilled that Feed the Cat linked to this post, because i realized that so many of my friends and readers are in the past few months, since the Great Mania, and they havne't read my old stuff, some of which is polished stuff that people would enjoy. ik'm so delighted that you liked this so much becaused it's one of my favorites of what i've written. i feel like i found a Voice there that i could use to write a whole memoir. it will be a chapter in the book!!!! but my concern is: does this voice match the one in my firswt chapter??? or the one in "It's Remarkably Difficult to Die (Brushes with Death on here)"? they are all favorites of mine. i'll PM you and ask you to call me after your son's visit. love love love!
Ralph!!!! i adore you, man. you are so right. i'm beginning to get a teeny tiny bit of libido back from the meds i'm taking, mostly for not taking something i was taking, and i LOVE it. i love being best friends with myself and wouldn't mind eaaasssssiiing myself back down the road and considering Sex with actual other people! you're a wise wise man. lvoe love love
Stephanie!!! i adore you. i'm honored that you came to read this one, again!!! it's seeming like it holds up to a second read and that warms my heart bigtime. and when you say it does??? well, then i truuuulllllyyy believe it. love love love and i don't remember if you read my polished 1st chapter. this will be a chapter in the memoir and so will Brush with Death, about suicide and such. shit, man, i've got 3 chapters and an outline. that's what the possible new agent asked for. shit, man.
Btw, you're goregous then and now. I enjoy your storytelling style. Very funny.
I used to fly down to LA from Seattle for music biz stuff, and always felt completely inadequate. Pale, damp and bitter, I couldn't stand Hell Lay.
You continue to astound me with your stories, but moreso with your ability to tell them!
You should write the ladies room play for sure. Thanks for the reminder to read this again - it brightened my afternoon.
We must have almost crossed paths in LA. I was an extra on an episode of Cheers... Kirstie Alley's first season... maybe 86 or 87.
This is a great chapter. It's fun to read what goes on in the "Ladies Room," and it sounds like a cool idea for a play. Interesting that you asked the PB to move elsewhere AND she understood.
Let me know where Part II is. Very funny, witty, intelligent and Rated.
{envious}
Keep writing, more more more!