Light Refreshments Served

Being famous and doing what you love and getting paid for it are not the same thing. 

Topher and I have been around enough actors to realize that some of them want to act and some of them want to be famous. Years ago I couldn’t put my finger on what it was about some actors that made them seem genuine or authentic and those who weren’t. Now I can tell. Acting’s such an interesting profession, because you couldn’t say the same thing for, say, accountants. Or Medical technicians.

My boys were talking the other day and Miles has always asserted that he wants to be a quadrillionaire comedian. Owen says he wants to be famous. When I asked Owen what he wants to be or to do in order to get famous, he has to think about it–like it’s secondary to being well-known. I asked him why he wants to be famous, and he said what you might expect an 8 year-old to say, “Because you get lots of money, and anything you want and people know you all over the world and scream your name.” When Miles is asked why he wants to be a quadrillionaire (oh, remember the days when we aspired to be a “millionaire”? Oh simple days. . .) he says so he can buy his way into being a comedian. Interesting.

I don’t want to be famous, really, but I’d like to be marginally famous. Like when people saw me they’d think I look familiar, but they can’t place my name. Or they interchange me with someone else. They’d say “Oh, aren’t you that girl from. . .um. . .that one thing?” and I’d nod, say yes, and go on with my business. They wouldn’t want my autograph, but I wouldn’t blame them. I would be protective of my anonymity because it would encourage me to get the role of “quirky best friend” or “outlandish shop keeper.” 

I think it’s funny that early in my brother’s career as a rockstar a group of girls chased him down, screaming for an autograph and it turned out they thought he was Beck. That’s funny and humbling. But now they recognize him. I wonder how you ever get used to that. 

I’d like to have a little more money, but what I really crave is power. Most days I am putting out little fires and trying to maintain the minimum glamour which is my life.  I’m not even in control of when I will eat, sleep, or use the bathroom (sorry, but I hope I made my point). It would be nice to have to make really important decisions that seem important.  I realize that raising children is really the ultimate power–”the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world” kind of thing, but it doesn’t always feel like power. Usually it feels like servitude. I guess I’m a little dramatic and part of me wants to storm into a board meeting wearing a designer power suit, throw a briefcase down on the table and yell, “We’ve been going about this all wrong! We’re going in another direction! We’re changing everything!” 

I know raising children will pay off to those who matter most to me in the most significant ways, of course, or I wouldn’t be doing it.  But sometimes when my kids look at me I get a creepy suspicion that they see right through me and have me figured out: that I don’t really know what I’m doing. Sometimes that feeling is overwhelmingly tragic, and sometimes it’s funny. Usually it’s funny.