My Backstory

Here's the third dose of Cocoa & Caffeine... and with that, I feel as though I should provide a little background about myself to initiate those of you who have stumbled across this blog.

I spent most of my life in Omaha, Nebraska -- smack dab in the middle of the country. Considering how many years I spent there, I still consider it to be home of sorts. My entire family still lives there. I'm feel very lucky to have the duality of both L.A. and Omaha to call home. In my opinion, it's the best of both worlds. Omaha provides a good relief from L.A. traffic, people, and the overall rat race.

I got degree in journalism and advertising, and subsequently spent two of the most miserable years of my life re-adjusting to a post-collegiate life of no direction. I had a degree, but I ended up selling watches at Dillard's at the Crossroads Mall in Omaha. I was at a dead end.

I wasn't the only miserable one, as one of my best friends, Kristen, can attest.

Her blog is at: http://bookswrittenforgirls.blogspot.com/Anyway, Kristen and I spent many "miles" of treadmill-walking at 24 Hour Fitness in Bellevue, hoping that our lives would improve someday ( and spending a great deal of time complaining about the weather.)

In retrospect, I feel that I should apologize to the city of Omaha, because when I was miserable -- I blamed Omaha. I felt that maybe if I lived somewhere else, a bigger city, I'd have my life together -- more opportunity, more excitement. Now, I realize that it was the city's fault. That's just the way life is when you're at the brink of a quarter-life crisis.

Now I know, it doesn't really matter where you live. You might prefer to live in a certain city or locale, but to obtain happiness, however elusive a concept it is, one must really look within. And that's something I didn't realize. Another lesson I learned is that sometimes you don't really know a place until you've left. When I left Omaha, I was in a place in my life that I had to leave. There were no other options for me. Now, of course, I appreciate Omaha in a way that I never did, in all the years I lived there. It's strange how that happens. When I go back, I end up taking pictures of clouds and cornfields and sunsets and cows... because they're beautiful and interesting. It makes me laugh. (One of my sunset pictures is displayed in an earlier post.)

Between temping and selling Gucci watches, I worked on my first film -- a small indie film. I hauled ass doing craft service for the 18-day shoot, working 6 days a week, in Omaha, in the middle of June. It was hard work, no doubt about it. However, for the first time, it occurred to me that my daydreams of working "in the movies" could become a reality. After working another movie, a year later, I dumped a full-time job offer at Kinko's ( of which I have no regrets) and hightailed it to L.A. to give the film business a shot. My parents were far from pleased, but I think they've forgiven me.