Field notes from a Netflix costume office on a Friday night, from sequins to soda water.
When I was a pre-teen, I was obsessed with the spreads in Cosmopolitan and Allure about office-working women. My favorite articles were always about taking your outfit from day to night—by adding dark lipstick and a pleather blazer.
Now that I’m actually working in an office, the schedule is grueling and the coffee is terrible. I’ve taken a costume contract on a horror mini-series about a strange girl who escapes a cult and goes to live with a wholesome family in Ohio. It’s like a reverse Kimmy Schmidt—with a lot more blood. But at least my 10,000 hours of researching psychopaths are finally being put to good use.
Sometimes I get impatient with destiny and long for what’s next. But there are still two more months left on the contract, so I’m trying spiritual tricks. Like: when in doubt, remember that where you are now is where you once hoped to be. And if you look around, things are actually kind of beautiful.
I have my own office, which I’ve plastered with movie posters in the hopes I’ll be mistaken for a Netflix executive. I sit in meetings where we dissect the minutiae of creative and logistical challenges. It’s demystifying filmmaking in a good way—seeing that it’s just a group of smart, experienced people figuring things out. A lot of them worked on MacGyver and 21 Jump Street, shows that I grew up on.
And there are racks of clothes everywhere: sequins and feathers, hats, boxes of shoes. Actors and actresses coming and going. A mini-fridge full of soda water. Girls hanging on desks, laughing and analyzing the meaning of a handbag, the weight of a fabric.
Then, before I know it, it’s Friday evening. So I put on my darkest lipstick and head off into the night.
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A restless pandemic afternoon circa 2020—with therapy animals and stale office cake.
It's a restless afternoon at the office. A kitten sleeps on my desk. Presumably, the owner has something to photocopy. Something about therapy animals, my workplace has officially become a petting zoo. I've never liked animals this much. I may or may not be going through a spiritual awakening.
I look over at the book "Breaking Free from Emotional Eating" by Geneen Roth, which promises to eliminate the 4 o'clock slump. I found it at a local second-hand book store, in the New Age section, nestled between Deepak Chopra and The Power of Now. I walk to the kitchen and consider eating the dry, lacklustre chocolate cake brought in for Sheila in accounting's birthday.
I close the fridge and realize that under the compulsion to eat is a tornado. I'm hungry for more than day-old cake. I'm hungry to be loved, to love, to be seen, to create. The truth is that this job is not the best fit, and I feel an existential ache, exacerbated by a somewhat recent divorce and the global pandemic, which has fallen on the last tick of my biological clock.
Sometimes, I feel like tearing the curtains down. But I don't. I won't. Instead, I send another email.
