I knew I wanted to be a famous actress ever since I saw Cameron Diaz in The Mask. My belief that I would star in blockbusters and walk the red carpet was unflappable, but that was before I farted so hard that I had to let go of that dream forever.
Everything changed the morning of my audition for “dead wife #5” in the upcoming UC San Bernadino Student Film “Beach Dracula.” I was practicing not breathing when suddenly I felt a stabbing rectal pain. All the sounds in the world stopped for one deafening moment of silence, and then it happened. My ass exploded out hot stinky air that destroyed every glossy headshot, every Meisner exercise, every $500 stage movement class. This cheek-rippling release was the most authentic expression of myself I had experienced in years, and I knew that a lifetime of acting could never compare to it.
The truth embraced me like the cloudy clingy scent of my fart. I recalled the words of an acting coach who once told me that “an actor is not something you become; it is something you are.” But now, I’m just someone who farted all of her potential away, and I’ve made peace with that.
After years and years of ignoring the pleas of my “instrument,” my gastrointestinal system let me know that this charade of “being an actress” had gone too far. I could feel the restrictive expectations slipping off and freeing me from believing that I needed to do more than my four appearances as “skank corpse” on Law & Order: SVU. The steadfast belief that I needed to be an actress was crawling out from my insides and plopping into its final porcelain resting place.
After the fart finally ended, I blacked out. My agent, doctor, and unsupportive mother insisted all this was just “tummy troubles,” but I knew this was much more. It was the trumpet sound, calling in the first day of the rest of my life. Now I know my dreams, and my bowels, are delicate and fickle things, and if it isn’t a fit, they will violently empty themselves to set me free.
