Thank you, Henry Miller.

My heart races as the train approached 7th Avenue. I put away Tropic of Cancer, which I brought to hypnotize myself into a state of calm during my commute. I sidle without apology past the big, puffy-coated brute who'd blocked me into my seat and leaped past an Asian woman trying to pretend her stroller wasn't in everyone's way. The doors have aligned perfectly with a staircase. I know there's an escalator, but it will be crowded with people. The stairs at this station once burned my thighs during a unit shoot for Friday Night Lights but now...now my legs feel lighter than air as I vault up the steps two by two. I see the blinking red hand as I ascend to the street and hurry aside a fat tourist woman to dash across Broadway before the light changes.

I climb the slight incline between 53rd and 54th streets and fly between oncoming cars and into the office door of the Ed Sullivan theater. I don't have my license so I lie to the guard that I'm going to the Mayor's Office without thinking, but she reminds me it's nearly six o'clock so they've gone for the day. I plead with her for a moment to let me run up and check if anyone is still in the DGA Training office. Please? She fussed to go check on a ruckus outside at the stage door. I consider sneaking onto the elevator but I don't know if it will be worth it and something about the slow old bird leaves me feeling at peace, so I'd just as soon not upset her.

She returns so slowly, settles herself in her chair and asks for something with my name on it. I fish around and turn up a maxxed out credit card that has sustained me in my unemployed state. She checks against the Mayor's database, fingers crawling. "Now where on earth did that return button go?" I am aching. My skin feels like it is going to crawl off my face and up under my colorfully knitted hat.

Finally she gives me the nod--she's spotted my pigtails from last April, grinning at her from the computer screen--and I am already in the elevator and on my way up, trying frantically to dig the paperwork out of my messenger bag. When the elevator doors open I see the familiar sixth floor hallway and for a moment I panic. Then I spot a color inkjet printout on a door: "DGA Training Applicants, please come in to submit your application." I hold my breath as I try the handle and nearly vomit when the latch opens.

"Hello?" the lobby looks deserted. "Yes," I hear from around the corner. I am glad I wore my nice coat and my matching scarf and hat. I am glad I changed into dress pants and wore sensible shoes. I wouldn't want anyone here to know I had been in my pajamas all day, frantically hammering away at my keyboard to make sure every letter, every comma, every line break and hyphen are in the correct places. I see a tall, slim woman with a shock of grey hair and a lovely smirk on her face and breathlessly blubber at her that I'd like her to take this from me, please. "You're lucky I'm here," she quips with that smirk and one wagging eyebrow. I smile.

"I would have postmarked it."

She dismisses me and I turn, not giving myself time to think about it. I feel like I am walking six inches above the ground, and my cushion of air bounces me to the elevator doors where I push the call button. Suddenly the door behind me clicks open and the shock of grey hair is there again, eyebrows wagging over wide, curious eyes. "Are you related to J---?"

"Yes, actually, I'm her niece," I admit. Without realizing it fully I hope that my application will not be at any disadvantage because of this information. I suddenly wish the elevator doors would open with no car there, that I could just step through them and plummet down to the basement floor, land on my feet, and walk out underneath the Ed Sullivan theater. I imagine briefly the faces on the audience members of the David Letterman Show as I rise through a trap door in the stage floor, grinning and waving while the band plays the theme song to Miss Adventurous.

"That was the right answer by the way," the woman says with a wink.

"The right answer...?" I still cannot breathe. I am kissing Dave hello. I am running up the aisles shaking all the hands that are sticking out of the audience.

"That you would have postmarked it." She smiles warmly at me and gives a nod before her hair disappears through the door again.

Ding! The elevator door slides open.