Are you there, facebook? It's me, DoctorPrincess LadyScoutington

Some of you out there may already know that a day and a half ago I moved to Los Angeles, which would be somewhat normal for a creature of my profession, until I tack on the little gem of a fact that I found out about the move a little over a week ago. It's a long story without much of a cliffhanger for an ending, but the sparknotes are this: I had an urge to come out for pilot season in January, so I went out and did a comedy showcase to try to meet some industry and get the ball rolling. The ball did roll, and my new west coast management team decided that they wanted me here ASAP to take some meetings and hope for the best. So I came running. A week's worth of shows, which became sort of my awkward farewell shows (which isn't totally true. I'll be back in January for a week. Farewell shows in the same way that Barbara Streissand has been doing her farewell tour long enough for it to be a revival) and about two days of frantically trying to fit my life into two checked bags, a carryon and a personal item later--I worked out an imaginary conversation with the woman at the Delta counter while I was packing. She would say:

"I'm sorry, your bags are overweight. I'm going to have to ask you to..."

And I would say, "Ma'am. Ma'am. Let me stop you right there. I just gave away all of my worldly posessions, shy of my hopes and dreams. How much do your hopes and dreams weigh? More than 50lbs?"

And then she would let me on the plane and I would get a slow-clap from my fellow passengers as I waltzed through security shoes ON!

I did not, in fact, have to enact said conversation. Though I did miss my flight despite an altruistic attempt to be on time, it turns out my hopes and dreams weigh 49 and 51lbs, respectively, so I was good. I have, however, had nightmares about having to give away even more of my stuff.

I arrived in LA and had a chat with my new roommate and his girlfriend, an aspiring comic in her own right, and they planted the seed in my lil brain to change my facebook profile into a page... like, what you have for a band or "community event," and all my friends would turn into likes, but all my photos would be deleted, but I could back them up, and tra la la, more professional, la la.

(Why are there fireworks outside my building right now? Who sets off fireworks in November? Ugh... what have I gotten myself into. On the upside, I have yet to hear a single ambulance or ice cream truck. Fellow Brooklynites, you can appreciate my glory. )

Before you make this change, they warn you that it is irreversable. That once you go page, you can never go profile. Are you ready? Oh, I was. I'm in LA, baby. This is big time. I'm going in for Comedy Central and sat in a waiting room for FOX where there was a wall of Emmy's. A double glass case wall.

So I did it. And immediately realized that being a page means you are no longer a person. You can't comment on other people's pages. You don't have pictures and places to list your favorite quotes and movies. No opportunity to show how quippy and ironic you can be with your response to "political views."

(Ooops.  There it is. My first LA police siren. You can take the hick out of hicksville... only opposite, because I'm in a city.)

All of a sudden, I missed being a person. I was part of the first non-Harvard wave of facebook users. I've had one since the very beginning, since myspace and friendster, since Ruby Prom and The Soccer Ball, Graduation, my first summer in New York. I've had that page since some of my trans friends still identified with their cisgenders (non liberal-arts college gradates, google it) and it's gone.

A couple of my friends have texted me and asked where I went. They can't find me. And you really can't. I can barely find myself, and what's more, I can't fix it. Facebook has no interest in helping me renig on my greedy decision to become an entertainer instead of a person. I don't even know how to create a profile and start from scratch. I'm screwed. I'm erased.


There is a little void I feel about every five minutes when I would normally be checking my facebook. I'm more than a little bit nervous to try to rebuild, and more frustrated than those police guys trying to find the firework guys with the un-helpfulness of facebook's help center.

Without facebook, who is going to read my blog? How are fellow performers, friends from elementary school, that bartender who hit on me even though she has a girlfriend... how are they ever going to find me.

Perhaps this officially marks my erruption into stardom--the petit mort that is more extacy than death.

I've had the thought to start a new profile using my real name, but that seems silly. I honestly don't know what I want... I miss the way things were, but it doesn't bother me to be off the radar for a while. Maybe I'll come back, maybe I'll come back but different.

It's just odd. Like moving to a new city with parking lots and medicinal marajuana. Sure, sometimes I miss the MTA and having a bodega on every corner, and maybe I don't have as many friends here and I have to re-build from scratch, but anything is possible, and anything can rebuild itself over time.