I once made out with Jesus

and would like to be as famous as him

I have been famous-adjacent so many times, I’m getting pretty freaking sick of it. (I’m kidding it never gets old. Just…can some of it rub off on me, please?) The thing is, I’ve been putting myself out there—whatever “out there” means—since my head smashed into a steering wheel, knocking me into no man’s land the day after I graduated college. A car accident, whatever. A concussion, a stupid scar, what have you. The point being, I got knocked upside the head and decided to put myself “out there.”

Fast forward, I became a news reporter. Fast forwarder, I tried hosting TV shows. Forwarder yet, I was an actress-waitress-nanny-tutor for a while. And during that while, I got to film some cool stuff.

One of these stuff was a web show with a shockingly high rate of success for its then-totally-unknown actors. In the Now, the series was called. We filmed it in a nondescript office on the weekends. It helped us get our SAG cards; otherwise, it was nbd. Everything I did then was nbd. Until eventually, I threw in the towel, got married, had kids, and became a suburban housewife with unfulfilled dreams. Just like a Russian fortune teller told me I would…but that’s a story for another time.

So then one night—amidst my wee, humdrum, suburban life—I was watching a show on Hulu with my husband, ya know, as one does, and I realized the show’s main character was one of the actors from In the Now. It took me like two episodes to recognize him because he had LA’ed himself so well by then. Which is a real thing that happens to everyone—or almost. They move to LA and within a span of time (the span varies) they become much more fit, tanned, and overall better-looking. But not me. It didn’t happen to me. And of course there are others like me. Beautiful quitters, I like to call us. Beautiful on the inside, obviously.

Anyway, so I realized Wolf from Future Man had been but a fellow shlub some years back. And while I stayed a shlub—leaned into it in fact, with babe two sucking at my tatas by that point—he had become super buff and successful. Well, this was a turning point for me. Not towards de-shlubbing myself by any means, but towards doing something, anything with my creative urges. So I began to write.

We can skip over my writing journey here—yawn. Ups, downs, some NY Times, WashPo, LA Times bylines. USA Today, WSJ, a Forbes profile about my book…sorry to brag, but ohmygod, can’t a girl brag for a minute?

Ha. I kid. Who cares? Until I make any money, no one will ever care. Though that’s backwards, actually. When “they” care, I will make the money. Maybe. Anyway, I am working on a novel now. Forever it feels like, which apparently is normal for a novel. Speaking of, if you know or are an agent, the novel is good. And weird. And I need an agent who’s good. And probably weird. Call me! Winky face emoji, phone emoji.

Anyway, anyway, anyway, guess who’s the other now-successful actor from that little nothing web series from years ago. Guess.

It’s Jesus. Okay? It’s freaking Jesus, for God’s sake. Well, he plays Jesus on The Chosen. He’s super famous (especially in the Philippines). New York Times recently interviewed him. AND I used to make out with him for fun. He was nice, cute…hadn’t fully LA’ed himself then, but was faultily cute. We got kicked out of a bar once for making out too hard. Don’t judge. We were drunk and poor; had to get our kicks in somehow.

He had been a location scout before attempting to act himself. One day on a movie set he asked Anthony Hopkins for advice; Sir Anthony said something wise of course, which propelled our Jesus into acting. Coincidentally, I also had a meaningful run-in with Anthony Hopkins. Or at least a memorable run-in. Memorable-ish.

Okay, this one time I was sitting on a stoop in SoHo with my model friend. We were sharing a cigarette outside an art show. “Oh wow, it’s Anthony Hopkins,” we exclaimed as he meandered into view, sort of jolly and light, balancing some dry-cleaning on his shoulder. Well, he turned around, walked right up to us, took my hand (my hand, not the model’s!) and said, “Amazing.” Or “Splendid.” Or “Remarkable.” I can’t ever remember the exact word. But just like that, he came right up, took my hand, said something nice, then kept walking. We watched him walk away with his dry-cleaning. He whistled a tune…

So. Back to Jesus. We were both blessed by Anthony Hopkins. And we were struggling actors. That’s about as much as we had in common. When I left LA—where I hadn’t even survived a year—our Jesus was as unsuccessful and penniless as I’d been.

But now look at him. Just look at him now:

From struggling actor to prophet. The point of all this being: I, a BuJew, once made out with Jesus, who like me had been anointed by a knight, and, by my math, this means my novel (called Self-helpless—same as this little Substack project) will be a New York Times bestseller. Get it? You get it.

“If you have faith the size of a mustard seed,”¹ ya know?

I’ll keep the faith if you’ll keep the faith. Or vice versa if you want. You keep it if I keep it. And I will keep it.

Happy New Year!

P.S. My most fame-adjacent experience was taking an acting class with Scarlett Johansson as a kid. I was a little immigrant named Asya then. She was already THE Scarlett Johansson, even though the big fame hadn’t happened. She knew. We had lunch at Subway once. I spilled ice water all over myself…

P.P.S. Thank you from the bottom of my cold little heart to all the new subscribers rolling in. This thing here will remain free because your attention is a worthy price in itself. Perhaps one day you will buy my book, though. Cause daughters; who need Starbucks and Sephora around the clock, apparently.

1. "For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you." (Matthew 17:20-21)