How Fate Got Me Off Of My Ass and Onto HelloGiggles

I was never a strong believer in fate, but it has a way of getting you off of your ass! After taking a studio tour that led me to writing for HelloGiggles, I might have to start listening to the universe more.

For my birthday, my husband got me a ticket to go on the Warner Brothers studio back lot tour. I’d wanted to do it since I moved to Los Angeles almost a year ago. I was supposed to go on the tour on my actual birthday, February 8th, but it was supposed to rain and I didn’t want to take a chance of the tour being cancelled. So instead, we got the ticket for February 6th.

I was extra-excited to do this tour because most of my favorite shows were filmed at Warner Brothers, including the sitcom 2 Broke Girls. In case you haven’t heard of it, it’s this super funny show about 2 young women who live in New York and are basically, well, broke! But in the last few months, I had gotten behind on it. I’d been so busy with life and family and trying to make a name for myself as a comedy writer (you know, blogging). But I was lucky enough to have about eight episodes on my DVR and even luckier to need all four of my wisdom teeth pulled at the same time! During the recovery, in between sleeping and popping ibuprofen, I did nothing but watch back-to-back episodes of 2 Broke Girls, and got obsessed with it!

So imagine my surprise, when on February 6th, I’m sitting on this tram as just another person on this studio tour, when we happen to pull up to a little house with a poster that says “2 Broke Girls”, and a picture of the show’s stars, Kat Dennings and Beth Behrs. The tour guide pointed out the house and I yelled, emphatically, “I’m obsessed with that show!”. I got out of the tram to take a picture on the front porch of this cute little 2-story house. One of the young Argentinean teens on the tram offered to take my picture, when I heard a woman’s voice through the window upstairs. “Hey, there’s a tour outside!” she said, or something to that effect and then began talking to our tour guide.

Now, let me stop for a minute and explain what happened before this particular life-changing moment, not to sound too dramatic or anything. There was a kind couple, a husband and wife, sitting in front of me on the tram that were pleasantly talkative. She asked me questions about myself and what I did for a living. I told her I was mostly a stay-at-home mom who occasionally acts and writes comedy. I told her about my web series and studying improvisation, but mostly, I told her I wanted to be a television writer, something I hadn’t actually done since I moved to Los Angeles.

So when the lady from the window announced that perhaps she could bring one of us up, the lady and her husband suggested me! Just then, a female writer for the show came down to the tram looking at all of us, saying “Hmmm…which one of you should I bring up?”. I don’t usually volunteer for things, so I didn’t speak up, though I was screaming internally “Pick me PLEASE?!”. Just then, the lady in front of me pointed at me and yelled “She loves your show and she’s a comedy writer! She should go up!” and just like that, Morgan Murphy, one of the writers, lead me upstairs to the writer’s room!

It was exciting, it was amazing, and all I could think was “I can’t wait to tell Bry (my husband)!” The entire writing staff was in there, including Emmy-award winning producer/writer of “Will & Grace” and “Murphy Brown”, Jhoni Marchinko! At the end of the table, one of my heroes, Michael Patrick King, sat there with a smile on his face! All of us ladies know, he’s the producer/writer of Sex and the City, and now 2 Broke Girls! Everyone seemed happy and excited to have a visitor!

The amount of time I was in there seemed short, but I got to take a picture with Michael Patrick King and the McDonald’s Shamrock shake they gave me. Afterwards, I went back to the studio tour tram that was waiting for me. I was sure I was sparkling. Everyone on the tour was quite happy for me, and I probably told the lady in front of me thank you at least a hundred billion times!

Before the tour, I was seriously sitting at home wondering what would be my next step. I had been in Los Angeles for a year, moving my family, including three little girls all under the age of 6, to Los Angeles to live out my dream of becoming a comedy writer! Some thought we were crazy, my husband and I, and some thought it was a gutsy move. I couldn’t help but wonder if it was a mistake. All I had done since I’d been here was a play in Hollywood. Most of my time was spent with the girls and home schooling my 6 year old.

I’m not sure if I was stuck in a rut or started to lose faith in the idea of becoming successful in the business, but since then, things have changed. A few days after the tour, I did some sleuthing and went to IMDB, the Internet Movie Data Base. On that site, I looked up the writers of 2 Broke Girls, because I wanted to know who was in that room that day and if perhaps I had any mutual friends with them on Facebook. The first person I found was Morgan Murphy. I wasn’t 100% sure that was who brought me upstairs, truthfully, until a few days ago when I asked Molly McAleer, of course she’s the co-founder of HelloGiggles! I then found Jhoni Marchinko on Instagram, who has been quite kind to me.

Then I found Molly, or Molls, who recently asked me to be a regular contributor to the HelloGiggles website! I also just found out that it was her in the window who yelled down, and it was her idea to bring someone up, something they’d never done before!

Since that day, I’ve been full of “Try Harder”, if that is a phrase I may coin.

Perhaps I was trying before to be successful and live my dream, especially moving all the way from Chicago to Los Angeles, but now I’m trying HARDER. Molls thought it would be a great idea to write this story of how I went on a studio tour and ended up writing for HelloGiggles. I’m still surprised how everything went down that day. Later on in the evening, after I was home and the girls were in bed, I told my husband that I must’ve been a total geek in the writer’s room, going “I’m obsessed with the show!” and “I love Sex and the City“. I guess it was just my regular goofy self-doubt.

Since then, I’m writing for HelloGiggles, trying to tell everyone who’d listen that I wrote a pilot and now I just booked my first stand-up gig! I’m no longer stuck in a rut and I’m writing regularly, thanks to HelloGiggles and Molls! But I really wish I had exchanged information with the woman on the tram who spoke up for me to go upstairs. And I guess the universe has a way of speaking to you. If it wasn’t for the rained-out birthday, the nice lady on the tour and Molls, for some reason coming to the window at that exact time we were outside, perhaps I’d still be sitting on the couch.

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