1. Mentally price the cost of your host's shoes in comparison with your own.
2. Ditto for the host's home. Because, I mean, seriously....
3. In each lull in conversation with the fancy new people you just met at said party, secretly pray that no one asks you what you do for a living, because:
4. You haven't really decided whether or not you're still an actress, or now just a yoga teacher. A yoga writer? Does that sound better? Just a writer, period. A blogger? That makes you sound like you live-blog from the Steve Jobs conferences. A health and wellness expert? Oh my god, kill me.
5. When finally asked the "what do you do?" question, begin with a long pregnant pause. (A pause so long in fact, that the lovely Austrian woman, the one who just wrote a pilot that all of Hollywood is salivating over, says to you, "it's okay if the answer is nothing!")
6. After said long-pregnant pause, start out with, "well, I was a theatre actress."
7. Go all blank faced when--after you've shyly confessed to being a yoga...um...person--one of the couples at the table starts talking about going to some lecture with a "yoga guru" who was just spouting isms and insulting people all evening.
8. Forget to say, in response to this story, "Yes, exactly! Yes, this is exactly the kind of thing I'm writing about...I hate jerk-y gurus, too!"
9. Instead stammer through some strange defensive ramble about loving "the practice".
10. Have nothing to say that can break the long embarrassing silence that follows.
(All I have to say is thank god for the open bar, for my amazing fiance, and that I had enough sense to wear heels instead of cowboy boots. And that I didn't cry, even though I kind of wanted to. At least there's that.)
