I’ve been thinking about Andie Bottrell’s excellent post about Expectations and about “how things shake out and the millions of variables that go into anything that happens in life.”

I am in about my third or fourth go round of a career, having been an actress and a director – who actually made her living onstage – a playwright – produced and published –   a mother – a very happy one – a screenwriter and NOW a ticket lady in a community theater. (It’s a good theater, I’ve had a couple of productions there and do many other things, but I what I’m hired to do is run the box office.)

Here’s just one story from that journey: My husband, Kerry Feltham, a first class film maker, made a short film from a script I wrote that won us the jury prize at Cannes and a gig to write a film at a major studio.   The woman producer, a wonderful woman, got us the job and my husband chose a film to rewrite from the studio vault. We wrote a script about a couple of con men and we all thought it was pretty funny.

Then, one of the million of variables that happen did. The head of the studio quit and the woman producer did as well and the people who came in passed the project on to the new guys who turned it into a major hit! Without us. End of story.

And here’s another story that still raises the hackles on the back of my neck and the one Andie made me think of. I had auditioned for a part in television. I thought I had aced it and waited breathlessly for a “Yes.” “Ah, said the producer, “that was very nice but you’re too short for a two shot.” I didn’t get any taller.

And I don’t think it ever gets any easier.

There was an article in the L.A. Times this Sunday, the 2nd. Bob Rogers, the founder and chief creative officer of BRC Imagination Arts, ran into Ray Bradbury just before he died. Mr. Bradbury pulled two pieces of paper out of his briefcase and held them up. He said, “These are rejection letters. I still get them. They arrived this week…and they are form letters.”

My husband keeps making films, I keep writing and sending out my plays, and I think the only thing that has really changed are my expectations. I’d love to have another production, a good part in a good play, but every day I really look forward to my coffee in the morning and a glass of wine at night.