My parents have failed me.
Sure, they spoiled me in all of the usual ways; school lunches from Le Bernadin, yachts, cocaine binges on Friday nights when we were bored, an endless stream of ponies boarded at Claremont until I graduated to thoroughbreds.
But I wanted more.
I wanted to be a star.
As a young child I knew I had what it took. By day, I wandered the streets of lower Manhattan, but by night I was Rudy's twin sister on The Cosby Show.
"I want an agent," I told my mother at age five. "I want an agent and headshots. We have to do this right if we're going to do it at all."
Janet signed me up for musical theater classes.
"I don't believe you really want to act. You just want to be famous," she said.
As if there was something wrong with that.
At our first auditions in class we sang "Tomorrow."
"Yona," my teacher told me, "maybe you would sound better singing something a little, umm, lower."
But I plowed on, through Peter Pan and The Pirates of Penzance, waiting for the day I had proven myself as a true thespian to my mother.
That day never came.
Always co-dependent, and thus never ready to strike off on the path to Hollywood alone, I have learned to console myself through brushes with the truly famous. I once chased Woody Allen after he bought a soft pretzel at a vendor on Madison Avenue. I also dined with him at Nobu. (Fine. He was seated behind the screen, and we were in front with the hoi polloi, but still.)
I have met Natalie Portman (twice), Scott Wolf and Gwyneth Paltrow. Courtney Cox once winked at me. I dated Jared Leto for a month and a half after bumping into him in an elevator.
Maybe.
George Clooney has told me that he likes roller-blading. He also said, "Thank God" when I told him I didn't want his autograph.
Not that this is enough. I still crave more. I want the bright lights, the cameras, the adoration and adulation, the magazine covers.
I like it when people I don't know recognize me. I like having fans. I like being stalked.
I am a famewhore, and it is all my parents' fault.
Now I must spend the rest of my life unfulfilled. At six, I could have been great. I was verbal, outgoing and had a winning personality. I was urbane and sophisticated. I was good at math. I had long hair.
At 20 pushing 21, success seems less likely. I have terrible cuticles, and my room is a mess. I wear Penn sweatshirts. I wear Penn sweatpants. I go to Penn.
I have short hair.
The true dilemma is what to do when one's life's purpose has become an impossibility. In my mind, I have two options. I can abandon my dreams of grandeur. True, I am historically bad at separations of any kind, but it is theoretically possible that this fixation and I could be parted.
Or, I can marry someone famous.
Oh, they don't have to be famous yet. They just have to be on their way. I wouldn't mind being the arm in the corner of the paparazzi shot, the face quickly panned past at the Oscars. It may not be superstardom, but it's closer to it than Staten Island is to Manhattan, and that's a fact (and a short ferry ride).
Because, given the chance, I'd be a damn good famous person. I just know it.
