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My Date With David Blaine
And for my next act, I’m going to disappear.
I was twenty years old when I quit my job as a TV news reporter in Anchorage, Alaska, and moved across the country to New York City. I was raised to believe that I could be anything, even though I’m a girl, and I wanted to be a New Yorker.
Living in Alaska is not for the weak, but I knew that if I could survive growing up in Fairbanks, I could survive anywhere. So I bought a one-way ticket to New York City and finally found where I belonged, and that place was my first NYC apartment on Twenty-Third Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues.
I didn’t have a job lined up when I got to the city; I just wanted to be a cast member on Saturday Night Live. I wasn’t delusional about it, I knew that it would probably take a few months for Lorne Michael’s to discover me. So I got a side hustle working the front desk at David Barton Gym, the gayest gym on planet Earth. It was humbling to go from reporting the news on TV every night to greeting people as they entered a gym. But I needed a job that was easy and flexible so I could focus the rest of my attention on becoming the world’s funniest and most beloved actress.
