The Ring Collector or Disaster Escapist

My could be metrosexual friend, Lenny, was helping jog someone's memory of me last night.
He said: "You know, Nadège? The one who keeps getting engaged but never goes through with it? The ring collector !"

This new descriptive comes on the heel of my fourth broken engagement because I am still in possession of most of the rings. Not by choice, technically, but because the jilted parties have refused to take back their gift.

While my ego enjoys any title that sounds remotely empowering, I can't help but analyze the events that led up to this possibly accurate factoid. Here's how it all happened.

Collection 1:
This first one should not count because it was just as mediocre, unsatisfying and as fleeting as most first sexual encounters. We called it a "pre-engagement" ring. It was a very simple gold band with a speck of an emerald in the center surrounded by a cluster of diamond flecks. I basically would need to explain the purpose of that ring for anyone to be in- the -know.

Sergio's main objective in presenting me with this ring was to get through my chastity belt. I lived with the strictest Haitian grandparents in Buschwick, NY. Said chastity belt NEVER came off during Sergio's eight months tenure.  I outgrew him pretty rapidly too because I was planning on becoming a run away.  I got as far as Saratoga Springs, NY. Eighty dollars can only get you so far!

 By the time I made my way back to Brooklyn, Sergio had moved to Florida. Word was, I ruined New York for him so moving to a State where people tend to move to, to prepare for imminent death was the better option. I tried to locate him very unsuccessfully. I still have the ring but my intentions were to return it.

Collection 2:

I am now in Graduate school. My Johnny (yes, that was his name) is a lawyer, an attorney, a corporate sell-out. He challenges my intellect in ways that removed my very heavy chastity belt within weeks of courtship. How I got through four (4) years of dorm living in Undergraduate school with my belt intact is beyond my own comprehension.
It helped that Johnny was fifteen (15) years my senior. He owned a sailboat and he traveled extensively for work. I always had a companion ticket awaiting me at the United Airlines Counter.  During my two years of Grad school,  I would meet Johnny in Bermuda, The Bahamas, Martinique, Guadeloupe, Puerto Rico, St, Marteen...Just to name the few I remember. We had a great life until my Graduation Day. He presented me with the most expensive piece for my budding collection and insisted that we marry by summers' end and that I get "knocked up" -his words- "during the honeymoon". He'd like to "be a father by yesterday"!
Needless to say, I did what every sensible 23 year old actor would do. I packed up my Saturn and drove cross country to LA LA Land.
Peace out, catch you on the flip side Johnny!

Collection 3:

I am now living and loving month four in LA LA Land. The vegetation, the weather, the work...it's all here. Some guy named Guy (yes, truly his name) an East Coast transplant, stops me at a WiFi Coffee Shop named @ on Melrose Avenue.

"Hey, you gotta boyfriend?"
"Who wants to know?" I ask in Brooklynese.
"Not, me! I'm married, " Guy says- "but I gotta friend.."
So, in true New Yorker fashion, I decide to call his bluff.
"Do you? Yeah? Call him. Right now! In front of me, Guy- Call your guy, GUY!"

Fast Forward, six months into dating Ken, he gets on his knees, proposes on a crisp February Sunday morning poolside in Sherman Oaks. He did not have a ring pre-purchased, but the thought of me as his wife crossed his mind and on an impulse he proposed! Cool!
I respond in-like and we jump in the pool shouting victorious affirmatives!
I am now 24 years old! I look down at my ring-free hand and interrogate:
"Well, don't you gotta ring for me or something?"
"Not yet."
"How am I suppose to go around telling people I am TAKEN, SPOKEN FOR if there is nothing on it?" I wave my ring finger at him. We both agree, I look as if I'm giving him the business. I was!

We hop in his White Jeep Wrangler and off we go, hunting for a jewelry store. It was Sunday and none was open in Sherman Oaks! That was an omen. Nine months later, we part ways.
This time I knew where this one lived and mailed him back his impulse purchase. Cool!

Collection 4
I went from MEN to a boy in long pants. From class to crass. Collection 4, sent me a scathing email one fine July evening requesting every gift he'd ever given to me back, including gifts his mother gave to me, or $200US- Minus the ring!  From "decisive -take - charge men" to one who needs his friends to tell him what to do. He listened to them and now lives with them or next door to them.  Yet, he too refuses to take THE RING back.

Am I "The Ring Collector"? Or just a "Disaster Escapist"?

Nadège August is 'dròl'. Strange. Weird. Bizarre.

Dròl' is a Haitian Creole word inherited, adopted and bastardized from the French word, drôle. It means strange, weird, bizarre. 

Rumor has it that I  am labeled as 'dròl'  by my incredibly supportive Haitian 'compadres here in Los Angeles. This yet, unearned reputation disturbs me enough, that I vacillate between rueing the day I let the word out on this half of my ethnic makeup and embracing its etymological beginnings as a prophetic omen of what is to come. 

Uh-uh, the budding linguist in me is about to give a shellacking to them fools! 

It all started five years ago when my thrice removed farina- for- brains party-girl, hob-nobber extraordinaire- friend, who lives in Telehasse, Florida, saw it fit to offer up my phone number to a self-professed aggressive party-girl, who, at the tender age of 36 decided that it was time for her to drop everything, husband and children not excluded, to move to Los Angeles and become a, you guessed it, THESPIAN!  

I had no courteous warning of such a call and picked up the phone on a fine  Tuesday morning to hear a rather sugary sweet, faux-innocent, overly complimentary woman on the other end. She wanted to meet for lunch and pick my proverbial brain on how to get started in the entertainment business.  

She had me sold on her, until the over inflated flattery began. The petulant cynic in me urged me not to trust, while my ego gushed at the praises. I, foolishly, put the cynic to bed and allowed my ego to acquiesce. We met that day because I felt benevolent. Here was my opportunity to help guide what I thought was a fry or a smolt out of water. 

Imagine my shock when, in walks this woman, armed with a Birkin bag, hazel eye colored contacts and enough crows feet to make me feel that my mother had in fact flown in to Los Angeles just to play a cruel joke on me. 

I suddenly felt as if I should be the one asking tips on,  how to break into a Birkin store. I know of 1-800 CONTACT. Hazel eyes? Check! She identified herself and told me that she was Iranian-Haitian. I weakly suggested that if she was going to market herself as such, she ought to put the Haitian before the Iranian... for alliteration purposes. 

I began my spiel with the disclaimer that I can only share my path. It's a fairly simple and average one. 

I got into huge student loan debt by attending the Actors Studio Masters of Fine Arts program at The New School right out of Undergraduate school. Like any decent die hard New Yorker, I snubbed Los Angeles for the first two years post graduation because I wanted to do Broadway. My timing was such that Broadway at the time had become a kind of Mecca for Musical Theatre. My New York agents pointed out that I was a poor excuse of a singer and, while I move "extremely well",  I was definitely not a "trained" dancer and would starve. 

I booked a New York soap two months after that take-no-prisoners sit-down. That soap, "Another World" got canceled as soon as the limo dropped me off after my screen test. It was time to become a sell out, get the hell out of dodge as it were. I loved New York, but New York was not reciprocating the feeling. I made sure that I secured representation in Los Angeles, packed anything that could fit into my crappy three door champagne colored Saturn, donated everything else and drove cross country. 

Once I got to tinsel town, my LA reps sent me out and I booked. Period. I took a traditional safe route. One that a 22 year old, unsupported by family who did not understand what her passion or career choice was, would bravely take, I hope.

 "You?" I inquire.  For a second, her eyes got misty, a sure sign that there was an iota of a possible empathetic loving soul inhabiting that 'I have no -time- left to waste and I will stomp on your head if I have too, just to get there armor'. Then, just as quickly, she dismissed my pathetic plan. 

She had no formal training but had done one Jamaican film, set in Haiti, that made her realize her calling. Wonderful! Actually doing a film, is a darn good way to find out your potentiality. Kudos on this front! 

Her plan was to attend every major party, hit the award shows, hustle, hobnob, party with the big wigs. 

Wow! I hadn't thought of that as my entrée into this world of magic. I have been obsessed with the "gift", the "work".  I stupidly imagined that the focus on the ongoing development of the "gift" would somehow prevail. 

Darn it! Why didn't "they" just hand me the same book she read from? I feel cheated, I want my student loans forgiven! 'Maintenant! Ahora! Now! Presto!!!

We part ways. I still feel benevolent. At the end of the day, my advice is useless since her plan is probably the one that gets results in this town. Merit? What's that? Do I think Hollywood is a meritocracy? Where did I pick up this load of $575 per month for the next...?  Shit, I haven't checked in with Sallie Mae lately.  

I refrain from the party scene unless something I was in requests my appearance. Without an invite, it means, flirting with a thick- necked - willing to be an actor- bouncer or standing in a line trying to "sneak-in" in the freezing cold, scantily clad. I did that in College with a fake ID. Done! I am LEGAL now! 

 I would hate to show up at a friend's premiere and use that as an opportunity to "hustle". I should, but my strong sense of propriety won't let me. Besides, what do I say? "Hi, I am one of the other three hundred actors in this room, hire me, whose work you do not know!"

 Fact is, we are here to celebrate a project come to life. Someone's life's work and dream is on that screen. Let us celebrate "them". It's their night. Man, am I a quasi-fool? 

So, am I talking about a faux Kim Kardashian?

 No!!! I am talking about someone a decade older than I, spreading the good word on my character. Planting a bitter seed in the consciousness of those meeting me, Nadège August,  for the first time. Sadly, most people are sheep. They follow the lead of anyone who appears to have an original thought.

Nadège August is 'dròl'. Strange. Weird. Bizarre...

Another dreamer, member of her posse, YoungBlood, who had every opportunity to get training, has adopted her rogue trajectory. No training needed, but my partying with the movers and shakers will surely get me there! Besides, an editor worth his grain in salt can make anyones' performance look amazing. A broken clock is right at least twice in that world! 

I ran into YoungBlood at a casting office one year ago. He was not sent to this casting session but was crashing it à la red carpet style, I am guessing based on her brand of training et al. 

He was turned away because, well... you know what it's like to just show up for a job interview you weren't formally invited too. After a few short minutes of minor chitchat with him before his expulsion, I excused myself to go back to the "work".  I am there to "work". 

YoungBlood has since gone around announcing that, Nadège August is 'dròl'. Strange. Weird. Bizarre.

Apparently, not spending the entire time in chatter bug mode with him garnered me that label in his myopic world. YoungBlood's pronouncement of my 'dròl' character is only shared within this small incestuous Haitian community that I do my best to laugh at. If this reputation has spread beyond the community, all I can victoriously proclaim is: "Just because I don't behave the way you want me too, does NOT make me WEIRD!"   

To this darling woman who is probably crashing an award season party as you read this,  I offer the following etymological lesson. In the 17th Century, when one was described as a droll, it meant that they were an ENTERTAINER, a JESTER, an UNUSUAL person who offered dry amusement! A droll person actually has something to offer! Not just TAKE, USE but OFFER!

In keeping with my 2012 theme, if my farina- for- brains -thrice- removed sweet cousin reads this and forwards this to her aggressive decade older friend, I say: "BRING IT BITCHES!"