New Thing #21: I'm a new member.

I don't realize it will be such a meaningful moment. I mean, yes, I do, of course I know it is going to be somewhat meaningful, you know, as a milestone of sorts, not only as a New Thing, but, well, hopefully a harbinger of more New Things to come. But I don't anticipate the reaction I am going to have. The rush of emotion that will run through me as soon as this is done. The complete elation. The excitement. I do not realize that any of these things are coming at all.

No, right now I'm just trying to make sure I have all of the paperwork I'm supposed to have. There's a lot of paperwork in this folder I've put together in an attempt to be organized and I keep thumbing through my documents to make sure that everything is here.

Looks good, I guess. Okay. I walk inside.

The man at the reception desk looks at me like he knows me. "Are you going to Registration?"

"No," I tell him, "I'm going to Membership."

"You need to go around the corner to the right."

I do as I'm told. I find a long empty room. A man at a desk. A sign that says "Registration."

"Is this Membership?" I ask him.

"No, it's Registration. You're looking for Membership? Then you wanna go up to the third floor."

I thank the man at the desk, I leave the long empty room, I go back around the corner to the left. As I pass the man at the reception desk, I explain, again, why I'm here.

"Oh, you're looking for Membership?" he asks me. "That's on the third floor."

As I step onto the elevator, I notice a simple computer print-out taped to the wall reminding people to "Register Your Scripts!" Well, now I know where to do that, I think to myself.

As I ride up to the third floor, all I can think about is how old and rickety this elevator is. It feels like it's held together with glue. I am afraid that if I breathe too hard, the whole thing will fall apart, and then I will plummet back down to the first floor, not to my death, but more likely to many broken bones.

I consider for a moment that this might not be such a bad thing because I have never broken a bone before and at least I could write about it in my blog. A bunch of broken bones from an elevator accident has gotta be worth at least three blog entries.

Then the elevator door opens, I forget about the elevator, and I step out into the third floor:

Membership.

This is it. I'm here.

I sit down with a very nice man named Patrick, he goes through all of my paperwork--yes, it looks like things are in order, he tells me--and then he stands and extends his hand out for me to shake and says the following words:

"Congratulations, you are now a member of the Writer's Guild of America."

And this is when I start feeling that elation that I didn't realize I was going to feel. It's a big moment. I shake Patrick's hand a little more firmly than I probably should and I make my way back to the elevator.

The doors close and I start dancing. I cannot help it. I do a little jig.

And then it starts to feel as if the elevator is going to crumble and suddenly I really do not want to break any bones, so I wait until I've gotten back down to the first floor, until my feet are once again planted firmly on the ground, and I dance some more.

The man at the reception desk smiles but doesn't say anything. I smile back at him, then head back to my car.

I'm a fuckin' member of the WGA, y'all!