The narrator of this short story was a naïve guy living in LA hoping to make something of himself as an actor and “Nothing Ever Happens Here” is a collection of acting mishaps, some flashbacks to whenever he was living at home with his mother, but mostly it was his interactions with his landlady, Mrs. Honigbaum. The strained relationship with his mother kept coming up throughout the story, partially because of the narrator’s own apprehension from him ignoring her, and partially because Mrs. Honigbaum brought her up a decent bit. This may have been her projecting how much she wished she could have said, but she was also an extremely pragmatic character with a strong sense of duty. Her job was fluff that people read to feel better, being casted in anything required some level of being superficial, and things were the way they were.
The narrator was clearly green to the way a lot of things worked out there, but he was one of the few guy narrator’s who wasn’t completely repulsive. Other than lying some and being a little self-entitled he really just minded his own business for the most part. The thing that I found ironic was that his life in LA sounded almost more formulaic than the life that he was living at home. Mainly, I think that he wanted to 1) get away from his mother 2) to prove her wrong. I’m not sure if acting really was his passion more than making something of himself was. In the one interaction he had with his mom where she essentially said that he would be a small fish in a big pond and that there were hundreds of thousands of guys with the same aspirations I think summed up the situation the best. He just wanted her support, or some sort of enthusiasm for the notion (at least at the time) rather than to be torn down another peg. Maybe that’s why this story was being told, in an attempt to show his mother that things were different, but he couldn’t see how much really hasn’t changed.
I agree that this story isn’t about his desire for an acting career, but of his relationship to his mother. The narrator receives two different perspectives from the maternal figures: the reality from his mother, and the unconditional support from Mrs. Honigbaum. His mother is cautious and warns him of an acting career in LA, but does this mean she doesn’t love him? Mrs. Honigbaum gives him nothing less than support, but did she contribute to his failed acting career? I suppose you could consider this a love triangle: the narrator and the maternal love of both his mother and Mrs. Honigbaum.
From reading your post, I can definitely see how this story is more about maternal relationships and support than about the narrator’s acting career. I think the narrator does not want to accept the harsh reality that his mother told him on how difficult it is to become a Hollywood star. Feeling dejected, he goes off to California to try and prove his mother wrong. While Mrs. Honigbaum supports him, I feel as if she is trying to shield him from the reality that he is not fit to work as an actor in Hollywood. This is detrimental to the narrator and his emotional well-being.