Recap

What a fucked up kinda year this has been. Some things sorta turned out the way I had expected, other things weren't even remotely close. Let's take a look at my New Year's resolutions from last year and see how they turned out...

1) Get back into my Size 6 jeans - Success! This one I actually accomplished and then some. I've lost 25 lbs since moving out to CA. Just 12 more to go...

2) Have the body to wear a bikini again this summer - Ummm, didn't quite make this one. I feel better about wearing a bathing suit now. I'm not quite bikini fit yet, but I will get there this year...

3) Stop annoying my friends - I went from annoying them to pissing them off so technically I got this one right :)

4) Save more $$$ - not even close...

5) Avoid my ex - I did a fantabulos job with this one until last month. Then there were some e-mails exchanged, but mostly I was successful at this res.

6) Have more sex - I had the good fortune to sleep with not one, but two amazing men in 2005. No complaints here. Let's hope 2006 is even better.

7) Keep posting to my blog - There were a few days I missed, but all in all I think I gave a good chronicle of the entire year here...

8) Finish the book and the screenplay I'm working on - didn't touch the book, but finished one screenplay and started on a second. This is my big project for 2006. Write. Write Write. The western WILL get finished.

9) Stop being so obsessive - I think I was better with my obsessiveness. I made up for it by being more neurotic, but that's better than obsessive, right?

10) Be happier about my job - Fuck yeah I'm happier about my job. I love my new one. Getting out of ATL and away from ELNK was the best thing I've ever done for myself...

11) Play more video games - I played a lot of EQ this year. I don't see that changing anytime soon. In addition, I have people trying to get me into Star Wars: Galaxies and City of Villians...

12) Be more open and honest with my friends - Sometimes too much honesty and openness maybe aren't the best things. I fucked up with a lot of people in 2005 and that was partially because I said things I shouldn't have. For a quiet girl, my mouth sure got me into a lot of fucking trouble it seems. I have a few confidantes I'll continue to share everything with, but there are some aspects of my life that are better not discussed with the general populace...

13) Get a new tattoo - this is the one I would have picked as the one I was most likely to foloow through with, but it didn't come to pass. I definitely need to get one in the coming year. Some of the best artists in the world work out of LA, I'm sure I can find someone to give me some ink...

I'm not going to do an official resolutions list for 2006. I'm going to work on the ones I didn't succeed at in 2005 and that should give me more than enough to do. I also vow to spend as much time as possible with TNI (who, I should mention, has been working out pretty religiously the last few months and is lookin' REALLY fucking good these days). I also want to continue to try and work things out with HWMNBN. He's making great strides to get through his "issues" and I have hopes that things will improve between us. So have a HAPPY NEW YEAR everybody! I'm headed to what could be a legendary party tomorrow night. I promise to let you ll know how it goes...

“New Year's Day - Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.” -- Mark Twain

Sound Of Silence

Sometimes the best days are the days spent not really doing anything at all. That was sorta my day today. I got up and hung out with the family this morning. We watched "Jumanji" on TBS and just talked and whatnot. Then I headed south of the ATL and spent the day hanging out with TNI. We grabbed some lunch, and played some pool, and watched a movie. Aside from getting the scenic backroads tour to get to his sister's house and a fruitless quest to find a sushi restaurant, it was basically a lazy, mellow afternoon... and it was great. Almost everyone else in my life seems to stress me out in one way or another these days. Family, friends, work, etc. I don't have that problem with TNI. I don't have to BE anyone for him. I can just be me and he seems to be ok with that. He seems to get that there are days when I am happy and goofy and fairly talkative and other days when I just need to adhere to my quieter side. Granted, I'm sure he likes happy, fun me better than quiet me, but he doesn't seem compelled to make me talk or fill the silences like most other people. The rest of my world should be as understanding... HWMNBM is the most outgoing person I've ever met. He never shuts up or sits still, and that's fine. It works for him, that's the way he is, but he expects me to keep up with him and that's just not in my nature. (Unless I've got a couple of martinis in me, then I become the most gregarious girl you've ever met.) He's finally starting to get the idea that maybe not everyone else on the planet is quite as extroverted as he is and that's good. Besides, he talks enough for the both of us. I can be Teller to his Penn :) There may be hope for us yet... Even S-boy gets uncomfortable when I lapse into my quiet place. He doesn't like the silences and at this point knows me well enough to change the subject to a topic he knows I'll talk about (movies, horses, hockey, etc) and to his credit, it usually works too. I'm not stupid though. I know when he's doing it and on some level it annoys me a little. Why are most people so uncomfortable with silence? If I have something to say, I'll say it. It doesn't mean I'm in a bad mood. It doesn't mean I'm pissed off at you. Trust me, if I'm pissed you'll fucking know about it. I'm just not good at the small talk thing and find idle chit-chat generally boring.... hmmm, the serious lack of dinner parties on my social calandar suddenly makes much more sense :) Hope everyone had a great holiday! Did I mention that I'm sooooo past ready to get back to LA?

“I like your silence, it the more shows off your wonder.” -- William Shakespeare - "The Winter's Tale" - Act V - Scene iii

Day Thirteen

On the thirteenth day of Christmas,
My true love gave to me,
Thirteen polo ponies,
Twelve nights in Maui,
Eleven celebrity stalkers,
Ten glowing reviews,
Nine pink diamonds,
Eight talk show bookings,
A Seven-figure salary,
Six weeks in rehab,
A Five-picture deal...
Four botox injections,
Three pilot auditions,
Two Sundance passes,
And an agent at a major agency.

Home For The Holidays

I find myself back in the ATL and I have to say, it's very odd being back. I know I've been gone less than a year, but it feels like a foreign country to me now. The flight East was bumpy. I got in, had dinner with Mom, and then met up with TNI and a buddy of his. It was so good to see him again. I've really, really missed having him around. I know that's stupid. It's not like I haven't talked to him on the phone practically every day since he's been gone, but it's just not the same. I find myself really relying on having certain people around and when they're not, my life just seems to come a little unhinged. TNI is one of those people, so yeah, I was really glad to see him again... Today was kinda fucked up. My mom and I went over to my brother's place for dinner and it was a whole extended family kind of affair. Parents, step-parents, grandparents, siblings, babies, kids, dogs, close friends, just your basic family chaos. It was a bit of sensory overload for me. I partially blame my jetlag, but that wasn't entirely it. Fortunately, my brother and sister-in-law got a new Italian Greyhound puppy a couple of weeks ago, and Ella latched onto me the minute I walked in the door. She is too cute and gave me a reason to be semi-anti-social. At one point I sat down in a big cushiony chair and she curled up in my arms, put her head on my chest, and went to sleep. That gave me an excuse not to move for like an hour and so I just watched the mayhem unfold around me. I was the eye in the family hurricane... I also got to thinking, which was prolly not a good thing. This is a bad time of year for me to get all reflective, but I did it anyway. So here are some of my thoughts on that... Why is it that people don't realize how horrible they are to the people closest to them? Every day we do things that only hurt those we love. Some are minor slights. An unkind word, a rolling of the eyes. Some are more blatant. Lies, half-truths, things left unsaid. Arguements over petty, stupid shit. I'm as guilty as anyone. I've lied to get what I want. Kept secrets from those I love - sometimes to protect them, sometimes to protect myself. I think a lot of the time we don't do these things maliciously. They just happen. We say we're going to do something, and we don't. We make promises with the best of intentions, but deep down know we can't keep them. We tell people what we think they want to hear... I want to be successful, but I don't want a pile of bodies and a list of people I fucked over to follow me where I want to go. Is that even possible in this day and age or are we really playing a zero sum game? Nobody wins unless somebody loses? I hope we (or at the very least I) have not come to that point... It's the same when it comes to relationships. Of course I want the fairy tale. Someone to live happily ever after with. I know I'm prolly going to have to go through bad relationships to get to that point, but what I don't want is a slew of conquests; a bunch of nights of random, meaningless sex with pretty guys who won't remember my name and who I wouldn't be able to pick out of a line-up a month or two down the road. I've never been very trusting of men, and have been very selevctive of the guys I sleep with (hence the reason I've only been with 4 guys in the last 8 years), but lately the temptation to just let go and take some of the pretty people home with me for a night has really been there. I need to get away from that line of thinking. It's not going to lead anywhere good and that's not that girl I want to be (or become). I've always had a sorta "rule" about not getting involved with married men, but have looked at girlfriends as obstacles to be overcome. I'm thinking karma may frown upon that line of thinking, so I'm going to try and avoid the "involved" ones from now on too. If you're single and available, gimme a call, but if you're lying to someone else by being with me, then go home. Be a man and go back to your fucking girlfriend. If/when you break up with her, gimme a call... I'm also having some weird issues when it comes to my friends these days. I've always been insanely loyal to those close to me. Loyal to a fault many would say. I've burned some bridges in the past and have recently been on a quest to rebuild some of them, to varying success. The question is, why do I bother? Some of these friendships have fallen apart because of things I've done, others just unraveled on their own. Should I learn to just let people go? If they don't want to be a part of my life anymore, why should I be the one to fight to salvage things? I don't have an answer to that. Maybe it's just in my nature to fight for the things/people that are important to me. Necede nedede. I've always had a soft spot for lost causes, even when it's a losing battle that the other side doesn't want me to fight... It's amazing the fucked up route your thoughts can take when you have a tiny, warm dog napping on your chest. I'm not sure how I got on this train of thought, but it was very odd to be thinking these things while the Christmas chaos raged around me... Which is not to say that it made me unhappy. I had a good day. I was maybe just a bit too over-reflective. This season does that to me... Still it's been good to see family and friends. I haven't been posting my happy thoughts lately. Shame on me. So that's my happy thing for today. I'm going to try and be a better person to those people that I love. My family and my few close friends. May we not fuck up each other's lives too badly...

"Never give up. Never surrender." -- Tim Allen - "Galaxy Quest"

Day Twelve

On the twelfth day of Christmas,
My true love gave to me,
Twelve nights in Maui,
Eleven celebrity stalkers,
Ten glowing reviews,
Nine pink diamonds,
Eight talk show bookings,
A Seven-figure salary,
Six weeks in rehab,
A Five-picture deal...
Four botox injections,
Three pilot auditions,
Two Sundance passes,
And an agent at a major agency.

Day Eleven

On the eleventh day of Christmas,
My true love gave to me,
Eleven celebrity stalkers,
Ten glowing reviews,
Nine pink diamonds,
Eight talk show bookings,
A Seven-figure salary,
Six weeks in rehab,
A Five-picture deal...
Four botox injections,
Three pilot auditions,
Two Sundance passes,
And an agent at a major agency.

Day Ten

On the tenth day of Christmas,
My true love gave to me,
Ten glowing reviews,
Nine pink diamonds,
Eight talk show bookings,
A Seven-figure salary,
Six weeks in rehab,
A Five-picture deal...
Four botox injections,
Three pilot auditions,
Two Sundance passes,
And an agent at a major agency.

Day Nine

On the ninth day of Christmas,
My true love gave to me,
Nine pink diamonds,
Eight talk show bookings,
A Seven-figure salary,
Six weeks in rehab,
A Five-picture deal...
Four botox injections,
Three pilot auditions,
Two Sundance passes,
And an agent at a major agency.

Let It Snow... Sorta

You know you're in LA when it's mid-December, it's 80 degrees out, it's snowing fake snow on Hollywood Blvd, and you get stopped at a road block on your way home from work because they're shooting a chase scene on the road you live on. There are days when I truly love this city. It's definitely a ghost town around here though. Traffic has been non-existant all week and work has been dead. It'll be good to see people back in Atlanta, but I still sorta wish I was staying here. I like the warm weather and it's kinda cool basically having the town to myself. I also hate having to leave my dog for a week. Oh well. Family duty and all that jazz. I usually hate this time of year, but aside from a few bad days, December hasn't been so bad this time around. Must be all the sun. My brain doesn't know when or where it is... stop laughing... ok, maybe you're right... that's the case with my brain a lot of the time :)

"When Christmas bells are swinging above the fields of snow, we hear sweet voices ringing from lands of long ago, and etched on vacant places are half-forgotten faces of friends we used to cherish, and loves we used to know." -- Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Day Eight

On the eighth day of Christmas,
My true love gave to me,
Eight talk show bookings,
A Seven-figure salary,
Six weeks in rehab,
A Five-picture deal...
Four botox injections,
Three pilot auditions,
Two Sundance passes,
And an agent at a major agency.

Day Seven

On the seventh day of Christmas,
My true love gave to me,
A Seven-figure salary,
Six weeks in rehab,
A Five-picture deal...
Four botox injections,
Three pilot auditions,
Two Sundance passes,
And an agent at a major agency.

The Family Broderick

This morning it was cold and foggy and just generally a good day to stay inside and watch movies, so I managed to get two more seen today. First up was "The Producers." I never got a chance to go see the play in NYC and it's been forever since I saw Mel Brooks' original film, so I'd forgotten just how funny this musical is. Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane are a great team. They are hysterically funny, have great comic timing, and both can more than carry a tune. Of course, I sorta expected that with all the acclaim they got when the show was running on Broadway. Uma Thurman was a big surprise though. She has a great voice and dances well. From "Kill Bill" to this. Who would have thought? Honestly though, Will Ferrell isthe real standout in this movie. He steals every scene he's in, and he's not in it nearly enough. This movie harkens back to old-time Hollywood musicals and it's a lot of fun. I don't think it's good enough to win any of the major awards, but it's definitely worth the cost of admission... After "The Producers," I snuck in to see Matthew Broderick's wife, Sarah Jessica Parker, in "The Family Stone." Actually the main reason I wanted to see this movie is Rachel McAdams. She has quickly turned into my favorite actress and she's really great in this film. As is the whole cast, especially Luke Wilson. The movie itself is good, but not great. It's also not what I expected. It's funny, but not as funny as the trailers would lead you to believe. It's a little too contrived and sappy, but maybe that's ok for this time of year. It's still a good movie about families and how crazy they can be sometimes. There are a lot of other movies out right now that I would suggest you check out first. My suggestion is wait and NetFlix this one next Christmas...

"Even though we're sitting down, we're giving you a standing ovation." -- Nathan Lane - "The Producers"

Day Six

On the sixth day of Christmas,
My true love gave to me,
Six weeks in rehab,
A Five-picture deal...
Four botox injections,
Three pilot auditions,
Two Sundance passes,
And an agent at a major agency.

The Eighth Wonder Of The World

Finally a movie that lives up to the hype. "King Kong" is fucking amazing. Action, adventure, romance. A monster movie with heart and soul and a really, really big budget. Peter Jackson should just be given truckloads of cash and allowed to make whatever movie he wants at this point. (Everyone repeat after me, "The Hobbit," "The Hobbit," "The Hobbit.") You guys all know me. I don't cry at movies. I got through "E.T." and "Steel Magnolias" and all those chick-flicks designed to make girls all weepy and whatever and I never shed a tear. No, apparently it takes a special FX giant ape to get me all teary-eyed. This is really a great film. It's worth seeing just to watch the fight scene between Kong and the T-Rexes, but there's so much more to this movie than just action sequences. It definitely doesn't feel like a 3+ hour film. You all know what this movie is about. I don't have to tell you the plot. The cast is great. From Naomi Watts, to Colin Hanks, to a very subdued Jack Black, but this movie is all about the monkey, and the monkey delivers. I'd say Kong is unbelievable, but that's not the case. He's totally believable. Like the "Jurassic Park" dinosaurs that came before him, you just know that he actually exists out there. Peter Jackson convinced us that Middle Earth is a real place and now you just know that he went out and really found Skull Island and brought Kong to us. Thank you for that Peter. All I have to say is, go see it. Go see it. Go see it.

"If you really loved it, you would have jumped." -- Jack Black - "King Kong"

Day Five

On the fifth day of Christmas,
My true love gave to me,
A Five-picture deal...
Four botox injections,
Three pilot auditions,
Two Sundance passes,
And an agent at a major agency.

Dear Ms Scrooge...

It was pointed out to me that my quote from last night was not particularly cheery. Mea Culpa. I didn't mean anything by it and didn't mean to trample on everyone else's holiday spirits. I just liked the quote. I for once am sans men problems. I have decided I'm happy how I am right now. I haven't given up the quest to find the right guy; I'm just taking a break from it until further notice. In fact, I'm thinkin' of asking Santa for a pretty boy for Christmakah. Ho. Ho. Ho ;)

Day Four

On the fourth day of Christmas,
My true love gave to me,
Four botox injections,
Three pilot auditions,
Two Sundance passes,
And an agent at a major agency.

I've Got Your Candy Cane

Today sucked. I don't want to talk about it. I'm going to pretend it didn't happen. Wednesday was better. Let's talk about that. Sometimes even guys can surprise you. My absolute favorite Texan came by the store. He brought me a Christmas card and two Christmas CDs that he burned for me. They're great. He picked my favorite versions of a lot of songs. I had fruitlessly been trying to download some songs to put together a Holiday playlist for my iPod and I hadn't been having much luck. I couldn't find a lot of the songs I was looking for and it was really starting to piss me off. So he saved me hours and hours of frustration. It was very sweet of him. He also gave the CDs cute titles. (See blog title above ;) Yesterday I also found out that I officially got the photo gig I mentioned a couple weeks back. I'm headed to Seattle in March as the official photographer for the Ronald McDonald House/Microsoft Hockey Challenge. Woo Hoo! I'm pretty psyched about it and it should be a lot of fun. Two days of hockey, hockey, hockey. It also justifies the new digital camera I'm buying myself for Christmas now ;) Friday night is my company Christmas party. We're going to a swanky Italian restaurant so that should be fun. Then for the weekend I plan to go to a movie theatre and watch as many movies as I can. Not very exciting for most of you out there I'm sure, but I think it sounds like a perfect way to spend a day (or two). Nothing else to report. I just felt the urge to write something (aside from my developing Christmas carol), but now I feel the urge to sleep, so it's off to bed for this little girl. Just need to write this day off and start over tomorrow... Happy thing for today is TNI. I miss him terribly, but just hearing his voice helped to make my day seem less horrific...

"Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love." -- Neil Gaiman

Day Three

On the third day of Christmas,
My true love gave to me,
Three pilot auditions,
Two Sundance passes,
And an agent at a major agency.

Day Two

On the second day of Christmas,
my true love gave to me
Two Sundance passes,
And an agent at a major agency.

Day One

Ok, as promised here is Day One of my rendition of "The 13 Days of Christmas" (LA-Style)...

On the first day of Christmas,
My true love gave to me,
An agent at a major agency.

LA Days of Christmas

We do things a little differently out here in the City of Angels so I figure that should go for Christmas carols as well. So starting tomorrow I'm going to regale the Blogverse with "The 13 Days of Christmas." Call it Christmas Hollywood style. Yes, I know that normally the Twelve Days of Christmas start with Christmas Day and finish with the eve of Epiphany on 5th January, but like I said before, we do things a little differently out here in left field :)

"The holiest of all holidays are those kept by ourselves in silence and apart; the secret anniversaries of the heart." -- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Memoirs Of Another Kind

Days like today are one of the reasons I moved back to California. Here it is, the middle of fucking December, and it was 70+ degrees and sunny and beautiful. There was no smog, just big puffy white clouds in a clear, blue sky. That's definitely my happy thing for today... On the movie front, I only got one seen. I was wide awake at like 8:00 this AM and so I got up and went and caught the early showing of "Memoirs of a Geisha." That's another great thing about LA. Weekend matinee shows start at like 10AM. If I time it right I could conceivably get 4 or even 5 movies seen in day. Today was not that day though. It was too nice to spend indoors, but Geisha was a must-see on my list. I was not wrong. It's a truly remarkable film. Spielberg planned for years to direct this movie and it may prove to be an unwise decision on his part that he never got around to making it. I think it will be the biggest competition that his film, "Munich" has come Oscar time. It's beautifully shot and the cast is amazing. I never read the book, but the story is great. It's all about sacrifice and loss and what lengths people will go to to attain what they love. Ziyi Zhang is one of my favorite actors out there and she was perfect for this role. Yes, I know she is Chinese and not Japanese and that has a lot of people up in arms over her casting, but fuck them. She's awesome and she was born to play this part. The rest of the cast is equally as good. Everything really falls into place in this movie, from costume design, to music, to make up and cinematography. Expect to see this one on a lot of "best of" lists at the end of the year. It should bring home a slew of award nominations as well. Is it the best picture of the year? I don't know. So far, I'd have to call it the front runner, but with "Munich," "Brokeback Mountain," and "King Kong" still on the horizion, the competition may still heat up.

"We create another secret world, a place only of beauty. The very word 'geisha' means artist and to be a geisha is to be judged as a moving work of art." -- Michelle Yeoh - "Memoirs of a
Geisha"

Just A Little Off

I've been a little outta whack the past 2 days. It started on Friday morning. I rolled over and looked at the clock. (Let me mention that it was the analog clock on the wall, not my digital one. That makes me look slightly less stupid.) I saw it reading 7:15 and although I normally don't get up until 7:45 or 8:00, I was wide awake, so I got up. I checked my e-mail and downloaded some stuff from iTunes. Then I logged into EQ to see if I'd sold anything. Basically I just fucked around for 45 minutes. So at 8:00 I turned on KTLA to see what weather and traffic were looking like and was briefly puzzled as to why they were signing off. Then the little light went on and I looked at the digital clock on my dresser. It sat there all blue and glowy and reading 9:13. (I set my clock ahead 13 minutes. It's just a thing I do. Don't ask.) So there I was, not dressed, no makeup, not remotely ready for work and it was 9AM. The time I'm normally walking out the door. I had gotten up at 8:15, not 7:15. Dammit. So I threw on some clothes, slapped on some makeup and ran out the door. Blissfully there was no traffic, which for a Friday is something of a miracle and from the reports on the radio, I was the only one who hit no traffic jams. The 10 and the 110 were particularly hideous apparently. Still, my whole day was just a little "off" and it has continued into today. I have written on my calendar that I'm supposed to get my hair cut next Saturday at 1:00. Cool. Except that apparently my appointment was for today and not next week. Fortunately my hairdresser had another client cancel this morning and so she called me to see if I wanted to come in earlier. So I did, but that totally fucked up my plan to go into the city and see "Memoirs of a Geisha" this afternoon. Ok fine. I figured I'd go see "Syriana" at a theatre near my house instead. No such luck. I missed the showtime at one of them by 15 minutes and the other theatre was sold out. So no movie for this girl today. I'm going to try and get both seen tomorrow instead. If I do, I could conceivably get 5 movies seen in like a week and 1/2, which is more than I've seen in the last 2 months. I saw "Narnia" last Wednesday. I plan to do "Geisha" and "Syriana" tomorrow. Then some friends and I are talking "King Kong" on Wednesday. Lastly Steven Spielberg is hosting a screening of "Munich" on the 20th that S-boy has said he can get me into. Nifty. I love the holiday movie season, but it's a bitch trying to get everything seen. Speaking of S-boy, I had a really bizarre conversation with him on Thursday. He and I have got to stop drinking margaritas together. Every time we do, it turns into some kind of fucked up truth-or-dare session. I was bitching about the guy who blew me off for the Narnia screening and he was bitching about this "clingy" chick who keeps calling him (and no, it's not me :P) and that she driving him crazy. He's very much an outdoorsy kinda guy and this girl is more a shopping-at-the-Beverly Center type. He's finally just stopped returning her phone calls, but that hasn't stopped her from trying to reach him. He's really annoyed. At least I'm not the only one who seems to attract psychos. So anyway, he said something about confident women turning him on and I told him that was bullshit. Guys claim they want confident, assertive women, but when it comes down to it, they don't. They want quiet, submissive girls who do what they're told. Otherwise, I would not still be single. S-boy found that amusing. He told me that there's a difference between being assertive and being aggressive and that I may be a bit too aggressive for most guys out there, but that the real reason I'm still single is because I want to be. He says that I know exactly what I want in a man and until I find exactly what I want, I'm not going to be happy. That's why I get bored with men so easily. I haven't found one who challenges me enough. I need someone who will stand up to me and most men don't have those kinds of balls. He may have a point. I can be a bit demanding and it's definitely going to take a certain kind of guy to convince me to give him a real chance with me. On the bright side, S-boy seems to think I will eventually find that guy. Well, at least one of us sees some light at the end of that particular tunnel of mine :) The convesation then got a bit more goofy as we discussed what else turns us on. (Him - driving fast, women in boots, redheads. Me - storms (thunder and wind), having the back of my neck kissed, guys in black turtlenecks.) We also somehow got on the topic of my licking fetish. Like I said, it was a bizarre conversation. Tequila'll do that to ya. Still, we had a good time. I really like hanging out with S-boy. He doesn't put up with any bullshit and has no problem telling me when he thinks I'm doing something stupid. He definitely speaks his mind and doesn't care what anyone else thinks about his opinions. I wish we could hang out more often. It's not the same as having TNI around, but I have to say that S-boy has certainly been a welcome addition to my life... Although once pilot season gets cranked up, I suspect that I won't see much of any of my boys. Ah, the joys of hanging out with actors. Actually though, I'm sure I'll be just as busy as they are, if not more so. That's ok though. Work goes by a lot faster when we're busy... Enough for today I guess. Happy thing for tonight is being able to see the stars. The nights are so clear out here. It's beautiful and I never tire of looking out my window and seeing stars. Must be the dreamer in me... Enjoy the rest of the weekend :)

"Love is something far more than desire for sexual intercourse; it is the principal means of escape from the loneliness which afflicts most men and women throughout the greater part of their lives." -- Bertrand Russell

Hang A Left At The Lamppost

This is supposed to be my review for "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe," and it will be, but I have to do a mini-rant first... I lack communication skills. I'm aware of that. I've spent most of my life being referred to as "the quiet one." Ok fine... but even I am better at communicating than most men it seems. I invited a friend of mine to go see this movie with me. He seemed excited to go which was cool. This particular guy and I haven't spoken in a few weeks and so I decided to be the one to play nice and break the silence because I figured this was a movie he really wanted to see. He was supposed to call me yesterday afternoon and let me know if he could go or not. I mean how hard is it to pick up the damn phone and press the little numbers that make it dial? Think I heard from him? Hell no. Not a call. Not even a fucking e-mail. I was not pleased. Oh well. Fuck it. His loss. He missed a hell of a movie and he missed out on a chance to hang out with me for a few hours... So as far as the movie goes, it was beautifully done. Was it true to the book? No. Not totally. I'm writing this review under the assumption that anyone reading it knows this story. Either they read the book or saw the previous film incarnation or something. If you don't know the story then feel free to stop reading now. I've talked to several people who told me they are going to re-read the book before going to see the movie. I had the same thought and re-read it over Thanksgiving. For those of you planning to do that let me tell you to stop. Put it down on the table and back away from the book. Read it after you go to the movie. (If you really feel you have to read a Narnia book, then read "The Magician's Nephew" instead.) I hadn't read the story in probably close to 20 years so I knew what happened, but the smaller details were lost in my memory. If I had not just re-read it, the changes the filmmakers made would not have annoyed me nearly so much. The changes were generally fairly small and were done to place the children in danger sooner and more frequently. I get why they made most of them. I still found them irritating. The one that annoyed me the most was changing the name of The White Witch's head wolf, from Fenris to GrimWald. Why? There was no reason to do it. It was a stupid change. As far as the cast goes, the kids were good. The casting is not as dead on as it has been for say the Harry Potter films, but it was still acceptable. The kids who play Edmund and Susan were fine. The little girl who played Lucy was the best of the four and the boy who plays Peter is very charming... of course I may just feel that way because he really, really reminds me of my friend Stann, but he still definitely has screen presence. Then there is Tilda Swinton who plays The White Witch. She is perfect. She is one of the reasons to see this movie. She is creepy and convincing and is exactly who I would have cast. Mr. Mentor (aka Liam Neeson) was also a great choice to voice Aslan. This is a movie that needs to be seen on the big screen. The special effects are outstanding. They don't rival those of "Lord of the Rings," but then most movies don't, and I think maybe we're wrong to expect them to. (Except for "King Kong" of course. The FX in KK better fucking rock.) Still this is a beautiful film visually. It flows well and is amazing to watch. The battles are violent and the "crucification" scene is disturbing. I would not recommend people taking small kids to see this. But it's a good film (and did I mention that it needs to be seen on the big screen?) There are a ton of potentially huge films coming out in the next couple of weeks, but you should still take the time to go see this one. If you loved the book, then the movie does not disappoint, and if you've never read the book, then the movie will probably blow you away... Happy thing today is LA movie theatre audiences. They don't talk. They turn off their cell phones. They seem to understand that seeing a movie in a theatre should be a pleasant experience for everyone...

"Love is not affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person's ultimate good as far as it can be obtained" -- C.S. Lewis

Victory Is Mine

Today was a good day. I got my New Year's Eve plans all squared away and I did it all by my lonesome. I didn't have to drop any names or anything. I got reservations at one of THE parties to go to all on my own and I'm pretty fucking proud of myself. I won the anuual Los Angeles New Year's game just by being my sweet, charming self. (Ok, everyone stop laughing. I CAN be sweet and charming when I want to be.... No really... I can...) Go figure. Granted, I had to go in and meet with the "reservations team" at this club and it was like going to a fucking audition, but it paid off so yippee skippee. I don't have to stress over that anymore... I also had a surprise visit from S-boy, which is always a welcome distraction. Unfortunately he's going out of town again next week and will be gone until after the New Year. That kinda sucks since I'm not heading back to the ATL until the 23rd... I need some more friends in this town, especially since the few I do have always all seem to be MIA at the same time. Then I'm left to my own devices and get bored and we all know how badly that can turn out... However, I do have another cute friend who may be going to see "The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe" with me tomorrow night, so we'll see how that goes. Hopefully he'll be able to go. If not, maybe I can talk S-boy into going with me. I'll go by myself if I have to, but I'd rather have some company... The day did take a slightly weird turn on the way home though. My car got hit by a bird or a bat or something. Seriously. I saw movement out of the corner of my eye and then something fairly sizeable banged off my passenger-side window. No damage done to the Pony aside from a nasty bloody streak on the window, so hopefully whatever it was died instantly and didn't suffer. But ick. Call it Darwin's Law though. Anything stupid enough to fly into the side of a car probably shouldn't be reproducing.... All right. Time to call it a night. Review of "Narnia" tomorrow if I don't get home too late... My happy thing for today is that the Holiday movie season is officially in full swing now. Lots of good stuff coming out between now and the end of the year...

"If I discover within myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world." -- C.S. Lewis

Coming Unglued

I don't even know where to start. The rain blew through overnight and it's bright and sunny and beautiful here in LA today... and my day couldn't suck more. No, that's not true. It could, but let's hope it doesn't come to that because then I would just come completely unhinged. Technology continues to be my bane. Last night I couldn't stay connected to save my life and today my laptop just up and died on me. That's a very, very bad thing. My whole life is on that fucking machine. Yes, I have some of the info backed up in various places, but bad me, I haven't backed shit up lately and so there's A LOT of stuff I'm going to lose if I don't get the damn thing back up and running at least long enough for me to pull some stuff off of it. This also totally fucks up my plans for buying a new digital camera to use for some photo gigs I have lined up. Looks like I'll be spending that $$$ on a new laptop instead. Dammit. Dammit. Dammit. I totally flipped out on the poor Geek Squad guy at Best Buy. Me. Who very rarely shows anything even resembling emotion (especially in public) and I just lost it. The poor kid didn't know what to do. I'll feel better if I can at least get my stuff off the hard drive and backed up to my desk top. I know it's my own stupid fault for not having done that on a more regular basis, but knowing that didn't stop me from having a little meltdown this afternoon, in fact, it probably made things worse. So yeah, I kinda lost my mind there for a bit today. You'd think I'd be used to fits of maddness by now, but they still tire me the fuck out. I came home and hugged my dog and had a really good crying fit and I'm feeling better now. Really fucking exhausted, but still better... at least until I get on the AlienWare site and find out just how much this new little toy is going to cost me... That well-to-do pretty boy I mentioned last night is sounding better and better all the time...

"A person needs a little madness, or else they never dare cut the rope and be free." -- Nikos Kazantzakis

Happy thing for today... at least my dog loves me and doesn't care that I'm a raving, fucking lunatic sometimes...

Game Playing

True to my word, I came home from work tonight. I did not go out and consort with The Devil. (See, I'm getting wiser as I get older.) He was not at all pleased with that decision. I thought he only had my cell phone number and so once I got home to my canyon I would be safe from his increasingly angry calls... forgetting that my current cell message contains my home phone number. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. He kept calling and calling and calling. Why can't I attract a normal guy just once? Grrr. Arg. I know. I know. I know. I brought this on myself. I'm a fucking idiot sometimes... All I really wanted to do was come home and play some EQ and watch some TV and basically just veg the fuck out. That was not in the cards for me tonight though. Traffic SUCKED. It took me like an hour and 1/2 to get home. The only good thing about the trip was that TNI was kind enough to entertain me for part of the drive. Once I got here, I kept getting kicked offline and there was nothing good on TV. So now on top of being stir crazy and horny, I'm also annoyed... What I really should have done tonight was go to the World Without Sundays show at The Roxy. There would have been at least two very cute Hobbits there I could have flirted with. But it's an ugly, rainy night here in SoCal so I decided not to go. I sorta wish I had though. It would have been fun to drool over Frodo some more, even though he's way too young for me... and that's saying something, since my "Star Wars" rule got thrown out the window some time ago :) So I'm thinking I need to just go to bed and enjoy the fact that it's Friday so I have 2 days of freedom ahead of me. I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to do with those 2 days, but at least I have them... I do need to work on getting my New Year's plans finalized. NYE in LA is proving to be an adventure. Getting on the list anywhere good is something of a game to these people. It's all about name dropping and kissing the right asses. So I've dropped the few names I've managed to collect and am waiting to see where they get me. Maybe next year I'll be able to get in somewhere on my own merits. Surely it won't take this town too long to figure out how fabulous I am, right? If nothing else, maybe some well-to-do pretty boy will figure that out and I'll just give in to the shallowness like everyone else in this town and live richly ever after... Ok, maybe not... not yet anyway... I'm still holding onto the crazy romantic notion that I might still find "that" guy, ya know? Granted, in LA that's probably a long fucking shot, but what the hell? I'm a gambler at heart. I like long shots... and I must admit that I have a long shot that I'm sure tempted to put my money on at this point. I'm just not sure if he's quite ready to race yet though... Wow. I suddenly miss my horse. I wonder why that is? Hehe. Maybe I just need to make a trip to Hollywood Park to watch the ponies run... Or maybe I need to get some sleep before I start to make even less sense that I already am... My happy thing for today is rain. It makes sleeping so great. There's nothing better than being curled up in your nice warm bed when it's dreary and grey and rainy outside... ok, well maybe having someone else curled up with you would make it better... Have a great weekend everybody!

"When I say, "I love you," it's not because I want you or because I can't have you. It has nothing to do with me. I love what you are, what you do, how you try. I've seen your kindness and your strength. I've seen the best and the worst of you. And I understand with perfect clarity exactly what you are. You're a hell of a woman." -- James Marsters - "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"

Moral Support

Well, I talked to all three of my favorite guys today and they seem to be united in the opinion that I need to stay the fuck away from The Devil this weekend. I have to say that when I think about it (and honestly I don't have to think about it too hard), I don't disagree with them. I've just been feeling bored and restless and a little stir crazy this week and the thought of going out and getting into a little bit of trouble has seemed kinda appealing to me. But as TNI so rightly pointed out to me, that's my self-destructive side talking and I need to not listen to that part of my brain when it starts whispering to me. Oh all right. You guys win. I'll behave myself... So, with senseless debauchery off the menu, I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with my weekend. I'm sure I'll play some EQ and I want to go see "Syriana." I need to get to work on my Christmas cards too... Happy thing for today is the fact that I have three really extraordinary men looking out for me. I don't deserve any of them...

"Curiosity often leads to trouble." -- Lewis Carroll -- "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"