On A Break

I've decided it's time to give this blog a break. I haven't been keeping up with it lately anyway and blogger has been a pain in the ass to log into. If I have anything to rant about, I'll put it up on my "My Space" blog. Those of you who know me, will know how to find me on there. I leave you with the poem that inspired Stephen King's "Dark Tower" saga. Call it a requiem for my puppy...

My first thought was, he lied in every word,
That hoary cripple, with malicious eye
Askance to watch the working of his lie
On mine, and mouth scarce able to afford
Suppression of the glee that pursed and scored
Its edge, at one more victim gained thereby.

What else should he be set for, with his staff?
What, save to waylay with his lies, ensnare
All travellers who might find him posted there,
And ask the road? I guessed what skull-like laugh
Would break, what crutch 'gin write my epitaph
For pastime in the dusty thoroughfare,

If at his counsel I should turn aside
Into that ominous tract which, all agree,
Hides the Dark Tower. Yet acquiescingly
I did turn as he pointed: neither pride
Nor hope rekindling at the end descried,
So much as gladness that some end might be.

For, what with my whole world-wide wandering,
What with my search drawn out thro' years, my hope
Dwindled into a ghost not fit to cope
With that obstreperous joy success would bring,
I hardly tried now to rebuke the spring
My heart made, finding failure in its scope.

As when a sick man very near to death
Seems dead indeed, and feels begin and end
The tears and takes the farewell of each friend,
And hears one bid the other go, draw breath
Freelier outside ("since all is o'er," he saith,
"And the blow fallen no grieving can amend";)

While some discuss if near the other graves
Be room enough for this, and when a day
Suits best for carrying the corpse away,
With care about the banners, scarves and staves:
And still the man hears all, and only craves
He may not shame such tender love and stay.

Thus, I had so long suffered in this quest,
Heard failure prophesied so oft, been writ
So many times among "The Band"--to wit,
The knights who to the Dark Tower's search addressed
Their steps--that just to fail as they, seemed best,
And all the doubt was now--should I be fit?

So, quiet as despair, I turned from him,
That hateful cripple, out of his highway
Into the path he pointed. All the day
Had been a dreary one at best, and dim
Was settling to its close, yet shot one grim
Red leer to see the plain catch its estray.

For mark! no sooner was I fairly found
Pledged to the plain, after a pace or two,
Than, pausing to throw backward a last view
O'er the safe road, 'twas gone; grey plain all round:
Nothing but plain to the horizon's bound.
I might go on; nought else remained to do.

So, on I went. I think I never saw
Such starved ignoble nature; nothing throve:
For flowers--as well expect a cedar grove!
But cockle, spurge, according to their law
Might propagate their kind, with none to awe,
You'd think; a burr had been a treasure-trove.

No! penury, inertness and grimace,
In some strange sort, were the land's portion. "See
Or shut your eyes," said Nature peevishly,
"It nothing skills: I cannot help my case:
'Tis the Last Judgment's fire must cure this place,
Calcine its clods and set my prisoners free."

If there pushed any ragged thistle-stalk
Above its mates, the head was chopped; the bents
Were jealous else. What made those holes and rents
In the dock's harsh swarth leaves, bruised as to baulk
All hope of greenness? 'tis a brute must walk
Pashing their life out, with a brute's intents.

As for the grass, it grew as scant as hair
In leprosy; thin dry blades pricked the mud
Which underneath looked kneaded up with blood.
One stiff blind horse, his every bone a-stare,
Stood stupefied, however he came there:
Thrust out past service from the devil's stud!

Alive? he might be dead for aught I know,
With that red gaunt and colloped neck a-strain,
And shut eyes underneath the rusty mane;
Seldom went such grotesqueness with such woe;
I never saw a brute I hated so;
He must be wicked to deserve such pain.

I shut my eyes and turned them on my heart.
As a man calls for wine before he fights,
I asked one draught of earlier, happier sights,
Ere fitly I could hope to play my part.
Think first, fight afterwards--the soldier's art:
One taste of the old time sets all to rights.

Not it! I fancied Cuthbert's reddening face
Beneath its garniture of curly gold,
Dear fellow, till I almost felt him fold
An arm in mine to fix me to the place
That way he used. Alas, one night's disgrace!
Out went my heart's new fire and left it cold.

Giles then, the soul of honour--there he stands
Frank as ten years ago when knighted first.
What honest men should dare (he said) he durst.
Good--but the scene shifts--faugh! what hangman hands
In to his breast a parchment? His own bands
Read it. Poor traitor, spit upon and curst!

Better this present than a past like that;
Back therefore to my darkening path again!
No sound, no sight as far as eye could strain.
Will the night send a howlet or a bat?
I asked: when something on the dismal flat
Came to arrest my thoughts and change their train.

A sudden little river crossed my path
As unexpected as a serpent comes.
No sluggish tide congenial to the glooms;
This, as it frothed by, might have been a bath
For the fiend's glowing hoof--to see the wrath
Of its black eddy bespate with flakes and spumes.

So petty yet so spiteful! All along
Low scrubby alders kneeled down over it;
Drenched willows flung them headlong in a fit
Of mute despair, a suicidal throng:
The river which had done them all the wrong,
Whate'er that was, rolled by, deterred no whit.

Which, while I forded,--good saints, how I feared
To set my foot upon a dead man's cheek,
Each step, or feel the spear I thrust to seek
For hollows, tangled in his hair or beard!
--It may have been a water-rat I speared,
But, ugh! it sounded like a baby's shriek.

Glad was I when I reached the other bank.
Now for a better country. Vain presage!
Who were the strugglers, what war did they wage,
Whose savage trample thus could pad the dank
Soil to a plash? Toads in a poisoned tank,
Or wild cats in a red-hot iron cage--

The fight must so have seemed in that fell cirque.
What penned them there, with all the plain to choose?
No foot-print leading to that horrid mews,
None out of it. Mad brewage set to work
Their brains, no doubt, like galley-slaves the Turk
Pits for his pastime, Christians against Jews.

And more than that--a furlong on--why, there!
What bad use was that engine for, that wheel,
Or brake, not wheel--that harrow fit to reel
Men's bodies out like silk? with all the air
Of Tophet's tool, on earth left unaware,
Or brought to sharpen its rusty teeth of steel.

Then came a bit of stubbed ground, once a wood,
Next a marsh, it would seem, and now mere earth
Desperate and done with; (so a fool finds mirth,
Makes a thing and then mars it, till his mood
Changes and off he goes!) within a rood--
Bog, clay and rubble, sand and stark black dearth.

Now blotches rankling, coloured gay and grim,
Now patches where some leanness of the soil's
Broke into moss or substances like boils;
Then came some palsied oak, a cleft in him
Like a distorted mouth that splits its rim
Gaping at death, and dies while it recoils.

And just as far as ever from the end!
Nought in the distance but the evening, nought
To point my footstep further! At the thought,
A great black bird, Apollyon's bosom-friend,
Sailed past, nor beat his wide wing dragon-penned
That brushed my cap--perchance the guide I sought.

For, looking up, aware I somehow grew,
'Spite of the dusk, the plain had given place
All round to mountains--with such name to grace
Mere ugly heights and heaps now stolen in view.
How thus they had surprised me,--solve it, you!
How to get from them was no clearer case.

Yet half I seemed to recognise some trick
Of mischief happened to me, God knows when--
In a bad dream perhaps. Here ended, then,
Progress this way. When, in the very nick
Of giving up, one time more, came a click
As when a trap shuts--you're inside the den!

Burningly it came on me all at once,
This was the place! those two hills on the right,
Crouched like two bulls locked horn in horn in fight;
While to the left, a tall scalped mountain . . . Dunce,
Dotard, a-dozing at the very nonce,
After a life spent training for the sight!

What in the midst lay but the Tower itself?
The round squat turret, blind as the fool's heart
Built of brown stone, without a counterpart
In the whole world. The tempest's mocking elf
Points to the shipman thus the unseen shelf
He strikes on, only when the timbers start.

Not see? because of night perhaps?--why, day
Came back again for that! before it left,
The dying sunset kindled through a cleft:
The hills, like giants at a hunting, lay
Chin upon hand, to see the game at bay,--
"Now stab and end the creature--to the heft!"

Not hear? when noise was everywhere! it tolled
Increasing like a bell. Names in my ears
Of all the lost adventurers my peers,--
How such a one was strong, and such was bold,
And such was fortunate, yet each of old
Lost, lost! one moment knelled the woe of years.

There they stood, ranged along the hillsides, met
To view the last of me, a living frame
For one more picture! in a sheet of flame
I saw them and I knew them all. And yet
Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set,
And blew. "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came."

-- Robert Browning - "Childe Roland To The Dark Tower Came"

Give A Little Bit

I must say it's been an odd week... the fact that I'm up at 1:30 in the fucking morning is testament to that... There are just a lot of things that have been going on and my brain seems to be having a problem shutting down tonight... It started last week with HWMNBN. He and I had a long conversation last Thursday night. We discussed how things had been going between us and he finally came to a realization that I had reached awhile back, but didn't really want to admit. Things are just not meant to be for us relationship-wise. We had both been trying too hard to make things work out between us. It came down to us just being stubborn and neither of us wanting to call the flatline, but we finally did. Time of death, Thursday March 9th, 2006 about 11:00 PST. It was for the best. Now we can both get on with our lives and hopefully salvage a friendship out of the ashes of our doomed attempt at trying to be more than that... The timing actually turned out to be really good for the both of us. I talked to him today and it seems he met someone over the weekend that he's really into. That's good. I hope it's not just a reaction to things ending between us, but I don't think it is. He seems to genuinely like this girl, and I've met her, and she's great. I could see things working out between them if he behaves himself and doesn't fuck it up... here's hoping for him anyway... I must admit that I also have my eye on a new guy. It's too soon to know if it's going to go anywhere, but I see potential... How crazy is that? I soooo don't need to get involved with anyone right now. I barely have time for my life, why in the world would I want to throw a new guy into the mix? Because I'm a raving lunatic apparently... More on that if/when events progress. For now I'm keeping my mouth shut in the vain hope of not jinxing this before it even gets started... S-boy has paid me a visit at work the last two days. Things are really rolling for him. He's got a new agent and has been to a dozen big auditions in the last 2 weeks. He's gotten several of the parts too. Yay! for him! I'm so happy for him. He's a really good guy and has worked hard to get where he is in this town. He's shooting an episode of "Bones" on Thursday. He gets killed and is so thrilled with his death scene. Dork. I love him for his enthusiasm though. He hasn't become a jaded Hollywood asshole yet and hopefully that's a fate he'll avoid for a long time to come... I talked to TNI briefly today too. I really, really miss him and he was in a major funk so on top of missing him, now I'm worried about him too. I hate not being able to wave my magic wand and fix things. I also hate that I'm not there to tell him in person that everything is going to be alright... and it will... I have faith... Meanwhile, I seem to be charity-girl all of a sudden. In addition to the hockey thing in Seattle last weekend for the Ronald McDonald House, I'm now involved in this fundraising thing out here for a guy named Shen Hsu. He's an acupuncturist and general healer who has worked with a lot of big names out here in LA. He's also one of my bosses best friends and he's dying of a rare liver cancer. We're raising money for his treatment and have a big event at The Key Club on April 3rd. There is a raffle and a silent auction and the Hollywood community has been really great about donating all sorts of memorabilia and services and whatnot. Hopefully it will all be enough. Our goal is to raise at least 80,000 for him. Doable, but still a lot of $$$. If anyone is interested, go check out the website (www.saveshen.com). Ok, enough for tonight. I have GOT to get some sleep or I will be totally useless at work tomorrow. Hope everyone is having a great week!

"Charity is the power of defending that which we know to be indefensible. Hope is the power of being cheerful in circumstances which we know to be desperate." -- G. K. Chesterton

Digital Convert

I kicked and screamed and resisted buying a digital camera as long as I could. I felt the technology just couldn't do what I needed to do for a reasonable price. Sure, I could have shelled out a couple grand for a digital SLR a few years back, but it really wasn't in my budget. Well, a couple of months ago I got asked to shoot this charity hockey tournament up in Seattle and knew I'd need to shoot like 10 games over the course of two days and the thought of dragging along enough film to do that wasn't really thrilling me. So I caved and bought a Canon Digital Rebel. It's the digital version of the camera I already have so all my lenses and stuff work on it. I played with it a little before I headed up to Seattle this past weekend but didn't have a chance to shoot any hockey with it before I went. I brought along some regular film as back up, but decided to take the gamble and just shoot with the digital. I shouldn't have worried. Some of the shots I got are unbelieveable. I cranked the speed up to 1600 and the results are crisp, clear images that I never would have gotten with 1600 speed film. Don't get me wrong, I still love film and for my black and white work, my nature photography, and the more "artsy" stuff I do I'm sticking with real film, but for my sports stuff I'm a total digital girl now. I'm shooting a horse show the end of this month and I'm excited to see what kinda shots I get. I'm going to do some black and white "atmosphere" shots at the event, but for the action stuff I plan to shoot all digital. It should be a lot of fun... So as far as the Seattle trip went, I had a fucking blast. The weather was beautiful. (It was cold, but it didn't rain.) I hung out with my friend Liz who I met at last year's event and with her friends Tricia and Brian who had flown up from Florida for the games. I shot like 600 pictures, 200 of which I took during the celebrity game. I met Jason Priestly (who was very nice) and got to hang out with the brothers Rosenbaum. Michael was not his usual, jovial self. He was not feeling well and was kinda grumpy as a result. Still, he was great with all the kids from the Ronald McDonald house and I got to at least talk to him for a little while. I ended up spending most of my time after the game with his little brother Eric though. I had met Eric at last year's game but didn't really know him all that well. I must say he is now one of my favorite people. He is really sweet, he's funny, and he's a hell of a hockey player. He's also living in LA now which rocks! I need a hockey buddy in this town and now I potentailly have one. He loves minor league hockey like I do so I'm going to try and get him out to an Ice Dogs game before the season wraps up. Aside from his brother, he doesn't really know anybody out here so he's kinda in the same boat I am in that respect. We totally "bonded" over the whole spontaneously-moving-to-LA-for-no-real-reason-thing. He's a really cool guy and hopefully I'll get a chance to hang out with him some now that he's living here... So yeah, I would call the trip a success. It's going to take me days and days to go through all these shots and get the good ones sent back to the powers that be at the Ronald McDonald House up there, but the hard work will be soooo worth it. I got my name in the program for the event, I realized how much I miss shooting hockey, and I met some really amazing people. I call that time well spent :)

"Carpe diem! Rejoice while you are alive; enjoy the day; live life to the fullest; make the most of what you have. It is later than you think." -- Horace

The Best Of A Bad Year

2005 was not a great year for movies. Studios speculated endlessly on why that was, but the truth of the matter was there just really wasn't anything worth seeing. In 2004 I saw 121 films. Granted, I was on a personal mission to average 10 movies a month for that year, but I'm soooo glad I picked 2004 instead of 2005 to set that little goal for myself. I never would have made it. In 2005 I saw 46, which when I counted them up, kinda surprised me. I thought I had seen way less than that. That's not to say there weren't some good movies. There were several. (Many based on comic books I might add. "Batman," "Constantine," and "Sin City" leap quickly to mind.) There just weren't any truly GREAT movies. So the Oscars this year don't hold as much excitement for me as they usually do... which is fucked up and unfair since I'm finally back in Hollywood for them again... So, here are my predications in the major categories for tonight's awards. For the first time in a long, long time I haven't seen a lot of the nominated films, so a lot of these are pure speculation on my part.

Best Supporting Actress - I'm going with Rachel Weisz. I love her and I actually saw "The Constant Gardener" and thought she was great in it. Although I do think that Amy Adams could be the dark horse canidate here. All I ask is that it doesn't go to Michelle Williams...

Best Supporting Actor - Gotta be George Clooney. He's nominated in like every fucking category this year, but this is the one I think he gets. Paul Giamatti could get it to. He wasn't great in "Cinderella Man," but voters may want to make up for the fact that they fucked him out of a nomination for "Sideways" last year...

Best Actress - This race is a toss up. I could see either Reese Witherspoon or Felicity Huffman winning it. Personally, I'm pulling for Reese.

Best Actor - I'm so torn on this one. As you all know, I LOVE Joaquin Phoenix. He was #1 on my "list" for a long time and he's still solidly in my top 5, but I just don't know if he can beat Phillip Seymour Hoffman... and I don't know that he should. PSH is an amazing actor and is way overdue to win on of the little gold guys. I'm happy with either one of them walking away with it.

Best Director - If anyone other than Ang Lee wins this I'll be very, very surprised.

Best Picture - The general consensus seems to be that this'll go to "Brokeback Mountain." It probably will... but I'd like to see "Crash" pull off the upset just because I'm sick of Brokeback winning everything... and besides, "Crash" was a damn fine film. All the nominees in this category are a little weak this year. None of them scream "Best Picture" to me and I'm disappointed that "A History of Violence" didn't get a nod.

So there you go. My predictions for what it's worth. Honestly, the category I'm most interested in is Best Animated feature. I'm hoping "Hauru No Ugoku Shiro" ("Howl's Moving Castle") takes it, but "Corpse Bride" or "Curse of the Were-Rabbit" would be fine choices as well... I do have to say that it's odd for me not to have plans on Oscar night. Two years ago Lindy and I were out here for the big ROTK Oscar bash and it was amazing. We had a lot of fun, but that year aside, we always at least had our own little Oscar night gathering. By last year at this time, things had already started to get weird between us, but we stuck to the tradition and still got together to watch the awards. I miss that. I'm sad to have lost that, but it seems to be the way of things. I can't pinpoint any one moment where things went irreversibly wrong, but it must have happened. I never understood why people who had been married for a long time could suddenly find themselves in the middle of a divorce, but now I have a better idea of how it can happen, and sometimes you really don't even see it coming. Things just happen so quickly that you don't have time to repair all the damage and before you know it, it's just over. That makes me sadder than anything else. To know that maybe it was just meant to work out that way. It was ka's plan all along that you come to this particular fork in the road and each of you is destined to take a different road to your destiny... Wow, look at me being all reflective and shit all of a sudden... enough of that... No darkness for me today please and thank you... I'm off to the book store and the comic book shop and then am going to settle in to watch the Oscar festivities...

"All right, fine. It's 'ka,' everybody's favorite whipping-boy. That's what the great unseen world is for, after all, isn't it?So we don't have to take the blame for our acts of stupidity?" -- Stephen King - "The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass"

Rubber Chickens And Great Tag Lines

So here I sit, on a borrowed computer in a house I probably shouldn't be in in the first place, let alone left to my own devices and all by my lonesome... I could find so much trouble to get into... if I were so inclined... but I'm not. I'll be good... I promise :) So I'm watching "Justice League" and this ep is too funny. Lex Luthor and The Flash have switched bodies. Poor Rosenbaum just can't get away from playing Luthor. Talk about type-casting... hehe... It was a weirder than normal week here in LA. I blame the rain and the Oscars. Traffic was a nightmare and the city's population I think doubled in size. Still, it wasn't all bad. I had dinner on Wednesday night with a producer/director who at the very least wants to read my script. I don't honestly expect him to option it, but at least it's getting read, right? Who knows, maybe he'll point me in the right direction for some financing options or something. The best part was that I got the meeting at all. I got this guy's phone # from a mutual friend, picked up the phone, and actually called him. What can I say, I was feeling ballsy that day... and for any of you that really know me, you know how fucking hard it was for me to do something like that. So woo hoo! A small victory for me on that front... Guerilla networking. It's going to be big... hehe... I'm in a weird mood today. I've got a friend in town that I haven't seen in awhile and he's going through some rough personal shit and so I've just been hanging out with him trying to be supportive and whatnot... He had to go out for a little while tonight so I'm just hanging out at his place watching TV. We did some running around this afternoon and I have decided that some people should not be allowed out to play with the general public. This guy is definitely one of them. We stopped at the grocery store to pick up a few things and in addition to getting milk and bread and other such staples, we also came away with a rubber chicken. Yes, you read that correctly. A rubber chicken. You would be right to ask, "Why?" I asked that question myself and was told, "How often do you find rubber chickens at the grocery store? How can we NOT buy it?" Ummm. Ok. Freak. Still, it wasn't really a point I could argue. He was right. How often do you actually find rubber chickens at the grocery store? I got some writing done the past few days so can I get a woo hoo! from the peanut gallery on that one? I would like to have done more, but I got kinda hung up and was spinning my literary wheels for awhile. I had planned to work on this "Samurai Champloo" meets "Kill Bill" meets "Memoirs of a Geisha" thing I've had running around in my head for the past few weeks. It's about this woman named Sukiko who becomes a samurai in an attempt to get her daughter back from these guys who kidnapped her, but it became startlingly clear to me that my knowledge of Japanese history and legend is woefully small so that one is now on hold until I have the time to do a little more research. So I worked on the Western (tentatively titled, "Black Canyon"). I'm about half-way through the outline. I also bounced some ideas off my friend for this sorta film-noir project called "Smoke." It's very much in the "Chinatown" or "L.A. Confidential" vein and I think it has potential. We also worked on tweaking my current script. (Originally called "F*cked" then called "Screwed," then called "Unraveled" and now I'm thinking of changing it yet again. This time to "The Widening Gyre." I know most of you haven't read it, but if you have, and you know the WB Yeats poem, "The Second Coming," then you know this new title soooo fits...) We didn't change much, but it needed a few little things done to it before I send it off to this producer/director on Monday. I also now have the perfect tag line for it. I can just see it on the poster. "Have you ever loved someone so much that you wanted to kill them?" I wish I could take credit for it, but that wasn't me. We were talking and he said it and I was like, "whoa. stop. let me write that down." He's like that. He just sometimes says things that you KNOW need to be in a script somewhere. It's part of the reason I like hanging out with him :) (He had another one that I'm soooo putting in a scene someday. We were talking about great sex and he said, "You know how sometimes you're with someone and everything just 'clicks?' That someone who makes you cum so hard that your eyes roll back into your head and you just know you could die happy?" Ok, so it probably won't be in a project for Disney or anything, but still, it's a great fucking line :) Ok, enough rambling for today. I didn't get in to the Vanity Fair party so I'll be watching the Oscars at home on TV like everyone else. That's ok. I'll try and post my picks tomorrow before the big event... Now I'm off to see if I can find a Chinese take-out menu. I'm soooo craving me some Chinese food tonight...

"Be careful with my head. That's where I keep all my one-liners." -- The Flash

Bowling For Mustangs

Winter arrived in California and by that I mean rain... and lots of it. They call it the "Pineapple Express" and it's a huge storm system that blows in from Hawaii and just drenches all of the Southland. I'm predicted to get 10" up here in my little canyon in the span of about 36 hours. Oh Goodie. Wether or not I can even get down the mountain and in to work tomorrow is still a toss up. The road was already bad on my way home tonight. I watched a boulder the size of a large dog, roll down the hill, bounce on the road in front of me, and then continue over the ledge on the other side. It sorta freaked me out. Who knows what another 12 hours of this monsoon will do to the road. Call me crazy, but I'm predicting it won't get better. On the bright side, at least I still have power (knock on wood)... I witnessed a spectatcular accident on the freeway this morning that I'm sure was a result of the rain. I was headed southbound on the 5 when a double tractor trailer headed north, sorta spun out of control. It crashed into and through the concrete dividing wall and ended up facing backwards in the far left lane of southbound traffic. I couldn't see if he took out anybody on the northbound side, but miraculusly, no one on my side of the wall got hit. Traffic was crawling, but there happened to be a gap right where he came through the wall. A Hollywood stunt coordinator could not have choreographed it better... So yeah, fucked up traffic day all around. The traffic gods are pissed at SoCal and decided to bring their wrath down upon us today, that's for damn sure... As seems to be the case these days, my weekend didn't really turn out the way I planned. I have a nasty cold I'm trying to get over and that made me sorta grumpy to begin with. I had to work for a few hours on Sat and then had planned to go look at an apartment and then go see a movie with S-boy. Well, the apartment manager was sick and cancelled the appointment and S-boy had a personal thing come up and couldn't go to the movie. I didn't feel like going alone so I came home and played EQ for like 8 hours. Not horribly productive of me, but I wasn't motivated to do anything else. I did however finally get a sizeable check I'd been waiting on, so that definitely improved my mood a lot... On Sunday I had hoped to go see "Capote" with S-boy, but he ended up with Laker tickets so that plan sorta fell thorugh :P So I ran some errands and came home and played some more EQ, and did some website work, and read for awhile, and basically just fucked around for the whole day. Actually not such a bad thing. My brain has been kinda fried lately and I think I needed to just not DO anything for a couple of days. It helped some, but then the rain rolled in today and kinda killed my good mood. I'm not in a bad mood, but the rain does make me kinda blue... Things are also a little weird with my three favorite men-folk lately. I think I was kinda "short" with TNI when I talked to him on Saturday and I feel bad about that. I miss him tons and its just hard not having him around all the time anymore. I haven't talked to HWMNBN in over a week (although I've left him several messages and he's bothered to take the time to post comments to my blog, but not to pick up the phone and call me) so I really miss him too, but I'm kinda annoyed with him at the same time. S-boy is just busy, and I get that, but dammit, I wanted to hang out with him this weekend! Whatever, I'm just in a rain-induced funk right now and it's making me irritable... So, it's off to bed for me. I'm going to go hang out with the ka-tet for a couple of chapters and then catch some Z's. Hopefully by this time tomorrow the rain will have blown through and everything will be sunny in sunny SoCal again...

"Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer.
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity." -- W.B. Yeats - "The Second Coming"

Pocketful of Kryptonite

Well, it lasted almost two whole months, but I finally got sick of Pepto-Bismal pink, so Kryptonite green it is! I don't think Tom Welling reads my blog so it's probably a safe (albeit still obnoxious) color choice... Besides, it's Lex Luthor I'd rather impress anyway ;) Happy Saturday kids!

"It's a complicated world, Clark. Only the naïve view it in black and white." - Michael Rosenbaum - "Smallville"

Contrasts

I've had a schizophrenic week. It's been good and bad all rolled into one. Sadly, more good than bad if you're keeping score though... although, next week promises to be better so at least there is light at the end of this dimmly lit tunnel... Lunch with S-boy on Tuesday, that was good. Really, really good... although reflecting back on some of the conversational topics, it now seems kinda odd. He and I talk about the weirdest shit, and most of the time it doesn't seem weird until I starting thinking about it... The rest of the week has been pretty crappy. I've just been kinda blue. I miss TNI something awful. I'm tired. I'm horny. Work has been crazy busy so I've barely had time to take a break to wolf down even something resembling lunch most days. On the bright side, it's Friday and next week is Oscar week which is practically a religious holiday in this town... and I may have charmed my way into a actual Oscar party... and not just any Oscar party, but THE Oscar party to go to. I met this really cool manager today and he's got some clients who are outta town filming and won't be able to use their passes to the Vanity Fair after-party and so I may benefit from their absence and get to go instead. I'll know by Tuesday. If that happens, then I get to start stressing over what the fuck to wear and who to take as my date... I was thinking I should take HWMNBN, but I happen to know that he's already on a couple different guests lists and he hasn't bothered to ask me to go to any of those parties, so why should I take him? TNI is suffering back in the ATL right now, so I'll prolly take S-boy. I'm thinking he would make some yummy arm candy and he's friends with a lot of these pretty people already. Maybe I can find a nice producer who wants to throw some $$$ for my movie my way. It's all about who you know in this damn town, so hopefully I'll meet some people worth knowing... more on that as I find out if I actually make it onto the guest list. Cross your fingers and toes :) Have a great weekend everybody!

"We do not live an equal life, but one of contrasts and patchwork; now a little joy, then a sorrow, now a sin, then a generous or brave action." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Black and Blue

Sorry I missed my regularly scheduled posting on Sunday. It rained here all weekend and that plays havoc with my phone lines and I couldn't keep a connection. It kinda sucked. Oh well. How it goes sometimes. Aside from the rain, the weekend was pretty good. I worked for a few hours on Saturday and the rest of the time just hung out with TNI. He was supposed to leave on Sunday to go back to the ATL for awhile, and I was really kinda bummed about it. Fate took pity on me and conspired with me to keep him here for one more day though. I dropped him at LAX and like 1/2 an hour later got a call saying he wasn't going to get out until the next morning. Woo Hoo! Call me selfish, but I was glad he had to stay one more day... even if it meant getting up at 5:15 on Monday morning to take him back to LAX before I went in to work. By staying one more night he also got to be witness to me getting head-butted by my dog. Roland and I were fucking around and we both sort of dove for each other at the same time. Skull met skull and almost immediately a big welt swelled up on my forehead right over my left eye. It hurt like a bitch. I got ice on it right away and the swelling went down, but I'm now sporting a lovely purple bruise. S-boy was throughlly amused by it when he unexpectedly dropped by the shop today to take me to lunch. He had some bruises of his own to show off as well. Apparently I almost lost him to a horrific car accident last week. For any of you that know LA, you'll know the stupid, fucked up 6-way intersection over by the Beverly Hills Hilton. It's confusing and drivers usually just make up their own rules when they get to it. Well, apparently S-boy was sitting at one of the stop signs minding his own business when two cars ran the intersection at the same time. They plowed into each other hard enough that one of the cars flipped over and landed on top of S-boy's Jeep. Thankfully he was ok, but his Jeep was practically totalled. Scary... So we wnt to this nifty little restaurant called Cheebo that I'd heard great things about, but never been to. It rocked. Robert Downey, Jr showed up and was trying to be incognito in a baseball cap and sunglasses but wasn't really fooling anybody. Apparently they get a lot of celebs in the place though so no one really seemed to care... So that's the report for this week. Work is still pretty busy. I'm working again this Sat and then am going to go see this Russian horror film called "Night Watch." S-boy and I talked about trying to go see "Capote" this weekend too. I also need to go look at an apartment... Did I mention I'm thinking about moving? There were 2 nights last week that it took me almost 2 hours to get home so to say that I'm "over" the commute at this point would be putting it mildly. So anyway, I found an apartment complex that's like 3 miles from work. They have covered parking, a fitness center, and most importantly, allow big dogs. It's a little more $$$ then I'm paying now, but I'll save enough in gas to cover the difference. Hopefully that'll work out. I'm just going to get a studio for now and then once TNI gets back out here full-time we'll get a 2-bedroom in the same building. That way I only have to move like across the hall or something and that won't be too bad. It's not like the nightmare of having to rent a truck and everything then. Did I mention how much I miss TNI already? My apartment seems very empty and my poor dog has a serious case of the blues. I think Roland misses him even more than I do :) Ok, I'm going to finish watching some figure skating and then am off to bed. Everyone have a good rest of the week!

"The goodbyes we speak and the goodbyes we hear are the goodbyes that tell us that we are still alive after all." -- Stephen King -- "The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla"

The Killing Fields

I would have preferred to stick with the werewolf dreams. My subconscious had different plans though it seems and has upped the ante a bit. I don't know how many "Samurai Champloo" fan are out there, but that was the world I dreamed last night. I was some sort of rogue samurai wandering through the forests and mountains basically slaughtering everyone in my path. I'm not sure why. I don't know if it was my job to kill these people or I had some sort of vendetta to fullfill or what. It was fucked up. And violent. And bloody. I even had to seduce some of my victioms in order to get them close enough to kill them. there was this one pretty little Asian woman that I found myself making out with... only then I slit her throat. These random little vignettes of death did not make for peaceful sleep time. I tossed and turned and woke up after pretty much each one. Dammit. Dammit. Dammit. I am not ready for another period of bad dreams, migraines, and insomnia. I know why it's happening. Sorta anyway. I just have a lot going on in my life right now and a lot of it is shit I can't control, which we all know makes me absolutely fucking crazy. I have gotten very good at wearing my public mask though. The huddled masses generally can't tell if I'm having a good day or a bad day. TNI can read me pretty well, but he spends a lot of time with me and is good at studying people so he sees me better than most. Even so, I don't think he has a clue how bad some of the days are. The days when my brain and my stomach tie themselves up in knots and I just want to scream and scream and scream until I'm hoarse and can't scream anymore. I would like to have a scapegoat to blame, but with The Devil officially out of my life, I have lost the one person I got to blame everything bad on. Sure, TNI and S-boy, and HWMNBN each wind me out in their own way from time to time, but honestly, I'd be sooooo much worse if I didn't have them. No, this is all me. I make myself crazy. I admit that. Part of it is that I was unhappy for so long that I think now that things are finally going well, I don't know how to just enjoy them. I let things that should make me happy, stress me out. I love having TNI around. I need him to bounce ideas off of and just to hang out with and make the voices in my head quiet down for awhile. Just hanging out with him makes me very happy... but he's leaving for a bit and the thought of not having him around even for a little while makes me very, very sad. I know he has to go, and that he'll be back, but that isn't going to make it any easier to say good-bye. Then there's HWMNBN. On the good days he makes me the happiest girl on this level of the Tower... but on the bad days he makes me feel like Wesley after the Albino dragged him down into The Pit of Dispair and Prince Humperdinck cranked The Machine up to 50. (For all you non-"Princess Bride" folks out there, that means really, really bad.) Sorry about the rant. I just had to get these thoughts out of my head. Actually, I feel better now. Ahh the joys of blog-therapy. Enjoy the rest of your week. Now that I got all this bullshit off my chest, I'm going to try to too...

"The wheel is turning and you can't slow down. You can't let go and you can't hold on. You can't go back and you can't stand still. If the thunder don't get you, then the lightning will." -- Jerry Garcia

Be Jealous

Days like today are one of the reasons I moved back to SoCal. Here it is, fucking February the 12th and TNI and I spent the day at the beach. It was sunny and clear and 80 degrees out. The water was cold, but then the Pacific usually is. Roland had a good time, but really wasn't into the whole playing with strange dogs thing. He was perfectly content to just lay on the beach blanket and hang out with his pet humans. Somehow TNI and I have turned into my dog's entourage... but you know what? I'm ok with that :) It was a long week and I spent way too much of it intoxicated. I partially blame Vampire Vodka. Have you seen this stuff? It's basically vodka with red food coloring in it, but it's damn good vodka with red food coloring in it, and that makes all the difference. So anyway, when you put it in orange juice, it looks just like a goblet of blood. How could I pass that up? Then Thursday night was 1/2 price sake night at Yoshi Sushi and I had way too much to drink... or so I thought until last night when we found ourselves at this really horrible British pub-like place. The bartender was nice enough but didn't have a clue how to make any cool drinks. TNI had to keep telling her how to mix what we wanted. Well, she mixed mine way to strong and after 1 martini and 1 oatmeal cookie shot I could hardly remember my name. It was sad. I'm a light-weight, but not that much of a light-weight. I honestly don't remember the last time I was that drunk... no wait. I do. It was New Year's Eve 1998 and there were 2 hockey teams and lots of free alcohol involved. Until last night, that was the last time I got sick drinking. It was a bad night. We came home and I vaguely remember watching "Entourage" and then passing out. Fortunately getting as sick as I did probably saved me from what would have been a hell of a hangover... and it would have sucked if I had been sick and missed out on the beautiful day we had here today. I talked to my mom back in the ATL and she said it was cold and ugly and was possibly going to snow some tonight. I'm sooooo not missing Atlanta... Nothing else too terribly exciting to report. I've met some cool people at work the last week or so. Thursday was WB (and former WB) day. I talked to 3 people from "Smallville," 2 people from "Roswell," and like half the supporting cast of "Buffy." One of whom was James, which was cool. He's headed back to Vancouver to do a couple more eps of "Smallville." Yay Brainiac! The story arcs with him have been some of the best so far this season and I so like seeing he and Lex play off each other... I had some weird dreams this week. I don't remember most of them. There were definitely werewolves involved in a couple of them though. That probably came from seeing "Underworld:Evolution." (Quick review - It was good. I liked it. Good action. Lots of violence and a 1/2-way decent story. Kate looked good in leather and Scott was just HOT.) However, I don't recall any of my werewolves looking like Scott Speedman. Mostly my werewolves just ran around eating people. Which was all fine and good except that at some point I realized that I was one of the werewolves and seeing as how eating innocent bystanders is not one of my favorite hobbies, well, that just made the dream disturbing. At least when I have vampire dreams I usually get to bite really hot guys. Still, I guess there is something therapeutic about hunting down your enemies and ripping them to pieces, huh? Oh come on. Don't give me that look. Hello? I did say it was a disturbing dream... Tonight is the first day of the full moon. I suspect I'll dream about the werewolves again tonight. I guess that's better than dreaming I'm a ThunderCat or something though... ThunderCats, ho!

"His beast was formed of that part of our brains that we bury, only dragging into our consciousness in the worst of our nightmares. Not the dreams where we are hunted by the monsters, but the dreams where we are the monsters. We raise bloody hands to the sky and scream, not from fear but from joy. The pure joy of slaughter. The cathartic moment when we plunge our hands into the hot blood of our enemies and there is no civilized thought to stop us from dancing on their bodies." -- Laurell K Hamilton - "Burnt Offerings"

Weekend Update

It seems like Sundays are going to be my posting days at least for the next little while. The rest of the days just don't seem to be long enough to get everything done that I need to do. It was a weird, fucked up week. It started out bad. TNI and I went out for brunch last Sunday and then planned to go see "Underworld," but I got hit with a killer migraine that blindsided me out of fucking nowhere. It was my third in a week, which is not good. I haven't had one in months and suddenly three in a week? The aliens must have reactivated the chip they put in my brain and it's short circuiting or something... This one was really bad too. I couldn't see out of my right eye and the pain was so blinding I found myself curled up in a little ball on the floor and crying almost hysterically. So TNI made me some soup and I took a Percoset and I passed out for a few hours. I woke up to find myself mind-melding with my dog. Roland was curled up next to me, with his paw on my arm, snoring away and I really thought I was channeling his dream. Something about running through the woods chasing something. That was when I knew the drugs had kicked in. It was a weird night to say the least... And things didn't really normalize from there. Work was crazy busy. All sorts of shit happened with the various scripts I'm working on. Some good. Some bad. Most I don't want to get into right now. I'm having lunch with S-boy this week to talk about his involvement on 2 of the projects, so hopefully that will go well... I talked to HWMNBN several times, things are getting interesting there, professionally and personally. Not sure how I feel about that so I'm just not thinking about it right now. I feel like we've been down this road before. Hopefully our final destination will be different this time around though. He's outta town for the next month or so but once he gets back we're going to sit down and talk about where we go from here, so we'll see what happen there. Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. The whole field seems to be in play at this point... Between my day job and my writing gigs the stress got a little outta control the past few weeks. I was looking forward to a nice restful weekend of doing virtually nothing. In a literal sense, that was what I got. I haven't really done anything, but I definitely would not call things "restful." I got way too emotionally wrapped up in Friday night's episode of "Battlestar Galactica." There were parts of it that just hit way too close to home. I know it's just a fucking TV show, but it really upset me. Then there was some household drama that came to a head on Friday night and it definitely added to my stress level. As we all know, I'm something of a control freak and I hate things that I can't fix. I don't like feeling powerless. That was sorta the situation. So I just locked myself inside my own head and read some comic books and and napped and tried to pretend that everything was peachy. It wasn't, but fuck it. I couldn't really do anything to fix it. I finally just kinda freaked out and had to get the hell out of my apartment so I coerced TNI into going out to dinner. Turned out to be the right thing to do. We ate too much and drank too much and just had a good time. We came home and continued to consume mind-altering substances and it just turned into a really silly kinda night. It's amazing how much funnier some of the comedians on Comedy Central are when you're really fucked up... Today we had planned to go to the beach and check out this photography exhibit that's going on down at the Santa Monica pier, but after last night's festivities we just didn't get up in time to go. It's definitely on the agenda for next weekend though. I don't care if we're having a damn typhoon, I'm going to the beach... Ok, so that's it for now. I'm going to go give my dog a bath. Everyone have a beautiful week. Try and stay out of trouble and I'll check back in next Sunday. Same bat time. Same bat channel...

"I am tomorrow, or some future day, what I establish today. I am today what I established yesterday or some previous day." -- James Joyce

Hollywood Sex Kitten

Forgive me dear readers. It has been 2 weeks since my last confession... err... blog post. Things out here in LA LA Land are crazier than ever, but I mean that in a good way. Here's the game recap so far. The actor that I got my script to loved it. (Sidenote: the title is now "Unraveled" since no one seems to think that anyone will release it with it's original title of "F*cked." Ok fine. I guess I have to concede that they're probably right there.)He's definitely on board if we can pull off the financing. Yippee Skippee. Even so, my project has sorta been shifted to the back burner for a little while. My producer has two other projects that he's looking to go forward on instead first, which honestly is just peachy with me. I'm soooo ok with getting my feet wet on someone else's project. That makes me less likely to do something boneheaded that fucks up my project. Might as well learn the ropes at someone else's expense, huh? I've gotten very involved with one of the other projects already. It's called "The Rescue" and TNI and I have spent our last 2 Saturdays doing MASSIVE rewrites on the script. The story was there, but that was about it. There were loose ends and ridiculous, unnecessary plot points, and bad dialogue, and it just needed a lot of work. We spent like 10 hours basically re-writing the whole thing last Saturday and I was actually pretty pleased with how it turned out. Our producer liked it as well, but still had a long list of changes he wanted made to the new version. To say I was annoyed with the changes he wanted made would be putting it mildly. I fumed about it for a good day before I finally got it through my head that this is not my script. I should not be so attached to it. If the director or producer want to make changes then I just need to do it and not argue. That's a lesson I'm going to have to learn if I want to continue to write on spec I guess. So TNI talked me down from my ledge and we sat down with the producer yesterday morning and hashed out the changes. I managed a small victory regarding one of the characters and that made me happier. We then spent another 5 or 6 hours re-writing to incorporate the changes. It has been a long couple of Saturdays, but the script is pretty much done now. Woo and Hoo! I got "hired" on to doctor the script, but I don't have any sort of production deal in place going forward, so my involvement with this project will probably be smaller now. I'm ok with that. The main purpose for jumping on board with this film was to hopefully secure TNI a part in it. If I get some sort of writing credit out of it as well, so much the better... About mid-way in to yesterday's writing marathon, TNI and I took a break to make some dinner and knock back a couple of gin and tonics. Now, I'm usually a vodka or rum girl. Gin does weird things to me and I never can predict what weird thing it's going to do. Sometimes there's nothing. Other times it makes me angry. Or gives me weird dreams. Last night it wound me up like a little horny sex kitten. I felt fine when I went to bed, but once I was asleep... holy shit... I have vivid dreams all the time and I'm not complaining about the sex dreams I normally have, but this was soooo different. This was like watching hard core porn in my head. When a dream is intense enough to make you have an orgasm in real life, now that's a damn good fucking dream. I had two of those dreams last night. They were amazing, but I'm kinda tired this morning. I feel like I was up having sex all night. Fucked up I tell you. Seriously fucked up. Don't get me wrong. They were great dreams and I'll take the hard core porn dreams over the violent recurring nightmare I've been having, any day of the week. Guess my brain just really felt that I needed to get laid... which would have made more sense a couple of weeks ago. I hadn't slept with anyone in months and then I had a lapse in sanity and literally jumped HWMNBN when he took me to lunch one day. It was probably a stupid thing to do, but fuck it. It was fun. I was horny and bored and he wound me up while we were playing pool and it just kinda happened. Shocked the hell out of him to. We fuck with each other all the time, making little sexual innuendos and whatnot. It's just the way we interact with each other. It usually doesn't go anywhere, but something in my brain just kinda snapped that day and well... you get the idea. We had sex in his car. It was crazy and reckless and we soooo should have gotten caught. (Did I mention we were in the parking lot at the Hollywood and Highland complex. Not exactly a quiet, discreet location.) It prolly shouldn't have happened, but I'd do it again if given the opportunity... and damn was the sex good. It's a whole different kind of adrenalin rush when you throw in the whole "what if we get caught?" factor. Fear definitely makes sex more interesting... in my world anyway :)I'm a freak, what can I say? You all already know this about me... So that's a it. The highlights of my last couple of weeks. I can't promise that I will be more regular with my posts, I do however promise to try.

"There is nothing wrong with being afraid---but there is nothing more wrong than allowing that to be your master." -- Bobby Darin

Reap The Whirlwind

My apologies for not posting at all this past week. Things around here just got really crazy, really fast. It's looking like I might get a shot at going into production on not one but two screenplays. One of them is mine and the other is one that Charlie (my landlord/producer) has in development that needs a MAJOR re-write. It's going to take some big puzzle pieces falling into place, but several of them lready have and things look promising. How fucked up is that? I do have to thank TNI for kicking my ass into gear a little last weekend or this prolly wouldn't be happening. He convinced me to finally let Charlie read my script and whaddya know, he actually liked it. Granted, I was encouraged by the fact that I had read this other script he's working with and saw how truly, badly written it was and that at least got my hopes up a little. So here we are, a week later, and my script is in the hands of our potential starring actor and Charlie asked me to do the re-write on the other script as well in the hopes that we can maybe convince this actor to sign on for a two-picture deal. I say again, how fucked up is that? This past week feels like some sort of Twilight Zone episode. Things have started to pick up at my "real" job, I came home and wrote most every night, I'm having this disturbing, recurring nightmare practically every night, and as a result I'm just really, really tired. Still, I wouldn't change it for the world. (Well, except for the nightmare part. THAT needs to stop right fucking now.) As tired as I am, I had an amazing week. I could do this for a living. I just know I can. I just need to be given a chance. If this actor comes through and agrees to do these pictures, things could very interesting around here in the next few months. The Sundance Film Festival is next week and given the right sense of circumstances, we could potentially have both films ready for Sundance a year from now. My head spins at the thought. One of my friends said to me the other day, "You've been grinning like you got laid all afternoon," and he was pretty right about that. I am not the most confident girl in the world, especially when it comes to my writing, and to have had people telling me all week how much they like this script has been a little bit of a power trip for me. I've tried to keep a level head about it, but it's been hard. For a variety of reasons, I SO want this. It could be a huge break not just for me, but for a couple of people that are very close to me, and I want it for them as much as for myself. So everyone cross your fingers and toes and pray to the movie gods that the rest of these puzzle pieces fall into place. I promise to keep everyone posted as events progress. It promises to be one hell of a ride.

"The dreamer dies, but never dies the dream,
Though Death shall call the whirlwind to his aid,
Enlist men’s passions, trick their hearts with hate,
Still shall the Vision live! Say nevermore
That dreams are fragile things. What else endures
Of all this broken world save only dreams!"-- Dana Burnet

Surrender The Pink

It was time for the blog to get a new face and since I keep hearing that, "pink is the new black," well, pink it is. How obnoxious is this? I think Hell may actualy be this exact shade of PeptoBismal pink. I'm sure I'll get sick of this before too long and go back to something a little more sedate, but for now, pink is good... Forgot to post my review for "Fun With Dick and Jane." That was my Christmas night movie. It was NOT what I wanted to see but I got out-voted. Apparently everyone else thought "Munich" was a little dark to take in on Christmas. Whatever. We sooo should have gone to see the Spielberg flick instead. FWD&J was pretty much what you expect it to be. Jim Carey being Jim Carey. It was mildly amusing, but definitely not something I just HAD to see. If you're really into Carey's stuff then NetFlix this one. Don't spend the $$$ to see it in the theatre.

“Too many freeways, too much sun, too much abnormality taken normally, too many pink stucco houses and pink stucco consciences.” -- Clancy Sigal

Party On

I promised a blow-by-blow of my New Year's Eve and hadn't gotten around to posting it yet, so here goes... there actually isn't that much too report. Partially because the evening was fairly uneventful and partially because I don't remember large chunks of it :) This shindig was originally supposed to be at a club in Hollywood, but a couple of days before I got an e-mail saying that the guest list had gotten a little too large for the club to handle so we were migrating the soiree to a mansion up in the Hollywood Hills. Groovy. So TNI and I dropped the Pony off with a valet at a lot on Sunset and got shuttled up the hill to this place. It had been raining all day, but quit shortly before we left for the party, so that was good. Everything was clean and sparkly and the view was definitely worth the price of admission. It was a really cool house that prolly belonged to some B-level producer or one of those random WB stars. It was nice, but not as huge and over-the-top as a lot of those Hill homes can be. It was an open bar and they were definitely not watering down the drinks. I had two. Let's count them. One.Two. After the second, I could barely walk or remember my name. There was really no one of note at the gathering so TNI and I amused ourselves by mocking all the self-absorbed wannabes who had gathered and were drinking themselves into oblivion. We hung out until around 1:00 (I think) and then hitched a ride back down to my car. I promised the driver I'd put him in my next screenplay and he seemed very amused by me. When we got back to the valet, they couldn't find my keys. So there I am, drunk out of my fucking mind and trying to explain to the people that my keys have "a purple carabineer and a compass" on them. I can just imagine how that came out sounding. My keys were finally located and TNI drove us home. I vaguely remember a detour to a Denny's for some food. I couldn't tell you what I ate if you paid me though. So it was a good night. Lots of fun. Too much to drink. I think my tolerance for alcohol is actually getting worse as I get older... and it was never very good to begin with... I'm glad it's Friday. I'm looking forward to a long weekend of not doing anything productive... Today has been "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" day at work. The Mayor and Principal Snyder have both made appearances. Maybe Marsters will drop by for the trifecta. Now THAT would make my day. Happy Friday all!

"Hear no evil, speak no evil... and you'll never be invited to a party." -- Oscar Wilde

A Change In The Weather

I heard rumors that there may be some snow flaking in the ATL this evening. Can't say I'm missing that. It was sunny and beautiful here in the City of Angels today. Granted, I was trapped indoors for most of it, but at least I could walk outside and think, "Damn, it's the first week in January and it almost 80 degrees." That makes me happy. The weather here was UGLY this weekend though. It started raining on Sat morning, took a brief break on Sat night to let us enjoy the New Year's Eve festivities, and then rained pretty much non-stop Sunday and Monday. The Rose Bowl parade got rained on for the first time in 51 years. We needed the rain, but I'm glad it's done. Now my winds have picked up. They came roaring through the canyons last night and I love to listen to them howl. It makes me horny as hell and triggers some fucked up dreams, but I'm ok with that. The weather is supposed to hold like this for the next week or so. I'm thinking a trip to the beach is definitely on tap for the weekend. The water is too cold to really venture out into it, but at least I can let Roland run around for a bit... Today turned out to be a pretty good day. MUCH better than yesterday anyway. I have started to dread Wednesdays the way I used to dread Tuesdays. for some reason, Wednesday has just become the day that I have to deal with high-maintenace, asshole, problem children. Everybody just wanted to push my buttons and by the time I got out of work I was ready to punch something. I had an arguement with a gas staion attendent and I scared the hell out of TNI on the drive home. What can I say? I was wound up and angry and needed an outlet for my aggression and playing in traffic usually works for me. I drove too fast and weaved through traffic and prolly shouldn't have done it, but by the time we got home I felt much better. It's the adrenalin junkie in me. I usually don't let it come out to play when there are innocent bystanders like TNI involved, but last night I couldn't help it. It was either drive fast or have a crying fit so I picked the one that was more fun... for me anyway. I'm much mellower today. Guess I got it out of my system.

"Are you driving with your eyes open, or are you like using The Force?" -- Eddie Murphy - "Beverly Hills Cop II"

What A Girl Wants

No new New Year's resolutions for me this year. I'll work on the ones I didn't quite accomplish in 2005, but I don't really feel compelled to add any new ones. Maybe I'm just lazy this year. I do however have a long laundry list of things I'm annoyed about these days though. I can't really post them without pissing off pretty much everyone in my life so I think I'll keep them to myself. It's probably a stupid and petty list that would most assuredly get me into another "war of the blogs" anyway. So I'm going to refrain from saying anything that will get me into any further trouble... I do want to know why my life has to revolve around what other people want though. What about what I want? Don't I get a say in my relationships with people anymore? Friends, guys, etc. My standard response to most questions is "I don't care." That's become my standard response because it's just so much easier than the arguments that ensue when I do speak up and say what I really want. Besides, most of the time I'm pretty easy-going and I really don't care. Unfortunately, I've sorta taken than stance even when it comes to things that I really DO care about. What can I say? I'm an idiot sometimes... Everything that happened last summer with HWMNBN is a good example. I told him I wanted to take things slow and get to know each other a little before rushing into an actual "relationship," but that wasn't what he wanted so he pushed and he pushed and he pushed until I caved in to his wants and shortly thereafter everything went to Hell. I'm not usually the type to do the whole "I told you so" thing, but dammit..–. So now I'm at the point with him where he's sorta gotten his life back together and I want us to start trying to start things over and he keeps telling me that he wants things to work out between us and wants us to be together, but now he's the one who wants his space and doesn't think we can be just friends for awhile until he gets his head screwed back on a little straighter and yada and yada and yada. So fine. I once again give in to what he wants and I don't call him and I don't email him and as much as I miss him, I stay out of his life. But then he e-mails me. Or he calls me. Or he texts me. Or he AIMs me. Make up your fucking mind already! Guys these days just piss me off. They tell you what they want and when you actually give in to those wants they do a complete 180 on you. I swear men are such fucking girls sometimes...– S-boy isn't much better. We joked about being "friends with benefits" at first which I was ok with. (Have I mentioned lately how hot he is?) Then he got on a soapbox about me thinking he was just using me for sex and he felt I would ultimately resent him for it. I tried to explain to him that I'm a big girl who can make her own decisions and everything and that I'm actually a big fan of the whole casual sex thing, but he's a big chivalrous boy when it comes to shit like that and decided it was better if we didn't start sleeping together. Ummm ok. Not happy about it, but whatever, if that's what he wants, then so be it. So for the longest time it was the whole "let's just be friends" thing. I love hanging out with S-boy and think being friends with him is just peachy so I was fine with that. Then out of the blue he asked me out. Like on a real date. When I asked him why the sudden change of heart he told me he had been talking to a friend of his and his friend said, "You sure talk about this Angie girl a lot. When are you going to ask her out?" OMFreakinG! Pardon me while I bang my head against a wall. If you like me, then ask me out because you like me. Not because one of your friends told you to! Fortunately we got past that and are now back on the just friends front. He's still one of the hottest people I know in real life and with enough alcohol involved I'm not saying that something wouldn't happen between us, but I've decided to just accept that fact that we're never going to be anything other than friends and get on with my life... That's my great curse. I have always had beautiful men in my life, but our relationships have always been on their terms. Sometimes my wants and their wants coincide, but most of the time they get what they want and I don't get any say in the matter unless I want to risk alienating them completely, which in most cases I don't. For a strong-willed, aggressive woman, I give in to other people's desires remarkably easily. Hence the reason The Devil and I had a tumultuous 10-year on-again-off-again disaster of a relationship. When I finally did put my foot down with him and told him I wasn't going to put up with his bullshit anymore, it came to a roaring, dramatic halt. Which is definitely for the best. He's the one person on this planet that I don't need in my life. Period. As a friend or otherwise. It just took me longer than it should have to figure that out...– I want my next relationship to be as drama free as possible. All I want is some guy that I have a few things in common with and who realizes how fabulous I am. Is that really too much to ask? Maybe I can get S-boy and TNI to write me letters of recommendation or something. They both love me and should be willing to do that for me, shouldn't they? I need to find someone with their tolerance for my neurotic tendencies that is also stupid enough to actually want to date me. The odds for that should be good, right? Kinda as good as winning the lottery I'm thinking...– Sigh...– Good thing I'm bad at math, huh?

"Never tell me the odds." -- Harrison Ford -- "Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope."