jaysaint Getting it all down on paper…

I’m stretched out on my couch. I need to be working. I have lots of work to do. But I’m tired, and feeling entitled. I may actually take a quick nap after this.

We did our demo shoot in LA this week. Pressed for time, we set ourselves up with a bizarre schedule. Tuesday I worked in the NY office until late afternoon and then Jennie, Mary and I took off for Newark airport. We flew into LAX, arriving midnight our time. I was disoriented and asked why the candy store in the concourse was open at midnight. Which, of course, it wasn’t.

We cabbed over to our hotels. I’d opted for one near the one they chose, but that would give me Starwood points. I’m trying to be diligent about that. I collapsed into the bed and slept until 9am eastern. I laid in bed for about an hour reading. I should have logged on, but, again, I feel like when traveling to work you have to give yourself little breaks. After I finished my book I got dressed and walked over to meet Jennie and Mary.

A driver picked us up and we headed over to the studio in Culver City, met our actress and raided the craft services table. I conducted additional mini raids on the table throughout the rest of the day.

The actress — Marcie — was lovely and did a great job. She and I chatted at length at one point, both about marriage and about making a living as an actor. She’s very talented, and was absolutely gorgeous, so I’m sure she’s doing just fine.

Our blue screen shoot lasted for a few hours and then we packed up and went on location. We were using one of the guy’s houses, as his family is out of town. His house was gorgeous, and one of the few things I saw that made LA living seem bearable. The house had lots of tropical landscaping, tons of sunlight and comfy furniture. And best of all, there was a small backyard with a little kidney-shaped pool and hot tob. Actually, best of all was the schipperke Roxie, who ran around with a rag doll and barked and barked through her doll, which she wouldn’t put down. Roxie and I became good friends.

We did lots of shooting here, with PAs running for coffess and lunch and goodies. I love that.

Once we wrapped, Jennie and I left them to break it down and hopped into a cab for El Segundo. We had dinner with another colleague and a representative from eHarmony, who we may do a deal with. The restaurant was called Mitchell’s, I think, and it was so good that I’ve been carrying my leftovers all the way across the country. I couldn’t finish there after my lack of self control with crafts services. But I couldn’t leave it behind. Dinner was really fun, lively, nice people. We had an energetic debate about living in LA vs. NY.

I will admit that LA has it all over NY on weather. A production manager had called me the night before the shoot just to tell me to wear something cool because it will be so hot. But, really, it wasn’t anything compared to Manhattan. And it does get hot there, but as far as I can tell it doesn’t smell like fish and urine anywhere.

So after our fun dinner the eHarmony guy loaded us up with books and put me and Jennie in a cab. We shot over to LAX and grabbed the 10pm (1am eastern) red eye back to Newark. The flight was super rough and I actually checked to see if my airsick bag was in the seatback, just in case. I overcame. Others were not so lucky. After many hours of being rattled like we were in a maraca, we landed safely in Newark and were met by cars who whisked us to our homes. I tumbled in, dropped the bags where I stood and stripped off all my clothes as I walked into the bedroom, and fell down on top of Damon and went to sleep — blissed out to be prone.

Which brings me up to right now. I woke up around 10am and have been on the couch watching Independence Day and doing minimal work. My eyes are burning, which tells me I need a little more sleep. But it’s so lovely to be here in the quiet apartment, Damon on the other couch.

Tomorrow Jesse Greenspan comes with her friend to stay with us so they can go to the Brian Wilson concert at Jones Beach. I’m delighted to look after them, but also delighted that just for today it’s only me and Damon.

I’m trying to make this afternoon last and last.

Brian, Tracey and the girls have been in New York for the past few days. We had dinner with them on Thursday at Ruby Foo. My first sight of Brittany walking down the street to meet us was breathtaking. I haven’t seen her in over a year. She’s hit about 5’8″ and she’s reedy and so pretty. Her limbs are long but they’ve lost their gangly quality. She’s clearly fashion forward. I wanted to pick the lock on her brain and find out what’s really going on in there, but there was no time. Jillian has also started to bloom into young lady status. But there’s still more little girl there. Her braces are pink and green and she loves clothes with rabbits and monkeys on them. But her body is changing, and, startlingly, she was able to rap along with every song blaring in the MTV store. It’s such a strange time. She raps. And yet we went across the street and she was desperate to ride on the Toys R Us ferris wheel. Her favorite was the My Pretty Pony basket.

Meals were had, shopping was done. I got to see them for two days. The girls were definitely warming up to me and I only wish that we’d had days and days to become comfortable pals. I was determined not to do that annoying adult thing: Tell me about school! Tell me about your friends!

Now I’m having a break. I’m watching The Lion in Winter and trying to make time stretch out so that I don’t need to get in the kitchen and start working on our contribution to our building’s annual cookout, which is happening tonight. It’s going to be deviled eggs, which never fail.

Monday night John is coming over after work. We’re going to attempt a meal that requires us to use all our new kitchen wedding gifts. The shake maker and the rice maker are the big ones, and they’re pretty easy. It’s really just about narrowing down the options. We’ll whip up a great dinner and then Andrew should get here at about 10:30. So I’ll commit as much time to them as I can, and then go to bed and let them continue. I won’t stay up too late, as the next day I’m off to work and then off to LA for our demo shoot this week.

My scripts for the shoot… not so ready. Lots of work I need to do… not so ready. I’m feeling stressed and unhappy about work and about money. I’m sure there’s a lot for me to say about that, and it would probably make me feel better. But I’m just not up to it right now. Maybe later.

It’s been one of those weeks that I manage only tangential contact with my apartment. An occasional quick dinner. Always in for bed. But that’s about it. It’s all good, though.

Last Sunday (My memory gets fuzzy going any further back):
I went to brunch and movies with James and Charles. A big stack of chocolate chip pancakes and “Wedding Crashers” is just a great way to spend an afternoon. I won’t pretend that chocolate chip pancakes are good for you, or that “Wedding Crashers” is a great film. But both gave me enormous satisfaction. I do have one bit of the movie that I keep wrestling with. I’ll do this with no spoilers for those who haven’t seen it, but it will be clear to those who have. There’s a scene with Vince Vaughn that, had been genders been reversed, would have been horrifying. But here it’s played for laughs. I’m not trying to be all Andrea Dworkin about a simple comedy. But that bit made me uncomfortable. I had no issues at all with the pancakes.

Monday: Date night! We’ve been great about preserving that. We went off to our favorite local Italian restaurant. We’re in a pleasurable rut. We go to the same place every week, and I order the same thing (linguini in white clam sauce). Sometimes I mean to shift us, but I’ve never been able to pull the trigger.

Tuesday: My first yoga class. I’ve had one too many days of walking in to find Damon in a handstand in the hallway. I can’t touch my toes. Now AOL is offering free yoga classes, in my building. It couldn’t get any easier unless someone comes and moves my body for me. I can’t defend not going. The teacher was lovely, and very gracious about my confusion and wobbliness. And I got a gold star for hip flexibililty, which made me feel good. But we did so much hanging upside down (Hello Downward Facing Dog!) that by the end I was pretty queasy and dizzy. I staggered onto the subway and had the very good fortune to run into Damon, coming home on the same train. So I sagged against him until I could get home and drink a soda and assume the fetal position.

Wednesday: We managed to get sneak preview passes to ‘The Aristocrats.’ What can I say about this movie? It made me laugh, it made me sick to my stomach. I love a documentary, and this was no exception. It’s easier to name comedians who weren’t in it, than those who were. It was fascinating to watch them all pass around the same story, relate to one another, come from their own perspective. The filmmakers were smart in that they pretty much kick it off with George Carlin telling such a foul version that you’re instantly shocked. After that it gets more manageable. And at the end Robin Williams tells a totally clean joke that I loved.

Thursday: More yoga after work. This time I was the only one in the class, so it was a default private lesson. The best news about that is that the teacher told me that often no one comes. So I asked her if she would mind if Damon came, since there’s clearly room. She said that would be fine. He’s thrilled and I’ll be more likely to go if he’s holding me accountable by being there. After practicing with far less motion sickness, I went down to the ribbon cutting party AOL was throwing at the Rockefeller skating rink plaza. AOL has, of this month, consolidated all their offices at 75 Rock. So they threw a huge party, complete with big screens showing the Live 8 concert. The food and drink were swank and generous — wide open bar, fancy pants desserts. I was hugely disappointed that I missed all the non-dessert food while I was doing the yoga class. I skipped the pastries, but did take advantage of the free booze while I walked down high school memory lane. I managed to catch both The Eurythmics and Duran Duran’s performances. There was also some buzz generated because one of my coworkers is on a reality show called “Hooking Up” and he was wandering around the party. I’ve never seen the show, and didn’t know who he was. But there was excitement swirling around him, which was fun to watch.

Friday: Today I earned my big-city socializer wings. Immediately after work Damon came by and we met our friend Jeff for happy hour. He was just working in NY for the day, so we had margaritas before he had to cab out to LaGuardia. For the record, I don’t think he had a chance in hell of making his flight. Once we put him in a taxi, we headed down to Chelsea where Deanna was having a cookout to say goodbye to her swank apartment. But this was far from the end of Friday. We spend some time socializing/networking at Deanna’s while I fed her dog Ella under the table. Then we headed up to midtown to The Lamb’s Theater to see John perform with The Nuclear Family at 10. We praised him and then went out for drinks, along with Kari, who joined us for the show. So that put us at about 2am and heading home. I slept soundly on the train and folded into bed fully dressed and made up when we got to Inwood.

I’ve been pretty idle, comparatively, yesterday and today. Some errands, some work, some cleaning. I’ve tried to keep it as low stimulation as possible. I’ve even just thrown a loaf of cinnamon raisin bread in the oven, to keep up with the comfort theme.

Preview for next weekend: Andrew ends his two-year trip to German and returns to the US on Friday afternoon. He’ll be spending the weekend with us before heading south. I don’t know what we’ll do, but he’s already told me: I want to be very active, no sitting! So…

On an unrelated note — a new celebrity sighting.
We saw Conan O’Brien crossing the street (presumably after a taping) the other afternoon. Noting his height is sort of a cliche, but what struck me is how slender he is. He was wearing jeans and a tight-ish t-shirt and looked positively willowy. Strangely enough, the next day we say the red headed guy who does Conan’s voice over/announcer stuff.

My work has been much neglected this weekend. I feel pretty good about that, as I think it’s important to hold the fort on your personal life. So instead I’ve been indulging in many forms of media entertainment. DVD include: Brassed Off (great!), In the Bedroom (wonderful, but sad) and Eyes Wide Shut (I’m watching that as I type, so will reserved judgment.). I went with James and Charles this afternoon to see The Wedding Crashers. While I acknowledge its flaws, I had a ball. My zing for Owen Wilson continues unabated. If the fact that it’s almost becoming trite to be attracted to him doesn’t kill it, then nothing will but time.

In the live entertainment category, we went to see The Skin Game last night at The Mint Theatre. It’s a great production company that focuses on reserecting and preserving old plays that might fall out of circulation otherwise. I don’t think they do anything post 1950. This one was from about 1920, I think. Our friend Nick was in it, and it was great fun. A few of the actors were hitting some off notes. One, we learned from Nick after the show, lost his mother the day before. He’d been writing her obituary between scenes. So… what can you do but feel awful for having criticized him in the lobby.

After the show we had drinks with Nick, who I have a little crush on. It’s harmless, but I found lots of reasons to touch his arm last night, which he was clearly enjoying. Fortunately I have just the right husband for me, as he found it cute that Nick and I were mildly flirty. I made sure to send lots of eye batting Damon’s way as well.

In the real world, I look forward to making Nick, his wife Aegina and their baby Rachel our friends.

So add to all this media some errands run, a brunch with friends and a walk in Central Park and you’ve got a well-used weekend.

I find that the inconveniences of living in New York allow me to rationalize all kinds of things. I’ll start by admitting that I pretty much always find a route to my desired destination. But it’s nice to have this one handy at all times. Somehow the fact that the subway smelled extra double bad today meant that I got to eat cookies and milk for dinner. You really had to smell it. When I got downstairs my eyes began to water. Add to this the fact that the A train was super late, apparently because they feared someone was trying to blow it up. And then I was treated to a rant by the woman next to me about how there is lead in all our water and any babies I have will most certainly be brain damaged unless I give them only distilled water.

On the happy side, I have a new subway game. It’s called: Best of the Bench/Mess of the Bench. I pick out one bench and then give a silent award to the person looking most stylish and then another to the person looking most hilariously disheveled or mismatched. The Mess of the Bench winner this morning was so good that she could likely make it to the finals.