I'm waiting for Mom to get back from Curves so we can go get the wedding dress to take it to the resale place. They were really excited to hear we were coming. I think most of the dresses they get are Aunt Tilda's thirty-year-old poofy sleeve number from her second marriage. Maybe that means I'll get more money.

Mom tried to get me to go to Curves with her. No thanks. If my workout's gonna be dictated to me it will be by supremely hot Trainer who occasionally can be coaxed to lift up his shirt and show me his abs, not by sixty year old ladies in sweatpants who believe every woman on earth has the same body.

Anyway, now seems as good a time as any to explain what happened with the wedding. I met Ex-Fiance while I was working for a horrible newspaper in eastern North Carolina. He was working for one of our competitors as a news reporter. I thought he was cute. We dated.

Then I decided to move back to Raleigh and become a teacher and I figured that was that because I wasn't interested in a long term relationship.

But he kept sticking around. He came up on weekends and sometimes I went down to visit on weekends and that was the pattern we adopted. I had no friends where I lived and everybody at work was married and older so there was no alternative. That's life in North Carolina for me. Ex-Fiance's friends were my only friends.

Time passed. Years passed. We downed massive amounts of wine on the weekends and ate at the same pizza restaurant. We played Knights of the Old Republic on X-Box.

Then I decided to move to LA to become a screenwriter. I asked if he wanted to come with me because I was afraid of moving alone. He responded by asking me to marry him.

We were on a trip to New York to stay with friends. We walked to Central Park, one of his favorite places on earth but a place that means absolutely nothing to me, and he pulled out a claim check for a jewelry store and popped the question casually.

I thought he was joking at first, but then said yes because that's what you do. You say yes. It's not like there was anybody else out there trying to marry me. I was used to him.

The ring was my great grandmother's. He had gone to my mother and gotten it, but it had no stones so he took it to the only jeweler in town who would put stones in it (there were better jewelers twenty miles away), but the jeweler got sick so Ex didn't have it when we went to New York, hence the claim check. When I did get the ring back the amethyst in the middle (my idea) was deeply flawed and one of the braces holding in a tiny diamond on the side was not properly set so it kept picking at my clothes. I was always having to dig pieces of lint out of my ring.

Kind of symbolic, no?

The night we got engaged his favorite basketball team got into the final four. When everyone told him congratulations he thought they were talking about the game.

Then we moved to LA. I paid for the move. I paid for the apartment. For four months I paid all the bills. He never could seem to find a job. He kept saying he was looking for one but wasn't satisfied with anything less than news reporter, even temporarily, so while he drank more and more and went out to hockey games I laid on the couch, exhausted from working at a school that didn't yet have its shit together so I could pay both of our bills.

I'd get up at 3 am to go to the bathroom and he'd be on my computer playing some video game where you conquer other cultures.

I dreaded sex.

Then I started to make friends. I went to the gym and got First Trainer. I was at the gym as much as possible because I didn't want to go home.

Because of First Trainer, I cut way back on the drinking. Then I told Ex I'd like him to go a week without drinking. He agreed. I marked the bottle. The very next day after he promised to stop there was less vodka in the bottle. I confronted him. He said it must have evaporated. I marked it again. The next day there was MORE vodka in the bottle than before.

He's not too bright.

One day two months before my wedding I was addressing envelopes for the wedding invitations while watching TV. I saw that credit card commercial where that girl in her wedding dress runs and hugs her friends because she's so happy.

"What an idiot," I said.

I looked down at the cards in my lap. I realized what I had just said. That's when I knew I didn't want to get married.

He didn't take it so well. Before he moved out he would get drunk in the middle of the night and come into the bedroom to demand to know why I wanted to break it off. He finally moved out.

He took me to lunch a few months later to catch up. We were going to try to be friends. When the bill came he discovered he had no money. I paid.

It's the last time I paid for anything. I haven't seen him since.

This is me directing. And also slouching:

Thanks to all those people who wished me luck. It worked.

Saturday morning DP came in and said, "I don't usually look at the footage from the day before because I don't want to see all the things we did wrong, but I decided to look at it last night..."

-and this is when I held my breath, waiting for the inevitable list of reshoots we were going to have to blow through before we could move on-

"....and it was really good. It was really funny. We have a lot to work with."

That's kind of what this weekend was like.

The first day I really had no idea what I was doing but my crew - consummate professionals all - was very patient and helpful and quietly guided me through the shoot so that by the end of Sunday's shoot I was pretty confident about the choices I was making. So I owe Kellee a HUGE thank you for being an amazing script supervisor and AD. I would have been lost without her. DP was filled with ideas and brilliant shots, Gaffer was everywhere, perfecting everything quickly and making beautiful light with no power and dealing with a giant set of glass doors on the balcony.

I was so lucky. Our biggest problems were a broken china ball, a bottle full of red ibuprofen that was supposed to double as cocaine and a fire alarm going off in the condos across the street followed shortly by the sound of fire trucks. All problems were easily solved or went away while we shot a few inserts.

I also owe a big thank you to my fabulous PA, who took these pictures, kept an eye on continuity, manned the air conditioning unit, ground up ibuprofen and somehow managed to still take care of lunch. Also my amazing Boyfriend who turned out to be the perfect sound guy. When it began pouring with crazy rain - while my roofless Jeep sat parked on the street all day and is now filled with puddles of water which are hopefully evaporated by now - Boyfriend went on the roof and bared the storm to lay a blanket over the vent that was making all the clinky noises. Problem solved once again.

Things went so right we actually finished four hours early on Sunday. That I owe to my incredible set of actors who knew their characters inside and out, knew their lines perfectly and took my direction just right with minimal complaint.

I still can't believe we had no major disasters. Not only did we have no major disasters, but we had a lot of fun.

Here are some pics from the set.

Guns and roses:


A little girl on girl:
Some of the talent and the crew in serious preparation:So, in short, my first directing experience was wonderful. That's what happens when you surround yourself with excellent people.

Boyfriend is a Production Assistant. Just like everyone else out here he has his eyes on something greater, but for the time being he is an errand runner on set for whatever television show happens to need his services, a very important job that almost never gets mentioned in the credits.

Until recently he worked on a bad reality show that will thankfully not get a second season, although this did not stop me from demanding a hat that I now wear all over the place as if I were somehow affiliated with the show.

On this show he usually worked 12 hour days with no overtime pay and no health benefits and for a paltry sum of money. Then the job ended and he was unemployed so we've been on vacation together until some production manager somewhere remembers him when they need a PA and gives him a call.

Then last week he was offered a one day job on a new show for the fall season. It's a drama on a network, a show I'm excited about, a show that will most likely get a full season order and possibly more seasons after that. I hope so, anyway.

Boyfriend didn't want to give up his vacation, but this was a one day job. More importantly, for a drama on a network. A real show with a plot and everything.

Real shows with plots and everything pay a decent wage. They also pay overtime and a few benefits to the long term folks. And the craft services is excellent. So of course Boyfriend took the job.

Then he was on set for 16 hours. His call time was 6 am. He called me at 9:44 pm, exhausted, saying they'd asked him to come back the next day.

In addition to the crazy hours, he was in a park all day on a second unit shoot. There was no shade and he spent most of his day running up and down a hill, so now his neck is redder than the blood of the innocent. Just as well. He does like to hunt and fish.

The next day he went in at 7 am. Around 9pm he called to say he'd be there until at least 1:30 am so don't wait up.

Today he's on location somewhere. We're supposed to meet tonight to go to a show but now he's worried he won't make it because he'll still be onset working on the 3/4 of a page they're supposed to shoot today.

I'm starting to forget what he looks like. Fortunately he has tattoos so I'll be able to identify him by those when next I see him.

Right now he's working day to day, but I have a feeling they'll offer him a long term job soon. I may have to get a walk on to the lot just so I can see him again.

This has served as a reminder to me that 1 - PAs are awesome and deserve some credit and major amounts of appreciation and 2 - that the script needs to be tight and the actors need to be prepared and the crew needs to be efficient so that people have time outside work to have a life.

If you see Boyfriend, please tell him I said hi.