This is a post for people who haven't experienced the joy of living in Hollywood. I wish somebody had explained this to me when I got here.

In Los Angeles, you often meet somebody, and they tell you they have a deal with a studio and you think WOW He's amazing! And then you start thinking about how you better hang out with this guy because he is going places.

The thing is, most of those people are full of shit. They say, for example, that Brad Pitt is reading their script, but what really happened is that an assistant at Plan B read their query and asked to read the script.

Most of the time these people aren't completely lying; they've just taken a tiny truth and blown it out of proportion. Because if you've been here long enough and had enough people ask you how your writing career is going, you start really wanting to have more to report than "Well, I'm still hoping somebody wants to read my script." You want people to think you're on your way. You want to be more important than you are.

So you make shit up.

When I first got out here I met a guy who had placed in the QFs of the Nicholl, or so he said. Thinking back, I'm not sure that was true. Then he said he knew a bunch of managers and would gladly introduce me to them. So naturally I jumped on it. But then he said I probably shouldn't have a manager; I should have an agent. He'd wait and introduce me to some agents some day.

Then he told me he was a studio deal to make his pilot and that he was probably going to start running a TV show on a major network soon. Maybe I could write on the show! Except at this point I knew enough about how TV worked to know that was ridiculous.

People in LA do that kind of thing ALL THE TIME. Not that everybody who claims success is lying, but it is always a good idea for you to be suspicious of anyone who has no IMDB credits or story in the trades and claims a huge success on the way.

People will blow massive amounts of smoke up your ass. Be skeptical.

My 12-year-old niece is coming to town this week to stay for a while, so I get to do touristy things like stroll down the Walk of Fame and scope for celebrities. Fortunately she is really interested in how movies are made, so I've got us tickets to a screening with a Q&A. Universal Studios, a drive down the PCH, a visit to the Farmer's Market.

The challenge will be finding time to write. I know my writing will fall off a bit, so I'm lowering my expectations for the next couple of weeks, but I'm still going to try to write most days. I'm hoping to use the dogs in this capacity. Kids love dogs. I figure if I give her a dog and some toys and an hour to go entertain herself, she'll probably give me time to write. And if that doesn't work, we have an XBox.

I'm just hoping she understands why I have to shut myself off for an hour or so and doesn't feel slighted or something. I'm not that good with younger kids.

The 14-18 demographic I get, but any kid younger than that is kind of a mystery. She's too old for kid's stuff and too young for adult stuff.

Then again, this may be my chance to shape her appreciation of film for years to come. We may have to introduce her to The Terminator. And Star Wars. And Buffy. Time to turn that girl into a film nerd.

I've had three weeks of holiday vacation and it's been fantastic. During vacations I always turn into a professional screenwriter as much as I can. I read scripts, write pages, watch movies with a critical eye, catch up on all my industry contacts, try to attend a function or two. I sort of pretend my day job doesn't exist.

During this vacation I managed to do almost the entire rewrite of Nice Girls and I'm much, much happier with this version than I was with the first. I finished yesterday after two days of marathon writing sessions, just in time to send it to the group for notes on Sunday. That leaves me four days to get my shit together to go back to work.

That's all great, but it makes it really really hard to actually go back to work.

I like my job. I like the kids, I like the control I have over how I spend my time, I like the fact that I get to talk all day about my favorite subject. I like having full health benefits and a livable wage. I hate the homework and getting up early and the time it takes away from writing.

It's that getting up early thing that's the real bitch. Everything that happens in this town seems to happen on a Thursday. Parties, screenings, panels. It's like everybody in town sleeps late on Friday so they consider Thursday part of the weekend. I can't do these things because I get up at 6am and have to talk on my feet all day to a bunch of volatile teenagers.

So since I have one more Thursday before I return to early rising, I'm taking advantage of it tonight. I'm going to a double feature of The Town and Gone Baby Gone at the Aero with a Q&A by the director between films.

You know who the director is, right? Right. I honestly cannot wait to see what he has to say because I love most of his work. People can say what they want about Ben Affleck, but the man knows his business.

It's stuff like this that makes me wish even more that this was my job. Every day that I sit and write and send emails and sign up for screenings makes me sigh and say "Why can't someone pay me to do this?"

You and me both, right?

I keep reminding myself that I'm at a point where all I have to do is make this script great. It's commercial, original, interesting, and in a genre that sells pretty well. I have people ready to read it who can get it where it needs to go. So if I just make this the best script I can, this may be the way to making my vacation life become my real life.

I cannot dance. Actually, that's not entirely true. I can do the club dance, the bump and grind and whatnot. I used to go dancing all the time in college. But I can't actually dance.

For a year I had a roommate who was a dance major - tiny little thing who bounded around like she was on springs. One time while imitating her I fell and busted my ass, because that's what I do. My mom always told me that once I grew into my limbs I'd stop bumping into things but that did not happen. I am not coordinated. In eighth grade it took me two days to learn how to click my heels to play an orphan in our school production of Oliver! Two days. On the upside, I can still do it.

I can move to the music, but I cannot do anything with any kind of rules, is my point.

So when I watch So You Think You Can Dance it is with nothing but admiration. I am baffled by what those people can do, often moved, and ever since a friend showed me years ago that routine with the ping pong table I've never missed an episode.

My very favorite dancer on that show is Mark. Oddly enough, this is my favorite of his routines on the show:



He's ethereal and masculine, sexy and quirky all at the same time. I am always thrilled when he makes an appearance on the show.

So today at Trader Joe's I made eye contact with this really good looking, tall guy in the aisle next to me and suddenly realized it was Mark shopping for groceries with a woman I assume is his mom.

Now I have had conversations with celebrities before. Sometimes brief, sometimes longer. I was not nervous even a little bit when I met Amber Benson, Danny Strong or Katee Sakhoff, and I carried on lengthy conversations with Jane Espenson on two occasions. There have been others - when I talked to them I was always fine because I know exactly what to say to those people. I know what to ask them or what kind of clever stories to tell. I have no idea what one says to a dancer other than OMG YOU'RE AWESOME. Plus I looked terrible. No makeup. I threw on sweat pants and a work-out T-shirt, thinking "Who am I going to see at Trader Joe's on a Sunday afternoon?" Who indeed.

Yes I know he's gay. That's completely irrelevant. And for the record he's so cute and very tall. It always surprises me how much taller celebrities are in person. Except Danny Strong and Katte Sakhoff - They're really short.

In LA it is an unspoken rule that you don't bother the celebrities. You can say you like them, but don't pester them, particularly when they're out buying bread with mom. I'm not one to break the rules.

So after pondering for like five minutes my plan of action, I waited until he turned in my direction, then said in my cute little girl voice the following statement:

"You're my favorite."

He smiled all huge and thanked me, and I immediately turned around and put all my attention into bagging my groceries to hide my nervous red face and shaking hands.

My rep is a very very busy person - they all are if they're any good - so I've been gently tapping her on the shoulder on occasion to remind her of my existence. Things in this business move remarkably slowly and even though you're tapping your foot with impatience, the people on the other end are actually busting their asses. So while my rep is busting her ass for her successful clients, I sort of wave, take her advice when she gives it, and keep writing and reading, which is the majority of her advice anyway. She's very pleasant and I'm grateful for her time, but she only has so much of it.

Every time I contact her she has the same question, have you been reading screenplays? This is very important to her, so I know I always need to be able to tell her what is the last thing I read. In fact, the best thing about being able to contact her has been goal setting. I know now that someone will read my scripts and ask what I've read, and for that reason I bust my ass to make sure she approves of my answers.

But as yet, I've just been building my script library. The networking is still my responsibility.

So I wrote a chase movie called Salvage that takes place in North Carolina, where I'm from, so I had this idea of trying to get the script in the hands of actors from the area. In researching contact information I discovered that Danny McBride, Jody Hill and David Gordon Green, who all went to school together in North Carolina, formed their own production company.

That's just terrific news, ain't it? Because even if an actor loves a script, they can't always get it to go anywhere, but the guys behind Eastbound and Down have got to have a little pull. Sure enough, if you check IMDB, this is a company that actually produces things.

I researched the company thoroughly and listened to the interview last week on KCRW's The Treatment, wrote out what I was going to say and called. I got voice mail so I panicked and hung up.

The next day I called again, this time reaching a live person. I did my pitch, thinking as soon as I said North Carolina I'd get at least a cheerful response of recognition. Nope. I got that old standard "we only accept project submitted by a lawyer or agent."

This is just wrong. People from North Carolina are supposed to be friendly and talkative and call each other "honey." I know I do. Maybe the guy who answers their phones is not from North Carolina.

Anyway, I HATE bothering people, which is why I'm not very good at the nagging you sometimes have to do around here. You should have seen what a horrible news reporter I was before I discovered teaching. I don't like being the squeaky wheel. The angry, fuck-you-because-you-just-disrespected-me wheel, but not the squeaky pay-attention-to-me-please wheel.

But Manager's name, and the name of the company she works for, gets my projects past that guy on the phone, so now I have to ask for her help. So we'll see what happens next.

One of the great things about living in LA is the ability to see films of all kinds in the theater. I feel like I haven't taken advantage of that enough of late, so this week I'm going to try to make up for it. Part of the problem is that it seems everything happens on Thursdays for some reason, and I have to get up at a stupid hour on week days so I can't stay out too late.

But next Thursday there's a screening of 127 Hours at the Arclight and dammit I'm going to go even if it means I'll be sleepy. I don't remember if there's a Q&A but good lord I hope so. With Danny Boyle. I love Danny Boyle.

Then Bloodsport is showing at the New Beverly at midnight on Saturday. I fucking love Bloodsport, so I'm going to take a nap Saturday afternoon to make sure I can stay awake.

I love Q&As too, and that's the beautiful thing about The New Bev - there's almost always some kind of Q&A. For those not in LA, The New Beverly tends to show old movies of varying types - they regularly screen Pulp Fiction, but their day to day films range from black and white horror to terrible 3D porn to Back to the Future. Lots of Grindhouse pictures. The seats are squeaky and the curtains are hideous and everybody's friends. I don't go there nearly enough.

But then right when I decided I had lined up enough movies for the next week, I got an email about AFI's film fest, where you can get free passes to see a lot of movies. I am dying to see I Saw The Devil, the new film from Ji-woon Kim who directed The Good, The Bad and the Weird, which I fucking LOVED. The listing on AFI's site warns that it's super violent. Hurray!

While I was looking for tickets to that I spotted 13 Assassins. Here's the logline on IMDB: "A group of assassins come together for a suicide mission to kill an evil lord." Dude, how can I not watch that? It's from Takashi Mike, who has directed a veritable shitload of movies.

They have a lot of other great looking films airing at AFI Fest, but I think I've maxed out my schedule. At some point I'm going to have to grade papers.

As part of a project at work I needed to get comic books for the kids to look at in class. It's a whole artistic thing I'm doing.

I don't know that much about comic books, but last time I went to House of Secrets in Burbank they were super nice so I went back there, and I just want to give those guys another shout-out. I'm not the first: Bitter Script Reader gave them love once, too.

When I walked in they were busy and there was a small crew doing an interview, but both employees stopped to help me find what I was looking for. In fact, the girl - I wish I got her name - spent 20 minutes combing through boxes or a stack of cheap comics that fit my criteria. She was downright ecstatic at the challenge. After I chose my stack of titles, the boss gave me a discount on them since, as he put it, I'm "doing the Lord's work" in my ghetto school.

I've been there twice now, and they never minded that I don't know much about comics. They relished it. In fact, they thought it was terrific since maybe this project might get kids interested in reading comics.

I felt it appropriate to show them a little love here today.

I promised an interview with a big Hollywood writer today and I lied. I ended up being entirely too busy today to do any writing, and tomorrow isn't much different. I may have to post the interview on Monday, but it will be there.

So I will leave you with this. While I awaited the arrival of said bigshot Hollywood screenwriter at the Bourgeois Pig on Franklin, a very trendy writery spot where Louis Lombardi once asked if he could drink my hot chocolate, two gay dudes walked in. How did I know they were gay? I don't know, one was blond and a little too good looking and his hair was gelled up and he just had that look, and a brunet guy came in with him.

The gay guys went to play pool. One of them came over and stood right next to me to ask the coffee chick if there was any chalk, and that's when I realized the blond gay guy was in fact Dominic Monaghan.

The lesson here is that sometimes celebrities look kind of gay.

I met a friend yesterday for lunch, and after our mimosas and paninis we wandered down to a coffee shop next to the Upright Citizens Brigade theater. I don't remember the name of it, but it was quirky. It had this cool back room with a blacklight and tiny chairs and this one chair that had nipples and some kind of peculiar smell. And $4 mugs of hot chocolate.

Powder and hot water and whipped cream. FOUR DOLLARS. What is that, like a 96% markup?

Anyway.

When we walked in there were four people at four different tables typing away on their laptops. I should specify that they were not only four people, they were four bald men. At separate tables on separate laptops. They were all annoyed. I'm not sure if they were annoyed at us for being really loud when we walked in or annoyed because their scripts were not going as planned, but they were four annoyed bald men. Come to think of it, maybe they were annoyed because they'd paid $4 for hot chocolate.

Louis Lombardi was in there with a posse. He asked if he could have some of my hot chocolate. He was joking, I think, because of his jolly smile, but at that point what does one say? I'm not giving any of my $4 drink to some stranger, even if he was on The Sopranos. I spilled it on myself instead.

On the way out I noticed that every single person in that place was talking about or working on a movie.

"The producer says..."
"We need to do more research..."
"He was working on a pitch for HBO...."

And there was us, and we were also talking about movies. My friend said we should start talking very loudly about my high-powered agent and all the parties I've been to at Spielberg's house, just for kicks.

I love this town.

Dear everybody, but mostly journalists and politicians,

Stop saying "unprecedented." Stop it. That shit you keep saying is unprecedented is completely precedented. This is not an unprecedented economic downturn because we had a fucking Depression way back when.

Sincerely,

Very Much Annoyed




Dear Me from Five Years Ago,

Hey there. Your script sucks. Don't cry; it's totally okay that it sucks. And I hate to break it you, kid, but all the scripts you wrote suck. Except maybe that LOST spec - that's not too bad, but unfortunately they're about to kill off Shannon so your script is kind of useless. You don't want to do TV anyway.

Know that guy who works at that really high profile management firm? Don't send him that thing about the henchman who cuts off that other guy's thumb. What the fuck is it with you and cutting people's limbs off, anyway? But while we're at it, that decision to cut his thumb off was spontaneous and brought about by the way you let your passion guide you while you were writing. Do more of that. Your best scenes will come out of spur-of-the-moment decisions where characters go to the extreme with their emotions. And don't send him that piece of shit about those kids who travel all over LA with their teacher. It's stupid and has no redeeming qualities. Just burn it.

Instead, keep writing. Email that guy every now and then. Invite him to parties. Then, in four years, you'll have a pretty good zombie script you can give him and you won't have fucked up your best opportunity.

Later this year you'll be at a big old party for Jamie Kennedy movie. You'll meet some celebrities. One of those celebrities will introduce you to his agent. Later, the agent will come up and try to talk to you because he thinks you're hot. And asshole you will later come to loathe will call you at that exact moment. DO NOT ANSWER THE GODDAMN PHONE or the agent will walk away forever.

Actually, you may just want to not deal with that asshole at all. He's a detour in your life that you don't need. He'll be a small man with the world's biggest ego to disguise his incredible insecurity.

The point here is, don't blow your opportunities. Don't be afraid to meet people and keep up relationships with them. People like to help others succeed in this town and you've got what it takes. Don't ever doubt that. Just know that it will take a lot more time than you want it to, so you might as well earn some salary points and go for that raise at work.

Sincerely,

You From the Future

If you are one of the billionty people who have plans to move to LA in the near future, here are some things you should know:*

1) "It's raining" is a perfectly legitimate reason for canceling all plans for the day.
3) Nobody uses their garage as a garage.
4) However long Mapquest tells you it will take you to get somewhere, the real answer is twice that amount.
5) If you need to visit someone in the middle of the day, they're probably home.
6) On Hollywood Boulevard, the tourists are the ones looking at their feet. They are annoying to everyone not looking at their feet.
7) You can buy flowers, oranges, balloons or pretty much anything else in the median of a popular intersection.
8) Be alert for schizophrenics in the middle of the street. Often you can spot them pushing shopping carts full of stuff they found in a dumpster and giving the finger to your honking horn.
9) Don't worry about recycling your soda bottle. A homeless guy will dig it out of the trash can shortly.
10) Stare at the famous person. Tell all your friends to stare at the famous person. Giggle and talk about the famous person. But under no circumstances do you actually talk to the famous person.
11) At 3am on a Sunday, the 405 is still a string of break lights.
12) If you don't drink coffee or eat sushi, either get started or get out.
13) Dress up to go to the mall. If you wear a faded T-shirt and discounted Gap jeans you will feel like a schmuck when you see what everybody else wears.
14) There are only three protected lefts in all of Los Angeles, so you'd better turn left as soon as the light turns red because you will not get an opportunity before or after. Don't sit there and think about it. Do it or I will ram your fucking car through the intersection.
15) Never go to a party without business cards.



*Nobody told me I skipped number 2. So 2) We don't do math without our cell phone calculators.

Last night the Beefcake took me out to a sit down dinner. Very fancy except I was wearing yoga pants and he was in shorts. We headed for the Larchmont Grill but then decided it looked too fancy for yoga pants and shorts, so we walked across the street to a brand new seafood restaurant called The Village on Melrose (it's on Melrose) and looked over the menu. Standard city seafood prices - $15-$25 entrees - but the customers were mostly well dressed older folk so we started to walk down to Astroburger and go with our standard meal of veggie burger for me and belgian waffle for the Beefcake.

Just as we began heading down the street, a bald European man chased us down. The Village was a brand new restaurant he said, just open a month with two five star chefs, and if we came in he'd hook us up with a major deal on dinner.

Why the hell not?

This dude was so enthusiastic and nice and worked his ass off hopping from table to table. This is his best friend's place, he told us, and I'm assuming his best friend was the short guy who occasionally came out to stare at the progress before returning to the kitchen.

We ordered paella and lobster and shared it all between us. The European guy, whose name I forget even though he kissed my hand and told me his name about thirty times, forgot to get us bread but who gives a shit; we had paella and lobster and both were good and both were reasonably priced.

Here's the reason I'm writing about this because on a regular day a good meal at a new restaurant isn't blogworthy. The reason I'm writing about this is what started to happen as we waited for our meal. The Old People came.

When we arrived, an ancient lady was playing the shit out of a piano. She had a book of sheet music in front of her, but in the two hours or so we were there she never cracked it open and tore through song after song from memory. After we'd been there a little while, another old lady hopped up and grabbed a mic set up through a little amplifier and started singing opera. Then another old guy grabbed a guitar and he and the old singing lady wandered around from table to table performing.

These people weren't paid to be there. They just came to sing old songs together. Then they handed the mic over to anyone with interest in belting it out. The owner came out and serenaded us. Our excellent waiter did that one French opera song everybody knows but nobody knows the words to. Except he seemed to know the words.

We clapped, we laughed, we sang along. Old People just kept rolling in and it became clear that this had already become a regular hang out for the cast of a Cocoon remake. And to think, if that foreign man hadn't chased us down the block we would have eaten our usual veggie burger and waffle and gone home to watch TV. Instead we ate lobster and paella and cheered on the old folks in their little opera house. A customer sang "Mona Lisa Smile". Another customer got up and caterwauled some song nobody else but the piano player knew and everybody cheered her on. I seriously considered performing "I Don't Know How to Love Him" but wasn't sure I knew every word. I think we'll go back and when I do I'll go for it. Apparently they're up there every Friday and Saturday night.

One old lady said "You don't have to be good, just brave."

This is the kind of place where romantic comedies happen. Imagine if that had been our first date - what a great opportunity for a couple to fall in love over seafood. Or it could even be a story about old people falling in love for the first time over showtunes. These are the kinds of places you only find by accident, and they give you the best ideas.

As you know, I am a schoolteacher. I don't work on big fancy sets. I don't have access to backlots. I don't fetch coffee for anybody important. Actually I don't fetch coffee for anybody because I don't drink coffee and if the Beefcake wants coffee he makes it himself.

Anyway, the point is, I don't work in the business.

I say this because I've noticed a lot of people who plan to come to Hollywood think they have to work in the business in order to break in. I haven't broken in yet so you may think I'm totally full of shit, but I will. Of that I have no doubt. And in the meantime I pay my bills and work a job I mostly like and have 4 months off a year to write.

I've had a few people tell me I should take a job as someone's PA or a writers assistant job or something equally low on the totem pole to get my foot in the door. And it's true, if I was 21 when I came out here and fresh out of grad school I would have gladly taken a job running around in the sun fetching this and that just to get on a set. But I wasn't 21. I was 26 and I had spent the years after grad school managing a classroom and answering only to a man who never left his office or yelled at anybody, except that one time when I told my students that Catholics think Pentecostals are "weird" without realizing one of my students was the child of Pentecostal missionaries with no sense of humor. I was forbidden from talking about religion in class anymore ever. We were reading Siddhartha at the time.

But I digress.

I always knew I wanted to be a writer, but I was in my 20s before I knew it wasn't novels I liked to write. Sometimes even when we know where we're going, we're not sure how to get there.

As soon as I knew what I wanted, I came here. I had a degree and a skill so I traded on that to pay the bills, and working as someone's errand girl never appealed to me. I admire the people who do it. They work their asses off for very little pay and I have several friends who have spent years of their lives making shows run, some of whom have moved on to better things.

And there's the rub. I've been here four years and I'm just now starting to get somewhere. I have an MA in creative writing and I wrote my first book at the age of 9 (it was about how girls can get boys to like them and an ugly girl bought it for 5 cents) so it's not like I suddenly looked up one day and decided I would be a writer. I've been practicing.

Still, four years and I'm still gleefully hoping these two managers read my script soon. If I had been somebody's PA, more than one industry professional would have already sent my script on to his boss by now.

Maybe.

But it hasn't stopped me from making connections; I just make them slower. I still meet people because of this blog and parties and friends of friends. I rarely miss an opportunity to hang out with people I like because you never know when something you say starts a conversation that leads to someone handing you a card and asking you to email them your script. It's probably a million times harder if you're shy.

My point in writing all this is to say, you don't have to take an industry job. If you can, do it, but it's okay if you can't. The thing that finally convinced me to move out here after months of pondering was this comment from some random person over at Wordplay: "In LA you can't spit without hitting someone in the industry." They went on to say that if you move here, you will make contacts. And it's completely true.

You just have to be willing to go to a lot of parties.

Wednesday night, while I slowly sank in my queen sized air mattress inside tent city's greatest mansion in front of the school where I teach, I finally decided to give up sleep and listen to the conversation the loud obese guy was having with the quiet obese guy. I'm pretty sure actually trying to hear this conversation is what finally knocked me out, but before I dropped off to my full two hours of sleep I heard something interesting.

Quiet Guy: Let's talk movies. Star Trek was a good film.
Loud Guy: OH YEAH. IT SURE WAS. I LOVED IT.
Quiet Guy: Oh but it was good for all the wrong reasons. Mumble mumble mumble and that's why people went to see it.
Loud Guy: Oh....
Quiet Guy: If there's a movie I like to talk about it's Ikiru. I mean, mumble mumble Kurusawa films mumble mumble.
Loud Guy: Oh yeah. okay.
Quiet Guy: And there's this film called Cinema Paradiso....

(This is where I said to myself, "Okay buddy, we all now know you went to film school. Congratulations.")

Loud Guy: Oh really?
Quiet Guy: Oh yeah. And mumble mumble Harold and Maude.
Loud Guy. yeah....
Quiet Guy: Did you see A Beautiful Mind? That movie was really controversial because of the racist mumble mumble. You know, my professor directed that movie.
Loud Guy: Really?
Quiet Guy: Oh yeah. He....

So this seems to be where I fell asleep, right after I got confirmation of my hypothesis that this guy went to film school.

The whole time they were talking I wanted desperately to leap out of my tent and yell "I love Pitch Black because Vin Diesel is a shiny-eyed badass who kills man-eating aliens who did not know who they were fucking with!" and then jump back into my tent. But I did not want to do this as desperately as I wanted to go to sleep.

Seriously. Nobody starts a conversation over a camp fire explaining why Star Trek is good because it's not good, and then segues into Kurusawa, Cinema Paradiso, and Harold and Maude except a frustrated film school grad.

Every now and then I get an email from someone I've never seen before saying something like "Hey, want to read my screenplay? Here it is!" with a 150 page tome attached. It's a bit like someone knocking on my door and saying "Hey we've never met but I've seen you before. Here are my kids. I'll be back to pick them up at 12."

Sometimes I'll get an email from someone I've never seen saying "Hey, we should go to the movies tonight."

I'm not even famous or successful as a screenwriter, so I can't imagine how much more frustrating it must be for someone with a name.

If you live outside the LA system, there are some things you should know about the way things work in town. Everybody in this town is looking for a connection, but nobody admits they are looking for a connection. At a party, when you meet an agent you do not say "Hey I've got a screenplay in my purse! Here!" and then shove it into his hands.

You say "Oh really? What kind of clients do you work with?" and then when they talk about it you comment on how much you like that kind of stuff, eventually sliding in the fact that you write screenplays. If they're interested they'll ask to see one. If they're not, they'll pretend they didn't hear you. But first you have to make friends, because in this town people only do business with their friends.

Once I was at a big time industry party and I was introduced to a literary agent. I was polite and friendly and as I was about to slip in the fact that I'm a writer, someone came along and swept him away. A little while later a friend called, and I went into a quieter area and talked to said friend in front of a mirrored wall. In the reflection of the mirror I saw the agent come up behind me, then when he realized I was on the phone, he sheepishly wandered away. I was so pissed at my friend that we are no longer friends.

Just kidding. We are no longer friends for an entirely different reason. But still. I never saw that agent again the rest of the party.

Which brings me to personality and looks. I'm convinced that if my script was perfect I'd already be making millions because I'm good at parties. It's an act you have to put on - you can't be wallflower lady and you can't be frumpy fat screenwriter guy. The agent at that party probably wanted to talk to me because I was wearing a very short skirt. Now it's Hollywood so there's about thirty actresses at every party, but I have the advantage of not being an actress. So when I'm talking to someone with influence I ask questions and only talk about myself in context of things that relate to that person.

I smile a lot. I flirt. Because just because I want to make a living with my brain doesn't mean I can't use my looks to get your attention. Many writers fear people and hide in the corner in their Battlestar Galactica T-shirt talking to people they already know. Understandable. Talking to people is scary. But you can't make it in this town unless you make friends, so if you can't handle parties you've got to compensate with something else.

Also make business cards. Once you make friends, you have to give them an easy way to contact you.

Basically, in order to make it here you have to develop social skills. Be friendly. Shower. Shave your legs and wear a short skirt.

Or if you can't, find a friend who can and is willing to drag you around. But don't ask me unless we've met before, please.

It's raining in Los Angeles.

I come from a rainy state. In NC it sprinkles and thunderstorms and all kinds of precipitation all year long, and at first when I moved here I missed the rain daily. The first time it really rained I ran outside and danced in it, I was so happy to see the rain.

But then years went by and somehow I became an Angelino. And now when it rains I'm all "Fuck that. I ain't going outside in the rain. That's how you get wet!"

When the rain lets up we all rush to the grocery store to buy bread and milk to keep us fed in the coming hard times of the next 24 rainy hours. If you leave the house IT WILL GET YOU.

I never even check the weather anymore, which is how I wound up freezing in sandals and a short-sleeve shirt yesterday; My clothing choices are always based on the previous day's weather.

Anyway, I'm about to brave the rain to go see Coraline tonight and I am stoked. I can only hope its dark tone keeps the little hellians away, because who wants to deal with fucking children at a kids movie? Seriously? But I LOVE The Nightmare Before Christmas and as soon as I saw the first preview for this I knew I had to see it. So the rain will not stop me, mostly because the movie is indoors.

Everybody's planning to vacate the town. Coworkers are packing up, the Beefcake is driving a different person to the airport every morning, the freeways are empty.

I love when the freeways are empty.

Everybody keeps asking me if I'm going home for the holidays and when I tell them no their eyes bug out and they stare at me, incredulous.

But EVERYBODY goes home!

On Christmas day I plan to go to the mall to see Benjamin Button and I bet there won't be anybody there. Hell, I can go to Target on Christmas Eve and it will be like a regular shopping day. But not Wal Mart. Don't go to Wal Mart on Christmas Eve because the people who don't leave town are the same people who go to Wal Mart.

Anyway, if you drive down the street it is empty. This morning on the way to work I had normal traffic on the streets, then when I hit the 10, NOTHING. Usually it's packed but today it was a breeze.

So while everybody else is crammed up with family visits and packed malls and snowy roads, LA is a ghost town. I love when it's a ghost town.

My family always has appetizers on Christmas Eve then plays a board game, so this year Best Friend will come over and we're going to eat my appetizers and play Wii. She's Muslim so her family won't miss her. Then in the morning after Beefcake and I do a gift exchange he has to go to work so that's when I'm heading to the movies.

Benjamin Button just feels like the perfect movie to watch alone with the Jews and the Athiests on Christmas Day, don't you think?

Anyway, I have a three foot tree and a scented candle so I'm ready. Merry Christmas!

Today was the awesomest field trip ever, even better than that trip to Glendale last year where we had free burgers.

Today kicked off The Big Read, a program sponsored by Mayor Villaraigosa and the National Endowment for the Arts designed to encourage reading around Los Angeles. Five different high schools, and maybe more, all agreed to use The Maltese Falcon in our American Literature classes.

So today another teacher and I took 26 hand-picked kids from our school to Barnsdall Park where the city had a classic car demonstration, a real live falcon, a jazz band and a staged performance of the play version performed by a troupe from Long Beach. They fed us veggie burgers or chicken thingees. I ate the veggie burger because I'm trying not to be fat. It was okay.

In case you've never noticed, teachers will do just about anything for free food. You think cops love donuts? Pwah.

James Avery was there in a wheel chair since he just had foot surgery. Here is Carlton's Dad preparing to eat his lunch like three feet from me.


Austen Perros was there, and I'd never heard of him before but judging by the ear-splitting screams emanating from the teenage girls beside me he's very popular with the teenage girl set. There were some other cool people there - Hammett's granddaughter and great granddaughter were there. They taught me that Dashiell Hammett's first name is pronounced "Duh-SHEEL". So that was news.

We got T-Shirts and gift bags - and you know how gift bags usually have a book mark and like three brochures in it? Not this time. We got all kinds of cool stuff - a graphic novel and some mints and a fizzy soda-like-but-not-actually-soda-drink, and a pencil. Oh, and a magnet with the superintendent's name on it, I guess so I can remember who he is every time I go into my fridge for barbecue sauce.

The mayor was there with his cloud of camera people:


And he stayed to give us all a nice speech about the importance of reading. According to the event organizer he NEVER stays that long in one place. He was really enthusiastic. Since I was also taking pictures for the yearbook I had a camera on me, as you can see, but I only thought of recording his speech for YouTube halfway through so I didn't do it.

We watched the play, which starred some very talented actors and one trumpet player who actually read from the script and appeared never to have even read the script before so he covered his unprofessionalism by breaking the fourth wall every three seconds. The poor lead actor was doing his best to work through it.

Anyway, when all was said and done it was a great success. The kids are jazzed up about the book now and they're all supposed to go back to their classes and teach the rest of the kids what they learned.

One of our kids won a copy of the film in a raffle. It's like a $25 DVD set. She clearly didn't want it, so I leaned over and said, "You can sell that."

And she goes, "Really? To who?"

And I said, "Me."

And she said, "Five dollars."

And I didn't have any cash so when we got back to school I ran up to Best Friend and demanded five dollars and bought the movie. And then our donated camera came in for yearbook. And then, since I had a sub in my class, I went home early.

It was a good day.

I am on vacation and have been for a few weeks now. Because of this, I stay up until 3 am and usually wake up around the 10 o'clock hour.

So this morning at 10 something when the film crew called I was asleep.

My phone rang and I was jolted out of a cool dream. I saw that it was the gate calling so I figured it's either a delivery guy or the Beefcake. Groggy, I answered.

Now I sleep between two very loud fans so I couldn't really hear very well the woman that answered.

Her: Something something film crew in your area.
Me: Okay.

I have no idea why they would be contacting me. Are they really hard up for extras?

Her: Do you think something something God something beautiful something intended us to something something?

Oh man I just woke up and she wants me to tell her what I think God intended? I thought about turning my fan off, but I can hear enough to get this gist and this conversation won't be long anyway.

Me: I don't know.
Her: Well do you think we something something something something something?
Me: I don't know.
Her: Well it sounds like you're busy. Can we come back some other time?
Me: Sure.

Normally I wouldn't mind doing surveys, especially if said survey gets me on a film set, but it was just sort of unexpected and weird to conduct a survey over the gate intercom. I think what would have been better is if the woman had opened with "We are filming a documentary about religion in America and we're looking for people with interesting perspectives to answer a few questions. Do you think you'd be interested in doing an interview on camera?"

Then I could have come down or let her in or whatever. But just coming at me with two random religion questions right off the bat like that made me think of Jehovah's Witnesses and all I could think was DON'T LET THEM IN.

I really do hope they call back because I honestly wouldn't mind. I just think when you're asking such incredibly personal questions you need to buffer it a little. "Hello, what do you think God intended for us?" is a little forward, don't you think?

Oh well. I may have missed my opportunity to be in a movie. I'm sure there'll be another one soon. They're shooting a Monk episode down the street tomorrow.

I saw Eddie Izzard at the Kodak Friday night. He was his usual hilarious self. He actually dressed like a man in jeans and a coat with tails and didn't wear any makeup.

There was this really distracting eyeball that moved around behind him and made it difficult for me to concentrate. That was not helped by the fact that the seats are only comfortable if you're a skinny midget with a large bladder. I honestly have no idea how people in the mezzanine sit through the entire Oscar broadcast without kicking the person in front of them in the head.

I ended up getting lucky that there was nobody sitting directly in front of me at the sold-out show - so somebody lost $60. But their absence allowed me to put my feet up for a few minutes when the discomfort got extreme. Officer Beefcake, who is considerably larger, was so uncomfortable I thought he was going to start kicking seats out of the way to stretch out his legs.

The show itself was a riot. What Izzard does so well is callbacks. He'll make a joke early on that he keeps finding ways to work in, whether it makes sense in context or not.

Come to think of it, only about 30% of his jokes actually make any sense, but that doesn't stop them all from being funny.

I also noticed he does callbacks to jokes from old shows so there are a few inside jokes for the die-hard fans, of which I am one. The man is so funny that he spent 15 minutes reading Wikipedia entries and still had the place in stitched. You know that old adage about making the phone book interesting? He could do it.

What I love the most is how it feels like a conversation. It seems like he barely plans anything - like he knows sort of a general idea of what he's going to say but had no idea how he's going to say it. That's exactly how I teach so I respect that. It's less "jokey" and more hilarious natural conversation.

So if you ever get a chance to see Eddie Izzard, go. And if it's at the Kodak, spring for the floor seats.