Tuesday, November 24, 2009

The overdue post

Until now I haven't really had a free moment at work or at home to post on here, but now my bosses are gone, and since it's Thanksgiving week the town is quiet enough that I can take a few moments to write about my various adventures.

I'll start with the road trip.

A couple weeks ago, Writress got a call from her best friend from college. Turns out that she and her boyfriend of five years (also a very good friend of Writress) just got engaged. He'd surprised her with a trip to Hawaii for their 5 year anniversary and proposed. It must be nice to get paid enough to do that kind of stuff. But anyways, that weekend they were planning an overdue housewarming party at their place in San Francisco, and it was becoming a "holy crap we just got engaged" party. As soon as Writress hung up, I said that we should totally drive up and surprise them.

Writress sent her friend an email, saying she was really sorry but wouldn't be able to make it up. Then on that Saturday morning, we got in Writress's car (the same kind of car I have, except hers had GPS) and started driving North. We took the fast way up, driving through the lack of landscape that is the central valley in California. Seriously, once you've seen it once there isn't much reason to see it again. But roadtripping is fun, so Writress and I kept each other entertained. The most memorable thing we saw was a lot of signs that said "Congress Created this Dustbowl" because the farmers were pissed that Congress wouldn't roll back environmental protections on the rivers that they wanted to use for additional irrigation.

I drove over the Bay Bridge into San Francisco around 12:30, and saw the city for the first time. We drove around, saw some sights, then went to Union Square to get lunch at Writress's favorite Thai noodle place from college. Then we caught up with a friend of mine from high school, and the three of us went over the Golden Gate Bridge, saw Saucilito, then walked around Fisherman's Wharf at night. We saw a bunch of smelly Sea Lions all sleeping on top of each other on these barges, and while I'm sure they are perfectly happy there, they were so crowded that it looked like that first shot of the inside of the spaceship in District 9.

Writress and my friend also tried to trick me into walking by "The Bush Man", but I got wise to their plan. For those of you who don't know, there's this guy who hangs out by the wharf in SF with a bunch of fake branches, so he looks like a bush. When people walk by, he stick a branch out to scare them. Then he collects tips from onlookers. We saw him get one chick pretty good, which was funny.

We then dropped my friend off at her place, and went in search of Writress's engaged friends. They live in the 23rd floor of this 42 story high rise condo, complete with a doorman (so unlike LA apartments). I guess the protocol is that people walk into the lobby, say that they're here to see so-and-so from unit such-and-such, and the guy calls up. We set up a plan to use the names of other friends of Writress if it came to it (although good thing it didn't because these friends had very asian names, and let's face it, I couldn't really pull that off). We walking in with a bottle of champagne like we were expected, and the guy let us up the elevator. We went upstairs, knocked on the door and covered up the peephole with a thumb. The groom-to-be opened the door, saw us, and exclaimed "HOLY SHIT!". The bride-to-be dropped the phone, and ran over excited like crazy.

We totally made their night, and it was great. The party was fun, hanging out with Writress's ballroom dancing friends. I showed them my, "spin the girl a lot and they think you know how to dance" tactic.

We went to get out stuff from Writress's car as the party was breaking up, as we were gonna crash on the couch. We sat and talked on a bench for a bit, and told each other that we loved each other. It was nice. I can genuinely say that about someone for the first time since college. We're really great together, and I'm very happy that I went to that writer's meetup 6 months ago and met her.

The next morning we woke up early (windows faced east, sun was like a laser beam). We drove over to Writress's college, so I got to see that. Then we started driving back. We drove to Monterrey/Carmel which was really pretty, then got on California 1 heading south.

It was breathtakingly beautiful, and the road winded back and forth which made for fun, if slow and tiring, driving. We periodically stopped to just look at the view and take a few pictures, and it was nice. We stopped at Hearst Castle, but when we saw how expensive the tour was and how long it would take, we got back in the car. We came upon Santa Barbara while it was already getting dark, so we didn't stop. We made it back to my place in LA by 6:40, and were exhausted for the rest of the night.

Now, on top of this story is the stuff that happened with my roommate, but I'm going to save that for another post. Stay tuned kids.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

There's stuff I need to post about

There's a bunch I need to post about, but the reason there's so much to post about is that I'm so busy...which means I don't have time to post. Crazy.

Things of note that have happened:

1) Epic road trip to San Francisco and back down the California Coast, saw old friends, surprised Writress' friends.

2) L bombs dropped with Writress, feeling very good about that

3) What I thought was some heavy ridiculous drama with Roommate turned out to be something else, but still very blog-worthy.

Tonight Writress and I are really looking forward to having a night to veg out, watch TV, and crash. We haven't been able to do that in over a week.

Can't wait for Thanksgiving...and Christmas. Thinking most about the time I'll have to sleep.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Being Spontaneous

While we were heading over to Roommate's comedy show on Monday night, the Writress got a call from her best friend from college with the happy news that she had just gotten engaged to the guy she'd been dating for the past 5 years.

They're two of Writress's best friends in the world, and they live up in San Francisco. I've been wanting to make that road trip ever since I moved to California anyway, so we thought it would be fun to head up there this weekend for their housewarming/engagement party.

They don't know we're coming, so it should be a big surprise for them. Plus I'll get a chance to see people I know in San Francisco, and see all the touristy stuff.

On a whim I also decided to set up a version of "The Black List" for TV pilots. For those of you who don't know, The Black List is an annual list of the best unproduced feature scripts of the year. Scripts like "Juno" and "Lars and the Real Girl" were on there before they became movies that won a zillion awards. I'm setting up a similar one for TV pilots. It's probably a ton of extra work, but maybe I'll ask Writress to help or something. Plus I can make good contacts with it, contacts who read TV scripts, and might be willing to read my pilot.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Meeting went well

I had my meeting. It went pretty well.

Even though she recognized my name as someone else on one of her tracking boards, she treated me like a for-real writer, assuming I had other general meetings like this set up all over town.

She told me how much she loved my pilot, and was kept engrossed despite the fact that half of it takes place in a video game and she "bought a Wii but doesn't use it."

She told me about the shows they're working on that will likely be staffing in the coming months, I was interested, and would love to work on any of them.

Even if it leads to nothing it was a worthwhile experience, but at the same time I can't help but hope that it can lead to a chance to join the writing staff of one of their shows.

Here's hoping for the best.

Thursday, November 5, 2009

John August responded to my post

I'm being and advice seeking whore this week in prep for my meeting next week. I even asked a question of screenwriting blogger John August, who responded.

It's a lot of what I was already pretty sure I knew, which is good. It shows I'm not too clueless or in over my head.

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Looking ahead

My boss mentioned my aspirations to write today, saying he'd like to read my script after Thanksgiving, but that basically he would rather I spent my nights having drinks meetings with assistants that could help him out. I'm going to try to split the difference and keep doing both.

My credit card company sent me a letter saying that in a month and a half they're going to jack up all my interest rates for no damn reason (they're blaming it something like how a payment was a day late when the due date was on a day they were closed). So now my previously manageable balance is looking rather scary. Not sure what I'm going to do about that, but I'll think of something.

I have a panel discussion tonight for my pilot writing program with two people who've read and liked my work before on it, so I'm looking forward to that.

Things are still going great with the Writress. It's been over 5 months now, and we haven't had so much as a disagreement. It's comfortable, and nice, and relaxing. We enjoy each others' company, have a ton in common, and there's no bullshit drama. I'm pretty happy with things.

And so looking ahead, I just need to keep doing what I'm doing, while trying not to get crushed by a VISA bill.