Another Day In Hell

Stars Around Me

I came home on at night, lights creeping up twisted roads north of Franklin Ave.  Someone was widening their driveway, someone was putting out their trash, someone had bought a new car with dealer plates.  A Honda Civic.  A hybrid.

The door of my house is open and, sprawled out on a couch that isn't mine is 'George'.  He blinks a few times.  An empty bottle of vodka sits on a coffee table.  A small fire burns outside on the ground, near my pool.  I drop my bag near George who watches me walk out.  He straightens up.  Stands.  Goes to the bathroom, his eyes red.  I hear a faucet turn on.

Outside, on the ground...letters.  Each one being licked by flames that dance with a chill wind that has descended on Los Angeles.  I see ribbons, red, and a heart-shaped box.  Paper-mache?  I'm not sure...and it burns. 

I look at my reflection in the pool, the stars above me.  I need to shave.  I've spent the past few nights in a motel near the state line debating whether i should come back to a life i left or find a new life somewhere else.  Colorado, i thought.  Montana, i researched.  Canada....no. 

My agent won't call back.  Probably on vacation, i tell myself.  I look back at the fire and something catches my eye.  Pulling my sleeves around my hand i reach it, batter out a small letter...
on it...writing i recognize.  script.  the curls.  the way the i's are dotted.  the way the signature is written.
-'I Love you - Erin'
I look down and find another...fire eating at the words
-'I'm sorry - Erin'

George stands at the sliding doorway.  His shirt is off, it looks like he hasn't eaten in weeks.  He hasn't shaved either.  His eyes look sad.  His hair disheveled. 

I hold up the letters and he nods.  Later acknowledging that after i left he started dating 'Erin'.  Started falling for her.  They went to Thailand.  They would sleep in my room, like she used to with me.  They would make dinner together.  they would hold each other and drink mimosa's on Sunday mornings.  They would use drugs together and laugh until they passed out.

George wants to cry, starts to say sorry but i put my hand up.  He starts to ask me about 'her'...but knows the answer.  We're an odd reflection of each other.

I fall into a lounge chair by the pool, and he does the same.  In his hand, two shot glasses and a bottle of Jack Daniels. 

We look older, I say.  We feel older, he says. 

The lights of Los Angeles look the same.  George turns on a heat lamp, pours two shots.  The warm liquor lights a furnace inside that keeps me warm against the apparent Los Angeles freeze. 

"Happy New Years."  George says.  Then mumbles something about an HBO party and starts on a joint.

we watch the lights. 

I'm not going to kick George out.  Not yet.

The fire burned out by sunrise.  George makes waffles.  We haven't spoken much. 

I smoke a cigarette.

I write this. 

It's supposed to get warmer today - maybe my agent will call...

Brace Yourself

She laughed...once.

One last time.  Between the tears.  I had asked her 'why'...nearly twenty minutes ago...and had yet to receive an answer.

She had hazel eyes...a skin color that one would describe as Caramel, kissed by the Arizona sun.  Long, black hair.  Jet.  And a curved mouth that wasn't a smile, nor a frown, but reflected whatever emotion you felt - she was naturally empathetic.

And now she cried.  I knew it was one of those 'its not you it's me' things that floated on the airwaves of television and made its rounds on the comedy circuits so often that the honest emotion behind those words had been forever lost.  Silence sufficed. 

I had found her on the beach one day, years ago.  Her toes in the sand.  She was wearing a green bikini...an orange umbrella barely shading her long legs.  She smiled at me and that was enough.

One candlelight dinner.  One walk through the Farmer's Market in Santa Monica.  One long night on July 4th in a lifeguard tower where no one would find us.  One trip to Paris.  I remember the sunglasses, big, Gucci.  The oversized hat she wanted to wear because it made her fell like Holly Golightly.  The way she would talk in an accent that seemed natural wherever we were.

I found a happiness that existed only in the medium i worked in.  The silver screen.  Celluloid.  Idyllic to the point of predictability of plot.  What would come next?  A perfect date?  Of course.  She has perfect friends...she loves my friends?  Of course.  Her family?  Perfect.  Us.  Perfect.  Our story?  A tragedy.

I find that her heart is lighter than i had known.  The winged angel she is, was exactly as i had dreamed.  I should have seen this coming.  If she really is all that I dreamed of she wouldn't be here right now.  I'm surprised she allowed me to tag along this long...

She can paint the perfect sunrise with the wave of her smooth arms.  She dances on long legs, twisting a small waist to greet the light with her colorful laughter.  Every morning has been for her, in my eyes. 

And this final sunset, it would seem, is for me...the light in her has somehow faded, and i feel like its my fault.

She turns away.  The soft lines on her back, her smooth muscles, twitch as she sobs.  My bags are packed. 

She can't watch me leave.

I didn't do anything.  I want to scream.  I don't want it to end. I don't want....

I'm sitting in a shitty diner somewhere off the 10 in Arizona, near the California border.  The burger is wet.  Wet.  The coke is flat.  my heart is broken.

I'll have to call my agent...if he still is that.  Doubtful.
I'll have to call my old friends...if they still are.

I'll have to kick George out of my house.  Or at least slowly push him out.  He's been comfortable there...for almost two years.

I'll have to not get distracted, like i did last time.

I'll have to avoid the beach. 

My shirt.

it still smells like her.

Enlightened

Standing on the edge of a glacier on the top of the world, staring at the cold sea below, after seeing the falls in Venezuela, after touching fish with my bare hands in the clear seas of the Pacific Islands, after dancing under the flashing lights of a technologically marvelous Japanese night club in a futuristic city on an island, after kissing an amazing Russian girl in Prague under a white sun, after sleeping on the warm earth in Kenya, after staring at Londoners from a loft belonging to a starting striker on a British soccer team, I cried.  Not tears of joy, nor tears of sadness, nor exhaustion...  But of incomprehension.  The vastness of this world, the beauty in everything.  And below me, the simplicity of the cold sea, the white glare from the frozen ocean, the silence of only my breath.  Away from the Japanese clubs, the Russian beauties, the loud London honking cars, the whoops from the Kenyans, the crashing of the Angel Falls... 
It was the silence that may me cry...and in all this beauty I felt that for once I missed my home in Los Angeles.  I had never considered it home...but I longed to lay at my pool with a drink and watch the sunset over the hills.  I missed 'George' ranting about nothing and the incessant calls from my Agent and the complications of developing a 'love' slowly in a fast paced city.  I missed the life I had carved out...and in running away, I had created something in my heart that had not been there for a long time...a feeling of 'Home'....

I am finally home...and the smog never smelled so sweet.

Something to Talk About

My first real girlfriend was younger than me. Not in a perverted sense, as I was 15 and she was 14 and a freshman in my high-school and had long Auburn hair and large blue eyes and pouty lips and came into the school with a boyfriend and when they broke up everyone wanted to date her but no one was taking the risks. I ran into her in the hallways and we'd make eye contact and later on, while I ran to my Civics class 5 minutes late because I was goofing off in the hallways I ran into her. Literally. We tumbled by the senior lockers and she landed right on top of my body as I twisted so she wouldn't get hurt. She quickly got up, embarrassed, but she smiled at me. I introduced myself and she said 'i know' and she introduced herself and it felt only appropriate to say, 'i know'. And 'Emily' laughed and I helped her pick up her books and she touched my hand as we reached for the same Geometry book and she blushed and grabbed her stuff and walked away and I went to class. For weeks we exchanged glances and my friends started talking about talking to her but I knew she wouldn't go for any of them. To be safe, though, I mustered up my self-confidence and locked myself in my room one night. I pulled out a notebook and diagramed every possible conversation we could have. From the Hello in the beginning to the Goodbye at the end. I created a sort of conversation tree so that there would be no silent awkward moments and drew pictures of things to talk about and had multiple answers to anything she could possibly ask me and I put in an old Dinosaur Jr. CD and picked up the phone and started dialing her number. After the third ring her mom picked up and I had called while they were having dinner and I felt like an idiot for doing that but 'Emily' excused herself from dinner for me and took the phone in her bedroom and we began to talk. Mostly it was about nothing. Me asking her about how she liked the new school, how her freshman year was, how her classes were. Then we talked about her ex and she was over him and, even though it wasn't written down in my notepad, I asked her 'why?' and she said 'because I like you now.' And here came the awkward silence. I tried to anticipate this but I never anticipated her saying that. But its the awkward silences like these that define relationships, when the awkwardness is replaced by warmth and you bask in it like a silent sigh. I asked her to have lunch with me in the courtyard the next day, and that weekend we went to a Sweet 16 dance for a friend together. We danced all night and after the after party at 'Nathan's' house I drove her home and it started to rain and she got out of the car and I jumped out and followed her and we got soaked. She was laughing and stood on the stoop to her side door by the driveway and the overhand was only big enough to keep one person dry. She opened her door and we heard her mom still awake so she closed the door for a second and turned back to me. 'Aren't you going to ever kiss me' she said. I didn't know why I had been so reluctant to do so and she leaned over, the rain falling on her head too, now, and her pouty lips met mine and our tongues danced for five minutes and she pulled away and said, 'you're a good kisser. we should have done this earlier', and laughed and jumped through her door and even though she was inside now I was frozen in the rain and stood there, the headlights from my car blasting on me in the dark of night in the pouring rain, smiling.

On Set with Nowhere To Go

Sitting on a set, watching your lines get butchered by amateur actors is almost as painful as getting a knife jabbed into your side, or so I assume. Last weekend I decided to let a friend of mine, 'Franklin', film a short movie I wrote a long time ago so he could pass a film class at USC. He wanted brilliant, I gave him intelligent, and he managed to convert that into insipid, incongruous, garbage. Apparently being a director/producer was simply his way of getting a certain girl on the casting couch and making her feel like a 'star' only to bed her at the wrap party when the shoot was done. We spent twelve hour days from Friday through Sunday, filming in a house in Bel Air where I tried to lounge by the pool and ignore when I was not needed, but the mispronunciation and 'improvisational' (if you can call it that) work of the actors echoed through the large empty house and almost made my ears bleed. My left ear still hurts. 'George' thinks its an earache, but I know what it is. . .butchering. The shoot tripped overitself countless times : mike's in shots, lighting errors resulting in grotesque shadows, actors forgetting lines over and over and over then making them up (AHHH!) and finally, to add to all this amateurish filmmaking, the PA they conned into helping out ended up rolling the steady cam mounted on a skate board into the jacuzzi. Cinelease will not be pleased. 'Franklin' was having a meltdown and we sat in a small gazebo away from everyone and smoked a joint while the crew took turns raining insults on the poor PA and I felt bad for him until I found out that he ended up fucking the girl 'Franklin' wanted the night before and that's why 'Franklin' was showing him no mercy. Good for him. As 'Franklin' and I sat under the trees and felt the warmth of a California Fall Sun cut through the branches and got very stoned off very good weed he asked me how everything was going. I proceeded to tell him about 'Beth' and he started laughing. 'Always the same shit, huh, _____'. I didn't know what he meant and he expanded : 'You meet a girl, you think you're in love, you fuck everyone else, you fuck this up, and then you're single for, like, a day, till you meet another girl.' He shook his head, laughed, and follwed this with 'I'd say 'lucky bastard', but after hearing this for seven years, I doubt I could envy you'. He rolled his eyes when someone pushed the PA in the pool and left me there so he could take control of what he called 'his set'. His words sent me through a series of flashbacks where I relived ever relationship I've had as of late. And he was right. Perhaps I did have a problem with commitment, or rather I committed too much too often to too many people. I picked up my phone on Sunday afternoon and called 'Erin'. She sweetly answered the phone and I told her it was over. Whenever she tried to argue back I'd say 'It's over'. She yelled at me for almost an hour while the PA was drying off and the last shot was being set up and I let her because maybe I felt I deserved it. Eventually she hung up in a huff and I called a locksmith, who came by the shoot, picked up my house keys, and went to my house where he changed the locks and returned at night with a new set of keys. What was so impressive about this was that 'Franklin' knew of a locksmith that worked on Sundays. I went home at around midnight and my house was empty and nobody was home and I realized that 'George' didn't have the keys to the house anymore and was supposed to come over after a wrap party for some play and I went out back and found him asleep in a lawn chair. I left him there, but left the back door open, and when I woke up the next day he was on the couch. Over the past few days I've recieved twelve angry messages from 'Erin', and I've turned my cell phone off because of them. She never came off psycho in any of the messages. It was almost pitiful, the tears behind the insults she tried to hurl at me. The last message she wasn't crying, wasn't angry, wasn't anything. She just said 'hi' and 'can we try to be friends'. 'Beth' came over last night and we watched STOKED, the movie about Gator the skateboarder (awesome) and this morning she is kissing my neck while I write this and she's going to work late and I feel unburdened for once. I'm thinking about giving 'Beth' a set of my house keys. . .but maybe not.

Lost at Home

Sunday morning 'Beth' wasn't there when I woke up and I find her swimming laps in my pool naked and we drink mimosa's and eventually I take her home and drive to the airport to pick up 'Erin'. 'Erin' is standing at the American Airlines Arrivals gate and an old Persian guy won't stop taking his eyes off her and I don't blame her as she's wearing nothing but a small t-shirt and a very short white peasant skirt that shows off her long legs. She slides in my car, kissing me on the cheek and we tear up the coast to her new Apartment in Malibu. I had no idea she moved and she tells me that she's staying at 'a friend's' house and I don't know this friend but apparently HE is out of town for the week closing some type of investment deal in Europe and she keeps stressing that she's not sleeping with him and the view is so good that I'd sleep with him to stay here. We drink bloody Mary's and watch Football and she keeps touching my hair and I tell her to stop. She wants to know what's wrong and I want to tell her about 'Beth' and tell her about the great time I've been having and I want to tell her how I haven't missed her and I want to hurt her, but the part of me that consists only of lust can't help but hold back. I realize that my sexual urges are taking over and its hard not to with her smoldering stare and my heart seems to constantly skip a beat everytime our eyes meet and there must be something to this this but I don't know what and I pull myself up from the couch and tell her I have to leave. She looks at me and laughs, pulling me back on to the couch and starts kissing me and stradles me and undoes my belt and tells me that she's been waiting to fuck me on this guys four thousand dollar black leather couch and she slides me in her and pulls off her t shirt and slowly rides me while pulling my hair back and I look past her, out at the Pacific and it comes to me : how did I get so fucking lucky? After I finish she collapses on me and plays with my earlobes and my cell phone doesn't get any service here. Later I finally leave and 'Erin' kisses me again and tells me that next week we're going to some fashion party in some Loft Downtown and as I start my car I remember the house keys I need to get back from her but it's too late now. I go home and have two messages from 'Beth' and I call her and we go get a bite to eat at the World Cafe in Brentwood and I go to her house after and we watch television and fall asleep on each other on the couch and by the time I wake up it is 4am and I carry her to bed and leave, driving to my place. The past three days I've been trapped in my house all alone as I've been asked to do a rewrite on a horror spec, convert a short story into a short film for a friend, and finish the first draft of another horror treatment I've been laboring over for the past month. Mon/Tues/Wed go by so quick and my only companion has been a bottle of Jack Daniels and a Daily Variety and I have GOT to start reading some real news. The election is coming up and all of Hollywood is voting for Kerry and that makes me want to vote for Bush because eighty percent of the people I deal with are idiots, but If that's the reason I vote then I'm no better then the Jack Ass who votes for Kerry because he loves Bruce Springsteen or the Hick who votes for Bush because Tim McGraw said so. I need to educate myself on the issues. The Daily Variety isn't going to do that for me. Drew Carey came out and said that he's not going to vote because his vote doesn't count and that's probably not wise since his new sketch show starts soon and over sixty million people watched the debates who believed their votes count. I'm babbling. . .see, getting stuck at home can drive you nuts. I need to go out tonight. I need to see 'Beth'. I need to get my keys back from 'Erin'. I wish there was a way to do that without actually seeing her. That's when I open up a Maxim magazine. . .and there she is. This is going to be harder for my libido than my heart...

Everytime I Live

'Erin' left around noon and kissed my cheek and said that she was glad that we got to spend time together and I ask her for my keys back. There is an awkward silence as she stares at me, questioningly, then she laughs and jumps in her A4 and pulls away and blows me a kiss and I'm standing outside in my boxers with my hand out waiting for the keys that are slowly pulling away from the Hills in 'Erin's purse. Later that night I pick 'Beth' up and we go to Brennen's to watch little turtles race for the outside of a ring where a fat man whose accomplished very little goads women to bend over as they place the turtles in the center of the ring. 'Beth' wants no part of touching the turtles and I want no part of her getting salivated on by drooling men so we sit inside and drink gin and tonics and listen to a cover band play 'Sweet Home Alabama' and my college friends meet up with us and they are impressed with her and she kisses me on the lips every few minutes as she gets slightly drunker. We try to dance and my friends tell me that she is very cool and I can't help but agree and Beth and I return to my place and for a moment I'm afraid 'Erin' will be there but she isn't and I lock the chain bolt which I never use otherwise. Me and Beth jump in my pool, fully clothed, and I open a bottle of champagne and we kiss and she says she's going to take a sick day tommorrow and we finish the bottle and fall into bed and explore each other for hours. She still won't let me have sex but I'm not stressing because I'm getting lost in her long tan legs and tight stomach and Thursday night blends into Friday and we spend the day in bed playing with each other and 'Erin' calls seven times and I turn off my cell phone. Friday I have a party at my place and 'Beth' invites her friends and I invite my guy friends and 'George' is being discreet with the coke, thank god, because I'm not sure how 'Beth' will take it. We dance all night and drink and more people I don't know show up and we all sing Poison's "something to Believe in" while we can still stand and eventually Beth and I fall back into my bedroom and 'George' winks at me and tells me he'll take care of the place cause he'll be up all night and me and Beth finally have sex and she tells me she wants it and being inside her is amazing and it could have been romantic but I think its just perfect. . .her body on top of mine, us kissing as I slide in and out of her and all our friends outside singing 'Every Rose has a Thorn' and 'Fly to the Angels' and 'I Won't Forget you, Baby'. After we're done she says 'thank you' and kisses me forever and our eyes close and we fall alseep to a serenade of 'Patience'. We wake up Saturday and 'George' is making omelettes and looks like he's been up all night with 'Kelley' a very skinny, very attractive friend of 'Beth's' whose been up all night with him and 'George' pulls me aside and tells me he's been talking to her all night and 'really likes her' and this could mean anything with him in the state he's in right now but 'Kelley' is talking to 'Beth' and they whisper and giggle like we're in 6th grade all over again. People start pulling themselves off couches and lawn chairs outside and we eat and 'Nick' makes bloody Mary's and 'Darryl' suddenly walks in, saying he went over to some girl's place, and knew we'd be up and the party starts again and we watch college football and my eyes constantly touch 'Beth's and I know that tonight I have to do something about 'Erin' so I call her when I get away for a second and 'Erin' is in New York on a shoot and says 'miss me?' and I have no answer. I tell her I'll pick her up at the airport Sunday. That night a girl who was promoted to Agent has a party and we go and drink too many Jack and Cokes and Beth and I go home early because we're so tired and my place is a mess and smells like vodka tonic and we ignore it and fall back into bed and she asks me to 'go slow' and when I'm finally inside her again her moans drive me wild and I have to focus so much on not exploding and she realizes this and pulls my hair back, which is getting longer, and says to just go and I do and we collapse on each other covered in sweat and this time I say 'thank you' before we fall asleep on Saturday night...

Mad World

The smog from Los Angeles sometimes drifts high enough in the Hills to blanket the area in a sick fog that you can't see and it's worse because you can feel it and the dirt gets under your skin and you think, for a moment, that this grime is what I may become if I get tossed deeper and deeper into the grime of the city. Monday and Tuesday were spent in self imposed quarantine because I'll be travelling from company to company next week pitching a new horror movie that I doubt will get picked up but my Agent thinks it may be good enough to get some type of deal out, or at least pique some more interest around town. I polish and re polish the treatment and miring myself in this horror landscape that I've produced through my broken dreams and other people's nightmares slowly drives me mad and by Wednesday I have to leave my home. I go to Melrose with 'George' and smoke cigarettes and watch punk rocker wannabe's walk by and more people look like their picking up the 80s New Wave look and the white trash rocker look (thanks Ashton, for fucking that up) is slowly making its way out. So much so that Tears for Fears is playing over and over in my head and I swear the girl next to us in the small plaid skirt is lip-synching 'Shout' as she sketches us, thinking we don't notice. We leave and go to 'Darryl's house where 'George' picks up a gram and we sit around and do lines and I start opening up and talk about 'Beth' and for some reason 'Darryl' and 'George' keep giving each other looks and I ask them 'what' and they say 'nothing' and its slightly unnerving, or that may just be the drugs. Time passes quickly and soon its night and I'm not hungry but we go to Dolce and order plates of food we don't eat and drink more alchohol and leave with boxes of food that 'Darryl' gives to a homeless guy outside and I'm surprised that my drug dealer is so philanthropic. Someone 'George' knows runs into us and almost knocks me over and he looks burnt out and he tells 'George' that someone named 'Erickson' is dead, but maybe he's talking about his cell phone. Either way 'George' doesn't look too distressed and says 'not cool, dude' and we jump into Darryl's Infinity FX and chase the winding streets of Beverly Crest and come to an enormous house overlooking the other mountains to the west and we are high enough that you can even see the ocean. The entire interior is pink and white and girls are dressed in white and pink and the guys are wearing seer sucker suits and I'm in a t-shirt and jeans and feel awkward but when the host finds out we're with 'Darryl' we're welcome and I get a call from 'Beth' but I don't want her to know what I'm doing. . .not yet, at least, and 'George' asks me if 'Erin' called me yet and I don't know why she would. I go outside and smoke a cigarette and drink a Jack and Coke and i have no interest in talking to the girls here and that is probably good because I feel like babbling about 'Beth' but I'm afraid to around 'George' and 'Darryl' because I'm paranoid. And the night sky looks beautiful and it's clear over here. I take a cab back at 4am after dancing almost too long to Huey Lewis and the News and when I get home my door is open. I slink around back, and find 'Erin' drinking a Cosmo on my balcony and she is playing Tears for Fears 'Mad World' and I climb through my bedroom window and sit by my desk and send 'Beth' an email saying that I want to do dinner Thursday night and take her out with some friends and now I have to walk outside and listen to Tears for Fears and talk to 'Erin' and I'm confused...I can't tell if she actually cares about me all of a sudden or if she's crazy. My vote is crazy, and I remind myself to get my house keys back from her before she leaves. 'Erin' looks beautiful and she hugs me when she sees me and says, over and over, 'sorry' and she is as gorgeous as everyone imagines and she tells me she's tired from staying up all night waiting for me and pulls me into the bedroom and I want to protest but the way she kisses me is something you would understand if you've ever been kissed by someone who, for no reason you can explain, can completely control you, sexually. We fall in bed and have sex and I regret it after and she's asleep and I lie awake for hours and eventually close my eyes as I feel her arm cross my chest and now its morning and 'Beth' sends me an excited email about tonight and 'Erin' is still lying in my bed and her eyes open and she smiles at me and I'm going nuts trying to figure out why it melts me inside when she does and it's almost noon. . .

Caught Up in You

Looking into her eyes I knew I had made the right decision to take her out to dinner. I had thought a movie would have been good, but that leaves no room for conversation. Plus, we work in the movie business. . .I think it would have been cliche and nerdish. So I take her. . .from now on she'll be referred to as 'Beth'. . .to dinner at a nice Sushi restaurant called Chaya in Venice. We dined on Rainbow Rolls and soft shell crab and drank almost too much sake and took down at least three oyster shooters each and we knew we were drunk but were both trying to hide it. She has crystal blue eyes, soft features, enormous and beautiful breasts which she must hide underneath heavy sweaters on set, a great pair of legs in a short skirt that are usually covered in loose jeans or cargo pants. I mention that she looks incredible and she blushes and says that she usually doesn't dress like this and that the clothes were her roommates and I ask her how she could possibly keep such beauty covered up and she tells me she has a self-esteem problem and I tell her she shouldn't and we talk about travel and the government and our childhoods and high-school and college and this city but none of our conversation goes to movies and I like that. We finish dinner and I follow her out and I can tell she is slightly tipsy because she has an extremely sexy sway to her walk as we step out that she didn't have when she arrived and she looks back at me over her shoulder and smiles and I feel like I'm in a movie right now. We get my car and she suggests we go back to her place because she has some wine and I suggest my place because I'm sure its much nicer and the view is awesome but she looks wary so I relent and we go to her small apartment in Brentwood. There are pictures of her all over the place and I see that she is very photogenic and her friends look attractive and fun and her roommate isn't home so I won't be meeting her tonight, which is all the better. She instantly captures my heart by putting on a .38 Special Album and we rock out laughing and drinking wine and eventually she starts asking me about my work and tells me she wants to be a writer to and I offer to Mentor her, or introduce her to my Mentor, because. . .I tell her. . .I couldn't be her Mentor while wanting to kiss her so much. She looks down, blushing and I lean in and her lips connect with mine and we spend almost twenty minutes kissing and holding our wine glasses and I haven't done this in a long time. Suddenly the door opens and her roommate stumbles in with some other guy who I'm sure I know and he looks at me, sizing me up, trying to make the same connection I'm trying to make but we don't know so we shake hands like we don't know each other and they fall into her bedroom and I didn't get a good look at the Roommate. 'Beth' says she's tired and needs to call it a night because she is working on a different shoot at 6am on Saturday and we kiss for twenty more minutes and I can't stop my hands from running over her body and she moans lightly as I kiss her neck. She laughs and says that I've got to stop and I don't want to seem like a horny animal around her so I oblige and leave and drive around Bel Air for what seems like an hour thinking about 'Beth' and I call her when I get home and we talk for another hour until she tells me she HAS to go to bed and this is one of the few nights I fall asleep with a smile on my face. I don't hear from her on Saturday, and spend Saturday night at the Rainbow Lounge drinking with Motorhead and Nikki Sixx and my rocknroll buddy 'Will' and go to some afterparty at a house where the roof of the living room slides open and a hot tub comes out of the ground and girls are getting naked and I'm not into the drugs and alcohol. I leave and spend Sunday at Qs watching football and then 'Beth' does the most amazing thing. . .she meets me at the bar. She wears a Houston Texans jersey that is too big for her and a short short skirt which makes her long tan legs look amazing and all the drunk Football guys can't stop staring at her and we sit in a corner at the bar upstairs kissing and laughing and I watch my New Orleans Saints win in overtime and she bounces up and down watching her Texans beat Kansas City and she calls me her 'lucky charm' and we leave and go to her place. We're both tired and fall into her bed and kiss for hours and my hands run over her tight stomach and she moans lightly but holds me close and tells me she wants to take it slow and we fall asleep in each others arms. I wake up at 9pm and she does too and we make pasta for dinner and tell jokes and I'm having such a good time that I don't want her to leave but she says she's got to get up early again and I leave. . .taking it slow. . .and come home and put on a .38 Special Greatest Hits CD I made a long time ago and drink Jack Daniels with 'George' who comes over later and he tells me he's seen 'Erin' and she's been asking about me and I don't know why and all I think of is 'Beth' sleeping in bed and wishing I was there with her.

Looks That Kill

Los Angeles doesn't change from one day to the next, and one's appreciation for the season's manifests inside you when you go somewhere else. Arriving back from New Orleans I'm quick to criticize the concrete jungles around LAX, but soon find myself in the Hollywood Hills and back at home and as I stand by my pool and enjoy a Bloody Mary, shoddily made by 'George', my welcome wagon, I'm forced to fall in love with the city. From this view any amount of shit could look lovely. I spend Monday, Tuesday, and most of Wednesday cooped up in my house cleaning the mess that 'George' managed to make while he house sat. Coke residue on glass tables, dirty sheets, dirty dishes, stains on my couch that won't go away that 'George' is going to have to pay for. Also, I've been dancing back and forth with my Agent on notes and he's got a new Assistant who sounds cute on the phone but I was told, a long time ago by someone who mentored me in my early days, that sleeping with an Agent's Assistant, ANY Agent's Assistant, while being talent was never a good idea and could always bite you back in the end. Last night, however, I managed to make it out into the city and went to a random party where everyone was dressed as their 'Dream Job'. Needless to say, I doubted the honesty behind some of the costumes because I expected girls as doctors/lawyers/CEO's and instead saw Naugty Nurses, Strippers, Hookers, and a lot of girls claiming to be President but wearing Skirts much to short for a Commander in Chief and tops busting out so much that it's doubtful Congress's old white men would get much done. I dressed up as a Stock Broker because I always thought that I'd be good at that, if I didn't pull myself away from the Math during College. 'George' dressed up as an 'Actor', very original, and our buddy 'Thomas' came as an ESPN analyst. We all looked like stock brokers. Most of the guys looked like other people I knew and I kept getting names mixed up and eventually I met a cute Nurse who disappeared after a lot of dancing and I drank one too many Jack and Cokes and ended up getting my crotch grabbed on the back patio in Beverly Hills by 'Erin'. She was dressed as a teacher and something about a girl who can look good with glasses drives me nuts. She was drunk and I was drunk and I couldn't help it and I took her back to my place and we had sex in my hot tub and 'George' came in with some guys and some more girls while we were having sex and we had to stop and we started doing drugs and 'Erin' all of a sudden got really cold and I got very angry and had 'George' take everyone to his place and 'Erin' left with them and I was alone again. It was 5am and I drank more Jack Daniels straight from the bottle and called the Script Girl and left her a message and I don't know what I said but I woke up dressed as an overworked, out all night, uncontrollable Stock Broker on a chair in my backyard and Motley Crue's 'Hooligan's Holiday' is playing on repeat for some reason and the sun is baking me and I wonder what happened to Fall or if Winter is even coming to Los Angeles this year. I write ten pages of crap and my Agent doesn't return my calls. My internet is down so I have to take my laptop to the Grove to use the WiFi and I get an email from the Script Girl that says 'have fun last night?' and I feel like an ass. I call her back and she laughs at me and then asks me to take her out one night because she never does anything fun and I think I like her but the world I was in last night isn't the same world I want to inhabit with her and I ask her if she'll let me take her to dinner sometime this weekend to make up for the drunk call and she giggles and says 'of course' and I tell her I'll call her on Friday and I can't believe the luck I have sometime. I haven't been to the gym in two weeks...I've got to go before I see the Script Girl...because...