Adventures of an Ordinary Princess

2002-09-20T13:02:00.000-07:00

grr, arg

hey kids...this page is a-movin', for reasons to be explained in its new home. if you got here by way of my profile, Storey's page, Transmission, or the film-guys forum, check there soon for updated links. if you got here in any other way and you want the new URL, drop me a line.

2002-09-20T06:07:00.000-07:00

this is gonna be a long one

So I know I haven't properly updated in a long time. And a lot has happened this past week that I want to write down before it slips away. So here goes...

city of angels

I spent Friday evening hanging out on Third Street in Santa Monica. Yes, it's kind of cheesy and the crowd is at least half tourists and college students. But it reminds me of Harvard Square, so I love it. There are always tons of street performers at night, and it has a fantastic independent bookstore, Midnight Special, that I've been going to every time I've visited LA since I was about ten. I was debating whether to go see the Minus Five show or not, and I'd spent almost thirteen hours nonstop in the office, so I pretty much just wandered around in a haze and managed to get lost in a three-block area that I know very well. I kept thinking I saw people I knew, but I never did. It's like everyone in LA is an almost-doppelganger of someone I went to school with. But I always figure, if I was going to run into someone that I actually *did* go to school with or something, it would be on Third Street. So I keep on people-watching nonetheless.

On my way back to my car, I passed a doorway with two homeless people sleeping in it. On the trash can next to them, someone had placed a fresh orange and a plastic baggie with three bagels in it. It made me think that there really are angels in this city after all. Which is wonderful, but a little sad at the same time, because (and this is all because I just finished reading Philip Pullman's incredible His Dark Materials trilogy), I think of angels as not fully real, incapable of true human interaction.

Okay, that's enough for now...it's 6 am and I've been at work for over half an hour already. I need a nap before the day actually starts. But check back, cause the best is yet to come. *g*

2002-09-17T14:40:00.000-07:00

there is literally no one in the world that I don't hate right now

Props if you get the reference.

Today started off badly when my contact was fuzzy the entire drive to work, got exponentially worse when I arrived at work, and hit rock bottom when a "friend" told me he wasn't up to dealing with me anymore.

I'm feeling furious and frustrated and lost and everything in between. I feel like I'm playing dodgeball against the whole world and everyone has an endless supply of balls. And now I just hate myself for that metaphor.

2002-09-12T23:39:00.000-07:00

so turn on the sky, let it hear what you're saying

That particular Dar song always makes me think of fall, and walking through the trees in between the science quad and where Ford Hall used to be, and the leaves turning to gorgeous fiery colors, and the sun shining, and wanting to skip class or work or rehearsal and just walk to the river and follow it out to the harbor. I've been listening to it a lot lately, to remind myself that despite the unchanging weather, it's autumn now.

I can't talk too much about yesterday's anniversary. As much as I like to be detached about it, and as much as I genuinely loved and admired and respected what The Daily Show and The Onion did a year ago, the truth is that if I allow myself to fully think about that day, and not cut myself off halfway, I start to cry. There's a lot more I could say, but it's late and I want to be able to sleep tonight. Which is self-centered on the one hand, and yet on the other hand, presuming y'all really want to hear me talk about 9/11 is also kind of self-centered.

One the third hand (shut up), aren't online journals just inherently self-centered?

Anyway, now that we've established that I can't avoid making it all about me, this past week has been very conflicted. Between the High Holidays and September 11, I feel like this should be a much more solemn time than it's been. Yes, I spent my drive to work yesterday listening to Kevin and Bean's sound-bite-montage segments and crying my eyes out, and yes, I called my Nana because I was thinking of her, and yes, I spent a lot of my day wondering if I should move to Washington and try to do something more meaningful with my life, and yes, I realized I should go donate blood again. But I've also spent a lot of this week goofing off--talking to my friends when I'm supposed to be working, obsessively watching Friends, reading silly magazines.

Then again, even as I write this, I'm realizing that this past week was also filled with some intense, scary moments as well. So maybe it's been more balanced than I first thought.

Or maybe I'm just on crack. To be honest, my thinking (and quite obviously my writing as well) has been all muddled ever since I started thinking about 9/11 again. I think I need to go curl up with my teddy bear now and stop thinking about it all.

And to think, my goal in starting this, back in the day, was to help me develop my comedy writing skills. Way to go, me. (And Murray.)

2002-09-08T12:40:00.000-07:00

all the little ants go marching

There are ants EVERYWHERE. It was one thing when they were just in the kitchen, invading the cereal every other day. But now they're in the bathroom, and in the bedroom, and in the computer room. I'm gonna have to cut this short just because it's hard to type and brush ants off my legs at the same time. :::shudder:::

Anyway, yes, I'm alive. It's been a really busy couple of weeks. I had a great weekend that began with breakfast with Daniel and included drinking beer with Korbi on Tobey Maguire's balcony, and ended with being an extra in the short we were PAing for. (I also got to make faces at Robert Downey, Jr., give gum to Amanda Peet, and talk to Tim Roth...but lest you think I've gone too Hollywood, the aforementioned breakfast was still my favorite part of the weekend.)

I went with QofMush to a fantastic Irish bar that had a great jukebox and Harp on tap and good fries and a very east coast atmosphere. I saw ActorBoy again, but after the ensuing weeks of never hearing from him (despite a retarded fax and even more retarded voicemail message), I think I've given up on that front. I saw him on TV yesterday, and instead of the usual feeling of surrealness, I was just like "stupid BOY" and changed channels.

I went to Disneyland with Mush and Mel. They convinced me that the SoCal annual passport would be a worthy investment. Which it is. If I go to either park more than once in the next year, it'll pay for itself and then some. But mostly it just leaves me with this constant temptation. Like, today, I don't really have plans, I'm burned out on the roommate search, and there are a lot of things I need to think about and sort through. So what better place to do that then on Space Mountain? *g* Mostly I just want to see the fireworks, though.

The roommate search. Ah, the roommate search. I don't want to say much now, because I'm afraid of jinxing it. But I found the perfect apartment on Friday. It's on the top edge of my price range, but it's by far the coolest place I've seen. Of course, if I end up living with other people, and they end up reading this page, I'll have to take this down. ;) So keep your fingers crossed that the roommates choose me, and then I won't have to tangle with the evils of blogger any more than necessary.

Okay, between the ants and...well, really, it's just the ants. But I've got to leave. Peace. (And l'shana tovah!)

2002-08-27T07:08:00.000-07:00

Grrrr...blogger, are you working?

You know, I do have a domain name just sitting there...maybe it's time I coded my own damn blog.

2002-08-27T00:47:00.000-07:00

on my way up north, up on the Ventura

So I have a lot to write, for once, but alas I'm up far too late and am way too tipsy to do so. I should have been asleep hours ago, but despite three and a half beers, my newfound insomnia remains in full force. So I'm sitting here, trying to download an unbroken copy of the new Tori song, and checking out the pretentious-yet-amusing super-secret Daniel-and-Afsheen project (no, it's not gay sex...that's not super-secret anymore, right guys? *g*)
I'm starting to get annoyed with this download. I'm guessing, given what I know about the Strange Little Girls CDs, that it's some sort of weird anti-piracy thing keeping me from hearing the whole song. Fuckerrecordlabels. Don't they realize that I need to hear the song before I can go to sleep?
I'm serious, sometimes I just *need* to hear a song. It's a very distinct, specific craving, and most of the time it'll drive me nuts if I can't find it or it's unreleased or what have you. Do any of y'all get this way, too? Or am I just crazy?

2002-08-22T06:49:00.000-07:00

lazyhead and sleepybones

So I haven't updated the past couple of days because I haven't been doing a damn thing except work and sleep. The annoying thing is that nearly every night, I'm there for an extra half hour or hour doing nothing, just waiting for the Skipper to dismiss me. With my commute time being what it is, those hours really add up. At least I have the internet to distract me now, but still.

I always hate when journals are boring. And now I've done it myself. Something exciting needs to happen...

BOO!

There, did I scare you?

2002-08-19T23:34:00.000-07:00

me + the internet = no love

So when I log on to blogger, the page says "Welcome, Ordinary!"

Aw, thanks, guys.

2002-08-19T23:21:00.000-07:00

all in the family

Y'all, I'd like you to meet my friend Afsheen. He's always funny, almost always a great person to talk to, and occasionally makes me feel like a big psycho freak. Like tonight.
Anyway, just saw Bottle Rocket, which is a great movie. And it has my favorite shot of all time in it (when Luke Wilson is crawling up the ladder through the hole towards the end). So go watch Bottle Rocket. It's a lot more fun than listening to me bitch about Afsheen. ;)
Hey, if you want cranky, you're gonna get cranky, bucko.

(I really do love Afsheen. He's my favorite Atlanta Boy. But sometimes even one Atlanta Boy is just too much. *g*)

2002-08-18T13:20:00.000-07:00

dear diary/what is wrong with me?/cause I'm fine/between the lines

Okay, so according to Afsheen, I'm apparently "cranky", "bitter", and "resentful" in my "super-secret blog of complaining". I'm not even sure if he's referring to this page or not, but regardless, a...rebuff?...retort?...counterattack?...whatever is in order. So here, in no particular order, is a list of happy things in my life:

1. I got to see Moby, David Bowie, Guster, *and* John Mayer in concert last week. (No, not all at once. Though that would have been really cool.)

2. Jenny emailed me today and sent me a lovely poem.

3. Even though Afsheen's a whipped bastard and apparently all I do is bitch about Daniel, I'm still very excited to have breakfast with them next weekend.

4. ActorBoy came back for a final reading yesterday and was very funny and the one bright spot in a truly hellish workday.

5. I finally couldn't take any more of my boss' comments, stood up to him, got written up, decided to quit, and by the end of the evening ended up having a good conversation with him, the write-up being shredded, and came away with a much better feeling about working at the company.

6. That last sentence was unspeakably awful, grammatically.

7. I'm reading If Chins Could Kill by Bruce Campbell, and it's totally cracking me up.

8. I have Serious Plans to clean my room today, and possibly buy a desk so I can organize better and find things when I need them (like my outstanding traffic tickets...doh).

9. I wasted a ridiculous amount of money on an Adam Sandler CD, which completely sucked. But it gave me hope--if *he* gets paid to goof around, then why can't Paul and I? (The short answer being that Paul is still in Boston like a loser and I can't even send him the promised screenwriting book because I don't have his addresss...are you reading this, Paulie?)

10. At least by being three thousand miles away, I can't turn into Creepy Alumni Girl.

11. I scored mad points in my Borders interview for naming REM as my favorite band and saying that while I'd have no problem selling books about sexuality, I would have difficulty recommending Republican books. *g*

So there, Afsheen. I'm not *all* bitterness and resentment. Right? Right?

Anyone?...Anyone?...Bueller?...Bueller?

2002-08-12T23:19:00.000-07:00

karma karma karma karma karma chameleon

So, it started in a joking way, when a few friends and I decided that it was karma that my boss (henceforth known as The Skipper) is, in many ways, a lot like me when I'm producing a show. He's neurotic, quick-tempered, loud, and wears his emotions on his sleeve. The only main point we differ on (and thank god we do) is in terms of our goals--he's much more money/success-oriented than I will ever be.
Then it got carried one step further, when I half-kiddingly decided that if I went out one weekend with someone I didn't want to deal with, it would bring good karma for the next weekend, and I'd be free to hang out with the ActorBoy. (Who still hasn't called. According to those of my friends who know The Rules about How These Things Work, he shouldn't call til tomorrow or the next day anyway, though. But he won't. You know why? Because he's a boy. A funny, cute, smart boy that I could really like. And so in yet another example of karma at work, he won't call, and it'll be what I deserve for always being the one to break up with guys or avoid them or mock them.)
The point is, now I think I'm starting to get a little carried away. And I don't want to end up singing along to the Indigo Girls and playing with crystals and shit. But it's really far too easy to read karma into everything. Three hours of commuting daily in my cute little car after years of whining about how I loved driving but hated the station wagon? Karma. Or maybe just irony. Or maybe just Things That Suck (the real title of the Alanis song).
I don't know, y'all. I'm just trying to write stuff here that won't get quoted back to me by Afsheen tomorrow. Although, to be honest, despite being half-buzzed on my one beer, I'm still not really in a whiny-pissy-people-hating mood. I guess that's a good thing, right?

Sometimes I feel like if you could read between the lines of this journal it would just say getmeoutofheregetmeoutofheregetmeoutofhere over and over again, in barely readable type.

Okay, there's the drunken journalling for you. Time to go to bed before it gets worse. *g*

2002-08-06T23:33:00.000-07:00

and I would fall a million miles, and you would fall fast to denial

Hi, Split Personality Girl here. I know that five minutes ago, I sounded all cheery and whatnot (at least relatively). And I am. Kind of. But I'm also still amazingly homesick. And just seeing Mike's away message that read "Tweetah Centah!" was enough to make me sad.

I really miss the east coast. I miss rain and Fenway and the Globe and people caring about politics and a few politicians actually caring about people. I miss Dunkin runs at 1 am. I miss the Atlantic and the new suspension bridge and the punks in Harvard Square. I miss Karaugh and James and Club Passim. It goes without saying that I miss all my friends horribly. I miss the ones who live in Boston and the ones who live close enough to drive to (even if it takes ten hours).

I miss sweaters and autumn leaves and apples. I miss cooking with Jeff. I really, really, really miss Boris'. I miss going to bars and the T and sometimes I even miss all the drama that ensued over the past four years. I miss being in the right time zone and Canadian folk bands and theater and even New York and...well, you get the idea.

I still think moving here was the right decision. And there's still a lot I'm glad to leave behind. And I know that I'll keep meeting people here, and that other people I love will move here, and eventually I'll be frantically trying to keep up with everything rather than desperately bored. But I do know that this city will never be home. And sometimes that's enough to make me question it all over again.

2002-08-06T23:21:00.000-07:00

Turtle Power!!

Okay, that's not even a reference to anything. Except maybe to this weird anime I saw part of at Comicon. I went down on Saturday with Heather (Cathy's honorary daughter) who turned out to be really cool and funny and a brilliant artist. She's also on the quiet side and kind of goth, so those of you who know Jody can imagine what a crazy pairing *that* was once we met up with him. Highlights of the day: meeting Terry Moore and having him draw a sketch of David in my new Strangers in Paradise collection, Jody grinning and skipping after he got some Superman people to sign a namecard for him, going to the "no one under 18 admitted" anime screening and seeing an absolutely PG-rated and totally bizarre episode, Heather (leaning over to me during one of the all-ages anime screenings): "I have this in manga form, only it's porn" Gwen: "Do the turtle gods get in on it?" Heather: "One has a three-way with two girls", Jody's brilliant plan to make us millionaires ("Okay, you dress up as Batgirl, and go around charging all the geeks $50 for handjobs!"), seeing people even freakier than us (Star Wars characters, chicks with tails, etc.), the 7-11 junk food stops, seeing a new place...it was great. I am officially geeked out, however, and by the end felt like I just needed to go home and drink beer and watch football while wearing Abercrombie or something. *g*

Sunday I did pretty much nothing, got a haircut so undramatic that exactly no one noticed and therefore I have to wonder what I spent $45 on, and watched Donnie Darko. It was beautiful and weird and heartbreaking and you all should see it right away.

Now it's Tuesday and I already feel like I've been back at work for a month nonstop. I've been smoking far too much and calling my friends on cigarette breaks to whine about my neverending career crisis. *g* I've also been doing my patented stupid girly thing where I freak out every time the phone rings, only to have it be Kirsten or work or a wrong number. Cause, see, I met this boy. And I just wrote out the whole story, and it's long-winded and most of you already know it and it makes me sound like an idiot. And I have to go read a script and stuff. So anyway, suffice it to say I met a boy. And he has my number. And I hope he calls. The end.

And finally, I don't know which is worse--the fact that I rented D3: The Mighty Ducks, or that upon watching it I realized I'd already seen it several times. I'm a big lame.

2002-07-31T20:56:00.000-07:00

the life of a working girl

I swear, that title's a canpop reference, not a hooker one. I got out of work at seven today...yay! Much better than last night's 8:40. After scanning the AM bandwidth, I now have ESPN radio and both baseball stations programmed in, and I caught the first five innings of the Angels-Sox game on my way home. Even though nothing exciting was happening, it made the drive fly by. Of course, things got interesting just as I pulled off the highway, and I spent five minutes sitting in the driveway afraid that the Angels were going to score. The game's not over, so I can't get too happy yet. But I can get excited about the ass-kicking the Yankees are getting over in Texas. Hehe.

I'm pretty sure there was more I was going to say. But my brain is fried, I have dinner to eat and emails to send, and American Idol to watch. More tomorrow, after I hang out with Ryo...whee!

2002-07-31T06:46:00.000-07:00

your neutrinos are drifting

So yesterday as I typed up the casting pre-screen list for the day, I was very excited to see Wil Wheaton's name on the list. Because I'm a dork. Not only am I still a huge fan of Star Trek: The Next Generation, but I also really love Wil's blog. So when Wil walked in, I introduced myself and told him I was a fan of his webpage. (I first had to watch while he signed in, because he actually looks a lot younger in person than in the photos on his page.) Next thing I know, the pornstar actresses in the waiting room were all giggling at me. Since my desk is essentially what separates the waiting room from the rest of the office, I couldn't avoid it. So I blushed and ran to the intern desk (at the very back of the office) and called Daniel. He laughed at me, too, but I didn't really mind. I'm used to being laughed at by Daniel, but I'm not used to being laughed at by pornstars.
Anyway, when Wil got out of his audition, he thanked me again for reading the page. He was really nice. In your face, pornstars!

Alrighty, time for work. Once you're done with Wil's page, may I suggest Squishy and Hate Your Daddy for your reading pleasure? Both seem eerily appropriate to my life right now...Al's entry was just what I needed after my post yesterday.

2002-07-29T21:54:00.000-07:00

"Until this day I've never found someone with eyes as wide as yours." -New Found Glory

So lately I've been thinking about the feeling you get when you meet someone and something says "this could be it...this could the person I've been waiting for." It kind of happened to me a few times in high school, once in between high school and college, and twice in college. I've long since stopped thinking about the high school boys, but the other three...even though they're not part of my daily life anymore, every once in awhile I'll be driving along and it'll just hit me, full force. I'll start wondering what they're up to, whether they think of me, if things could have been different. And even though I know that at least one of them was really horrible for me, I can't help wondering "what if...?" I can't help missing them. And it's probably just a result of summer and being far away from all my friends, but still, I have to wonder...

2002-07-29T21:47:00.000-07:00

that was bold, this is now

Testing...they're saying I can either code this myself or upgrade. Since I am broke and a half, I'll code, baby. *g*

2002-07-29T21:43:00.001-07:00

now I just need to figure out how to make a title....
hmmm.

2002-07-29T21:43:00.000-07:00

la la la I had to choose a template, and out of all the ones there were, I chose to go with Ruth and Emily G's rather than Alissa's or Kate's. But I don't know if it'll work, because blogger is sporktastic.

2002-07-28T13:40:00.000-07:00

And finally, now that I've posted, this page is hideous. I need to find a new template, stat.

2002-07-28T13:39:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I'm following Jenny's example and starting up a new web journal in honor of entering a new stage in my life. Moving to LA was kind of like going abroad, except that I don't know when I get to go back home. *g* Meanwhile, I have *no* idea how to do anything at all in blogger, so if anyone wants to offer advice, do let me know.

2002-07-28T13:31:00.000-07:00

Testing...testing...is this thing on?