C U L8r

Yes, I'm aware. I've fallen off the blog train.

Sunday was spent, shockingly, with MG. I know that's terribly old school to spend the weekend with your spouse, but that's how it rolls in our particular hizzy.

Some recent highlights:

* Borrowed a screener of "There Will Be Blood." All possibility of buying tickets went out the window when the writers' room spoiled 70% of the plot last Tuesday. I'm all for supporting the arts and not abusing academy screeners, but no way am I buying $22 worth of tickets when I already know 70% of the story.

* Am in the middle of a three day long craving for these wee Fannie Mae mints. Not Mint Meltaways, but the tiny chocolate/mint/chocolate sandwiches they sell in little paper cups, usually in a box with paper cups of something they call Peppermint Ice. Lucky for me, Valentine's Day is right around the corner, and last time I checked, the Valentine's Fairy does most of her shopping at Fannie Mae.

* Woke up at 6 this morning in preparation for an early morning phone call with an expert. (And wouldn't you like to know what kind of expert? Well too bad, because I'm not telling. Hahahahahahahaha!) Then, dear readers, I drove to the dentist for an 8 a.m. filling, with complimentary dose of novacaine. Then I jumped in my car and drove in to work, did some light research, and then spent the next eight hours in The Room, taking notes. (With a short break for some WGA-award-celebrating bubbly.)

And now I'm going home, maybe watch some "Breaking Bad", and if yesterday is any indication, hit the sack by 10:15 p.m.

P.S. I've been forced to log into iChat from inside the writers' room, in order to communicate with the other assistants. But if you know me and see me on your chat service, for the love of God, please ignore me. Somebody might have the balls to IM their buddies when they're supposed to be typing notes, but that person is not me.

Thou Shalt Not Covet

Except for when, uh, you do.

J. Crew's website doesn't mention list the version of this cardigan I'm most in love with -- a bright, spring green that almost burns the retinas. It has no pockets and only buttons from the sternum upwards, but it's adorable. And if it weren't $178 (!), I'd be all over it like white on rice.



I have not yet given into the temptation to call-and-drive. (You may remember earlier posts in which I admitted I cannot do any such thing without crashing my car.) And yet, I am smitten with the Jawbone. Truthfully, it is another case of my life-long desire to be a lady Han Solo rising to the surface. Even Slate admits that the Plantronic's Voyager 520 is the better earpiece. But look at the Jawbone! It's so cool and techno looking! Like a Borg headset!



If you're very, very, very quiet, you can just hear the faint whispering plea, coming from Century City. It's a pan of Craft sweetbreads, and they're calling my name. (Note, this is not a picture of sweetbreads. This looks like a piece of pan-roasted sea bass, dressed with lashings of butter and some thyme, and is probably also delish.) Seriously, I could really go for a pan of sweetbreads right now. Mmm...thymus.

Don't Even Ask About the Devil's Jello*

My last 60 minutes of conscious free time this week was spent on the couch with an hour of "Project Runway" and a bag of Sea Salt and Vinegar potato chips.

(Eating carbs? What?)

Well, almost my last 60 minutes. Now I'm blogging and after that, bed awaits. But I digress. My larger point is that, hour by hour, minute by minute, I am working my ass off at the J.O.B., and holy Christ, is it nice to take an hour off to watch somebody else sweat it.

Nothing wins my heart faster than Chris March's marvelous blend of competence and humility. First, I love that leopard print shirt he wears to one challenge after another. Love as I have not loved something since Jay's use of olive green fatigues and shocking pink polos have I been more smitten. He's sweet, honest, forthright and laughs at himself for winning "the tackiest challenge," but then, of course, nails it to the frickin' wall. His outfit was Gaultieresque. Yum.

I know there is some violent anti-Christian sentiment out there. (Clarification: I'm speaking of a deep hatred of the diminutive Project Runway contestant with the inexplicable peacock's fan of hair coming off his scalp, not certain late Roman Empire lion feedings.) He doesn't trouble me, for some reason. He might be gifted -- honestly, I'm not qualified to judge -- but it's baldly apparent that he doesn't have the people skills of a loofah. He can't read a room, he doesn't understand the use and application of tact, and he's magically self-absorbed.

Okay, that I will admit. I don't know where Christian's egoism is coming from. I mean, duh, he obviously thinks he's great. But he's just a tiny pointy-boot wearing imp, and from what I understand of the laws of thermodynamics, something can't come from nothing. So from whence does he find the energy to be so relentlessly pro-Christian and still breathe, walk, and complete challenges/win arm wrestling contests.

I am not, however, a saint. I can be enraged, and people who know me will back me up on this. This week's biggest outrage, by a long, long, long shot? A piece of chocolate cake that, I swear to God, tasted exactly like a taxi's cherry vanilla air freshener. How is that even possible? I don't know. And I don't want to know.

But how is it possible for scientists to find a way for me to eat a bite of cake and feel like I've gargled a Checker Cab and yet every sponge I've ever owned smells like ass after seven days?

*I refer, of course, to raw sea urchin. Out, out, vile jelly!

The Pause that Refreshes

Even though my work schedule has been, is and will continue to be completely nuts, I made a point of going to a newly-formed book group tonight, planned by one of my classmates. (Thanks, Theresa!)

It might sound crazy, given that I'm averaging two hours of free time between the end of work and hitting the sack, that I would voluntarily spend that time eating chips and gossiping. Believe it or not, when you're spending more and more of your time behind a desk or in a car, even short vacations from the routine are a fantastic break.

Woot!

I've been trying to conceal the awesomeness of my fella, but the cat's out of the bag. Last week's Awesome Link of the Week, James Wolcott, excerpted quite a lot of Michael's post about the Beatles on friend Jon's Tiny Revolution.

Here's my favorite part:

So TM was good for The Beatles, and not just from a songwriting standpoint. Going to India was the last gasp of the group's legendary unanimity. (Mick Jagger used to refer to them jealously as "the four-headed monster.") This quality had always been The Fabs' secret weapon, but by late 1967, it was subtly, silently on the wane. Trooping off to Rishikesh probably delayed their eventual split by a handful of essential months, perhaps the time it took to make Abbey Road. The Beatles went to India in February '68 and returned in May--by February '69, the group was practically defunct. As went Lennon, so went The Beatles; in Rishikesh, Lennon was a "Child of Nature," but as soon as he returned to the West he became a "Jealous Guy."

More Crazy New Trends

* Getting up at 7 a.m. to go for a walk around the neighborhood before voting. Because if I don't start getting more exercise, I think I might die.

* Planning my entire wardrobe for the week, down to socks and shoes on Sunday night. Because I can't think about that stuff in the morning.

* Going to bed at 10:30 or 11, in a desperate attempt to actually get enough sleep.

* Setting out a pill-keeper with 7 days worth of vitamins. See earlier remarks about not being about not being able to risk getting sick.

* Leaving work at 7 p.m. when I still have another hour of copying, because I won't be any use to anyone if I get burned out in the second week of my job.

* Not eating any more Krispy Kreme doughnuts, because I'd rather break a femur than go through a bad sugar crash.

Who is this strange woman walking around in my Danskos, answering to my name? It seems like should be me, but... I've never passed up a Krispy Kreme doughnut in my life.

P.S. My doppelganger and myself both voted for Obama, albeit just the once. So don't blame me if he doesn't carry the state. I did my very best, and that's saying something in a town that, after three elections, suddenly moved every single polling station in 90403 to a new location. WTF, Santa Monica? Way to confuse a crap ton of senior citizens.

The Writers' Room Twenty

Today, I ate:

1 piece of bread with melted cheese (Mrs. Keen's Raw Cheddar -- highly recommended if you like/can eat cheese.)

1 16 oz nonfat latte

1/2 Roast beef and gruyere sandwich

2 cups salad with basalmic vinegrette

1 piece chocolate cake

2 Krispy Kremes

1 lamb chop

1/2 cup polenta and gorgonzola

Tomorrow, I am getting up early to go for a walk before work. Also, I'm not eating again until March.

I Also Enjoy a Nice White Russian

It makes me crazy to dwell on things that are not as I would have them, yet which I am powerless to change. Exhibit A: AMPTP driving the WGA to strike one week after I started as a writers' assistant.

I must have had thirty or forty conversations about this between November and January. Most of them began with someone enthusiastically observing how great it is that I landed this job. Some of them (usually with striking writers) began with an expression of regret at the terrible timing.

In both cases, I would nod and agree, and say "I'm trying not to think about it, but I'm sure it will all work out." I tried not to despair, but I also tried not to fixate on some distant future point when all would be well. I tried to live by the principle expressed in "The Big Lebowski": The Dude abides.

Now we're back at work and it is finally sinking in: I'm a writers' assistant. On frickin' "Mad Men."

Dear God. How did that happen?

How. Did. That. Happen?

If you're not me, or someone like me, my shock might be hard to understand. Let me try to explain.

In order to write for television, several things have to happen. First, you have to realize that writing for television is actually something that people do. I myself did not figure this out until 2001. (Yes, I am dumb.)

Second, you have to figure out that you, personally, want to write for television. This typically takes the form of compulsively writing spec scripts and entering them into contests. Some people win these contests and are instantly yanked into the industry through a training program or the like. (The biggest of these is the ABC/Disney Fellowship, which comes with generous year-long stipend and typically leads to an assignment on an actual show. It is hugely competitive, but it has launched a number of successful writers, including Jane Espenson.)

Most people, however, don't win anything with their spec scripts, except maybe credit card points at the copy shop. At this point, you have to figure out some way to not give up. This is harder than it sounds. Giving up is pretty easy. It doesn't cost anything, you can stay right where you are, and you never have to kill yourself meeting another deadline. Except for the part where it makes it impossible for you to ever write for television, giving up is awesome.

Not giving up sucks. It's expensive, time consuming and feels dangerously like wasting your life. It usually involves moving to Los Angeles (or New York, if you fancy yourself a comedy writer.) Worse, it usually means doing something which is not writing for television, in hopes that it somehow leads to writing for television. I managed to combine these two things by moving to Los Angeles to attend USC, but that's not an option for everyone.

Step three, not giving up, is terrible, but it's a walk in the park compared to the fourth thing that has to happen in order to write for television:

The Waiting.

Nobody is going to pluck you off the street and install you on a writing staff. You can work on your stuff and keep submitting your scripts and meet with your writing group, but mainly, you have to Wait. And it's not like Bay Cities Deli, where you take a number and you get called when your turn comes. You could Wait a week, you could Wait a year. There's no way to know.

Every day, you're working as a waiter or an office temp or a barista. In your spare time, you're writing. But mainly, you're Waiting. And the Waiting can kill you. It makes you move back home with your parents. It makes you take a well-paid day job which leaves no time for writing. It makes you consider business school.

And that is why my new job shocks me. Because working as a writers' assistant is the easiest Waiting there is. All day, you work with writers. You listen to them talk and write down their ideas. And you get paid to do it -- as if you wouldn't do it for free, or possibly, even pay them.

(It really is like paying a drug addict to attend an all-you-can-shoot heroin banquet.)

It feels to me like a bolt of good fortune that rocketed out of the heavens and into my front lawn without warning.

From the outside, I gather it looks a little bit less like random good fortune. I've heard more than one person observe that my willingness to work for free is shockingly rare among my peers. And, among people who will work for free, I'm told it is hard to find individuals who can do the same task over and over without additional instructions -- what one former consultant-turned-assistant called "retention of processes."

In any event, I continue to think that I owe this job to the generosity of my boss and the folks who recommended me, with just the lightest sprinkling of luck. And I am hugely, inexpressibly grateful for this chance to prove myself. I don't care what happens next, or if these leads to something else. I'm doing what I love, and that's all that matters.

Home Keys, Sweet Home Keys

The theme of my first week on the job is:

Things I Would Have Done Differently, If I Had Known I Was Going to Be the Writers' Assistant

I interned with "Mad Men" last year from March to August, first just one day a week, then two, then staying late, them working on my off days, until I was in the office almost every day on the last week. I got lunch, made copies, checked the coffee and did research.

I worked hard, but I tried not to pry into the workings of the show, perhaps out of some believe that I wasn't supposed to see this wall chart or that outline. (And I probably wasn't.) But that I have to recreate some of those same documents, I wish I had at least paid attention to the shape of the wall chart, or the size of the type face used.

Soon we'll be in the writers' room and I'll be on white board duty, jotting stuff down with markers -- but I have no recollection of the way the writers' liked to brainstorm. (Except that I remember it being very different from "Smallville," which would completely cover a board with tiny handwriting, then take it off the wall for the writers' assistant to type up.)

Another, minor thing: All this week, we've been ordering in lunch -- except that I can't remember where the office used to order lunch from last year.

Anyway, it's a valuable lesson -- and one I wish I'd picked up sooner. Even though it's extremely unlikely that an internship will lead to a full time job, you never know when you're glimpsing some piece of information that might become extremely useful down the road.

Also: Thank god for that 8th grade typing class at Emerson Jr. High. I know learning to type is a drag and has the faintest whiff of defeat, as if you're setting yourself up for a career as a secretary. I can't even imagine trying to do do this job without the ability to type.

Personal Rules I've Recently Broken

I hate highway usurpers -- those people who deliberately stay in a fast moving lane, knowing that they need to merge into the slower moving lane to their right or left, but put it off until the last second, then duck into a gap. (Or more likely, come to a complete halt while they wait for a gap, thus slowing even more traffic.)

I have become that person. The 10 is killing me. Wide open until La Brea, then an infuriating crawl into downtown. Sometimes I leave at 7:45 and it takes an hour to go the 17 miles to work. Downtown Los Angeles, a clump of skyscrapers on the horizon, taunts me like a smoggy Emerald City. Except today, I left at 7:45 and was at work in 35 minutes.

I'm also a remorseless maker of U-turns and three point turns -- another habit I used to loathe in other drivers. The only thing I can say in my defense is that Los Angeles streets are made for these kinds of maneuvers, with built-in designated left-hand lanes down the length of most major thoroughfares, unlike Chicago, which is at least partially constrained by a grid system designed for street cars and a light smattering of traffic.

Both of these failings way on me, although not so much I'll stop doing them. But nothing troubles me more than the ease with which I have accepted the primary requirement of my new job: To tell the unvarnished truth. Last week, if you'd asked me an awkward question, I would have answered with diplomatic tact, making sure I was not stepping on any toes. This week, no diplomacy, all Truth Bombs.