- The heat wakes me up at three in the morning. I get up to shut it off and grab some water, but I can’t fall back asleep. I opt to hit the desk-top and check the board to see what the reaction to the Festival of Books appearance was like. After doing that for a bit, I check email and update the diary.
- I’m updating the diary from last weekend (the Poetry Event weekend), when I wind up going into rather blue detail about my sex life with Jen. Ironically, in writing about jerking off into her asshole (not inside, mind you; more against), I get turned on and decide to tug one out. Following that, I lay down again at about six thirty in the morning, amused at how snake-eating-its-tail that spank was.
- I wake up again at a little after nine, realizing I’ve now got less than an hour to shit, shower, shave and get over to Santa Monica for the “Catch & Release” read. I’m out of the house at five to ten, speeding down La Brea to the 10. Thankfully, there’s very little Sunday morning traffic, and I make it to Casa Del Mar in fifteen minutes. As I’m about to pull up to the hotel, Jenno calls me to see where I am. I wave to her from my truck, hand it over to the valet guy, give her a hug and head into the read. Mercifully, I’m not the last person to arrive.
- I give Susanah a hug, then meet Timothy Olyphant and the guy who plays Dennis to my Sam (whose name I don’t wanna drop because I’m not sure if he’s been announced yet, and I don’t wanna ruin his chances of getting some Variety ink by spoiling it here). I re-meet Matt Tolmach (the president of production over at Columbia who I met years ago when he was woking at Turner Pictures and I almost rewrote a script there) and Amy Pascal (Chair of the Sony Pictures Motion Pictures group) and say hi to a lot of other folks before we sit down at a long conference table to read, following the arrival of Jen Garner. We go around the room introducing ourselves, and dig into the script.
- The read goes really well. I could listen to Olyphant read the phone book. The actress who’s gonna play a character Sam gets involved with named Maureen isn’t there for the read, so this actress stands in for her, and man is she good. Great comedic timing. When it wraps up, Susanah thanks everybody and I say a bunch of goodbyes before heading outside with Jenno who delicately lets me know that there are those within the production that are made a bit nervous about the fact that I blog so, shall we say, intricately. I reassure her that I blog about my life, not other cats, and insist I’ll use discretion when it comes to writing about my time on “Catch”.
With that in mind, I won’t detail for you all the untoward comments made during the read by Garner about non-whites.
Kidding, of course.
- While waiting for the car, I chat up Olyphant about his kids and thank Deb Aquila again for the kind words and vote of confidence. The paparazzi are in full stalk mode, waiting for Garner, but it’s only three and they’re apparently easy to ditch, as we watch them tear ass up the street to their cars, having missed Jen’s secret exit. Some folks cluck their tongues in that “what a shame…” fashion, but it’s hard to join in. Once you’ve seen paparazzi rent a helicopter to get pics of Ben in Central Park or watched fifty or more snappers come at JLo from out of nowhere like ninjas, three easily-ditched lens-crafters look less like an imposition and more like Moe, Larry and Curly.
- I stop at the Vans store near the promenade, but alas, they’ve got no sizes in the style I want in stock. So I head back to the 10, grab some Quizno’s, and speed home to find Jen, Harley, Chay and Jay chilling out by the pool. Soon after, Malcolm and his friend and producer Andre join us, and while margaritas are mixed, some poker ensues. Mewes turns the game into a tourney instead, and I donk out pretty quickly (pocket Kings vs. what turns out to be Malcolm’s A’s and 8′s), opting to head downstairs to grab some shut-eye. I play UB ’til I doze off, with Harley drawing in bed beside me, watching “SpongeBob”.
- I wake up around six thirty and head upstairs, over-tired and cranky that the party’s still in full-swing. Renee Humphrey has joined the fun, but despite my fondness for her, I chase everybody out so I can grab some downtime with the wife. Chay stays to go swimming with Harley, and I go downstairs with Jen to do some “night-swimming” of our own.
- We emerge from the room an hour later and Jen sets about the task of getting Harley ready for bed while I clean up the living room. Scully’s gotten at the ice cream and sour cream that folks left too close to the floor, so I throw out the remnants and give that bitch a dirty look as she stares up at me, guiltily (and blankly), from her Scully Bed.
- I head downstairs to Harley’s room and walk in on Chay, getting into her pj’s. We’re both pretty embarrassed, but I assure her that I only saw one boob; it doesn’t count unless the set are peeped. Chay’s gonna sleep over with Harley, so they retire to Jay’s room. Jay’s gone out to some charity auction where you bid on girls, so it’s not likely he’s gonna be back any time soon. Jen and I kiss Harley g’night and head upstairs.
- As I lay on the bed checking email and the board and IMing with Annie, Jen works on a writing project she’s been putting together. We watch “Dynasty” until we can’t take it anymore, then collapse into bed together to some TiVo’ed “Simpsons”, during which we fall asleep, minutes before our anniversary kicks in.