24.

Tonight we had dinner sitting between Dee Wallace Stone and…

Keifer Sutherland.

Do you think it’s a good sign, the double Keifer? On the same street? Within 24 hours?

End of the Year

I’m not very good at this year-end wrap-up things, mostly because my months meld together into one giant, “Was that this year? It feels like it was SO long ago,” kind of nostalgia. My archives show that the year went: Anne Heche, Anne Heche, won a Script Contest, Anne Heche, Scott Thompson, Oakland, Oakland, Al and Chris, Oakland, Michael Moore, My First Book, Book, Writing Frustrations, Book Tour, Book, Wedding, Wedding, Drunk and Stupid While Singing, Sink Pasta, Famous People (last night’s spotting: Keifer Sutherland, while walking to see Cold Mountain co-starring… Donald Sutherland!), Mars (award-winning Mars, thank you), Ringo Starr, Writing Frustrations, My Book Photo, Jim Carrey’s Massive Cock, AIDS Walk, Wedding, My First Screenplay Sale, Dirty Sanchez, Michael Jackson, Poop Boobs, I’m In the Trades, and Johnny Depp.

I’ll try next year to have more of a variety in my writing.

If that song from Cold Mountain wins Best Song this year, I’m going to stab myself. I can’t believe Sting wrote such a terrible, terrible song. It is the WORST. Ugh, it drove me crazy, and it plays through about seven times during the longest movie of all time. And it was more obvious than a musical interlude on The Real World. “I’m walking… to Cold Mountain… my name’s Jude Law… I love Nicole Kidman.” Every time I bring it up, someone asks, “Is Nicole Kidman singing that song?” Take that, alt country.

I had told myself I wasn’t going to go on and on about the movie after it was over, like we did for Crap Actually, because I could tell stee wasn’t hating the film. But then I did it anyway. I started with, “I just don’t like Civil War movies,” which may be true. I also had read so little about this film that I thought it was about a Romanian war. I mean, looking at the cast list, the name of the film, and where it was shot would lead me nowhere near the Civil War. Also, I already read and saw Gone With the Wind, so I’m not sure what was the damn point in making this version of it. And then, you know, there’s the whole, “Does ‘cold’ refer to people’s emotional investment with each other in this film?” And then, finally: Did Jack White and Renee Zellweger get into that car accident so there was a rumor they were involved so that we’d be more emotionally invested in the last hour of the film?

I was also thinking during Cold Mountain (because you have time to let your mind wander for long stretches of film) about how many hours I’ve saved by not buying into most of the films we were offered this year. Excusing Angels in America because I’m drama geeky enough to get truly excited over it, how many hours were we supposed to sit still and watch a screen this year? From those Hobbit/Narnia/Orc/Hobgoblin films, to Tom Cruise in some kind of warrior movie, the pirate/ship movie without Johnny Depp, the horse movie, the hulk movie, the Keanu movies, and all of the DVD collections of entire television seasons. When am I supposed to do something with my life?

And… I’ve just turned into a cranky old lady. Sorry.

I’m very proud of everything that happened this year, and I am very happy with my life right now. It makes it difficult to come up with some kind of year-end conclusion. Maybe next year I’d be able to put this one in more of a perspective.

Oh, really, Pam? Ya think? See, this is why I don’t do these things. I come off like a moron. And I try not to write here when I have nothing to say, but I couldn’t just leave the last possible updating day blank (as there’s no way I’m updating tomorrow).

Blah. Nothing. I’ve got nothing. I’m just babbling. Filling space for those of you who never read the blog, because I feel that I neglected you this December.

I’ve been staring at this screen now for fifteen minutes, trying to think of something, anything. But the truth is I’ve been doing so much writing outside of this site (working on the screenplay, writing a spec pilot, working on a new show), that by the time I get here I’m like, “I do not want to write another essay about being a writer.”

I’m boring myself. Therefore I must be boring you.

So. 2004. I’ll still be updating. I don’t have a book coming out, so there will be less pimping. And I don’t plan on taking over the tabloids again, or starting up another library drive, so maybe this place will have a bit more variety. I know. Y’all just want me to write about the cats again.

This is the worst entry I’ve ever written. Glad to end 2003 with some kind of milestone.

Currently Reading

• In America, by Susan Sontag.
• Carrie Pilby, by Caren Lissner. Worst cover ever. I’m reading it in manuscript form, and it must be good, as this copy is so over photocopied that most of the punctuation is gone, and I’m still swept up in the story. I picked it up as our books are often compared on that “Five Chick Lit Books To Read” list.

Finished

• The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky. I really enjoyed this book and immediately passed it on to stee, as it reminded me of his writing.
• “Tense Present: Democracy, English, and the Wars Over Usage,” by David Foster Wallace. Harper’s Magazine. April, 2001. p. 39-58. — You can’t stand my geek style: it’s an article discussing Garner’s American Modern Usage. Jealous?
• Motherhood and Hollywood: How To Get a Job Like Mine, by Patricia Heaton. We picked this paperback up before our last roadtrip, assuming it’d be hy-sterical to read aloud as we drove up the 5. Neither of us had an opinion on Patty Heaton before we bought this book. We now hate her. Hate her. Somehow EW gave this thing an A. It makes no sense at all. This book reads, “Me, me, me, me, I have two Emmys for Everybody Loves Raymond, everybody really loves me. As do I. And me. And myself!” We got into a fight towards the end of the book, over a gas station or something, so I knew the book was adding tension. I resisted the impulse to throw the book out the window. When I finally finished reading, stee asked, “Can I throw the book out the window?” We settled on shredding the pages in huge chunks at a time to prevent ourselves from inflicting the damage on others.
• On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, by Stephen King. To swing the complete opposite direction in memoirs. My dad loved this book, and I could see why, as King basically says “A writer writes, and then rewrites, and then writes some more.” When he says after he finishes a manuscript he puts it away for six weeks, stee and I both shrieked in horror, “Six weeks?!?” We have a hard time stepping away from something for six hours.

New Entry: End of the Year

Not too many conclusions, but more one of those “I Love the 80′s” shows about pamie.com. Now if only Dan and Joel Stein could wax nostalgic about my year.

In fact, use the comments section to give your own “I Love the 80′s” pithy statement. Try not to be Hal Sparks.

Happy New Year, y’all.

What to do in SF this week.

I saw this show last weekend, and was blown away with what seven (really eight) people can do on a stage. It’s called 7 Fingers, and it’s one of the most impressive things I’ve seen this year.

People say all the time that they think what I do is scary or brave. Y’all, there’s never a moment when I’m doing my job where I could die. Every night these people risk their lives to make you clap your hands. That’s amazing.

Fan Mail

I let my grandmother (who is a writer) read your book.
This is her response….
-Grom

I have email from people who find it appalling that birth control methods aren’t discussed in the book when people are having sex. Do you want to read, “He slid on the condom, and pulled at the end, just like we were taught in school”? Is that something that makes you go, “Wow! This is just like life! I love this book!”

Where are your morals? Are you “needy”?

attn: Any Soldier

Reference to “flying monkeys” aside [edited to add: they have since removed those words, due to the reaction from pamie.com], this site shows you how to send a care package to Any Soldier. If you don’t personally know someone fighting in this war, perhaps in gratitude you could send hand warmers, instant coffee and tampons to someone who is. [link provided by Amanda]

The index page of pamie.com last year was filled with a list of casualties. I was happy to have the excuse to replace that list with book donations in May. But we will never donate as many books as there were casualties, and I think about that often when I update the donor list. What if I was still reporting all of those names?

Hey, Fall Graduates!

I didn’t get a fancy speaker, as I graduated right around this time of the year because they changed my course schedule on me halfway through my time at UT and…

It doesn’t matter. All I know is that I wish Will Ferrell spoke at my graduation.

What do we eat for our fake Christmas dinner? Chinese food.

…in the spirit of A Christmas Story, I guess.

I had a dream last night that Johnny Depp was an actor at this strange dinner theatre I attended, and everyone knew it was Johnny Depp, and everybody knew he was actually my special guest like that time Lena Horne performed for Cliff Huxtable’s birthday, and it was all somehow set up by stee. He pretended to be jealous when Johnny did a monologue for me at my table. Johnny Depp had green eyes, and I thought to myself, “I really don’t know anything about this man at all.” And then I couldn’t stop giggling like a total tool. Even in front of dream JD, I’m a moron.

Saw Weldon and Martinique’s baby today. He couldn’t be cuter. And then my mom held the baby for a while. I’ll be dealing with the ramifications of that semi-grandmaternal encounter for the next year, I promise you. Anyway, this just in: babies are pretty darn cute. Particularly when they yawn.

My friends live so far away, all over the country. When stee and I went to mail off all of the Christmas presents this week, the zip codes bounced around this continent from Toronto to New York City to Atlanta to Austin to Monroe to San Francisco to San Antonio. I suppose it’s only natural, after thirteen schools in eighteen years that I’d have a group of friends who all live scattered across the country (and Canada). Having lunch with Weldon and Nique today made me miss all of them very much.

Back to the Future

I was telling Dan the other day that while watching Mona Lisa Smile at one point I imagined that it was actually a time-travel movie, and current Julia Roberts went back in time to the 1950′s and tried to teach women about feminism. You didn’t have to change one word of the script, and it actually makes Julia Roberts’ acting more believable.

Then Dan and I figured out how fantastic the script would have been if Julia Stiles was Julia Roberts’ mom, and she found out that her mother skipped law school to have her, and she has to decide whether to give her mom financial freedom and let her be a trailblazing feminist, or to let her mom go through with the family, so that she can be born.

Genius!