Starfish Envy

A Lunchtime Head-Shaker

So here's a thing that happened today...

WP and I took a lunch break at a restaurant near our office.  After a very productive lunch, as we waited for the valet to bring my car (it's LA), I was standing in the hot sun for several minutes, and my back started aching.  So I leaned-- gently, mind you-- against the SUV that was parked right behind me.

As in, lightly rested my back against the flat back of the SUV.

Almost instantly, I heard, in the nastiest possible tone: "Uh, excuse me.  Could you stop LAYING ACROSS MY CAR?"

Yeah.

Laying across.  His car.  

I turned to find a young actor I sort of semi-recognized.  Who, for some reason, was just standing outside the restaurant.  Not getting in his car.  Not going anywhere.  Just kind of standing there.  

I was too stunned to react appropriately, but WP fiercely informed him that I am NINE MONTHS PREGNANT, thank you very much.  At which point he DOUBLED DOWN and said, in just as nasty a tone as the first time, that that didn't mean I could LAY ACROSS HIS CAR.

For REAL!

He looked at my belly and DOUBLED DOWN!!!

I mean, this is a young man with a mother somewhere whose soul just curdled with shame.

You're thinking, "This must have been a FANCY SUV!  A Bentley perhaps!  A MASERATI!"  

But no!  It was, in fact, the most basic of all SUVs.  

So then you think, "But it MUST have been coated in GOLD!"  

And again, I say, no!  No gilding.  

Just a regular ol' SUV.  

Oh, how I wish I had taken my giant, swollen belly and climbed up on the hood of his car and shown him what LAYING ACROSS A CAR really looks like.

Instead, I will look forward to the inevitable day when that mean, little semi-recognizable actor appears in my office for an audition. 

And I will say, "Oh, I recognize you.  You wouldn't let me rest my aching back against your car when I was forty weeks pregnant."

Obviously, he won't be getting the part.

He may be the best actor in the world.  

But WP and I have a firm No Assholes Policy.

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Ha!  Thanks, Actuary, for the grammar heads up.  But meany said "LAYING," so I'm sticking with it!

Twenty-Seven Weeks! How Did That Happen?

Today is the official beginning of the third trimester of my pregnancy.

How lovely that my third trimester coincides with two upcoming months of the sheer insanity that is making a tv pilot!

Is lovely the word?  Maybe the word is hilarious.  Or horrifying?

Time will tell.

As insane as it is that I'm starting the most challenging part of my pregnancy at one of the most challenging times of my career, I expect everything will be fine.

For one thing, making a pilot is challenging in a good way.  For another, I've been feeling great.  I have a ton of energy.  And I passed the gestational diabetes test last week.

(Whew!)

Meantime, Little Girl's just hanging out and kicking when she feels like it.  

All is well.

Still... I'm making an appointment with an OB/Gyn in Vancouver, so if anything unexpected does happen I'll be able to call someone I've at least met and had one conversation with.

Plus, I read somewhere that, as long as it's managed well, some stress can actually be good for babies in utero.

So, Little Girl, this pilot's for you!

A Brief Visit...

I know I've completely dropped off the face of the earth, and for that I apologize.

Here's just a taste of what I've been up to...

 

'Friday Night Lights' Alum to Star in CW's 'Hunger Games'-ish Pilot

Gregory Peck's Grandson to Star in CW's 'Hunger Games'-ish Pilot

'Save the Last Dance' Star Joins CW's 'Hunger Games'-ish Drama Pilot

 

It's hard to be unhappy with any comparison to 'The Hunger Games,' certainly, but this show stands on its own, thanks to Kiera Cass' very cool novel (which comes out soon, so check with your local book seller).

There are, of course, a million other things going on in pilot-land, and then I have this baby in my belly, kicking more, and harder, every day.

Thank goodness this pregnancy has been an easy one, and please please please let it continue just as easily for at LEAST another eight weeks.  After that, I can put my feet up for a while and coddle myself a little.  

But until then... busy busy busy.

Off to bed.  

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(Cath, thanks for the typo alert!)

Twenty-Four Weeks... And Counting

Yet another long day.

Lots of climbing stairs (are there no elevators in old buildings in Canada?) and walking around... and flying!

Did I mention the flying?

I flew in my first (and second) tiny sea plane(s) today, saw the gorgeous city of Victoria for the first time, toured castles and government buildings... and managed to stay mostly upright.  Yay, me!

Most exciting news of the day, however, is that I am now twenty-four weeks pregnant!

Which, in addtion to meaning that I have only sixteen weeks to go (scary!), means that Little Girl is considered to be "viable."  Basically, if (God forbid) she were born tomorrow, she could probably survive (with a whole lot of intervention).

Of course, I'd like her to stay in my belly for as long as she needs to to arrive healthy and happy...

And if she manages to stay in there long enough to let WP and me get this pilot finished... well, that would be great, too.

Lullaby... And Goodnight...

It is 8:30 p.m.

And I am going to bed.

I have brushed my teeth, washed my face, put on my pajamas, taken my vitamins, and applied my Breathe Right strip (ah, pregnancy).

That is that.

Day over.

Not that it was a bad day-- it was, in fact, an excellent, productive day full of inteviews in the morning (very promising), and location scouting in the afternoon (very promising).

But pregnant me just gets tired-er, faster.

So to bed I go.

Oh, wait.

After I watch just one more casting tape...

I'm Back!

In Vancouver, that is.  

WP and I are here (with our amazing director) to scout locations for our pilot, and interview production designers and costume designers.

We start shooting in a little over a month, so there's a TON to do and, as always with pilots, no time to do it.

But isn't that what makes it fun?

I'm really thrilled to be here.  Vancouver stole my heart last winter, and I'm so happy to have an opportunity to return.

And now it's time for this pregnant lady to go to bed.

Tomorrow's going to be a loooong day. 

An Excellent Day

Tonight I'm breaking the "I don't talk about work here" rule to say... we're making a pilot!

Which means it's going to be a very busy, intense, and travel-heavy spring.

Also, fun.

And stressful.

And exhausting.

And creatively stimulating.

And joyful.

And miserable.

And mind-numbing.

And exhilarating.

And about a million other predictably unpredictable things.

There's nothing quite like making a pilot.

I love it.

Of course, I've never done it pregnant before...

A Moment To Digress...

I don't write about work here... but tonight I'm going to make a very brief exception.

Because today WP and I finished a new draft of one of our two pilot scripts.

And IT'S SO GOOD!

What's amazing is, we really love BOTH of our pilot scripts.  The Fox script is completely different than the CW script, but I think it's fair to say that both are better than anything we've ever written before.  

Which, given my level of exhaustion and not-feeling-great-ness over the last several months, is something of a miracle.  And certainly speaks to WP's patience.

Of course, it's entirely possible these scripts will end up as little more than really great writing samples.  It's hard -- okay, impossible -- to predict anything in the television business.  

But I'm really hoping both of these shows make it to your television screens in the fall.

If they do, I think you'll love them as much as we do.

 

Turn It On

I do believe I've discovered a way to make it through this Two Week Wait.

Television!

Thank the TV gods, the fall season has started!!!

Dancing With the Stars is back! The New Girl premieres tonight! Glee has returned!  There are new episodes of the Inspector Lewis Mysteries on BBC America! Homeland is starting up on Showtime!

And I don't have to feel guilty watching a single thing (okay, maybe the reality shows), since TV IS MY JOB.  

So convenient.

What are you watching this season?  Anything you're loving?  Anything you could do without?

Oh!  And have you seen the brilliant Jane Espenson's new web series, Husbands?

The Television Cure

Since I'm not exactly in my happy place these days, I've been self-medicating with great TV.

As you know, I won't be watching the final season of Friday Night Lights until I can watch it in an uninterrupted marathon, so I've had to find other amazing shows to distract my fertility-obsessed mind.

Of course, nothing is as good as FNL... but I finally watched Luther, a BBC show that was recommended highly by a friend.  He'd been singing its praises for months, and I'm a huge fan of BBC mysteries, so it was the first thing I searched for when my Apple TV was finally hooked up.  

Verdict?  AMAZING!  For one thing, lead actor Idris Elba is the sexiest man on the planet.  Spending six hours watching him could never be a bad thing.  Sexy aside, Luther is completely riveting.  The performances are outstanding, the twists intriguing, the resolution... well, I don't want to give anything away.  So I'll just say it's terrific.

I've also been watching Twin Peaks.  I remember watching a few episodes when it originally aired in 1990, but I think I jumped in somewhere in the middle of season two, which just did not work.  So this time I started at the very beginning, and as it turns out... that is indeed a very good place to start.  Twin Peaks is equal parts weird and funny and scary and engrossing.  The perfect cure for a funk.

And then there's the best non-FNL show currently on television.  AMC's The Killing.  If you're not watching this show, you should be.  It's everything I love about tv-- fantastic performances, a visual style that's beautiful without trying too hard, and a story that's intelligent, tense, and emotional.

Guess I'll just have to add the writers, cast, and crew of these shows to the list of people I'm gonna have to thank if I ever do manage to get pregnant.  

It's getting to be a really long list...

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What are you watching lately?