Tuesday...July 1 -- CANADA DAY (EXERPT)

Usually my feeling has been a desire to write the blog first – get the immediate satisfaction of publishing, and then copy and paste to this document. But I want tonight’s entry to be more stream of consciousness, less monitored in terms of what I can and can’t talk about, and less linear with regard to relaying the details of the day.

Ah, but old habits die hard. So we’ll start in the AM. Yes. The familiar “Antelope” ring tone of my alarm clock wakes me this AM at 4:40. I slept hard last night with the windows open, not stirring for the sounds of the street below or the occasional voice wafting up to the 10th floor from below. I dragged myself out of bed and in the soft early morning light proceeded to do my Guthy Renker “Buns and Thighs” workout. I still remember buying the VHS tapes (which I see from a headline on IMDB is officially being mourned as a thing of the past) when I was living with Jen in NYC. Her old roommate Jill had used the tapes and her ass looked great. I had the VHS transposed to a DVD my first year at the studio when the video transfer department wasn’t really monitoring who and how many things you got made into dubs. Oh the days.

Out the door, I loaded Maroon 5’s latest album (one of many sent by Danielle Diego to Rattler…cd’s he barely had time to glance at but many of which sit on my driver’s side door for my drive to and from the studio). I was determined to get gas at the Chevron on the right hand side on 1st Avenue, before Highway One (notice how I write this description…this is how you say things to yourself when there’s still a bit of ‘new place’ equation on the brain). I also got a large coffee and proceeded to return inside for my receipt. I explained to the young female cashier that I needed to get reimbursed as I tried to count out my two dollars and change for the coffee. I stared at the coins, turning one over again and again and explained to her that I wasn’t from here, and that the money was still a bit foreign to me. I thought I saw a flicker of awe in her face when I told her I was from Los Angeles, and would be coming back in for the gas receipt as I needed to submit it for reimbursement. She said “Bye!” with an unmistakable amount of excitement, and I headed back to the car, coffee in hand, glancing at the red carabiner which holds my array of keys (all of which I had never seen before just a mere 6 weeks ago).

Also can't forget that both bridges got shut down today. Made for a pressure cooker of anticipation of tension as we neared towards our wrap out, the word over the radio still unclear regarding whether we were all going to be stuck. Apparently a woman was threatening to jump for 5 hours. She eventually was talked into an ambulance. The other bridge just had one back accident and then the fender benders continued. Hammel was looking into a water taxi that would shuttle Shawn and Ben across the water to West Van, where an as of yet undetermined car would take both of them home. It was a very Hardy Men style plan. The bridge cleared up before it got put into effect.

Put a new pic up for my screen saver today. Took in LA, out the windows of Brian Barth's apartment, looking towards the ridge that separates the Valley from the Non-Valley -- smack dab in the center of Korea-town. The picture has 4 quadrants, kind of like the NATM franchise (...). I like the quadrants because I can put all my work folders pertaining to the movie and 21 Laps in the top, upper left and my own folder, in its very own frame (top right of the four, sharing the square with a palm tree that stands tall, suspended above the 1940's style housing and buildings that is the odd backdrop to Korea town...