It's Friday morning. The only thing I have on my agenda for today is going to hear John Schlesinger speak at the Guest Speakers series. Cool. My big plan for today is to sit in a cafe somewhere and read Making Movies by Sidney Lumet. I've had the book lying around for ages, but yesterday it was assigned in class.
Also, imagine the PQ (Pretentiousness Quotient) of sitting in a cafe in Hollywood reading this book. I can't pass this up.
Darin left early this morning to pick up Nevin at Fernando's house and get the two of them over to World Con, the science-fiction convention erroneously labeled "LA Con." It's "Orange County Con," or more specifically, "Anaheim Con." 40 minutes to an hour of driving each way. Darin's a fanatic, he can handle that kind of thing at 8am on 5 hours sleep.
Yesterday morning I had my second class, Practicum in Directing, which is taught by Norma Desmond. Or at least a lady who's larger than life, like Norma Desmond: Nina Foch. She says her career's lasted 56 years and she's been nominated for an Oscar and she's quite a trip. I get the sense, though, that she's always acting, because while I like her I have no idea if I know her. Grand gestures, wonderful anecdotes, concise criticisms of our acting exercise (explained in a second), and unexpected vulgarities. A wonderful package. I'm going to enjoy the class, if only as a spectator.
The acting exercise took most of the afternoon because we were a large group. You had to enter from one side of the "stage" and exit the other. The entrance side was the security gate at an airport, and the exit was the door to board the plane. We each had to come up with a one-minute scenario to cover that.
Nina had pretty good, spot-on criticisms for everyone. Except me, of course: I got "nicely executed." I kept wondering, does that mean it was just incredibly unnoteworthy? Caveat: I was in the last group of people who went, which meant we were all pretty beat by that point and she might have been wanting to finish.
One of the interesting things that kept happening over and over again is that students would keep making the same damn mistakes, even when Nina had pointed them out earlier. I could understand some of them -- it's nerve-wracking to have to get up in front of an audience and perform -- but others (such as being a harried traveler harrassed by security guards and using the word "terrorist" or "gun" in a security check were completely unacceptable. Nina had already said, "Can you imagine anyone doing that? Of course not. You'd be locked up in a minute if you said that in an airport," when the first person did it, but later scenes contained the same exact element.
It's like, Hello, Nina said it was bogus, don't do it.
(For the record, because so many people were doing lost loves or annoyed travelers, I did an accountant who had walked out of the business one day with a packet of bearer bonds, ostensibly doing my accountant thing, and instead went to the airport to leave the country. This required me to grin a lot, look momentarily startled, and then rush on to the plane. And not have any of this silly monologue to thin air stuff some people were doing.)
I rushed home after class, if you can call winding your way through backed up traffic on 101 "rushing." Traffic jams at 1pm -- who knew? (I think the reason was a giant blue down-filled parka which was lying on the roadway, which resembled a a giant feathered way-overdressed boneless person, until you looked at it closer.)
I had checked my messages before leaving USC, and there was nothing from Darin. I left the cell phone on in my car, hoping he'd call during my drive. Nothing. I got home and Darin had left a message during my drive: "Hi hon, I forgot two things when I left the house this morning: the keys and the number for your cell phone. We went to the Great Greek for lunch."
I thought about rushing over there to join them, but I figured that I'd end up passing them on Ventura, so I stayed put. They arrived at the apartment at 2pm and I rushed at Darin, crushing him in a hug and kiss. (Well, as much as Darin can be crushed.) After a few seconds I let go, looked over his shoulder at Nevin and Michael, and said, "Oh. Hi guys."
Nevin agreed to drive Michael over to the hotel in Orange County and then turn around and drive back alone (ugh), which left the afternoon for Darin and me. It was so nice being with him again. Just dozing together in the late afternoon was wonderful.
Fernando showed up at 6pm and Nevin returned at 7. We went out to dinner later with Harry. After dinner my stomach started doing flip-flops (just as it did after the first time we ate at Mi Piace -- I'm not going to that place again) and I went directly home. Darin stayed at The Boys to talk to Harry and Mike and Nevin for a while.
He came home really late, and I hadn't fallen asleep yet. It was nice falling asleep together. Of course, Darin fell asleep way before I did. I like some elements of living alone, but I sure miss having Darin snoring away next to me every night.