"no no I can't talk right now, my friggin' house is on fire"

It's been one heck of a week here at Ann Marie's apartment. Scooter is exploring the building's corridors without his parents' permission, and his dad has built him a perch out of a storage box and a misshapen chair so that he can witness all the action out on Detroit Street, i.e. dogs, parked cars, and smoke billowing from a 2-story house engulfed in flames...

It was noon-ish. Joanna was off gallivanting - or maybe she was babysitting, I'm not sure, it's all a blur really - and Mr. Justin and I were out doing what hip LA guys do every Tuesday at noon-ish: grocery shopping. A quick stop at Trader Joe's for bread and cheese; then on to Ralph's for deli meat and frozen not-quite-chicken nuggets. And it was right then, as we self-checked out and headed out the automatic double doors, that we saw it: a plume of smoke rising into the clear sky, maybe a quarter-mile from where we stood, right where I'd imagine our apartment is.

Brian: Yo, check out that fire.
Justin: Woah.
Brian: Where is that?
Justin: Isn't that where your apartment is?
Brian: Holy s&*t, that's our apartment. Oh my god our apartment's on fire.
(At this point, I hand my groceries over to Justin, make this awesome hero face like "Dude, I gotta do this," and take off running down the street.)
Justin: Okay. I guess I'll meet you at the fire.

Needless to say, it wasn't our apartment that was ablaze (if it was, I imagine some of you parents and relatives out there would have been contacted by now), but it was close enough. Neighborhood peoples crowded the sidewalk across from the old Tudor-style house - standing amongst the LAFD's best and brightest - glad it wasn't their house, their apartment, their insurance policy that was up in flames.

Just then, a mid-20s woman with long, unkempt black hair - standing beside me in pajama bottoms, gazing up in awe at the tragic spectacle before us - snarls into a cell phone,

"Because I can't talk right now. No no I can't talk right now, my friggin' house is on fire."
(Pause.)
"Yeah, like the house I live in."

Justin and I opted for a safer distance and a better view, so we pried open some neglected fold-out beach chairs and ate lunch on our seldom-used fire escape, watching with admiration and terror as one of the firemen took an axe to the neighbors' roof. The grey pillars of smoke soon became fog, and the fog drifted north, toward the hills, imposing an early dusk on the city.

"Well," Justin says, "there goes our clear day."



Aside from the block party inferno, Joanna has been actively pursuing babysitting jobs throughout the city while I continue to manage the photographs and the website for my employer in NY (for those of you who aren't up-to-date, I work part time for a high-end wedding designer). We've hit up the cinema several times, knocking out "Gone Baby Gone" (Ben Affleck directorial debut) and "Michael Clayton" (highly recommended, especially to you Grisham fans out there). We stumbled upon a classic LA music joint (Amoeba Music), where the clearance racks offer a special deal: BUY FOUR, GET THE CHEAPEST ONE FREE. Thirteen dollars later and we're rockin' out to old-school REM and Tears for Fears.

Oh! Jo and I have also upgraded to TimeWarner internet! It was growing tiresome, sneaking my laptop into the bathroom (where the signal was strongest) and hoping that 2385NETGEAR77 was home and web surfing. Go TimeWarner!

But the highlight of our week was without a doubt a certain audition at a certain New York Film Academy, Los Angeles Chapter. For the most part, the NYFA in Manhattan is hit or miss (more miss than hit), so Jo was hesitant about even going to meet this aspiring new filmmaker; but the guy was persistent, very eager to sit down with her, so she went.

Morris (we'll call him Morris) is about 30, Indian, with a thick accent and an intense Daniel Day Lewis-type personality. He begins by giving Jo a 15-minute play-by-play of the film, which essentially involves a girl (Lisa) who's haunted by her boyfriend's untimely death.

Joanna's inner dialogue: "Originality rules!"

Morris is insistent that he find an actress who can capture the heart of the piece, someone who can meet the demanding, emotional needs of the role.

Morris: Can you become Lisa?
Joanna: Yeah, sure, whatever. No problemo.
Morris: No. I need to know. Can you really BE Lisa?
Joanna: Uh ... (mildly freaked out) ... I think so. sure.
Morris: OK, Lisa. Let's begin.

He pulls out his HandyCam and tells Lisa/Jo that's he's going to look at her face, see how she looks on film. Then he explains - in his muddy, mystifying Eastern dialect - that he'll throw out a few directions, to "go with it," to "see what happens..."

Morris: Happiness.
Joanna: What?
Morris: Happiness, Lisa. HAPPINESS!
Joanna: (smiles)
Morris: Great. SADNESS!
Joanna: (frowns, wants to run out the door screaming)
Morris: POTHER!
Joanna: What?
Morris: HARRANGEMENT!
Joanna: That's not a word!
Morris: Now I want you to cry.
Joanna: But I'm -
Morris: CRY CRY CRY!
Joanna: (breaks down out of utter harrangement)
Morris: Great Lisa. Now pretend your boyfriend has been run over by a car. GO!
Joanna: (super frown, tears up, puts her hand over her mouth in awe)
Morris: NO! Don't put your hand over your mouth. You can't cover your mouth. The audience needs to see your mouth. The audience lives in your face!

Of course, Joanna got the part.
Of course, Joanna turned down the role.

And that was our week, or at least the parts worth mentioning. We're both feeling a bit homesick today (SADNESS! REFLECTION! LUGUBRIOSITY!), so we're on a mission to find a free wi-fi coffee shop, a place where LA-ers meet to sit and chat and work on their laptops and write make-believe novels and sip their lattes.... Ah, home.

Love, love, love
B, J, S