Welcome new visitors!

Welcome to all of you who found me through Girls Gone Child! Thanks for your comments. I'm new to this whole blogging thing so you'll have to bear with me. I'm a compulsive self editor so I tend to save drafts of posts to review over and over then forget to actually post them. So you'll find three posts from the last week suddenly appear in one day. I'm working on that. I'm also trying to figure out doing links to other blogs. I may have to have GGC come next door and help me. I'm hoping to get better as I go along. Looking forward to figuring this out as people mock me!

Eat. Sleep. Poop.

I realized the other day that my life has become eat, sleep, poop. Baby Girl has been too little to actually take anywhere, especially since my doctor completely freaked me out about cold and flu season. I'm sure it's bad enough when your kid's sick but to feel like it's your fault for taking her out too soon? No thanks.

Not to mention that I'm too lame to figure out how to get her outside anyway. I'm really bad at manuevering our jogger/car seat combo. She screams if I try to put her into the sling. And it takes 2 people to straighten her legs to get her into the baby carrier.

I've only taken her out for a walk a couple of times when the hubby was around to help get her in the stroller. But now she's almost a month old and I don't have an excuse anymore. We're going to have to make a public debut sometime. After all, I can't wear these same pajamas every single day forever, can I?

My big goal for this week is to make it to one class at the Y. Since it's pre and post-natal, I can take the baby. Now if I could just figure out how the hell to get her into the car and the gym without completely traumatizing her...

Hollywood loves crazy

The writing partner and I are pitching for a rewriting assignment. We've heard the basic idea from our manager - it's not exactly groundbreaking, but, at this point, beggars can't be choosers. So we go to meet with the executive, who's read a couple of our unsold scripts and likes our style.

Now, he's paid money for this script already but wants a completely new take on just the idea alone. We do the dog and pony show outlining where we'd go with the idea and he likes it. He asks us to develop an outline. We ask to read the original script. He says no. According to him, the script is so horrible that he doesn't want us to read it or it may kill some brain cells. Did I mention he paid money for this script?

We ask why the original writer isn't doing the rewrite. We're told that the writer is completely insane and impossible to work with. We politely probe how this script sale happened. Turns out that the exec lost a bidding war for another property and this was the first script he saw with the same premise.

I did mention that he paid money for this script right? Oh, and that he didn't buy any of our scripts - the original ideas that he liked from the non-bat shit crazy writers?

That's show business.

How fast they grow!

My baby girl has suddenly become a teenager. Her face is covered in acne and she's developing a real attitude. She's taken to flipping me the bird constantly. I guess it's appropriate because she is 16...days old. How time flies.

Although I won't be posting a picture of her with her poor red face, I have taken several that will come in handy when she starts dating. Oh, let the humiliation by mom begin!

I defy you to not fall in love!

Can you believe the lips on this kid? Stand back, Brangelina. I realize most parents think their baby is the most beautiful creature on earth but prove me wrong!

Don't hate me...

Pregnancy sucked for me. I threw up nearly every meal the entire 10 months. The acid reflux was so bad that I had to give up bending from the waist -- not to mention anything with tomatoes, citrus fruits or chocolate. About the only things I could eat were granola bars and pineapple, funnily enough, making my child's Hawaiian middle name even more appropriate.

But all the suffering has paid off. The baby girl is 2 weeks old today and I'm already back in my pre-pregnancy jeans. I'm actually only 8 pounds over pre-pregnancy weight as of today and 5 of that has to be my massive boobs. New mothers everywhere want to murder me.

All I can say is...I wanted to kill all of the pregnant women who told me how much they LOVED being pregnant and how GREAT they felt while I barfed in the trash can next to them. HA! Now it's my turn. Suck it!

Hollywood Pitch Meeting Catch-22

So I promised to talk about screenwriting as well. Since I'm on hiatus from projects for a few weeks, I'll have to relay some old stories. The first is from one of the first pitch meetings my writing partner and I went on.

We show up bright and early for the meeting and hang out on the studio lot until just before we're due - god forbid you show up early and look desperate. We take the water that's offered right away, because otherwise, you'll be asked 5 times if you want water.

We're ushered into the inner sanctum of the high powered executive. Small talk ensues, then we launch into our adult-themed comedy pitch. Bear in mind that the executive has already been pitched this adult-themed comedy idea by our manager and agreed to meet with us based on the idea.

He lets us get through the entire pitch, then asks us who we see as starring in it. We've prepared for this, so we rattle off the name of one of the best known comic actors.

His response? "He wouldn't do a movie like this. Not any more."

We go for a lesser known comedian. "That would be slumming for him."

How about TV actor? "Can't open a movie."

At this point, we begin to feel like the executive is enjoying our desperate tap dancing a little too much. So we say, "Well, who do you see in it?"

"Have you thought about Dakota Fanning?"

"Um...child star Dakota Fanning? Like 11-year-old Dakota Fanning?"

"Yeah, she's really hot right now."

"Ok. But the lead character is a man undergoing a series of sexual experiences."

"Yeah, but you can change that."

"Ok. Sure. I suppose."

After the meeting, the exec called our manager to tell her how much he liked us but that our idea had been done to death. He'd already been pitched a bunch of coming of age stories for Dakota Fanning.

Sigh.

I'll kill you dead

I was watching the news the other day and there was footage of yet another police chase. The fleeing car ended up going the wrong way down an offramp and ramming a car with a woman and her baby. As the police pull up and jump out guns drawn, the woman exits her car and attempts to kick the crap out of the suspect.

And I completely understood.

As we drove our 2-day-old baby girl home from the hospital, some jackass in a huge truck was tailgating us, then whipped around us to pass. Now, keep in mind that we were right on the tail of the car in front of us. Typical LA driving that I've seen a million times.

Only this time, I felt a surge of rage boil up from the very depths of my being. As we pulled up next to the truck at a red light, I had to actually restrain myself from getting out and punching the guy in the head.

I suddenly realized what people mean when they say they'd kill for their kids. I've become a mom cliche. Look at my kid funny and I'll kill you dead.

Baby Girl is one week old

I never thought I'd have a baby. I'm not exactly the motherly type. Babies actually scared me. Around people who had babies, I was supremely uncomfortable -- afraid that I would do or say something to scar that kid for life. I didn't coo over babies or squeal over tiny baby outfits. Even when I met the *PMMD (Perfect Man o' My Dreams), I didn't think I could do it. Having a tiny helpless creature dependent on me? [shudder]

When I was three months pregnant and hadn't told anyone about it yet, somehow the subject of babies came up while I was talking with a friend. My friend looked at me and said, "Yeah, but you're never going to have kids, right? You don't even like them." I started laughing and had to admit that yes, although I didn't like kids, I was about to have one of my own. She almost fell off her chair.

And now here she is -- the most perfect creature in the world. And all I can do is screw it up from here.

Supermodel sporting her Uggs

Why is it that things I find so abhorent on adults are so damn cute when you put them on a baby?
She's so L.A.!

Who IS this person?

Yes, that's right. I've finally broken down and created my own blog. This way, my friends can find out what I'm up to without being subjected to an update on how many times my beautiful daughter pooped today. As if anyone who doesn't know me will be reading this, but I'm a screenwriter in Hollywood who recently had my life changed with the birth of my incredibly delicious baby girl. This blog will follow my adventures in the jungles of Hollywood mixed with adventures in the jungles of child rearing. Not sure which is more vicious at the moment but both seem to be filled with people who think their opinion of your creation is the only right one. Since the baby girl is brand new and the screenwriting is old hat, I may have trouble balancing the two, but I'll work on that.