The Year of the Dog

This week marks the one year anniversary of Jasper's (known to his friends as Jasper J. Jingles) coming to live in my house with me. Jasper has become my companion, buddy and exercise partner. In the past year, I've grabbed coffee with Jasper more than with any of my other friends. He's really been there for me during this transitional time in my life. He's a really convenient buddy because he always has time for me and he doesn't really have that many other friends so he gives me a lot of attention. I really love him. I think he's great.

Did I mention that Jasper is a dog? He is. He's a dog.

But that doesn't matter. He's my dog, and I chose him from a sea of other possible dogs that needed adopting. It is a little like dating, right? (Go with me on this; at least I'm not calling him my child, I'm just calling him my boyfriend...that's better, right???) In this day and age, it seems more and more difficult to meet new people to potentially date outside the realm of online dating. I'm not in school anymore, and my job as a writer leaves me alone at the computer writing scripts about girls who are dating a lot more than I am. But occasionally a friend will set me up with a lovely young man that she knows/works with/never dated herself, etc. We've all probably done this. I think it's called...dating. You go to a bar or restaurant with the other person, you see if there's a connection, and then you decide if you're going to take the other person home with you and let them sit on your furniture and ultimately sleep in your bed. Right? Adopting a dog was kind of the same. I (well, WE but we don't need to talk about the EX right now) went and met quite a few dogs. There's a rescue shelter in Hollywood that doubles as a pet supply store and lets the dogs run lose all over the store. It's so much fun, kind of like a doggie Happy Hour. You walk around, casually, saying "hi", feeling "people" out, and then you see a dog that you might like. OR, in my case, the owner of the shop/rescue shelter interviews you and finds out what you're looking for in your dog and then sets you up with a dog that might work. He acts like the friend who sets you up on the blind date. Then you go on the "blind date" with the dog. This looks like a play session in the shop, and then a walk around the neighborhood, just the two of you.

On these walks you learn a lot about the dog. That they're nervous, or aggressive. That they're hyper or aloof. I found all the dogs I "dated" to be one or another or a combo of these traits and so ultimately I realized that they were not the "one" for me, however lonely I was feeling or however much I wanted them to be.

And then I met Jasper. I saw him first on a website. He's not gorgeous, he's got bad teeth and weird hair, but I didn't care! He had that "special something" that I was looking for. He was laid back and mellow, and loving and cuddly, and he didn't shed. Isn't this what we're all looking for? When we met, sparks flew. He was so sweet and caring and excited to meet me, I knew this would work. And it has. And like every new relationship, there's been some bumps. He had secrets, and baggage (how could be not? He was born in a pile of trash.) He didn't tell me right away that he would have terrible leash aggression, and that he might chew on my iPhone headphones if I left them on the bed. He never mentioned that he loves to bark at the TV whenever anyone on the screen yells even a little, or that TV dogs were his worst and most hated enemy. But I'm sure he doesn't love that I often shower and dress and put my make-up on ALL before I take him out in morning. (He actually doesn't seem to care about that. He just sleeps.) We're doing quite well. Thanks for asking.

SO the dog dating thing worked out quite well. The men dating thing is proving more difficult. How could I be so good at finding the perfect dog, but not the perfect man, you ask? Not sure. As I mentioned, I've been on some dates, and the dates have all gone...fine. But that's it...just fine. (That's not entirely true, I've been on one or two that did not go fine. Where thoughts like "I can't believe I shaved my legs for this" and "I'd much rather be home watching GIRLS with Jasper than this" kept floating through my head.) But mostly the dates have been fine/good/nice. But nothing special. And that is not to say that these guys aren't special. They DO NOT have aggression issues, or are aloof, or hyper, or nervous. They have all been very nice young men. They just, maybe, didn't have that "special something." Or maybe I don't. Maybe choosing Jasper was so easy because I was open and ready and looking for some doggie love. Or maybe it was just meant to be. And, I hope, my next relationship with feel that way too, sparks and all. Until then, I have Jasper, a borrowed HBOGO account from my sister and lots of wine. I think I'm gonna be just fine.

Holiday Hangover and Adrienne Harris's Diary

Not long ago, after a night of Holiday Partying that was both really fun and full of some (probably) really bad decisions, I arrived home very late/very early. Crawling into my bed, as the sun rose silently in the East I smiled to myself and patted myself on the back, congratulating myself on all the fun I'd had. "See, isn't being single and unencumbered by responsibility fun!?" I said to myself as I drifted off to sleep...

My mid-day wake up call was a real slap in the face. Literally. Not only did I awake to a roaring hangover, to contact lenses dried tight to my eyeballs and a bedroom floor full of last nights party attire, but also to my little dog, Jasper, literally slapping me in the face with his paw, informing me that he, like all creatures I know, needed to pee, eat and be loved. The rest of the day was spent in recovery and preparation for another busy/terrible night at work. It was a hell of a way to spend one's Christmas Eve.

Then Christmas day arrived, as it does every year, bright and early on the 25th of December. I've never spent a Christmas alone before. It wasn't so bad. There were still presents to open and coffee to drink. I listened to Christmas music and ate my family's traditional Christmas Breakfast item, a cinnamon bun, I just simply did these things by myself. I then headed over to a FWB's house for Christmas luncheon. I arrived at the party at 2:00 with my pot luck contributions and celebrated the Holiday with three married couples and their babies. If you know me, this shouldn't surprise you. It didn't surprise me. What did surprise me was how I felt about it after. Blue. Even after such a great day, I still felt a little blue. But comically so, in the manner of Bridget Jones. In fact, I felt the undeniable desire to eat the entire contents of my fridge and lie on my couch watching Fatal Attraction with a bottle of wine for company and just generally feel very sorry for myself. Instead, I went to my neighbors who had family visiting from London and spent the rest of the evening drinking and laughing with them. A much better choice than lying on my couch, eating and drinking alone.

Everyone tells you that the Holidays are hard. They are hard if you are with your loved ones because of the stress of travel, cooking, gift giving and money spending. And they are hard if you are NOT with your loved ones because of the stress of loneliness, shipping, and making New Year's Eve plans. No matter how you play your Holiday, all roads lead to HARD. But we do it every year. Even Bridget Jones goes to her mother's annual Turkey Curry Buffet every year, even though it is always hard, and she never has any fun.

I've been a little obsessed with Bridget Jones lately. My parents giving me a new diary for Christmas sure didn't help. She's not a bad role model for a gal like me to have, but she's probably not the best one either. She's likable, as (I hope) am I. Like me, she has a job that she tolerates, but doesn't love. She has a few really great friends who are single and some lovely "Smug Marrieds" as do I. (Sorry married friends, you're not really smug, I swear.) She is eager to fall in love, but totally unsure of how to do it. In some ways I am exactly like her, except that I don't have a sexy british accent and I'm not blond. Dammit! Bloody Hell! She makes a lot of mistakes too, though. She wears inappropriate clothing to work, she sleeps with her boss and she can't cook! But she's a great role model, even for an American Brunette like myself, because in one year of her life, with the help of a diary and friends and an obsessive monitoring of her weight and cigarette/alcohol consumption she manages to have a pretty fantastic time, full of hilarity, parties, and complete with a new better job and a sexy lawyer boyfriend (who she meets at the Turkey Curry Buffet. Ha!)

So with my goals for 2013 all set up, and a new diary in hand (let's face it, I'm a grown up, American woman, I call it a journal) I feel ready to face the new year. So many great things are going to happen next year. I can think of at least 3 (but probably more) friends who are having babies. There's bound to be at least a couple of marriages (although I am currently running out of single friends so at least that number will have to dwindle.) And if all goes to plan I will get my dream job, make my first feature film, and finish the other 5 screenplays that I'm currently writing, and still have time to visit with all of my FWBs who's Holiday Cards are all over my fire place. And if there's a little time left over, and someone throws a Turkey Curry Buffet...well, who knows what could happen. Watch out Ms. Jones. I've got my diary, and I'm not afraid to use it.

L.A. calling NYC

As we all know, recently a weather disaster called Hurricane Sandy rocked the East Coast.  New York City was devastated and my old stomping ground of the East Village was drowned. I know this because I read about it, I watched news footage, I talked to friends on the phone and I looked at people's pictures on Facebook. I wasn't there...but I kind of wish that I had been.

I was in New York City for most of the major events that the city has survived over the past decade or so. I was there on 9/11. I watched the second tower fall and the parade of ash covered Wall Streeters march uptown. I was there for the blackout and the transit strike and the blizzard that shut everything down for days and made the streets silent. It was devastating and difficult, but also it was uniting, just like Sandy seemed to be for my friends that live there now. People's Facebook posts read "We have power, and water and food. Come uptown and be safe and warm." and "Power's back on here, and I'm cooking chili. Everyone is welcome." New Yorkers have an amazing way of turning tragedy into a party, and if that sounds like I'm making light of the subject, then forgive me. I simply mean, well done, New Yorkers...and I really miss you guys.

I often fantasize about moving back to New York now that I am single. L.A., all though it is sunny, does not seem to work for my new Sexy Single Life (S.S.L.) as well as I would have hoped. You don't meet people out walking the dog in L.A. I mostly pass other people's gardeners as Jasper and I roam out suburban neighborhood.  And the gardeners don't want to talk to me. They are busy gardening, for Christ sake. They don't have time to hear about the passing thoughts of a writer who mostly thinks about her dog and can't keep a plant alive.

New York seems like the perfect place for a lonely person. There are friends who meet for drinks after work, and cab drivers, and bartenders, and coffee carts, and park benches. Now, I know what you're going to say, "There are all of those things and people in L.A. too, Adrienne," but I am telling you, it is not the same! You have to drive to those park benches and add extra time for traffic, and pay for parking. Don't get me wrong, there are lots of things I love about L.A. as well, I'm just missing NYC at the moment.

My recent obsession with my S.S.L. taking place in New York is probably because my two S.S.Lifestyle role models lived in New York...Carrie Bradshaw and Liz Lemon. Two awesome writers looking for love and the path to "having it all" in the city that never sleeps. Granted, my S.S.L. is a little more Liz Lemon than it is Carrie Bradshaw. It's more writing late night and frozen pizzas in front of the tv, than Cosmos at the hot new fusion restaurant and Mr. Big, but the location is the same. No drunk driving, no paying for parking, and a revolving door of new and interesting people at all times. I also realize that they were/are characters on scripted television shows but go with me on this. Could Liz or Carrie have hacked it in L.A.? Probably not. L.A. is not for the lonely.  I'm not packing my bags just yet, but it's nice to think about the escape, even if there are hurricanes and snow storms standing in my way.

In other news, I was recently asked by a FWB (friend with baby) to be the back up mom to the back up mom to her 7 month old son, Eli, in case something were to happen to her and her husband. My sister, Natalie, and her husband were named Eli's legal guardians in case of such a tragic event, but if something happens to Natalie and hubby too, well then Eli is all mine. A lot of really bad, narly stuff would have to happen first, but it's still an honor to be nominated. So,  I guess, I can have it all, even in L.A.

The EX Factor

I will admit that in the past I have always disliked when people talked about their exs. I often found myself struggling to not roll my eyes when a co-worker said "my ex and I went there all the time." Or a friend said, "my ex is a Leo, so you can guess how that turned out." I always wondered, why are these people talking so much about people who are not in their lives anymore? It's not as though they were fondly reminiscing about a deceased pet or an old school mate. No, they were constantly rehashing the nuances of a failed relationship. Why? "Let it go," I would think. But now I get it. It is difficult to cut out a huge piece of your history from your daily thought process. You can walk around your house and remove all the pictures of you both when you were happy from your walls and counter tops and replace them with pictures of friends and deceased pets, but is harder to eliminate the dreaded ex's name from your stories, experiences and verbal history. You can't cut out their presence in your past experiences the way you can cut their head out of photographs. So to all those friends and co-workers who I might have rolled my eyes at (you don't know who you are), I'm sorry. I get it now, and I'm sorry.

I miss my ex-boyfriend, and since most of my memories of him and our time together are positive, he still pops up in so many of my anecdotal stories. At work, at coffee, on the phone, at the grocery store, (as I purchase another pint of ice-cream) I have to fight the urge to say, "Oh, Eric would love that." Or, "Oh, Eric DOES love that." BUT, I am doing better. As the weeks crawl by and I go to sleep and wake up alone it gets easier, just like everyone promised it would. Even Jasper (the dog) is doing better. He went through his own adjustment period after the sudden departure of his second owner. At first, he really struggled. He cried and chewed on the furniture and my shoes. He peed on the carpet...twice! When I would return home he jumped all over me and crawled on top of me. He stared into my eyes, his ears back, his tail down, his eyes wide and sad as if to say "I miss him, Adrienne! What did we do to make him leave us like this???" And I would scream, "I miss him too, Jasper! I get it! I want to pee on the carpet too, but we have to be more positive! We have to take walks and write in our journals. We can't just chew on furniture and pee on the carpet all day. This isn't healthy!"

But Jasper and his depression and anxiety have helped pull me through. I can't stay in bed all day like I sometimes want to because he makes me get up and take him out. He ensures that I get exercise and fresh air. It is delightful to come home to something that is SOOO happy to see you. And he gets me out of the house without him too. There have been a few times where I have spent an extra hour at the coffee shop writing and reading just to have an extra hour away from his needy sad eyes. That sounds bad, but look on the bright side. I got more work done!

So life goes on just like everyone promised it would, and I've started to return to my frequent visits with my friends with babies and have learned about two more friends who will join this club of mine in the coming months. I feel my life returning to normal. I feel my heart as it fills with love for these friends and these babies, I am constantly inspired by these amazing moms and dads who remind me of the many goals I want reach in my life (becoming a parent being only one of them) and I would like to thank all of my friends (with and without babies) for their love and support lately. I promise to return to posting about hilarious little kids and not about broken hearts soon. Until then, Jasper and I soldier on. Keeping our cool in this summer heat wave, trying desperately to keep it together, stay positive and above all else, not chew on the furniture.

Breaking Bad/Break-up Bad

There are a few reasons that it has been so long since my last blog post. The first is laziness/busy schedule. The second is a mild case of writers block that has involved several starts and abandonments of recent post ideas. The third is trauma and grief. That is probably the biggest. For you see, gentle readers, my boyfriend and I have broken up after four and a half years and I am sad. We had a really great relationship, but at the end of the day it came down to one thing...babies. I want them. He, it turns out, does not.

To be fair to myself, I think it is much more complicated than the basic question of whether or not to procreate, but this blog lets me self analyze myself, and I don't think it would be kind to analyze him in this format, so the story we are going with is the basic "we loved each other, we just wanted different things."This is a safe and comfortable story that has no hero and no bad guy. And our love story has no hero and no bad guy so it works and we move forward in our separate lives with this story to use when someone asks. However, life is complicated, and love is complicated and relationships are hard work and the people that you love can surprise in the best and worst ways.

But life goes on. My days are different now. When I arrive home from work sore and tired there is no one there to hug me and rub my shoulders. I have to watch Breaking Bad by myself now, a show I never would have started watching if not for him, but is now too excellent to give up. I'm Jasper's sole guardian now, his sole dog walker, poop collector, belly rubber. It's been almost a month and I still sleep on "my side" of the bed. Somehow, little 12 pound Jasper takes up the other half.

I'm very sad and emotionally erratic and everyone tells me that this is normal. My mother explained that I will experience the stages of grief. Every day, a few times a day I cycle through the stages of grief, sometimes in different orders. DENIAL, ANGER, ICE CREAM EATING (DAIRY AND NON DAIRY),  WINE DRINKING, BARGAINING, DRUNK TEXTING, DEPRESSION, SOBBING TO FRIENDS, and finally, ACCEPTANCE. These are the official stages of grief. I looked them up. And sometimes a day that starts with me crying ends with me laughing and sometimes a day that starts with me laughing ends with an empty carton of Ben and Jerry's and a hangover, but that is all a part of loss, I suppose, and everyone says that I am doing really well.

The fact is that I loved my boyfriend. I still love him, very much, and if I learned anything from Sex and the City, sometimes the guy that doesn't seem right comes back in the last season and turns out to be THE GUY, so who knows what will happen in my future but I know that something will and it will feel better than I feel right now. And when I am not in the ANGER stage of grief, I am mostly nostalgic about all the great times we had together, because he really is a lovely guy (this usually leads to the DRUNK TEXTING, DEPRESSION AND SOBBING stages.) Basically, what I am trying to say is that I have no regrets (most of the time) and I hope he feels the same.

I read a quote recently that really struck me as appropriate and comforting. It read, "Sometimes you have to go all the way down a road to see where it leads, or where it ends." This may be the end of our road, but I am glad that I took the journey.

I am woman, hear me...

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about women. I think that the assumption is that most women think about men, and visa versa, but not me. At least, not lately.  No, lately, I've been thinking about women.

Dictionary.com defines "Woman" as: 1st, a female human being. 2nd, an adult female person, 3rd, a female attendant to a lady of rank, and 4th, A Wife. Merriam Webester's Dictionary definitions are roughly the same: female, servant, wife. Well, I only fit one of those definitions (two if I truly admit to myself that I am an adult) and there are times when I don't feel the least bit feminine, but at the end of the day, I am still a woman...always will be.

Thinking back, I have spent most of my formative years in environments that were heavily saturated in femalishness. Not necessarily womanhood, or femininity, and I don't want to say girlyness, but femalishness. I have only a sister, no brothers. I spent most of my youth in the art world (a pretty female dominated world at the grade-school level) and I went to an All Girls high school. I didn't play in the co-ed tee-ball league that my sister did, instead I took ballet class where we pretended we were fairies and lady bugs. I also didn't stick it out at the co-ed high school like my sister did, where the girls wore high heels to class and the boys were (in my opinion) mean and obnoxious.  Instead I transferred to a world of uniforms and female literature courses. I had a ball. I learned to call my fellow classmates "ladies" instead "guys" and we wore bows in our hair. Girls walked around holding hands and kissing each other hello and goodbye on the cheeks. However, instead of being consumed with thinking about boys and thinking about what boys thought of me, I replaced these thoughts with thoughts and concerns about girls. Not in a romantic or sexual way, but in every other way you can imagine. I wondered why certain girls do things the way they do, and I worried that a certain girl wouldn't think I was pretty/smart/cool enough to sit at her lunch table. In the drama department productions of Godspell, and Little Shop of Horrors, I played Jesus and Seymour. (Those are guys, in case you aren't familiar). We young ladies had relationship spats, coupling ups, break-ups and friend crushes. It didn't exactly look like an episode of Gossip Girl or (to date myself) Dawson's Creek, but it was all the same shit, the same drama, just with a same-sex cast, and very little sex (at least not in my graduate class. 10% of the graduate class behind me ended up to be lesbian or at least bi curious, so go figure.) So it is no wonder that now, as a woman, an adult female human being, I find myself still constantly thinking about women?

My yoga teacher practices what she calls a feminine lifestyle. She worships the moon and the lunar cycle. I'm pretty sure she's prays to a Goddess and not to a God, and she uses "round feminine poses" in her practice instead of "straight, linear, male poses." I am not sure if she is a mother, but she certainly seems to like mothers, and soon to be mothers. She speaks often about fertility, and our women's bodies natural purpose to give and receive life. We are vessels, we are round and soft and feminine in her class. I find it really relaxing and empowering, but I am never sure why. What if I never become a mother? Am I less of a woman then? My brain knows that this is a ridiculous question to ask, even of myself, but I do sometimes feel that even though my formative years were steeped in the feminine mystique, I am not sure how much of a woman I have truly become. According to my yoga teacher, being a woman is to be a soft, round, vessel of life. Well, I fight being soft and round by attending yoga class and feeling guilty about eating frozen yogurt. I want to be straight and flat and have a hard yoga body (maybe I'm in the wrong class.) And as for being a vessel of life, well...give me time, bitch, give me time.

Society seems to assign different characteristics to women. I can not fit myself into a Sex and City category of woman. I'm not a Carrie (I don't own a pair of Prada anything) or a Miranda (way too cynical and hardworking) and Samantha's and Charlotte's motivations for their actions are so far removed from my experiences that I always found them utterly un-relatable yet still entertaining. In life, in the media, in the public eye woman can be sexy, smart, powerful, sensitive, crazy, jealous, kind, nurturing, weak, strong, and can have trouble with spacial reasoning. Right? Does that about sum it up? Does that sound like anyone you know...or everyone you know???

Not to over do it on the whole dictionary.com thing but a synonym for woman is lady and some synonyms for lady are babe, and bitch. Well, shit. At least I've got those covered.

Practice Baby Part Two: Making Friends

Yesterday was Easter Sunday, but more importantly for my small household, it marked the 2 week anniversary of adopting our dog, Jasper. These past two weeks have been filled with the delights and challenges that, I assume, all new parents face. Again, I don't want to be one of those people that compares having a dog to having a child, but I'm about to so, get over it.

Like all new parents, (ugh, I'm doing it again) our lives have changed considerably in the last two weeks  solely because of the addition of this small creature. I am sleeping less, worrying more and Eric and I spend countless hours recounting to each other every adorable/funny/bad thing that Jasper did when the other person wasn't looking. It's always "Baby, baby, look at him. Oh my god he just did the cutest thing." Or, "Oh my God, you won't believe what Jasper did today. You would have died." Jasper follows us around the house like he can't bare to be away from us for a minute, and gazes into our eyes like we are the best things that have ever happened to him. When we have to leave him at home, he sleeps on the steps so he can see our front door out the window and know exactly when we are coming back so he can greet us at the door with excited kisses. If he weren't so cute, I would find him a terribly annoying dog, but since he's ours, I just find him precious. And did I mention that Eric loves him? And I mean LOVES him.

Being out in the World with a dog is also a relatively new experience for me. I've been out in the World with other people's dogs and other people's babies, but this is the first time that I feel a sense of pride and well being walking around with MY OWN DOG. Until he starts to bark at a random person or dog on the sidewalk and I am flooded with guilt and worry about what I am doing wrong, and how will I ever fix this monster I've created and how, oh God, how will I ever achieve my fantasy of doggie/baby play dates with my friends if my dog barks at random people and dogs on walks??? I wanted to achieve that neighborhood friendliness where we know all the other dog owners' and dogs' names, where we stop and chat about interesting things, maybe politics, music or film. Where some cool looking lady with a cool looking dog turns out to be the Jenji Kohan and hires me (because of my adorable dog, my quick wit and my remarkable writing skills) to write on the next several seasons of Weeds (I mean, it seems like they'll never cancel that show.) But so far there's a 50/50 chance that Jasper will bark and lunge at Jenji Kohan's hypothetical dog and then she will write both Jasper and I off as amateurs and never hire us.

I know that Jasper is just shy, and has anxiety (who doesn't these days) but this barking thing is a a problem, and I am handling it by reading a lot about behavioral issues, asking other dog owners what to do and having intimate talks with Jasper about his behavior. I think this seems like good parenting. I'm always looking out for good parenting examples. I recently had the opportunity to see a lot of good parenting from some cool Hollywood parents I had the opportunity to hang out near at a Easter Party this past Saturday. Notice, I didn't say, "hang out with" I said "hang out near." That is because at this particular party Eric and I were the only couple without at least one well dressed child and so NO ONE spoke to us. No one introduced themselves, no one asked how we knew the nice couple who were hosting the Easter Egg Hunt soiree and no one asked us what the hell we were doing there with out any kids of our own. Sure, my Hollywood social anxiety induced shyness didn't help much, but we were virtually invisible to the adults at this party, so we did what we usually do, we hung out with the kids. I did notice something interesting though, these parents at the party didn't talk to each other much either. They talked to their children, they talked to their spouses, and they talked to the party hosts, but most of the communicating with other adults was through the children. I'll give you an example. Allow me to set the scene.

EXT. GARDEN- LATE MORNING
Colorfully dressed children race around a lovely and expansive Hollywood Hills backyard, complete with outdoor living room space, walled in trampoline full of laughing children and trickling fountains. A well dressed guy in his early 40's, COOL HOLLYWOOD DAD, reclines on a birch lawn chair as his beautiful blond wife and baby sit next to him on the manicured lawn. A second man, SPENCER'S COOL HOLLYWOOD DAD, sits nearby, sipping a beer and talking with his son, SPENCER (6).
                                                                 
                                                                     SPENCER'S COOL HOLLYWOOD DAD
                                              Hey Spencer, what do you think of that baby there?
                       
                                                                     SPENCER
                                              He's cute.

                                                                     COOL HOLLYWOOD DAD
                                              Oh thanks. I think so too, but I'm biased. Hey, Spencer. How old are you?

                                                                     SPENCER
                                              I'm a six year old first grader. I'll be 7 soon.

                                                                     SPENCER'S COOL HOLLYWOOD DAD
                                              Wow, slow down, slow down. Stay 6 for now OK, bud.
   
                                                                     COOL HOLLYWOOD DAD
                                                                   (To his infant son)
                                              You too, buddy. Don't grow up too fast.

                    The two men drink and look around.
                                                                 
                                                                   COOL HOLLYWOOD DAD
                                                               (To his wife)
                                               Do you think we should get one of our boys off the trampoline?
                                               It's looking a little crowded.
                 

                                                   
                                                                  SPENCER'S COOL HOLLYWOOD DAD
                                                                 (To Spencer)
                                               Yeah, buddy. We'll wait a few minutes to trampoline it up. OK?
FADE OUT:

Clearly these guys wanted to talk to each other about how hard it is watching one's kids grow up, and how much you want them to stay precious and little forever. But something stopped them. Was it shyness? Were they suffering from Hollywood Social Anxiety too? And is this anxiety so powerful it stops fathers from talking, even about their kids? I think women are different. We can chat about anything, and talking soly about babies and kids feels like a reasonable thing when you are mom (I assume. I talk A LOT about them and I am not a mom, so....) so was this an odd phenomenon I was experiencing at this particular party, or is this how it is in certain parental circles?

I've always assumed that children, like dogs, were a great way to network. Wait, that sounds terrible. Not network maybe, (all though, I'm obviously hoping my cute dog will land me a writing job on Weeds) but a way to socialize and meet new people that are experiencing the same things as you. Isn't that really what Dog Parks and Mommy and me classes are really for? I never assumed this was any one's reason for having children (or dogs), but just an added bonus. You get to hang out with other cool parents and talk about your kids and your lives with your kids, etc. etc. But these people seemed so focused on their kids, they were ignoring all these potential friendships. Random childless couple (Eric and I) aside, they weren't talking to each other! Their peers! I not only felt left out and sorry for myself, but I felt sorry for every one else too, on this beautiful day in a beautiful home in a beautiful city. I mean, at least the food was good and the kids had a blast!

So as I head out today with Jasper, I am going to make an effort to say hi to people, Jasper's barking be damned. I will distract Jasper with chicken flavored treats in an attempt to trick him out of whatever social anxiety he seems to be feeling when we are out for a walk (a trick I learned from my sister, by way of Cesar Millan, the Dog Whisperer). I will encourage both of us to make friends. Hopefully, I won't need the chicken flavored treats though.