"Have you ever traveled before?"

...asked the nice lady who essentially helped me and my 100 lbs of luggage jump the turnstile in the subway. We set off an alarm- but let me back up...

It's exactly a week since I returned to LA from Sydney, and I'm back on the road for Phase 2 of The Point: "Everything I've always wanted to do..."

This last week all I could do was inwardly bitch and outwardly sigh loudly about being in LA. There are a million reasons why, but writing the previous sentence all but spelled it out. LA isn't what I want to do, it's what I have to do: bills, rent, repairs, driving, health insurance, blah, blah, blah... I'm aware that the whole world has to deal with all of this, everywhere, all the time; but for the moment I'm content to run away from responsibility, having just left a job where I ate, slept, peed, pooped, shaved, texted, drove, fed, jumping-jacked, etc responsibility 24/7. So run away, I have... to New York!

Okay, Brooklyn.

As I've written before, I'm here to write- in the grand sense, but also literal, as I sit here in my new bedroom in Williamsburg. I'm here to write, but I'm also fulfilling another prong of "everything I've always wanted to do."

I first visited NYC just under 4 years ago -Thanksgiving 2008 - but I had wanted to live here for years before, for no good reason other than I just wanted to. It was intense love at first sight that first trip and each trip since. And living in New York became an active dream- when the time was right, when I had the money, when my boss got a movie here, when I sold a script, when I could stop making excuses for why I couldn't do what I wanted. Now is that time.

I'm not here for nearly as long as I would prefer- holidays are taking me back to LA and then back to Texas after that, but as my genius mother likes to remind me: "You never know, anything can happen if you're open to it."

I'm open to it.

(And that's such a nice note to end on, screw anything else I was going to say. I'm here, and I'm happy.)


bonus!! new roomie, Blue

yay!





"I'd Magic Mike the shit outta those pants..."

1st bestie night at Flinders!

...actually came out of Stella's mouth at dinner about something somewhere sometime. Instant classic.

So I'm home. It sucks.

1st view of Bondi

I'm at a phase in my relationship with LA that I get to in most of my long term relationships- bored and bugged. This did not make it any easier to leave Sydney- but I did, in spite of everyone I knew in Sydney encouraging me to do the opposite.

"You should stay!"
"Why don't you change your ticket?"
"Just move here already."

The only text I had when I landed at LAX?
"You should have stayed."


sleepy Hal



Sydney Football Stadium

The truth is I would have stayed until Stella's movie was over and I was forced to return, but I've already committed to writing and living in New York until Thanksgiving. Yeah, I can write anywhere, but I can only live in New York in New York and since that's been a dream of mine for years and years, I'm insanely looking forward to it.

Its the necessary gap-week in LA that's a bummer. My only consolation is I'm making super valuable use of my time here to get what's left of my life together and organized, since I left with everything half-finished three weeks ago including my job. Whine. Whatever.


this is how you know its
a good hostel

Anyway when I travel I like to reflect on stuff along the way and after the fact, so here's what I got:

- I stink in Australia. I never went through the BO phase when I was growing up, so (overshare alert) deodorant isn't a given automatic for me. I forget all the time. I don't know if it was the climate or the chemistry of the air or that I'm finally going through the last phase of puberty, but I got to smelling homeless-minus-the-pee often. I now try to be better about remembering deods, just in case it is a late bloomer thing (awesome.).

a night at Circular Quay

- If the UK is the middle-aged parent and the US is the snotty teenager, Australia is the badass nine-year-old. Young enough to be fearless and savor everything, not too young so that you can't relate. Old enough to be aware, but not old enough to have attitude. People here throw themselves into life with enthusiasm for everything- drinking til it counts, dancing til it hurts and connecting like it matters (Hey LA, it does.).
There is a lack of self-consciousness that makes everyone here drop dead sexy. One of my favorite things about our favorite bar (yay Flinders!) was the dance floor. It was a mess of goofy dancing, making out, sloshing drinks, taking pictures, shouting conversations, more wild dancing, more kissing, and more wet clothes all to obscure oldies and rap. It was Heaven. It was Australia.


still my fav morning in Australia

- I love drugs. Ambien to be specific. It works so well. It's the best pill since, well, The Pill.

- Australian guys are the most charming men on the planet. Like, movie charming. Like, it sounds like bullshit except you keep talking to them and actually find them to be genuinely nice. They have game for miles and it's not just the accent. Never once did I feel a bored LA hipster vibe or a bored industry vibe. Men approached us all the time. Men talked to us all the time. Men danced with us all the time.
I'd actually like to arrange an exchange program between LA & Sydney-- we get hot, charming Aussie men and our guys can have the gorgeous, kickass Aussie women (because they are. And nice, unless they're dancing. Then they hit you with their giant purses). Everyone wins!

- People here care about who you are, not what you do. When I talked to people, it wasn't until deep into the conversation, if at all, that my job came up.

hell yeah, Sydney

- I've mentioned the trust thing before. Australia is like my parents in this sense- they always trusted me to make the right decisions and behave myself so I had few written-in-stone rules. I'm not sure, but I feel like I was a better behaved kid because of it. I found example after example of that as I walked around- the weird half railing on the pier, the lack of guard rails near most bodies of water, the slot machine warnings.
Not that it's chaos, there is a definite police presence here, but they were like the cool parents at the party that walked thru twice and would rather you drink under their roof and spend the night than have you lie and sneak out and get wasted where they couldn't see you.


awesome Asian market

- To carry the My Parents Analogy one step further- the times I did misbehave (all four times- no, really FOUR times), I was jail-grounded like no other kid on the planet with no time off for good behavior (Mama, remember the time I was grounded from November to Prom of my senior year of high school? It was awesome...). I've heard its similar here.
I looked it up, and Australia's drinking and driving laws are far more strict than ours with a lower legal drunk cut-off (incidentally, .05 to our .08 with fines and license suspension minimums for a first time offender starting at our maximums)- and I can't say I disagree.

- I love grocery stores. I found myself ducking into every grocery store I could find just to browse. I don't do that in America, just foreign countries. I love all the unfamiliar food and packaging- especially because we were in Koreatown on the fringe of Chinatown, most of the markets were Asian markets therefore they had all matter of mystery veggies, mystery meat, mystery canned sodas, etc. And kimchi!


bestie & a trifle

- Stella is the best best friend in the whole world. The morning I left we hugged and cried, and I composed this long thing in my head about every way she is the best person I know and every reason I love her. I'll spare you the details- not because they're yada, yada, yada but because they're mine and I'm precious about them. Those of you who know her, know what I'm talking about.

home away from home

- I'm capable of anything. That I committed to a writing schedule I previously thought was next to impossible and accomplished my goal of completing a script in less than three weeks reminds me of that. Oh, and turned a new city inside out at the same time. Go, me!

- Homeland and kimchi are amazing together. This has nothing to do with Australia other than its the only show Stella and I watched and the only food we ever had in the house.

Until we meet again, Australia...

 

G'day!

Where to begin? Ok, let's start with I'M EXHAUSTED. And I'll back up from there.
This blog was supposed to chronicle my misadventures, etc of being on location with this amazing job I got 15 months ago (hence the name). Well, it turns out I worked so much I had only a little time to do incredible, fantastic, amazingly fun and envy-inspiring things, and once I did them I was WAY too tired to write about them. So I Facebooked everything instead of writing much of ANYTHING, and everyone thought everything was very awesome, which it was, so I guess: Mission Accomplished.
But the point was to write. Actually, my entire point in my life is to write. Which lead me to the ultimate decision to quit my amazing job - because amazing or not, if I'm not doing what I was made to do, why do anything? (...and then Bianca puts on a beret and a scarf, lights a cigarette and stares out the window for 4 days. Deep... like I said, I'm exhausted. And that can make me sorta weird and filterless. Enjoy!)
It wasn't that dramatic. But you can only have so many moments of clarity before you start to feel like a grand idiot to stay in a situation that, though very lovely, comfortable and secure, does not work for you anymore. So I left my steady paycheck, brilliant and supportive boss, and the comforts of home to do this:
Everything I've always wanted to do.
And when I put it out there like that and get both excited and choked-up at the same time, I have no doubt I made the perfect decision.
All of the above landed me in Sydney two hours ago. And now here I sit in my best friend Stella's apartment, writing and eating an entire package of her sweet biscuits (think cookies) while she works all day.
Australia has been a travel fantasy ever since I got my first passport. When Stella booked a movie here, we had the whole "You should totally come!" "Yes, I'm totally visiting!!" conversation that always happens when a friend gets a cool location, but this time it resonated. A free place to stay with my very best friend in a city I've been dying to travel to for 15 years is hard to pass up- but what about my job that I had no intention of leaving until I had put in two solid years because two years sounds better than one? (Please re-read previous paragraphs for answer if necessary.)
I'm so happy to be here for so many reasons- some glaringly obvious (I heard the dudes are awesome.), some incredibly personal (so I'm not saying what they are)- and I'm committed to honoring my decision to create the life I want by making every moment worthwhile; I'm thrilled to have the opportunity once again to share those moments with all of you.
This afternoon those moments- Jesus. It's not even 10am here...
Today, those moments will probably amount to not much more than finding a grocery store to replace Stella's biscuits, napping, and maybe hitting the gym. After 15 months of being on-call non-stop for work and getting no more than 12 hrs of sleep in the 4 days leading up to my trip, the wall that I've slammed into is a dense, unforgiving concrete and has knocked me on my ass. It may not sound like much because these are chores most of us do pretty often, but right now its everything I want to do.
So again: Mission Accomplished.

My first look at Australia from the plane at dawn...


Super Sunday

I sat, rapt, and just absorbed. I made an eye contact/smile connection with one of them- thank you, 2nd row seats. I almost talked to him afterward, but I couldn't think of anything to say. They made me giddy, they inspired me, they made me forget about everything but what I love - writing.

I just got home from a panel of this year's Oscar nominated writers. Two hours of moderator-lead discussion about their inspiration, their challenges, their triumphs, and their art. Basically two hours of heaven for me.

Writing has moved from being a dream of mine to determining my life. If I write, it's a good day. If I don't write, I feel broken and wrong. It's actually not a comfortable space to inhabit; honestly its a pain in the ass- like a nagging itch I can't reach or that tapeworm feeling of being hungry all the time. The urge is impossible to satisfy unless I'm physically typing words. The feeling is so volatile I'm afraid it's just a crush. I remember how devoted I was to Kirk Cameron and the color lavender when I was in fifth grade, and now I wouldn't touch either with gloves on. The passion I felt for Kirk and pastels is similar to the way I feel about writing, except times a billion.

That's why it was especially magical to sit and listen to some of my present heros talk about their craft. Aaron Sorkin on how Mark Zuckerburg's original blog post propelled him. David Seidler on writing The King's Speech as a play because he was having trouble with his second act. I just rewatched Toy Story 3 last weekend and sobbed- Michael Arndt sat directly in front of me. I wanted to thank him for moving me to tears, but it seemed so trite and yet as I lingered after the panel I heard other audience members speak the words I was thinking. Why don't I speak up?, I thought. It's already been said, Igor informs me.

The best part of the evening was the proximity. Not just that we scored VIP seats (foreshadowing), but the feeling that the working writers in front of me weren't any different than I am. It's like that feeling you have when you're a high school freshman. You see the seniors with their letter jackets and their cars and their college applications and you know someday you'll be right where they are.