Latest Posts

SNAPSHOTS

Bits & Pieces

Photo by Indy

So I think it's safe to say we're more or less settled in now. I know where the closest Trader Joe's is; our son is happily enrolled in summer camp; we have an account at the dry cleaner. There are still a bunch of boxes left to be unpacked, but that's mostly because I have to wait for the renovations we're in the middle of to be finished before I have anywhere to put the rest of our things. We even have a couple of playdates with potential new friends on the horizon (always scary, this making-of-new-friends-in-a-new-town thing, but I did it once before, and it turned out pretty great, so).

And so I thought I'd just share a few snapshots that we've taken over the past couple of weeks; just some bits and pieces of what we've been up to.

Decor

A La Plage

Photo by Indy

Wearing: 1.State Midi Skirt & Crop Top; Steve Madden Heels

Our dining room was a surprise to me. It's about six times larger than any dining room I've had ever before in my life - almost strangely large, given that the house itself is not especially massive - and when we first loaded our furniture in I had no idea what to do with it, because our dining room table, as much as I love it, looked like doll furniture. We have a massive dining room table in our near future, but in the meantime I decided to make the dining room feel a little less cavernous and empty by creating a sidebar area next to the table.

Recipes

Dirty Drink

drink lemon tequila salt squirt

Oh, man, this is a dirty drink. Or, rather...not the drink itself, but the name I came up with for it. I totally did not mean it to mean what it means, but then someone at our Fourth of July party asked me what the drink I was serving was called, and this just seemed like the obvious answer, and then it was out of my mouth and there was no taking it back.

"Oh, this?" I said. "It's called a Salty Squirt."

Ew, I know. Go yell at the people who named the most delicious soda in the world "Squirt."

My Looks

Live In This

| Carmel, California |

You know how there are certain things in your closet that you really love, but just never wear for whatever reason? For me, it was always hats: I would find one, and love it, and buy it, and then never wear it because every time I put it on I felt like I was wearing a big sign saying HELLO I AM THAT GIRL WEARING THE HAT.

And then one day I realized: I totally don't care if I'm that girl wearing the hat.

Entertaining

Party In The Sun

Back when I lived in Los Angeles, I entertained constantly. And then, somewhere along the way, I stopped being all that interested in hosting parties; it was just so stressful. And then I moved out to the Bay Area and realized:

Oh. I totally love entertaining. I just need it to be all chilled-out and California-style.

The thing about summertime outdoor entertaining is that it’s just so simple, if you let it be. All you have to do is keep your refrigerator stocked with a few key items – fresh fruit, potatoes, hamburger meat, chips and salsa, and a cold bottle or three of Pinot Grigio - and you're good.

My Looks

The Dead

grateful dead vintage shirt

Foster's Freeze (San Jose, CA)

I've never been a Grateful Dead fan. Not because I don't like the music...because I know exactly nothing about it. I'm fairly certain that my high school boyfriend was into them, but he was also into Phish, and I apparently managed to tune out every single thing about his musical taste for the duration of our relationship (the one Phish concert he succeeded in dragging me to was less-than-successful, as what I did the moment I arrived was curl up on top of a table and fall asleep).

In short: if you told me to sing a Grateful Dead song for you on pain of death, I would be dead.

Style

Summer In The City

Nail Polish / Romper / Sunglasses / Sunscreen

Beach Hair / Lip Gloss / Cuff / Clutch / Sandals

It's getting on towards that part of the summer where you'd really rather be naked, please, because anything at all on your skin feels like sitting in a bath of chili peppers. The heat where we are is nice and dry, so it's not too bad -- but oh, do I ever remember what it felt like to be wandering the city in July, going down into subways filled with air that basically feels like boiling cement. You can try all you like to look chic and pulled-together when you leave your apartment in the morning...but by the time you get wherever it is you are going, you will have melted, and your clothing will have melted with you.

The best way to combat this misery: fuss with yourself as little as possible, because all fuss does is get heat excited about just how much it's about to take down all your valiant efforts. Lightweight jewelry; barely-there clothing; as little makeup and hairstyling as you can stand (seriously: my number one Summer Rule is do not wrestle with your hair, because the humidity will win). Easy, breezy, et cetera.

DIARY

Back In The Day

Back in the day, I wrote a whole bunch of movies and TV show pilots. It's a byproduct of being an actor; you spend your days reading script after script after script, and at some point you start thinking to yourself: "Dude. I could TOTALLY do this." And so you pick up a copy of Final Draft and start tapping away on your keyboard, and sometimes what comes out is an extremely unfortunate (but not autobiographical at all, oh no no) tale of a girl who moves to Los Angeles to be an actress and ends up wildly disillusioned (oh yes; it was as bad as it sounds). And then sometimes you end up with is something that's actually sort of...okay.

I've written a lot of stuff over the years, but I still think that one of my favorite things that I've ever written is a script that I wrote for a college course I took on the 1950s, and that was read by exactly two people: my professor and Kendrick (the latter only because he found a copy of it at some point and asked to read it). It's a coming-of-age story (because that tends to be what people who are still coming of age themselves write), but it's - shockingly, I know - not about me, which is a bit of an achievement in and of itself.

Something you learn very early on in Hollywood is that every script has to have a "log line" - a punchy, easily-digestible, 1-2 sentence explanation of what, exactly, the film is about (or what, exactly, you think will make people want to pay money for said film). So Armageddon, for example, could be "Die Hard meets Independence Day, with asteroids." Pirahna 3D would be...well, actually in that case the title pretty much does the trick. My script, Meridian Planet, was The Wonder Years, but with a girl.