Slow down memories hall
I said, "Wait. Have I been seduced and forgotten?"
You said, "Baby, haven’t we all!"

New Radicals, "Crying Like A Church On Monday"
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There is an actor that's playing the role of Ron that's sitting there, struggling to figure out what his motivation is for this particular scene. He goes over the dialogue, precise, perhaps a little on the terse side, but ultimately it doesn't provide a vivid enough background for him to work with. Ron stands on a snow-covered train platform watching the engine slowly pull away. Schedules are followed, and within those constraints, people disembark, board, and depart again. It mixes emotional with mechanical in loud, coal-driven rhythms.

There is a train arriving, and no one emerges to greet him. There is a train leaving, and he is not on it. The vision outside his picture window is the same, always the same: a long palm tree grows in the front, a vigilant sentry over a quiet neighborhood. In the back, the long tendrils of chardonnay measure time in seasons: its vines reach out to the air like hands reaching out for hope or mercy.

This actor sits with the rest of the cast during a rundown, they of a superior caliber have mastered their lines, and this actor feels alone. They jostle, they kid. It's hard for the crowd to give ear to the anguish of a soul slowly fading. The actor gathers himself, hears the director yelling, and moves to take his place in the next scene.

The dinner party worked really well last night. It's nice to get back into the swing of things in the kitchen. I realize just how much food I made in preparation when I had to carry all those groceries back from Vons to the house. In my backpack. And on the bike's handlebars. Of my normal bike. But I think that cedar-smoked scallops and linguine in a savory merlot sauce works well with butternut squash soup, pecan and golden raisin salad, and appenzeller cheese works wonders with them all.

I arrived back at the house completely spent and decided to lounge on my futon in the backyard, a nice seventy degree Los Angeles summer greeting me. I started down my cell phone's Rolodex. Let's call them. Brian was in San Francisco. Carroll didn't call me back. Eddie finally called back this morning; he was in Mexico. Grant was already on his way. And just for the hell of it, I called Heather.

The Sunday afternoon greets him with warmth and humor and the sweet nectar of a life he could have had. A face almost steps onto the platform. A foot almost steps onto the train.

She is sweet and kind and funny and insightful, and it's a form of self-torture and self-loathing and self-hate and self-destruction that causes me to go through this. For the umpteenth time. And she seems to be really happy with her new boyfriend. Time didn't stop while I was away on a forced vacation in Camarillo. The vines spread mercilessly over the patio beams, grape bunches peering through the slats, grape leaves providing shade and color.

The actor finishes the scene and heads to his trailer for a small break. The hours have been long on this set, a little too long. Sheer professionalism allows him to maintain his composure. This character is a tough nut to crack. The script is imperfect. He reaches for a bottle of water, and lets his eyes weigh down on him like an atmosphere. Time elapses, and a PA knocks on the trailer door. The director once again has beckoned. It's tme to work again.

I was in the middle of prep work when the digitized tune of The Postal Service's "Such Great Heights" fill the air. It's my cell phone singing to me:

I think that it's a sign that the freckles in our eyes are mirror images and when we kiss they're perfecdtly aligned.

On the phone display was a number I didn't recognize.

Me: Hello?
Caller: Hi, it's Kim.

Yeah, that one. The Sunday afternoon greets him with warmth and humor and the sweet nectar of a life he could never have. A face peers out to him from a rail car. This train is sold out.

She is sweet and kind and funny and insightful, and it's a form of self-torture and self-loathing and self-hate and self-destruction that causes me to go through this. For the umpteenth time. And she seems to be really happy with her fiancee. Time didn't stop while I was trying to figure out how to turn friends into something else. Time doesn't have that sort of patience.

I am sitting now, on the same futon, a day later, armed with a laptop, pajamas, and a glass of milk. One day later, a mess later, two squirrels fighting in the hedges, causing quite a stir. The sun reflects off my laptop's LCD, and in the background of the text editor, there's an actor on screen, typing.

One train never arrived. And I couldn't make the other train stay. In this sun, the tall glass of milk slowly turns sour like grapes. The actor pays heed to the squirrels in the hedge. "This script needs tweaking."