Bienvenidos

I made another one. But I have a good excuse. Nipper Knapp went to NYC last week for meetings with some networks, and productions company's about our show Gentrification. One of them wants to see what it looks like as a movie. So I'm putting together a little picture book sort of dealie about the characters in our show, the locations, etc... I don't know if it's marketing, or production design, or just gluing stuff and using photoshop, but I love this shit. 

The next project Nipper Knapp wants to shoot is set in Idaho, and has a scene that calls for a scene where kids are having an art fair. When he told me he needed me to make some "projects" for the scene, I tried to not to be giddy. One of them includes a scale model of downtown Boise. Architectural models that looks like a 5th grader made it?! "I'M YOUR GIRL!" I shouted, twirling, and tossing my hair tie in the air. 

So for this one, I wanted something else besides the Gentrification cover shot that we used for all the NYTVF materials last year. I still love that shot, and the wooden Nipper Knapps that we had made, but I think we need something fresh. Oh and I was already thinking about making this for our front door, so...  

It's a luchador wreath that says Bienvenidos (welcome in Spanish). I wanted to make something for our house that was pink (for me), but had some dude stuff too (luchador). 


Ok, back to cleaning my office. It's going VERY slowly. As soon as I get one little corner finished, there is some new pile behind a curtain. Oh and I have to stop and eat, sleep, and care for my family from time to time, so...it might be weeks. I actually can't believe they can do one of those episodes of Hoarders in 1 or 2 days. My office isn't nearly that bad, and it's taking me weeks! Part of the problem is that, I'm cleaning other parts of the house too, and everything ends up on my desk. Maybe I'll start piling stuff up on Nipper Knapp's side of the bed and see if he notices... "What that stuff? Just the Christmas decorations that you forgot to bring the box up from the basement for. Huh? No, I'm not in any hurry, you can just leave it there on your pillow. LOVE YOU" 

I rode the subway by myself

It was a month ago, but that doesn't make it's happening any less AWESOME. I know people do this every day. But not me. I'm a born walker. I could walk from here to Albuquerque. San Francisco was the perfect city for me to live. I lived there for 7 years, 6 of which I didn't own a car. I walked everywhere.

No one walks in LA. I mean, maybe a few blocks, but not the way people walk in other cities. Everything is too spread out. The sprawl. I don't think about it now, but I do miss the walking.

So when we were in NY for the NYTVF last month, I decided to meet my friend Paige one morning, at FAO Schwarz before our afternoon meetings. I could walk there from where we were staying, but I'd have to take the subway back to Tribeca. I bought a giant Thomas the Train retractable bridge with a lighthouse, foghorn, boat, and two trains with golden buffers that could be recognized by his new Tidmouth Sheds talking railway dealie he'd gotten from Nana because of the devastation of us leaving. I had the girl unwrap the whole thing and put it in a bag, so I could carry it on the plane. Never mind the risk of the foghorn sounding repeatedly during the screenings. Never mind I spent more at Fao Schwarz than I did on any meal we had in NY all week (sad sad mommy fact).

Paige walked me to the train, and even made sure I went to the right one and didn't end up in Queens. Oh and I think she swiped her metro card for me because I didn't have one, and waiting for me to get one would have made her want to blow her brains out. Also she's really nice. So ok, big deal, I got on the train by myself rode a few stops, got off.

our little team in NY

BUT, the next day I got a call from my agent. I was going to have an audition. The next day. IN NYC. Holy smokes. I was going to have to put on make-up, figure out the right train based on the address I was given. ROCKET SCIENCE!!! I had been listening to a friend complain about the subway, about how it never runs on time. I smugly told him that I had ridden the train all by myself the day before and thought the subway system was a miracle of human engineering.

The next morning, I got up early, got ready for my audition, walked out the door of our friend's apartment, walked two blocks to the train stop only to find it was closed. Well, not closed. You could go into it, and stand there and wait for a train, but no train was going to stop there. There was a sign. NO DOWNTOWN TRAINS AT THIS STOP. Except it wasn't some big official sign. It was hand scribbled on a piece of regular 8x10 paper and taped to the wall, on the way OUT of the station.

Never mind, I am a savvy NYC subway rider, I walked two blocks over and caught another train that I new stopped near my audition. It arrived, I got on, I sat, I got off, I auditioned, I got back on, I had a very nice talk with an old mormon lady from Birch Run Michigan, I got off. As I exited the subway, I had the strong urge to by a tam, so I could throw it in the air. I didn't get the job, but OH, our pilot, Gentrification, won Best Writing, and got some great reviews. Yahooo! You're gonna make it after all...

me no do math good

Last night around 3am, the curtains that I sewed last week, fell off the wall, nocking Nipper's bedside lamp onto his head and smothered him in curtains. Oops. He and Jack, who now apparently just sleeps with us, because we have become those freaky "family bed" people without really meaning to, went right back to sleep. I mean the kid has his own room...with a bunk bed, and a goldfish and everything!

But then I was wide awake. Thinking about how I need to fix the curtain rods, and check to see if the button company received the artwork for the "I love you Taco", and "Me llamo Gringo", and " Hola Whitey", buttons we'll be passing out at the NYTVF, and how I need to figure out how to get two more tickets for our Tuesday night screening because it's already sold out, and a dear friend from Boston is coming, and why is everything electrical breaking in our house, including: Nipper's macbook, our flat screen, the kitchen wiring... and why is the downstairs bathroom smelly again after a whole summer of no bad smells, and should we get a tankless water heater, or build a deck, and can I live for one more year with no closet, and I need to pay the credit card, and clean my desk, and how I need to wash Jack's puppies because they went to school with him, and are probably covered in cooties, and how I wish Jacks pokey fingernail wasn't digging into my arm, and how depressing and totally lacking in his usual irony Jonathan Franzen's new book is... So basically I was up.

I wouldn't have been in this predicament if I'd just paid attention in Ms. Nesper's geometry class. Our curtains are floor length and the mattress being on the floor and up against the wall, they get tugged on a lot. I've been trying to finish the headboard project, which would safely tuck them in behind the headboard, never to be pulled on again. But I didn't measure correctly, and now I don't have enough fabric, and the girl who I bought the original fabric from on etsy is sold out and... THESE ARE MY PROBLEMS???!?!?!

Did I mention Jack didn't cry when I dropped him off at school on Friday?

Forgive me

For I have no time to blog. I'm preparing to go (or not go) to NY for the NYTVF in a week and a half. Which by the way, if you are going to be in NYC Spet 21st or 22nd, you MUST come see our pilot. Tickets are free, but you should reserve now, by clicking right HERE. Jack is having a tough time getting used to preschool. He cried most of the morning before school this morning. Not big tears, but you know, lots of little "I'm sads", and "I'm going to cry". I can't tell how much of this is normal transition sad, and how much of it is, my sensitive child being just like his mama, and that's never going to change. 

My mother reminded me this morning that when I changed schools in the 3rd grade, and the lunchtime was 10 minutes shorter, I came home SOBBING, because I was too rushed and couldn't finish my lunch. I SOBBED every time she put me on the plane to boarding school. I called her three times a day SOBBING from San Francisco, when I went away to college. I did that for days, until my new roommate showed up and then I didn't call her again for weeks. Change is hard. I like to feather my nest and then stay in it. Apparently the apple didn't fall far from the tree.

 

Last night around 1am, Jack came into our room (this after a 9:30 wake-up shouting "mommy I NEED you!" from his own bed) and said very matter of factly "Mommy I was missing you, can you snuggle me?". SOB. Once again, he slept in our bed, and Nipper Knapp who hadn't come to bed yet, slept in Jack's bed. This can't be good. Am I mother who loves to much? Is there a support group for people like me?

Nipper Knapp and I are thinking if he is still having a rough time next week, maybe the week after, isn't the best time for both of us to go jetting off to NYC for the week. I'm kind of crushed over both options. I don't want to be away from him for that long. But it's work, and I don't want to miss the festival. Oh and also, I'd like to have a few days alone with my husband. Does that make me a bad mommy? Nipper says that he'll stay and I should go because he hates NY, and doesn't even want to go. But of course that doesn't make any sense. I should stay, he should go. Why must everything be so difficult. Working mother woe. Working parent woes. Working mommy and daddy who make tv shows together and love their kid more than their career even though it's what pays for legos, ice cream, and tree house woes.

In other news, I finished embroidering Sadie's 10th wedding anniversary pillowcase. I didn't make one for her husband because I ran out of time, which is pretty awesome. Maybe I can get it to him by next year. I've finished 4 out of 8 curtain panels for our bedroom and I go the fabric for the headboard in the mail yesterday. Oh and I bought a pair of MiH skinny jeans, so I don't look like a total square while I'm sobbing in line at Starbucks. So you know, the school thing's not a TOTAL loss.  

Drum roll please... Big Apple here we come!

Here's

Are you ready for this? Our Pilot "Gentrification" was accepted into the NYTVF! We've know for almost a week, but were sworn to secrecy until the official announcement was made this morning (here's the link to the announcement). I got the call when Jack and I were at The Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, with my brother and my niece. I stood up in the middle of the cafeteria, right in front of the tourists from Poughkeepsie and did a little dance. Jack not knowing why I was dancing with my phone to my ear, got up and did a little dance right along with me. We've got him trained. 

We'll be getting more info on screening times in the coming weeks, so I hope that any of you that are in NY will be able to make it. You know, put some friendly butts in the seats around us! Yahooeee!

fog, frog, flog... everything including the kitchen sink

In the last two days, I have lost my credit card, my retainer (nerds), my keys, my mind. The blender broke, and I really thought that Nipper, who has been on this big green smoothie kick (spinach!) was going to DIE. "WHAT will I eat?!" He's been moping. Today the kitchen sink decided to die, so Roberto is going to have come in and fix it. As in, he's going to have to replace the faucet which IS broken, and the sink, which is not, but I've been meaning to replace it for years, and now is as good a time as any, since he'll be in the uhm, you know, area of the sink anyway... He's (Roberto) out in the yard building Jack a tree house that has turned into kind of a McMansion. Whose life is this anyway???

Why yes, that is the piñata from Jack's party TWO weeks ago. You got a problem with that?

I thought once the pilot was safely in a Fedex box on the way to NYC, we would collapse in a heap of relaxation and do nothingness. I am starting to realize that is never going to happen again. Having a child, and a job, and a husband, and a home means, NEVER HAVING NOTHING TO DO AGAIN. FOREVER. I'm feeling like I have gone down down down to crazytown in the last few weeks though. Like I have pregnancy brain minus the pregnancy. Between the Muffintop video, the pilot, WORK, Jack, the cake, the house...I'm not keeping it together very well. Or maybe I'm always like this...ssshhh.

The lego x-wing fighter that took two days to put together and 20 minutes to destroy. Good times. 

Nip and I are both SAG members (obv) and so, we pay dues twice yearly. For this we get health insurance, and safe sets, etc... We got our dues in April. They went onto the pile of bills for that week, that became the pile of bills for that month, that became the pile of bills for spring. It's not like I don't have the money to pay the bills. Just not the time. And then I forgot about them. Or ignored them. It's a fine line. So when we both booked jobs recently we came up as "station 12" with the union. Whoops. Not a big deal, I went online and paid the minute was informed of my delinquency. But you'd think that when that happened, I would have paid Nipper's as well. Nope. I didn't. So he texted me from set just now, that he needs me to pay his dues, this minute. As in he's sitting on set and the producer is running his paperwork, and oh he's "station 12". Embarrassing.

Next life I'm going to be SO organized. And thin.

tralalala, problem? what problem?

We live in the future. I called a guy, who knew a guy, who had the number for a guy he didn't know, but knew could help me. Then that guy remote controlled my computer, as in he moved the mouse around and fixed a bunch of stuff all the while sitting in HIS living room, who knows how many miles away, all the while doing pretty good imitations of The Iron Giant for Jack, who is now referring to him as the magic man in mommy's computer. I don't know yet if it's going to work. I made a pretty big error in the way that I imported the files from the camera to the computer, and then we made another big error in how we labeled them. I know how to make things pretty, but I don't know how to make them right. What we should have had on this project, since it was our first, was a tech adviser. But we didn't and what's done is done. 

In the meantime, this is pretty much all I can think of right now: 

It's the menu from an ice cream truck here in LA called Lake Street Creamery. Donut ice cream? Aztec sacrifice?! If someone could have them deliver a scoop of each of these to my face, not my house or my kitchen, but right to my face, right now, I think it might make up for a tiny portion of the stress test that was this day. Anyone out there in the interwebs know how to get that to happen? I mean we do after all live in the future....

Everywhere I look I see your face

Nipper Knapp spotted this last night when he was making Jack dinner. I'm sure we'll be finding R2D2 parts strewn about the scene for months. 

In other local tragedies, we are in the middle of a new kind of hell today. Our deadline to finish the pilot we shot for the NYTVF is today. We set the pilot to export out of Final Cut Pro at midnight last night. I set my alarm for 5am, thinking I'd get up and start burning DVDs. Only when I got up there was an error message. Our plan was to cut the trailer this morning while the DVDs were burning and send it all FEDEX tonight. It's 2:01, and we still haven't been able to get it to export correctly. I'm have a guy remotely controlling my computer for $125 an hour right now. I imagine the comic book guy from the Simpsons. But it could be Johnny Depp. Seriously people, if you have a shred of love for the Nipper Knapps, send all your good thoughts our way today. 

Will work for soy lattes

Jack's birthday is next week, but we're having a party Sunday. I'm making an R2D2 cake. Oh and star wars cookies. Remember a few months ago, when I was FREAKING out about Jack playing pretend "shooting thing"? I have since gone to the dark side. Now everything is a "shooting thing" and I play along as long as he gives whoever he "shoots" a kiss after they fall to the ground. Kisses make everything better. I baked all day today, while trying (and failing) to get the music rights to a song we want to use in the pilot we are submitting to the NYTVF. But I guess that's another random skill I now have. Here's what my resume would look like if I had to get a job tomorrow. Or maybe just a random list of stuff I can do. Resume writing is not one of my skillz...

I'd attach this picture because "Yes I AM a Rocket Scientist"

Sadie got me this for my office because she loves me, and she's a good friend, and it's perfect. 

Sells stuff on tv

How to have snarky thoughts

Grows own corn and blueberries

Funny dancing

Editing

Good oral hygiene

Irony

Total recall on most conversations I had before 1992

No recollection of anything that has been said by me, to me, or around me for last 3 years (not really a skill, unless someone needed an amnesiac to hang around with. But who needs that? Not Nipper Knapp, that's who.

Bakes fancy cakes that usually hold together through the party

How to take a picture

Knows that you have to get both performance, and publishing rights on songs you want to use in your tv show or movie, and where to find the people who hold those rights

Takes rejection like a champ, except when it hurts my feelings, and then I cry, a little or a lot

How to pick a husband

How to explain a crazy dream in detail to someone who could care less. (it's like I was in high school, but it wasn't high school, and you were there, but you were really Beyonce, but I knew it was really you, and I couldn't push any of the buttons on my camera, and then we were all on the roof for no reason, and Jenny who was actually Edward James Olmos wanted me to open a present, but I was afraid of the present, even though I knew it was my favorite kind of socks)

Makes soy lattes

Paying bills (usually on time)

Eats as much as a man, but doesn't brag about it, because knows how to be a lady

How to make a crying kid forget what they were crying about and laugh

How to make an ass of myself (both with, and without intention, although more skilled at the latter)

How to make up lyrics to songs that other people wrote

I wonder if there is an employer out there looking for my particular skill set. 

Be cool my babies, I'll catch you on the flip flop

Alright peeps, listen up and listen good. I'm tired see? I've got a lot on my mind see? I can't possibly keep up with this frantic pace, you dig? I'm just a poor little babe in the woods out here trying to make it in the big city. Do you see? I haven't just been burning the candle at both ends. I threw all the candles in the house into oven, and turned on the broiler. Did I mention Jack wakes up at 5:45 every morning ready to play the "chase me because I'm the bad guy with the shooting thing" game?

I am OVERWHELMED by the response My Muffintop is getting. I am so happy that everyone is loving it! We had so much fun making it. I know I have a LOT of new readers here and on the blog, and I'm so excited. (Thank you, youtube, msn, funnyordie, formerlyhot, the paperball, smacksy, and everyone who posted and reposted My Muffintop) I can't wait to check out all of your pages, and I wanted to say a big Mrs Nipper Knapp HELLO to all of you. But also I need a nap. I haven't taken my eyeballs off a screen for more than 5 minutes in the last 168 hours. I'm helping Nipper Knapp color correct, and add subtitles to the pilot we shot for the NYTVF which is due in oh, I don't know 5 or 6 mintues. I'm waiting on some lookalike (of us) figurines to come from Urastarhouse on etsy to photograph for the title card, for that project. They're going to look something like the picture above. I can't wait to see them. They should get here the day before we send the show Fedex to NY. So, sign for package, unpack, arrange, shoot, insert into pilot, repack, Fedex, No pressure.


I'm starting work on my next film project (details soon). We're having Jack's birthday party this weekend. He's going to be 3. I'm so proud, and also slightly devestated, because I still refer to him sometimes as "the baby". I'm making an R2D2 cake. (disasterous details to follow) My mother is coming on Friday. I'm writing this post while the color correction filters are renerdering, in 3-8 minute increments. Lord someone get this woman a chair!

Ok, so I'm gonna take a couple of days off writing here. Just a few I swear. I just need to look directly at my kid without my eyes wandering over to the homewrecker...my macbook. I don't want you guys to see me with my guts hanging out. Too late. I know. (she's got a lumpy body...) In the meantime, enjoy this. If your life is anything like mine lately, it'll take you a few days to watch all 15 minutes: