Hi. How's it going?

Here's an exchange Nipper and I had last night after the kids were both asleep (thank you god for that hour).


Nipper (cooking a grilled cheese): Why is it so different between 1 and 2?


Me: Because we're doing man on man coverage. And it used to be just one, so when one of us was with Jack the other one was getting a break, and now there's no respite, there is always something that needs to be done.


Nipper: I was talking about the hood vent on the stove... Level 1 is barely anything, and then level 2 is like a jet engine, but then there is no difference between 2 and 3. 


Me: Oh, I thought you were talking about our children. 


Then I ate a bowl of chocolate cheerios the size of my head and went to sleep at 9:07pm. 


Does anyone want to lend me their maid/nanny/personal chef/ assistant/pool guy/ gardener/ house painter/ doula/ masseuse/ hair dresser/therapist? Thanks...

You can swim all you wish, but don't eat the fish...

In order to get the feeling of this birthday you must play this LOUD!
Then imagine me, a lady who could be described in some circles as a "cracker", driving a prius, wearing a white anthropologie sundress, playing this song so loud the windows were shaking, shaking my head back and forth like I'm having a seizure. That's how I roll on my birthday.

Today is my birthday. I'm older than I was when I was 17 and that's all we're going to say about that. My sweet sweet Nipper Knapp did a series of consumer backflips and was able to get me my dream chair from Anthropologie for 75% off. Never mind that he waited until the day before my birthday to buy it, and never mind that it was sold out. Never mind that he wanted to barf when he heard this bit of news. Never mind he has to drive to Nevada tomorrow to pick it up. He got it (with the help of Uncle David doing a recon mission, the anthropologie girls here in LA, and Henderson Nevada, and Sadie lending her SUV for pickup). He's a good hub.

knotted melati chair

He and Jack went to Bottega Louie and got me a stack of boxes of sweets that would make Marie Antoinette blush. They sang happy birthday to me, when I got home from my TWO HOUR massage at Ole Henriksen, and tonight we're going to dinner at Café Beaujolais where Nipper Knapp will allow me to flirt with the wait staff who all look like Johnny Depp and Viggo Mortensen's love child. Fo Shiz, he's a really good hub.

Brenda (Jack's nanny) painted and "dressed" this robot for me with Jack. She said it's a helper robot to help me when she's not around after he starts school. *sob* I told her she has to wear this outfit (including the headdress) for the rest of the month when she's here watching Jack. 

I've gotten sweet sweet birthday wishes throughout the day, and have been really counting my blessings. When I moved to LA 12 years ago, all wide-eyed and dewy, (I should have enjoyed that dew more) I never imagined this life I dreamed of having would actually happen, and be better every day than my 20 something ding dong brain could imagine. Knock wood and chuck some salt (I'm an actor so you know, super superstitious), this is already a very good year. 

The Kids Are All Right

We did it, we paid the people our good money and they are saving him a space. How did this happen? I just brought him home. He JUST came out of my frickin womb! My god! Now I'm sending him away to be with other kids. To a place with lots of trees, and letters on the wall, and a tool bench because he likes that kind of "guy stuff". To learn how to learn, how to get picked on. How to laugh at jokes, how to sit quietly while the teacher is talking. How to be bored at school. How to find a best friend. How to have your heart broken. How to skin your knee (he still hasn't ). I have cried spontaneously 14 times in the last 48 hours. When I was trying to go to sleep last night I had that racy heart, pit in my stomach feeling I used to get in my twenties when my heart was broken by a boy. Little did I know that was just practice. I told Nipper Knapp that I'm excited and ill at  the same time. My heart ACHES.

I'm the big talker too. It runs in my family. We're all really "tough". And by tough I mean, we say lots of tough things to cover up for how sentimental and softhearted we are. I'm the one who's usually saying things like "he needs to learn how to do it on his own" and "he'll only do it once if it's going to hurt, it's the only way he'll learn". Meanwhile I've been carrying him around on my hip for three years and I have the bad back to prove it.

We went to see the movie "The Kids Are All Right" yesterday. GREAT MOVIE. It's an indie so for those of you not in LA or NYC it might take a bit before it gets to your local theater, or you can wait and rent it. It's all about marriage and families, and kids growing up. The perfect movie for me yesterday. I got to cry my eyes out in the dark while eating popcorn. Perfecto. Nipper Knapp and I held hands almost the whole movie. Something we did not do when seeing Predators last week.

I don't think I'm spoiling anything when I say there's a college drop off scene in the movie. The oldest kid, the daughter is going away to school. The moment it started, I started to cry. I have distinct memories of dropping my brother off at college. My little family that was on the verge of what we all kept telling ourselves was a "very amicable divorce", (as if there is such a thing) one short year later, was all together that day. I've been looking all over the house for the picture. My parents asked some passerby to take our picture in front of my brother's dorm. I was wearing a purple shirt. My dad had his arms around all of us. I think it was our last family picture. You see? Sentimental.

I don't know if my brother and I had this same exchange that day, that the kids had in the movie, but I'm sure we were thinking it:

little brother "It's going to be weird not having you around"
big sister " I'm sorry I'm leaving you all alone with them"

My brother and I drove my mother crazy. We were always nagging each other and playing stupid games to irritate the other one. There is a picture of us in Italy. We're sitting on a bench on a beautiful precipice overlooking Verona (?) perhaps. Josh (15) and I (11) are sheepishly doodling circles on the bench, eyes cast downwards. My mother's arms are in mid-air, as she's informing us that we are ruining her vacation with our shenanigans. There are two young Italian men behind us, leaned against a wall. They are laughing. At us. My dad is standing off to the side photographing the whole scene. This is my family. I love them.

I wasn't going to write about this at all. It seemed too personal. To raw. Too indecent. But it's just on the tip of my brain all the time lately. I thought I'd wait until we were pregnant. Until had another kid. Or maybe never. Last October we had a miscarriage. We went to the fancy ultrasound doctor for our genetic tests and our 3 month 3D ultrasound. I was finished with the dreaded 1st trimester, and looking forward to feeling good before I got too big and unwieldy. We were having the conversation with the doctor about "did I REALLY have to have the amnio, since I had just turned 35 two months before?". We were giddy to see the baby. The office has these big screen HD tvs on the wall. Fancy. So I'm laying there on the table, and Nipper is video taping the big tv screen on his iphone. The doctor doesn't say anything. He's moving the thing around, and the baby isn't moving. I knew something was wrong. He says he wants to move us to a different room to use a different machine. I KNEW something was wrong.

Before any of this becomes very clear poor Nipper Knapp has emailed the video to our families. They are all excited about the baby, and we all thought maybe we'd find out that day if it was a boy or a girl.

We move to the next room where the doctor then tells us that in fact there is no heart beat. He assures us that based on what he was seeing there was something wrong from the beginning and it was nothing we had done. It just happened. This kind of thing just happens. After it happened, I heard from many other women that it had happened to them. Many just like me, had it happen after, or in between, other completely healthy pregnancies. We never talk about it. It's just too sad. It's too painful. No one wants to hear about something like that. It feels like bad juju to even say it out loud. I don't know if this counts for saying it out loud. But I just thought maybe if there were other women, some of my readers who were out there, who this has happened to, who feel like they shouldn't talk about it, or CAN'T talk about it. I know. All the awful details, I know. But mostly I know about the sadness that sneaks up on you when you are really not expecting it at all.

I know all about having to wait 4 whole days before I could get a D&C, thinking the whole time "I'm still pregnant, but I no longer have a baby". I know all about wishing I could take a little mental vacation from my body. I know about having to sit in the same waiting room as the families waiting for babies to be born at Cedars, to have the procedure to remove my baby. I remember thinking it was some kind of sick administrative punishment. I know all about crying talking to an obgyn I'd never met because mine is mysteriously out of town AGAIN (she didn't deliver Jack for the same reason). I know all about throwing up in my mothers day sweatshirt that was on my lap in the wheelchair on the way out of the hospital because the candy striper couldn't find a barf bag. I know all about being "tough" and going to a callback straight from the hospital (post barf cleanup, and post NK protests), and booking the job. I know all about spending the next two days in bed with oreo cookies and tea, and visits from Jack, and Nipper's sister Jenny who came out to take care of all of us. But mostly to take care of Nipper. I know all about feeling that it must be harder on the husband because nothing is worse than something awful happening to someone you love, much less two people you love.

I thought we were going to have a May baby. May came and went, and it felt like the LONGEST month.  I've thrown myself into work, into cooking, into tickling Jack until he pees a little and begs for mercy. Into hoepfully being a better wife. A better sister. A better daughter. A better mom. I'm hoping we are going to have another kid. We're working on it (not as diligently as Nipper Knapp would like). I just want Jack to have someone to pick on. Someone for him to be able to roll his eyes with when his parents start arguing about whose definition of "clean" is the "right" one. Someone for him to give a quick look to when I am doing some crazy mom thing that will bond them to each other like soldiers in war. (Yes mom, now I know, all moms are a little bit crazy, and now I know why) Someone to share family pictures with when he grows up. He's going to do that. Grow up I mean. I'm not ready for it today. But I'm working on it.

The weird thing is, even through the veil of this sad event, I feel like this has been the best year for our family. Jack is growing into his own inevitable awesomeness. We laugh all the time. We are healthy and happy. And we've had too much good fortune and too many hijinks and capers to list. That's the best thing about family. Through the terrible stuff you're able to appreciate the best stuff you've got, which is of course, each other. (oh, I just threw up a little on myself again. Sorry... blurgh...)

Preschool here we come! I hope they have a spot in the parking lot for the weepers.

lady luggage

Nipper got his James Bond man bag for his birthday so it's only fair that I get this beautiful baby. We may never leave the house with them because they're so fancy. We might just pack them up and leave them by the front door. The anticipation of travel! If I keep planting night blooming jasmine and pink flowers around the house, and I squint really hard, I might be able to convince myself that we're in Bali. Maybe I can get Jack to bring me chilled washcloths doused in ylang ylang on particularly hot days...

In honor of my hermit like, troll under a bridge lifestyle, here is one of my favorite poems. 

Questions of Travel

by Elizabeth Bishop

There are too many waterfalls here; the crowded streams 
hurry too rapidly down to the sea, 
and the pressure of so many clouds on the mountaintops 
makes them spill over the sides in soft slow-motion, 
turning to waterfalls under our very eyes. 
--For if those streaks, those mile-long, shiny, tearstains, 
aren't waterfalls yet, 
in a quick age or so, as ages go here, 
they probably will be. 
But if the streams and clouds keep travelling, travelling, 
the mountains look like the hulls of capsized ships, 
slime-hung and barnacled. 

Think of the long trip home. 
Should we have stayed at home and thought of here? 
Where should we be today? 
Is it right to be watching strangers in a play 
in this strangest of theatres? 
What childishness is it that while there's a breath of life 
in our bodies, we are determined to rush 
to see the sun the other way around? 
The tiniest green hummingbird in the world? 
To stare at some inexplicable old stonework, 
inexplicable and impenetrable, 
at any view, 
instantly seen and always, always delightful? 
Oh, must we dream our dreams 
and have them, too? 
And have we room 
for one more folded sunset, still quite warm? 

But surely it would have been a pity 
not to have seen the trees along this road, 
really exaggerated in their beauty, 
not to have seen them gesturing 
like noble pantomimists, robed in pink. 
--Not to have had to stop for gas and heard 
the sad, two-noted, wooden tune 
of disparate wooden clogs 
carelessly clacking over 
a grease-stained filling-station floor. 
(In another country the clogs would all be tested. 
Each pair there would have identical pitch.) 
--A pity not to have heard 
the other, less primitive music of the fat brown bird 
who sings above the broken gasoline pump 
in a bamboo church of Jesuit baroque: 
three towers, five silver crosses. 
--Yes, a pity not to have pondered, 
blurr'dly and inconclusively, 
on what connection can exist for centuries 
between the crudest wooden footwear 
and, careful and finicky, 
the whittled fantasies of wooden footwear 
and, careful and finicky, 
the whittled fantasies of wooden cages. 
--Never to have studied history in 
the weak calligraphy of songbirds' cages. 
--And never to have had to listen to rain 
so much like politicians' speeches: 
two hours of unrelenting oratory 
and then a sudden golden silence 
in which the traveller takes a notebook, writes: 

"Is it lack of imagination that makes us come 
to imagined places, not just stay at home? 
Or could Pascal have been not entirely right 
about just sitting quietly in one's room? 

Continent, city, country, society: 
the choice is never wide and never free. 
And here, or there . . . No. Should we have stayed at home, 
wherever that may be?

Take a step back ladies, he's all mine

I was feeling pretty gross yesterday. We've been working non-stop, and between shooting, I've been living in sweats, and I noticed the other day that the tops of my knees are starting to get this weird wrinkle, and my skin is perpetually so dry it's all chalky, and no matter how much concealer I use I have big black circles under my eyes like Rocky Raccoon but not catchy at all. I was standing in the kitchen singing Mr. Lee by the Bobettes to try to psych myself into a good enough mood to get through Jack's bathtime and bedtime routine, (because there is NO better song for this purpose) when I got an email with a link to this page about supermodels without no make up on, from Nipper Knapp:

Look at them all bobble headed and smutchzy. Don't get me wrong, I know these girls can wear a dress like nobody's business, and that they are all gorgeous, especially Jessica Stam down there in the corner, I mean come on! But en masse like this, it looks like police line-up on pinhead island. 

After mentally trashing beautiful women who are all younger than me (minus Elle Macpherson who btw is  a very tan member of the undead, because that bitch hasn't aged a bit), I felt much better. Thanks Nipper Knapp. I love you just as you are too. Just for that maybe I won't wear my retainer to bed tonight. Me-yow...

Happy Anniversary. A day late and...

Yesterday marked my 6th wedding anniversary with Nipper Knapp. We've been completely consumed by our filming projects, and Jack being possessed by the devil, (more on that later), so we agreed that we weren't going to do anything special this year. No dinner, no date night, no surprise presents. Just a "happy anniversary", and back the grindstone. I was able to sneak out for a much needed manicure/pedicure yesterday afternoon. I've been going to the same place for 9 years. Totally unsolicited, and not knowing it was my anniversary, my manicurist said "Marija remember how nice your nails were before you got married?" WHA?! First of all, I think she might have esp, because they are cash only, and in 9 years, I have never uttered my name to them, one day they just started calling me by it. She goes on to say " You remember, how you used to have such nice nails? Now you have husband and a baby, and now your nails are terrible. Your cuticles are so dry. They are a mess". I laughed and said, we are thinking of having another one this year. To which she said "Ugh, then you'll just come in here and say 'pedicure only please' what's the point". Was that true? Did she really remember a time when I had nice nails? I don't. 

We started shooting the pilot that Nipper and and his writing partners wrote this week. Besides directing it, and shooting it ourselves, we are also acting in it, dressing all the sets, finding the locations, scheduling the actors, and feeding everyone. We have 13 actors, 2 toddlers, a sound guy, and a partridge in a pear tree. Our sound guy got some kind of barfing thing after our 1st day of shooting, so we've had to postpone the rest of our shoot until the middle of next week. Needless to say, it's a been cuckoo. Nipper caught some kind of hacking cough thing from Jack, that Jack caught from Cleo. We're getting about 5 1/2 hours of sleep a night, and are constantly asking each other questions that neither of us can answer.

Nipper Knapp at a cafe in Paris 9 months before Jack was born

Add to all of this our toddler being taken over by some kind of nails on a chalkboard disorder. At 4:50 every morning, for no reason other than his mind has clearly been taken over by evil gnomes, Jack commences whining in the loudest voice he can manage "NOOOOOOOOOOO Daaaadeeeeee! Don't go back to SLEEEEEEEEEEEEP!" Over and over and over, until our ears bleed and we commit our morning ritual of sepuku. There we lay disemboweled, in a pool of our own blood. The continued whining falling on deaf ears is my own private little waking up fantasy. Mother of the year. 


"What's that sweet pea? Oh I'm sorry mommy can't hear you, because Daddy and I got out our samurai swords and killed ourselves while you were carrying on, in there. Now why don't you go make yourself a bowl of cheerios and watch some Curious George while I get this all cleaned up". 


He's also taking to throwing things at our faces, and hitting and kicking us for no particular reason other than apparently to see what we will do, and then no matter how we react; calm reasonable modern parent; exasperated frazzled retro parent, he just laughs at us like we are fools. Then he does something so sweet and adorable that it's reboots our brains, and we forget that he just tried to murder us. Does anyone know an exorcist? Or somewhere else Jack can live until he's 4?

In the pink elevator at Fauchon Paris

Where was I? Oh yeah, working with Nipper Knapp. So far it's been awesome. SO unlike any other "working with a partner" experience I've ever had. He knows exactly what he needs from each scene, but doesn't resort to any sort of Stalinesque tactics to get there. Something I myself am totally guilty of. But I shouldn't be surprised. That's why we got hitched. Because in the midst of everything that is rotten, and hard, and unfair about life, Nipper Knapp is the thing that makes it all worthwhile. My friend Shaboom who has the dreamiest single girl life in Paris ever, wrote me a funny note on FB this morning, saying Happy Anniversary, and did I want to trade lives for a little bit. My hair has gotten weird, and much less girlish, my cuticles are a mess, I can't remember anything from one day to the next, I don't even want to talk about my boobs. But Nipper Knapp acts like I'm the only girl in the world for him. So as much as I daydream of walking along the Seine, drinking wine, carefree and happy, I wouldn't trade the mess that we call Mr and Mrs Nipper Knapp for anything in the world. I live you, you ate my wife... (Nipper's most romantic smart type corrected text to me ever)

please mind the delay, we're experiencing technical difficulties

Please listen to this as you read this post. It will help you get in the mood.

I know I haven't written all week. It's only Monday. I mean I haven't written since last week. Oh hell, I'm going back to bed. I have suddenly reached critical mass, the tipping point, whatever it is, I'm broken. Officially. I have successfully piled too much on my plate, and now I'm full, and I can't take another bite, but guess what, there are six more courses. The sad part of this statement is that I don't have a job. Not really. Not a job job, where you get up in the morning, and have to put on clothes that convince your coworkers that you are not a hobo or a schizophrenic. I do have to go to auditions, and from time to time, report to a set at some ungodly hour, but that's only like ten times a year. So how did I end up this Monday in February, deeply in need of a nap, vacation, bubble bath, lobotomy? I blame apple computers. We have four of them. FOUR OF THEM. Not including the iphones that we all have, including Jack. NO, I did not go buy my two year old an iphone. He has my old one that we loaded up with kids games, and movies, and he knows how to navigate youtube to find his favorite videos, because he was born in the future. 

There is no way to escape information in this house. I can't dodge an email, or a phone call, or a text message, or the huffington post, or etsy, or my bank account, or that pre-school that we're looking into, or that rug on anthropologie.com, or my blog, or other people's blogs, or taking pictures, or playing monopoly, or watching this really funny video that my husband's sister's mother in law's gynecologist posted, or FACEBOOK. All of these things are unavoidable because of the multitude of apple computers at hand in this house. And now it looks like we might be getting another one, because none of the FOUR that we have has a fast enough processor to handle the video files from my new camera. WHAT THE F*#K! When did this happen? Can Steve Jobs just install the chip in my head and get it over with? I want that new mac smell right in my very own body. 

I've been guest blogging on a site called photocinenews.com. You can read those posts here and here. I'm working on shooting a parody of a Lady Gaga music video. As in, I got this idea one night while standing in the kitchen, so I wrote some new lyrics to one of her songs, handed it over to Cleo's mommy, who I thought would record the lyrics over a karaoke version of the song. Nope, she and the uber talented sound engineer for their band remixed the whole thing so it sounds like oh I don't know, LADY GAGA is singing it. Sadie offered up her backyard for the shoot, and her dance skills. Uhm. Pressure on.

I've been making props, glitter gluing Barbie dolls, making macaroni face masks, figuring out costumes, making shot lists, thinking about getting SAG contracts, choreographing some dance moves (DUDES, this is not going to be pretty), and learning how to use the camera. I just threw that last one in last because if I can't use the camera, none of the rest of this will matter. It should be number one on the list. But I have some kind of genetic abnormality that causes me to wait until the last possible minute, when the pressure to perform is so intense my eyeballs are bugging out of their sockets. Then I sit down and cram. Not really the best way to learn, and I'm hoping I can steer Jack towards some better study skills. Do as I say, not as I do Buttercup.

I've been trying to get some of the home projects done. The bathroom painting I know, is a big joke. I think we are coming up on the half year anniversary of the whole paint pen fiasco. Maybe it'll never be finished. It's the potty of shame. It's also the only working toilet in this house. The upstairs toilet will only flush water. If you put so much as three sheets of toilet paper in it, it clogs. Our handyman Roberto came over to fix it, and $100 later, it doesn't flush any better, but it now sprays water on you when you flush it, which sort of makes it like a poor man's bidet.

The pink man cave/craft room/office has indeed brought a great deal of satisfaction in it's fledgling stages, but it's also caused all manner of strife and indecision. The rug I ordered from Overstock.com turned out to be revolting. As soon as I took it out the packaging, I knew it, but I was paralyzed by the thought of navigating returning a rug through the mail. Turns out it was easy as pie, so kudos to overstock.com for not making me want to take an entire bottle of xanax. And kudos to Brenda, our nanny, who this morning without hesitation told me the rug was ugly and she hated it. Thank you Brenda, I was trapped in a procrastination spiral that was sure to last until the last possible day before I could return the thing, followed by cursing and some pinot noir, a handful of m&ms and a xanax.

I mentioned I was doing Nipper's cousin's wife's biggest loser challenge. Thanks again to the damn interwebs and apple computer, I'm now engaged in a long distance shame game, whereby if I don't drop this last 5 pounds in the next 4 weeks, it's not just me I'm lying to about unbuttoning my pants while I drive. I was going to go to the gym this morning, but Roberto called me and said he could take out the window to remove the couch from Jack's room to put in the pink man cave. I waited around for him, and ate the leftovers from Hattie's birthday cake. Did I mention I spent 10 hours on Saturday licking frosting and batter off my fingers while making a Minnie Mouse cake for Sadie's daughter's 3rd birthday? Oink oink.

I wore big orange rubber gloves to mix the black food coloring into the fondant. Good thing too, because I had to throw them out when I was done. A million manicures wouldn't get that ink out of my cuticles.

This afternoon, at an audition I ran into another actor who's putting together a show of women doing 5-10 minutes as their mothers. I'm in. Wait, did I say I was in? Did I say I'd have my first draft in a few weeks. Around the same time we'll be shooting the Lady Gaga video? What is wrong with me? Has ANYONE read that ADHD article yet???

Jack moved from his crib into a big boy bed in his new room, which was our old office last week. He's fine. I'm devastated. I know it's cliched but I feel like I just brought him home from the hospital. I just heard his little cry for the first time, all sweet and raspy. I just gave him his first bath in the bathroom sink. Just said "I'm so happy to meet you, I'm your mommy". I moved the rest of his furniture out of what was "the nursery" today. I just stood there in this empty room, save his crib, and some baby toys that he's grown out of. Time is moving too quickly and I'm trying to savor all the little moments.

And on the 24th day of January craigslist created Francis!

I didn't want to jinx it until I had this sweet baby in my greedy little hands. I found it! I found it! Wahooooo! Come on over to my house, I'm making coffee, and your order can be as stupid as you want it to be. I try to check craigslist and ebay once a week, but I've been trying not to be obsessive about it so imagine my surprise when I checked yesterday and saw that this had been listed on the 17th of January, almost a week ago! I'm 99% sure I found it so quickly because I had all but given up. My mom found this cheapy ($29) Krups machine at the market out in Palm Springs, and I told her to get it for me, to keep me in soy lattes, and out of Starbucks, until I could find this machine, which I told her could take YEARS. She bought it Saturday and Sunday I found my Francis Francis!

I found Nipper Knapp much the same way. For my birthday that year my friends and I went bowling. There was a boy there that I liked, and he was a friend of a friend and he had driven up from Long Beach just to come to my stupid bowling birthday party. I thought for sure this was a sign that he was interested. He bowled a few frames, never spoke to me and left. In my pity party (and definitely tipsy) state, I told my friend that I was DONE dating. I had THREE cats (sorry Nipper) and my guitar, and lots of cigarettes, and you know books, so I was done dating, and was just going to try to be happy solo.

I met Nipper at noon the very next day. He asked me on a date and I said "no thanks". I don't think I had ever said no to a date before that in my life. I told him we could go out, because I really wanted to go to this blue's bar we had been talking about, but I didn't want it to be a date and was that ok with him? He said that it wasn't really great news, but fine. I just learned a few nights ago, that Nipper was not really in the habit of asking out strange women, and that his suspicions about this type of gigolo behavior were confirmed when I turned him down. A few nights later he picked me up for our non-date, and we went for sushi beforehand. Half way through dinner, I asked him if it was ok if I changed my mind, and if our not date, could be a real date. He put his hand on my back (we were at the sushi bar) and smiled and said sure. There was something really sweet about the way he said it, but I learned later, that he was trying to contain his glee about the fact that he totally KNEW he was going to get lucky that night. Boy howdy. (sorry mom).

At the blues bar later that night, half way through my drink, I had the thought "I'm going to marry this guy". Later that weekend, maybe the next day, we were sitting on my front steps and Nipper said "I love..." as I turned towards him nodding, because I thought he was going to say "you" and I was going to say "ditto", he chickened out and said "your hair". He did say it a few days later and we laughed about the incident on the porch. I mean here is this guy who NEVER asks girls out and the day after our first date he's about to say "I love you". I'm sure this would be page one of any single person dating manual. "Do NOT tell person you love them within days of meeting them. Psycho." But the thing is, he did love me, and I loved him, almost from the moment he showed up at my front door. We were married 6 months later. Sometimes it just happens that way. I guess it didn't hurt that he put out on the first date. (seriously... sorry mom)

So here we are, almost six years later, one wedding, several cross country road trips, one trip to Paris, no cigarettes, lots of fights, lots more hugs and kisses, one house, one baby, two prius, zero cats, no bowling, and a Francis Francis espresso machine. I'm a very lucky girl.

Speaking of Francis:

But it's not my fault!

I tried. I REALLY tried. You saw all those paint chips right? It's not like I didn't at least try not to do the right thing. I even went through the motions of buying four little green paint samples and dutifully painted them on the wall. I looked at them in different light at different times of day. I cocked my head to the side and stared at them thoughtfully. I really tried! Then I asked Nipper to come in and look at them. As soon as he said he didn't like any of them, maybe before he'd even finished the sentence I knew what had to happen. I didn't even say it out loud. I simply set to the task at hand. Picking out the perfect shade of pink.

uhm, no, no, no and NO

I know for a lot women pink is repulsive. It's viewed as a color best left for babies or bimbos or baby bimbos, or god forbid BARBIE. But I love it. It's a flattering color for me, and I think there is a flattering shade of it for most people. But mostly I find it cheerful and soothing. Especially that pale pale warm peachy pink. You know the color of the bottle top on the johnson's baby oil? That's just about my favorite pink. Blush, or cloud, or apricot fluff. By any name I love this color. I also love that deep dark cherry pink, but it has to be just right, and used in moderation or it evokes dirty plastic things you find in the bottom of a sale bin at walmart.

oui!

I had a few pink swatches set aside for what I thought would be the door color. I added to those 7 or 8 more in the same vein, and had Sadie look through them and help me choose. Until Sadie met me she HATED the color pink. I think maybe our entire friendship might have been a rehabilitation process for her to prepare for her daughter Hattie who ONLY likes pink (atta girl). But she has in recent years warmed to my favorite pale pink, which by the way looks great on her. She chose the color I had chosen for the door. Great minds. Then our nanny Brenda chimed in that she thought we should paint the alcove a dark shade of the same pink to give the room a little depth. Oh my god it was like we were on one of those HGTV shows. The ladies in my life are so stylish and wise.


SO I sincerely hope he meant it when Nipper said I could paint the office, or as he is now referring to it my "man cave", any color I like. Did I mention I'm going to put gold leaf polka dots along the trim? Goody goody gum drops. That's just the kind of thing a girl who loves pink would say right? Frack yeah!


Big reveal soon to come. I need to paint the floor which means removing everything from the room, which is kind of hard, because I don't know if you noticed, but we are experiencing monsoon type rain here right now. 

paint chip-itis

Everyone has a drawer somewhere that is filled with these right? I'm wondering if the sheer number of them is a sign of an unwell mind. We are working on the finishing touches of our garage which is soon to be MY CRAFT ROOM...I mean our office. The electrical outlets were put in today. The drywall is finished. Now I have to pick a paint color. I want to do something fun, but then I also feel like I need to paint it something neutral in case I end up doing a lot of my photo work out there. Ugh! It's so hard to decide. Right now I'm kind of leaning towards a Laduree kind of color scheme. Cool jadite green with dark grey trim. Or maybe dove grey walls and fun apple trim. Pale pink door no matter what. Duh. 

I'm not sure if this is still a croquembouche when it's pink and green but it sure is pretty

Laduree Tokyo, don't you just want to put on a petticoat and soft pink shoes and twirl?

Sigh... I would like my cosmetics laid out in my powder room like this. I mean I know this is a sweet shop and not a bathroom. But I could make pretty in this room.

If I had only known this existed before we signed the lease on the new prius! 

I lifted this little collage off a blog called c+j.bond.ny. It's perfect and it pretty much summarizes my love of Paris

Batter bowl green, mercer green, tears of joy, vulcan grey,la fonda spanish dancer, herbal mist, pale tidepool, stingray, hobnail, nottingham, tin man, parkside dunes, anonymous, sparrow, palatial pink...

I've got my wax wings and I'm ready to fly!

Ok, I admit I'm not always the most practical when it comes to fashion, and that's particularly true when it comes to shoes. For most of my life I've been willing to suffer for the right pair. When I was in college in San Francisco, I would walk the mile uphill to school in my high heel tennis shoes that I thought made me look just like a fly girl (not with all the hot pants and eyelashes in the world have I ever looked like a fly girl). In fact, I didn't own a pair of flats other than flip flops until I got pregnant with Jack. I wore heels everyday. 


My back started hurting just typing that sentence. I'm not sure how or why I was able to go through an entire decade teetering on stilts. I don't remember anything hurting, but I'm sure it did. Now if I wear heels for work or even an audition, my back hurts, my feet hurts, and I feel CRANKY! 


This brings me to the embarrassing truth about my health habits. When I lived in San Francisco, I was actually pretty fit. This was due in part to not having a car and walking everywhere, and in part to the masochistic relationship I had with an adrenalin junkie we'll call Space Cadet 1. We ran, we rollerbladed, we snowboarded, we did bikram yoga three hours a day. There was rock climbing, and day hikes, and all kinds of microfleece and gore tex in my life back then. Mercifully we broke up and I moved to LA, land of sundresses and flip flops, where I promptly stopped working out all together. It was like I flipped a switch. No yoga, no bike rides. One time I tried to walk home from the Beverly Center, and felt like I was on the Bhutan death march. 

So over the years when I visited a gym, or say went on a trip to Europe where I needed comfortable walking shoes, I wore chucks, or these really cute puma maryjanes. Most of the time, I wore boots, which I saw as a safe flat alternative to heels that didn't make me look frumpy. I suffered. 


A few weeks before Christmas Nipper's cousin's wife Keri started a biggest loser challenge on her blog "my year started tuesday night". I said "I'm in" and then didn't give it another thought as I ate my weight in dark chocolate pecan meltaways over Christmas. Then came the first weigh in day. Uhm, holy shit. I laced up my chucks and headed for the gym. I got on the treadmill and started running. My completely out of shape body fueled by vanity, and competition, and chocolate pecan meltaways, rebelled with every step. It's not wind, I felt like my lungs could do it. Trouble was, I was running in what is basically cardboard flaps with a little cotton duck sewn on. Every step was torture, and when I got home, my calfs were on fire. 


The next day Nipper and I went to a schmancy running store in Brentwood, where I'm sorry, but everyone is SO white. I pushed past all the ladies in their white terry cloth track suits and fake birkin bags, and the 50 year old men dressed in their $200 jeans that their 2nd wives bought them and their baseball caps to cover reality, to find my perfect shoe. After the kid measured my foot and watched me walk to see what my foot does, I told him to show me all the shoes that would be good for my feet, but only those that come in pink. He looked up at me and then I said "Yeah, I'm totally not kidding, sorry, I'm that idiot". 


He obliged, bringing me 4 different pink pair for my particular kind of foot. There was a hot pink pair on the wall with orange trim that apparently wasn't right for my gate. I thought about asking him if I could try it, but I didn't want to press my luck. The first pair was too soft, the second pair was too stiff, the third pair was just right. I didn't try on the fourth pair, because it was uglier than Diego Rivera in the morning, and I'd rather run cripple foot in my maryjanes than wear anything that ugly...

So here they are. Shiny! Pink! COMFORTABLE! I had no idea my feet could not hurt this much. What a dope.

New years resolutions

I never make resolutions because I don't like people bossing me around, even if that person is a very drunk or hopped up on a good day version of myself. No one tells this lady what to do, not even me. Mostly I careen through life with those little angel and devil versions of me sitting on my shoulder whispering in my ear. Most of the time, the good one wins, but sometimes not so much.

I often serve myself a little bigger serving of something yummy we are having for dinner ("you cooked it for crying out loud", my little devil shouts.) And sometimes when Jack is shouting for us to get up in the morning, I pretend I didn't hear him (duh). I'm embarrassed to admit (but only because Nipper, or as I should now call him "my conscience"), that I have hung up on people when the call got too boring and then pretended we got cut off. (doesn't everyone do that?)

It was only just recently that I realized that when people said "We should get together soon" they actually meant it, and it wasn't just a way of wrapping a conversation. I'm working on it...

So in 2010, I resolve to try to do what Nipper Knapp would do. He's got issues (hello OCD) but on the whole, he's a better man than me, and Jack and I are lucky to have him.

Happy New Year everybody! Hope we can all be better people in 2010. Because frankly we kind of cocked up 2009.

Icing on the cake

SO after what I would call kind of a shit day, Nipper Knapp surprised me a Christmas present. My mom arrived this afternoon to spend the holiday with us. He has been conspiring with her, and his mom, and Sadie and our agent for weeks to have the perfect dress up date night!

They sent his to Anthropolgie for the dress I wanted but complained I had no occasion that I could wear it to (Thanks Meema). They sent him to Cicada where I've always wanted to eat (Thanks Sadie). And my mom is going to put Jack to bed (Thanks Mom).

To surprise me, even MORE, my mom gave me my Christmas present early. It's a necklace with three diamonds, one for me, Nipper, and Jack, and a beautiful pearl to signify whatever else is to come. Maybe a girl named Pearl?:)

Ladies, can I pick em, or can I pick em. I love that Nipper Knapp! And I love all the ladies in my life for steering him right...

Ok, I have to go wash my armpits before we go out, because I don't think they smell very romantic right now.

g'nite