Category: Friendship

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One More Chance

One More Chance, text and photo copyright HGS 2012.
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It’s like we share a secret

 

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If Aaron Sorkin Worked At Hallmark

Don’t Blink: Day 5

I believe that every day lived with laughter is a day well lived. Which is why I spent a few minutes of my morning writing silly greeting cards as if they were written by one of my favorite screenwriters.

I shared my good news about Blue Mountain Arts with a few friends, who were all very supportive (and didn’t actually come out and say what I know you’re all thinking, “Hey, Heath, you’d be perfect for that, cheese ball.” So thanks for that guys…I think).

Aaron tells me he applied to work for Hallmark once, and that he didn’t get the job. I think he’s being dry, but I never know with him. He did, after all, work delivering singing telegrams for a while. The image of him writing Hallmark cards got me giggling out loud, and then writing, and then giggling some more.

Rejected Hallmark Cards, by Aaron Sorkin

Another year older? Stop whining. Just stop. Do it. Do it now.
*

Birthdays are not nice on so many levels.

*

I spent $4.99 on this card for you. NO I DO NOT
USE FACEBOOK OR TWITTER. STOP ASKING ME, YOU NETWORKED NUTJOB.

*

What are friends for?

Telling you what you don’t want to hear, and annoying the hell outta you.
You, my friend, do an excellent job.

*

Specifically for Sarah Palin:

Happy Martin Luther King Day,
you phony pioneer girl.

*

I love you, but every single day, I wanna smack
you silly with a stale baguette. Happy Anniversary.

*

NB: These were all my words, in his style, or his favorite words, in my style–regardless, they aren’t direct quotes from any of his works or interviews–except for the “phony pioneer girl” quote, which I simply couldn’t resist recycling. I don’t think it was harsh. I think it was awesome.

Finally, Aaron, if you’re reading, (which I highly doubt ’cause I believe you’re writing a play, a sitcom, four movies, and taking a shower) congrats to you, Lauren, Ian, David Fincher, and the cast and crew for all the nominations and awards so far for The Social Network. No surprise there—it’s all well-deserved.

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“You’re Not Being Punked.”

When I write, “until the day I found a way to speak with Mr. Screenwriter on the phone,” you must remember that I worked from home with a four-year-old tugging at my pant leg every ten minutes.

Therefore, if I wanted my impulsive plan to work (and by impulsive, I mean impulsive—I’d only come up with the idea a half hour before, when my clever four-year-old suggested in a matter-of-fact-tone, “If you want to speak to him, you should call him.”), it was imperative for the Flickering Babysitter to hold her clever attention for at least 10 minutes.

The fact that I also absent-mindedly poured her a bowl of Cheetos bigger than her little blond head while he and I were conversing is not one of my proudest parenting moments. But it did give Mr. Screenwriter and I something else to talk about.

“I just put on Rocky and Bullwinkle for my daughter, so I can get a quiet moment to speak with you. I don’t even know what Rocky and Bullwinkle’s about. Working from home doesn’t always work out for me,” I laughed.

“How old is she again?” he asked.

“Four.”

“She might be a little young, but try Pinky and the Brain,” he said, and he went on to explain why he and his daughter liked the show. We were having a regular conversation. I didn’t think I sounded like a stalker or a bimbo, but apparently I did sound Canadian, because he made a joke about my o’s. I laughed and relaxed a little, catching my breath so I could ask him my next question.

“So, I guess you’re really answering my emails?”

“Yes, Heather, you’re not being punked.”

That’s what it took for me to finally believe. Yes, Virgina, he really was Mr. Screenwriter! I could finally let go and start enjoying my time on his Mr. Screenwriter & The Facebook Movie discussion board. Maybe I’d even stretch my legs a little. Or a lot.  It was the best thing that could have happened.

Posting on a public discussion board for the first time helped me find my funny, and reading about his work (and how  much he seemed to love doing what he did) inspired me to try to write a screenplay of my own—something I’d never dreamed of trying until I happened upon that discussion board in December 2008.

I suppose my journalism training has made me overly suspicious of everything I read—especially items I read on the Internet—plus, I’ve probably watched Conspiracy Theory a few too many times. But if I weren’t an over-thinking-paranoid-yet-impulsive frosted flake, I wouldn’t have these great stories to share. There is a method to my madness.

I don’t regret much in my life, but I do regret deleting Mr. Screenwriter’s blog comment because, well, it was damn funny. And who doesn’t want to drive traffic to their blog? Who cares how it happens, as long as the readers get there?

Apparently, me. Apparently, I am the freak of nature who cares a little too much about pretty much everything. I wish I’d had Cher near my computer that day, smacking me silly, “Snap out of it, Blondie!” Why did I have to be so perfectly principled? It’s not like I’d posted photos of me pole dancing— “More of this at heathergracestewart.com!” (Besides, I couldn’t possibly have any photos like that, in case you’re wondering).

Luckily, my fits of over-thinking and panic have miraculously failed to scare Mr. Screenwriter out of my life, so I am still treated to his brand of funny from time to time.


Read how this story started:

Prologue: The Fine Line (between persistence and stalking)

1) a-The Fine Line: “Do What You Want”

b-Emails from L.A.

c-“I”m Afraid To Ask, But What Is Poking?”

Read the NEXT chapter: “You Should Write A Movie”

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The Fine Line: Emails from L.A.

“Your friend’s on T.V.”

“My friend?”

“Your friend whose name I can’t pronounce.”

“Ohhh! My FRIEND! Mr. Sitcom Actor!” I squealed, and ran from the kitchen, where hubby and I had been making dinner together, to the living room. It was three years after the Crazy Phone Call, and since that time, not one restraining order had been placed against me. Wait, that didn’t come out right. I have never had a restraining order placed against me. Seriously. Please, keep reading.

Mr. Sitcom Actor had, in fact, recently told me I should refer to him as my friend, “even though you’re in Montreal and I’m way over here in L.A.” It never surprised me when he responded to my emails—he’s a dear-heart like that—but I knew it was a rarity for a famous person in Hollywood to give a rat’s ass about someone who could do nothing for them. I enjoyed our rare yet lively e-conversations.

I caught the tail end of the ad that was on for his series, but it was enough to get me jumping up and down, clapping, as I always did when hubby told me my friend was on our TV screen. Our one-year-old was sitting in her high chair, and started clapping along with me.

“Dat? Dat dere?” she asked, big eyes blue and wondering.

“That’s my friend. Mr. Sitcom Actor. He sends me emails from L.A. Well, not really.
I email him, and he’s sweet enough to email back.”

“Nice haih, dat,” Monkeydoodle mumbled through her peas.

“Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. He really does have great hair.”

I’m going to stop typing immediately and clarify something before I get deluged with excited emails from you, dear readers. This is a fun game to play, keeping you guessing about all the parties in my story, but no, I didn’t get emails from McDreamy in my in-box. Patrick Dempsey wouldn’t return to our TV screens, set my heart racing, and make me put extra mousse in my husband’s hair until a whole year later.

As I finally sat down on the sofa, dinner plate on lap–this has got to be one of Murphy’s Laws–our daughter’s face turned beet red, and she announced an event to us for which anyone with an operating olfactory nerve required no announcement:

“Poop!”

I laughed, and was reminded of an email Mr. Sitcom Actor had sent me a few weeks back. We’d been comparing diaper duty–he’s quite the hands-on Dad and had admitted he and his wife were “knee-deep-in-it” –and, having read some of my poems, he’d told me I should write a Mommy Rap about changing diapers. “That would be hilarious!”

I never did write that rap. Life gets in the way; or perhaps that’s just not how it was supposed to happen. If I’d started practicing my rapping when Mr. Sitcom Actor suggested it, maybe I’d have learned to sing on key and sound bad-ass enough. But then I wouldn’t have earned my “The girl can’t rap, but she sure can write” t-shirt sent to me by The Sex People, along with a delicious strawberry cheesecake, delivered to my door.

Who the hell are The Sex People? I’m sure that’s what the cheesecake delivery guy wanted to know, with every inch of his being, since I wasn’t expecting him, and had answered the door in leggings and the new black stilettos I’d been modeling for my girlfriend Artsy Mommy. He must have thought I was running a very different kind of home business.

Back to The Sex People. The simple answer is I met them online when Mr. Sitcom Actor joked with me tongue-in-cheek, “Yes, Heather, let’s be friends, officially,” when I’d asked him if that was really him on Facebook—as if you have to be on Facebook to make your friendship official. He soon posted a link to a discussion board led by Mr. Screenwriter, which I thought looked quite interesting, so I joined.

Before I knew it I was online every day with a bunch of friends I’d never met, chatting about the in’s and out’s of screenwriting, sex in the movies, baseball, and our messy, beautiful lives.

It was the stuff movies are made of.

Read how this story started:

Prologue: The Fine Line (between persistence and stalking)

1) a-The Fine Line: “Do What You Want”

Read the NEXT CHAPTER: The Fine Line: I’m Afraid to Ask, but What Is Poking?