Weigh In Week 2

To be consistent (and to give myself an extra day to try and shake off the sillies from the weekend), I have moved my weigh -ins to Tuesday. I stepped on the scale this morning to find my self...(drum roll)...

-2 lbs!

That puts the two week total at 5 lbs. Not bad, not bad at all.

Weigh In Week 1

Our guests left at the crack this morning so I was able to weigh in.

-3lbs.

Not bad considering Sam and I took our guests out last night for Mexican food and margaritas. I went easy on the chips knowing I had a showdown with the scale today. However, I didn't fare so well in the margarita battle which continued on after the restaurant in my living room while we played Texas Hold 'Em. But being that I'm at minus 3, I can't complain. In fact, I'll drink to that!

Weigh In Postponed

I'm not trying to dodge the weigh-in, it's just we have guests staying with us and the scale is in their bathroom. They leave tomorrow so I hop on then.

Overall I think I've had a decent week. I ate well, I worked out some but, man oh man, did I fall off the wagon over the weekend. Maura and I went to Vegas and you know how they say, What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas? Well, that's true. Except for the bloat you put on while sitting by the pool all day drinking mojitos and eating nachos. I'm pretty sure that weight comes home from Vegas with you. We'll find out tomorrow.

One Reason To Love L.A.

It was absolutely gorgeous here this weekend. I think it was 90 degrees at the beach. On Saturday morning, I couldn't find my spin shoes and by the time I did, it was too late to go to Spin class. So I decided to get on my bike and do it the old fashioned way.

I needed to replicate the awesome work-out I get when I spin so just sticking to the bike path wasn't going to work. (On a beautiful weekend every weekend warrior asshole and his kid is out there swerving all over the place -- dangerous and annoying.) I decided to take the path up to Temescal Canyon and figure it out from there.

I took a right at the first light on Temescal and made my way through the Pacific Palisades. I was unfamiliar with the neighborhood but knew if I stuck to making only rights I would be nearest to the streets that hang over the PCH and the ocean. This is what I found:
And that's taken with my cell phone! Just when you think you've had enough of Los Angeles you find a little gem of a bike ride like the one I found on Saturday. So beautiful.

Maximum Density

I'm at it. For real. I have been living in the fast lane, burning candles at both ends for too long. I'm not taking proper care of myself and it shows. Big time. I'm going to be 40 in 9 months and there is no way I'm going to be fat and forty.

I had this idea in December to do a project here on the blog called "12 to 40." For twelve months I would document my progress of trying to get in decent shape by the time I turned 40. Pictures and all. Then I realized that posting pictures of myself in my underwear is something no one wants to see. Especially now. I will, however, track my progress at trying to lose twenty pounds here without pictures.

I've found that the only way I succeed at losing weight is when I am accountable somewhere - weighing in once a week sucks but it works. So last night, I put new batteries in the scale, took my head out of the sand and saw the truth. HORRIFYING!

Starting today, each and every Monday I will post my loss or, God forbid, my gain.

And no, I'm not posting my starting weight. But if you need to get an idea, just go out and weigh the nearest trash dumpster. It's about the same. Wish me luck.

Best Toast Ever!

The ceremony was, as Al said in his comment, legendary, but the toast given by Nate was truly the highlight of the evening. Spider caught most of it.

The Best Wedding Ever!

Seriously, it was. I didn't have a videographer (is that a word?) at our wedding. Had I known what Maura had in store for us, I might have wanted to capture it on film because our wedding has gone down in history as the funniest ceremony ever. In fact, it was ripped off by a famous showrunner when he officiated a ceremony months later. We know he ripped it off because he did exactly what Maura did and that groom's brother was a guest at our wedding. No hard feelings. Anymore.

Spider caught what he could on his camera. Here you go.

Happy Anniversary, Husband!

Today is Sam's and my wedding anniversary. Apparently, flowers are the proper gift for a 4th anniversary because they represent the blossoming partnership as a couple. Blossoming, just blossoming?! What the hell's been going on for the past 4 years then? A loose association? Is it in full bloom in 8 years and then falls off and dies? I don't like the sound of any of this so I think I'll stick to normal presents that mean something to me. Like the Major League Baseball package on Direct TV. Now Sam can watch all 100+ Red Sox games. And if you know Sam, you know the one thing he really loves is sports. Sports!

We are very lucky to be remembered by our parents on our special day. My mother hooked us up with a lovely bouquet. Look:

While Vard and Ruth laced us with some green for a fancy dinner. Awesome.

It's gonna be a good day.

April Fool's Day

Do people still "do" April Fool's Day? I always hated this day. I was never clever enough to come up with something good and always afraid of falling for something stupid. Only once was I impressed by an April Fool's trick.

The trick was played on the Keating twins who were my classmates from 4th to 8th grade at St. Catherine's. Their mother was super cool. I think she had 5 boys. She was often lunch-mother for our class and never raised her voice (unlike my grandmother who was a lunch-mother and never stopped screaming at us). Anyway the twins were notorious for having the best snacks and desserts. To trade with one of the Keating boys you had to be holding something pretty great. One year, Mrs. Keating packed the regular awesome lunch for the her boys -- pb & j's with Oreo cookie chasers. Unbeknownst to them, Mrs. K had scraped out all the creamy filling of the twins' cookies and replaced it with toothpaste. The twins bit in and nearly puked. So cool.

Another TV Debut

Seems Prince Bunny Rabbit Tricks Are For Kids Bean Johnson Esquire is not the only Bean getting into show business. My brother Chris has been working the ropes, literally, at the Winchester Community Theater's production of Peter Pan. Apparently the people behind the scenes wanted to blow it all out this year and actually have Peter fly. It's great in theory until you realize some poor bastard has to be behind the scenes to make those little f*ckers fly. Here are the backstage magicians being interviewed. (It's 40 seconds in.)
Please note that it is a huge HUGE deal to be interviewed by Joyce Kulhawik. Or as Kay would call her Joycekul Hawik. Either way works.

Bunny's TV Debut

It's been a big week here on The Game. First with The Six Million Dollar Man and now with Bunny making his screen debut. He and I will be "atmosphere" in the exterior street scene we are shooting tonight.

Bunny has been very patient. His call time was 10am and his won't shoot his scene until 8pm tonight.

He waited in my office all day.

If anyone gets any crazy emails from me, you'll know who was messing around on my computer.

Easter '08

Every year for about the past 4 or 5 years Sam & I have spend Easter with the Groels. We did so again this year and, as always, it was awesome. Delicious food, terrific cocktails, an Easter egg hunt -- all of it a blast. This year the Easter egg hunt was a little easier than usual only because we really only had one kid hunting. And he was 19 months old. Basically we just threw the eggs in a pile on the ground under the kid's nose. He was awful cute picking up the eggs, opening them and handing me the chocolate inside. (Good boy.)

I did however miss what sounds like a stupendous Easter in Boston. Along with all the usual suspects: Chris, Colleen, Devin, Hayden, Larry, Garret and Samantha; were Jimmy, his wife Cathy, their granddaughter Alexis and a couple of dogs. (Michelle was in New York again so she missed out. Please click on the link to your right named Scenes From A Notebook to read about her adventures in NYC.) It sounded like chaos when I called. The best kind of chaos. People crammed into my mother's tiny kitchen trying to help her prepare while they get a load on. Good times.

Here's a picture of my nieces Samantha and Devin and my great niece Alexis. (GREAT NIECE?! You got to be f*cking kidding me.)
It seems impossible that these three girls are related, doesn't it? I love that Alexis wants no part of that hat. She's all, "You can drag my little butt all the way up here to Boston but don't be clowning me with your silly lids." I so wish I was there to meet her.

Steve Austin

Lee Majors, aka Steve Austin, aka The Six Million Dollar Man is in my episode which we are shooting today. Obviously he's a much older man now, but he definitely seems much older than his 69 years. He's had so many chemical peels that his lower eyelids look like they are melting. That said, he's a nice man who really does try hard. Today when he messed up a take the director yelled, "Where would you like to take it from?" He came back with, "From my trailer." Still a quick wit.

However a few takes later when the camera was turned around on Mr. Majors, the actor who was in the scene with him was trying to play around and ad-libbed the line, "F*ck you, Lee Majors." The quick wit was thrown for a loop. He just blinked a few times like an old man who had just been slapped. Silence fell like a freezing cold blanket of snow over the whole stage. It was awkward to say the least.

If you're gonna say "F*ck you, Lee Majors" it needed to be said to the man when he looked like this:

Not this:

StepDogger Scores 2050 On SATs

Yes, you read that right. Out of a possible score of 2400, my brilliant stepdaughter scored a 2050. I believe that score provides excellent argument for the nurture vs nature debate. Obviously my nurturing gave her those brains. If she had to go simply of nature and heredity who knows what kind of lowball score she would have gotten. Those two generations of Yalie blood coursing through her veins got nothing on me and what I've taught her about the streets. In fact I think the new section on the test is all about street smarts. I just wish they had that section on the test when I took it. I might have done better than a 790. And that's with the 200 points they give you just for getting your name right.

444 Redux

Okay, so I thought that by writing about 444, I could shake it's steely hold on me. I was wrong.

This morning we table read my latest Game script. (A table read is when all the actors, producers, director, network executives, etc sit around a large table and listen the script being read out loud.) Anyway, we table read my script and it went very well. All the emotional highs and lows (it's a very dramatic sitcom) were on point and the jokes funny. The one big problem was that the script was a little long. Four minutes and forty four seconds long to be exact!

Weird.

StepDogger Takes The SATs.

A few weekends ago my step-daughter, Ivy (Dogs or Dogger), took the SATs. If I remember correctly, when I took them the highest you could get was like 1600 or something. Now a perfect score is 2400. More test, more to get wrong.

I asked Dogs what the essay question was. She said she was asked to debate whether or not groups or organizations are successful when individuals pursue their own hopes and wishes. I told her I would have said that, yeah, organizations like, say, a volleyball team or something, are successful when the individual players use specific dreams/goals of personal success towards a greater (team) win.

Not bad for an answer on the fly when walking into a bar. I popped my collar and listened to what she had to say.

Apparently Dogger had other ideas. Her answer was that they were most successful and cited Abraham Lincoln following his much more radical hope than the rest of the Republican party and making the party be the most successful than its ever been and Reverend Hooper from Nathaniel Hawthorne's the Minister's Black Veil who followed his own wishes instead of just sticking to the church's.

Yeah, that's good, too.

The Latest Bean Addition

My brother Jimmy is a grandfather AGAIN! Here is a picture of Alexis, his daughter Jamie's baby. Don't you want to take a bite out of her?

I Want One.

Not So Generous Pour?

Well, it finally happened, Vito got hip to the ways of the drinking world and bought new martini glasses for the bar. The switcheroo from a 9 ounce to a 7 ounce glass happened the weekend I took off. At first, I couldn't figure out what the problem was. I kept over pouring my first few cocktails and then I realized: This f*cker is smaller. Mary, my co-tender, confirmed my suspicions. One morning Roberto, Vito's cheap brother, sneaked into the bar and replaced all the martini glasses in the freezer. (I wonder if he did this before or after he filled all the premium vodka bottles with the cheap stuff?)

My first thought was; is this my fault? Are me and my friends burning through so much vodka that a measly two ounces will make a difference? (When I pour for friends and family I use the good stuff -- I know which bottles are filled with rubbing alcohol and which are the real deal.)
Then I realized, yes, it is our fault but not for that reason.

Almost no one (except my friends) orders more than one martini because they are so huge. By making the glasses a little smaller, people are more likely to order a second. In trying to figure out how to get the rest of the restaurant to drink the way my friends drink, they needed to shrink the drink. A shrewd business move to milk the lightweights. I'm proud to say my friends have set the pace at Vito.

Bully Tactics

I've been asked politely (and not so politely, STACEY!) to start posting again. I know I've been incommunicato for a while and I apologize. I believe I am truly suffering from writer's block. You should see that state of the pilot I should be working on but that's another story.

Today, two things inspired me to post again:

1) On stage, the script supervisor, Ellen, writes down little inspirational sayings and tapes them to her rolling podium. Today's was: "Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishments." I swear to god that little card was right behind me every time I turned around. I've had no discipline since going back to work. Just last week I started to incorporate working-out into my life again. And that's something I NEVER let lapse. Being back to work since the strike has been a difficult transition. The hours are long and when I do get home, I need to be a wife of some sort so I let things, important things, like writing, fall to the wayside. But I can't do that anymore. I might have to give up my nightly games of Scrabulous with Sam and Uncle Balls. (If you don't know what Scrabulous is, don't Google it. You'll lose hours of your life.)

2) The thing that really pushed me over the edge, though, was this email from my brother Chris.



Extinction occurs when a behavior (response) that had previously been reinforced is no longer effective. In the Skinner box experiment, this is the rat pushing the lever and being rewarded with a food pellet several times, and then pushing the lever again and never receiving a food pellet again. Eventually the rat would cease pushing the lever.

Post to your blog


I'm so grateful that people care about this blog and I will do my best to honor your loyalty.

p.s. Stacey, I ain't scared of you.