Eartha/Ikea/Margarita/iPod

Eartha Kitt is playing on Fred's iPod speakers. We want her for our movie. Maybe. Apparently our choreographer did her one-woman show and she's done two low-budget indies recently, so who knows? Maybe we could get her.

We're two glasses (each) into our bottle of Gnarly Head red zinfandel, waiting for Tippy to get back from his meeting with a potential investor. He called when he left, reporting there were half-naked crackhead women decorating the offices of our sketchy wannabe investor. The guy also wanted to do the casting for the film—his previous forays into casting show that he casts himself and all his cronies repeatedly in film after straight-to-video film Hmm. I don't think so. Can't a guy just fork over 150K and be done with it?

Anyway.

I scouted craigslist's Chicago area personals today. It's amazing how many cunning linguists there are in this city. Actually, it's disgusting. Zipless or not, the idea of meeting a random guy online and "partying serious" with him repulses me. Even a girl on the rebound's got to have some standards.

An Aside--The Weather

I'm a Midwesterner, and like it or not, I talk about the weather just as much as they all do. Today was horrible—it SNOWED! I wanted someone to go to the Green Mill with me tonight since nothing goes better with snow than live jazz and cocktails. (I'm remembering a blizzard night in February at the Blue Note in New York; gods, how fantastic it was—the quintessential New York moment.) Sadly, none of my pals here wanted to go. Instead, Fred and Tippy and I, tipsy though we may be, are going to Ikea for hangers. That's right, hangers.

Another Glass of Wine and Two Margaritas Later

We didn't go to Ikea. We went to El Tapatio on Ashland and had a pitcher of margaritas with dinner. Now we're listening to my evening playlist (think Van from his Astral Weeks years, Joni from her Blue period, and of course some Jobim Bossa Novas, mixed with a little Amos Lee, Jack Johnson, Pink Martini, Diana Krall, Lenny Cohen, Nick Drake…my heart beats in adagio). We have candles lit, an altar to the bust of Will Shakespeare (the Will Shakespeare? our potential investor asked of Tippy earlier) perched atop the radiator, and at 10 p.m. we are still working. I get hopefuls applying every 5 minutes through our website; Fred and Tippy re-hash design details and shot setups.

If I was working at a regular job, I'd be resentful of every minute spent wasting my life at work. But here I am, not getting paid, loving every second, feeling nothing is wasted. Just like when I'm writing.

The fact remains I've got to pay the rent.

Facts are why I write fiction.