jimmy stewart

i was jimmy stewart and i was supposed to babysit someone's baby. there was an entire house full of people and i couldn't figure out how i'd got stuck with the job. the baby had taken a late nap and was at the stage where she could crawl out of her crib if she wanted- and she wanted. the house was starting to turn into a party and i just wanted to have fun but the baby kept crawling out of her bed. i felt mad and kept trying to abdicate baby duty but no one wanted to be responsible either. meanwhile, there were people trying to get a light going with thermite and they had no idea what they were doing. i tried to show them safe handling techniques but everyone was starting to have too much fun to pay any real attention. a girl came around and was collecting everyone's credit cards. i just handed her mine without thinking. she got online and started reading private financial information out loud. i went to grab my card but just then the baby tried to escape again. i remember thinking, 'oh this is why casey anthony used the duct tape...'

marlene stewart

richard and cj wanted my position so they pretended not to know each other and went on a campaign to discredit me. marlene was very sweet to me but felt in the face of the overwhelming evidence it was best if we parted company. when i went to pack, about 1/2 my things were missing. cj was pretending to help me find them but cj  saw richard  holding up my possessions behind me every time i turned my head was trying to suppress laughter. it was all so mean and happened so fast that i was kind of moving through the whole thing like a compliant zombie.

i was in my seat on the train and it was just pulling out of the station when i got a text from richard. it was a selfie of him and cj flanking marlene stewart in bed. they both had wide grins and were waving.

frozen squirrels

something about 4 frozen squirrels and not being able to figure out which one was mine...

jason and the ungulate

jason and i were working on the same project but his pet cow? llama? was with us. they both got injured but it was worse for the ungulate as it was old. we decided to bring them both to the vet because that way the ungulate would get the best care possible since MD's were not vets. they made a straw bed with a blanket over it for jason in the same room as the ungulate. jason got a cast on his arm and the ungulate got a ringer and blood drawn for tests. pretty soon everybody heard about jason and the ungulate and were lined out the door to visit them at the vet. i had to go back to his house to bring special food back for the ungulate and frustratingly ended up at the end of a long line. also, somehow i got stuck with phil spector again (only this time he was phil spector) and all the old has-been female singers kept stopping us and trying to impress him by singing a few raspy licks from their hay-days. of course phil loved the attention and salaciously listened to them all. it was excruciating. i left phil, went home and got my bike, put the food in the basket and rode to the front of the line. when i got into the room, it was a party atmosphere; jason was laughing and having a great time, people had brought food and gag gifts, the ungulate seemed really sick. i handed the food to the vet and she rolled her eyes at the circus around us. i rode home and kept saying, 'uhg!' to myself.

blue ridge writing retreat

she had scrimped and saved until she had just enough money to take 3 months off to write. her destination was originally a small cabin in a remote and beautiful part of the blue ridge mountains. at the last minute, the cabin had flooded out and she was left scrambling to find a suitable replacement. after many dead ends, someone suggested the attached guest quarters of an elderly woman. she was reluctant because she wanted solitude but finally agreed because it was her last option.

when she arrived, the beauty of the place took her breath away. the house looked like it had probably been built in the 40's, but it was solid and obviously tended to lovingly. there were flowering vines trailing up every post, fruit trees everywhere and large, gorgeous flower beds and vegetable gardens alive with happy bees. the woman who owned the property was in her 70's, but she was very sturdy and moved like a much younger person. her smile was warm and genuine and her handshake was strong. she felt solid and seemed to be made of whatever it was that coalesced in a person to emanate the comforting aura of trust. the old woman led the young woman around the back to show her where she would be staying. as they rounded the corner of the house, the young woman could see a soft green lawn sloping down to a deep, clear, fast running stream. she knew she would be able to write here.

in spite of the younger womans previous declaration for solitude, within a couple of days she found herself sharing meals with the older woman. the younger woman also found herself sharing closely guarded truths with her host. in the same soft way she had invited the young woman to share her dinners, the older woman gently encouraged 'confessional' conversation by nodding, coaxing softly and offering no judgement in return. before long, the young woman had revealed things about herself that had never fallen upon anyone else's ears; the dead-end romances (one with a married man), the two abortions, years of drugs, alcohol and  nameless sex to numb the pain, her fears of failure and success. the young woman soon lost her want to keep her secrets and spoke until she felt unburdened and more relaxed than she had in years. her writing flowed effortlessly.

it was nearing dinnertime into her 3rd week, her finished pages cached safely in her hard drive (no access to the internet or her cell phone). she'd written almost a dozen pages that day alone and had happily gathered up two spectacular flowers in the afternoon when she'd stopped for lunch. to celebrate her growing body of work, she decided to slip the flowers behind her ear after her shower to surprise the older woman at dinner. as she made her final adjustments and moved across her room toward the door, the door exploded open and slammed hard on the wall. it was the older woman filling the doorway- but she was changed. gone was her gentle manner and open expression. in its place was pure rage- frightening, almost masculine in its power. in one of her hands, she held an ax. 'i guess you've been a very sinful girl,' she hissed loudly, 'it's time to be punished.' with that she turned on her heel, slammed the door and immediately locked it. the young woman stood frozen in the same spot she'd been in when the door first opened. her brain seemed frozen too. how could she process what had just transpired- was it a dream? the older woman quickly moved around the outside of the apartment, closing the shutters to all the windows and bolting them tight. as the last shutter was secured, the young woman plummeted into the moment and realized that she had just been imprisoned by a total stranger in the middle of the woods with no one expecting to hear from her for almost 2 1/2 more months. she heard a metallic scraping of a switch being pulled and was plunged into total darkness.

'you have worked against the lord!' the old woman bellowed from outside, 'you will be washed clean!' she then began to recite verses from the bible like the crazy, impotent street corner zealots the young woman passed harmlessly (and barely noticed...) every day on her way to the subway. the old woman's vehement sermon was filled with an angry repetition of words like 'smiting, revenge, atonement, rape' and finally someone burning his daughter alive to 'prove his love for god'. after an hour, the old woman's voice grew raspy and she stopped reciting aloud. the young woman pressed her ear against the window and heard the old woman shuffle away toward the front of the house (a sound familiar to her now...). the young woman figured she had an excellent chance of being burned alive in an 'accidental' blue ridge house fire. a fire commanded by providence so that the old woman's 'god' could reap satisfaction by inhaling the aroma of her burning (and sin-filled...) flesh as it lifted to the clouds. the young woman picked up a chair and smashed out one of the windows. she then kicked the shutter until a shard split off that was just big enough for her to squeeze through. she had her body out of the room and one foot on the ground when the old woman turned the corner of the house with a shotgun held at her shoulder and pulled the trigger. she was only 10 feet away but her aim was wild and missed. the young woman ran down the embankment toward the stream and threw herself into the fast current. as she swam with all her might, she felt the concussion of the shotgun blasts as they hit the water around her. she was gasping from a combination of fear, flight and being plunged into icy cold water- but even as she was pulled far enough away to be safe from the shotgun, she could still hear the old woman screaming for her to come back to be cleansed.

charlie sheen and conan o'brien

charlie sheen was on conan o'brien. his latest 'thing' alive in the press was that his life was so salacious it was having the effect of making neckties lift to a horizontal 'erect' position as he passed the wearer. conan wanted to test it out for himself and sure enough, as he walked out onto the stage past conan, conan's tie lifted straight out. it got a big laugh. conan then asked charlie if he would agree to be strapped to a lie detector while he was being interviewed since it was difficult for people to believe his life was as decadent and debauched as he claimed. another big round of applause as charlie agreed without hesitation. charlie was strapped in and began immediately regaling the crowd with the most shocking details of his life. the needle on the lie detector was dead still- which for the first few minutes was wildly hilarious. after about 15 minutes, it became very boring.

jon stewart

i was helping jon stewart and his wife move into their new house right near the harbor in a beautiful small and sunny town in maine. everything was perfect except there was a section of the fence missing that was right near the road and the dogs and the kids kept running right for it. jon didn't have any tools but he kept saying we could just wing it. i was skeptical but started looking around for stuff to use. i found wire, jon's wife found some heavy cardboard and jon came back with brittle dried reeds. his wife and i exchanged a look like, 'ugh, men...' and then started knocking together a barrier with the wire and the cardboard. when it was finished we all decided i would go back into town with jon to get some tools and materials to fix it properly while his wife made lunch. the whole way to the hardware store jon kept complaining that we just hadn't given his reeds any real consideration.

phil spector

phil spector was the mad hatter except that he was actively malevolent. everyone deferred to him although he was so frail and tiny he posed no physical threat and had no actual authority. there were all manner of persons and human sized bipedal animals dressed in elaborate period costume- but they weren't costumes, they were real. every time i found myself engaged in conversation with someone (some thing...) my eye would wander from their faces and begin to run all over the textures of the textiles they were wearing and no matter how urgent the subject being discussed was, all i kept thinking were things like, 'wow, that is real silk velvet!' or 'they don't make silk satin that heavy anymore- where did it come from?' and, 'my GOD that brocade is so artful and intricate!' the whole scene was very chaotic and though it seemed that most of the persons (and creatures...) present thought i needed to be some part of a solution or resolution or higher understanding of whatever it was that they were all on about, i was pretty sure not one of them had a clue that i wasn't paying the least bit of constructive attention. for some reason that was never made clear, phil spector kept getting madder and madder (angrier and angrier...) and as he spoke i could see his spit spraying whenever he popped a consonant. i kept thinking, 'this is so crazy, i wonder how i got here...'

alfred hitchcock

alfred hitchcock was explaining the finer details of horror versus suspense. all of the points he made were fascinating. we were finishing up our cocktails and starting to say our goodbyes when he asked me if i'd like to engage in real life suspense. he said there would be no actual danger, but it would be very complex and possibly last longer than i thought. oh yes, and i would have to become an undercover police officer. i said yes.

fast forward to me walking up the stairs of a montecito mansion. i was dressed like Eva Marie Saint in North by Northwest. the climb included the chirping of cheerful birds and a light hearted underscore. my future 'husband' opened the door before i could knock. he was beaming. he looked like the tall, thin, less attractive older brother of james stewart. i knew everything about him; he was fabulously wealthy and seemed to have a habit of 'misplacing' most of his wives shortly after he'd become infatuated with his latest secretary. i was to be number five. his soon to be 'doomed' wife had no idea i was actually there to rescue her and reacted to my arrival with wringing hands and a furrowed brow. she hovered on the periphery, but said nothing to me.

soon my 'suitor' was openly courting me with all manner of limitless shopping trips (part of the deal i had with the police was that i would get to keep whatever he gave me after the case was finished- so i shopped greedily and with total enthusiasm). we chatted and flirted over long, expensive lunches and dinners at all the best places in town. when we finally 'consummated' our affair, it was with a 1950's closed mouth 'lip press' (he found it wildly thrilling, i could do it without feeling sordid).

i knew things were heating up when he became openly intolerant of his wife and spoke to her sharply even in front of me. i already had more than the mother load from all my shopping and i made the mistake of trying to wrap things up and move things along too quickly. he came home one afternoon and i presented him with our new born triplets. he feigned delight, but i guess even in a 1950's film, the man gets suspicious if you've only ever lip-pressed and then try to pass off baby swans as his offspring. (lulz... my brain) he petted the swans, held up the boy and said, 'my 1st son!', but i could see hatred in his eyes. i pretended not to notice. the wife though saw her opportunity to survive and renewed her allegiance to him by also turning against me. i did not see that.

before i knew it, the three of us were sailing in black water on a blustering and stormy night. i thought, 'oh this is where he tries to kill her' and almost at that same moment he capsized the boat and all three of us were in the water. each of us was sitting in our own inflatable and all three were loosely connected by cord. he then turned to me and said, 'here's the part where you sink to the bottom of the sea...' and he began to lunge at my raft with a knife but the waves were too high and strong for him to come anywhere near me. i started to laugh and pulled out a 2 liter bottle with location devices hidden inside. i twisted the cap to activate it and threw it in the water. a screen came to life in a hovering police helicopter and pinpointed my location exactly. help was on the way.

i was still laughing when i said, 'darling, you are under arrest!' as the wash from the blades of the chopper blew up the water around us.