Holiday wrapping

So I am officially wrapped for the first season of Hell Froze Over. The word over at Misplaced Planet is that the episodes will start airing right before (or actually on) Valentine's Day 2009, so I will keep you posted as it gets closer to the date. Also, for you behind-the-scenes junkies out there, I will be blogging along with each aired episode to let you know the stuff that went down on the set, the hilarity that ensued between takes, and all the stuff they didn't keep in the episodes, most likely because a) it wasn't that funny, or b) I was talking with my mouth full again. I like to do that a lot.

Also, by "hilarity that ensued between takes", it's mostly me cracking myself up, and the rest of the crew and cast waiting patiently for me to stop being the only person laughing in the room. To be fair, I think it's because someone laced the crafts services snacks with glue.

I am also finally, totally, officially wrapped on the short film The Last Time I Saw Her. The director needed a couple more things since I last blogged, and then the other actor and I went with the director down to Venice Beach and filmed a bunch of stills to promote the film and do the poster art. We had a blast, just shooting on the rocks out at Venice, watching the tide come in and the sun go down, and watching the storm that hit last night roll in from the north. I've seen several of the photos, and I think they turned out great. I feel like a very lucky girl to be working on projects that I'm really proud to promote and plug and talk and blog about. And of course, all the wonderful people that I get to work with.

The holidays in LA are kind of a weird gig. There's no snow, there's occasionally nothing but sunshine and good weather, things that I don't mind on a warm spring day, to be sure, but it gets difficult to find the coziness of the holidays when it's over 80 degrees and the air-conditioning is running. So as I'm blogging this, the sky is dark with storm clouds, there are bright red and green lights glowing in my living room, and I've got a mug of hot chocolate with saturated marshmallows sitting on my desk, begging to be finished. It's as good as I'm going to get, and I'll take every last minute of it.

I'm also finally allowing myself to listen to holiday music, as I usually wait until the last two weeks of December to do so, if only to avoid getting burnt out on holiday songs early and end up longing for some good classic Metallica while everyone else is singing along to Jingle Bells as we open presents. Just in case I do burn out quickly, I follow the yearly tradition of making a mix CD of holiday music that, in my humble opinion, doesn't suck nearly as much as most of the songs on mainstream radio do. I'm also slightly less embarrassed to be caught singing in the car at red lights if I have some more alternative music playing. (This lesson was learned the hard way, and I'm not going to go into details, but it involves Alvin and the Chipmunks.) And now that I'm in the holiday spirit, I'm thinking some time this week is as good a time as any for me to decorate a tree, watch A Muppet Christmas Carol (my favorite holiday movie, although Elf comes highly recommended from my friends) and find a place somewhere in my home to hang a stocking. I'm thinking maybe on the cat.

My Zales commercial is still getting plenty of air-time, so that's also lovely, and I've gotten several excited phone calls from friends and relatives about seeing it, and one phone call from a friend who noted that somewhere, deep in the pits of the glory that we call the internet, there's a football blog where the blogger talks about him and his friends making inappropriate comments about the deaf woman in the Zales commercial while watching a football game.

Greaaaaaat. Have I mentioned how much I love the internet?

I hope you all have wonderful holidays, that you get to be with the ones you love, and that you make it home, wherever home may be.

--Tracy