I didn't think anyone was afraid of ladybugs...

...but apparently, I was wrong. Brooke is.

Yes, folks, it's that time of week again. That time when I talk up the latest episode of Hell Froze Over (we only have two left after this one airs on Monday. TWO! Call your in-laws and tell them about the web-series! And then don't apologize to them until Thanksgiving!) and I tell you how much fun I had working with such awesome actors and writers and directors and that we shot half of it in New York where I was busy drooling over how beautiful the city was in the autumn and then shot the other half in LA where I was super grateful I wasn't buried in eight feet of snow back in NY. I really got the best of both worlds with our shooting schedule for Season 1. I'm hoping Season 2 (everyone still has their fingers crossed, right? Because remember...I CAN SEE YOU) will have just as peachy a shooting schedule and that Misplaced Planet will have lined up even more wonderful and talented people for me to act with. It IS their full-time job.

Speaking of wonderful and talented, my partner in crime (literally, I think, based on how you view it) for this HFO episode entitled Drama Queen, is Mark. Ah, Mark. Mark is funny, wonderfully kind, has the same shoe size as me, cooks Swedish pancakes like no one else I've ever met (possibly because I've never met anyone who cooks Swedish pancakes before) and does a damn good Charlie Chaplin impersonation. Yes, check out this project from some of the other people involved in Misplaced Planet (apparently they do other stuff besides just find me cool actors to work with) because a) it's freakin' awesome, b) you will recognize the actor playing the villain as Teddy, the man who can't hold his own (pardon the pun) during the Threesome episode of Hell Froze Over, and c) it's got zombies. Who doesn't love zombies? Ask Austin, Texas.

So yes, Mark plays a Drama Queen who's a little too dark, even for Jody, we see Brooke's deepest fears manifest itself in a delightfully odd phobia of ladybugs, and we see Jody...stay Jody. Which would be saying a lot, except I don't know exactly what that says. Because Jody is just kind of...Jody.

Speaking of Jody, you can always check out her blog here and read her takes on the dates. Right now the blog is only up to her version of what happened in the Stalker episode, but look for more "Jody's point of view" blogs in the next couple days, and I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoy writing them. Getting into character as Jody used to be a bit more of a struggle, and now I find, especially when I blog as her, that it's become almost natural. Oh wait. That's not a good thing.

Have a wonderful week, make sure to tell your friends, enemies, and those whom you haven't yet labeled as either in your life about the web-series. It's grown, and still continues to grow, because of you guys spreading the word about what you like and find funny. And if you don't like Hell Froze Over... tell people to check out a web-series you DON'T like! It's just like when you eat bad food and you go, "Ew, this is awful, HERE TRY SOME." That's what we want to get people to do!!!

HERE, TRY SOME.

PS after you watch the episode, let me know if you can see the part where Mark actually makes himself bleed. All for the love of drama, so to speak. :)

Amour Fati*

1) blowing bubbles in the park on a warm, sunny day
2) sand between your toes
3) a cup of hot chocolate to warm your hands, strolling around the neighborhood looking at holiday lights
4) catching the most amazing sunset...in your car, on a hike, at the beach...
5) windows rolled down. radio turned up. driving through a canyon lined with trees.
6) sprinklers on a hot day
7) balloons
8) ceiling fans
9) kittens discovering snow for the first time
10) a really good workout you didn't even know you needed
11) brightly colored glass lanterns
12) a busy neighborhood of kids (or a full house of kid-minded adults) on Halloween
13) thank you notes that arrive in the mail
14) first official day of flip flops
15) working at a job that lets you observe the first official day of flip flops
16) fireworks
17) knowing a quicker way home than the rest of the city
18) sleepovers, even when you're a grown up
19) brand new notebooks, a fresh stack of pencils, new pens, beginning a new pad of post its...
20) exact change
21) refusing to answer the phone if it's not a good time
22) movie previews
23) babies + ice cream
24) dogs + peanut butter
25) the cool underside of the pillow in the middle of the night
26) a cold glass of strawberry lemonade, not too watered down but with just enough ice, on a porch in the mid-afternoon summer heat
27) friends, family, and how interchangeable the two are
28) finding out that someone spoke highly of you, behind your back, and had no way of knowing it would get back to you
29) faith
30) fireplaces lit on chilly evenings
31) spending all day cooking for a very special meal -- and having it turn out really, really well.
32) rainy Sunday afternoon -- burrowing under the blankets with a good book
33) feeling confident in your decisions
34) quitting a job
35) an unexpected check in the mail
36) handwritten notes
37) finding your theme song -- and then singing it loudly and joyfully for all the world to hear
38) making a healthy choice, even if it's not your FIRST choice
39) throwing away or donating things you no longer need
40) letting it go
41) kissing in public
42) picnics
43) having someone make an extra effort to correct a mistake that happened to you
44) root beer from a glass bottle
45) shooting stars
46) colorful fish
47) crayons
48) being good friends with one or more of your parents
49) listening
50) loving yourself, in all your imperfect glory


* "Amour Fati -- 'Love Your Fate', which is in fact your life." -- Friedrich Nietzsche

if my cat could blog

7:30 AM: Sleep

8:30 AM: Sleep

9:15 AM: WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT NOISE nevermind, back to sleep

10:30 AM: Sleep

11:30 AM: Eat. This is, as you all are well aware, quite exhausting, so I think I need another nap so as to not over-exert myself.

12:30 PM: Sleep

1:30 PM: Explore apartment. Lately I've been thinking about Dostoevsky's theory of Extraordinary Man. Was Raskolnikov truly an Extraordinary Man as he imagined, or did the subsequent murdering of his landlady prove that he OOOH SUN PATCH.

1:31 PM: Sleep. In sun patch.

2:30 PM: Sleep.

3:30 PM: Eat. Use cat box, making sure to miss half of the cat box, then spread litter in surrounding areas of cat box, then track litter throughout apartment just to get my point across. I am displeased about something, but I forget what.

4:30 PM: Sleep.

5:30 PM: Oh. You're home.

6:30 PM: Papers! I love papers! When you put them in carefully organized piles on the floor they are so very fun to lie on!!

7:30 PM: I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU what are you cooking for dinner by the way?

8:30 PM: I hate you.

9:30 PM: I still hate you.

10:30 PM: Ah, belly rub. I love you NOW I HATE YOU AGAIN.

11:30 PM: Wait, you're going to sleep NOW? But all this STUFF is happening.

12:30 AM: Sleep.

1:30 AM: Sleep.

2:30 AM: PARTY TIME.

The HFO episode that ruined jello for me for at least a month

...is now airing. It's called "Prude," and we find our dear Jody trying so hard to survive on a date with a guy who seems to be fairly old fashioned about what should and shouldn't turn people on. And when Jody challenges him, he overcompensates...in the worst way possible. Let's just say that things get messy, and Jody is probably never allowed to borrow clothes from Brooke again.

This was one of the LA episodes that we shot a few months back, and honestly, I know I say this about all my co-stars, but I just adored Matt, my prudish date. How can someone be so adorable in so many ways? I don't know either. But he is. And he's hysterical and totally sweet in person too. Where does Misplaced Planet find these people again?

So enjoy the episode, and as usual, let me know what you think. It's not everyday I get to eat bowls and bowls full of jello on set (ugh) and then handle, ahem, raw meat... and then get covered in....well, just watch the episode; again, I don't really recommend watching it at work. But aren't the episodes not safe for work the BEST episodes?

:)

And on a completely unrelated note, I became a member of Greenpeace on Saturday afternoon, not because I completely agree or disagree with their agenda but because the recruiter on the street came up with the best pitch line I've ever heard and I am nothing if not a sucker for good marketing.

Leaving my favorite Cuban bakery with a potato sandwich (it's delicious!) and a strawberry smoothie, feeling good about my life and wearing my Batman t-shirt with pride (I'll put it up as my new profile picture in a day or so, so you can see!) the Greenpeace recruiter on the street called after me, "Batman was a member of Greenpeace!" And I had to laugh. And then support the cause.

Now would this work with every cause and every recruiter? Probably not. I will probably not join the Merchant Marines because somebody told me Batman did it. But I'd been meaning to help out those polar bears anyways, so I signed up and made someone's day.

And finally, I wanted to thank my friend Kenny in Boston (hi Kenny!) for making me the best damn mix CD I've heard in a quite a while. All the tracks on the two cds he made me are wonderful, but I am especially enjoying Michael Buble's "Feelin' Good", and have been playing it on steady repeat in my car for a few days now. And when your life is changing, as mine is, in both good ways and bad, when you're not quite sure if you're going to make it through another day without the rug getting pulled out from under you yet again and you feel a little defeated, play this song loudly, and let your heart sing along.

It's a new day.

An event five years in the making...

Way back when I was in junior high, (don't worry, this will lead up to Hell Froze Over's new episodes eventually) I had to choose which language I wanted to study. And being a concerned, somewhat-more-aware-of-the-world-than-most-of-my-peers citizen of Southern California, the language I decided to pursue study of was:

German.

I know, right?! There are SO many Germans cruising around Los Angeles, San Diego, and Orange County, I just HAD to study it so I could talk with my neighbors and my new friends on the street.

Okay, so I probably should have studied Spanish. I actually know a little Spanish now (being a citizen of Southern California, I pretty much HAVE to). But I loved German. I loved everything about the German language, its Romantic roots, its Grimm fairy tales, the country, the food, the people... and I ended up studying the German language for five years, from seventh grade through my junior year of high school. I've even been to Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and that little country of awesomeness, Liechtenstein. (::fist bumps Liechtenstein::)

As I studied hard for my German finals and debated whether or not to take the German AP test, my mind would occasionally wander to the usefulness of the language in Southern California. Where I would speak it? And with whom? I didn't even know if there was a Little Germany in Los Angeles. (There isn't -- but there is one in New York!)

Then I studied Latin for two years, graduated from high school and college, picked up a little bit of French, Spanish, and sign language here and there (I am also fluent in Random), and stopped wondering so much if I'd ever find a place in the world where I could truly get back into learning and speaking German.

Until.

As it turns out, Hell Froze Over? Yeah. We're big in Germany. And yes, so is Alf and Jerry Lewis, but you do NOT get to mock. Because Germany rocks. Ask any backpacker who has traveled across Europe -- ask him or her where he or she found the friendliest people. Nine out of ten people will say Germany, and the tenth person might say Ireland. Fine. Let Ireland take the tenth person. I don't even care. Because nine other people will have found that Germans are the nicest, friendliest, and most helpful of all the countries in the EU. So there.

So people in Germany are really liking us on the YouTube, and we've even got a lovely comment on our "Lesbian" episode, half in German, half in English. And guess who was able to translate? Yep. That's right. Go check it out.

Frau Strauss, my German teacher, would have been so proud. And then she would have yelled at me for being late again. And eating my pop tart during class.

Also, premiering today, is Hell Froze Over's sixth webisode, "Mystery Man." Again, this was one of the episodes we shot in New York, on a gorgeously grey rainy day, with another fantastically talented actor who plays the mysteriously normal Tony Tambler. Why did Jody reject him? Why wasn't it true love? Will she find it this time around? And how useful IS that new thing to do while you're sitting in traffic?

You'll have to watch the episode to find out -- but it's one of my favorites because the humor is subtle and low-key, the way I like my jokes. Oh, sure, out-there jokes are great and random, and Jody is the kind of girl to get locked into the trunk of a car or go on a date with her stalker, but sometimes we find ourselves in those quietly hilarious, all-too-real situations that I think are what makes comedy so genius.

Enjoy the episode and let me know what you think. And please, feel free to tell your German cousins how awesome we are. And how obsessed Jody is with hot dogs, which really is just a slightly smaller bratwurst.

Incidentally, "slightly smaller bratwurst" - that was totally my nickname in the German Club in high school. Weird.

a few of my favorite things

<--------- This, for one. This is one of my favorite images -- it's St. Paul's Cathedral in London, England, being bombed during the Blitz of World War II. And people volunteered to stay in the city, on the roof of this church, instead of evacuating like everyone else, with buckets of water to put out fires in case it got hit. They risked their lives because of this beautiful church -- and so I love this photo and everything it represents -- the triumph of the spirit of humanity and its generosity over bombs, and war, and hatred. Beautiful. I like quite a few other things too, not just this photograph. It's been one of those weeks, and so I find myself focusing on gratitude, and all the wonderful things that are in my life that I enjoy and make me feel calm, happy, joyous, and grateful. I thought I'd share a couple more with you. Right now, I am particularly looking forward to this movie, and the trailer gives me chills I think it's so good, not counting the fact that it utilizes a fairly awesome Coheed and Cambria song. It's a little dark and weird, but then, I suppose I am too. :)



Some of my other favorite things at the moment (that I'm starting to get a little obsessive about, oops) are sweet potato fries (especially with bleu cheese dressing), the color aquamarine, which I just matched my entire bathroom to (did you know you can search by color on Etsy? This made it really easy for me to buy a matching aquamarine soap bar from Etsy seller Sunbasilgarden), wooden elephants (with their trunks raised for good luck), anything with owls (don't ask me why), goat cheese on my pizza, girl scout cookies (no explaination needed there), red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, chocolate croissants, wooden bowls, and old black and white photos of London and Paris. Oh, and this poem. which helps me keep it all in perspective:

"Antilamentation"
by Dorianne Laux

Regret nothing. Not the cruel novels you read
to the end just to find out who killed the cook.
Not the insipid movies that made you cry in the dark,
in spite of your intelligence, your sophistication.
Not the lover you left quivering in a hotel parking lot,
the one you beat to the punchline, the door, or the one
who left you in your red dress and shoes, the ones
that crimped your toes, don't regret those.
Not the nights you called god names and cursed
your mother, sunk like a dog in the living room couch,
chewing your nails and crushed by loneliness.
You were meant to inhale those smoky nights
over a bottle of flat beer, to sweep stuck onion rings
across the dirty restaurant floor, to wear the frayed
coat with its loose buttons, its pockets full of struck matches.
You've walked those streets a thousand times and still
you end up here. Regret none of it, not one
of the wasted days you wanted to know nothing,
when the lights from the carnival rides
were the only stars you believed in, loving them
for their uselessness, not wanting to be saved.
You've traveled this far on the back of every mistake,
ridden in dark-eyed and morose but calm as a house
after the TV set has been pitched out the upstairs
window. Harmless as a broken ax. Emptied
of expectation. Relax. Don't bother remembering
any of it. Let's stop here, under the lit sign

on the corner, and watch all the people walk by.

There are times, I suppose, that are harder than others, and times that are easier than others. I don't pretend that I'm the only one who has bad moments, bad days, bad weeks, or bad months. I don't pretend that I've never made mistakes, or have no regrets, or that half the time I even know what I'm doing. But things are a little less heavy, and the burdens feel a little lighter, when I forgive myself, and others, when I see all of us as innocent in our own way; and when I do this, it allows me to open up my hands to accept even the smallest amount of light that life gives to each of us, even on the darkest of days.

Spreading the love

You know what makes me happier than just about anything?

Well, okay, yes, the thought of a lobster dinner in a private bungalow in Tahiti with Christian Bale is TECHNICALLY the answer (just to clarify, if wishes are granted based on how specific blogs are, I would like Batman Begins' Christian Bale and not American Psycho's Christian Bale, although some would argue they are one in the same. Also, may I please have a butter-lemon sauce with my lobster? And can I get some rice pilaf on the side?)

What makes me ecstatic, second only to incredible food and a date with nice arm muscles and a good Welsh accent, is when my friends are happy, and successful, and doing what they want to do in this business. This? This makes me very happy. So happy, in fact, that I wanted to share some of their successes with you guys, because my friends work hard in this industry and I absolutely love it when one of them contacts me and lets me know the hard work paid off. The entertainment industry is not for the faint of heart, and it's not for everybody, and above all else, it's not for the selfish. You can refer to an earlier blog of mine about LA vs NY, but you have to network while in Los Angeles, and networking is about developing good, strong relationships and friendships built on support and mutual recognition of each other as artists. If you're trying to step on a bunch of people to get to the top, you're going to find it a very lonely place if you ever get there. I wish you the best of luck with that.

At any rate, two of my friends are having good moments in their lives, moments when they are both working (albeit in two different ways) to make their way through this industry, and it just so happens that these are two of the least selfish, most supportive people I know. When I have a project going on, they are the first to email words of encouragement and support and check out what I'm working on. I wanted to return the favor.

So first up is the incredible Alex Ball (check out his website here), who has a guest-star role on "Rules of Engagement" tonight, Mon. 03/9/09, on CBS at 9:30 PM. Apparently he plays an orderly in a nursing home who has to do some stuff that no one should ever be asked to do, but hey, what are nursing home orderlies for?

Alex is one of those guys who is blessed with three things: one, incredible comedic timing. (I worked with him in acting class. He blew the rest of us away. It was actually kind of annoying.)

And two, the fact that Alex has the kind of look where he can go from a really good looking guy in a business suit to a really freakin' terrifying serial killer in about three seconds flat. Don't believe me? Check out his reels on his website. Yeah. Told you so. And finally, number three: Alex is one of the nicest guys on the planet. Annoying, indeed. :)

Lastly: if Alex looks familiar, it may be because you've seen him share screen time with Lucy Liu and Matt LeBlanc, and he once got to hit on Jennifer Aniston as she was stealing office supplies on Friends. Nice.

So if you're a fan of the show Rules of Engagement or just want to see my friend Alex dressed up as an orderly, tune in tonight, 9:30 PM, CBS.

Moving on to that second fabulous friend of mine, I will just start by saying that the picture on her blog captures her personality perfectly: it's a smiling waitress, with a dangling cigarette, pot of coffee, and an attitude. Like, Yeah, you're kinda cute, but don't piss me off.

My friend (I'll call her Elle) did what most smart actresses do (wink wink). She started her own blog to make sure her friends, family, and agents knew what an amazing person she is and what projects she's working on. And so, I give you: her blog, The Struggling Actress. And what makes Elle's blog different than a lot of blogs, especially in this industry, is this: that there are some people in the entertainment business that thrive on competition and only look out for themselves (read: above note about selfish people who only network to serve themselves.) There are some people who would say that to make it in the entertainment industry, you need to only look out for yourself, never offer any advice or help another actor move ahead, and try to be as least helpful as possible to the new-in-town actors.

To which The Struggling Actress said: Screw you.

Elle's blog, which gives us regular updates on her wherabouts, projects, and what her friends are up to (see? I learned from the best) also gives advice on headshots, auditions, agency contracts, etc. How sweet is that? I learned some stuff even I didn't know and I can't thank this struggling-actress-for-probably-not-much-longer enough for being a good friend, a fantastic actress, and a wonderful human being. Her blog is blowing up like crazy and even got the past host of a E! entertainment show to plug it for her. And I couldn't be happier.

My friends all deserve wonderful things to happen in their lives, and I can't wait to keep using this blog to call attention to those wonderful things and share them with everyone else. :)

The Hell Froze Over episode I'm expecting the most YouTube hits on...

...is the one debuting this Monday. Why, you may ask?

Because it's titled, "Lesbian." Apparently the fine folks that search through YouTube love that word.

Now, it might not have occurred to my character that when she decided to go on a date with every person she'd rejected, it would mean women as well as men, but it certainly occurred to the writers, directors, and possibly every other straight male watching the series thus far.

This is another one of those episodes that I sincerely hope they show the blooper reel for, because not only were the outtakes fairly ridiculous, (let's just say Jody gets in touch with her inner frat boy while drinking alcohol) there was more than one take ruined by a small, fuzzy dog that wandered into the middle of the shot, causing both myself and the actress playing Brooke to crack up laughing. And, of course, there's all the footage shot in New York, where I got to, ahem, spend a lot of time in a bathroom getting a scene just right and try not to walk into a fridge.

I'm sure you'll enjoy. Also, a special thanks to the girl playing opposite me as my lesbian date -- it's been a while since I met a girl so cool. Again, the casting gods were kind.

Also, because I'm in a grateful mood, I would like to personally thank Hell Froze Over for helping me land a wonderful new commercial agent at a fairly prestigious agency, and for helping my best friend from third through sixth grade (Hi Brooke!) track me down. Life's funny and kind of awesome that way.

So come Monday, sit down at the computer during your lunch break, turn the volume down a little bit lower than what your boss can hear, and enjoy the "Lesbian" episode. It'll be fun for the whole (aged thirteen and above) family.

Los Angeles vs New York

I thought I'd take a break from the relentless plugging of Hell Froze Over to offer you, my readers, some lovely insights into how LA works. And this came about in a very surprising way; namely, a casual friend of mine from New York called me during the holidays a few months ago, in despair, and asked if I could give her some career advice. I'll call her Miss New York, because she is totally and completely a New Yorker in every way.

My first thought, honestly, was that she was insane. Not because she was asking me for advice -- I give advice all the time, and not always asked for, but I have been told I'm a good listener and I like to think that I'm an almost-wise-sage-in-training. At least, that's what I tell myself as I notice my zen pep-talks gathering to a crescendo around the 20 minute mark. But I was astonished that Miss New York was asking ME for advice -- because this is a girl who is drop dead gorgeous, has a ton more contacts and opportunities than I do in the industry at this time, and oh yeah, her modeling picture (done by a famous photographer, naturally) is hanging in the Hollywood Arclight right now.

Readers, if you ever hear me blog about MY picture hanging in the Arclight, it's probably my driver's license that was left in a woman's bathroom stall and now it's posted on the Lost and Found wall. I rest my case.

But I agreed to meet with her over coffee, wondering what I could possibly offer her besides a four minute "Don't worry, it'll get better" speech and maybe an awkward "I haven't known you very long" hug. So there I sat, in the coffee house, checking text messages as Miss New York collapsed into the chair opposite me and told me that she didn't understand Los Angeles and was thinking of quitting and going back to New York.

"Don't do that," I said automatically, because it breaks my heart to see people I care about feel broken by this city.

"But LA is so different," she said, and I nodded sympathetically, having no idea what she meant. So I thought about it, and asked.

"What do you mean, LA is different? How is New York different from LA?"

"In New York, it's all business. If you're not on the ball and totally professional, showing up early to business meetings and looking completely polished and put together, you don't get work. That city will chew you up and spit you out if you don't know what you're doing."

I thought about LA, with the hoards and legions of actors and actresses and producers and directors and writers who show up to auditions and meetings late, dirty, frazzled and clearly have no idea what they are doing. New York IS different, apparently.

"So what's the problem with you being in LA? I figure that if you're more professional than most of the other actors out there, you'll blow the competition away," I pointed out.

Miss New York nodded. "That's what I thought too. But instead I have to show up to all these parties and network and schmooze and then none of it goes anywhere. And I manage to insult people without really trying."

I thought about this too, and then it occurred to me. So I asked.

"How are your relationships with people?"

She blinked, understandably confused. I repeated my question. Her forehead scrunched. "I guess they're...okay? Do I need relationships with people?"

And suddenly I knew exactly what she needed from me and why I was there. I leaned forward and told her that I was going to tell her a secret, the huge difference between New York and LA. Her eyes widened.

New York is business, I told her. Los Angeles is relationships.

And there you have it. You don't even have to read any more of this blog if you choose not to. But you might want to stick around for the explanation.

New York is business meetings, business lunches, and people are brusque, professional, and don't take things personally. If you audition for someone, you might be a really nice person who goes to church with the director's grandmother, but that doesn't mean you are going to get the part.

In Los Angeles, relationships are everything. There are so many people in this town, so people want to connect, and not feel lonely, and if you cultivate a relationship with an agent or a casting director, then that agent or casting director will start pulling for you and doing their job for you, because they know you. Because there's a relationship. People who move to LA and don't know anyone don't get very far.

Miss New York looked skeptical, so I found another example. "You have some of the most aggressive drivers in the country, right?" She agreed, although we both noted that Boston (::shudder::) is the worst. Well, of course Boston is the worst. If you lived in a city of one way streets that you may never see again if you missed turning onto one of them, you would drive through crosswalks to get to your street too.

I digress.

"But you don't have too much road rage, do you?" I asked. She shook her head no. "Right," I told her. "This is because in LA it's a PERSONAL INSULT when you cut someone off."

Miss New York looked a little alarmed, and I thought to myself, This is probably explaining to her right now why she pisses off people without even trying. And why she probably gets honked at a lot.

So what I thought was going to turn into a twenty minute You Poor Thing conversation turned into a four hour long psychological analysis of how LA operates differently from New York. And it really is all personal. For example, when Miss New York told me that someone let her down by not showing up for an event that they were supposed to work together, she fired off an angry email at that person, and then was surprised that this person didn't want to work with her again. "It wasn't personal," she explained. "That person just did a bad job and I needed to let her know it was unacceptable and unprofessional."

"Right," I said. "However, because you pointed out what she already knew, you turned her guilt into anger, and now not only is she not going to work with you, but she's going to make sure her ten closest friends won't work with you either." Miss New York looked dismayed.

"But I'm the best person for that job!" she said.

"It doesn't matter," I said. "Because it's all about relationships in this town, and you just ended eleven relationships. People you've never even met before don't like you now."

But it wasn't all bad news. We analyzed some stuff Miss New York had done in the past, but we also figured out how she could move forward, repair some relationships (relationships are almost always repairable -- that's the good thing about them) and she learned to not be as blunt or direct as she had been with people who, understandably, take things personally.

We hugged a hug of genuine friendship as she left the coffee house that night, and I have a feeling she'll do just fine in this town. Not because of me, per se. Because Miss New York did her first LA thing when she called me and asked for my advice. She cultivated a relationship and it helped her discover what she couldn't have discovered on her own.

I love LA.

extras, publicity, feedback, and new episode up!

Oof.

So this weekend kicked my butt, sorry to say, which means the "how much can you NOT wait to watch Monday's episode of Hell Froze Over?!" blog that usually happens on Fridays is instead happening today. But if I'm correct, you're reading this at work, it's almost lunch-time...no, wait. Don't watch this week's episode at work. :)

First and foremost, more publicity to share: http://www.tilzy.tv/dating-exes-for-self-discovery-and-laughs-in-hell-froze-over.htm and also, drum roll please.....

We got our first hate mail!!!

I am beyond excited. An irate viewer demanded the five minutes of his life back that he spent watching a HFO episode by spending ten minutes writing an email to the creators of a web-series that has no idea who he is, will never meet him, and probably won't stay up late losing much sleep over his opinion. People, do you love irony as much as I do? I certainly hope so. And my only response is not nearly as clever or awesome as this cartoon, so I'll just let it speak for itself :)

Before I get into this week's new episode (which a lot of people think is one of the funniest so far) I will point out that if you haven't checked the behind-the-scenes section lately, you might want to do that first...because there's another post-date interview that I think you'll enjoy -- it's post-"Threesome", and both Ben (Teddy) and Kristin (Helen) crack me up. And yes, I finally get a hold of that Magic Victoria's Secret wind-fan to show to the audience. Stupid fan. Check out the link here.

Also, Jody's blog is still underway and you should get to read some new blogs about her dates with Whiskey and Mustache by the end of the week. Again, the Oof happened this weekend, so I'm a little behind...but I think the blogs are worth the wait, in my humble opinion. (What am I saying? My opinion is never humble!) If you aren't caught up on her blogs, you can click here and read all about the crappy, crappy dates that lead up to that very first date with Whiskey.

And finally, finally.... the "Stalker" episode. Ah, yes. World, meet Larry. Larry, allow me to introduce you to the rest of the world...a world that doesn't usually use spycameras, attack their dates, or keep their dirty bras. Larry needs some socialization training. And possibly a puppy. And a good long hug. And a girlfriend. And Jody, of course, decides that it's a good idea to go on a date with him. Sigh...

I had so much fun shooting this episode. Yes, I have a lot of fun shooting every episode (except one, which I will explain why when it debuts) but the timing and writing were fantastic, as usual, and I got to act opposite... the writer and one of the directors himself! (Hi Wilder! ::waves enthusiastically::) I absolutely enjoyed acting opposite every one that I got the chance to in this web-series, but I wanted to give special props to Wilder because he's not an actor by trade, and I think he does a wonderful job. And if you think so too, let him (or me) know. Because as we learned from Mr. I Want My Five Minutes Back, it takes only a little bit of energy to spread negativity and crap around in this world (because we all know there isn't enough as it is) and it takes even LESS energy to tell someone that you appreciate him or her, and to spread a little light and cheer. Which kind of person do you want to be?