So Babs has gone home. Not Windsor, but my mum, Babs Marks, who incidentally was born within the sound of Bow bells, making her a real EastEnder. The house is quiet. The extra towels have been put away. It's nice but all the same, I miss making her cups of PG and wondering how she manages to use up so much toilet roll. She's the least star-struck person on the planet but when we saw Matthew Perry in a bar last week and once I'd explained that he was "Chandler from Friends" she got very excited. Too excited actually. I had to tell the barman at the Viceroy hotel to water down her second marguerita. Too late. She was so sozzled I had to take her to the Swingers burger joint on Lincoln at midnight to soak up some of the alcohol.
Once the hangover had worn off the next day, she decided to go for a manicure in Santa Monica. I walked into the salon and saw her chatting to a girl sporting a short blonde buzz cut. "Bye Mena, take care", she said unaware as Mena Suvari, also freshly manicured, grabbed her mountain bike and headed off up Main Street. "Pretty girl," said Babs later, "Shame she decided to cut her hair so short."
Yes, I'm going to miss my mum.
So it's back to work and this morning kick-starting the routine I took to the beach path at 7am for a two hour cobweb dust-off. It's a people watcher's paradise down there. First thing that caught my eye was a group of people playing volleyball; I think they were on one of those team building day outs. Nothing immediately strange but on closer inspection I noticed that there wasn't an ugly co-worker among them. Seriously, they were the most beautiful office workers I have ever seen. I made a few enquiries as to who they were and discovered that clearly LA is the only place where you can be too ugly even for a job in IT.
Also out was the girl who never wears a bra to jog in (I worry for her, really I do), the guy who skates along with his twins in double buggy and the fat guy on a beach-cruiser who has been biking since May and is now looking decidedly svelte. Well done him.
In between all of that people watching I started to think about the rest of the year, which is shaping up nicely. On the back of Maconie's List I'm starting a production company with four others from the Maconie's shoot, including my producer Lesley. We've registered the company name and are looking into the legal side of things. I'm flying back to Albuquerque in about 10 days to complete the edit, and then we'll be meeting up to hammer out our mission statement and come up with a game plan.
I also decided that while I'm back in that neck of the woods, I should organise a proper wrap party for the cast and crew. We were all way too exhausted to enjoy the DCS gala, so I feel a party in downtown Albuquerque is the least I can do. Americans only seem to be able to speak English in a cockney accent (either that or Hugh Grant), so I thought a spirited knees up around the old joanna might go down a treat at a local pub. And a good excuse to get Babs back I think.
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