So, what I usually do around the ends of years (or shortly after them) is suddenly recall I have a blog, then hastily type up a year-in-review post, month by month, recalling what I’ve learned. It is completely self-serving, and I’m sure I’m the only one who reads them, but as it is very cathartic, I will keep it up until the internet issues a restraining order against me.

And…go!

January
-2009 started awkwardly when I found myself at a bar soiree I had begged a friend to let me tag along with him and his friends to. The New Years Rockin’ Eve replayed for the west coast, and I pecked a guy I’d been talking to ’cause everyone else was doing it with the random people they’d been talking to. After a few glasses of champagne, he asked for my number. Terrified, I asked if I could give him my e-mail instead. Smooth as silk, this one is.
-I got a new bike! Now, to move a place that has other places in biking distance!
Looking back
-How is everyone not as terrified of social interaction with strangers as I am?
-This month was cold.

February
-Greg helped me rewrite the code for the new layout of my site! Yay! Greg is currently no longer speaking to me for some reason I’m unaware of! Boo!
-I lost my wallet, got a call from the good Samaritan who found it, and was relieved that I hadn’t already canceled my credit cards. The guy couldn’t get my wallet back to me right away, and in the interim, I worried so much, I canceled them all anyway. Thanks, OCD, for making me distrust good Samaritans. (OCD Editor’s Note: OR BAD SAMARITANS, AMIRITE?)
-I spent the night at a friend’s apartment and met their roommate, the cutest guy ever.
Looking back
-Uh, always look down when you’re biking with your wallet and you hear a thud.
-If you’re single, always fix your hair and look nice when going to a friend’s house with roommates for the first time, even if you really, really want to wear pajama pants and a sweatshirt.

March
-For the large part of this month, I rolled my eyes at what I thought were just lines Tyler told every girl he met.
-I also found out about my weird thyroid problems and began a fun year-long trek through discovering what medicines I can’t take!
Looking back
-I should resolve not to be so cynical when people compliment me.
-I should resolve to not have medicinal side effects. You hear that, body?! (Body Editor’s Note: Shut it, or I’ll give you hives!)

April
-I finally believed Tyler was just inherently sweet, and we officially started dating.
-I began watching “Twin Peaks” with Melissa. She immediately googled “who killed laura palmer?” because she couldn’t take 2 seasons of suspense.
Looking back
-Tyler is very patient.
-Kyle McLaughlin is a delight.

May
-I didn’t blog very specifically in this month, but it’s safe to say I probably had a cold at some point during it, I watched a lot of television, and hated my job as a closed captioner.
Looking back
-I should blog more.

June
-I went to Pittsburgh for my annual month-long yelling at children and being yelled at by directors. It was great, as always. Tyler came to see the madness for the second show, helped me out backstage, and given his extensive theater background, was astounded to discover that a PAC stage manager does a lot less managing the stage and a lot more shushing children and giving them the stink-eye. And working the smoke machine for the Genie’s magical entrance from inside Aladdin’s lamp!
Looking back
-It will be pretty sad that my new job doesn’t allow ridiculous yearly month-long sabbaticals.

July
-I celebrated my 29th year of life with a few of my friends. I invited *more* than a few, but summer birthdays do have an other-people-on-vacation curse.
Looking back
-Don’t book a place using the total number of people invited, silly!
-Next year, I won’t use “Evite” and will instead send cards that burst into flames if you check “no” on the RSVP. That’ll teach ‘em!
-Just kidding. Next year, I’m going on a cruise and no one else is invited.
-Double just kidding. Melissa, Tyler, and Traci are invited, but self-deprecating jokes don’t work as well when you have real friends. Ask Larry David!

August
-I went to Las Vegas to watch my friends Renee and Richard get married again, since they got married in Japan a year previous, but no one attending spoke Japanese, so they very well could have been at the Swearing In Of Pokemon Masters Ceremony and just not known it.
-I joined my craft group and have continued to go almost every Monday since then! And I just got a sewing machine for Christmas! Whee! I’ma make a quilt!
Looking back
-Tyler’s phone charger must have happened in Vegas, because it stayed in Vegas. I’ll bet hotels make more than room fare auctioning those things off on ebay.
-Renee and Richard were the only ones to send me a Christmas card!
-Just kidding! My Jewish doctor sent me the other one. He’s really cool, but my thyroid is putting his kid through college.

September
-I finished my first-ever experience with Jury Duty. It was really interesting and got me thinking about a lot of things from our legal system to mortality. I’ll finish the story about it soon, but I really want to do it…JUSTICE! Seriously, though.
Looking back
-Why are you only not allowed to talk about things you REALLY, REALLY want to talk about? And when it’s over, it’s not so urgent.

October
-The only thing that sticks out in my mind about October is that I was going through the application process of my now-current job. I was sure I’d failed at so many parts during the process, but I guess you can never tell. On the 78 other interviews I’d taken time from work to go on throughout the year (number only slightly exaggerated), I’d thought I’d nailed it.
Looking back
-In the words of the great Dave Cahill — regarding searching for things, whether it be a relationship, a job, a house, and it seems so tedious and unrelenting — “It only takes one.” And then it’s great, and you maybe never have to look again.

November
-I said goodbye to all my old co-workers and whispered to them that they, too, could follow their dreams.
-I started my new job! And almost immediately went on Thanksgiving break! Terrifying!
-With Delightful Melli’s blessing, Tyler officially moved into our apartment. Scamp also approved.
Looking back
-In years past of job hunting, I’d sort of laid back around the holidays, for fear of having to ask for time off right away. I’m either super lucky to not be working in retail or to be living in LA, because it’s actually not that bad, and to any job hunters out there — it’s probably the best time, because everyone else will be thinking of slacking their searches, too.

December
-I think I’m starting to get the hang of things around the office. I hope I am. I’m the one who would be in charge of scheduling my own feedback, so I might write in “Tell Lauren she’s awesome” on my boss’ calendar for January 4th.
-I did a whirlwind tour of the east coast, catching up with family and friends in Pennsylvania and meeting Tyler’s family and friends (including a NEW friend — my friend Kevin) in Georgia.
Looking back
-Even though this one’s not technically over yet, vacations need to be longer. Or I need to take advantage of more three-day weekends.

I think that’s it! The Christmas card I sent out was, admittedly, a bit more focused on the happier sides of things, and I got a lot of flak for that because apparently people don’t LIKE hearing that lives are awesome. So I let this post have its ups and downs, including passive-aggressive anger about the number of Christmas cards I received (2), and I just came to a BRILLIANT conclusion. I’m going to keep sending cheerful Christmas cards out for spite. Yeah! If you don’t WANT a card, simply send me one first, and you’re off the list as a courtesy.

Just kidding, everyone. I love you all, and I’ll still send EVERYONE a card that’s on my List. I had a great year, but I’m still looking forward to 2010 as the year everyone stopped wearing the glasses with two zeroes in the middle as the eye holes. Ooh, and it’s the beginning of a new decade! Quick, everyone! Change your cultures and start doing totally new stuff that will make the stuff we’re doing now look old-fashioned and lame and SO TOTALLY ’00s. Yeah! Go team!

I didn’t want to sell my Jury Story short by plowing through it, but my new work hours have left precious little time for even eating dinner or playing video games, and so when I arrive home at the dark hour of 8:00 PM, I pretty much do only that. And I’d wanted to talk about my job, too, but I’m still trying to get a feel for what extent I can. When you’re working for an internet company where memes are spoken aloud while passing in the hallway and everyone is almost EXPECTED to own their own blog and have an internet presence, I’m sure it’s no problem that I occasionally talk about my work life. And I will! Later!

Let’s talk about Jury Duty.
The honorable judge Splinter presided over the courtroom, as Donatello the prosecution defended the state, and defense lawyers Raphael and Michaelangelo represented their respective clients, Beebop and Rocksteady. Why am I making light of justice and naming actual members of the proceedings after Ninja Turtles? One, as mentioned, I don’t need any other jurors or the defendants googling themselves and flipping tables over my take on the events. And I would just name them all Bob and Joe or something, but then it would be hard to keep track of who’s who by giving them average names (Sorry Bobs and Joes). So, I apologize for sounding so flippant for something that’s actually pretty serious, but, you know…anonymity is nice.

12 years ago, April O’Neil was minding her own business, running a liquor store/check cashing business in a sort of seedy part of town. Apparently someone had been casing the joint, because they knew the exact time of day (the same time every day) that she left work to go to the bank and grab a pouch of cash — usually $20,000 or so in varying, unmarked, and not-chronological bills.

On this day, she drove back from the bank, and a few regulars were sitting in the parking lot for various reasons. Right as she got out of her truck and started for the front door, a car zoomed around the corner and pulled up to her. The passenger hopped out, shot her, grabbed the bag of money, hopped back in the car, and zoomed off. As she lay bleeding on the ground, some of the workers and patrons came to her aid, but there was nothing they could do, and she died. It’s actually very sad.

Unfortunately, as you might guess when going about your day-to-day life, when the car zoomed in, the patrons in the parking lot didn’t pay too much attention. There are gangs and kids in the neighborhood who screw around, and once shots were fired that got their attention, the altercation was seconds from being over, and the assailant was back in the car, and it zoomed off.

Another problem — for whatever reason that was never brought up in court, but I have my guess — this happened 12 years ago. There were mentions of previous hearings, but it was never explained why that wasn’t settled. The witnesses on the stand recounted this story and were being pressed for specifics by the Turtles, but their stories didn’t line up. And not suspiciously, either. They’re old. It happened 12 years ago. One guy said it was a Buick. The other swore it was a small Honda coupe. One said it was red-red, and the other said dark burgundy. The Turtles would nervously look at their notes and say things like, “Well…red could mean burgundy, right?” and the witness would angrily reply, “No. Red. I’m sure it was red and not at all burgundy,” and the Turtle would say, “Well, 12 years ago, at the first hearing, you said burgundy. Does that refresh your memory?” and the other Turtle would object for leading the witness, and the witness would feel insulted, and it was just hard to tell what was what.

But at the end of the day, I guess you were just supposed to assume that there was one car, and later when the police showed a picture of a reddish, burgundyish car that sort of looked like a Buickey Honda, you decided that maybe those inconsistencies didn’t matter? It was hard to decide what mattered.

The reddish Honda squealed around the corner, up the block, and around another corner. Baxter Stockman was eating dinner with his mother, and the week prior, a gang shooting had happened on his block. So, when he heard squealing tires, he instinctively dove under the table, and his mother did the same. When he deemed the coast to be clear, he peeked over the ledge of the front window to see what caused the commotion, and lo and behold, he saw two figures get out of the car, rip off their shirts, and throw them to the ground. A few moments later, a gray car drove up, and they both hopped in. One of them holding a small bank bag.

The police caught up with the abandoned red car and took a statement from Baxter Stockman. Suspiciously (to me only, apparently), they waited several days to bring him to the station to give him a six-pack of photos to identify as the figures he had seen. He positively identified the driver, someone named Rocksteady, but was unable to finger Beebop. Beebop had been the passenger and was, thus, further away. Also only suspicious to me, Baxter admitted he had only seen Rocksteady for maybe 5 seconds, and I often forget what people I have known for years look like. Police cited (as did other jurors, but it is against the rules to bring prior CSI knowledge to the deliberation room) that because Baxter and Rocksteady were both Ninja Turtle Villains (or “members of the same race” to demuddle this metaphor), it was more likely that an identification was accurate.

Police got a hold of the car and took a heap of pictures. The license plate was flipped up, which showed premeditation. A two-way radio was found in the front seat — a possible communication between the red car and the gray car. Several sets of latex gloves were found on the floorboards. The shed t-shirts were found on the ground outside.

The timeline here gets sort of fuzzy. Beebop got picked up and incarcerated on unrelated charges and was kept in the dark regarding his suspected involvement in this issue. Rocksteady continued his life, although he was constantly monitored by undercover policemen. Apparently these policemen were not-so-great at being undercover, because on one drive with his young daughter, he drove right to the police station and asked why he was being trailed. They wouldn’t tell him.

Police spent their time doing side investigations involving DNA and dog-sniffers, and I hope that information will whet your appetite enough to be super excited for the final installment of Ninja Turtle Jury Duty, Part 2!

Instead of continuing my Jury Duty saga — which I *will* get to, just as soon as I change all the names so no one involved can ever Google it and yell at me or (worse?) add me to facebook — I’d like to talk for a second about the television show “FlashForward.”

This entry will be chock full of spoilers if you’re not up-to-date, which you should be, ’cause this show has promise, legs, moxie, it’s going places. I really, really want it to be everything I want it to be and fill the LOST-shaped void that is sure to be in my heart next May, and like the show LOST, I’m very scared it could go places that make me roll my eyes.

Here’s my thing. I was hooked before it started. The first time I saw the commercial before it aired, I gripped Tyler’s arm and demanded that we set the DVR right then. Time passed and I considered purchasing the book because I was so excited, but then I remembered what a let-down “Darkly Dreaming Dexter” was. Okay, maybe “let-down” is too strong a word, but let’s just say I’m happy “Dexter” the TV show went in the direction it did.

So, when the show started off in the midst of the mayhem, doing the whole “four hours earlier” thing after the teaser that I LOVE because I enjoy getting the chance to say to myself “What the hell is going on?” And, actually, truth be told, it’s almost never to myself — it’s very much out loud, to anyone sitting around me, having paused the show and ruining the flow of the story for them, who then instruct me to just watch the show, and I’ll find out. I *like* that. I like wondering what’s going on and being fed the answer piece by piece.

Which is why “FlashForward”‘s penchant for flashbacks is so irritating to me. In the pilot episode, I was just immersed in the story, on the edge of Melli’s comfortable couch to see what happened next. Then…about 3/4 of the way through, after a commercial break, a character actually utters something along the lines of “Hey, so remember when we all lost consciousness for 2 minutes 17 seconds? Well, look at this tape!” What? Dude, it was a commercial break I just sat through, not a fortnight. It would have been like watching a movie about the Holocaust where, at the very end, Hitler turned to Himmler and said, “Say, so do you remember all those Jewish people we just killed?” Yes, I, an audience member, remember the premise of the show.

This habit continued into the next few episodes. Mark Benford, the protagonist, would think about his flashforward, and in it, he would see several clues that, while they don’t make much sense to us, we get them. Dolls, bracelet, D. Gibbons. Then, one scene later, his kid hands him THE BRACELET, oh my god, awesome reveal…w-what’s that? A flash…back…to the flashforward…where we see the bracelet clue again. Thank you, Network Execs, for assuming I am a moron.

I sort of get it. People complain about being lost in LOST (wocka, wocka), but that’s part of its allure. I think people like watching reruns and catching clues they’d forgotten, or discussing it around the watercooler. But I sort of thought it was trying to be the next LOST.

Okay, but here’s the thing. Aside from a scene two episodes ago that was flashed back to IN THE VERY NEXT SCENE, I love the show, and I will continue to watch it. It’s an awesome premise, and there are a lot of potential mysteries I want to be revealed to me. (Don’t even get me started on what *better* be resolved on LOST before it ends. The Magical Comic Book that Walt had? The Adam and Eve skeletons in the cave? LIBBY IN THE ASYLUM WITH HURLEY?!?)

Here’s my honest-to-goodness question, and feel free to tell me to shut up if it’s just your run-of-the-mill timeloop inconsistencies that I’m supposed to suspend my disbelief and look past. I love Back to the Future, but sure, there are a few things you just have to ignore. So answer me this, and I will be completely FlashForward’s biggest fan.

Okay…we know that when the flashforward happened, the future that everyone saw was a future that INCLUDED the blackout, right? We know this because Mark Benford saw himself SOLVING the whole blackout/flashforward mystery, or at least on his way to it. I think I know something about why he’s drinking, but everyone else in the world knows the exact date and time…even people who may not be wanting to do what they allegedly end up doing, such as Mark’s wife, Olivia.

Now, if you flashed forward to a specified day in the future, wouldn’t all the headlines when that day actually came be like “HEY, TODAY’S THAT DAY WE ALL SAW!” Wouldn’t you want to wave to yourself and leave a note — “Hey, apply for that job, your secret baby daddy is ____, don’t get shot!” You wouldn’t see yourself doing something random; you would probably want to show yourself something. So, are they forcing themselves to do just exactly what they saw and no different so as not to create a temporal distortion that destroys the space/time continuum?

Yeah. Probably that.

The judge actually said that to the room of 103 of us — “Jury selection is not part of “Law and Order” for a reason…it’s really boring. But it’s really important to the process and we need to do it, so here we go.”

Let’s rewind a bit. When I got my jury summons in the mail, the date it listed was, of course, the weekend plus Monday Tyler and I planned to spend in Las Vegas. Luckily, through the most annoying phone system in the world that didn’t accept calls from out-of-state cellphones, I was able to change it “one time” to a date of my choosing.

The week after Vegas, I arrived at the courthouse at 7:00 AM and got to listen to a no-nonsense state worker audibly roll her eyes at the entire room of 300 people summoned that day. “Please fill out the green section. The green section — fill it out. If you haven’t filled out the green section yet, do so now.” At first, I was offended at how she was speaking down to us, but sure enough, for the next 10 minutes, people raised their hands asking, “My green section is still blank, should I leave it like that, or…?” I do not envy her job. At 10:00, she gave us all a break from the tiring 3 hours of nothing we’d been doing (I’d filled my green section in July when I got it in the mail…like I thought we were supposed to?) and I got a coffee.

When we were called back into the room, we were informed that those lucky few of us granted unlimited days off by our companies (and unfortunate housewives and retirees) were prescreened for a “big case” that would take 20 business days, and all the people should answer “yes” when their names are called if their schedules allowed it. I had a doctor’s appointment, but they said that anything that could be rescheduled SHOULD be, and they had ways of checking up to see if you actually had prior engagements. I made a rude gesture in my mind as to the probable validity of that statement, but I’m hesitant to jaywalk, so I told them “yes” and was instructed to come back…a week later. Fun!

Fast forward to then, and me and 102 other people are being herded into a stuffy courtroom to be asked if we had any friends or relatives in the legal profession or law enforcement, and if anyone in our families had been victims of crime or arrested/convicted of a crime. All 103 of us were asked this. And the judge had follow-up questions to every answer. And for the disturbing number of people there who had 4 adult children, they were asked to list their and each of their spouses’ occupations. I was number 29. They didn’t get to me until the third day.

I’d had enough time to call my mom and ask what I should say. I know our house had been broken into when I was little, but my mom only told me about it a few years ago, because she knew I’d be too scared to sleep there (true). I also know that my brother once kicked back a little too much of grandpa’s cough syrup and mistakenly wandered back to his friend’s next-door neighbor’s house instead of his friend’s, and Pennsylvania’s finest were called, but it was expunged from his record because he’s such an otherwise upstanding citizen. I wasn’t sure if I needed to say that or not, but I decided to err on the side of Total Honesty (ask me later how many friends that gets me!), and when the judge got to me and asked if anyone in my family had ever been arrested for something, I answered, “Accidental Breaking and Entering.” And the whole courtroom laughed! Still got it! The judge made an “I’m possibly amused but let’s get back to bidness” look and said “Moving along!”

Again, I was number 29 out of 103. I kept wavering back between wanting to be there and not. On one hand, I was getting equal pay to being at work, and here we got 1.5 hour long lunch breaks. On that same hand, I had thus far finished two books and the scarf I was knitting for Tyler. On the other hand, I had the whole weight of the law, possibly not agreeing with a room of angry-at-me people, deciding the life of a human — all that. And something I hadn’t even considered until the trial started (spoiler alert! I got chosen!), the intense listening and note taking. It was like college, except the final exam was someone’s future. I filled up two notebooks. And only ONE page was a drawing of a cat, which was done on a break in deliberation when everyone else was “being social.”

I honestly didn’t expect the counsel to whittle down as much as they did. Potential jurors 1-12 looked fine to me. Okay, one was a kid who got stabbed and didn’t call police because they “didn’t do that in his ‘hood.” Maybe he’s out. And, yes, the Forensic Science Professor, sure he’ll probably be kicked to the curb. And the scowling grandma who declared that it’s a lawyer’s job to lie, and abortions of justice happen every day of the week? Maybe not the most stable person to be passing judgment to others. But the rest of them looked fine, normal, not sociopathic.

And of course, a few jurors were weeded out in the first few minutes with the Super Sleuth I-See-What-You-Did-There method of raising their hand when the judge asked if anyone hated all police or Hispanic people. When all my wacky friends asked why I didn’t just “get out of jury duty,” I could see that this was what they were talking about. The judge really let them have it, knowing that this was their tactic, and of course, eventually they were dismissed — and, sure, what’s 2 minutes of embarrassment in a roomful of strangers you’ll never see again that will prevent you from being stuck there for 4 weeks — but I’d like to think I have a little more shame than that. And, to be honest, I find policemen and Hispanics to be quite charming.

But counsel of both sides hacked through the jurors, and we all got to play musical chairs. Shit started to get real when I was in the number 15 spot and moving down fast. One thing that made me mad — because I was only answering honestly! — one of the defense lawyers asked if ANYONE had even the MOST BASIC concept of forensic testing and DNA. I raised my hand, along with a few other people, and he asked me to be more specific. I said that, for my job and in my free time, I had watched a lot of “Forensic Files.” He sort of smugly shrugged and turned to the rest of the now 75 people, saying, “Well, we all know that this is real life and not TV, right?”

What I wanted to do was stand up and say, “Well, okay, first off, I’ve probably seen over 150 episodes of the show. Second, you asked for the most basic concept, and, yes, I think if you walked up to any layman on the street, they probably couldn’t tell you all about mitochondrial DNA and hair bulbs, but, no, you’re right. I actually think we’re on TV right now, and I’d like you to introduce me to Mark Paul Gosselaar!” What I did was press my lips and sit silently, hoping they didn’t ask another question like “Does anyone love stand-up comedy?” or “Who thinks cats are cute?” that I would now be reluctant to answer, in fear of some snarky retort.

To make a long blog not any shorter at all, they somehow looked past my gross delinquency and passed me up to chair number 5. People around me were still getting voted off the island, so I had hope, but when both sides agreed that they were happy with the jury as it stood, I froze. Counsel had only intensely questioned jurors 1 through about 50. Juror number 4 turned to me and said, “This can’t be it. Is this it?” Unsure of myself, I said “No. I’m sure they have to go through the rest of them.” Until the clerk asked the people sitting in seats 1-15 to stand up and be sworn in, and the 50 people left in the audience chairs let out an audible sigh of relief. It was surreal. I was sure the judge was going to stop the proceedings and say, “I’m sorry, my bad. Juror number 5 looks too terrified with the fear of Doing What’s Right that she can’t even twitch a muscle in her face, so I’m going to have to let her go, too.” But, to everyone’s surprise, I’m sure, he didn’t.

I looked around me at the 14 other people just as suddenly nervous as I was, and as a group, I guess we accepted our fate. People who believe in “The Secret” hoo-hah will probably tell you that it was all the positive “this might be a cool and patriotic experience” vibes I was giving to the universe that got me up there — the same universe who rudely ignored my “oh god oh god I changed my mind Get me out of here” vibes from the last 10 minutes, but thems the breaks.

And thus began my Jury Duty Experience! I cannot promise more concise summaries than this! Sorry! It was a busy month!

12 years ago today, a man was robbed and then killed outside his liquor store/check-cashing business by two men.

1 month and 1 week ago, I was called for Jury Duty, along with about a hundred other people who thought they wouldn’t make it to the final Jury.

For the last 4 weeks, I’ve been sitting on a jury with 14 other people (including alternates) and trying my damndest to keep a bunch of court-assigned balls in the air. One was to remain fair and impartial throughout the whole proceedings until deliberation, and to consider that just because someone is arrested doesn’t mean they’re guilty. Another ball was to keep myself free of preconceived biases (easy) but also to not allow myself to be swayed by emotion or pity (really, really hard). A pretty green ball was not to necessarily trust or distrust policemen or scientists just because they’re policemen or scientists. A heavy ball was, no, Lauren, you cannot yourself shout out “objection” or ask the questions you think it would have been better to ask, and could you please keep down the laughter when the defense tries to discredit the concept of DNA? The worst ball of all was the large black ball that stated I could not twitter, facebook, or blog about the deluge of emotions I felt every single day, all the way from the day the DEFENDANT LOOKED AT ME, AAH! to the stapler in the courtroom that looked EXACTLY like a shark and wasn’t even designed to, but I wanted daily to take a picture of it, and it just sat there taunting me to the Jaws theme song in my head.

It’s over now. I can talk. Only in text, though, because being around so many lunatics at the courthouse every day exposed me to a killer death virus I really, really hope is not swine flu because I’m supposed to be having a soiree on Monday and my new pregnant friend is going to be there and WHAT IS THE RIGHT THING TO DO?! So, I’m going to try to sleep for many hours and see if that does anything to help my health.

Then I’ll come back to you and tell you all about this horrible, interesting, life changing, someone else’s life changing, honorable, but also I sort of don’t want to talk about it ever again as soon as I finish blogging it…civic-duty experience I had.

Please to be looking at this photo set I made?

Vegas 2009

More things to come!

My Irish friend Dave (whose Irish friends probably refer to him simply as: “Dave”) requested via Twitter that I write up an explanation of my 140-character hurrah that I saw myself in the background of the movie “Funny People,” as an extra.

Now, before I start, I should say that when this actually happened, back last November, I was brimming with excitement and Hollywood stories, and I had compiled them all in my mind until I was just about to walk out the door, and some rando wearing a headset who looked important said, “Oh, yeah, and if any of us find blogs or Tweets out there about your time spent today before the movie comes out, you can consider yourself no longer an employee of Central Casting.” My dreams of being a professional extra potentially being crushed, I decided to hold my tongue. Okay, seriously, though, I just didn’t want to be a dick or get dooced or sued or something. So my memory may be a little fuzzy. Just like my face was on the big screen!

Okay, so how this *really* starts is — when I enrolled in class at UCB, I was added to a mailing list. In a joking mass email, I was informed that the casters for “Funny People” actually wanted funny people to come and populate a comedy club scene. Although this goes against many a conversation I’ve had with fellow stand-ups — that comedians are the worst crowd ever because they’re grading you instead of just enjoying themselves — I sure as hell didn’t have a job at the time, and thought it might be fun.

I sent in my headshot on a whim, and lo and behold, got a “callback.” Pretty stringent casting process. I got there with “club attire,” hair and makeup done, even though I got to sit in the makeup chair for half a second as they touched me up. My clothes were approved in what was perhaps the first time in my life I was told to dress for something and a roomful of people could agree I had done it appropriately.

I wanted to eat from the delicious buffet provided for the huge crowd of extras looming around me, but I was nervous, which is ridiculous, but I hate looking like I don’t know what I’m doing and, here, I most certainly did not. Leave it up to me to meander over to a catering spread only to find out it’s Adam Sandler’s and I had mistakenly eaten the last fugu pufferfish imported for him from Japan, and had thusly ruined the entire movie.

But, as I said, jobless, and three meals worth of food were provided to offset the depressing minimum wage, so I got over myself and had some damn home fries.

A young man I met in my improv class named Jake was also there, and even waved to a few people he apparently knew from the Extras circuit.

“In our last movie, we played fake naked people at a convention,” he said wrapping his hand around a short blond girl. I think their last movie was “Yes Man,” which I haven’t seen, but I can only imagine what a fake naked person at a convention must look like.

I opened up my book to pass the time, taking a cue from some of the other professional extras, who looked positively bored while dressed to the nines. The blond girl pulled out a cellphone, where she remained for over an hour, saying nothing.

Sighing loudly at one point, she caught my eye and informed me that she was calling the casting agency, looking for tomorrow’s work. The “types” they needed were listed on a very long pre-recorded message that I assume led you to another phone tree, where you would later email to list what you were available for.

“I was all ready for some background scene work in “Samantha Who?” but then at the end of this 15-minute-long message, they said they didn’t want any blondes. I guess so no one would take away from Christina Applegate.”

It made me a little sad. It was 9:00 AM, and I knew we were going to be there until almost 11:00 PM. Then, provided she found something, she’d probably start the process all over the next day. Then again, we were going to be getting time-and-a-half, and, I can’t stress this enough — FREE FOOD. Lunch was mahi mahi.

We probably didn’t get called in until 3:00. Jake and I passed the time by playing games on a piece of note paper, but the second we were needed, the chaos started. They called us in by tables, which started to worry me. If only I had sat at a table closer to the door, I would be going in first. Ooh, but do the first people get the corner seats, and I will get front and center? Then when we got in there, there was more division, done by what I assumed were very trusted Production Assistants. I was standing with a girl, so I had to be herded over to a table with a boy. Or would I be better suited at the “girls’ night out” table up front? My shirt was black and white patterned, so should I sit with someone in all-black, or will that look to choreographed? I ended up next to an older guy in a blue collared shirt, and we made small talk, as he showed me the right way to “drink” the “cocktail” in front of me where I wouldn’t have to actually ingest the terrifying colored water that the “waitresses” ferried to other tables and then back again. Deciding Judd Apatow wasn’t worth herpes, I simply smiled, nodded, and made the acting choice to hold the drink in my hand while laughing heartily.

When everything was perfect, Judd came out on the stage of the set, (he said I could call him “Judd.” It’s cool, guys) introduced himself, and reminded us of the rules — don’t stand out, don’t look at the camera, don’t try to make a wacky-sounding laugh just so you can hear yourself.

As shooting started, two things stuck out to me as a comedian. The first was that Judd wanted genuine laughter, meaning we wouldn’t do too many takes of the same material. The actors had one chance to genuinely make us laugh, which must have brought them back to their stand-up roots at least a little bit. The final cut of Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen, Aziz Ansari, and Aubrey Plaza was minuscule compared to what we, the extras, got to see. They had full, actual setlists that they had to memorize, and I don’t know if it was the energy in the room, but they were genuinely funny. The curveball is, of course, the fact that they were guaranteed laughter, by us, the peons, which would have been a dream gig as a comedian. It had to have been fun.

I didn’t know anything about Aubrey before I saw her up there. All I could tell was that she looked terrified and had good stage presence. I think the terrified thing is part of her shtick — a shy person saying really hilarious, outlandish stuff — but she messed up one of the jokes, and Judd warmly assured her over the loudspeaker that she was totally fine and should start from a few jokes prior. She did, and of course we all laughed at the same places, but she was truly funny.

We broke for dinner, and while waiting in the line that wrapped outside the holding building, Seth Rogen ZOMG walked right by me. I could have reached out and grabbed him, informing him that his greatest and most underrated work was in “Undeclared,” and why can’t he get back to that instead of marijuana jokes, but I somehow refrained.

During dinner, we got the bad news that, although they were continuing to shoot for the evening, most of us could go home. They sent another well-trusted PA to scan the room for diverse-looking people to populate a scene that would take place later, as evidenced by a snappy costume change. I put on my best doe-eyed “Gee, I’m not over-eager, but it sure would be super if you picked me” look, and it appeared to work, because I was the last person they called in.

All of this is ridiculous, of course, because the person the cameras want to see is in the opposite direction of where the audience extras are, but it was nice to be part of something. It was nice to see all the costume and makeup people obsessing over a single curl that would only be seen from behind, in a shot over their shoulders, pointing up at Adam. It was neat talking to people from all walks of life, seeing how they came to have 14 hours on a Thursday free to come down and do this.

When I left filming, they handed me my W-2 so that I could be sure to give Uncle Sam his fair share of my 70-some-odd dollars, and I noticed they spelled my name Luaran, because of course, why shouldn’t I get to worry about being audited for another 4 months for my one day of work because Luaran and I oddly share a social security number? (I wasn’t! Thumbs up!)

So that, my dear friends, was my Hollywood experience. Everyone looks pretty much how you’d expect them to look in real life, and it was cool that it was Just Another Day for about 300 crew members there. I don’t know if I’d necessarily do it again, but I got to share the screen with one of my favorite actors and comedians, and that is pretty awesome.

Hey, guys! I was at Theater Camp in Pittsburgh for a month. Now I’m back in California, wondering if my job will sponsor a caffeine addiction such that I can get 16 hours of double-overtime every day. Is it possible? Only science can tell.

Although it paid mostly in “the love of theater” instead of “dollars to make rent,” I always miss camp when it ends. The best part was when I got to sit backstage, carry set pieces on and off, and make children be quiet. Not tell. Make. Some people ask me why I come back to camp every year, and I tell them that it is because I hate children, and camp is the only place I can go where I get paid to yell at them. Then the person laughs awkwardly and searches my eyes to see if I’m kidding. I am, of course. The real reason I come to camp is because middle schoolers are the only ones who truly get my sense of humor and where the old “I didn’t know there was a working escalator behind that ledge!” joke gets ‘em every time.

My hot cousin Jordan was “my” “assistant,” and she probably hates me now because I basically spent the month telling her, “Now, I know having OCD is nice and good in the real world probably, but here IT WON’T CUT IT. I have teachers screaming at me that I haven’t hand-fed them their sweet-n-sour pork. We don’t have TIME to arrange the lemons in a nice little wedge spiral!”

But somehow we made it, and maybe, contrary to my low self-esteem, not everyone hates me forever.

Yesterday was my birthday, which I somehow finagled, for the second year in a row, to have my birth celebrated on two subsequent weekends. Due to not recovering from camp for a few days and poor planning on my part, I wouldn’t have given my friends a chance to free up their weekends in celebration. So, while my close friends took me out and showed me how much they care last weekend…they’re doing the same next weekend at a wine bar! Where I have invited even MORE friends! Who apparently don’t like responding to Evites!

I kid, I kid. Or do I? How hard is it to check “maybe”? I see that you’ve viewed it, pal. You’re not fooling anyone. I also jokingly invited Gabe (from San Fransisco) and Kevin (from Atlanta) just to see if they’d come, because my mom, aunt Becky, and Jordan came to surprise me after a sort-of-joke invite two years ago. But they have access to free planes, whereas my Japan friends do not.

My Birthday Week 1 was delightful, though. My boyfriend was doting, my friends took me to expensive foods, and I will never grow out of feeling giddy when someone wishes me well via social networking sites. I especially won’t grow out of eating at a nice restaurant with Melissa and Traci, and when I have dressed improperly (It’s 1,000 damn degrees outside. Why on Earth would I bring a sweater, unless Benihana’s decided to sit me DIRECTLY UNDERNEATH THE ARCTIC CIRCLE), Melissa looks at my goosebumps, rolls her eyes, and says, “Ugh, it’s your birthday. Do you want my jacket or something?” And it warms the cockles of my heart. The sentiment *and* the jacket do, I mean. No, I didn’t take the jacket, but it was nice of her to begrudgingly offer.

So, I’m off to bed now, before another long day of making up for money lost by taking a working “vacation.” Another friend from Japan, Seth, is road-tripping around the country and making a stop on my couch tomorrow night. So, yes. This is a good week.

I don’t even know where to begin listing my problems with Sacha Baron Cohen. Is it because he wants so desperately to go down in history as the new Andy Kaufman? Who was also unfunny? Is it because everyone in the world is frothing at the mouth over his antics, and not getting what everyone else loves makes me angry? I guess it’s me. I don’t “get” him, and I don’t get why his MTV Awards thing was anything other than yawn fodder. (If you have no idea what I’m talking about, it’s here maybe.)

Nope, I don’t get how practicing a stunt with technicians, all who have cleared the stunt with the show’s producer Mark Burnett and the “mark,” Eminem, can be considered “stuff of award show legend for the next 20 years” (“source”). Even if it WASN’T staged, how is it hilarious? Or even mildly funny? I imagine the thought process of the audience went something like this: “Oh, no, did something really bad happen with the cables? Gosh, I hope he doesn’t hurt him– Oh, wait. It’s that guy. That guy who always pranks everyone. Ah, I see. He is pulling a prank. He very slowly “fell” on someone. Ah, Eminem. A macho-type guy, perhaps homophobic; the last type of person who you’d think a gay character like Bruno would be 69ing with. Okay. I see. So…what, uh…what’s happening next?”

I will admit also…I have not seen his movies, nor do I plan to. They stress me out. I have been forced “Clockwork Orange”-style by friends with otherwise-normal senses of humor — senses of humor I respect and that are similar to mine — to watch episodes of “Ali G.” I didn’t get it then, either. Okay, so he has a funny accent. Check. He wears silly clothes. Check. So, far, he’s achieved circus clown hilarity. Oh, and he’s a rapper/talk show host, I guess, so, what, is he holding up a mirror to rappers? To people who try too hard to be cool? Or is he doing a brilliant parody of the tiny subset of delusional rappers who take themselves way too seriously who occasionally trick members of high political office into doing inane interviews? I guess is it straight-man comedy? Like, “look at the stuffed shirt talking to the silly rapper about ice cream gloves. This is funny because the person does not get this joke!”

Sorry, I’d rather hear a joke.

And I haven’t seen “Borat,” because it came out in an uncomfortable post-9/11 time where it was suddenly super hip to HATE America. And he went out and tricked a handful of nuns and rednecks, and all of his sycophants LAUGHED and laughed at how stupid America is, without realizing that they themselves were examples of how a tiny microcosm doesn’t reflect the exact feelings of the whole. It’s the same reason I didn’t want to see “Religulous,” but I eventually did. I saw it and thought: Okay. Bill Maher raises some interesting points. But…I’ll bet I can find 20 dumb atheists to say something stupid, too. Does that mean all atheists are dumb and no one should be atheist if they feel like it? If I quote a vegan saying something silly, can I finally crush veganism for good, with a legion of ass-kissing followers behind me?

And I don’t want to see “Bruno” either. Let me guess. He’s going to put non-gay people in uncomfortable situations. Maybe he will hand a dildo to a shy grandmother. Wouldn’t that just be hilarious? Get it? Old, meek people. Hardcore gay sex. They conventionally do not mix! And yet here he is, juxtaposing them right here for us! The jokes write themselves! I guess that’s my problem with him.

When my roommate informed me that our new and improved air conditioning system can get down to 40 degrees and said she can’t imagine a situation where anyone would want it that cold, it probably would have been a good idea to NOT exclaim excitedly that if we ever had a dead body in here, the police wouldn’t be able to accurately determine the time of death.

In other news, I really love “Forensic Files.”