sick, cranky

I am home sick today - I feel pretty OK but am periodically coughing my lungs out, and my voice is definitely not at full strength. All my work is at school, so there's not much I can do; I slept until almost 11, dorked around on Craftser for awhile, and am thinking of knitting something or deconstructing my ugly, oversized Program t-shirt and making something wearable. What I have mostly been doing is enjoying one of the many side effects of Los Angeles living: the 37 phone calls we receive, per day, for someone named Paris Barclay. They're usually from Unknown Caller but one was from the Director's Guild - go figure - so I do a little investigating and it turns out that this is in fact the Paris Barclay, the famed guest director of a million and one TV episodes and that cinematic classic, Don't Be A Menace To South Central While Drinking Your Juice In The Hood. I, for one, have always preferred the early work of the Wayanses.

I think only The Moms have the house number, and they know we're not generally home during the day, so any and all calls we get are for Paris. I was really mean to the last one, and she sounded kind of shocked, but whatever. I wish we had an answering machine, so I could record a nice hostile message and save my voice from any furthur terse exchanges. Something along the lines of,

"Hi, you have not reached the home or office of Paris Barclay. If Paris Barclay is successful enough to have a secretary, and you are fortunate enough to be in contact with said secretary, please call her at once and instruct her that this is not, nor will it ever be, the number at which Mr. Barclay can be reached. If she is in posession of and has been distributing the correct number, please instruct her that her job responsibilities have just increased, as Mr. Barclay is not to be trusted to give out his own contact information and must be monitored at all times. Congratulations on your fine connections to Hollywood's brightest stars."

Or maybe I will just start taking messages for him.

Getting the hell out of LA: T-minus 30 months and counting.