My Boring-Ass Life (Revised Edition): The Uncomfortably Candid Diary of Kevin Smith (31 page)

We head over to the Valley to rock a little Sparks, a restaurant we haven’t eaten at in awhile. Alas, they’re closed for lunch on Saturday. As we’re both starving, we don’t wanna head back over the hill for lunch, so we settle on the Daily Grill on Ventura, where neither of us has supped in a dog’s age.

At the Daily Grill, we’re all over each other like a couple of teenagers, sitting on the same side of the table at our booth, and making out, chit-chatting, and just enjoying the fuck out of one another, as if we’d been apart for months. We’re both really crushing on each other, ceasing the light public petting only to eat when the food arrives. I toss back some turkey meatloaf and a couple of iced teas, while Jen rocks some salad and pasta, and then we stop downstairs for some Coffee Bean.

We drop off Jen’s dry cleaning, then motor back to the Harley-less house to enjoy a quiet afternoon of hardcore fucking. It’s one of those really awesome bone-a-thons, where we fuck for almost an hour, cum together, and lay around, enveloped in one another. I doze off for twenty minutes, then wake up and go for round two, managing to get off a second shot. It’s pure fucking bliss being fucked by Schwalbach. Marrying that woman was the smartest move I ever made.

Post-coitus, I’m feeling like downing some ice cream. We throw on our clothes and head back out into the world, cruising over toward Beverly Hills. I don’t spot a Ben & Jerry’s or Baskin Robbins for miles, so we hit Coffee Bean and I try a Strawberry Cream Tea Iced Blended instead. It totally blows, so I chuck it and take Jen’s suggestion to hit Jerry’s Famous Deli for an honest-to-goodness strawberry milkshake instead. There, we order the shake, as well as some hummus for Harley, for when she gets home from the party.

We cruise over to Kitson’s on Robertson, and Jen looks for a brown shirt to wear to Chay’s hospital benefit on Tuesday. She doesn’t find a shirt, but we score a Canada pillow (to match the LA and NJ pillows we’ve bought there previously), as well as some candles and an ashtray we think would be perfect for Malcolm. While I’m getting rung up, a guy who works at the store says “This is awesome: first George Lucas was just in here, and now you.” Apparently, the Sith lord was shopping with his daughters in the store an hour before we rolled up.

We head over to Rodeo and bomb into the Louis Vuitton store, to pick up Chay’s birthday present: a roller bag like Jen’s. We pay, load the booty into the car, and head home.

Harley’s back from her party and she wants to go swimming, so I strap on the bathing suit and take her in the pool. We spend an hour or two playing Shark, doing tricks, and throwing eight tennis balls for Mulder, including two sinker balls (tennis balls with holes cut in them that allow the ball to sink to the pool floor, driving Mulder ape-shit). Jen hangs out on the deck having a glass of wine while Harley and I frolic, until it’s dinnertime.

In an insanely rare move, Schwalbach handles the dinner chores, whipping up some Quesadillas for the three of us. Following that, she bakes a cake. Harley loses her battle to stay awake ‘til the cake’s done, and I bring her to our room. We watch some of the new
Peabody and Sherman
DVD, before she finally falls asleep, and I rejoin Jen upstairs with some
Sopranos
discs I brought home.

Schwalbach suggests we cuddle up instead of rocking our computers, and we do just that on the couch, watching the show. She’s hinting at going another round of nookie, but I’m wiped out, having woken up early that morning. Instead, she lets me lay in her lap and scratches my back and legs for an hour. As I love back-scratching more than massages, I’m in Heaven. We chow some cake and watch some more tube, until Jen heads downstairs, leaving me to finish watching the
Sopranos
episode I’m in the middle of by myself.

When I get downstairs, Jen’s already moved Harley to the couch. We climb into bed, joined by Mulder. We pet the Mulder-Man while falling asleep to some TiVo’ed
Simpsons
.

It is, hands-down, one of the ten best days of my life. No shit.

Sunday 12 June 2005 @ 2:24 p.m.

I get up, take a leak, and go online. Harley wakes up, and we head to the library to find a DVD to watch upstairs on the big screen. We settle on
Gremlins
, which Harley’s never seen. We dine on cake and make it through the flick with very little eyes-covering. Going for broke, we load up
Jurassic Park
and start watching when Jen finally wakes, joining us. Immediately, she gives me the “What the fuck are you doing letting a five year-old watch a killer dinosaurs movie?” look. We watch a little more, until Harley loses it when the T-Rex rips into a Galipo-some-thing. Sometimes I forget the kid’s not exactly familiar with the food chain yet. It makes me wonder if she knows what’s in those McNuggets she likes so much.

Harley and I go swimming, while Jen joins us, poolside. We plot out the rest of the day while throwing the ball for Mulder and letting him drag us around the pool on his tail.

While watching some post-pool
Sopranos
, I check a message from 3rd A.D. Lori, in which she says I’m on a Will-Notify for tomorrow at noon. I’m flabbergasted, and I call back to double-check the time — as Will-Notify doesn’t mean I’m going in at noon, but that they’ll let me know what time I’m needed on set by noon. Lori calls back, but I miss the call. When I check the message, she confirms that, indeed, a noon Will-Notify it is. I immediately call Gail and ask her to book me on the early Monday morning flight back, instead of the 7:50 p.m. I’m currently scheduled to be on today. I tell Jen, and she’s just as delighted that I’m getting to stay another night as I am.

Malcolm and Cubby join us, and we all head to The Ivy, where we meet Chay for late lunch. On our way out, Byron and Gail come home with their visiting friends Jimmy and Eileen, taking Harley off our hands.

On the ride to The Ivy, I call Bryan Johnson to see if he wants to join us at The Ivy, but he’s not around. We get to the restaurant and dig into some sumptuous brunch, debating whether to call Mewes for his birthday now or wait ‘til we’re back home.

We head back to the house, where I lay down for an hour and watch the last episode of the
Sopranos
box set, digesting. Afterwards, I head upstairs and sit poolside with the crew, chatting with Jimmy for a while. Jen decides we should all play poker, so we head inside and get set up. Quinnster starts out watching a movie in our bedroom, but then joins us upstairs, where I set her up in front of the TV, within ear-and-eye shot of the adults. This perturbs Jen, as she wants to smoke and now can’t. Things get momentarily chilly between us.

An hour and change later, Byron puts Harley to bed. The rest of us continue playing poker ‘til midnight, chatting it up and having a good-ass time.

When we wrap up, Jen and I go to sleep to some TiVo’ed
Simpsons
.

Sunday 26 June 2005 @ 2:28 p.m.

Harley’s Birthday. The kid wakes up at six to find the pink streamer-affair Jen’s done the room up with. She wakes Jen and I up, and we collect Nan and Pop and head into the living room where Quinnster tears through her gifts. Having only gotten to sleep at three, when the last present’s unwrapped, I go back to sleep at seven.

I re-wake at noon. Harley’s at the pool, swimming with Byron, and Jen’s heading out for a mani/pedi. I’ve missed the Denny’s breakfast, which I’m not too heartbroken about.

While I wake up, I go online to look for birthday stuff we can do. I settle on Playland, a sort-of theme park with no theme that’s down Hastings. When Harley gets back to the room, I hit her with the idea, and she’s in. Jen returns from her spa trip, and we all gear up to go to Playland. Before I go, I look up a bowling alley as a fallback option, and discover that the Varsity Ridge bowling alley does that glow in the dark bowling thing. I file it away for later use.

We get to Playland and it’s a mob scene: completely packed and sporting long lines at the ticket windows. Rather than brave it, we suggest to Harley that we come back during the week when the crowds might not be as big, and throw out glow-bowling as a viable alternative. She’s in, so we head over to Arbutus to the Varsity Ridge.

We rent a lane, grab some shoes and socks, and are shown into a doorway at the mouth of what looks like a pitch-black closet. Once inside, our eyes acclimate to the lack of light, and we discover that not only are we gonna be doing some glow-bowling, but we’re gonna be doing some Canadian glow-bowling: the balls are almost skee-ball sized, the lanes are thinner, and there are only five pins instead of ten. This suits Harley fine, and the afternoon turns into a smashing success, thanks largely to the beats they’re pumping into the black-light-lit lanes. When she’s not pitching rocks, she’s dancing up a storm, or holding my hands while I spin her around, off the ground.

Jen blows us away the first game, and I win the second, but we tell Harley she won instead, then head out.

We return Uncle Don’s missed birthday call before heading to Toys ‘R Us, where we buy a bunch of puzzles, a Batman light-up keychain for me, and a bike that looks like a Harley for Harley.

We get back to the hotel and collect Nan and Pop for dinner at Capone’s. While everyone gets ready, Harley returns her Grandma’s birthday call. I ring up Capone’s to make sure they can accommodate us, and brew up some iced tea for me.

Karen calls to say that I’ve got a noon call time up in Squamish tomorrow. This means I don’t have to drive up tonight, so I tell her I’ll shoot up in the morning and get there in time for the noon call time. I tell Jen, and she’s elated that we don’t have to rush out tonight, and can instead enjoy the kid’s birthday.

We shoot over to Yaletown and dive into another Capone’s dinner. I try to hook up the birthday cake/song thing with the waiter, but he does me one better and has the Bluesman who’s up front doing the live music thing sing Happy Birthday to Harley from the stage, as they bring out a pizza with a candle in it.

We get home, and Harley crashes with Nan and Pop. Jen and I curl up on the couch and smooch for awhile, and even though we’re both full from dinner, the smooching turns into some heavy petting, which leads us to the bedroom. We get into some really enthralling fucking for about forty-five minutes, then head out into the living room, where we hit the floor and watch
Race With the Devil
while playing Rummy. After the flick, we crash in bed, falling asleep to
The People Vs. Larry Flynt
.

Monday 27 June 2005 @ 2:29 p.m.

I wake up, shit, and check email. When Jen finally wakes, we both shower and get ready for the Squamish trip. We kiss the kid g’bye, and head out.

Squamish is this mountain town about an hour and change outside of downtown Vancouver, and about half an hour from Whistler, the big ski resort.
Catch
chose Squamish to double as a Colorado fishing river. We were supposed to be here three weeks ago, but the rainy weather moved us to the stage instead. Now, we’re committed to doing the next three days here, and hoping to God it doesn’t start pouring.

Jen and I listen to Spalding Gray’s
Terrors of Pleasure
on the way up, and hit Squamish in about an hour. I call Karen for directions to the hotel, and she talks me through it. We get to the hotel and Nick’s there, waiting to drive me out to set, which is, apparently, another half hour away, deep in the woods.

At the check-in desk, there’s a chick behind the counter who snaps at Jen and I about check-in time being 3 p.m. Granted, it’s noon, but we were supposed to check in last night, so our room should be waiting for us anyway. The chick insists they were sold out last night, so there are no rooms ‘til noon anyway. I remind her of what I just said: that we were supposed to be checking in last night, so one of those sold-out rooms is ours anyway. In a huff, she storms off to see if there’s a room upstairs, and Jen and I look at one another and silently agree that this is the most hostile and agro Canadian we’ve ever met. She comes back and marches past us, goes behind the desk, and chit-chats with the other girl there who then tells us she’s ready to check us in. I can tell Jen wants to bitch the chick out, but thinks better of it, and waits ‘til we get into the elevator to say, almost in unison with me, “What a cunt...”

The room is a depressing, tiny affair, with no ‘net access and no in-room movies. I urge Jen to come with me to my trailer instead, as I’ve at least got the DVD player and phat TV there, but she says she’s fine and will stay at the hotel.

Nick takes me on the long drive out to the set, and we weave through the woods on a winding road, arriving at the circus almost exactly a half hour later. As I head to my trailer, I see Garner, who’s just returned from a weekend trip to LA where she found out what sex the baby is. I ask her what baby Affleck’s gonna be, she tells me, I congratulate her, and head to my trailer.

I check my cell — which is getting no signal whatsoever this deep in the woods — and notice that Jen called before I fell out of range. I head to the A.D. trailer to see if I can use Karen’s cell, and Lori hands me a fax line to use. I call Jen repeatedly, but no answer. I call the hotel, but no answer. I’m getting a little worried, thinking maybe — between the altitude, the chick at the desk, and the tiny, box-like hotel room — Schwalbach has gone native on me and run screaming into the Squamish woods.

While I’m feverishly dialing Jen, I notice that both Karen and Lori are somehow online, out here in the middle of nowhere. Karen tells me they’ve got a WiFi hookup for the Squamish trip, and gives me the password to get online. I head back to my trailer, and sure enough — even though we’re buried so deep in this forest primeval that I can’t even get a bar on my cell phone — I’ve got full bars on my Air-port icon.

I jump online and IM Ming, and ask him to call Jen and act as a sort of go-between for us, as I can’t call her myself. He reaches her, and I first make sure
everything’s okay, then urge her to let me send a driver down to get her, as I not only have the phat TV and DVD player, but now I’ve also got the Ethernet. Via Ming, Jen declines, saying she’s fine. She’s taken a ride into town and gotten some mags and other supplies, and she’s biting the bullet and making it work.