Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

One of the most virulent self-sabotaging viruses with which I inject myself is this compulsion to post-mortem meetings, parties, and conversations with my agent, editors, and memoir clients. Did I say the right thing? Did I talk too much? Did I sound too Southern? Southern enough? Was I supposed to eat the broccoli florets or were they a garnish? Should I email the hostess and explain that thing I said about not liking cats because what if she used to have a cat to which she was particularly attached and it was hit by a car driven by some jackass compassionless writer who boorishly eats garnishes and says whatever pops into her head at cocktail parties?

As a writer by profession and a hermit by nature, I've come to accept the fact that I am socially retarded. I try to mitigate by not drinking alcohol at parties or lunches. (So much healthier to drink alone late at night with only dogs to witness my pathetique.) I don't try to fake a more Midwestern accent or try to fake anything, in fact. I lack the organizational skills and short term memory to be successfully full of crap. I have to be myself, for better or worse, and then I have to go home, taking comfort in the simple fact that no one cares about me.

Truly, they don't. It's liberating. My presence in that office, restaurant, or professionally lit pool area has nothing to do with amusing anecdotes about my kids and everything to do with the market value of my skill. As long as I don't fall in the pool or set a parking valet on fire, I'll be remembered only by those who asked for my card -- and only a few of those will remember why they asked for it. And only a few of those will feel the need to follow up. (My follow up consists of "thank yous" only. It's important to me to avoid any whiff of hanger on; I let them come to me.) One lesson I'm still learning: when to go and when to stay home.

I was at a seriously star-studded party in LA last week, and I didn't fall in the pool or set anyone on fire, but on my way home, I felt rotten about it. I'm not going to any more of these things. In my post-mortem obsessing, I decided I probably did more networking than was kosher at a purely social function, and now I'm worried that the hugs and happiness with which I left my client after the final read-through of her manuscript are tainted by this image of some opportunist clumsily mingling in a halter dress and heels.

A few years back, I did a book with the mom of Tour de France wunderkind Lance Armstrong, and as luck would have it, Gary and I were in France that July, spelunking around the art caves in Dordogne. We caught up with le Tour in Besancon and watched Lance blaze the final time trial. His mom had hooked us up with passes to the VIP section in Paris, where she was going to be chilling with Sheryl Crow, Robin Williams, and that set.

As we stood in line at the airport, preparing to check in for our flight from Geneve to Paris, Gary and I looked at each other and just went...nah. We'd had so much fun on this trip, we didn't want it to end.

"We should go," said Gary. "I mean...if you really need to be there. For the book."

"I got everything I needed at the time trial," I shrugged. "There really isn't any reason for me to be there other than..." I didn't know how to complete the sentence. "Networking" maybe, but isn't that just a nice word for "sucking up"?

So instead of drinking champagne with the rich and famous in Paris, we spent the afternoon at an outdoor bar in Geneve, drinking beer and watching the final leg of le Tour on a Jumbotron, stupid in love after twenty-some years together, talking, laughing, totally enjoying each other. One of the reasons I hated that perfectly lovely party (full of perfectly nice people) last week was that it took place on Gary's birthday, and I spent the whole night wishing I was home in Houston, drinking beer and playing Scrabble with my old man.

Hollywood's a nice place to visit, but as the saying goes, I wouldn't want to live there. The tricky part is knowing when to leave.

Joni's Sunday sermon: God loved me enough to lock me in a bathroom in the Hollywood Hills.

My life has been excessively strange lately. In the course of working my memoir guru mojo for a truly delightful client, I’ve made the acquaintance of an important (iconic, really) writer/producer who has for some odd reason decided that we should be friends. He’s one of the most interesting people I’ve ever met. Generous, kind, whipsaw funny, scary smart. (He’s also endearingly geeky. Friday night, while the fireworks were going on, he wanted to tell us about the little known history of the Declaration of Independence, and tragically, I was geeky enough to want to hear it.)

I enjoy conversing with him, but his famousness is weird. Distracting. Intimidating. Every time I say his name, I’m reminded that he’s this intimidating famous guy, so I’ve taken to calling him “Studs Mulligan”.

Friday, since the 4th was my client's only day off this millennium, Mulligan hosted the final read-through of the manuscript at his place – an ultra-moderne but not grossly huge house on a hill overlooking LA. It’s the squarest, hippest, whitest, cleanest house I’ve ever been in. The sparse bachelor pad furnishings are complimented with typical mega-star knick-knacks, my favorite being a Gibson Les Paul autographed by Amie Mann.

My client, her assistant, my daughter (who’s been working as my assistant), and I arrived at noon to find the kitchen stocked with beverages, treats, and a deli-catered lunch spread. I distributed manuscripts, and I’d had one printed for Mulligan, but he respectfully withdrew to his office, wanting to give my client the time and space she needed to speak freely.

During the first six hours of reading and notes, he joined us only when invited to hear one particular chapter or another. (He’s filled in major gaps in my understanding of the world of television, and I wanted him to reality check me on those chapters.) My client, a boundless ball of energy, wanted to blaze on to the end, and even though I’d been working without stop since 4 AM in order to have the manuscripts ready, I was prepared to accommodate her. We both insisted we were good to go, but Mulligan gently insisted we take a 30 minute break. My client and the girls went for a swim. I went to a chaise in a shady corner and was asleep about three seconds later. At the end of the 30 minutes, my daughter woke me up, and I went to take a quick whiz before resuming the read-through.

The nearest of the five bathrooms in Mulligan’s house is just off the space age kitchen. I went in and locked the door, and for some reason found myself utterly unable to pee. Something about the square fixtures, the shininess of the hardware, or the whiteness of everything – I don’t know. It’s ridiculous. I just suddenly realized I was about to be bare-assed on the john in this incredibly famous dude’s house. I’d been drinking one water bottle after another. For six hours. I seriously needed to pee. I turned on the water in the Star Trekish sink to see if that would help.

No. Couldn’t do it.

I finally decided the best thing for me to do would be to go out and say that I’d forgotten something at my hotel, which was only five minutes away. I’d run over there, use the comfortably middle class facility, dash back to Mulligan’s, and continue the read-through without consuming another drop of liquid. I hitched up my jeans, rinsed my hands, and wiped them on my pants rather than touch the pristine white towels. But when I tried to open the door…

It wouldn’t open.

I clicked the little space age locky deal in and out a couple times. Bent down and gandered at the chrome knob. All I saw was my own sheepish face reflecting back at me. I squinted at the locking mechanism, which was like a skinny little pin. I pulled at it, and heard a small click. Breathing a sigh of relief, I turned the knob. The door did not open. The little lock pin, which probably cost more than my car, plinked onto the floor like a bullet casing.

“Shit!” said my reflection, and I agreed.

I heard my daughter’s voice in the kitchen, and I hissed her name a few times, but she drifted back out to the lanai, laughing with my client’s assistant. I jiggled and toggled and worked at the door knob for what seemed like a very long time. Then I started laughing, and then I realized there was no way I was going to make it back to my hotel to pee even if I were to get the dang door open and sprint for the rental car this very second.

The ridiculousness of it! For crying out loud.

I dropped trou, took care of whiz biz, washed my hands, and dried them on the towel hospitably offered for that purpose. I decided that before I swallowed what was left of my dignity and started yelling for help, I'd give the door knob one more try. Click. The door opened as easy as you please.

Back out on the lanai, I set the lock pin on the table next to Mulligan's hand.

“I broke your house,” I said. “Sorry about that.”

“Nah, it does that. You have to kinda go like crr-chk-a-chkk.” He demonstrated with sound effects. “Use the one off the music room.”

My client and I read on while he went out and fetched Italian food. I read to the table while everyone else ate, then Mulligan took a chapter while I ate. I resumed reading to the end, which left my client in tears.

With the task of the book behind me (other than a few small clean-up items), I’m thinking ahead to my next project. When Mulligan suggested I should “come over to the dark side” and try screenwriting, I said, “That’s just not my world. I’m a book person.” But this morning, I woke up wondering why I’ve set such arbitrary (and stupid) boundaries in my life. Some destuctive little part of me is telling me I’m out of my league. It’s singing that old bluegrass song, “Don’t Git Above Your Raisin’”.

Getting locked in that bathroom was a blessing. It slapped a leash on me just as I was about to take flight, which would have been an idiotic waste of time in the middle of a hardworking day. And it would have reinforced the utterly wrong idea that I could not function on the most basic level in what was, for this day at least, my workplace. Nothing about Mulligan’s house – or Mulligan himself – could have possibly been more welcoming. The only thing telling me I didn’t belong there was my own insecurity. I don’t have time for that crap. (No pun intended.) I need to be able to function comfortably wherever my work is. That means being able to use a hole-in-the-ground outhouse in rural France or a Frank Lloyd Wright toiletron in Hollywood as unfussily as I use the loo off my own kitchen (which is, by the way, wallpapered with pages from my first novel).

I can’t describe what it meant to me to have someone understand and honor the emotional journey of this book. It’s possible that Mulligan was just trying to score points with my client, whom he adores with schoolboy blue devotion, but whatever his motives, the experience was wonderful for me. Finishing a book is a big deal. I’ve always felt a bit of an ache as I honor that alone. This is the first time the celebration was even close to being in balance with the enormity of the journey.

After I read the final chapter, Mulligan poured wine, raised a toast to my client and I, and gave us both roses. Then we all sat around the fire pit shooting the bull. Lively conversation covered everything from Cyrano de Bergerac to Barak Obama. Watching the far off fireworks, I felt that click that tells you you’re in the right place at the right time doing the right thing.

The world I belong in is writing. Everywhere it takes me is home.

LA state of mind

The Kinkos on Sunset Blvd. is littered with the broken and bloodied dreams of screenwriters, but the mood in the place is surprisingly upbeat.

Something I always notice in LA is the way people strike up conversations with anyone and everyone beginning with the assumption that you're in some way working in the entertainment industry. The wardrobe is creativity du soliel -- a big switch from the Amish community black you see in the New York publishing neighborhoods. Of course, BS is a byproduct of almost every exchange, and that gets annoying, but even the blowhards are sort of lovable because they're trying so dang hard.

I have to admit, I usually hate LA, but this was a good trip. I got a lot accomplished, finally got to see In Bruges, and ate at Mel's, the diner where they filmed parts of American Graffiti. Two things happened on this trip that really impressed me and made me think I've had LA all wrong:

Monday evening, I went to a reading of a one-act play by a not famous staff writer on a good but not huge television show and was blown away by the people who turned out to support her. There were a LOT of very recognizable faces in the small theater, but not one ego that was too big to fit in a chair. That kind of support from people who have that kind of clout is something book writers will never have, and that -- to be blunt -- is why we'll never make that kind of money.

Preparing for an important meeting on Tuesday, I was mortified to discover that the hotel business center didn't have a functional printer. I race up the street to Kinkos and found Hollywood writer purgatory jammed to the rafters with long lines of people as enervated as I was. After half an hour, I seized the hand of a passing employee and quietly said, "I have a meeting in 18 minutes with [producer whose name you'd recognize if I said it here, which is why I can't] and I am begging you for mercy."

He nodded knowingly and led me to his "private stash" area, printed four copies of the forty pages I needed for the meeting and sent me on my way with best wishes. Twenty minutes later, standing on the veranda of the producer's bozillion dollar home in the Hollywood hills, I looked out over LA.

It was sunny above the smog.

Here's the trailer for In Bruges. See it if you get a chance.