The Panty Police

Saturday night I had a run-in with the cops. Now, before you go ahead and jump to any conclusions, it’s worth mentioning that in the time I have lived in Santa Monica I’ve had more run-ins with police officers than I have my entire life prior to moving here. And they’ve always been for the same reason: noise. Yep. People in Santa Monica seem to hate people who like to do things like, oh, I don't know... enjoy life and have fun with their friends... so, as you can imagine, we’ve had cops show up to our apartments for a variety of noise-related reasons. My favorite time was when they came over because we were watching Planet Earth too loud… at least, that was until this most recent run-in...

After a fun night out Saturday, two of my roommates and I ended the night back at our apartment. Sure we were pretty drunk – I’m not going to pretend that wasn’t the case… Actually, let’s get down to it: we were hammered.

Somehow, in the early hours of the morning (I think we thought it was around 2am but it turns out it was closer to 4am) we all ended up in DiTonto’s bedroom having a late night dance party (LNDP for the uninitiated. Obv.) We often joke that our apartment is “pants optional” and this was one of those nights – because both Becca and Ash were in their underwear and t-shirts, although I for some reason was still fully dressed, shoes and all (I have no idea why but I sometimes have a tendency to not take my shoes off until I go to bed).

Now when I say LNDP, I don’t mean like a singalong to music from Glee. We were rocking out to Gorillaz – yes, still riding that Coachella high – and when I say rocking out I mean HARD CORE. Like dancing our faces off. And each one of us totally in our own world in a different corner of DiTonto’s room, with DiTonto holding court jumping and dancing on top of her bed.

Anyway, the song “Rhinestone Eyes” is blaring and we are just all so into it and next thing I know there are two policemen standing in the doorway of DiTonto’s bedroom – which I might add, is fairly deep into our large apartment.

So essentially, two cops who were probably expecting to walk into some apartment and find a massive rager of a party just came across three girls dancing, two of them in their underwear, having a great time. It’s the start to a bad porno.

(It’s also worth mentioning there are empty beer cans everywhere. Among other things.)

These cops were just standing sort of in stunned shock looking at us, and while Becca and DiTonto immediately drop to the floor covering their mouths I just kept repeating “Oh my God I am so embarrassed.”

We then get the following speech: “First of all, your door is wide open so you should probably remember to lock that from now on. And secondly, your music is so loud you didn’t even hear us until we came all the way to the bedroom.” And maybe they said something after that, but all I remember is that the second they walked out of the bedroom door the three of us burst into uncontrollable fits of giggles. We’re talking rolling on the floor, holding our bellies and laughing so hard it hurt giggles.

I am guessing Sunday morning some fellow cops got a good story over donuts.

Storytime! (Alternate Title: Bizarre Musings on a Friday Afternoon)

There once was a pickle named Bob...

That's how I like to start stories. Well, not really, but have you ever played that game where you make up a story and everyone contributes a line? I used to crack myself up everytime I got the chance to anthropomorphize an inanimate object, especially a vegetable.

Speaking of stories, I'm reminded of the second grade, when I wrote a story about a squirrel named Corny. Apparently it was a hit because in no time I was sitting at the top of the Corny Empire, delegating out various books to classmates to write (to this day, one of my best friends still gives me grief for not letting her write "Corny's Christmas"). Sometimes I wonder if I peaked then - I mean, there I was running a literary empire at age 8. Regardless, the story about my Corny franchise resurfaced a few years ago when I was looking for summer internships. Yep, I put that in my cover letter, in an attempt to display "creativity" and my early development of an "entrepreneurial spirit" (or so my dad tells me).

My dad is one of my favorite storytellers, mostly because he's got some insane tales of traveling through Europe in the 70s and buying a 1000 shirts in Morocco or something. My mom was also a great storytelller - when my brother and I were little we heard endless stories about a character known as Kitty Bow Wow. She flooded our imaginations with fun stories.

When I was little, I never thought I'd end up working in Hollywood - in TV no less. That was just such a far off concept to me. I don't think I was really even aware of the industry beyond acting (and trust me, I was quite the performer when I was little so that was something I was into) but I never really thought I would want to be a writer, in any capacity. When I was little I wanted to be an artist, then an astronomer or a marine biologist. I was never that great at science... I don't necessarily think I am great at storytelling, but it's amazing that the more stories we tell, the better we get at the telling.

I was mentioning to a friend last week that I don't feel comfortable calling myself a writer. I don't think being a blogger qualifies me for that title - not even if I get paid to do it, not for this blog or at the Huffington Post, not even with my bi-weekly column over at Digiday. I think I will call myself a writer the day I publish something I can hold in my hands, or the day I sell a screenplay. Until then, I prefer to think of myself as a storyteller - not necessarily a particularly good one, but maybe a work in progess.

The best thing is that my day job is also about storytelling - because that's what TV is. I'm fortunate enough to be in a place where my job and my hobby are two different sides of the same coin.

Sometimes I think maybe I'll return to the Corny stories... or I suppose I could always write about a pickle named Bob...