My Boring-Ass Life (Revised Edition): The Uncomfortably Candid Diary of Kevin Smith (21 page)

Since I’d packed all my Splenda and brought it up to Vancouver, we stop at 7-11 on Sunset to see if they’ve got any. On the way out, the two panhandlers out front are like “Mr. Smith. You’re making a movie with that girl, right? Is she pregnant or what?” I think this is pretty funny: I rarely ever stop at this 7-11 (I usually rock the La Brea and Sunset Sev), but two times out of the three times I have, these older, black Jay and Silent Bobs always seem to have their fingers on the pulse of what’s going on in the movie biz. The first time they talked to me about my flicks, I was flabbergasted — as neither of them look like they’ve got enough scratch for an apartment, a TV, or a DVD player (plus, they’re older black guys — historically not a big part of my demographic). Last time I saw them, they had a convo with me about
Jersey Girl
and Jennifer Lopez. This time, it’s Garner. Either they’re subscribers to The Affleck Journal, or they read a lot of
US Weekly
. I give ’em a buck and head off, as they wave at Jen in the passenger seat and call out, in flirty voices, “Bye, Mrs. Smith!” Ah, Los Angeles...

We get home and I get a huge greeting from the kid, who’s in her room, playing with Reyna. I tell her to come upstairs when she’s done, dump my laundry in the washing machine, and head upstairs to the bedroom. I get into woobs and climb the stairs to the kitchen to make some iced tea. On the deck, I see Chay checking her sidekick. She joins me in the kitchen and we talk about life in Vancouver before she heads out and I head to the room, where I get on the bed, slip back into my M.O. of watching TiVo’ed
Simpsons
while checking email and the board.

Harley joins me, and we lay on the bed talking about her day, the upcoming Vancouver trip, and our new home at the top of the hotel that’s “like a little house in a hotel room” (her words, not mine). We haven’t told her why Nan and Pop went to Hawaii yet, so she’s wondering why the stability of her family unit (of which she’s usually the center of attention) has been so disrupted, and is looking forward to getting to Vancouver and back to some sense of normalcy.

Harley’s good at adapting, man. In her brief nearly-six years, we’ve lived in many different houses/hotels/apartments, and she’s never really bitched. The kid takes well to each new place, which is a blessing, considering she could make life really miserable for us by objecting to any of the possible moves we make, forced on us by my job. Chay once uttered a phrase which quickly became the Smith Family Mantra: “Home is where the hotel is.” It’s kind of appropriate in this nomadic business of show.

I read Harley a
Junie B.
book while Jen deals with an issue at Harley’s school involving a boy who pantsed her in gymnastics. When Jen’s done, we kiss Harley g’night and head upstairs, allowing her to fall asleep in our bed.

In the living room, we crack open season seven of
The X-Files
and check email on our respective laptops. I start doing some more catch-up work on my diary with my iChat open. Then, from the other couch, Jenny IMs me, and we start a sweet convo that turns naughty, ultimately ending up with us fucking on the couch (something we rarely do, as most of our fucking is done in our bed).

We’re laying around, engaged in some post-coitus chit-chat when we decide to get dressed. Good thing, as we hear the front entry alert telling us Jay’s home. He joins us upstairs, and the three of us sit around the living room bullshitting about Vancouver and a Skywalker trip Mewes is taking tomorrow, as well as marital fidelity and whether or not girls can be trusted. Then, Mewes heads off to his friend’s to play some video games, and Jen and I head downstairs. We bicker about what to do with Louis (the dreaded pup who eats everything, that Byron’s left in our care), then cuddle up to some
Simpsons
and fall asleep.

Friday 13 May 2005 @ 4:08 p.m.

Harley tries to wake us up at 7:05 a.m., and succeeds in prying Jen out of bed. I sleep in a little while longer until Quinnster takes another run at me, insisting I take her to school.

I load the kid into the car and drive her to school, rocking out to the Ol’ Dirty Bastard remix of Mariah Carey’s ‘Fantasy’ (which the kid digs). I kiss Harley g’bye and drop her off, then head back toward the house. En route, I call Jen and ask her if she fancies a spot of breakfast at the Griddle. She meets me at the front door, jumps in the car, and we’re off.

We stop for gas, then park in front of the Griddle, where we grab an outdoor table, order, and read our respective mags (
Newsweek
for Jen,
Daily Variety
for me). When the food comes, we chit-chat and flirt and try to figure out our day.

We head home, get back into our woobs, and I head downstairs to do some more laundry. I get back upstairs and Jen tells me to grab the
Files
DVDs from the living room, where we left them last night. I head downstairs to collect the laundry I did last night, then drop them off to Jen, offering that I’ll go get the
Files
DVDs if she’ll fold my clothes. The deal brokered, I head upstairs and find the dogs staring at me from the deck, forlorn. I join them outside and jump into the pool, throwing the ball for Mulder. Louis ventures close to the edge and I grab her and bring her in. She still doesn’t have her sea legs, though, so she splashes about wildly, looking for an exit. I lead her to the stairs, where she dashes out and gets as far away from the pool as possible. Scully comes in and does a lap, and then I continue playing with Mulder for a bit until I decide to head inside. I grab the
Files
DVDs and go back to the room, where I take a shower and then climb onto the bed to update the diary.

Again, Schwalbach IMs me, and we start flirting. She joins me on the bed, dropping her gear and presenting me with massage oil. I give her a halfhearted rubdown, because with all her clothes off, I’m only thinking about being inside her now.

That’s when the dirty talk kicks in.

She pulls me on top of her, and in an insanely rare show of initiative, I’m on top. Her cumming makes me cum, and since I’m still hard, she rolls me off of her so she can climb on top of me and cum again.

I have no illusions about myself as a master lover. I know I don’t make Schwalbach cum; Schwalbach makes Schwalbach cum. She’s easily the most orgasmic chick I’ve ever met, which makes my job a hundred times less tricky than it could be (or has been with some far less orgasmic girls I’ve been with). I love to fuck Jen, sure — but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t dig the fact that it doesn’t take much to get her off.

We cuddle up, spent, before heading back to our laptops. A half hour later, Jen announces that Trish and Chay are coming over after their lunch. It’s decided that I’ll pick Harley up and hang out with her while Jen chills with her friends.

Jen gets an email from the school, in which we learn Harley’s been sort of naughty. When I pick Quinnster up from school, I confront her about the naughtiness in question. At first, she denies it, then blames it on another classmate. Finally, she admits to collusion. When we get to the house, Jen sits Harley down and gives her a stern talking-to. I add fuel to the fire when I share that Harley initially fibbed in the car, before ultimately copping to the indiscretion. Mom and Dad make with the angry disappointment and the stern punishment (no ear piercing today, and no TV), and the kid makes with the tears. We tell her that, even when she’s naughty, we still love her — but won’t tolerate a bad kid. Trish and Chay show up and Jen heads upstairs. I take Harley to her room so she can put on her pjs, and then we head back to my room, where we both lay on the bed — Harley coloring, and me updating the blog.

Two hours later, Quinnster’s feeling hungry. We head upstairs to say hi to Trish and Chay and forage for some grub. Before I hit the deck, I can hear the blender going, which means it’s gonna be a Margarita kinda night for the ladies — one that’ll last well into the night, which is fine. What is not fine (or rather, what is fine, but in a way that I’m not supposed to acknowledge) is that, when I get out on the deck, I find Trish and Chay lounging poolside in their bikinis. Not good. Not bad, mind you (they’re attractive ladies, to be sure, and both fill out bikinis well), but in the world I dwell, I don’t really go to the beach or anything, so I rarely ever see any chicks that scantily clad, live and in person, outside of Schwalbach. And what’s worse is that these aren’t random beach bunnies; these are chicks I know. Peeping little Chay-Chay Cartier and Trish the Dish frolicking in the nearly-altogether is enough to unnerve me and make me feel like a perve, so all sorts of embarrassed and shy, I excuse myself. Jen says Harley can stay with them and go swimming with the girls, and while Harley puts on her bathing suit, Schwalbach follows me into the house to poke fun at me for a few minutes for feeling weird around the bathing beauties.

I order some pizzas for the girls, wondering if I’m gonna succumb to the temptation of sucking down some slices myself, thus derailing my diet program. Instead, I heat up a low-carb pizza and brew a pot of decaffeinated iced tea.

Sometimes, the weight thing’s a real struggle. I’ve found that I can be pretty good all week, but on the weekend, I usually derail and suck down garbage food or high-carb favorites (bread, mashed potatoes, various sugars). It looks like I’m heading that way today as well, until the pizza shows up and I hand it over to the girls. At this point, Chay’s doing backward falls into the pool for Harley’s amusement, and now the nearly-nude soaking wet Chay Carter is just a little much for my comfort level, so I excuse myself and head downstairs to continue updating my online diary, abandoning the pizzas to the girls. Somehow, my diet is saved by a pair of bikinis.

After a few hours, Harley re-joins me in the room. I ask her if she wants to go pick up new DVDs and grab some ice cream, and she’s all into the idea. We get her dressed, then head upstairs to say g’bye to the ladies, who’re now joined by Trish’s friend Michelle (mercifully dressed more modestly). Chay snaps some pictures of Harley and I, I kiss Jen, and Harley and I head off into the Los Angeles night.

First stop is Laser Blazer, where I pick up this week’s titles (and some of next week’s too), and talk to Ivan about his script. After that, we skip over to Baskin Robbins on Westwood, where Quinnster indulges in some strawberry ice cream. We shoot up Westwood and stop at the Stash, which has just closed. I ring the store, and Albert’s still in the back, closing. He let’s me in and I sign some stuff, pick up some comics, chit-chat with Albert, and head off again. On the way home, Quinnster and I rock out to Mariah Carey’s ‘Fantasy’ (really she rocks to Mariah, I rock to the ODB rhymes layered throughout the tune).

We get home and the girl party has dwindled down to just two chicks: Jen and Chay, who’re sitting in the living room, toasted, oblivious to the fact that the dreaded Louis has eaten an entire pizza, shredded the box, and taken a shit in the dining room, despite the fact that the deck doors have been open all night. I bark a bit about the state of the room and insist I’m not cleaning it up. Even Harley jumps on Jen and Chay’s cases a bit. Chay invites Harley to sleep with her in Mewes’s room (Mewes has jetted off to some
Sith
event in Modesto for the night), and Schwalbach invites me to sleep with her in our bed. I tell her I’ll be down in a few minutes, as I just wanna sit up in the kitchen and finish updating the previous week’s entries in the online diary.

But what I really wanna do is be alone so I can finally break my fast. It’s been a year, which was all the time I’d planned for. I never said I was quitting for life; I just wanted to see if I could go twelve months without one, and I did it. The goal was achieved. The mission was accomplished.

But now it’s time to smoke.

For the first time in over 365 days, I blaze up a Marlboro Menthol Ultra Light. I’d forgotten how good that first smoke can be. It immediately takes me back to Quick Stop, where I started my smoking career in earnest, back in ‘93. The ol’ first smoke buzz returns — the one you spend the rest of your smoking days chasin’ before you realize it’ll never return, and all you have to show for all that smoking is lungs full of brown shit that you cough up every morning, shortness of breath, and a dipping of the libido (indeed, two weeks after I quit smoking, I was like a rabbit with Schwalbach; a rabbit that liked to fuck even more than the normal rabbit). As the heart specialist told me a year ago: smoking is about the worst thing you can do to the body. It taxes every major organ: brain, lungs, heart. It’s a slow death sentence for the indignantly stupid.

But none of this fazes me at the moment, as I’m enjoying this cigarette. Following that first smoke, I enjoy the next three, while I update my week-old diary (the one that’d been long-stopped at Mewes’s car-leasing fiasco). Suddenly, I’m smoking while writing again — one of my favorite pastimes. Not wanting to do too much of a good thing, I head downstairs, a bit lightheaded, climb into bed beside the sleeping Schwalbach, and fall asleep to some TiVo.

Saturday 14 May 2005 @ 2:56 p.m.

Harley gets me up. We let the dogs out, and decide to do some breakfast at Jerry’s followed by an ear-piercing chaser. I get Quinnster dressed, then somehow manage to dress myself. We’re about to leave when Genvieve Case calls. Apparently, Jen spoke to her at one point yesterday about a possible barbecue and she’s wondering what time that might be. I tell her that, since it was such a late night for Jen and Co., it was doubtful we were gonna be having a barbecue today.

Harley and I head to Jerry’s. En route, I decide that the recently-arrived Cases deserve some sort of welcome, so I call the Xtian Clan back and invite them to breakfast at Jerry’s. I ask Christian if he knows where the joint is. He asks if I mean the one in Westwood, near where Team Case is temporarily housed. I say I’m more down with doing the Jerry’s on Beverly, as the Claire’s Harley wants to get her ears pierced at is right across the street, in the Beverly Center. I ask him if he’d like to meet us at that Jerry’s or have me pick them up. Xtian opts for the latter. I tell him I’ll be there in ten minutes, hanging up while thinking “Who am I, Morgan Freeman? Guy can’t drive two miles to meet me instead of making me trek all the way to Westwood. Pampered fuck...”