The Chronicles of Sweets Magee, Vol. 1

These are a year old. But friends have elbowed me into posting them because apparently they find them entertaining. Let's see, shall we?

For anyone I haven't blabbed to, my friend Tootsie got me a job as a personal assistant to a well known but not uber famous former pop tart (never taken seriously) turned actress (starting to be taken seriously) on a film her production company is shooting in New York in February and March. For all intents and purposes, she shall be known only as "Sweets Magee." I know, Tootsie gets my first born child. The film is a dark comedy where basically boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy tries to win girl back but he has relationship issues, blah, blah, blah. I've decided to update you each week with the shenanigans that take place because it's the most excitement I've had since JB stripped down to his underwear to conduct a meeting while sitting spread eagle in loose boxer briefs. How could you not want to read these tales of debauchery and intrigue? I now present to you: The Chronicles of Sweets Magee...

February 14th 2006, our first meeting. Valentine's Day. The floor is coked up on sugar and all the girls in the office are anxiously awaiting the arrival of Slick (indie actor content having his only mainstream recognition be a long running voiceover stint for a national ad campain) while the gentlemen hover around the door so that they can fight over who gets the distinction of opening it when Sweets arrives. 6:30pm, she arrives and she's gorgeous. Tall and not too thin and so pretty. She's rushed into wardrobe for her fittings and after two hours of pacing the office, nervous that I'll miss her before we map out the following day's schedule, she finally emerges, smiles and all. The exec. producer introduces me to Sweets, saying "this is C, she'll be your assistant on the film," and SHE COULDN'T BE NICER!!! Direct eye contact, a lovely hand shake, and I'm smitten. I have a heterosexual lady crush on Sweets Magee. We arrange to meet at the rehearsal space the next day and I'm on a high, my new job is awesome.

Feb. 15th, 12pm, rehearsal with Hipster (director of this film and great indie actor of others), Slick and Sweets. The boys show up first and struggle to place where they've seen me but I jog their memory and all is right in the world because I'm sitting in close proximity with two incredibly hot actors who smile when they talk to you and laugh like school children when discussing the merits of certain porn (Slick's character is forced to go to a smut theater in ny so he has to "research" it for background info). Then Sweets walks in and breaks my heart by saying "you know what, i think i'm good so you can go and i'll just call if i need anything." Now I'm self conscious. I thought I wasn't supposed to leave her side. Is she even going to utilize me? Why would she request an assistant in her contract (she doesn't have a full time assistant, she only uses them on shoots outside of Los Angeles) if she wasn't going to have me run errands or...who knows. I've never wanted to fetch someone a cup of coffee more than when Sweets told me she didn't need my help. Later that afternoon my fears were put to rest when we established e-mail contact and were chatty cathy's about the next day's adventures.

Feb. 16th, 1pm. After picking up some art supplies, I met Sweets at an illustration class at FIT so she could get a grasp on this whole "drawing" thing that her character has to master, and again, she says she thinks she's okay and doesn't really need me. I guess since the first day and a half I was working out of the production offices, she thought she was preventing me from doing real work by asking me to tag along. Au contraire Miss Magee, my sole purpose for the next month and a half is to be your shadow and since the day was pretty packed with plans I said I'd stay to help out. I was on a total power trip when half the class appoached me to ask if they could take pictures with Sweets. Acting completely cool like I've been doing this for years I go "um...I think that would be fine, I would just ask her when the class is over.

After school she offered to buy me a Starbucks and even though the cashier failed to notice who she was, apparently the barista did and quickly told the cashier because as I made my way around to the beverage pick-up point, the cashier popped up, schrunched her face in confusion and said " you don't look like Sweets Magee." Thank you lady, way to remind me that I am not-in fact-a beautiful hollywood actress. However, she soon spotted the real deal and became pretty vaklempt. Didn't help her make the coffee any faster though. With Java in tow, we snagged a cab up to the Metropolitan Museum of Art where the art class was taking part in an on-location assignment, and on the way there we discovered we have a lot in common:

-I told her my mom was a flight attendant and her eyes went wide with shock because Sweets' dad is a pilot.
-she too loves Ricky Gervais, both the british and american versions of the Office, and when I showed her that my cell phone backdrop is a picture of David Brent smiling as though he's constipated, she said it was really "cute." She told me I was cute about five times in response to little personality ticks I must have exuded-like when I told her I have a fear of falling down stairs when I know people are watching me climb them-but always in an adorable, friendly way. She really is sweet.
-we laugh at the same jokes, love the same actors, and we just really got along.

In the car on the way back her boyfriend called and they were pretty damn "cute" too. She was telling him how she's a terrible drawer (true, but I appreciate her self deprecation), and she mentioned me to him several times "C and I this, C and I that..." even going so far as to apologize for calling me her assistant in front of me, which is bananas. It's not that I'm starstruck, it's just that I've gone from being a personal assistant for a man who treated me like dog shit, to being treated like a best girlfriend after only a couple of days. I was so used to being degraded that I didn't understand what it was to feel appreciated. We then went to check out the apartment the production company rented for her and when i thanked her for buying me a slice of pizza around the corner, she gushed "oh my gosh thank you for hanging out with me all day."

She headed to L.A. this afternoon for a photo shoot with Teen Vogue so I won't see her until Monday's rehearsals, but we've been e-mailing each other and basically, Sweets Magee is my new best friend and i'm just jazzed that i have an exciting job.

tune in next week...