I have been living out of a suitcase all summer. The people I've talked to who didn't leave say the summer flew by but to tell you the truth I feel as if year has passed. I was hoping to get upgraded as I did on the outbound leg but no such luck. I was sitting next to a couple about my age who, when they weren't talking loud were voraciously making out. When the stewardess asked her if she wanted a snack she said, "He's my snack," and stuck her tongue down his throat. Just what a guy who'd just been dumped by his girl needs to see. Then in flight I played the trivia game on my touch screen against the rest of the plane. I rarely lose and this time I was really on fire. Only one other person, somebody in seat 38A was anywhere close. After I won I got up to go to the bathroom and went back instead of forward so I could see who I beat. I was hoping it was a cute woman and I would say something incredibly witty. About four rows back I realized that I had beaten a fourteen-year-old boy. So much for feeling like a genius.

I landed at JFK at midnight New York time and just as I was waiting for my third bag the belt broke for an interminable thirty minutes. Then I got a car to take me home and we were mysteriously stopped at the tollbooth of the Triboro bridge at one in the morning with hundreds of other cars. Nobody honked, a police car was there lights swirling and then, after about fifteen minutes we were let through. I was starving and was about to ask the driver to make a pitstop at an all-night McDonalds but didn't. I haven't been home in a month but luckily there was frozen bread and peanut butter and jelly.

Today I went out in the city and it's still so fucking exciting to me. I feel like I'm where I belong, in the center of everything. The subway, however, is quite filthy and I was wondering how a city could let something so vital get so dirty. I saw a plaque at 18th street saying the station was built in 1910. The original tiles are pretty but c'mon. At 96th street, changing to the local, the 1 train was creeping into the station suspiciously slowly. Against my better judgment I got in. It went one stop to 103rd and then the conductor said the next stop would be 125, skipping my two stops. I grumbled and got out and walked but the late evening was gorgeous so it was actually a treat. I was actually singing to myself as I walked. I noticed a crazy homeless guy up ahead of me and as we passed he on purpose banged into my shoulder, muttering angrily to the voices within. I love New York.

Posted by Trey Ellis at 12:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

What a tumultuous summer it has been. I've laid on beaches in the South of France, East Hampton, Martha's Vineyard and Venice Beach. Now, as it is coming to a close I'm realizing that this summer I will never forget.

I am here in LA selling my house and my car. Everything is behind schedule so the car at least won't be sold until after I leave. I have gotten back into yoga, went surfing for the first time since January and have run the streets with friends nearly every night this month.

I also got dumped by Cristina, my girlfriend.

She was here for a week and things were rough. She had brought her friend with her and they were staying in a hotel. They had made these plans for this summer back in the spring when I had broken up with her. Then we got back together and spent a super romantic week together in Manhattan and the Hamptons and another week together with the kids in St. Tropez. When she arrived here in LA, however, something had changed and sure enough, the night before she returned to Italy she broke up with me.

I don't blame her at all. We have been long distance for three years and I am certainly not prepared to get married. She doesn't see herself as a new mom for the kids and she just got a job that will tie her more to Milan.

Still, this city has been the location for the worst heartaches of my life and those emotional memories have come flooding back to me. It was here in LA that my wife moved out on the kids and me. It was to here in LA that my French fiancee emailed me the letter telling me that we were through.

I don't blame Cris but it could not have come at a worse time for me. I feel as if I am in a small village surrounded by raging forest fires. The unsold car, the unsold house, my health, all are out there threatening.

it was a week ago that she told me and I am already better. We still text several times a day and still say I love you. Now, however, she is as free as she has allowed me to be, to find a more suitable and more permanent mate.

It's just that I am so terrible at dating. I really don't know how I will manage. Maybe this time I'll try mail order.

Posted by Trey Ellis at 06:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

In general I'm not a big fan of going backward. Every August since the divorce five years ago the kids spend the month down South with their grandma and now with their mother as well. For four weeks I'm suddenly single and free, staying up late just because, seeing any movie I fancy (without having to calculate the entertainment to cost-of-babysitter ratio). I've spent the free time in France and one summer I visited Moscow and St. Petersburg. This year I was torn between Cartagena, Columbia, and Morro de Sao Paolo, Brazil.

So why the hell am I back here in L.A.?

Well I am selling my house and selling my car and Cristina is here for a bit with her friend Alessandra. I feel surrounded by violent tempests however I am actually pretty damn happy. Yes my house hasn't sold yet and I'm about to spend another small fortune and fixing it up some more. Yes my super car looks amazing with the new racing stripes and spoilers but did the distributor and the front suspension have to go out just as I was trying to sell it?

On the plus side I've gone to the gym and yoga twice and eaten the best food. L.A. is a cultural wasteland but a gastronomic wonderland. Last night it was Roscoe's House of Chicken and Waffles. The food is so good you want to weep and freeze time.

And the sun is hot and everywhere. I'm a bit burned out having spent so much time on beaches this summer but two months from now, when the sun is more shy, I'm going to miss this hot late afternoons.

I should be working on the rewrites now however my editor is on vacation and still owes me the last four chapters. I've turned back in the first four and have one here to correct that I am late on. The fall will be a mad dash to get quotes and the marketing machine in gear.

Still, in the midsts of this madness my freedom, the silence of this house that holds so many memories for me, makes every moment so damn poignant.

I miss my kids.

Posted by Trey Ellis at 08:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Continuing my traveling this summer I just returned from Martha's Vineyard. I was there for a week with Dan, one of my best friends since the fifth grade and a single father himself. He's a newbie and had his two kids this week with him and the four of us made a pretty cute modern family. It was like the Odd Couple with kids. His were about the same ages as mine so they four of them quickly formed a pack. Cutest of all was my Ava, nine, and his Eli, ten, scootering around the 150-year-old gingerbread cottages of the Vineyard and taking long walks together in the dark after dinner. I've never seen this side of Ava before and I was not as overwhelmingly jealous of her first beau as you might think. I did, however, spy on them constantly. They were so sweet with each other that it nearly brought me to tears. Chet, almost six, however, was more jealous than I was. He adores his big sister, went through a phase earlier this summer where he was begging her to kiss him on the lips. All four kids were smashed into the back seat and Chet would lay all over his big sister. Eli was very protective of her, pushing Chet off her again and again.

For me the Vineyard is synonymous with my adolescence. I wrote about growing up here in the summers in Home Repairs and most famously in my script for the Inkwell. The movie turned out to be a disaster and an embarrassment for all of us who love the island so and I am still living down how shitty it was. I hadn't been back in ten years but the island had scarcely changed. Every single corner and cove holds a memory for me. I'm working on another film that takes place there to try and redeem myself.

As for the book, I just saw a first pass at cover art. I showed it to some friends and the reaction from all was the same: "creepy". (Except one guy who said, "skeevy.") The image is of a Barbie and Ken doll screwing but the Barbie looks so much smaller that it looks as though the brown Ken doll (me) is having sex with a small white child. Not good.

Posted by Trey Ellis at 02:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)