In the Limo

MORNING OF JULY 30, 2009

I did not remember entering an online movie tie-in contest, but apparently I won it anyway. I think it had to do with the Julie and Julia movie that's being promoted heavily here lately (probably because I saw an interview about it on Conan the day before). As the winner of the contest, I was flown to Hollywood for the premiere.

I met with a very severe, business-like lady who explained to me that I would ride around in a limo and interview a handful of celebrities, one at a time, for a given period of time. This sounded weird to me, as I have no desire to ride around in limos with celebrities (though I did find myself hoping Amy Adams might be one of them, as it was her movie that had apparently won me the contest).

I have a vague memory of being in the limo, and people, I presume celebrities, though they have no specific faces in my memory, were getting in and out frequently. I didn't "interview" anyone, we'd just speak. And it didn't seem to be more than five minutes with each individual.

My next vague memory is driving around a strange town in my car. Perhaps I was still supposed to be in L.A. I believe I was, not surprisingly, looking for a pizza place. It was early in the night, and I was supposed to meet friends there.

Finally, it was late at night and Richard and Eric and I were walking through a huge neighborhood for exercise. At one corner, Richard paused and pointed out a house at the far end of the street. It looked very much like the classic image of a haunted house. After taking it in and commenting on it for a moment, we started to resume our walk.

Just as a joke I said, "Hey wait, you guys--is that a person walking around in the driveway, I can't tell..." I was trying to make like I saw a ghost. They came back to look--Richard most excitedly--and suddenly began freaking out. I wondered why the freak-out since I had only been kidding...until I looked again.

In the driveway there was a faint, bluish-translucent figure floating toward the street in our direction.