Jewel Staite

12 April 2006

Here I am! I’m still alive! Just lazy and afraid of reporting the monotonous, like more traveling and more shopping. But then I realized, if you’re reading this, chances are you’ve read my other letters to poor Roj and absolutely love the inanity of my shopping expeditions and are very interested in knowing how many air miles I plan to accumulate!

So here goes. Maui, back in February/early March, was wonderful, warm, relaxing, beautiful, etc etc. Two weeks spent lying on the beach, contemplating life, love, and where the best mai tai can be had (the Front Street Bar, in Lahaina, serves the BEST one on the island-trust me, I know: I tried several). What’s funny about Maui is that you get so relaxed, so comfortable, so blissfully care-free, that you actually start looking to create problems just so you can feel normal again. The guilt sets in after week one, when you’ve done everything there is to do on the island, you’ve eaten yourself glutinous, you’ve shopped, you’ve sailed, you’ve whale watched... I got that itch in me that told it me it was time to work again, time to use up some of those creative juices and get the ball rolling. So the minute we got home, we planned a trip to LA to get back into the swing of things (sick of cliches yet?) and set off for a month.

But, work wasn’t all that was on my mind, of course. LA is one of my favorite places to eat out, to go out, to see the people I never get to see anymore, so a lot of it was just more vacationing. Funny how I manage to work a vacation into everything I do. We ate at Hamasaku, that sushi place I’m always raving about, and on their new menu is a new roll named after yours truly! It’s called something like the Great Canadian Jewel, which sounds like a cruise ship, but whatever. I love cruises, and the roll is awesome. We also saw Alan Tudyk for a night out, who always manages to give me the worst hangover of my life the next day but I love him, and we saved Santa Monica (life guard tower was on fire, we called 911, we’re heroes). We had a great lunch with Gina Torres and gossiped over pinot and omelettes at the Chateau Marmont, which was my second home last year any time I was in town promoting Serenity-they have great fries. And we saw Morena (Baccarin) several times, once for a wine tasting and an amazing Italian dinner in Los Feliz, once for steaks at Taylor’s in Korea town (AWESOME cheeseburgers), and once she even cooked us dinner and baked a cake, and it was actually edible and we didn’t die from it. Anyway, it was really nice to see everybody who was in town, but now I kind of miss them all over again.

On to the work side of things: I’ve signed on to do a movie called The Tribe, and how they’re pitching it is Lost meets Predator. Kind of weird, I know, but the script is great, and I get to do lots of action sequences and fun stuff like getting chased by scary things in the jungle (won’t tell you what scary things). It’s going to be probably the most demanding thing I’ve ever done; I’m in literally every scene except a couple, which I haven’t done yet, and there’s a ton of stunts and running for my life... but I’m always up for an adventure, so it should be a lot of fun. The next time I write will probably be from my hotel in Costa Rica, where the film will be shot, and I’m sure I’ll have all kinds of stories to tell you by then. Hopefully not about snakes in my toilet or anything. Not so wild about the snakes.

Also, I’m sure this is floating around the internet somewhere, but for those of you who don’t know, I’ve signed on to do a convention called Armageddon in Wellington, New Zealand, on the 29th of April, and another one called The Hub in Sydney, Australia on May 6th and 7th. After that, I literally fly straight to Costa Rica to begin filming, which means I’ll be out of my mind with jetlag and wondering where the hell I am at that point, but I am SO excited to be going ’down undah’ finally, and meeting a whole new group of Browncoats. I’m also going back to the UK for the next Starfury convention in September, and I can confirm that I’ll be back in LA for the Flanvention in December as well. So get your party shoes on!

And for all of you Stargate: Atlantis fans, I just found out I’ve been nominated for a Gemini for my episode "Instinct". The Geminis are sort of the equivelant to the Canadian Golden Globe, and I’m absolutely thrilled. (so far, this month has rocked the socks)

To top it all off, on the 25th, Matty and I are celebrating our third wedding anniversary. I don’t think we’re at the point where we should be giving out marital advice, but I will say this: when he decides to make you a grilled cheese and he never cooks, let him... and even though it’s the worst damn grilled cheese you have ever had, and he’s put mayo and mustard and God knows what else on it and it’s greasy and weird and stinks? Kiss him and say thank you.

Have a great rest of the month, and I’ll write again soon.

Jewel