The frozen tundra of Mom's house

The great migration has begun. This is the week LA starts to empty out. Last year I stayed and my parents came here for Christmas and I've never seen such nice and easy traffic patterns in this town. Everybody went somewhere else.

My turn doesn't come until the 24th. I'm arriving in Raleigh at 11:30 on Christmas Eve Day after a flight that leaves at midnight. Woohoo. The thing I'm most worried about is the cold. I haven't been home during winter for three years now and I'm not sure I can handle it. It doesn't help that Mom likes to keep the thermostat set to Ice Castle. I asked her to please turn it up while I'm home. "I don't want to be miserable while I'm in your house," I said. "I will pay you for the heating bill if you need it," I said.

Who could say no to that bit of passive aggression?

My mother, apparently. "I can't replicate LA weather," She replied. "You'll be fine in a sweater and socks."

Well played, madam. The game has begun.

It will be 55 degrees in my mother's house in December. I'm not kidding. That's what she sets the thermostat to. So my Stepdad and I sit bundled up and shaking like we're the damn Ingalls family living on the prairie because my mother is so tight she won't pay an extra five dollars or so to keep the heat up for five days. When I get back I might be short one toe because of the frostbite.

Stepdad usually has to fight this battle alone but when I'm home he has reinforcements so his boldness increases. I'll pass the thermostat in the hallway and turn it up. Mom will pass it and yell at us and turn it back down. Then Stepdad will pass it and turn it back up. She's outnumbered but she won't go down without a fight. Eventually we negotiate terms and end up raising the temperature by five degrees. This has been our way every winter since I've been alive. You gotta be persistent to survive in my family.

If I'm not frozen I plan to use the time to finish the first draft of the zombie script. I had to acknowledge that maybe my problem isn't all character arc. Some of it is logistics. What I'm asking the characters to do is something very technical that I have no idea how to do, so I called for reinforcements. Ex-Boyfriend and I thought up this story together and he knows a lot about the things I'm writing about so I bit the bullet and called him and we had a very nice meal at Doughboys (Go there. After School Special. Thank me later.) and smoothed over my logistical problems. So I have to remember that for next time. If I'm stumped it's okay to get help.

Even if the person you're getting help from is evil. Just kidding, EX-B, I know you're not evil. Just completely out of your crazy, brain-damaged mind.

Don't worry. He knows what I'm talking about.

Anyway, hopefully I'll come back to LA in two weeks with all my toes and a completed screenplay on my new laptop. If all goes well. I'm especially worried about the toes.

EDITED TO ADD: Mom and I have negotiated to an agreement of 68 degrees. That way nobody touches the thermostat and I don't have to drag myself around the house wrapped in the ugly green electric blanket.

This gives me hope. If Mom can agree to raise the temperature in her house for a week, the AMPTP can unfreeze their hearts long enough to make a deal with the WGA. It's a Christmas miracle.