I had a good time after all at the party. I was under the impression that it was going to be a lot of old people dancing to old people dances, like some wedding reception or something. But it was mostly like a dance that we would have gone to in junior high (a.k.a. middle school for some of you). That's quite fortunate, 'cause I've been itching to slowdance for about two years. So I did, and I was shocked that I didn't enjoy it as much as I used to. It makes me feel sad.

I had fun, though. There was this table with helium-filled balloons in the shape of a "1" and a "6" (being a 16th birthday party and all). Since we were both early to the party, we turned the table around before anybody could notice. Result: 61 (except that the 6 was backwards). Since the party was Hollywood-themed, there were large cardboard "HOLLYWOOD" letters by the dance floor. First, Mark and I covertly rearranged them to spell "WOLLYHOOD." Somebody promptly changed it back. Then my friend Mike rearranged a few letters and put one "O" behind the other so it spelled "HOLY MOLD." That stuck until the DJ's CD player broke and we had nothing to do. People started taking the letters and throwing them around, putting the "O"s around their necks, etc. You've got to be careful with the "L"s; those things are like boomerangs.

When the party was over, Mark and I helped with cleaning up. There were some helium-filled balloons left over, so we inhaled the helium to make our voices all squeaky. I can't recommend that you do that. It's not exactly safe; after all, every time you breathe helium, you're not breathing oxygen. But nobody died, and we had fun. Mark and our friend Nick were fighting over who would get the "6" balloon, but it was going to go home with the birthday girl, much to their chagrin. I suggested that they pool their money to buy an "8".

Yesterday I was sitting around with nothing to do, when I got a call from my sister's friend. She had been planning a project for school in which she was going to film a 1920s murder mystery, and I had been committed to being in it. But as I found out yesterday, the project changed and was now going to be spearheaded by her friend, who was going to direct it for her cinematography class.

So, I got over to my sister's friend's other friend's house, which is like a freakin' mansion (perfect for a 1920s mystery movie). It turns out that the guy whose house it was -- Michael is his name -- acts with the same children's theater company that my friend Reid used to be in. So I had seen them together on stage in "West Side Story." (I'll have to get out the program to see what character Michael played.) Needless to say, he's playing the lead role of Sherlock Holmes. I'm Dr. Watson.

Before we got to filming, though, we watched some of the director's previous films. She had burned them onto DVDs, and we watched them with glistening clarity on Michael's sparkly Sony widescreen TV in -- get this -- the upstairs TV room. Turns out that the director (I think her name is Michelle) is very good at making movies. They're nicely scored and everything. The only problem, it seems, is that sometimes she forgets to turn off the date stamp in the corner of the picture.

Anyway, she went through the mansion with us, outlining each scene of the picture from start to finish. We then went back and did all the daylight scenes with the actors we had on hand (all but one). As night fell, we ate dinner on Michael's family. It was very good. We had stuffed clams, pasta, and shish kebab. After that we did some scenes that took place at night, including the opening scene. Several scenes included Michael's father (?) as a character. Unfortunately he doesn't seem to have a good grasp of English, but he was mostly good with his lines.

It should be a good movie. It's not some boring old detective story; it's filled with comedy. I can't wait to see the finished product after we finish shooting on Tuesday.