We are exhausted getting the house ready for the renters again. Mom has to put away all of her clothes (enough crazy outfits to clothe the entire population of Africa), all of her “good” china, and all the useless and silly stuff she thinks is worth something. Mom is taking everything she cares about off the shelves and putting it in Dad’s office, that place where Dad naps a lot.

The closet in Dad’s office is full of Cambodian Buddhas, ancient Sanskrit bibles, antique Indonesian textiles, Chinese pottery and Persian miniature paintings—all dust collecting junk. I’ve worn myself out following Mom room to room as she seals everything in air proof plastic garment bags. We have bought thousands of dollars worth of moth balls and she is putting them everywhere, like she is expecting some kind of mass invasion of moths.

Dad says we need a fire to get rid of all the stuff. I’d rather not be around for a fire but if a giant swarm of moths is coming to our house, I don’t know why we would chose this time to go to Nice, France, Europe because I’m really going to miss catching them all. What a totally fun party that would be. Stupid Kitty, Finley and I could have an absolute orgy of moth murdering. And the moth murder would actually be righteous because we would be saving Mom’s sweaters.

It’s just a dream because Mom won’t let us kill anything. Ever.

Whenever Mom and Dad get ready to fly out of Hollywood, they get really stressed out. They drink thousands of espressos and run around like ants in a flood.

Mom: “Did you put up the No Smoking signs all over the garden?”

Dad: (sigh) “Yes.”

Mom: “Why did you put ashtrays by the pool then? Why are you confusing the renters by telling them they can’t smoke indoors or outdoors but there are ashtrays all over the place?”

Dad: “For the hundredth time, no matter what the rules are, you can’t stop these idiots from smoking. I just want to avoid them throwing their lighted butts down the hillside and burning the house down, that’s all. If there are ashtrays, maybe they’ll use them.”

Mom: “I think you’re dead wrong. It’s like telling a moron, ‘smoke, no, don’t smoke but you can smoke but don’t—here’s an ashtray… it’s stupid.”

Dad: “This is the very last time I’m going to France. The house is going to burn down and we’re going to get our heads cut off by terrorists on the plane.”

It’s always like this before we leave. We never leave because we want a vacation, we leave the country every time Mom or Dad or both of them can’t take anymore of Hollywood. This time, it’s sort of my fault.

I wanted Mom and Dad to pitch my book as a TV series to Comedy Central. My good friend Mark Brazill, the guy who created That 70’s Show, said he would join us so we thought we would go to the Comedy Central offices and tell them all about me and my book. We all thought it went really well but then two weeks went by and the Comedy Central people didn’t even return Dad’s calls. He is furious because he’s known the development person there since she was eleven. So now, Dad wants outta here ASAP.

Mom wants outta here because the only job she got this season was last week. She landed a part on the Bold and the Beautiful for one day and she didn’t even make any money because she owed her entire salary in AFTRA dues. She had to plead with the AFTRA leniency board to even let her work on a soap opera and that was really humiliating to her. In her letter, she wrote them that she was neither bold nor beautiful anymore, having been humbled by twenty years in Hollywood and so they “let her work.”

Then she got an offer to perform in a pie video. That really sent her over the edge.The producer of fetish porn videos (www.pievids.com) wants Mom to get a pie thrown in her face for a thousand dollars a day. That sounds like a fantastic job to me. Usually, I have to run after a pie. But to get one directly in the face? Yummy! Plus to get paid a thousand bucks? She’s nuts not to take that job. I don’t know why they won’t just hire me. I’ll go topless for free just to eat pies.

So now, we have to go to Nice, France, Europe.