Today was, as the song goes, and the movie says, a good day.

I woke up before my alarm, feeling rested and relaxed. My dog met me before my feet hit the floor, and followed me to the kitchen, wagging her tail and nuzzling at my side the entire way. I grabbed a cup of coffee and wrote for about two hours, before I headed down into Hollywood to have breakfast with an old friend who I never get to see as much as I would like.

We talked for a couple hours, and then he had to go meet a director.

"I love it that I get to say, 'I have to go to Hollywood to meet a director,'" he told me.

"Yeah, when you get there, he'd better be wearing a beret and holding a megaphone, or I'm going to be disappointed."

It was wonderful to see my friend, who I'm keeping anonymous because I didn't ask him if I could blog about hanging out. He's awesome, though, and it meant the world to me to get together and catch up.

When he went to meet his director, I went to meet my friend Shane for lunch. Shane and I met at the ACME Comedy Theater years ago, and we've been friends ever since. I also don't get to see Shane as much as I'd like, but I always love it when we get together.

Lunch was awesome, and when it was over, Shane said that he was going to send something to Twitter about it.

"Dude," I said, "we have to do a coordinated message. It'll be hilarious."

We looked at each other for a second while we thought about it.

"Where do we start?"

I opened my phone and started typing. "How about … Having lunch with @ShaneNickerson. Cleverly coordinating tweets."

We giggled like idiots.

"That's funny," he said.

"But then what? Is it only going to be funny to us?"

We both looked up and typed simultaneously. "This is only funny to us."

"I still have a bunch of characters left," I said. "What are we going to do next?"

We thought about it a lot longer than we should have, and kept laughing about it the whole time.

"Let's take this to the writer's room," I said.

"Yeah," Shane added, "and we'll see how we can punch it up before we take it to the network."

We were really giggling like fools, now.

"How many characters do you have left?" I asked.

"Fourteen."

"I only have six."

"Wait. How do I have more than you?"

We looked at each other's phones.

"Oh," I said, "because my Twitter name is shorter than yours. Dude, you totally win at Twitter."

We shared a look, and knew what we had to do. We both erased whatever it was we thought we were going to send, and entered the new text.

"This is only funny to us, right?" I said.

"Probably, yeah."

"That's the best reason to do it. Okay, it's 3,2,1 and then we post it."

We steadied ourselves, and got ready to go.

"3, 2, 1, send!" I jammed my thumb down on the send key, and Shane did the same.

Here's the result, as seen by Twitteriffic (click to embiggen):

We walked back to Shane's office, working on one of my Crazy Ideas on the way.

"What are you going to do with this thing?" He said when we were done with it.

"I have no idea, but I really, really like it."

"Yeah, it's awesome. I totally love it."

We approached some paparazzi, who were staking out a film set.

"For about two minutes in the 80s, I was a guy who those jerks
bothered. I don't ever want to be that guy again," I said. "It really
sucked. I do not understand why people crave that kind of attention."

We passed them, and I resisted the urge to say anything. They're just guys doing their job, I guess, and standing on the sidewalk is certainly less intrusive than ambushing people at the airport.

"You know who they don't care about?" I asked when we were about a block away.

Shane held his hands out wide and pointed his thumbs inward. "These guys," we said in unison.

We waited for a light to change, and I looked around. We were right near Sunset and Gower, and had walked past Hollywood and Vine just a few minutes earlier.

"I love being here," I said. "Even though it's a dump, it feels like it's my dump."

Shane looked at me.

"That didn't come out the way I intended."

Shane looked at me again.

"Poop."

Yes, we're hilarious comedians (in our own minds) when we get together, and poop jokes are gold, Jerry. COMEDY GOLD! As the light changed and we walked across the street, I continued. "I mean that coming down here recharges my batteries, and reminds me why I haven't completely given up on being an actor."

"I know what you mean," he said.

"Even though going on auditions is like Sideshow Bob versus a dozen rakes."

I was quiet for a moment while every frustrating audition in my life flashed through my minds in a matter of seconds.

We got back to his office.

"It was great to see you today, Shane."

"Thanks. Good to see you too."

"Let's get together sooner than later, okay?"

"Yeah, totally."

I drove home, along the same route I took to get to Paramount in my teens, and drama school in my early 20s. Though my thoughts kept drifting to youthful dreams unrealized, I couldn't feel too sad. I don't have the acting career I wanted, but I have a writing career that's pretty awesome, and today I got to see two people who mean the world to me. When I got home, my dogs nearly knocked me over, and my family greeted me with open arms.

It was a good day.