I love thoughtful, or delightful, conversations and have wanted to start an interview series on my blog for a while. I finally decided to launch it this year and I chose my friend Tarrah Curtis as my first subject. She said she felt more like a guinea pig, but I told her to feel special since I thought of her first.

We met while working for the Oscars in 2005. Since then, we have become great friends as well as esteemed colleagues. We’ve traveled together both professionally and for fun, we’ve lived together for several weeks at a time, and we’ve shared more bottles of wine over the years than I care to admit.

We bonded over our love and respect for the Oscars, the red carpet and NFL football. We also bonded over the unfortunate circumstance we shared – having both lost our fathers in our early 20s.

But back to NFL football. Another unfortunate circumstance is that Tarrah is a New England Patriots fan and I’m a Denver Broncos fan, and awards season coincides with the playoffs. We’ve watched our teams battle it out several times together, for better or for worse.

When I was diagnosed with breast cancer, she organized, for lack of a better term, a gift drive amongst our mutual friends. She sent me {and my daughter} multiple care packages. We had huge boxes arriving each week for about a month.

Several years ago, Tarrah started her own company, Rocky Woody Events + PR, named after her father. I have worked for her company on a freelance basis and she has hired me in bigger roles for other projects, like the Screen Actors Guild Awards.

A Virgo who loves logistics, spreadsheets and office supplies is a force to be reckoned with!

I said our conversation needed to happen with a cocktail, so I grabbed a glass of wine, and she grabbed a beer and we hopped on Zoom to have a delightful conversation. Here’s how it went:

AS: How long have we known each other? 15 years?
TC: That’s math, I can’t do that, she says laughing. But, yes, I’ve known you since you started at the Academy. We started the Girls with Pearls.
AS: OMG, I forgot about Girls with Pearls!

While it sounds fancy, Girls with Pearls was a group of ladies who worked together and realized we all had an affinity for wearing pearl earrings.

AS: I think that job was so perfect because it was right around the same time as The Office, and it kind of felt like we were living [it].
TC: A little bit.

I don’t want to give her idea away, but Tarrah has a great concept for a sitcom. She says she came up with it “because there are so many bizarre characters and different personality types,” many of whom we’ve worked with. I think she has a hit.

AS: I think that was one of my favorite jobs ever. I have lifelong friendships from that job.
TC: 100%. That job was like summer camp in the best way. All of the people I met from there will be forever part of my life in a way that has not happened at any other place that I’ve worked, for sure.

I referred to my time at the Oscars as “Camp Oscar,” because it truly felt like going away to summer camp to see your best friends, but in reality, we were working our asses off. Exhausting, but fun.

Tarrah and I started talking about relationships and dating. Or the lack of dating happening in either of our lives. I’ve lived in L.A. at two separate times, once while single and once while married. We talked about how dating in the City of Angels can be a challenge because so many people are looking for their big break and not necessarily a soul mate.

AS: How about dating in L.A.? When I lived there while I was single, and I didn’t know you then, but I always thought it was very hard. I lived in West Hollywood and it was always when you met people, “What can you do for me?” Do you feel like that’s still a thing?
TC: Yeah, it’s very superficial. In a weird way, where I’ve found a lot of great friends, the romantic relationship part of things is a lot harder. It’s twofold, I mean, one, it is what can you do for me, which always made me nervous. Then there’s also the part of it where if I’m on a project my time is consumed by it. And then I go into a period where I have all kinds of free time, so you have to try and meet that person in the downtime, and then have spent enough time with them so that they understand you’re going to go incommunicado for four weeks.
AS: I wonder if it’s also getting older.
TC: Probably, although I would say compared to some of my other friends who are single, I would say I’m the one who’s the most interested in dating and having fun. But, I’ve realized more and more, especially in the last couple of years, that getting married isn’t particularly of interest to me. I know I don’t want kids, and the getting married part is neither here nor there for me. It doesn’t matter.
AS: I agree. I think getting older has made me realize, like, when I got divorced I was 100% thinking I wanted to get married again, and now I think, if I do, I do, if I don’t I don’t. It’s fine either way.
TC: For me, the partner is always the more important thing. Who that person is makes a lot more sense to me than what they do. I always used to say what I really need is someone who will warm my toes on the couch. Someone who sort of gets it and will have a conversation with you or sit in silence and read a book with you.
AS: For me, right now, I just want a Goldie Hawn/Kurt Russell type thing.
TC: I agree. I think some of it is getting older, but I always equate it to shedding all the boxes you got shoved into in life. You never find the last box, but you keep crawling out of them. I always assumed kids would just come, but I never really wanted them.
AS: Well, that’s probably why they didn’t come.
TC: That’s fair.

AS: What’s your best memory of something you and I have done together?
TC: A single thing is hard, but I always liked the fact that we had our own hashtag. Or like, New York that day. We each were going to pick a thing and then we’re going to do it. And it ends up being this weird spectrum of, we’re going to do this really sad thing, and go to the 9/11 Museum, and then Tarrah’s going to eat four dozen oysters. We’re just there for the adventure.

We use our hashtag, #MeAndMrsJones, on our travels. We’re both up for adventure and are willing to do things we normally wouldn’t do. Like me, helping Tarrah eat four dozen oysters. I wrote about our day in New York several years ago, One Fine Day in New York City. It really was a perfect day.

AS: Even though we did that super sad thing with the museum, it was still the perfect day.
TC: But even that. There’s not a lot of people you can do that with, no one’s seen me cry like that. Who’s gonna know I need a hug, but then like, I don’t wanna be touched?
AS: I remember we just kept walking north when we left, and we were walking in silence the whole way.
TC: A Virgo and a Scorpio walk into a museum…

Our conversation turned to food and we laughed about the time we finished a project and were so starving, our mutual friend ordered four bottles of wine and everything off the kid’s menu from room service {wine goes great with grilled cheese and French fries, FYI.}

To wrap up our conversation, I wanted to know what Tarrah was reading and watching in her spare time.

AS: What are you reading these days?
TC: I’m working my way through the Dorothy Must Die series. My new favorite that I just read is Daisy Jones and the Six. Obsessed with it! It was so good, I could not put it down.
AS: It looks like a book that I would love. I know they’re making a movie and I need to read it before that comes out.
TC: It’s a series. It comes out soon. {March 3rd on Amazon Prime. It stars Riley Keough, Lisa Marie Presley’s daughter.}
AS: Oh shit, I better really get on it then.
TC: I’ve also read a lot of gay coming of age and a lot of housewives porn. You gotta mix it up. There are 400 things on my Goodreads list and 200 things I’ve downloaded.
AS: I’m just starting to get things off my Goodreads queue that I put in there in 2016 if that tells you anything.
TC: When I was looking at my goals for the year, I wanted to get rid of my Kindle backlog. To clear it out.

That’s a hefty goal since she read 150 books in 2022. She then told me she’s been watching Welcome to Chippendales on Hulu, and she just finished Sex Education on Netflix.

We have many more stories to share, but unfortunately, we’ve signed NDA’s.

Thank you for being the first participant of what I hope will be a delightful series!

Not only does she love to read, but she writes as well. If you’d like to read some of Tarrah’s musings, head over to Tarrah Writes Stuff.