(Photo: Ann Weathersby)

Peter Newman
Movie producer, 51; married, three children; lives in Greenwich Village.

Typical morning: six cups of coffee, going 800 miles an hour, then I lock myself in the bathroom for an hour and a half, read seven newspapers. All that information floating around in my head, along with the stuff I need to remember for work, producing Noah’s movie The Squid and the Whale, selling the competitive-eating film. Yesterday I was in a cab, the driver tells me how, 30 years ago, how he got involved in some pyramid scheme in Florida selling ladies’ cosmetics door to door, some scam run by a guy named Turner . . . I ask him, Guy have a harelip? He says, Yeah. How do you know? I remembered. Read it in the papers.

The building’s got a lottery, I get to park in Washington Mews. Otherwise I’d be out here all morning sitting in my car. The other day I got a $125 ticket for dropping my kid off in front of my building. There’s a sign there now that says: no standing. Is that what Bloomberg means by No Standing? Dropping your own kid off in front of your own house? Having a car in New York is insane. But we need it, at least until the kids can get to school on their own. Griffin takes the subway to Saint Ann’s. I’m not crazy about the train. I had bioterror fantasies long before 9/11. Just yesterday, that actress got shot on the W train . . .

It’s eight. Half an hour to drive the kids uptown. Romilly gets to listen to Avril Lavigne and Professor Longhair till we pass the Intrepid, then James—sixth grade—gets to hear Radiohead and the Ali soundtrack the rest of the way to Calhoun. A big part is timing the lights. It’s all about the other drivers “making the move,” what I call “making the move,” cutting you off just as you’re about to make the light. Look at that garbage truck—a double move! If I miss by five minutes, I lose the double-parking spot in front of Romilly’s school. Every single time we drive by those new towers at the bottom of the West Side, we curse Donald Trump. Another floor up! Cutting off the sunshine, jamming the phone signals!

Every day I’m supposed to remember to tell them who’s picking up Rommy, every day I forget. Has she got her karate bag? Kiss kiss, love you, bye. 8:25. We made it! Thirty percent of my life is spent moving kids around. I already need more caffeine. Grab the cell, still driving: Hi Dan, it’s Peter. Okay, see you there. We’re showing the competitive-eating documentary to a lady from Spike TV at two. A&E already wants it. It’s partly all that free publicity we got when we screened the film at the Tribeca Film Festival, Crazy Legs Conti ate his way out of a sarcophagus full of popcorn. The Evel Knievel of the alimentary canal. The Houdini of cuisini.

Noah’s film is supposed to start shooting in six weeks, and we’re not sure how much money we have to spend. All these people need to get paid. It’s like gambling. Working on the faith that something’s going to happen. I used to bet the house every morning, practically before I even got up. Not anymore. Everyone’s playing it safer.

Time for breakfast. The usual: two hot dogs at Gray’s Papaya. Hot dogs for breakfast is a special thing. My last meal on earth would definitely be at Gray’s Papaya. Most people might think it’s weird to have hot dogs for breakfast. But hey, it’s sausage, right? Lately, I’ve been putting the two hot dogs on one bun—my modified attempt at the Atkins diet. Start the day with a good deed! Quick stop back home, see my wife, Antonia, grab another coffee, then off to the office. Every day I show up at the office with 50 Post-its in my pocket. It’s a trick I learned from being on an airplane with Gene Simmons, the guy from Kiss. The whole trip, he kept writing little notes to himself that said things like: Coat in the overhead bin. So now I have all these notes. The only trick is to figure out what I meant when I wrote them.

I love my garage near the office. Once I went to get my car, and they’d busted some guy who worked there for dealing drugs. The cops impounded all the cars, I couldn’t get mine out. Quick stop at Florent. Large black coffee to go. I love working in this neighborhood, but it’s changing so fast. The irony is the rat problem. All these fancy hotels have rats. Well, what did they expect? It’s the meatpacking district.

I love my job. But the rewards are certainly not financial. If you prorate independent movie production, you’d get maybe 23 cents a day. And that’s a happy outcome!

The office is a mess. But I know where everything is. If I get enough caffeine, the walls start vibrating, and I have enough energy to do what I have to do. Noah’s movie’s going to get made. It’s the quality of the—oh, wait, phone. Hello? Hello? No one there. The quality of the script. Phone again—oh, hi, did you just try to call me? Now is when all the calls from Europe come in. Oh, hi. Hi, François. Hi, Ed. Could you let me know when the lady from Spike TV shows up?

Lunch. I’m such a creature of habit. I ordered the same thing from the same place for years, and then I switched, and now I order the same thing from a different place. Hamburger and salad. Hello? I just got off with Mark who talked with Steve who had something he needed to clear up before he talks to Eric. Wait. Jennifer? Are you on the cell? Can I call you right back? I was supposed to call Jennifer back, wasn’t I? Wait. I did call Jennifer back. Oh, hi, Bob. Look, just so you know about the chicken and the egg and the chicken and . . .

Screen the film for Spike TV. Then it’s off to meet James after school at the Kingsway Boxing Gym. The smell, the history on these walls. The ethic. Everyone is so nice to everyone else, they treat everybody like an equal. People here are much more honorable and straightforward than they are in film. If you make a mistake here, you get knocked out. If you make a mistake in film, you get rewarded. James is really good at this. He’s the baby-faced assassin. One day this old guy says to me, You a Jew? I say, Yeah. He says, That boy of yours a Jew? I say, Yeah. He says, He’s the best Jewish fighter I’ve seen since Lenny Rosenbloom, and that was in 1961. He wanted to manage James. Sign him up. James is only 12!

Home. Finally! Just when I’ve had my first glass of red wine, starting to relax, some really abrasive person from California calls, tries to pin me in a corner. Antonia cooks. We eat dinner, veal cutlets and . . . what’s this vegetable called? Brussels sprouts? Brussels sprouts. Two glasses of red wine. Watch the news, the talk shows. The phone calls stop around nine or ten.

I have a thing I like to do. Lie down on the floor with the kids and tell them crazy stories. Like: Long ago and far away, we’re floating on the river, something weird is happening in the sky . . . Last week Rommy told me she dreamed it was raining mashed potatoes, big chunks of sausage were falling from the sky, she was trying to glue them together. That’s what my stories do for her. I tell them stories to put them to sleep. But most of the time, I’m the one who falls asleep. I fall asleep like that, lying on the floor with the kids. It’s peaceful. —Francine Prose