Sam knew I really needed some time to recoop after all the press junkets and pressure from my Oscar nomination and so he asked me to join him and Johnny in Laos because they were filming Boys of Summer 2 there, as you know. It was filmed on Richard Branson's private island. Spectacular, as you probably guessed. Well he kept saying wait till the full moon, wait till the full moon to me, and I was like shut up Sam! Then on the full moon, I was dancing with Johnny's wife Vanessa and their beautiful French children to some hilarious French pop music and Sam motioned to me to come over so I did, and he guided me through the glowing woods to a private lagoon. (As he crept through the woods shirtless I couldn't help but think of him in his role as Pete in Red Red Winel Sexomatic!) We could hear the party revelry far off. It was so bright, the light mixed with the amazing phosphorescent algae in the water, casting undulating, pulsing lines on Sam's chiseled upper body. He had deposited two matching surfboards in the underbrush earlier that day and handed one to me. It was such a warm night, and we treaded water while he reached into his suit and I was like Sam what is up with you, and he just pulled out this HUGE mother of pearl necklace and said, "I got this on my journey through the Mideast. In Kabul, it's a tradition to present this to the individual whom you feel contains part of your abdabimam" (It roughly translates to "the fleshiness of the soul.") "I want to marry you," he said, and then almost slipped off his surfboard and I was like, "Hey don't drop that! That's my soul!" Hahahahahahahaha! So . . .

Yeah, we're together. It was hard at first with everyone around us being so freaky. It just takes work to be in a couple. Especially with both our careers rocketing off into the stars at the same time and the whole looks thing, which is so stupid and hard to, you know, deal with, but we had some really really good friends to help us through the, um . . . transition . . .Julia, Meg, Demi, and Ashton have been so so so so wise about it all.

No I would have called you but I didn't want—sometimes you can be—

Anyway, so. He's going through such a transition professionally. Ever since the dumb Oscar thing. It's so difficult at his level, because all he wants to do is act in like one good well-written film a year, which is so hard, because there are really very few roles for classically good-looking men in their thirties, less than you think.

One major moment for me through all of this was we were invited to screen Devil's Dogs for George W. Having dinner with the President was an awesome, incredible, once-in-a-lifetime experience, even if I don't think he was legitimately elected.