I'm going to do the NaNoWriMo thing again this year, for real. What the fuck? I've actually got an idea for it. They say it's ok to do an outline, at least, first. So I'm going to try. It's a little Angels in America, a little All that Jazz, a little real life, a little Christmas Carol, and completely fa-cocked.
Of course, I've said too much.
Do you think you're in it? Mayhaps you are.
10/28/05
10/26/05
Grasping.
I want some pancakes.
I kind of want that kitten that someone just rescued.
But what I really want is....
I kind of want that kitten that someone just rescued.
But what I really want is....
Titles are not the hard part. Or are they?
So, some smart guy said some cool things to me tonight. Lots of people, but one in particular did. And I want to remember them, but I'm horrible at exactitude in quoting, and, sometimes, in expressing myself clearly when it counts.
I'm taking a writing class, you see. And, well, the more you write something, sometimes, the worse it comes off. And it's kind of like, well, painful to read twenty-eight pages in front of people...and nobody laughs. A slight, but slight, exaggeration. And it's like bleeding through the eyes for me to sit in a room with people who are frankly better at something than me.
The 'old' me is a one-draft, never-look-back wonder, awash in sloppy work, tossed-off rants, and unfinished projects. The person who looked around the class on the first day with a sinking ill-feeling, ready to ask for a refund and run away. Index cards? F**k that, not me.
Tonight I walked out with a tightened up (from last week) but gloriously unfinished, dragging in parts yet containing actual funny elements, workable and fixable, structurally sounder and more complete than I thought possible, draft of a Curb spec script.
People talked. I listened. I only held my head in my hands in moaning despair, oh, once.
Twenty-eight pages. Three plotlines, three acts. Jokes. Written in other characters' voices that aren't my own. Identified the draggy parts and the parts that need heightening and elements to carry through and punch up. I let people help me. Nobody f**king died. Painful, but a good pain.
I'd thought I'd corrected some things, but I'd overcorrected some things. Okay, cool.
It's my first one and I learned how to do stuff. And it made me f**king happy.
And you know? I'm, well, proud of this.
I feel like I unlocked a few secret doors.
Liberally paraphrased.....badly requoted...and f**ing good stuff anyway as I heard it.
"It's a process....it's a first step...people are always gonna tell you, you're always going to be able to make it better. It's tough. But it's fun, and yeah, it should be, it should make you happy....And, you know? You'll always have this skill, no matter what happens, no matter what the hell else is going on, how sh**ty things are, how crappy life is, you can always flip on the computer and write."
Thank you. It's truer than you know, Smart Guy. Seriously.
I never did break open the index cards, though. Maybe next time...Still a bit of a rebel.
I'm taking a writing class, you see. And, well, the more you write something, sometimes, the worse it comes off. And it's kind of like, well, painful to read twenty-eight pages in front of people...and nobody laughs. A slight, but slight, exaggeration. And it's like bleeding through the eyes for me to sit in a room with people who are frankly better at something than me.
The 'old' me is a one-draft, never-look-back wonder, awash in sloppy work, tossed-off rants, and unfinished projects. The person who looked around the class on the first day with a sinking ill-feeling, ready to ask for a refund and run away. Index cards? F**k that, not me.
Tonight I walked out with a tightened up (from last week) but gloriously unfinished, dragging in parts yet containing actual funny elements, workable and fixable, structurally sounder and more complete than I thought possible, draft of a Curb spec script.
People talked. I listened. I only held my head in my hands in moaning despair, oh, once.
Twenty-eight pages. Three plotlines, three acts. Jokes. Written in other characters' voices that aren't my own. Identified the draggy parts and the parts that need heightening and elements to carry through and punch up. I let people help me. Nobody f**king died. Painful, but a good pain.
I'd thought I'd corrected some things, but I'd overcorrected some things. Okay, cool.
It's my first one and I learned how to do stuff. And it made me f**king happy.
And you know? I'm, well, proud of this.
I feel like I unlocked a few secret doors.
Liberally paraphrased.....badly requoted...and f**ing good stuff anyway as I heard it.
"It's a process....it's a first step...people are always gonna tell you, you're always going to be able to make it better. It's tough. But it's fun, and yeah, it should be, it should make you happy....And, you know? You'll always have this skill, no matter what happens, no matter what the hell else is going on, how sh**ty things are, how crappy life is, you can always flip on the computer and write."
Thank you. It's truer than you know, Smart Guy. Seriously.
I never did break open the index cards, though. Maybe next time...Still a bit of a rebel.
From the NY Times Magazine this past Sunday.
"Being in love," she announces, "brought out the worst in me. The thing for me with men has probably always been How much do they love me? As opposed to How much do I love them?"
- Diane Keaton
(Yes, I'm one of those horrible trolls that reads the magazine first.)
- Diane Keaton
(Yes, I'm one of those horrible trolls that reads the magazine first.)
10/25/05
I do improv.
This post made bloody little sense. But I like leaving a trail to remind me of my own failings.
10/23/05
incrementalism
I threw out four-year old job rejection letters while wasting time on the Internet.
I packed a gym bag.
I buzz-dialed someone. (It was not a drunk dial, I swear. A beer and a glass of whiskey does not a drunk dial make.)
I sent long-distance text messages, not phone calls.
I found my yoga DVD.
Progress towards self-discipline, huh?
I packed a gym bag.
I buzz-dialed someone. (It was not a drunk dial, I swear. A beer and a glass of whiskey does not a drunk dial make.)
I sent long-distance text messages, not phone calls.
I found my yoga DVD.
Progress towards self-discipline, huh?
Yummy Pizza!
Purely a public service announcement.
Get on the N train to Avenue U. Walk a ways to 86th street in a logic-defying way. Go to L&B Spumoni Gardens.
Fan-fucking-tastic pizza and ices, aka 'spumoni.' Well, they've got ices, ice cream and spumoni - the spumoni is kinda like a cream ice that's truly the "Italian ice" I used to get as a kid at the Italian bakery. Don't think. Get a Sicilian pie and a small spumoni. Get the spumoni while you wait for the pie, if you gotta wait. The sauce alone will fucking kill you.
Fuhgedaboudit.
Get on the N train to Avenue U. Walk a ways to 86th street in a logic-defying way. Go to L&B Spumoni Gardens.
Fan-fucking-tastic pizza and ices, aka 'spumoni.' Well, they've got ices, ice cream and spumoni - the spumoni is kinda like a cream ice that's truly the "Italian ice" I used to get as a kid at the Italian bakery. Don't think. Get a Sicilian pie and a small spumoni. Get the spumoni while you wait for the pie, if you gotta wait. The sauce alone will fucking kill you.
Fuhgedaboudit.
10/21/05
Question
Does this blog have enough 'ironic detachment?"
Let me know and I'll add more if this is not a satisfactory amount. I aim to please. You aim too, please.
Let me know and I'll add more if this is not a satisfactory amount. I aim to please. You aim too, please.
headachey dreams
First off, I was living in one of those bigger-than-my-real-apartment NY apartments, but with a lot of the same stuff. Somehow, it was attached to my childhood home and backyeard, though. I had agreed to let a bunch of kids from the theater move in with me as roommates, but could never recall having them sign a sublease, which had been nagging at me (although the rent had always somehow gotten paid). I started to notice that they were starting to take over my stuff - one or two of my dresser drawers had a strange array of men's silk bathrobes in it, I think they were mens bathrobes, or maybe kimonos. They started having smallish parties over the house/apartment which was OK, but then I discovered that most all of my furniture that held my personal stuff had been moved out into the backyard. I couldn't move it back in again because it was really heavy, and it was raining. They said they'd help me, but my large wardrobe was stuck firmly in the mud, in the yard. It's pretty heavy.
Then I was at a job and a couple of my friends with more or less serious professional day jobs, both turned out to be my bosses for a project somehow. I was in a cubicle at 7 AM and they both surrounded me physically until I yelled; the female half got insulted and left deeming it 'unacceptable' and her male counterpart stood with his arms folded and laughed sarcastically.
Then I was at a job and a couple of my friends with more or less serious professional day jobs, both turned out to be my bosses for a project somehow. I was in a cubicle at 7 AM and they both surrounded me physically until I yelled; the female half got insulted and left deeming it 'unacceptable' and her male counterpart stood with his arms folded and laughed sarcastically.
10/19/05
Still can't sleep
(paraphrased)
"Yeah, so I finished the first draft of the script...needs some work, tightening up, but it's done. People did actually laugh, though.....Said I could actually use it as a writing sample for a project...seriously I didn't think it was good enough for even that, but I guess it is...we're just being really picky, agent-worthy it's not, yet....Had a nice talk....gotta get back on stage, yeah....Yeah, and I won like $1000 bucks for someone, yeah, a landlord case, not bad..yeah..."
Wasn't such a bad day, then.
Of course, it all happened in less than a couple hours. Then I came home and watched "Angels in America" again.
Was it, then, a good day? Shouldn't I know?
They say (and they do), Stop being so hard on yourself. What do they know, anyway?
They're not up at 5 AM.
"Yeah, so I finished the first draft of the script...needs some work, tightening up, but it's done. People did actually laugh, though.....Said I could actually use it as a writing sample for a project...seriously I didn't think it was good enough for even that, but I guess it is...we're just being really picky, agent-worthy it's not, yet....Had a nice talk....gotta get back on stage, yeah....Yeah, and I won like $1000 bucks for someone, yeah, a landlord case, not bad..yeah..."
Wasn't such a bad day, then.
Of course, it all happened in less than a couple hours. Then I came home and watched "Angels in America" again.
Was it, then, a good day? Shouldn't I know?
They say (and they do), Stop being so hard on yourself. What do they know, anyway?
They're not up at 5 AM.
Relax...don't do it
It was suggested once that all one (well, maybe me) would be to be locked in a room with a masseur and some ecstacy so I could chill the fuck out.
Indeed. Given the fact that I hate massages (see below) and substances I have not yet tried and whose effect I cannot adequately predict (control freaks hate hallucinogens), I'll have to find a new way to chill the fuck out.
Chilling the fuck out is not the same as lumping out with anxiety.
I was cleaning my bookshelves today and found a still-shrink wrapped yoga DVD. Perhaps it's time to stretch the fuck out.
If nothing else, I'm flexible.
Dammit, I wish I could sleep.
Indeed. Given the fact that I hate massages (see below) and substances I have not yet tried and whose effect I cannot adequately predict (control freaks hate hallucinogens), I'll have to find a new way to chill the fuck out.
Chilling the fuck out is not the same as lumping out with anxiety.
I was cleaning my bookshelves today and found a still-shrink wrapped yoga DVD. Perhaps it's time to stretch the fuck out.
If nothing else, I'm flexible.
Dammit, I wish I could sleep.
10/18/05
Lucky accidents...
I just googled "Waste of Space" (cause that's how I'm feeling at the moment" and came up with a fantastically cool web site:
PhysOrg.com: Science, Physics, Nanotechnology, Space News
Finally, a time-waster I can feel intellectually guilt-free about!
I love space, I love Physics. I do. I'm a fucking nerd with a heart of gold and a body for extra-long black stretch jeans and combat boots.
Now that my mini-blinds (semi-clean, or semi-grubby, depending on your outlook) have been installed, feel free to come to my apartment and stride around in the altogether reading the Sunday Times and drinking coffee. Lots of natural light, and I only brew the good stuff from Porto Rico. (Not a typo if you're not from NYC, it's a store. A fine, fine store.)
Now there's a personal ad worth answering.
Or not.
Quite frankly, I kind of feel about men right now almost how I feel about shrinks; I loathe the idea of breaking in a whole new one from scratch.
PhysOrg.com: Science, Physics, Nanotechnology, Space News
Finally, a time-waster I can feel intellectually guilt-free about!
I love space, I love Physics. I do. I'm a fucking nerd with a heart of gold and a body for extra-long black stretch jeans and combat boots.
Now that my mini-blinds (semi-clean, or semi-grubby, depending on your outlook) have been installed, feel free to come to my apartment and stride around in the altogether reading the Sunday Times and drinking coffee. Lots of natural light, and I only brew the good stuff from Porto Rico. (Not a typo if you're not from NYC, it's a store. A fine, fine store.)
Now there's a personal ad worth answering.
Or not.
Quite frankly, I kind of feel about men right now almost how I feel about shrinks; I loathe the idea of breaking in a whole new one from scratch.
10/17/05
"He loves, but his love has no meaning."
If you watch Angels in America and do not tear up at some point, you are obviously made of stone.
10/15/05
Doomed, doomed, lovely and doomed
Why are my favorite romances the doomed ones?
As she listens to "West Side Story" yet again. With a chaser of "Little Shop of Horrors."
Perhaps I'll pop "Casablanca" into the DVD player later, or maybe "The Way we Were" will be on TCM again tonight. Or was it AMC? I don't remember. HBO can't seem to stop showing "Bull Durham." (What happens when he goes off to manage in Visalia, anyway? Huh?) Or "Before Sunset," which, I explained to someone, made me want even less to see "Before Sunrise" (and then descended into an acting-improv-geek conversation about the moment before, etc. Hi-larious.)
I gotta remember to check my Ebay bid on "Annie Hall." Yeah.
Or, maybe I'll just stretch out in the park with "Gone with the Wind" or "The Age of Innocence." Yeah.
There's a place for us...Somewhere, a place for us.....
Yeah, that's funny.
PS - the most realistic relationship on "Sex and the City" was Carrie and Berger - think about it
Note to self - Buy a cat. Noooooooo!
"I'm depraved on account I'm deprived!"
- "Officer Krupke," West Side Story
As she listens to "West Side Story" yet again. With a chaser of "Little Shop of Horrors."
Perhaps I'll pop "Casablanca" into the DVD player later, or maybe "The Way we Were" will be on TCM again tonight. Or was it AMC? I don't remember. HBO can't seem to stop showing "Bull Durham." (What happens when he goes off to manage in Visalia, anyway? Huh?) Or "Before Sunset," which, I explained to someone, made me want even less to see "Before Sunrise" (and then descended into an acting-improv-geek conversation about the moment before, etc. Hi-larious.)
I gotta remember to check my Ebay bid on "Annie Hall." Yeah.
Or, maybe I'll just stretch out in the park with "Gone with the Wind" or "The Age of Innocence." Yeah.
There's a place for us...Somewhere, a place for us.....
Yeah, that's funny.
PS - the most realistic relationship on "Sex and the City" was Carrie and Berger - think about it
Note to self - Buy a cat. Noooooooo!
"I'm depraved on account I'm deprived!"
- "Officer Krupke," West Side Story
10/13/05
Let yourself be inspired.
Watch the Aspen interviews of the cast and directors of "Curb your Enthusiasm" at the end of the Season 3 DVD.
It is enlightening, inspiring and hilarious. And all too brief.
Don't let the bad editing and David Steinberg's dentition distract you.
I am a happy comedy geek right now. Oh, so very happy.
It is enlightening, inspiring and hilarious. And all too brief.
Don't let the bad editing and David Steinberg's dentition distract you.
I am a happy comedy geek right now. Oh, so very happy.
10/12/05
Contemplation and sober reflection.
Sure, it's a new year, but does that automatically mean I'll become a better housekeeper, much less a better person?
Lather, reflect, repeat.
Lather, reflect, repeat.
10/11/05
i enjoy being a girl.....or do I?
Oh dear lord, Patrice O'neal is doing ridonkulously (theoretically) offensive material on pussy-eating and rape and women and vaginas that I can't stop laughing at.
Can't. Stop. Laughing.
It gets better and better.
'I only fuck so I have a memory to jerk off to later.'
This is horrible. And wonderful.
Women can't do this shit.
Or can they?
Huh?
HBO One Night Stand. Glad they brought it back. Remember when it was the only source of cable stand-up?
"Ladies...when you a whore, be a whore for YOU!"
- Patrice O'Neal
Can't. Stop. Laughing.
It gets better and better.
'I only fuck so I have a memory to jerk off to later.'
This is horrible. And wonderful.
Women can't do this shit.
Or can they?
Huh?
HBO One Night Stand. Glad they brought it back. Remember when it was the only source of cable stand-up?
"Ladies...when you a whore, be a whore for YOU!"
- Patrice O'Neal
Methadonia on HBO
Jazz and junkie-speak are a perfect combination. I find it fascinating, now that I'm around it less, personally and professionally.
Were you ever surprised you weren't a drug addict?
Were you ever surprised you weren't a drug addict?
10/9/05
Do I have AD-what?
Maybe I do have ADD.
I can't finish anything. Except lunch.
BOOM.
I forgot to make dinner, though.
And I watched ALL of the Surreal Life. Maybe, then I'm wrong. I CAN finish something.
Priorities, priorities.
I'm fucked, aren't I?
*********************************
For me, life is kind of like trying to make a waterbed, with a cat lying on it. It's like when you pull down one corner of the sheets, another one comes up...you flop down to try and stretch it, the water pushes up under the other side, messing it up, and there's a damn cat running around under the sheet, just to fuck things up even further...
*********************************
I like to hoard shit. Turns out at the moment it's not food, but pharmaceuticals. Not the good kind, but consumer products. I'd taken one trip to the Pfizer store too many, I've discovered. I've got a lifetime supply of Neosporin. Well, a lifetime for you, maybe. About six months' worth for me. I'm a klutz. A destructive klutz, baby.
I can't finish anything. Except lunch.
BOOM.
I forgot to make dinner, though.
And I watched ALL of the Surreal Life. Maybe, then I'm wrong. I CAN finish something.
Priorities, priorities.
I'm fucked, aren't I?
*********************************
For me, life is kind of like trying to make a waterbed, with a cat lying on it. It's like when you pull down one corner of the sheets, another one comes up...you flop down to try and stretch it, the water pushes up under the other side, messing it up, and there's a damn cat running around under the sheet, just to fuck things up even further...
*********************************
I like to hoard shit. Turns out at the moment it's not food, but pharmaceuticals. Not the good kind, but consumer products. I'd taken one trip to the Pfizer store too many, I've discovered. I've got a lifetime supply of Neosporin. Well, a lifetime for you, maybe. About six months' worth for me. I'm a klutz. A destructive klutz, baby.
10/8/05
Mix-ology
Here's an interesting personal experiment.
Try making a (non-topic-specific) mix tape/CD/compilation for someone you don't know especially well. Or someone you want to know better.
Let the person themselves be the 'suggestion,' so to speak.
It's fascinating. What about that person makes them so intriguing? and what about them sets you to music, so to speak? What translates them into song and verse? What makes them (and you, in relation to them) sing?
Would they like your compilation, do you think?
Would they agree?
Would they dance?
Would they smile?
Would they be baffled?
Try making a (non-topic-specific) mix tape/CD/compilation for someone you don't know especially well. Or someone you want to know better.
Let the person themselves be the 'suggestion,' so to speak.
It's fascinating. What about that person makes them so intriguing? and what about them sets you to music, so to speak? What translates them into song and verse? What makes them (and you, in relation to them) sing?
Would they like your compilation, do you think?
Would they agree?
Would they dance?
Would they smile?
Would they be baffled?
10/7/05
compelled to update
tired
liberated
behind on stuff
need a neck rub
need a house cleaning and laundry
tired
dinner?
perhaps
tired.
later.
xoxo
Wait. This looks too much like a fucking poem, and we all know my stance on poetry, unless it's freestyled an in the context of an improv show.
Let's recap. I got up way too early to finish part of a project. It still needs reworking and it caused me great frustration, but with some help, it's better than I thought and I feel ok about it. I still need to get some stuff done, work-wise and creative-wise, by lunch tomorrow, but I'm a bit overtired and I don't think it will happen tonight, although I'm going to attempt to make some progress on it while I"m still vertical. I need dinner, but I'm too beat to go out and get some ingredients, as stores in the house are running low. It's also a cluttery mess but I don't have the energy at the moment, it's tomorrow afternoon's project, as I think it'll be too rainy to hit Coney Island as I had wanted to. Maybe Sunday? Hopefully. We'll see. Tomorrow's a haircut too, I almost forgot. Believe it or not, I would also like a neck rub, but there's only one person I know of at the present time who I can stand doing that; otherwise, I tense up past all recognition and it makes it worse. I generally can't tolerate backrubs, massages, I find them painful and it becomes a vicious feedback-loop of tension and achiness - even 'friendly' ones. Forget about so-called professional massages, not for me.
Anyway. I should get rid of the nail polish too, it's annoying me.
More later. Off to engage myself in some other way.
xoxo
liberated
behind on stuff
need a neck rub
need a house cleaning and laundry
tired
dinner?
perhaps
tired.
later.
xoxo
Wait. This looks too much like a fucking poem, and we all know my stance on poetry, unless it's freestyled an in the context of an improv show.
Let's recap. I got up way too early to finish part of a project. It still needs reworking and it caused me great frustration, but with some help, it's better than I thought and I feel ok about it. I still need to get some stuff done, work-wise and creative-wise, by lunch tomorrow, but I'm a bit overtired and I don't think it will happen tonight, although I'm going to attempt to make some progress on it while I"m still vertical. I need dinner, but I'm too beat to go out and get some ingredients, as stores in the house are running low. It's also a cluttery mess but I don't have the energy at the moment, it's tomorrow afternoon's project, as I think it'll be too rainy to hit Coney Island as I had wanted to. Maybe Sunday? Hopefully. We'll see. Tomorrow's a haircut too, I almost forgot. Believe it or not, I would also like a neck rub, but there's only one person I know of at the present time who I can stand doing that; otherwise, I tense up past all recognition and it makes it worse. I generally can't tolerate backrubs, massages, I find them painful and it becomes a vicious feedback-loop of tension and achiness - even 'friendly' ones. Forget about so-called professional massages, not for me.
Anyway. I should get rid of the nail polish too, it's annoying me.
More later. Off to engage myself in some other way.
xoxo
10/2/05
I also need to steer off IMDb.
Kirby: It's true love, my friend.
Kevin: Love, love, you know what love is? Love is an illusion created by lawyer types like yourself to perpetuate another illusion called marriage to create the reality of divorce and then the illusionary need for divorce lawyers.
- St. Elmo's Fire
Last thought, best thought. I'm done for the day.
Kevin: Love, love, you know what love is? Love is an illusion created by lawyer types like yourself to perpetuate another illusion called marriage to create the reality of divorce and then the illusionary need for divorce lawyers.
- St. Elmo's Fire
Last thought, best thought. I'm done for the day.
I need to stop watching movies. Seriously. They're turning me romantical.
Celine: [Celine's song] Let me sing you a waltz / Out of nowhere, out of my thoughts / Let me sing you a waltz / About this one night stand / You were, for me, that night / Everything I always dreamt of in life / But now you're gone / You are far gone / All the way to your island of rain / It was for you just a one night thing / But you were much more to me, just so you know / I don't care what they say / I know what you meant for me that day / I just want another try, I just want another night / Even if it doesn't seem quite right / You meant for me much more than anyone I've met before / One single night with you, little Jesse, is worth a thousand with anybody / I have no bitterness, my sweet / I'll never forget this one night thing / Even tomorrow in other arms, my heart will stay yours until I die / Let me sing you a waltz / Out of nowhere, out of my blues / Let me sing you a waltz / About this lovely one night stand
- "Before Sunset"
Courtesy of IMDb
- "Before Sunset"
Courtesy of IMDb
Ron Shelton, you've done it again.
Crash: "I got a lotta time to hear your theories and I wanta hear every damn one of 'em... but right now I'm tired and I don't wanta think about baseball and I don't wanta think about Quantum Physics... I don't wanta think about nothing...I just wanta be."
Annie: "I can do that, too."
- Bull Durham
Courtesy of IMSDb
Annie: "I can do that, too."
- Bull Durham
Courtesy of IMSDb
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