No Indian Food for You!

Was supposed to meet a friend for dinner tonight, but somehow all her calls went straight to my voice mail and were not delivered until almost 8:30...By which time she had given up on me and gone home...sadder in the thought of someone driving around thinking I was not calling them back than loss of Indian food...although that is sad in itself...

But, in the hour or so I thought she was not calling me, and in the hour after, I did pound out the last half of a 10 page short screenplay. What Anne Lamott would call my "shitty first draft." On one level, a shitty first draft makes me feel good--I know I've started on the process. On another level it just makes me feel shitty. Plus I didn't go to yoga because I thought I was meeting my friend, so I have that feeling of having sat in a chair for too many days without exercising.

So I peeled myself off the pleather to go get milk for my cereal in the morning. Even Whole Foods at 10pm is depressing and surreal. Aging rockers in skinny pants and homeless people collecting your dollars in the parking lot. I am very conflicted about the beggars in L.A. I am very aware that I am more privileged than most, and I'm not opposed to adding a few dollars to the local economy, but I feel very forced. I either have to pretend they are invisible, as so many do. Or I look them in the eye, and if I recognize them as human, they recognize me as a mark, and shake their cups in my face, glaring my obligation. A man stepped walking on the sidewalk stepped into the street to put his cup in my half open window the other day. He did not like me for the money in his cup. Does he like anyone? Does he have relationships? Family and friends? Does he ever help someone out with the cash from people like me? Or is there never enough? Is he just another black hole of want and need that nothing will ever fill?

Sometimes when I walk across a strip mall in L.A. I feel assailed by this huge pulsating conglomeration of want and need. The beggars, the owners of the half empty restaurant, the shopkeepers all wanting. The women with their pants stretched tight and their faces stretched tight wanting. The cashiers, zombie-like by late at night, wanting all of us to disappear. Maybe this is the reason people in L.A. hate to get out of their cars. A windshield is at least a token protection...unless you listen to the radio. Not only are there a litany of products I should by, the radio station seems rabid for me to log on to their website and sign up to be a "Rockaholic."

The Universal Decision Maker

It's hard to believe it's almost time to register for my spring classes. Fortunately not quite yet, because last night I finally managed to access my status, and discovered I have about a dozen holds on registration. First, even though I accepted my invitation for the Screenwriting Program, and not the Professional Writing Program, for some reason I am on record as being part of the Professional Writing Program, with all kinds of prerequisites I haven't fulfilled for that program, probably because I've been working on a different degree.

I've also been informed that there is lack of proof that I have a bachelor's degree. I recall calling to confirm that all my transcripts had arrived--they were required for the application to be considered, or so they said...so that should be some fun calls to make on Monday.

And I need to call the school's clinic, as record of my Measles vaccine seems to have disappeared.

Once I have all this squared away, I need to make some decisions.

At this juncture I can veer toward feature films, or episodic entertainment: one hour dramas or sitcoms. I can sign up for the required production class, or I can acknowledge what I am beginning to feel in my heart: that I have logged my on-set hours in decades past, and maybe I should just follow my bliss and go all writing, understanding that I may not finish the program. I'm not a natural rebel, but I might finally be getting to an age where I do believe I know myself, the life I've lived and it's possible I'm qualified to order off the menu, scholastically speaking.

Beyond such big life decisions, I have been plagued of late by even the small decisions: Be a P.A. on friends' web-i-sode, or stay home and write? Go to musical evening, or go hiking? Go to yoga or not? With the demise of the Magic-8-Ball (not to mention the ambiguity of some of it's answers) these choices have been difficult. But fortunately, I have now found a solution: The Universal Decision Maker.

When Worlds Collide

So my internship, which I have been going to for the last few weeks is at a company called Participant Media. When Paul and I got into a little fender bender the other day. I started to write about it for you all, then thought the themes might fit in with their blog. They were kind enough to post it here.

Synecdoche

How can I be so tired at only 10:10 p.m.? Is it possible I just have adjust to the time change yet...it's after 1 a.m. in Florida.

Friday, by the way, I got to see one of my favorite writers, Charlie Kaufman interviewed after a preview of his directorial debut, Synecdoche, New York. The movie was both amazing and a little excruciating to sit through.

Kaufman talked about how he and Spike Jonze originally conceived of this work as a horror film--and so it incorporates many of the things he finds scary: aging, illness, death, loss, the relentlessness of time. They are horrifyin, I think, and more so because we don't get to escape them. Some horror films are cathartic, I guess, because we can let ourselves be scared, but then pull back because, well, it's unlikely that we'll really run into any werewolves or ten-foot spiders. There's some comfort in that. There's not much comfort here. And yet.

And yet I think it might even be important. It shows the things you never see on billboards, but that you think about at night when you wash your face and then check for new wrinkles or gray hairs or check to see if any of your freckles have changed shape...or is that just me?

Anyway--crazy good acting. It reminds me of way back when, when I first became enamored with David Lynch. Eraserhead made such an impression on me because the setting and action were surreal, but somehow functioned like compressed reality, and evoked feelings that I have in real situations. This film does the same thing

I have yet to walk into a video store and say, "wow, Eraserhead. Haven't seen that for awhile, maybe I'll pop some popcorn and snuggle up with that." And, again, Synecdoche might fall in the same group. I'm glad I saw it. I hope more people see it so we can discuss, but like other growth-provoking yet painful exercises, once might be enough.

Today's Manswer

Just now, as I was taking a hot bath to fight off flu-like symptoms, Paul came in to tell me that because of his belly fat, he was 250 percent more likely to survive in a car crash. He'd learned this watching Manswers.