SMASH!

Absolutely my new favorite thing.  Doubtlessly, without a doubt.  If you haven't already, watch the hell out of the preview episode. 

I have watched it twice.

Official NBC SMASH page.

The list of brilliance attached to this project is stunning.  I think we're in really good hands here.

Unlucky.

We can't seem to catch a break.

First his car breaks.  No way in the world to get another.

Today his computer breaks. 

Next Peter will evict us.

But I went to the doctor's today--healthy--in body anyway.

I was supposed to go get me some birth control.  Chickened out.  Gunna stick with the old method my health teacher swore would fail me for sure.

Based on the novels...

Procrasturbating again.

I babysat my nieces today so that my brother ans sister-in-law could go look at some houses.  I would do anything for them, as I adore them and as they've been so generous to me in the past. 

But it threw off my sunday something fierce.

No laundry done.  No work done.  Then I was all tired from playing with the girls so I took a nap when I got home.

Now I'm up and looking down the barrel of toooooooo much work!

Drama teachers hardly ever have any correcting to do.  We hardly ever have essays to read.  And when we do?  Ffun stuff like scenes or monologues.

I have to read MCAS style drivel.

And it is super frustrating.  And disheartening.

It used to be kinda funny, how awful they are at writing.

Now I'm starting to feel saddened by it as they don't improve...

and worried for their futures.

And I wish, I wish, I wish that I could give them some creative writing assignments.  I have, in the past, for Halloween I challenged them with a scary story contest.  But the powers that be have come down hard on me and sternly reminded me that I have certain writing requiremnts to meet before the end of the year, and 'creative' is not among them.

Sigh.

And my creative writing?

I find it so difficult to see it objectively.  I like reading it.  I love the characters and the stories and the soap-opera happenings.  But I don't trust how much I like it.

See, I'm usually my toughest critic.  On anything.  I'm hardest on myself.

With this Cedar Falls stuff?  I'm... I can't explain quite... I'm too smitten with it to see its faults.  Oh, sure, I see they thousands of typos that I make in my haste (and sometimes in my grammatical ignorance.  Being an English teacher is really educating me on some grammar rules I either never knew or had thoroughly forgotten!)  I see those, and tinker with them as I re-read (and still many, many escape my notice...sigh...I need an editor like whoah.)

But I can't gauge whether or not the writing is good. 

I'm beginning to suspect that it is not... But I think my therapist would tell me that this is rooted in my neuroses.

Still...

Maybe I oughtta write in dialogue only?  Write screenplays, plays, and teleplays?

Because I sit down and read Aaron's writing and I am staggered by his prose.  I read real, published work and I sigh and think 'yup.  that's how it SHOULD be done...'

And I always believed that practice makes perfect...or at least practice makes better.  But it would seem that my writing, as I become more comfortable with my characters and more certain of my plot direction, it would seem that my writing gets more banal and flaccid and rushed and weak.  (Commas should go in a series like that.  This is a rule I have learned.  However,(comma), I prefer the impact of listing them without the interruption of commas.  This is not something that new writers have the luxury of defending,(comma) however.  Mamet and Labute and Palhianuk and those established stylists can do whatever the fuck they want.  But new writers, green writers, must go by the book their first time out...(elipses to indicate a triling off of ideas, not an omission...)

Perhaps too much practice without a coach or mentor or guiding hand is simply... masturbatory?

I seem enamored of that imagery. 

But do you see?  Just diddling myself, writing-wise, with nothing fruitful ever taking root?  No product to be birthed after all the self-pleasure?

I'll give some thought to the playwrighting thing.  Interestingly, have you ever noticed that playwright is spelled differently than the word 'write'?  It is because it isn't talking about the 'writing' like, say, a copywriter would be.  It is the old form of the word 'wright' as in boatwright ; a maker or a builder.

Isn't that lovely?  A maker or builder of plays.  Captures my imagination, tickles my fancy, and stroked the old ego.

Aaron and I often talk of ideas for hbo or showtime (or even STARZ-right Spartacus?!?!?) original series that we should be writing and shopping around.  So maybe I quit talking about it and start doing it.

Maybe Cedar Falls works better as a show?

Maybe not...

Maybe, though...

;)

Kudos to google and wikipedia and any other sites protesting the dangerous new bill.


That was a non-starter, and now I have a non sequitur.

I'm lost.  yeah, yeah.  I'm as tired of saying it, feeling it, as you are tired of hearing it.

but it presses on my mind and body and my heart and lungs until I feel I can't breathe.  Can't move.  Can't think of anything else.  Can't feel anything else.

Last evening it got really scary.  And I should have called out today.  I really should have.

But I could not. 

But I really think, given how unstable and sensitive I am today, that it would have been the smart thing to do.

I go to therapy today.  I plan on giving in and telling them I'll take whatever the hell they want to give me.

At this point a lobotomy sounds like heaven.

I need to get well.

I must.

because the other option is no longer: live with being unwell.

The other option, I firmly believe, will be fatal.

The MLK Day Exception

We're in a spending freeze.

And I've given up all forms of junk food.

But Yesterday, as a treat, we broke both these rules in spectacular fashion.

Buy buying an enormous, a ridiculously sized SNICKERS.

This is the "Slice and Share" snickers.

Oh, America...

Intrigued by the novelty size and the joys inherent in the old adage about bigger being necessarily better, we went ahead and purchased the sucker.

We were in CVS buying necessities, which are allowed by the rules of the spending freeze after sufficient discussion and debate.

So, whilst scouring the store for enough maximum strength midol to hold the crippling menstrual aches at bay, is it really any wonder that I lost all willpower and nodded and enthusiastic and definite YES when presented with this monster of choclatey, nugaty, caramel-peanutty goodness?

And slicing a snickers, as though it were the holiday roast of a candy high holy day?  Sublime.

And aaron pointed out that snickers is one of the few candybars that seems immune to the size/ratio problem that most candy treats suffer.  Giant reece's pb cup?  nasty because too much peanut butter, not enough chocolate.  Big Kat?  (I happen to love them) not even the same thing as a regular kit kat any more!

But snickers, in classic, king, funsize or now in "Slice & Share" size-- snickers is always reliably scrumptious in any size!

Today:  back to spending freeze.  Back to swearing off junk.  But I'll always have the memory of consuming an enormous snickers with my husband-- MLK day 2012 ;)

Little known fact:  MLK dreamed about unnecessarily oversized snackfoods that could be sliced and shared among people of ALL races, nations, and creeds.

Practically a week.

No time.  Nothing new to say. 

Thinking seriously about taking the drugs afterall.

Having trouble getting rolling on the new year's resolution.

Having trouble with most things.

Except love.  I can love fiercely and powerfully and selflessly. 

No myself.  Never that.

But others.

With the only passion I have left anymore.

Coward is a strong word.

Don't you think?

I'd sooner call someone a bitch than a coward. 

What is it about corage versus cowardice that goes right down into our viscera? 

Have you ever been called a coward?

And being afraid, while certainly related, is not necessarily the same as being a coward.

That's an aspersion, that once cast, does some real pyschological cartwheels--doesn't it.

Let each of these resonate and see which sticks in your craw.

"You're crazy."

"You're a bitch"

"You're an asshole"

"You're wrong."

"You're a coward."

Whoosh.

Especially if the accusation is made in earnest.  If someone has assesed who you are and decided that this is the sum total of your existence.  "You're a coward."

Does it rankle because there's truth to it?  It must.  If someone called you a republican, say, and you weren't the least bit right-leaning, then I don't think this is an insult that carries much weight.

So perhaps you haven't a cowardly bone in your body.  Perhaps, then,. being called a coward simply doesn't resonate with you. 

But my gut tells me it does.  Humans really really really get their hackles up at accusations of cowardice.  An entire fiction and film genre seems entirely based on this concept, as well as all the major decisions of Marty McFly in the back to the Future series.

The Old West:  Watch your tongue, stranger, or find yourself out on main street at dawn defending your honor.

My favorite was in BTTF2 when the girl bully says:  "What's the matter, McFly?  Ain't got no scrote?" 

and, the natural marriage:  Marty McFly as 'Clint Eastwood' in the olde tyme garb.  "Nobody calls me yellah"

And is it different for men and women?  I realize I joked, above, about the 'scrote' line in back to the future.  But from what i understand it certainly impugns a guys, well, manhood, to be termed a coward. 

But women can certainly behave as cowards.  In fact, I'd say they do it more regularly.  Choose the safe path over the adventurous one.  Make the expected or condoned choice rather than take a leap.  Nothing wrong, technically, is there?  Some argue that it's just plain smart.  But how many doors went unopened.  How many experiences passed up.  How safe, and comfortable, and predictable, and completely unchallenging their daily routine.  Is this the role of women?

Why, then, am I so very bothered by being thought of as a coward?  And why do I harbor such disdain for those I've judged to be cowards?  Frightened of their feelings, or too afraid to go after their dreams, or happy with their routine even if it is completely unfulfilling, even if they aren't growing or evolving in any way? Why am I so tortured when I evaluate my own existence and see that yellow streak a mile wide?  why am I so sickened and repulsed.

I have no balls, so I shouldn't be impugned if someone tells me I need to 'sack up', and yet my nostrils flars and I have a boiling gut reaction.

I've done both the adventurous things and the shamefully safe.  So it isn't as if I always defer the risks.

Ah.  and the language we use to qualify bravery, to contextualize cowardice.

Shame.

Risk.

Hero.

Loser.

Danger.

Selflessness.

routine.

boring.

exciting.

thrilling.

strong.

weak.

and the imagery.  hollywood, storybooks, all of it.  The coward, skulking in the shadows of great men; the coward: a timid little mouse; the follower; the one who needs to be saved; the one who gets eaten or left behind because they didn't have the courage or the wherewithal to get through.

The movie's not about the coward.

Heroes aren't cowards.

Sure they feel fear.  They grapple with self doubt.  but in the end they take action.  when it comes down to it, they 'sack-up'.  They have within them something admirable.  

And the coward sits at home and reads about it almost wistfully. 

Can people tell if they are cowards?

I can tell. 

Like Masturbation

Procrastinating.

Hours and hours have dragged on.

I'm battling my zillionth illness of the schoolyear and wishing like you wouldn't believe that I could just call in tomorrow.

But I can't.  For a whole host of reasons.

So I need to lesson plan.

And you may be familiar with my issue:  I fucking suck at lesson planning.

You don't even understand.  This weekly lesson planning BS has made me legitimately question, ALOUD:  "Hey, what was so bad about working at Big Lots! . . .?"

It occurred to me that every employment that I've had other than Big Lots! (discounts and closeouts retail) (the exclamation point is part of their name.  Just as it is a legal part of the title for the beloved musical by Rogers and Hammerstein: OKLAHOMA!) Every single other piece of work I'v had to do has demanded a great deal of creativity from me.  A serious amount of OUTPUT.  Like, I cant just show up at my job tomorrow and get to work.  Can't just go FILE or whatever.  I have to CREATE all the time. 

I'm thinking I'd like some time spent at a job wherin I fulfill tasks that require no creative exertion whatsoever.

Yes, yes, this all seems contrary to who I am.  An artist.  A writer.  A performer.  A director.  A dreamer, etc. 

And I must say: indeed.  It IS contrary to who I am!  But perhaps that's the ticket!  Maybe the next step to a healthier ME is finding a career that doesn't demand so much time creating all the time.  I need a DOING job.

But what on earth could that be?

I'll think on it and get back to you.

Right now I have a unit to develop, a week's worth of lessons to invent, materials for said unit and lessons to pull the fuck together, and how many hours left in which to accomplish this herculean feat?  Yeah. 

Plus I see my department head tomorrow.  For which I will have to prepare right after I'm done slogging thorugh all the other bullshit. Fun times ahead.

Focus on the positive:  The house smells like warm, fresh bread.  Thank you, Aaron, for the wonderful christmas gift!


Oh, about the post title.  My friend Julia once wrote on facebook or somewhere:

Procrastination is like Masturbation:  Fun for a while, but in the end, you're just fucking yourself.

Coffee with dear friends = some of the best therapy I'll ever get.  Thank you :)

Resolutions:

To get well.  Inside and out.