electric mist

Oscar picks

I was going to do the big list, but I am tired today. (We've spent three days in a row taking Luke to the doctor because of that allergic reaction. The horrible swelling went down, but he started with a hive-type of reaction which was painful and no real explanation. Three doctors and an emergency room visit yesterday per the last doctor's instructions, and they still don't know the cause... but I think the new stuff they gave him yesterday is working.)

Anyway, back to the Oscars. I'd meant to do this yesterday, with the big list and talk about who I wanted vs. who I thought would win, but nope, now I'm just going to post who I predict just so I can remember later. And laugh, because I am usually very very wrong.

Best Picture: Return of the King

Best Director: Peter Jackson (I think the voters were waiting until the third one to give it to him.)

Best Actor: Bill Murray will probably win, and his was a very nuanced performance, which will win him voter respect. But I wish Johnny Depp would win because his over-the-top performance was just stellar.

Best Actress: Charlize Theron.

Supporting Actor: I'm not sure who should win, but I think Tim Robbins probably will win.

Supporting Actress: Renee Zellweger will probably win, although I've heard that Shohreh Aghdashlo has a shot. (My secret favorite is Holly Hunter.)

Original Screenplay: I suspect Lost in Translation will win, since it's won this award in nearly every other awards show, but I wish In America would surprise everyone.

Adapted Screenplay: Return of the King

Cinematography: I would like Seabiscuit to win for that, because I think what they accomplished with the camera is so well done and understated, it should win. I have no idea who the favorite is, though.

Art Direction: Return of the King

Editing: Seabiscuit for the same reason, but I doubt it will actually win this one.

Costume: Return of the King

Makeup: Return of the King, although I'm pulling for Pirates for this one

Score: Return of the King will probably win, but I have no real choice here

Song: You Will Be My Ain True Love (Cold Mountain)... and I have no idea why I'm picking that one over the others

Sound: I pick Seabiscuit for the same reason as Cinematography, but I doubt this one wins this

Visual Effects: I know Return of the King is probably the favorite here, but really, I actually enjoyed the effects in Pirates of the Caribbean far more -- they were fun and surprising. Particularly the fight scene in the cave between Depp and Rush.

Documentary: The Fog of War (I don't know why, I haven't seen them all)

Documentary short: No idea. Maybe Asylum?

Live Short: Again, no idea. I picked Squash because the name is funny. (Hey, it's as good a reason as any.)

Animanted Short: Gone Nutty. (Same reason as above.) (hmmm, I sense a theme here.)

How long will it last? I dunno... I said 3 hours, 2 minutes. I can't remember what the previous shows ran.

So, I'll come back after the awards and see just how off base I managed to be again this year.

bringing the dark & twisty

I once wrote a thriller so dark and twisted that when readers responded, they told me they had slept with their lights on. (One suggested I get therapy.) This wasn't a slasher type of thing, but a psychological thriller (which I never showed anyone in L.A. because I was later embarrassed by how dark it was -- which is dumb, I think now.). Since then, I've written -- and become known for -- the romantic comedy and now the action comedy (which is going out soon, according to my agent who seemed pretty psyched.) I haven't gone back to the dark and twisted place to tell a story. Until now.

Lots of stories can be written about pure evil or bad guys doing bad things, but I wanted to explore something scarier -- what about when someone is so angry, they are seething beyond sanity... and they're right to be angry? And what if the actions they take are so deadly wrong, and they know it... but they know that taking those actions will be the only way lives are saved later? Would you kill a dozen people if you knew absolutely that a thousand would be able to live?

This interested me, in finding that character. In drawing the audience from the outside (the sympathy with the victim) to the inside (the sympathy with the perpetrator), in blurring those lines so that you at once are horrified by what the person might do next, and yet, secretly, you think they're right (and how that makes you feel about yourself in that moment.)

This is what I'm working on. It's a dark place, and twisted, and in some ways, difficult. In other ways that I'm too worried about to explore, it's easier, far easier, than comedy.

why our dog doesn't sleep in our bed

Miss Doxie's entry. Go.

producers, comments

In the comments below on the romantic comedy status report, C. Vachon asked me if that was how I really saw producers because most of the ones she knows are hard-working and really trying to get their films made and keep the writer and director happy. And you know what? She's right. I started to answer her in the comments, but when I screw up, I'd rather put it up here instead of burying it.... so to answer C:

You know, after I put that up there, I knew it was going to bite me in the ass. Because I'm not referring to producers like yourself or this particular woman -- but so many of the ones I've had meetings with who brag about getting rid of the writers, or who, at festivals like Austin, will tell writers things they want to hear in the sessions and then afterward, in private moments at the bar, turn around and make fun of the very thing they've said.

But you know what? I hate it when I see others generalizing and damned if I didn't do one of the very things I hated, because I have met some pretty amazing produers as well. I've met some who have championed stories through amazing obstacles and got it made and made nearly nothing (or truly nothing) all because they fell in love with the script and they wanted to see it come to life. There are some real artists and honest producers, and I should have not let my cynicsm in that moment win. Thanks for the reminder.

does anyone remember?

I hope everyone has seen this that Rob wrote, titled "Someone show me the difference." It's short, eloquent, and right.

In addition, there was a West Wing Episode -- I think it was either last season or the one before -- where some right-wing talk show host (a woman) was saying stuff that was against homosexuals, and the President had the best response I've heard. It so directly applies to this entirely stupid legislature being proposed, I wanted to quote it, but I can't find it.

The gist is that a lot of the people proposing the ban against gay marriage are citing Biblical references in Leviticus as justifying why it's wrong. Aside from the minor little detail that one religion can't legislate our Constitution, and that all people have equal protection under it, The West Wing did something even better -- it had President Bartlett pull out quotes from the Bible / Old Testament about how it was right that a man could sell his daughter, or I think, in another case, stone his wife to death if he didn't like something she did. There are plenty of old testament examples of things in vogue then which we would be horrified about now... and I wish I knew that episode to quote.

romantic comedy script update

The producer who'd written a couple of weeks ago that she had pitched the romantic comedy to one of the main networks wrote tonight that the woman in charge read our initial material (one page synopsis, list of what's attached) and wants to see the script itself, so the producer is sending it over. I have no idea how much of a shot that is, but it's nice to see it got past a major gatekeeper. I don't expect to hear back for a month or more -- they are notorious for taking forever to read the script "this weekend."

I can't even figure out what I feel about this. Kinda "eh, okay, thanks, next?" Grateful that this one producer just keeps on being tenacious, because really, she is consistent and honest, which are two qualities among producers about as common as snow in the middle of summer in the deep south.

beauty...

Go check out Leya's journal, Use My Sky. I enjoyed the entry on beauty, particularly when she's discussing her art and says, "I prefer my paintings to sit on the cusp between crude and beautiful..." She's got a link in her sidebar to a gallery / website of her art... I am in love with the vibrancy and passion of her work.

Oh, and I am drawn to the photos she took of the blizzard there in another entry (more recent than the "beauty" one). It's fascinating to me to see how she sees the world and then see Tamar's photo blog how that ability to capture and compose an image reveals itself in Tamar's astute eye.

divided

I am at a crossroads of sorts, writing-wise. The thriller I was mentioning down a few entries is going really well. It is the kind of story that's a fast moving script with very dark twists, which is a good follow-up to the current script the agent has. The divided feeling I'm having is that I can see this story being a thriller novel. Again with the dark and twisty, but in the novel, I could play around with a couple of subplots and with internal things I just cannot show in a script. Both avenues for this story appeal to me, and I cannot make up my mind which way I want to go.

If I'm being honest (and Tamar is going to bop me on the head for this), (and I mean that in a funny / loving way because as a good friend, she's had to suffer through me babbling this angst probably too many times before) then I have to admit that one part of the appeal to going ahead and continuing the story in the script format is because the action comedy is currently with an agent, she is going to take it out next month (so far as I still know), and having a different script that shows some range would be a good screenwriting career-type of move. Let's set aside the little fact that the actual business of film drives me batshit the majority of the time, I have to ask myself if the reason I haven't gotten further with any one particular writing field is due in (large) part because I get bored, or I don't focus on just one format? Am I considering the idea of following up the script the agent has with another script because I want to write a script... or because I don't want to be caught without something new / fresh should the one the agent has get people interested in meeting me again? Since I don't know what the business of novel-selling is like yet first-hand, I have nothing to really compare that screenwriting-business-hatred part I feel, though I have a couple of published friends who describe the woe of trying to get PR for their books, trying to make sure the books have shelf-time, have some sort of backing from the very publisher who put it out, who writhe in agony when so many people drop the ball and the book dies fast because no one was willing to spend a dime to alert the potential audience that hey, there is a book here they would love...well, the process doesn't sound any prettier on the other side of the fence.

I started off wanting to write novels. That's what I went back to undergraduate school to do -- to go ahead and finish that degree (when the boys were very young), and get the kind of background reading / eduction that helps a writer, well, write. (Notice I didn't say "get published.") Then for reasons that are long and for a different entry one day, I got sidetracked into graduate school for screenwriting and loved it for various reasons. First, I really had to learn structure and so many writing lessons, and screenwriting is a very structured medium. Second, I could write scripts faster than a novel, so I had more things people could read more often -- a sense of gratification when writing has so few, if any, and so far in between. Third, people tended to give me strong positive feedback on the scripts (and then since I could write more, there was more stroking to be had.)

Writing the novel is far lonelier and isolated. It doesn't pay nearly as well if I sell (but just going with the odds, it is far more likely that I could sell a novel than a script since there are thousands of new novels published every year and only 400 or so films made, and maybe only a couple of thousand of sales, if that many, a year, most of those going to established screenwriters). On the plus side, writing is far more peaceful an experience to me, and I enjoy the freedom of the form immensely. I was at my happiest writing when I was working on the novel before this latest round of script stuff.

But am I just hiding from fear of failure if I decide to write this as a novel? I dunno.

One way I had been answering this is to just work on it in both formats, but I'm at the point where I probably should choose one over the other one, because it's going to affect how the story develops, since I could do a lot more within the novel. I'm worried that if I keep trying to divide loyalties, I will manage to get no further in either career (novelist vs. screenwriter). Unfortunately, neither form is feeling like the absolute right choice, and so I keep dividing my time.

Anybody with a reliable crystal ball handy?

allergies, revisited

Both boys seem to be mending just fine. Jake looks a thousand percent better, but Luke didn't start improving until he started taking the cortizone does-pack -- and it's a huge improvement. Which means I may actually sleep tonight instead of waking up every little while (about every 45 minutes) to check on him; I kept dreaming that in the middle of the night, his throat and nose has swollen shut and he was fighting to breathe. It never got that bad (it looked much worse, but never actually got that bad), though it probably didn't help to have the second doctor I spoke to last night warn that I may have to take him to the emergency room if he didn't improve. But he's gotten quite annoying in the last hour or so (drumming on things, telling really bad puns), so he's definitely on the mend. (Too bad the puns weren't killed by the allergy.)

allergic reactions

I mentioned yesterday I had to take both boys to the doctor for allergic reactions. Jake had a rash on his arm, but Luke -- who had been completely well the night before -- had awakened with his eyes swelling shut, and his nose and mouth inflamed and swelling... with some sort of itching on his chin that wasn't really a rash. He had eaten the same things we had, slept in the same sheets laundered in the same detergents, had not consumed anything different than ordinary, and had not come into contact with anything that we could identify as an allergen.

Luke had called me from his house (rented near his university) -- and said he could drive to meet us back at the house to go with us to the doctor. Only, he called when he was about half-way and said it had gotten worse, and could we pick him up. We met with him and both Jake and I freaked -- he looked terrible -- very swollen and almost unrecognizable. I'm surprised he had been able to even drive that far.

The doctor took one look at him (from across the room) and didn't even want to step closer. I am so not happy with that doctor, it's not even funny. He barely spent five minutes in the room with both kids ($186.00 worth of five minutes) and gave Jake antibiotics (which are working) and by just scanning Luke from the door, decided that he needed a cortizone shot with an antihistamine (I have no idea what kind). I watched Luke carefully all night long, since he wasn't improving. Making sure the swelling wasn't worse and that he could breathe.

By this afternoon, with still no improvement, I called the doctor back who then called in another dose-pack of cortizone. Luke's taken a dose and already I can see some improvement.

We still don't have a clue what it could be. He showed me a rash now starting on his hands. Hopefully, the dose pack will take care of both.

(I'm still pissed at that doctor, though.)

router woes, solved

Turns out, you can follow all of the directions exactly, and if the router is just plain old broken or persnickety, it won't work. I finally took some time todayto call the tech service, and they walked me through the process (about ten times) and then assured me that (a) I was doing everything correctly and (b) since I had internet access when it wasn't hooked up to the router, it was the new router. I exchanged it a few minutes ago, hooked it up, did the one thing the guy told me to do and voila, fixed. And now the laptop can surf from anywhere in the house without us battling for the desktop.

Yes, we are dragging into the new century in spite of ourselves.

more Raku

I know I have taken a zillion Raku photos, but I have no idea where I filed most of them. I dug up a few:

We have a huge party every year on New Year's Day -- and most of the time, we raku. I end up standing farther away so everyone else can see, and I end up not getting a good photo of Carl pulling the pot from the kiln. Here's a tiny (bad) angle where you can see how glowing red from the 1700 heat.

Carl has just placed the pot in the trash can here. We've used shredded newspapers and magazines for combustible materials. The fire can flame up a couple of feet, but then it dies down to lower than the top of the can. We'll let this burn for a minute or so:

I didn't have one this year of us putting the lid on -- smoke will rush from the outer rim of the lid, but no fire escapes unless Carl re-opens the lid. This shot is after Carl has pulled both pieces out of the trash cans. We opted to stop this glaze with water because we'd actually brought the glazes up a notch too high -- I think we took them to 1700, and we should have taken the pots out at 1650 -- that 50 degree difference affects the colors the glaze turns. In this case, had we not taken the pots from the trash cans and stopped the oxidation process, the colors would have turned all the way to a silver / gunmetal color. By stopping it at the point we did, we got these beautiful plum colors. I wish I had a close up shot of the pot, because they were gorgeous:

And here's one he did recently, which is a red raku glaze. The quality of this photo isn't great -- it was just a quickie to show a friend. We have a "photo box" we constructed to get better lighting, but I didn't set it up for this:

I hope he gets a chance to get back to it soon.

Raku pottery

Carl, in his spare time (which is rare lately), does Raku pottery. I'm very proud of his work. Here's a bowl he did a few years ago. And here's a lidded pot with the carved leaf handles I did for him.

He's had people tell him he should be showing in galleries. We usually end up giving the pieces to friends or family for special events -- rarely does anything hang around here long enough to be earmarked for a gallery, though I'd like to be able to help him start showing soon. We'd even toyed with the idea of opening a sort of internet shop, though each piece is one-of-a-kind.

For those of you who aren't familiar with Raku pottery, it's made of a clay body that has a heavier grog content -- it's much stronger than, say, porcelain. The glazes are specific to Raku firings. A piece is thrown, then bisqued, then glazed with the Raku glaze. It's best to let the glaze dry at least a day, and the glazes seem to fire better when the temperatures outside are cooler.

Because the firing is the interesting part -- the pot is brought to about 1650 or 1700 degrees in a Raku kiln, then at the height of that heat, when it's clear the glaze has melted out evenly, the pot is removed (using tongs and heavy gloves) and placed in a container (such as a metal trash can) that is filled with combustible material (newspaper or sawdust are our favorites). The pot catches on fire and we let it burn for a minute or two, depending on the glaze, then cover it, starving the fire of the oxygen. Also, depending on the glaze, we may open the lid again, "burping" it -- allowing oxygen to rush in and cause the flame to re-ignite, then snuff it out again. This process causes the glazes to oxidze (and hence creating one-of-a-kind effects). Also, there are times we'll pull it out after just a few minutes and spray it with cold water, which stops the oxidation at that exact point -- it's a way to control more of what you get, although "control" is a bit of an over-statement, since you have to sort of know what that glaze will do with the cold water. Even then, it's unpredictable.

I have to run take both sons to the doctor now (both with different kinds of allergic reactions today! Weird!)... but I'll dig up some firing photos later and post just to show the firing process, if anyone's interested.

heart-broken

The 20th was my oldest son's and his girlfriend's three-year anniversary from their first date.

I think they have sort of broken up today, but I don't know the details.

If that's true, I am heart-broken. Luke's girlfriend has been a big part of our lives for three whole years, in every family event, good and bad. She's cute, sweet, fun, and I know they're very very close. I also know what's brought this on (basically, they're still too young to get married, and I think part of it is that he has been somewhat attracted to other people without being honest about that). It just hit me a little while ago that if they do break up, he's got plenty of friends around him that are his friends; she doesn't have hardly any. Not super close ones, anyway, and that's mostly because she's done what a lot of young girlfriends do... she's incorporated his friends into her life, and didn't branch out on her own and make more friends for herself. As someone who was very shy in high school and really didn't start blossoming that self-confidence that we see now until a year or so ago... and with having so much difficult school to do, it was easier for her to use what little time she had to focus on Luke. Since he had so many friends, and since she didn't have all that many, she's now in a position that, if they do break up, she doesn't have anyone close to help her through this, besides her mom. And me.

I love this girl like she was my own daughter. In a lot of ways, I've been her mom, because for all three years, her parents were in another state, and I've been mom whenever she needed someone to hash things out with, someone to go to for advice, etc. And I truly enjoy her company -- she's easy to get along with, lots of fun and has nary a judgmental or mean bone in her body.

The problem is, they've been dating since they were were 19, and now they're at different universities. It's not exactly long distance, but it's impossible to share those day-to-day joys that keep you together when the going gets tough. Also, I suspect other girls are coming on to Luke and he's just not used to that sort of flattery; I think it's making him question himself, as much as anything else.

How on earth can I stand by and watch this? I have to, of course. I can't make him love her. I worry so much -- she was going to be a doctor, but last year, her grades (and his) dropped; they were spending so much time together, both of their GPAs suffered. Which doesn't hurt him nearly as much as it hurts her. So she switched majors into something she thinks she'd like better (and I think, ultimately, the switch is much better suited to her personality), but part of me thinks he may have harmed her in a way that's beyond "repair" -- other than whatever time can do. The idea of her suddenly having no one -- not him, not friends... well, it's killing me.

I know, he's my son. If they're not right for each other -- if there's something missing and he realizes that now instead of a couple of years from now when they were married / engaged / living together...well, now is better. But it sucks. I want to step in and talk to him and make sure he realizes what he's losing. Find out what's going on in his head; find some way of reassuring myself that he's really thought about this. Because I think, given what I sensed when they were here yesterday, that there really is no going back to the way that they were, and the suckage in that notion is heart-breaking. But he's extremely closed-mouthed about what he feels, especially when he's going through something negative. He always has been, which also breaks my heart.

I have no idea what to do. (Well, I know I can do nothing. I just don't know how to handle that, because I would miss her terribly.)

I wish it was back in the day when the biggest problem was a caterpiller sting or a scraped knee -- those things, I could fix. This? I feel helpless. It hurts.

dreaming

I laughed this morning in my sleep. Laughed to the point where I woke up, still laughing. This has happened a grand total of two times in my life. I tried to explain to my husband and oldest son at breakfast why I was laughing... that I had dreamed a movie. In my excitement, I began telling them the story, and both of them looked sort of... worried. Like I might not be cooking on a full burner, or something.

(Of course I'm not cooking on a full burner, I am a writer, what did they expect?)

thriller epiphany

Writing epiphanies come from the damndest places sometimes, and at the oddest moments. I have a thriller I've been working on; it's very high concept and high tech, which are two things I rarely do. What facinates me about this thriller is the people, though, and why they're in this tight jam they're in, and what they'll do to get out of it.

Still. That tight jam. I've been thinking about this idea for years. I think close to six years before I finally had a small series of epiphanies about how to make it work, how the mechanism functions and how to show it and build that tension. I could never even bother to start writing until those things fell into place, which just happened this past December. I was, however, missing a rather vital piece, and I had been trying out and discarding dozens of possible pieces, and nothing, absolutely nothing, was working.

And then tonight, as I was walking through the living room, someone had left on the TV and a show was on with a bunch of forensic type of stuff (I think it was on Discovery channel -- it was more of a case file for something, but I missed the majority of it). And I saw something on there that had abolutely nothing to do with the thing I'm working on, and that thing I saw had no way to interact with what I'm working on. But as I carried the image with me from the living room to the back of the house (master bedroom area), that image suddenly jigsawed its way into the answer. It changed, morphed a bit, but it was sooooo simple, once I saw how it worked. Elegantly simple, and in this very complex thriller, it has to be so simple, people would overlook it.

I can now write the rest of that story. Weird.

puddy

I have a Calico cat, one year old, that Carl named "Puddy." As in, "I tought I taw a puddy tat." (Hey, he really hated cats and mostly because he was horribly allergic. I figured if he named her, he would bond.)

Puddy had stowed away in a toolbox of Carl's truck last winter just before Christmas. When he arrived home, he said, "The toolbox is meowing, and you can't have it." Ha. She had been abandoned by her mother, she was barely weaned, and the dog they keep at their workshop had gone out into the field next door and brought her back, trying to clean her and take care of her. Puddy was dying, and I think she realized somehow that Carl would end up loving her. Or, well, at least letting her live.

She's been an interesting cat. She fetches (her most favorite toy in the whole world are the pull tabs from a gallon of milk. She will fetch this until your arm falls clean from your body from exhaustion.) Her most cherished sleeping spot is the in basket on my desk -- though sometimes she gets a little rambunctious hopping into the basket and it scootches a little closer to the edge of the desk... each time... so that it ends up half-way hovering over the edge... so that when she sits up and puts her weight in just the right spot, down goes the basket, down goes the cat, whose head somehow stretches and stays above the desk for a brief second, like Wile E. Coyote going over a cliff. Which just cracks my ass up. And then she walks around the desk and sits and glares at me with a, "I am planning evil revenge, just wait 'til you go to sleep," look.

Unfortunately, she's just not the brightest lamp in the shop. She's always been a little hesitant in jumping, and she'll study something for thirty minutes, start little attempts for another five before she'll actually make a leap. God forbid she was wanting to sit up here by me and I have to get up and leave just after she manages to get here. Lately, though, she's been getting a bit braver and pushing off harder from her initial jump, so she's making that leap up to the top of the monitor without much trouble. I have a set of baskets (a file type of thing) next to the desk that she can jump on easily, and she usually uses that as a staging point to the next spot, that monitor. Only, she's been getting braver and braver, stronger and stronger, and barely touching the baskets as a midpoint in the jump. Until yesterday. She jumped so hard and she pushed off at that midpoint as she was flying by it, which gave her a bit too much momentum, and as her front paws reached the middle of the monitor, she suddenly had a horrified expression because her back end had too much momentum and it went up and over her head, like an Olympic handstand leap, and then down the other side... and whooosh, there she went with it, thoroughly humiliated. Of course, I laughed, she glared. It is our ritual.

Right now I am eating a grilled cheese sandwich, and Puddy is doing her very bestest vulture imitation: she's sitting on the absolute edge of the monitor, hunkered over, her beady eyes half-closed as if she's about to take flight and swoop down to get something. I raise a tiny little piece to give to her and she doesn't really want to eat it so much as smell it, and she stretches... and stretches... and kerthunk, falls off the monitor. She doesn't even eat it, she's so disgusted.

Luke came home from his university with a "lost cat" poster he had seen on a light pole. This university is about an hour from here, and someone had put up a photo of a Calico cat... named "Puddy." Same spelling and everything. Carl snatched the photo and examined it, and I noticed he was actually relieved when the markings on that cat were so different from ours. He loves that cat. Now, if I could just get him to quit coloring spots on her with markers when she's sleeping on the desk, we would all be happy.

leading indicators

Yesterday, I had two different conversations with people regarding economic news that will ultimately impact our business and has some indicators of what's to come for the econmy. One of the things that's been interesting in our field is that we work for businesses we refer to as "leading indicator" types of industry. Whatever is happening with them at the moment is about eighteen months to two years ahead of the nation's economy. It has been a weird phenomenon to observe, but the cycles seem to hold true and have for many years.

At the end of the Clinton administration, the economy had improved and even though there was bad news in some sectors, on the whole, things weren't horrible for the country. But we were in a slump -- it was difficult to scrape up work to bid. Any time we stay in a slump consistently, the rest of the country's going to follow. And sure enough, it did.

Weirdly, last year around March, things started picking up. We had more work to bid and by the end of the summer, we were able to raise our prices and still get plenty of work. By the end of the year, we still had plenty of work to bid -- more, in fact, than we usually have. This month has seen a leap in things to bid. Steel prices are shooting up, which means there are a lot more dollars being spent on metal. When steel prices go up, the economy usually follows, for a while. Our clients have more money to spend, industry tends to be spending more, which can spread to other industries, etc. If the nation's economy follows the trend from previous cycles we've had, things are going to conintue on the upswing (probably just in time for Bush to take credit for it and get re-elected.)

However... there's an ominous black cloud...

hanging over those rising steel prices. The rising steel prices are not due to the fact that more industries are expanding here -- building new facilities here (which creates more jobs and products here, which makes for a long-term economic upswing.) Know where all that steel is going? China. China and Taiwan are building large plants... which means that a big number of industries are going to be re-locating to those countries when the new facilities are up and running. It used to be that the industries which moved overseas were low-tech (textiles) or service (tech service) because labor was cheap over there and there wasn't a need for real technology to produce the required goods / services. But with the increase in technological inventions and globalization of access to that sort of technology, industries which wouldn't have moved overseas can now put their technologies over there cheaper and easier than staying here. And over there, they don't have to deal with labor unions, DEQ, the EPA, or a host of federally mandated safety guidelines. They can pollute the world, have cheap labor, make the products much less expensively and sell them back cheaply to the US (beating out any US firm)... because NAFTA got passed by the Republican party-controlled senate of the Clinton administration.

I've talked with several top level industry execs here who are sweating bullets, because they know that with all this steel production being purchased by China, the US stands a pretty good chance of shipping entire industries overseas in the next four or five years. It may take two to three years to build some of those plants over there, and maybe another two years to have products from them to start selling... and then the economy is going to take a beating.

So Carl and I are watching our leading indicator businesses. We figure we've got about two years right now of decent business / income before we start seeing tale-tell signs of slippage. We'll probably see it prior to it hitting the nation-at-large (unless there's another terrorist event). When we do, we're going to assess the reasons, and if it looks like it's a result of those plants going on-line, then we're going to downsize; sell this particular house to get what we can out of it and move to a much smaller place with a lower note. Right now, in this location, we're building decent equity in this house, but it's now bigger than what we need, since Luke's away at college and Jake will soon be following. Even if they're home for a weekend, we just don't need this amount of space. And, as long as we sell on the upswing, we'd make enough to put down about half of another house in a less-populated area.

I remember sitting in an economics class at LSU, being so incredibly bored, I was thinking the "bored" song (to the Meow meow mix commercial jingle: "Bored bored bored bored, bored bored etc.) and didn't realize I'd apparently started singing it out loud instead of thinking it. My prof stopped (really good-looking guy, too, damnit), and asked me if I'd like to come up there and lecture, and I thought, "Kill me now, because none of this will ever be relevant in my life." I thought the same thing about accounting. Man. Who knew? I really wish I'd paid attention.

what matters

There are a lot of people checking out this journal from TUS. I suppose you're wondering if I'm going to comment on the uproar over there. It's just not that big of a deal, really. I've pissed off a lot of people because I was honest and spoke my mind and supported a friend. Truly, there are a lot worse things in this world. I run a construction company. I eat people for breakfast when I need to, so I don't so much need the whole trainwreck / drama on a discussion board that's supposed to be there for enjoyment. I've got enough real things on my plate that do matter, consequence wise. If the IRS was really fucking pissed at me? Hey, that I'd care about. TUS? Not so much. Perspective.

routers

Carl gave me a wifi set up for Valentine's Day (does the man know me well, or what)... and the only drawback is that it's been a total pain to install. For one thing, the instructions say DO NOT HAVE THE ROUTER CONNECTED to the computer when you're first doing the set-up... but half-way through the set-up, it stalls and can't finish because it's NOT HOOKED UP, except at no point in between the two does it actually inform you when you're supposed to connect it. Grrrrrrrr.

oh, the fun

If you really REALLY want to have a bucket o' fun, here's what you do:

1) decide to finally set aside some time to create a little mini-blog for the left-hand column because that would be MUCH easier than changing the template each time.

2) do it when it's late, you're tired, and preferably when your youngest son is in a very bad mood for all sorts of things, and is certain the universe is conspiring completely against him

3) answer the phone in the middle of all of this, talk to husband about grumpy son while you're still setting up the file paths

4) have the grumpy son come in the room to gripe on the phone (with husband) about the crushing universe and then

5) look back at that file path and think, you know, maybe I'm doing this wrong, I'd better delete it and wait until I can ask someone tomorrow

6) select "delete blog" and when the little warning box pops up, think, geez, like who would be stupid enough to do this if they weren't intending on deleting it anyway?

7) press the "okay to delete" button

8) watch the wrong blog -- the MAIN blog -- disappear while the skimpy little not-even-set-up-properly blog remains, quite proudly, as the only blog on your site.

9) shriek. Scare son and husband (who's on the phone). Cry. Consider heavy drugs.

10) Kick something.

11) Consider the swelling foot a reminder to wear shoes next time you blog.

12) Drink. Good wine, beer, liquor, draino... it's all the same.

13) Call Tamar, trying to freak out quietly because son is still on the phone with his dad (who's on a trip), and hear Tamar's sharp intake of breath and know that yes, you really did fuck this up beautifully.

14) Drink some more. Think about running into traffic. Realize there's no traffic outside and know that the universe isn't against your son because it's busy screwing with you right now.

13) IM with Tamar and Diane for an hour to confirm that yes, the blog is really gone.

14) Cry. Drink. Rinse. Repeat.

15) Set up blog all over again and cut and paste each entry back into the blog, fixing the dates, blowing off fixing the times, and realizing that by 3:00 a.m., the old comments may never make it back onto the site.

is it just me?

or is anyone else interested in the new Bravo show, Significant Others? It looks like a lot of juicy fun.

birthdays

Today is my brother's 40th birthday. My baby brother. Who, if I may say so, looks far far far older than I do, thankyouverymuch. Heh.

It is just not possible that this kid who used to drive me absolutely out of my mind with irritation is, you know, an actual grown-up. Mike was a drummer in the school band. Every day I'd drive to school in a bright yellow VW bug and he'd drum on the dash, the steering wheel, my arms, my legs, (apparently my head was the cymbal). When that wasn't enough noise and aggravation, he'd roll down his window and add the roof of the bug for a deeper percussion echo. Every day after a twenty minute ride to school, I'd climb out of the car so thoroughly spazzed, I vibrated like Wile E Coyote after he'd stepped into the handle of a shovel.

The funny thing was, in spite of how he thrived on making me nuts (or nuttier) I'd have stepped in front of a truck for my baby brother, and often did, metaphorically speaking, when he'd get in trouble with our dad.

It's amazing to look at him at forty, this funny, bright, grown-up, who's a successful karate instructor (he's a Master, a fourth-degree black belt), with two schools, a new (happy) marriage. Who knew? (I did, truly.)

Happy birthday, my brother.

my own domain

I've got my own domain! Just a putting up a short note to say if you've bookmarked this site, you might want to change it to this

http://electricmist.net

(I'm assuming most of you are just going to bookmark it with a right-click thing, but in case some of you want to cut and paste into your bookmark manager, I thought I'd type it out. I'm not sure if that previous sentence made sense -- I am way tired.)

This means I am definitely going to stick around a while and I'll probably continue updating daily.

Two people to thank here -- Diane for having hosted more than one site for me for a while, for offering to do so and encouraging me to continue to write, and for making it all possible. Tamar for the encouragement as well, for doing all the hard work of setting up the new digs and hosting it (because I'm adding more domains later). Terrific friends, both.

undone

Bad dreams. Strange dreams. Dreams of flying were good, and I particularly loved this one this time, since I seemed to have so much more control over where I went and moved easily enough between standing and flying. The strange dreams: rabbits. I suddenly had rabbits everywhere, and Carl had informed me they were our pets now and they were housebroken. They were quite cute and funny, driving the cat mad with distraction. The dog wasn't terribly happy either, but they were great fun for her to chase, so I suppose that worked out okay.

This whole week to come is stressing me out already. I have too much to do, I have way too many fires to put out. (Or maybe that's rabbits to catch?) What I really want to do tonight is sink down into a book and escape my own freakishly loud incessant brain for a little while, but I cannot. It's one of those busy nights for family (a thing for my brother) and company (guests spending the night), and I have to be a grown up and be nice to people.

Sometimes, I really don't want to be the grown up anymore.

massive disappointment

Jake missed weigh-in this morning at 7 by five minutes, and so was not allowed to wrestle today. Which means he forfiets both matches.

When he called, he was so very deeply depressed. He had been so nervous last night, he hadn't been able to fall asleep until early this morning. When he sleeps, he sleeps extremely soundly -- particularly after being up late.

The coach did not have a wake-up call planned for the guys. No meeting prior to weigh-in to make sure everyone was up and ready and on time. This man has been coaching for 31 years, and the last two years, has exhibited a "just don't care" attitude. They told Jake they knocked on his door, but neither he or the other two boys heard anything, so all three missed. The other two had lost yesterday and so were going to wrestle in consolation rounds and they're younger, so they'll have another year.

I just cannot believe the coach didn't plan for this. They're kids -- they're not going to do everything right.

If I had had ANY idea the coach didn't have a meeting planned prior to weigh-in, I would have arranged for Jake to have a wake-up call from the hotel and then followed up with one of my own.

He was so upset, he couldn't bear to stay in New Orleans -- so he drove back already. Right now, he's visiting his girlfriend. And it's Valentine's Day -- something he's not likely to ever forget.

wrestling

The good:

Jake won his first bout in the state tournament, which means he can place no lower than fourth. If he wins the next one, then he wrestles in the finals for first or second.

The bad:

My car wasn't running well yesterday. We passed the gas station where I'd last filled up to discover that they had the gas tanks barricaded because they were having to work on the -- apparently, there were lots of complaints of trash and water in the gas. Great. I have no idea how much trouble fixing that is going to be.

The ugly:

We drove our spare car to the tournament. On the way home on the interstate (at 70mph) it was making a very strange noise, as if something was dragging. Then a loud popping sound and we suddenly had no brakes. None. Luckily Carl coasted to a stop on the shoulder.

At least we had free towing.

sandpaper: the miracle cure

There are a few things that, as a parent, you never really expect to hear from your kids. I'm thinking, "Hey, Mom? Can you come outside to the shop and run the belt-sander over my elbow?" would be one of them.

I'm not even sure I can explain this one.

Jake is 17, a senior, and a wrestler. This is his last year and the state tournament is this weekend (starting Friday); it will be the last time he wrestles. Jake missed wrestling in the state tournament last year due to a technicality (a grade turned in was the wrong grade, but they wouldn't change it in time to the correct grade he'd earned to allow him to qualify for state. Don't even get me started on their pissiness.) Last year he was seeded sixth or so, but he stood a decent chance to win state because he'd beaten the first and second seed already. (The seeds -- or order -- are determined by number of matches and wins and losses -- not who you've beaten. Jake didn't have as many matches as some of the other boys, so he was automatically seeded lower even though he'd beaten the higher-ups.)

This year, he was seeded third, which thrilled him. And then -- the glitch happened.

There is always a glitch.

Jake discovered he had ringworm on his elbow. Ringworm is a fungus, not an actual worm (both of which are gross, but hey, fungus isn't quite as). We took him immediately to the doctor on Tuesday because if a kid has ringworm, they are not allowed to wrestle. (Oh -- and you know, to get him cured. Because ringworm is very catchy.) The doctor gave him a prescription cream and told him that in five days, the ringworm would be considered dead and therefore not contagious and he could wrestle.

The tournament was in three days. Minor problem.

The boy who had spread the ringworm is his best friend, Dan. Whose dad is a doctor. Who told Jake that he could kill the ringworm faster by putting a small cotton ball of Clorox on the ringworm, tape a band aid over it and keep it on over-night. It would kill the ringworm and he would be able to wrestle.

To wrestle, they have to pass a "skin" test -- a medical doctor looks them over and decides for himself if someone is contagious or not.

When Jake put the Clorox on the spots? Major pain. Burning of the area. I couldn't believe that a kid who would gripe about a mild stomach ache would willingly burn his arm in order to qualify. But then, he is 17 and I have given up on 17 making sense. By morning, the spots looked awful -- the skin was burned (like an abrasion or a scrape that has scabbed over) and yet, we could still see the ringworm outline.

That's when he had the bright idea: sand his arm to look like he'd fallen onto concrete and no one would be the wiser. Hence the question to me to go sand his elbow.

I did refuse.

Carl, however, could not pass up the opportunity -- this was the kid, after all, who had driven Carl nuts over the last few days by being extremely difficult to wake up in the mornings and a royal pain on a few other occasions. I couldn't believe they were going to do this, but they were. And they did.

It didn't really look like much -- they concluded that it wasn't working well enough to be worth the pain. It did scratch up his arm a bit around the Clorox-induced abrasions, but that's about it.

The coach looked at it and thought he saw three more spots of ringworm popping up in the scraped area, so Jake pretty much gave up hope then of getting to wrestle.

The skin test was at 7 this evening. About 7:30 Jake called, whooping into the telephone, "I made it! I made it! I'm going to wrestle!"

Apparently, the doctor took one look at the abrasions and said, "Good grief, son, did you fall off a bike or something?" to which Jake replied, "Something like that." And the doctor said, "Wow, that must've hurt. Okay, you look clear. You're good to go."

Can you believe that? Sandpaper, the miracle cure.

You know, I bet stuff like this just does not happen up north. Or anywhere you know, actually civilized.

displaced

Carl has been on a big kick for the last couple of days to move. He'd move to L.A. in a heartbeat. This desire to move there started when I was screenwriting before, when we knew that I'd stand a much better chance at possibily, maybe, with every digit crossed, sell / get assignments. I was meeting with a lot of people after one of my scripts went out, and the general concensus seemed to be that if I lived there, they'd be able to work with me, mentor me into a position where they could get a studio to agree to me writing on assigment. The "they" are the ubiquitous producers, most of whom were just blathering niceties, but there were two or three genuine offers in there, and no way for me to follow up. (Well, the agent could have, but didn't, and what I was told was that she didn't because they would have to meet with me often and over a period of time before anything solidified, and flying out that often wasn't worth the gamble that someone might, eventually, hire me.)

Moving at that time was impossible, though...

Jake was getting more and more frustrated with school (he's ADD and Dysgraphic -- think "dyslexia" but with writing and organization), and he was having a lot of emotional turmoil due to those problems. Yanking him away from the positive things in his life -- his grandparents, his school friends -- seemed like a terrible risk to take. He might have excelled somewhere else, but he might have fallen into a vaccuum where no one knew him or reached out, and I was too worried what that might have done to him. Plus, we have a business here, a way to make a living (sometimes, she griped) and it's not like we could just transport what we do to another state.

But over the years, Carl has longed to move away, and the fact that L.A. has lots of galleries appeals to him immensely. (He does Raku pottery in his spare time, and has really impressed some people who've seen it recently -- one nationally acclaimed artist we know was urging us pretty vehemently to get his stuff into galleries, and several galleries have expressed an interest -- he just hasn't had the time to folluw up.) Also, the business of home remodeling in L.A. is far better than elsewhere, and even though what we currently do is industrial stuff (the money here is better in that field), what he loves is the remodeling and the artistic side of things. Granted, I'm sure there are people struggling out there, too, in remodeling, but I've got a lot of contacts from people who are so frustrated by not being able to find a good contractor (who can do the high-end stuff), that I think it wouldn't take long for Carl to have plenty of work.

There's just the little niggly question of money, as in, having enough to do something like that, and we just aren't there, yet. Plus, for me, there's the bigger emotional problem of leaving my parents when they're getting older and I've always been near to them and am close to them. It would kill them both, and I can already hear the guilt they'd pile on. (They piled on guilt when we bought this house because we were insistant on buying in south Baton Rouge and not north of the city where they are. Piled. On.) In spite of the guilt, though, I do enjoy them, and we get along great and I know I'd miss them and when they got older and needed help? I'd feel really awful for not being near them.

Still.

I long to move. I felt at home out there in a way I've never felt here. I really long to move. But I don't see how that will happen any time soon.

degrees, continued

Carl told me I wasn't nearly that bad. If he gets to where he can say that with a straight face, I'll let you know.

degrees of separation

Yesterday was a bad day. To explain -- no, too much. To sum up:

toni, "normal" in the morning: "Hey. What's up? How are you?"

toni, without sleep for a day: "What in the world do you want now?"

toni, without any sleep for a couple of days: "What the FUCK do you want? Why the hell are you bothering me with this?"

toni, without any sleep for a couple of days WHILE PMSing: "What the hell is your problem? Why are you even LOOKING at me that way? What the fuck do I have to do around here to get someone to pick up the GODDAMNED phone and make one TINY little FUCKING phone call for themselves, huh? Was I born with the TELEPHONE as my sign or something? Did I come out of the UTERUS with a phone cord attached to my EAR or WHAT? Whaddya mean, am I feeling okay? Do I sound like I'm feeling okay? Do I LOOK like I'm feeling okay? Why are you running away? GET BACK HERE AND FIGHT LIKE A MAN. Where are you.....ooooooooooooooohhhhh, chocolate. Thank you, sweetie. Yes, I love you, too."

insomnia girl

You know you are in trouble when the insomnia has lasted for a couple of days and it's four a.m. and you decide that if you just bored yourself to tears, you could maybe possibly fall asleep, and the thing your brain comes up with to repeat ad nauseam is, "Two, four, six, eight, how do we procrastinate?"

And no, there apparently wasn't an answer to that question (sixteen hours later, still repeating).

limbo

I feel strange and weird, and part of it is frustration and seething over something going on in our business (someone who wasn't competent costing us money on a big project), and some of it is just not being able to focus on what to work on. Part of that problem is that little things happen for the scripts which sound good but mean nothing, but the sounding "good" part keeps trying to rev up the "hope" part and the common sense knows-it-means-nothing part is smacking around the hope part because geez, it's really pretty much impossible to sell a spec, so be real. If that makes any sense at all, we're probably both in trouble.

The sounds good but means nothing: The agent sneaked the new script to someone, though I don't know how that will turn out; a producer who'd read it called her and loved it, though I don't think that producer has the funds to do anything; a friend and I talked last night -- she works for the head of production of a major studio -- and she wants the scripts because she wants to watch the tracking boards and make sure the new one's getting positive spin, and she's in a position to help with that... and the romantic comedy one -- well, she knows a lot of people she can mention it to, who might be interested... all of which mean a great big zero sales wise (though I appreciate the positives and my friend's efforts.)

I have stared at the screen tonight, thinking if I could just work, just focus, I would at least feel productive. Instead, I'm at that annoyed, bitchy, frustrated level where I'm certain everything I write just sucks and I should be breaking rocks for a living.

That, and I am seriously craving chocolate. (sigh)

good and the cheesy goodness

Joan of Arcadia. I love this show. I hoped to like it because I knew someone who worked on the show and I wanted it to be a success for his sake, but I was worried... I mean, a show where God talks to Joan through various people she encounters? On a network show? I was worried it was going to be cheesy or preachy or both.

And it's not. I don't really know how it's not. The premise screams cheesy, and instead, it hits the mark every single time. There's a fine balance on the show between difficult choices, and things don't always work out the way Joan hoped -- in fact, they often don't work out the way she expects and she often feels pain from those efforts. There's a texture to the show, a layering that feels real, feels like the writers get how difficult high school is, how even having a "normal" family can have so many problems, just day-to-day difficulties, and yet, have an element of spirituality that seems normal and accessibly and applicable in normal lives, without being the least bit preachy. It surprises me each time; I haven't really predicted an outcome yet, which keeps me interested.

But for every good show I like, I end up liking something super cheesy... I really like the re-runs of this old show called "Seven Days," which should have more appropriately been called "Back Step." It's an SF show, I have no clue who made it or when it aired, only that it's cheesy and bad in a good way. (Hey, it gets me through accounting, so who am I to be choosey?)
Posted by toni at February 9, 2004 01:00 PM | TrackBack
Comments

I love it, too, and the recapper at TWoP loves it, and I've directed the person you know's wife to check the recaps/forums out, because there is so much love out there! I thought I would hate it, too, but I think it's so well done, and I cry every single week.

Lost in Translation -- the review

As mentioned in a previous review, this isn't a "review site" but my personal take or response to a film; it's going to contain spoilers and probably a bit of snarkiness. You've been warned.

I'm not sure about the strategy of labeling LOST IN TRANSLATION a "comedy" as they did on the DVD; I can't remember how they marketed the film, but I think the implication of "comedy" was there as well. I distinctly remember seeing the scene where Bill Murray trapped on the exercise machine, yelping, "Help!" Which was classic Bill Murray. And there were moments of irony and moments of quiet humor, moments of pathos leavened by a recognition the humor inherent in the human experience. But this was not a comedy, and whoever got the bright idea to label it as such needs to be smacked around or have a note from their therapist. Or both.

The problem is, we were expecting funny -- laugh-out-loud funny -- from something labeled "comedy" with Bill Murray starring. Unfortunately, that expectation completely undermined the viewing of this film, which is much more a slice-of-life, a moment of two ships passing in the night, a moment where they come away from a brief friendship having received something far greater than mere "friendship" implies, and their life will be forever changed and, one hopes, enriched, as a result. Had the movie been advertised as a drama, (and guys, really, it's okay for us to occasionally laugh in a drama, but not so much the not laughing for the majority of a "comedy"), then I probably would have enjoyed it.

At about the 3/4 point, a quote from our living room:

"Do you have any idea what the point is yet?"
"I'm not sure. Friendship, maybe. I think we've watched most of the film so far."
"God, I hope so."

That is not a good omen.

The thing is, I can enjoy slow, deliberate films with the best of 'em. Antonioni's THE PASSENGER is one of my all-time favorites, because the lengthy stretches of slow movement (or no movement) forces the audience to really see and feel the tension created in those pauses, and Antonioni does something evocative with the camera, and that is to make the audience almost a charcter in the film because we become the "camera eye view" -- and by placing us "in" the film, the tension worked. Sophia Coppola did similar things with the camera work in this film, and she's not afraid to let the silence fill the moment, to let the absolute isolation of each of the characters permeate the story via the visual -- which is so unusual in today's fast-paced snap-cut-quick to the next scene type of pacing, it's riveting.

Granted, I doubt this film could have been released as widely as it was had it not had someone as well-known as Bill Murray in the lead, and I doubt any regular indie writer/director would have ever raised the funds to get that story made -- even on a shoestring budget -- had their last name not been Coppola, but that's a different rant for another day.

sex talk

My youngest son (17) came home from the movies last week looking a bit green. He walked in, shuddering. I asked him what was wrong, and he said, "That was the scariest thing I've ever seen in a movie." I asked him, "What?" because this kid is typically unfazed by anything in the horror genre. "Naked old people," he said. Off my look, "Something's Gotta Give. Naked old people. Uhhhhgggg." (another shudder) I laughed, then thought about Jack Nicholson's age and said, "Jack Nicholson's not that old, really. He's a couple of years older than your grandfather." I could see Jake calculate that this might mean his grandfather actually got naked occasionally and he recoiled, with, "Oh, MOM! That's just wrong. You didn't have to tell me that." And he hurried away as I cracked up laughing.

A few weeks before that, Carl and I had shopped for some tools; I wanted to do a little bit of remodeling and every time I want to do something, the things I need are always gone on one of our construction jobs. The plan was to buy me a couple of small hand tools, but they were having a sale and Carl gets really fired up over sales on tools, particularly if I want one, and I did fall in love with this nifty little air compressor and finish nail gun. Before I knew it, he'd put the set in the basket and away we went. (And I got a very nice commercial grade battery-powered drill.)

So I had the tools out in the kitchen when Luke (21) came home from college, and Luke looked over the tools with a level of lust and envy especially reserved for power tools, and he thought at first they were for Carl. Then I said nope, they were for me, and he frowned with annoyance and said, "How come Dad always gets YOU all the cool tools?" to which I replied without thinking, "Because I have sex with him."

I swear, I thought Luke was going to swallow the nail gun, his mouth dropped open so wide. And it's not that we aren't open about loving each other and, you know, having sex. I think the boys pretend we're in there playing cards or something. Luke turned about fourteen shades of red, put the nail gun down and said, "You really didn't have to say that. In fact, as long as I live, really, don't say that again."

Am I evil if I admit I wanted to try to work in the word "sex" in every sentence the rest of the night just to watch him feel mortified? It cracks me up that these two boys are so conservative about this, even though we have a normal family and Carl and I are easily affectionate (without grossness, truly).

Of course, a few weeks ago, my dad asked me something about sex and I think I sort of froze there, with my little brain cells skittering around looking for a place to hide, because in my entire life, I don't think my dad has said the word "sex" in my presence. I'm not entirely sure what I answered, either.

What goes around...

dead girl walking

I finally slept last night, after a week of (a) insomnia and (b) stress and (c) Carl being both sick and stressed. Carl woke me up at 11 today. Eleven. Wow. I haven't slept that long or that soundly since I was a teenager. And it's not raining! It's beautiful out, with the sky a crisp aquamarine. The only mar is that it is still winter here. I think I would enjoy (at least the sight of) winter if there were something visually stimulating about the landscape, but I look out the windows and all I see are naked tree limbs and yellow-ochre colored grass and muddy ditches. No blankets of snow to help me pretend that winter has the capability of being pretty.

Green. I crave green. Spring is just a couple of months away. It's always this time of year (when the purple magnolias start blooming, and I finally have one by my kitchen window!) that I start feeling hopeful that spring won't be too far away and I just might make it after all.

contrariness

In most of the stories I write, I'll know the basic direction I'm going, but I work out the details as I go. Serendipity plays a nice role because I'll often see the right detail or overhear the perfect comment that will fill in the puzzle just when I need it; maybe I've trained myself to be open to the creative or maybe I'm lucky at that moment. Generally, I'll make notes in longhand in a spiral notebook I keep by my bed. Sometimes I have a strong desire to work on a particular piece, I'll feel some of the pieces falling together, all I have to do is work out a few of the specifics, and I'll make a generous amount of notes, asking myself questions at night and sleep on it, waking the next day to have one or two epiphanies about how to solve something. It's a very cool process and it's one of the things I love about writing. Usually.

And then there are nights like last night, where Carl's sick and not sleeping well, so of course, I'm not sleeping well, and the rain is upsetting the dog, and all I end up doing is tossing and turning and having feverish half-dreams about stories, and one story visits the other and the characters are all confused and annoyed and things happen that make absolutely no sense whatsoever and there's a mutiny and before I know it, I'm arguing with them and they're arguing back and I'm kinda sure they institutionalize people for this.

That's about the time I wake up and have an epiphany, all right, but it's usually for the story I hadn't planned on really working on right now, and damn it, it's a pretty good one, so now I know if I don't go off to work on that one, it's going to keep haunting me and annoying me and interrupting the characters in the other story and it's going to turn into a mess.

Of course, the way this works is I will go work on the one for which I now have the epiphany, then hit a point where I'm excited about it and need to figure out more details, and I'll write the stuff in the notebook all set to brainstorm and dream out the answers that night and it'll be a free-for-all again. These two stories in particular have been doing this for a while. I'm close to bitch-slapping me some characters. Or myself, I'm not sure which.

mind-numbing

I spent the majority of Thursday doing certified payroll reports for a federal job we're finishing up. I loathe doing them; they're tedious, boring, tedious, and may I say, tedious. The accounting software I have is QuickBooks Pro for Contractors, and there's a nifty little button that's supposed to generate certified payroll reports, only as far as I can tell, it only generates the information that goes on the left side of the report (employees' names, addresses and social security numbers). Big woo. They got me all excited (wait. I just wrote that I got excited by something in accounting. Shoot me now, please. Holy Christ, shoot me now.) Anyway, I'd made a template prior to having this feature which did more than that, and even though it's better, it's still tedious.

I'd gotten behind in turning these reports in, and now I have to finish them up today because I now have other pressing things to do for the business. Oh, yippee skip hurray.

DeeOhGee

My dog, DeeOhGee, is giving it every ounce of effort to crawl inside my skin right now; it is thundering and lightning like Noah's trying to make up for lost time, and DeeOhGee is deathly afraid of any loud noises, particularly thunder. She weighs 35 lbs and isn't exactly a lap dog, and at 8 years old, you'd think she'd be a little more used to rain by now, especially here in the deep south, but each thunder roll makes her cringe. (In fact, she never even barked the entire first year we had her and I wasn't sure she knew how to bark until one day, someone came to the door and pounded on it, scaring me. I didn't know the guy and I wouldn't go to the door, and he pounded it harder and harder, as if he was angry, and all of a sudden, she WOOFED this deep, baritone WOOF, and scared the guy away. Of course, she also scared herself so much, she ran the other direction as if to get away from that crazy woofing sound and it took me an hour to find her hiding under our bed.)

I guess her fear comes from having been abandoned by someone -- Carl found her on a job years ago and she was obviously someone's former pet, but it was also obvious that she'd been beaten and was scared silly of everything. I doubt she would have survived if Carl hadn't adopted her on the spot.

It looks like it's going to rain for a few more hours; I suspect she's going to end up sleeping on the foot of our bed, even though I usually don't let her do that (she wiggles and snores so much, I can't sleep). But it's either that or listen to her crying all night, which I just cannot bear, it breaks my heart.

oh, well then, that's perfectly okay

In this article, "Justin Timberlake said Wednesday that his own family was offended by his racy Super Bowl halftime duet with Janet Jackson, but he insisted he thought only her bustier would be revealed when he pulled on her costume, not her breast."

And he seems to be really upset that his character is being called into question. Because you know, it really is perfectly okay to grab a woman's breast and rip off a garment in public to reveal a sexy undergarment. Why on earth would anything be wrong with that? Certainly millions of little girls should know that they, too, can aspire to be someone who has their shirt ripped off to expose their bra or undergarment, and millions of boys should associate that sort of activity with "sexy," "popular" and "profitable." yeah, that message is totally okay. I can't imagine why so many people are so upset with Timberlake.

I'm sorry, I think I've sprained my eyes, I've rolled them so much over this article. Must go sleep now to recover.

small quandry

I had an e-mail tonight from a producer friend who loves the romantic comedy mentioned a couple of entries down. She's done a couple of features and many Movies of the Week (MOWs). At one point, about a year or so ago, she tried to get financing for the romantic comedy as a theatrical release, but she's not a "big" producer -- she's small by her own admittance -- and her one financial source didn't bite since they decided they wanted to do thrillers. Ever since then, we've emailed or talked, and she keeps wanting to be involved in getting the romantic comedy made, which is very nice. She's been a terrific cheerleader through this process, and has come up with very helpful suggestions.

A while back, she had access to a major network (one of the big three) and she asked if she could pitch it there as a movie of the week. I had mixed feelings -- of course, prestige-wise, I'd rather it was a theatrical release. But when my brain actually kicks in gear and the common sense bitch slaps the ego cells back down to where they belong, I recognize that, duh, I don't have a film made yet and getting something made means (a) hey, I have something made and (b) I got paid for it. So I said sure, she could try to pitch it to that group.

She did, and nothing really happened (not a "no" but not a "yes" either). Since then, whenever she's had an opportunity to pitch the project to someone, she's written to ask permission. I've always said sure, since (as mentioned in the status report below), nothing much was happening anyway.

An odd little thing happened tonight -- she e-mailed me and said she'd gotten a opportunity to pitch it to another one of the big three networks; this opportunity apparently came out of the blue at a lunch for something else. She pitched it and they're interested in seeing more, so she's sent them the project. The teeny little niggly detail is that I didn't know about this first, so I didn't give permission. And the reason that matters is that I had told the director she could run with trying to get actresses on board, which is essentially a producer's job, and I know this director has no real desire to do this as a MOW. I think, should the deal actually come through and I was able to say to the director: hey, we can get this made and I still want you on board, she'd go for it, because she keeps stressing she loves the material.

But...

I probably should give the director a heads' up about the possibility that a network might want it, but I'm not leaning towards doing that. For one thing, the potential that they might want to make it is slim to none, and then it's a moot point, so why derail the director's enthusiasm right now with something that's nothing? Still, a part of me feels guilty, like I should call and tell her, just to keep her informed.

And then the producer mentioned above asked me about the current script. The one that's gone to my agent already that she's going to take out. She had read an earlier draft of it and I had completely forgotten that I had promised to send her the polished version (just for her to read) when I was done. Completely. Forgot.

oops.

It's not like she's going to option it -- I don't think she has that kind of money or access. I doubt my agent would look too kindly on her having it before some other people that the agent wants to have it, but I did promise that I'd send it, so I'm going to. And I'll tell her about the agent taking it out next month, because that's only fair.

This is such a strange business. It's always nothing nothing nothing for months on end, then a flurry. Then nothing again. I swear, Hollywood exists in a different dimension, some sort of quasi-reality where "tomorrow" could take six months. I wish I aged like that.

double dipping

You've probably seen the commercial where the guy picks up a chip, dips it in whatever dip it is they're advertising, takes one bite of the chip, loves the taste and then tries to sneak a second dip with the remainder of the chip to the complete consternation of the hostess of the party.

Every guy in the south that sees this commercial looks around like, "What? How is this a problem?"

writer's high

In postscript, Tamar wrote:

"But the real reason I write is far simpler. I write because it gives me a rush. A physical rush. Oh, not the kind of writing I’m doing right now, putting words together to describe or muse on a given topic. Fiction. Dipping into the stream of semi-conscious right-brain meets left-brain word/sentence/story shaping. That kind of writing."

Tamar so aptly described what I feel; I can't imagine a life where I didn't want to tell stories. It's a fact of who I am, though life would have been far easier if I'd had this same drive to be a great contractor or accountant or seamstress. Tamar hit it exactly when she describes the process of writing in her entry quoted above -- there's a feeling of losing myself in the story, of being both creator and participant, of stepping completely out of this world and into another one for a little while.

I had not realized that there were other people in the world who did not have this sort of response to writing. (I mean, how could everyone not be like this? And then I realized, most people aren't like this. I am a freak. A happy freak. heh.) One day a few years ago, my philosophy professor / mentor and I were talking particularly about reality and how it relates to sight. How we define our world by what we see and hear around us, and somehow I mentioned how my reality completely alters when I'm in the stream of the story, as Tamar described above. I may be typing on the keyboard, looking at a screen, but there are long, crystal clear moments when what I'm describing becomes three-dimensional around me, down to smells and sounds, blocking out what's really there. My professor was a bit stunned, because he sees absolutely no visuals when he's writing creatively -- he said he never had had that sort of imagery in his head. To me, that would have been as awful as having a limb amputated, but he'd never known the difference. But it did explain to me all those times when the kids would stand at my side, trying to get my attention, trying to break into that world I'd created and I would turn and look at them so blankly (because I hadn't quite "come to" in the real world yet). Or the many many times they would ask questions or tell me something and I'd nod or mumble some response that had no meaning to them, and they'd realize that mom was gone again. What a strange creature they had for a mom; I think it might have been a little easier if I'd been blue or something -- that, at least, they could have sold tickets for.

Cold Mountain -- the review

There will be spoilers here, in all likelihood, so you are warned. There is also a bit of ranty snarkiness, too.

I'm just not quite sure what all the fuss is about, and maybe that's just me, (well, apparently that's just me since this one was nominated for various Golden Globes and I think a couple of Oscars), but this might as well have been the Southern Patient, what with all the unrequited love, angst, war, and tragic endings -- and the same Director as The English Patient, who apparently favors the hammer-it-on-the-head emoting method of story-telling. Anthony Minghella directs this from what is supposed to be a terrific book, which I couldn't tell you about since it bored me to tears right off the bat and I couldn't keep reading. And maybe it's just me, but a movie which has to have tons and tons of voice-over to convey the emotional moments and give the context has forgotten it's a movie (and no, I don't care that it was an adaptation).

Ultimately, I didn't care about the southern-crossed lovers who are broken up when the civil war starts, and I don't know the people mutilated in all the battle scenes, so it's just another director's take on the brutality of war, like we haven't guessed that war is pretty awful. I don't care that Jude Law (who is gorgeous even if he looks like he hasn't bathed in a decade) loves Nicole Kidman (I have thankfully forgotten their character's names), and he has done so with such longing looks and no touching and geez, enough with the chaste already, do something. But they can't, there is a war, and he gives her a kiss and runs off.

And they write letters. One would assume they had actually received each others' letters for all the angst and longing and heart-breaking going on, but it turns out in the end that he had only gotten three (though she probably wrote "a hundred and three") and I'm not sure if she even got one from him back, and who knows how on earth she knew what he felt for her, besides the one hot kiss. (Of course, in the book, there were probably whole chapters devoted to this.)

So the movie is one, very long trudge of hottie Jude Law going home to be with poor helpless Nicole Kidman, who now has Ruby, but of course, he has obstacle after obstacle after obstacle to overcome to get home, and the women have lots of hardships, and finally, finally, on a very cold mountain, in the frozen snow-covered cabin, the couple meets up again, barely talks to each other at first, then talks a couple of minutes, then marries each other and has hot sex. Finally. So of course, he has to die the next day, because God forbid there should actually be any happiness for either of them with all the hardships, and when he really did die (who did not see that coming a mile away?), I sat there and thought, "this sucks." I wanted my two hours back. There was no real journey here, no real learning curve, except to survive and take care of yourself, and barely a journey at that, and for the life of me, I can't discern a real story here except that life sucks, you may fall in love, but then you die.

I just do not know what the fuss was all about.

status report: the romantic comedy film

For the few of you who were aware of the script I have in pre-production, there's only a smidge of an update: the director called and we talked last week. She's still enthusiastic about getting the film made, but disappointed in her own agent, who had not followed through on some promises to help our efforts to get the script to a few specific actresses. The director wanted to step up and do more (which would mean more of a producer's role), which was great for me -- I encouraged her.

So, the scorecard reads: seventh inning stretch. The score's still tied (we have some funds and a lot of important things attached, but not all, and we need the actress to get the rest, and we could get an actress a lot quicker if I had the rest already lined up and could make definite offers -- i.e., your classic Catch-22).

I haven't pushed on this project at all for the last few months; just had no time, and honestly, wasn't quite sure what the next step should be. I have no idea what (if anything) will come of the director's renewed vigor. We'll see. If anything happens at all, I'll report it here. For now, it's back in the director's hands to see what she can accomplish.

Meanwhile, I have writing to do. Off I go.

twenty

Jake (my youngest son) called me when he left school today -- he sounded quietly upset, which is rare. Elyse (his girlfriend) had called. The brother of her best friend had been killed the night before in a drug-related shooting. He was twenty, and apparently, was dealing.

At twenty, I had a newborn baby, a new house (a fixer-upper which was so far gone, had we had any sense at all, we would have run screaming the other direction), very little money, and no real connection with the outside world since I wasn't working when Luke (oldest son) first came along. I remember fearing that I wouldn't have a clue about the dangers of the world and something terrible would happen to my kids, and like most moms, I fretted and worried about harm and making their world a safe place.

The first worries were harder, I thought -- trying to figure out what they needed when they were crying and not able to explain. It would be easier when they were walking and talking. And then when that happened, I was certain the next part was by far harder, because they could knock things over, fall and get hurt, run into the street, and so on. The next age, I was sure, would be easier.

Then they were riding bikes and wanting to go farther and farther away from the house, which was hard because I wanted them to grow up independent and self-sufficient. But safe. And how does a mom make that safe? So surely, the next age would be easier.

When they could drive, their world got bigger and bigger beyond any semblance or pretense of my having control, though I delude myself daily that since I'm very involved with them and we get along great, I'm somehow stemming the tide, standing between them and harm.

Something like this happens, and my heart breaks for that mom, because there is really no such thing as standing between our kids and harm. There is only the illusion. Some days, it is enough, and it works, if only because we got lucky.

Some days, we aren't lucky.

Twenty.

There is no "easier" age, is there?

irony, as well

From Neil Gainman's journal --

Or dead again, anyway
posted by Neil Gaiman 2/1/2004 03:06:33 PM
You know, in a world in which Bush and Blair can be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, "for having dared to take the necessary decision to launch a war on Iraq without having the support of the UN" I find myself agreeing with Tom Lehrer: satire is dead.

Freudian titling

#1 at the Box Office this week is the teen flick, YOU GOT SERVED. I keep reading that headline as YOU GOT SCREWED.

without the angst this time

My agent has my new script.

That phrase, by itself, is a little weird, given that I had completely quit screenwriting a long while back, had left my agent about that time because I wanted to write a novel, and had zero intentions of ever going back to screenwriting. The business side of screenwriting is insane, and I had had enough of it to know that I didn't want to ever ever go through the ordeal again. I started on the novel, got about half-way through it when life turned upside down and business kept me away from it for a while. Then the script idea took hold with a ferosity that I cannot explain. I had to write that one, and it had to be a script.

Even after writing it, after getting it out of my system (and showing it to one person who'd encouraged me and who had implied he wanted to option it or better... then who didn't, and I still don't know what that was about)... I put it in a drawer and decided to forget all about it.

Only, I didn't.

I waited six months (read: I was insanely busy with work), dusted it off, polished it up with the benefit of a handful of notes I'd gotten in a very constructive workshop I belong to, and then it sort of seemed silly not to at least get an agent's opinion. And getting an agent is another ordeal akin to having one's toes amputated by way of the ear canal. Not entirely a fun process. Since I had no real emotions invested, I thought I'd send it to my old agent first, figuring she'd turn it down (I really doubted she'd like it), and then that would be that -- I could say I tried and not feel guilty for doing nothing with all that work.

Frankly, I didn't expect her to answer the e-mail. Which she did, in 15 minutes. I sent the script and didn't expect her to read it for a couple of weeks. She read it overnight and loved it. When she called, I expected her to have notes throughout the script. She's never not had notes. This time, she had none. I expected her to tell me she wasn't going to take it out, though, because the market isn't right for it (for whatever reason.) Then she said she wanted to take it out, and thought she'd do so in March.

I'm pretty sure it isn't going to sell. (What the hell, this negative streak has worked so far.) Seriously, specs so rarely do -- they usually just "introduce" a writer to producers, who then want to meet with the writer (assuming they liked the script well enough) to "get to know the writer" (which is code for deciding if they want to work with this person or if they think the writer is nothing more than a fruit loop who got lucky on one script).

But weirdly -- strangest of all -- I just have no angst. Maybe having such low expectations is the way to function in that business. I don't know, but at least I'm sleeping instead of wishing and hoping and fretting. (I do that enough already for the construction business -- I have no angst left over.)

Meanwhile, I'm trying to write the novel and I have a thriller script I'm playing with -- I alternate between the two, depending on my mood. More on the actual writing aspect of those two later.

winning and losing

Yesterday was the City tournament for wrestling, and Jake placed second in his weight-class. We expected him to be seriously disapointed and difficult to live with, since he badly wanted first, but he had a pretty decent attitude about it. I think it helped that his new girlfriend (who is quite pretty) was there, cheering him on and still thought he was ultra-cool for all the things he had accomplished. We could have told him how wonderful he was and he would have believed we would have been "just saying it" because we're the parents. Elyse can say it and it's true. Yay, Elyse. She's very sweet and she seems to fit in well, so that bodes well.

We ended up celebrating afterward with an impromtu dinner for family and friends. It was a last-minute, throw-everything together kind of meal which was hectic and disorganized, but ultimately, it went well, I thought (though I had to keep stifling yawns, I was so exhausted). A couple who have been friends for a while now but who'd never been to this house came and I think everyone enjoyed them. When they were leaving, though, Carl accidentally called the wife by the former wife's first name -- an easy mistake because they are so very similar in mannerisms. Second wife did not take that too happily, even though he was mortified and apologized. She was a little put out and said she wasn't going to visit again, then she changed her mind and said she was going to visit every day until he remembered what to call her. I'm not sure how much she was teasing there. Yikes.