here today

 

new years possibilities

there is a party.  And is started as a quiet affair.  Small, intimate, guaranteed to Go Well.  G & N and a few friends who know how to drink champagne and not yell at the neighbors or pee on the bushes. 

And then I invited my ex-best friend and her husband, who hates me.

Why did I do this you ask?  The answer is:  I had a moment of good cheer and those are dangerous times for me.  In my moments of good cheer I think that everyone should unite in peace and prosperity and champagne, hold hands, sing carols and forget the past as we skip and smile and toss rose petals.  This lasts for about two minutes and then I regret the invitations that have, inevitably, already gone out.  I huddle, waiting, hoping that the invitee will realize that I was completely OUT OF MY MIND to think that the past does not exist and that we can hold hands and skip.  Unfortunately, this ex-best friend didn't do that and is now coming to G&N's party. 

CONTEXT & HISTORY:  This is the ex-best friend who lived with me for nearly two years and during that time we spent all of my money and all of my credit and went to the Caribbean and out to dinner every night and I have nothing to show for it but a robe from the resort we stayed at on St. Lucia and some fading stories of dancing on the sand and sleeping with bartenders.  Sometimes I look at her and see all the pain of bankruptcy and divorce and I hate her.  I really Hate her.  Not that she could have stopped me sliding down to the bottom of life but she sure didn't try.  And then sometimes, I think she was the best thing that ever happened to me.  It was terrible, awful, messy stuff.  But I did it with verve and passion and I went to the bottom and mucked around enough to really know what it's like.  And I am Here Today.  Because of that.

we had another offer for the evening.  A trip to Mt. Hood with a cabin and people I know and some I don't.  Some I like and some I really don't.  And Ben was mad at me for not letting us go there but I would feel TRAPPED on the mountain with people drinking beer and playing cards and I just don't think that would have been a Good Idea. For anyone. As when I am trapped I start to say things that would otherwise maybe stay inside. Not that I have bad and nasty things to say. It's just that, you know, that could happen. blurting out loud just to shake things up.  

And now I fear that I won't be trapped on a mountain but I might be trapped in a Tudor on Ainsworth street. 

 

Posted by: 120pages at 16:09 | link | comments (3) |

without a voice

Yesterday, I sounded sexy.  Like a younger Demi Moore.  Like a smoker, a lounge singer, someone you wouldn't introduce to your parents but a girl you'd show off to your friends.  I talked lots, just to hear my voice like that, all throaty and deep.

today, it's progressed from sexy to The Godfather to scratchy whispers.  when Ben talked about the party he went to last night, where he and G played bartenders and dreamed about opening their own place, I replied as Marlon Brando in my crazy deteriorating voice and told him not to worry about the teamsters, I've got them covered.  We both laughed but my laugh went from crazy to nothing and now, I can't speak. 

I've got laryngitis and it sucks.  I'm a talker.  I communicate with words.  Not with emotions like my sister, or physically like Ben.  For me, words are paramount. I don't pay attention to other signs, much.  If someone's lying, I can only tell if they put the sentences together wrong.  If there's a physical cue, I'll miss it.  So I feel paralyzed. 

I've got a birthday dinner tomorrow night.  N & her semi-famous friend to whom she's finally introducing me and here I am without my legs.  Guess there's lesson in here somewhere but I don't like it. 

 

 

Posted by: 120pages at 15:24 | link | comments (3) |

sibling rivalry

my little sister arrives tomorrow.  my little sister with her tummy-tuck, two beautiful blue-eyed babies, swimming pool, older husband, conservative values.  my little sister who makes me crazy with her obsessions about her weight, my weight, her house, my house, her life, my life.  my little sister who was my playmate, my confidante, my baby girl to push around in the stroller and look after. 

only I failed  --- she left home at 14 to live with other troubled kids because she tried to kill herself at school one day. 

She was gone for almost a year and nobody talked about it.  I quietly applied to college in New York and couldn't wait to leave my small town, my silent family and my inability to keep everything together. 

Without telling my parents, I visited her every week.  Drove to Portland and picked my little sister up - each time I arrived she looked a little less familiar, a littler thinner, more make-up, less hair.  She would smoke on our drives and look over to see if I was going to say something.  I never did.  Every week I would ask her - Is there anything I can do, anything you need?  Every week she would look away and just shake her head.  So we drove around.  I told her about high school, who was dating who, Prom week, my graduation.  She listened and smoked and I counted the minutes until I could get away from her.

Then on my last week, when I came to say good-bye, I asked again - anything you need? anything I can do?  and she put out her cigarette and said "donuts". 

Man, I bought her the biggest box of donuts.  And we snuck them into her room and ate two each and she smiled so big.  And that's the moment I try to remember when she gives me a pair of her husband's old pants saying they'll probably fit cos I've got the booty to fill them. 

aeei.  Sisters.

 

Posted by: 120pages at 16:45 | link | comments (1) |

annual review

My annual review at the insurance agency was last week. I didn't prepare for it this time - possibly because I like to think that I don't really work here. ****by the way, I'm having a hard time focussing on the story about my raise (!!) due to a new brochure on my desk with a group of actors posing as doctors. Only one of the doctors looks like he's got his hand somewhere... unexpected. It's wildly distracting.****

ahem. so, yeah. My HR person & I laughed our way through my review and then she told me that I get a raise and that they think I'm great and asked me about my future goals. And I did not say that my future goals include making a feature film using my bonus money and a Home Equity Line of Credit. No sir. I said that I am interested in getting my Series 7 license and that I'd like to eventually take over the Securities side of our financial planning department. I really said that. And I think it's my Gemini rising that puts me in two places at once - two very different destinies... 1. at this desk, making lots of money with at least two assistants who fill out the nasty forms and do the nasty filing and answer the nasty nasty phone only to tell everyone that I'm not available. Or 2. working on my next film, aiming for Sundance, or Moondance or even the Austin Film Festival... reviews of my first film tacked to the wall of my office, Lucy at my feet ready for a walk. Maybe I can work the smell of baking bread in there?

I've worked out most of the outline for Peace Dog. There are no cops, no guns and no wigs. Feels good to be back in the groove of the early mornings and tea and pre-sunrise stillness. Feels good to be heading into the unknown again, characters interrupting me at work, waking up in the middle of the night with an idea that slips away if I don't write it down - eyes half shut, running out into the kitchen for a pen (where do all the pens go?) and putting my cold feet on Ben's back when I return.

It feels good but I also loved the past week of sleeping in, dinner party with friends, sex like honeymooners, playing with Lucy - a week off from my drive to write, write, write. I got a normal person's life for a bit and oh, it is nice.

But then one of my characters taps me on the shoulder to tell me she sees herself as a technophobe and I pull out my notepad and write it down. Because that's more interesting than anything else I've done today.

Posted by: 120pages at 13:22 | link | comments (1) |

buddy cops

My buddy cop script is printing right now. It is very bad. Pretty sure it could pass for a parody, had I the energy for that. Instead, I am tired tired tired. 3:30am all week, even with a trip to see The Incredibles (very fun. why didn't I write a movie like that instead?) and a night out with Nike friend. Had said friend in tears with description of bad buddy cop script. Wish it were as fun to read as it is to talk about. Instead, it is just bad.

I am not being hard on myself, here. I am not looking for a few pats on the back or for sympathy. I am good at writing scripts. My first one was terrible, of course. But the others were readable and fun and sometimes funny.

This one, the one that is printing, is not any of those things. And it is the one I am handing in tomorrow at the end of my last writing class with the teacher who hates me. I'm sure there are very interesting psychological reasons why I wrote something so stinking awful for this expensive, time-consuming and painful class. Maybe it's my own little fuck you to the teacher who really does hate me. Because she has to spend two hours reading a script with, I kid you not, FBI agents dressed as old ladies, a bomb, machine guns, a double-crossing chief of police, a taciturn cop, a funny (buddy) cop, a karaoke bar, and the love interest who disappears after page 40 (something I just noticed this morning. in fact, a few characters don't stick around for the end of the script. I can understand why. They've probably all slunk off to a dark and smoky bar to hide out until this is all over. the script is very very bad.).

My other scripts were romantic comedies with characters I'd like to meet. They had long conversations about things that I find interesting. In the buddy cop script, some of the dialogue goes like this:

EDNA "What we need here are a few volunteers to jump out first"

CHARLOTTE "But the men with machine guns will shoot us"

That little bit of banter is on page 81. Also on that page is a large man called "Chicago Freddy". I swear to god.

I tell myself that I've learned a lot about structure. And pacing. And what genres I should avoid (buddy cop, action, porn). I've learned to write an outline, and to throw it out, and to wish that I hadn't thrown it out because then maybe my script would make sense (how did they get locked in the dining hall with FBI agents in drag?). I've learned about visual excitement and how necessary that is to a movie (Lost In Translation wouldn't have been the genius film it was without the piano bar, the crazy nightclubs, the views out the hotel window. Sure, the dialogue kicked ass, too). I've learned that in order to write something good, I have to have fun doing it and when it stops being fun, I have to notice, and change things before I'm suddenly knee-deep in guns and wigs and bad jokes.

so, I'll take all of that, and sleep on it.

next stop: Peace Dog.

Posted by: 120pages at 06:35 | link | comments |

cliffhanger

I am sorry.  I promised a cliffhanger and then left you on the cliff.  Because, in my head, although I do get comments once in awhile, I assume that really, nobody reads my blog.  Which helps keep me honest.  And quite lazy about posting.

The Friday Night Fight:
Friday night followed Thursday which was a day spent in my hometown, talking to mom and dad about gardening.  Talking to mom and dad about gardening without a beer in my hand, which is just Not Fun.  My parents are lovely, generous, often kind yet boring people who love Jesus and hate the booze.  I love them most of the time, am ambivalent about JC, and, when discussing what my mom had for breakfast, or what color carpeting they should put in the family room, would give up my favorite rock star tan boots for a cold one. 

That was Thursday.  Painful, dry, long, and topped off by the fact that mom is not such a good cook.  Dad does the cooking normally, but on holidays, they get all traditional and mom puts on her apron and leaves the food in too long and dad stands around feeling useless and trying to add spices when mom's not looking.  Things get burned and they're too salty and did I mention the absence of beer?

friday. really, I mean it this time:
I am procrastinating.  I am procrastinating because the fight that we had.  Was bad.  And I don't want to talk about it.  I don't want to talk about it because I like to be the girl with it all figured out.  The girl who has it all together, the one you turn to for advice, the friend with the clean house, sexy husband, stylish and always forever sure of herself.  I graduated from therapy, remember? 

That was a good day.

The fight is the one we used to have a lot.  It was the one where I read a letter from my traveling friend and then told Ben about it.  The letter talked about Cuba and beaches and painting in the sun.  The letter made me think about the stuck-ed-ness of life, house, marriage, dog, same town, same people, same job.  The letter sent me to New York, to Venice, to moving across the country, to dropping the stuff that's keeping me Here Today.  And Ben hates this conversation.  Because it starts with me accusing him of holding me here.  In this town he's never left.  And then the fight moved into how different we are - and then there we were in separate rooms, separate worlds, wishing the house were bigger.

So, I went to him.  And I've never done that before.  I like Ben to come to me.  I like to be the righteous one and to gently forgive him for the wrongs.  But, you know what?  I'm right, we're different.  And, yeah, if I weren't married to him I'd probably be in New York.  But I'd be there without Ben.  So, I went into the kitchen and I kissed his shoulder and we didn't talk anymore that night.

That's the story.

 

Posted by: 120pages at 16:39 | link | comments (2) |