Halo Party

This is going to "out" me as an even more extreme nerd than previous OCD entries. This weekend JB and I went to a friend's house where we played Halo for about 6 hours over 2 networked X-Boxes. We play with two teams of 3 (all co-workers). JB plays for the Blue team, I play for the Red. Let me just say, he's deadly with the grenades. While I don't think of myself as a violent person at all (faced with physical conflict I'd probably pass out), there's just something about Halo... Maybe it's the friendly competition. Maybe it's hearing the other team howling from the other room when you win. Anyhow, 6 hours of Halo Party go about 3 times faster than your typical 6 hours.

Writing News: I finished Script B last night. For real this time. Sent it off to a friend and a contest this morning. I'll try to get it out to a couple more contests and to the two producers I promised it to in the next few days. Then it's Script K one hundred percent.

Headache - The Good Kind

So we stayed up late last night to go see "Napolean Dynamite" which was awesome. Completely unexpected (I had seen no promotional materials for this film whatsoever) and charming. It's a blend of a kinder / gentler "Welcome To the Dollhouse" and my middle school experience.

This current headache is from spending eight hours today hunched over my computer, but I finished the B script rewrite. So it's a good headache! Like the headache you get after playing all day in the ocean and getting body-slamed into the sand over and over again.

I should be able to sleep tonight. I am so glad - SO GLAD - to have this script behind me. It has been two years now of submitting it and having people give notes and suggest rewrites... this time I'm done. Moving onto something else. Need to write the new K treatment, but in addition to that - something NEW.

Two Unrelated Things... Okay, Three

My husband just got a sound editing job on another feature film! It's exciting and encouraging to know that we *can* get work after Film School. Let's hope this is just the beginning of many wonderful adventures in sound!

You know how yesterday I was so pleased that my legs were relatively pain free after ye olde run? Yeah, it hit me today. It's a gift that keeps on giving, a little surprise every time I try to stand up.

I guess it should be three unrelated things... B script is coming together. Soon I will:
1) Submit it to the 2 producers waiting to read it (one has never read it, one read a previous draft and gave me feedback.)
2) Submit it to contests. Yeah, it's kinda like winning the lottery, but if you don't buy a ticket...
3) Get it OFF MY DESK and OUT OF MY BRAIN.

Tra la la.

Running Again

I went running last night for the first time in 3 years, 11 months and 6 days (approximately). I was afraid my legs would be cramped up and sore today, and while I can tell I went running, they're actually doing pretty good. I think this is because I've been doing Yoga, so my muscles are used to being expected to do impossible things.

However, my heart and my lungs were traumatized. I felt like I was trying to breath into two little apricots, I couldn't fill my lungs with enough air to keep me going. I feel like I must continue to run or my lungs will get smaller and smaller until I can't breathe in at all. And that would be bad.

An Interviewee's Nightmare

I have a couple of friends who are currently looking for jobs. This means they are going out on interviews. So I remembered this:

So I was graduating from college and didn't know exactly what I wanted to do. I saw an advertisement for English teachers to go to Japan. I thought, "I've always wanted to go to Japan, and I don't have anything planned for the next couple of years... why not apply?" I filled out an extensive application form, submitted all the required paperwork, and apparently met their basic requirements because they called me to set up an interview. Now, after applying for this program (and forgetting about it) I had applied for several graduate programs in acting. It just so happened that I was able to schedule the Japan interview in DC on the way home from several days of auditions in Chicago for acting schools. I'm traveling with two other friends from undergrad who are auditioning for acting schools. We do the auditions, have a lot of fun in Chicago, and then head back to DC for my after-thought interview.

I get to the Japanese Embassy. I should note here that all the months of preparation for this week has been spent on acting prep. I mean, they liked my Japan application, right? What would I need to prepare for? Go through some security checks, and make it into the waiting room. On my left is a guy talking to the guy on HIS left about the latest Sumo match and who the superstars in the Sumo world are. I though he was joking, then realized no - he's a true enthusiast. I get a little sinking feeling in my stomach. On my right is a girl talking about how she first learned Japanese when her missionary parents took her to live in Japan for a few years when she was in elementary school, and how she's always wanted to go back. That little sinking feeling has become a pit in my stomach. I briefly consider walking out the door and running away. I say "briefly" because at that moment my name is called.

Now, interviews are never comfortable. You're on display, you're being judged, it's just not comfortable. But for this interview, they ushered me into the poster-child equivalent of a hellish nightmare interview room. I sat in a lone plastic chair in the middle of an empty room. Across from me was a long table. Three people sat at this table: A crusty old British woman, a very nice but almost silent Japanese man, and a blond girl maybe two years older than me. The British woman did most of the talking. And this is even too painful for me to recant, but here's some of the questions.

"Why do you want to go to Japan?" My dad speaks highly of it?

"What makes you think you'd be a good English teacher?" I like English? I'm an English major?

"What have you done to prepare for this interview?" Uh? I don't understand the question?

"What have you done to prepare for going to Japan? If I learned I might go to Japan I'd do something to prepare. Read some books, study up on the language... what have you done?" Oh, I've read Shogun.

Part of me was screaming "SHOGUN???" but that part - the part which wanted to politely stand up, apologize for wasting their time, and walk out with whatever remained of my dignity - was watching in a stupor as more and more stupid things tumbled out of my mouth. I think around this point in the interview, some other force was possessing me. I couldn't think of anything to say, and the silences were growing more and more excruciating.

At this point, throwing me a life line, the blond American girl says "I see you've done a lot of theater." Yes, I gush, yes, I love theater.

"So, do you think any of your experiences in theater would help you teach English?" Yes, I say with absolute confidence.

Pause.

"How?" Well, (and that confidence shrivels into a little raisin and poofs away) I could help the students write skits in English and... perform them?

At this point in the interview I start getting angry. Angry at them for letting this pitiful charade continue. I mean, if they had to keep me in the room for a certain amount of time, couldn't we have just amicably agreed to sit there in silence? It was obvious to everyone that I wasn't going to be allowed within 100 feet of a Japanese person seeking a better understanding of English. So why pretend we were having an interview? Why?!

I left the interview, and though I didn't pass any mirrors on the way out I'm fairly certain my face was at least beet red if not neon pink. My friends, excited to hit the town, weren't due for another 45 minutes. They were going to pick me up outside the Japanese Embassy. But I knew deep down that if I so much as laid eyes on anyone from that interview again I would fall down dead of shame. So I walked across the street and hid behind a tree. My friends drove up 45 minutes later, I came out from behind the tree, and we drove off.

When they asked me about the interview, I suggested we never broach the subject again. After a moment of silence, someone turned on the car radio.

The one good thing about this experience: I know I will never have a worse interview.

Scarves And Nooses

Okay - here's one of the things I love about LA: despite the masses that are out here for the sole reason of becoming famous in one capacity or another, you'll find among them some really fun and creative people. I just finished knitting my very first scarf. Well, my very first piece of knitted anything. And while I got the knitting needles and the "I can't believe I'm knitting!" book from my husband's grandmother (thank you!) I actually learned to knit from a 23-year-old Foley artist guy while waiting for some OMF files to transfer. He even had little tricks and nicknames for how to tell if something was a knit or a pearl: scarves and nooses. So I'm wearing my scarf and smiling. Sometimes LA is a fun place to be.

An Expensive Habit

I think I might be addicted to school. I can hear the siren call of academia growing steadily louder. I’m sure this has nothing to do with the fact that I’ve been at my dead-end job now for 76 weeks. Don’t get me wrong – as far as dead end jobs go this one’s a peach. So why retreat into the Ivory Tower?

School is comforting on many levels. I love the structure and the extremely defined goals. I love knowing what I'm going to be doing for the next couple of semesters (even if it's just "I'll be in film school"). I love competing in an academic setting. Okay - I love excelling in an academic setting. I love campuses. I love libraries. I even love late night study sessions and the feeling of satisfaction you get after an exam. Everything is so clear in school. And goals are easily attainable, if only because you have such manageable time frames. One semester, one summer, one year.

I have a BA. I have an MFA. I'm not interested in a PhD. Do I really need another MFA? Despite the schoolie in my brain that screams "Yes!" I think not. I think, instead, that I will focus on my career, which is the only reason I'm living in LA instead of some beautiful, remote, small town somewhere.

Oh yeah, and paying off my student loans.

So here's where I am with respect to my career: I have one script (let's call it "B") that I'm rewriting for two producers, and one script (let's call it "K") that I'm developing with a different producer.

Goals: To finish "B" and submit it, get it off my desk (it's been a long road). To finish the "K" treatment and meet with the producer again. To outline a new idea - as of yet unlettered. Ra ra ra.

Bunny In A Town Of Wolves

I have heard it said that 1 in 6 people in Los Angeles are trying to be actors. I think the other 5 are trying to be screenwriters. I saw a picture in LA Weekly a few months ago - someone walked into a coffee shop in the middle of the day and took a picture. Literally every patron present was there writing a screenplay. Not just writing. Writing a screenplay.

This leads me to two thoughts immediately: 1) I have a lot of competition. Good. I like competition. It makes me stubborn. 2) How did "Rules Of Attraction" ever get made? I didn't like that movie. But what I like less: my money was counted towards their Opening Weekend Gross. Not because I stayed. But because by the time I walked out of the movie theatre and demanded my money back, the box office had closed and I had to accept free tickets to a screening of some other film. If I was a better person, I try to suss out what it was about the story, characters, structure that turned me off so completely in the first ten minutes of the film. But as that would involve watching it again, that isn't going to happen.